Passion Play

by W. Edward Blain

  Thomas stepped up to the line again.

  “Where’s the line?” Greg said.

  “Right here.” Thomas pointed to the imaginary line on the floor.

  “That’s right,” Greg said, “so why are you standing two inches farther back than you were the first time? You got to stand in exactly the same place. Put your toes exactly one inch behind the line. Every time.”

  Thomas stepped up to the line again, mimed dribbling twice, and then adjusted the ball so that its lines were balanced horizontally. Then he pretended to shoot.

  “That’s the way,” Greg said. “Just remember when you do shoot to follow through.”

  Thomas said he’d try it tomorrow after practice.

  “This is the first productive thing I’ve done all day,” he said. “I just can’t concentrate.” Everything was cleared up with the councilmen. Now he wanted to do the same with Hesta.

  They spent the rest of study hours talking about everything but schoolwork: Angus Farrier, girls, the taste of beer, the winter play.

  “Here’s a question for you,” said Greg. “Why doesn’t Othello go after Cassio? If he thinks Cassio is the one fooling with his wife, why doesn’t Othello confront him? Why doesn’t he kill Cassio instead of Desdemona?”

  Thomas had to think about that one.

  SCENE 6

  Warden invited Farnham to his classroom on Monday before lunch to discuss the outburst at yesterday’s play rehearsal. At first Farnham was defensive and resentful that Warden did not take his side. He sat in a student’s desk and spoke like a wronged adolescent.

  “I pushed him once against a wall,” Farnham said. “The boy is incorrigible.”

  Warden hated resistance but did not retreat. “The boy’s behavior is irrelevant,” he said. “We have a disciplinarian to handle such cases. You ought to know the rules by now.”

  Farnham sat silently and combed his mustache with an index finger. “I thought it was all right to take immediate action with problem students,” he said.

  “It is not all right to humiliate them,” said Warden. “I’ve heard reports of these outbursts all year. If you cannot control your temper, you will need to find another job.”

  Farnham was not visibly shaken by the threat. “Why did you never bring this up before?” he asked.

  A valid question. Warden said he had hoped Farnham would come to control himself. Farnham brushed aside the answer.

  “It’s not professional of you,” he said. “I’ve heard nothing all year, and suddenly my job is on the line. Why didn’t you mention these reports the other day, when I was helping you with your lesson plans?”

  That was a direct hit. Warden had to respect the bastard for launching an effective counterattack.

  “I had other things on my mind,” said Warden. Farnham responded by cataloguing Warden’s administrative errors for the year to date: the lost student essays in September, the forgotten departmental meeting in October, the failure to order all the books needed for the fall semester.

  “You’re permitted to make mistakes all the time,” said Farnham, “and then you defend yourself by claiming outside distractions. But I’ve got to be perfect, is that it? Has it occurred to you that I might have something on my own mind as well?”

  “Yes,” said Warden. “Do you wish to divulge it now?” Here we go, he thought. He’s going to confess to me that he’s hopelessly in love with my wife. What am I going to say?

  “It’s this play,” said Farnham. His manner changed. He was less hostile, more defeated. “I want it to be perfect. This is my very first time to direct Shakespeare, and so far it’s a mess.”

  It was a radical departure from what Warden had expected to hear. The play? Could the man become so unhinged over a play?

  “This play provides my opportunity to make a reputation for myself at Montpelier,” said Farnham. “If it goes well, I’ve proved my competence. If it doesn’t, I’m a public failure. At this point nothing has gone right.” He listed his casting problems, rehearsal problems, staff problems. “What gets me is that I have to do it all by myself. You haven’t been down once to check on a rehearsal. You haven’t once asked whether you could do anything to help. Shouldn’t the department chairman take a little more interest in the activities of his department?”

  Yes, damn it, all right, he had a point.

  “Everything you say is true,” said Warden. He considered himself a terrible administrator. If Eldridge Lane had spent more time on the campus, Warden would probably have been eased out of the chair anyway. But it was not fair of Farnham to change the subject of their meeting. “Nevertheless—”

  “Nevertheless,” Farnham interrupted him, “these outbursts are unforgivable.”

  “Yes,” said Warden.

  “I agree,” said Farnham.

  They sat in silence for a moment. Warden recalled Kevin Delaney and his fanatic devotion to basketball, and Kemper Carella and his late-night training sessions for wrestlers. He acknowledged his own enslavement to poetry.

  “I never considered how important the play might be to its director,” said Warden. “That was literally thoughtless.”

  Farnham said he had been cutting the text and planning the blocking for months. “The only comment you ever made to me,” he said, “was that you thought we should do another play. Now today you’ve called me in and blindsided me with a threat of firing me.”

  Guilty, guilty, guilty. “You’ve raised some sensitive issues,” said Warden. He was unsure of what to say next.

  “I know I’ve been irresponsible,” Farnham said, “but you’ve given me no support. Your wife has been much more understanding.”

  That hurt, but Farnham was right. Warden had never warmed up to him. “I apologize,” said Warden. “I offer no excuse.”

  Warden’s apology took the last heat out of Farnham’s voice. “Thank you,” said Farnham. “And I apologize in turn for my rudeness. I’m not always so outspoken.”

  After the storm, both men relaxed into the spirit of mutual disarmament.

  “Have you always had a temper?” asked Warden.

  “Ever since I was born.”

  A birthmark. Neither man used the term.

  Farnham told him of learning to cope by expressing his rage externally. “I used to keep all my anger suppressed,” he said. “Then I developed an ulcer when I was thirteen years old. I’ve learned that I can avoid irritating the ulcer if I go ahead and ventilate my anger. When I’m alone, I’ll even throw things. My internist encourages that. Push-ups are good, too.” He said he was also trying more long-term solutions, like counseling.

  “I’ve met with Chuck Heilman a couple of times informally,” said Farnham. “My problem is that I lose my temper too quickly. It’s the short fuse syndrome.”

  “Do these informal counseling sessions help?”

  “Not really.” He smiled. “Heilman says the best solution is for me to find a wife. It’s all sexually oriented, he says.”

  “That sounds like Chuck,” said Warden. He thought Heilman was an aphoristic imbecile in most cases, but he wondered whether their minister had stumbled onto the truth this time. It was the moment to talk about Cynthia, about Farnham’s notorious infatuation with her, but how could he?

  “Do you have a steady girlfriend?” Warden asked.

  The question flustered Farnham only for a moment. “You might say I’m coming to terms with that issue,” he said. “My fiancee broke up with me in Alabama when I took a job at a rural, all-male boarding school. She wanted to practice law in a big city.”

  Warden asked him why it was so important to him to work at Montpelier. “Didn’t your future wife matter more to you than the place you taught English?” he asked.

  “I was ambitious. Maybe I made the wrong choice,” said Farnham. “But this was an opportunity to work with a nationally prominent poet.”

  “Me?”

  “I chose working for you over marriage,” said Farnham. “It hasn’t been what I expected.�
��

  Warden was flattered, flabbergasted, stunned.

  Farnham told him about discovering Warden’s poetry in little magazines when he was in graduate school, then finding the books, sharing the poetry with fellow fans.

  “I used to write imitations of your poetry to my fiancee,” he said. “Pitiful imitations. When the placement service told me there was a job at Montpelier School, I had to go for it. You intimidated me when I interviewed, but I got the job anyway. When I came here, I don’t know, you seemed even more distant.”

  “So,” said Warden, “you found it easier to be friends with Cynthia.”

  Farnham flushed. “It hasn’t been all that easy,” he said. “I see her and she reminds me of Johanna, and I think of what I gave up to come here. It’s frustrating.”

  Was this his way of confessing a crush on Warden’s wife? “In a way,” said Farnham, “I’ve fallen into a kind of rivalry with you.”

  At last he had admitted it. But then he confounded Warden by explaining exactly what sort of “rivalry” he meant. It was not a competition over Cynthia.

  “I’m a perfectionist,” said Farnham, “and I want to be the best at my job. But I’m working for Benjamin Warden. Don’t you realize how awful that is?” He perceived Warden as having the perfect career, the perfect job, the perfect wife, in contrast to Farnham’s own mediocrity. “I can’t even run a classroom without having some kid like Richard Blackburn misbehave. I can’t command the respect you do. This entire year has been a series of reminders of how much better you are than I am.”

  Warden was incredulous. “You’re envious,” he said.

  Farnham nodded. “I’m jealous of your success.”

  Warden wanted to laugh at the irony, but he did not. He said that he had taught for over a decade longer than Farnham, that he was older, that he had committed an abundance of faux pas in his career.

  “I understand that,” said Farnham. “But I don’t see myself as ever reaching your plateau of achievement. I want to be as great a play director as you are a poet. I want to attract as wonderful a wife. So far I can’t imagine myself ever getting as good at this job as you are.”

  Then Warden did laugh. He reminded Farnham of all the forgotten meetings, the misplaced papers, the lost book orders.

  “I envy you for your organization,” Warden said. “You’re always so well prepared, so academically dependable.”

  Farnham admitted that he could run the department more efficiently. But he complained that he still had little rapport with his students. “I try to be upbeat and pleasant,” he said, “but the boys seem wary of me.”

  “Learn to control your temper,” said Warden, “and see what difference it makes.”

  Farnham said he had improved from his days of teaching in Alabama.

  There was no need to discuss his temper further. It was time for Warden to build the man’s confidence.

  “You’ve managed to get Greg Lipscomb to play Othello,” said Warden, “when I can hardly get the boy to speak to me. That’s just one case where you’ve outshone me.”

  Farnham was grateful for the example. It was true that Greg had been weak at first, but had come along well in the last few days.

  They finished their meeting agreeing that Warden would come to rehearsal today to watch, to suggest, to react. To encourage. It was a pleasant adjournment.

  Both men said so to the police later that day.

  SCENE 7

  For basketball practice on Monday, the coaches had put out baskets of towels and jocks and shorts and jerseys.

  “No more special service in the locker room for now,” said Coach McPhee. He was trying to be as cheerful as possible. “Do your own work, fellows, until we get a replacement for Angus.”

  It was so weird to be getting ready for practice again. Saturday they had had that terrible game, and two days later they were back, getting ready to practice for another game on Friday, only one of their players was dead, and the man who had killed him was missing. The unsettling thing was that the man who had killed him was somebody they knew. His car had still been parked in the gym lot until this morning, when the police had gotten tired of watching it to see whether he’d return for it and had towed it into town.

  Seven sets of parents had pulled their kids out of the school, and it seemed like a hundred more kept threatening to do so. Dean Kaufman had composed a special letter of reassurance to send to all the parents and all the students and all the alumni bombarding the school with questions. Thomas had told his parents he would stay. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t think Angus would hurt him, and he didn’t want to seem cowardly.

  “It’s strange to be down here, you know?” said Ralph Musgrove as he pulled on his tube socks. “Think of how Angus must have been spying on us all the time, watching us take our showers and stuff.”

  Thomas said he had been thinking the same thing.

  “Once, when I was about nine or ten, my mother pulled into the 7-Eleven to get us some milk,” said Ralph. “My brother climbed up on the roof of the car and dropped his pants. He was about four, I guess. Just one of those stupid things little kids will do. It was funny until I looked over and saw this old man—he must have been about forty or so—just staring at my brother. Steve didn’t even see him. And it only lasted half a minute. My mother came out of the store and grabbed Steve off the car and threw him inside. She was mad and yelling at me for letting him get up there, and she never saw the man either. I never told her or my dad about it. But he was scary, you know?”

  “Nobody in your family has much to show off anyway,” said Thomas. Ralph punched him in the upper arm. Thomas did not respond. He was thinking of Saturday night with Hesta, of that power he had glimpsed briefly with her in the chapel, of that awful urge that had driven him past where she had wanted him to go. But that had been okay sex, hadn’t it? Hadn’t that been normal? And yet he could imagine how Angus could have taken such a pleasurable instinct and twisted it into the perversion it had become.

  “I hear you were swinging your pole vault in the chapel,” said Ralph.

  “Not really,” said Thomas. He felt that irritating mixture of anger over being the subject of gossip and pride that he’d impressed his friends. He was also ashamed of feeling proud; it was like he was hurting Hesta more. He had tried to call her again after classes today, but Susie Boardman had said she wasn’t on the dorm.

  Coach McPhee motioned through the glass door of the locker room for them to hurry up.

  Before they started, he had everybody on the team sit on the court while they talked about Staines’s death.

  “I’ve experienced death up close,” said Coach McPhee. Thomas figured he was going to go into the story of his baby brother’s drowning in the bathtub again, but he kept his remarks generalized. “You never get used to it. You never stop being surprised by it. The important thing is to avoid it yourself. You guys need to make sure that it doesn’t do anything to you. You want to make sure that you don’t let somebody else’s death affect you.”

  Everybody talked about Staines as if he were Mister Perfect.

  “He was our leader, man.”

  “The best damn quarterback in the league.”

  “He would have gotten a scholarship for sure.”

  “The guy was always making me laugh.”

  “It’ll never be the same without him.”

  Thomas couldn’t understand it. He had always thought Staines was a cockroach, and while he was sorry he got killed and all, it was hard to feel genuine remorse. But he joined in. He felt a little weird for pretending to mourn, but he felt even weirder for feeling sorrier for Angus than for Robert Staines. For Thomas, Angus was the loneliest person he could ever imagine.

  Practice was bad. They had to rearrange the team to take Staines’s place, so nearly everybody was learning a new position. What made it even more complicated was that Coach McPhee had lost his whistle, so there was a lot of yelling whenever he wanted them to stop one drill and start another
one.

  “Some souvenir hunter picked it up over the weekend,” said Coach McPhee. “We had too much traffic through this building.”

  After practice Thomas stayed behind to shoot free throws. Coach McPhee stayed with him and rebounded. He threw the ball back to Thomas with sharp bounce passes and an occasional chest pass that made Thomas feel like a pro.

  “Same routine every time,” said Coach McPhee.

  Thomas stepped up to the line, left foot first. He put the toe of his left shoe exactly one inch behind the free throw line. Then he positioned his right foot so that it was also one inch behind the line. He dribbled the ball exactly twice, placed it so that the lines on the ball were roughly perpendicular to the splayed fingers of his right hand, looked at the basket, and shot.

  Swish through the net.

  “Good shot,” said Coach McPhee. “Try it again.”

  The ball bounced off the front of the rim.

  “You didn’t follow through,” said Coach McPhee. “Wave the ball into the net. Extend your whole arm, and just wave that ball right into the basket.”

  Thomas tried it again. Same routine. Looked at the basket. Shot. Swish.

  “Good. Try it again.”

  The ball bounced off the right of the rim.

  “Don’t rush it. Take your time. Concentrate.”

  Swish. Swish.

  “Good,” said Coach McPhee. “Go for ten in a row.”

  Three for three. Four for four.

  “You’ll probably be playing more for us now,” said Coach McPhee.

  “Yes sir.” Five for five.

  “Anybody can have one bad game.”

  “Yes sir. Thank you,” said Thomas. Six for six.

  “You have a girl down this weekend?”

  The ball bounced off the rim.

  “Yes sir,” said Thomas.

  “You lost your concentration,” said Coach McPhee. “In a game you’re going to have people screaming at you to miss it. You’re going to have some guy on the rebound line whispering crap at you. You’re going to have your parents or your girlfriend in the stands. You got to block all of them out and concentrate on your routine.”