by John Donovan
After Mother goes, I get a chance to look around. It's like a public school, I guess, except that everything looks a lot older. There's a lot of dark wood with high varnish on it and a lot of pictures of old priests along the walls in the hallway. It's darker here than any public school I ever saw at home. I meet three or four guys when I go to my first class, which is geography. The teacher says to everyone that the New Year has brought a new pupil and will I stand up to show myself. So I do, and I smile as though I'm friendly, and about everyone smiles back except the kid in the seat in front of me, who doesn't even turn around to see what I look like.
There's no nonsense about getting the class under way though. They have been studying about South America, and Mr. Miller, the teacher, pulls down a lot of maps from a collection of rolled-up ones. There are a whole lot of different things on the maps-one is for elevation, another for population, another for crops and all that stuff.
A big fat kid in the first row of seats raises his hand. "Yes, Malcolm," the teacher says.
"I lived in La Paz, Bolivia."
"You did?" says the teacher.
"Yes."
"Did you like it?"
"I guess so."
"What was it like?"
"I dunno. You know," Malcolm says.
"Would you point out La Paz on the map, Malcolm?" Malcolm edges himself out of his seat and goes to the rainfall map. He looks at it for a while.
"I dunno," he says.
"Look over here at the geographic-boundary map," the teacher says. "That's the more familiar type of map."
Malcolm shuffles to the right map, but he starts giggling after one of the boys laughs at him.
"I dunno," he says again.
Mr. Miller points out the city to Malcolm, who says he knew it was there all the time. He gets a big laugh out of that one and sits down.
"Malcolm was very fortunate to have a chance to live in Bolivia," the teacher says. Then he continues with a lot of stuff about the best way to study a country is to talk with people who have lived there and not rely on books alone. Boy, I'll bet a talk with Malcolm about Bolivia would be edifying. Malcolm is looking around and smiling at everyone until the teacher tells him to pay attention. Malcolm stops smiling, and I can see from the look on his face that he's not happy that the teacher has told him to pay attention. He looks like Fred when I have had to punish him severely, and I feel a little sorry for Malcolm.
The kid in front of me, the one who didn't turn around to see what I looked like, turns around now and says-yes says, not whispers-"Quit jerking your leg up and down. I'm about to fall off my seat. Your desk moves my seat."
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
"Don't be sorry. Just stop it," this kid says in a very loud voice.
Mr. Miller interrupts our friendly dialogue. "What's the matter, Altschuler?"
"This new guy is so nervous that he's shaking his desk. I'm going to be on the floor if he doesn't quit it, Mr. Miller," Altschuler says.
Malcolm laughs. He thinks it's a big joke. I guess I get twenty-two shades of red, and I try to mutter that I'm sorry.
"That's all right, Ross," the teacher says to me. "Altschuler can pull his chair closer to his desk if you are agitating it."
"That isn't what's important, Mr. Miller," Altschuler says. "This kid comes in here in the middle of the year and takes Wilkins' seat. Maybe Wilkins will come back. What will you do then?"
I don't know what they're talking about, so I decide that the only thing I can do is say nothing. Mr. Miller says that if Wilkins comes back he can have his old desk back. But since I'm here and the seat behind Altschuler is the only one available in the room, that's where I'm going to sit.
"Just quit bouncing your leg up and down!" Altschuler yells.
I tell him again that I'm sorry, and Altschuler picks up a pencil on his desk and throws it down violently. That is the end of that interruption, and Mr. Miller starts talking about tin mining in the Andes. It's very interesting, the way he presents his story with some slides and a lot of stuff to dramatize how thin the air is up there and how difficult it is to mine there and still keep your health. He makes us close our eyes and imagine we are all in the Andes and have only half as much air available to us as we have in New York.
He says we can get the same feeling those miners have if we hold back every other breath we would breathe normally, and before long I get the idea and so do the other guys, and we all get a little dizzy, in a nice way though. I can see that it would be difficult to be a laborer if you had only half as much air as you can get in New York.
The class after geography is English, and we're supposed to have read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar over Christmas. A lady teaches that class, and she says wouldn't it be fun to put on Julius Caesar. She says she will do the ladies' parts if we will do all the other parts. She says we don't have to do it according to Shakespeare's text but that we should use the same story line. Everyone thinks that is a good idea. They start talking about what parts they want each other to play. When they select Altschuler to play Brutus, I figure that this teacher may be off on the wrong approach to introducing great plays to kids. Some good-looking kid decides that he is going to be Mark Antony, and no one else speaks up for that part. The funny thing is that no one wants to be Caesar, so they decide I will be Caesar.
"Oh, good, Mr. Ross," Miss Stuart says. "You'll have to read the play tonight. The others are ahead of you."
I tell her that I read the play last year, and she says that is marvelous, and she supposes that in Boston people are far ahead of New Yorkers when it comes to reading Shakespeare. I tell her I don't know, and I don't. I tell her I have read The Merchant of Venice though, and A Midsummer-Night's Dream too. She says that that is marvelous, and she hopes I can put up with my backward classmates.
Altschuler decides that he doesn't want to play Brutus. He wants to be Caesar. There's a lot of huff about it, and I say I'll be glad to be Brutus. Miss Stuart says it should be settled by vote, and it ends up that the only people voting for Altschuler to play Caesar are Altschuler and Malcolm. Altschuler looks at me in an unfriendly way, and I wonder if in two hours I have a New York enemy.
The rest of the school day goes by OK, and at three thirty it is time to go home. There are five buses waiting outside the school, marked "East Side-Above 72nd," "East Side-57th-72nd," "East Side-l4th-57th," "Greenwich Village," and "West Side-Above 14th." I get on the last bus. I see Altschuler sitting there in the rear seat. He is sitting in the middle so that no one can get to either side of him. I figure that he wants the seat to himself. Maybe he will stretch out and go to sleep, I think. There's no one else on the bus I recognize from my class, so I go to the back of the bus.
"Hi," I say.
Altschuler just looks at me and nods. I sit in one of the seats next to the back one and turn around to Altschuler.
"If you want to be Caesar, it's OK with me," I say.
"You could have voted for me," he answers.
"I didn't vote. I didn't think I should."
"I voted for me," he says. "I would be a much better Caesar than you."
There's one thing about this guy; he's not modest. The second thing is that he says exactly what he's got on his mind. I never met anyone like Altschuler before.
"Well," I say, "it's just that if you want to change parts with me, that's OK."
Altschuler doesn't answer me. He is busy spreading himself all over the back seat. The bus is getting crowded now with a lot of little kids. A couple of them come back to Altschuler's seat, but they take a look at him and go back to select one of the front seats or to stand. The school only goes through the ninth grade, so Altschuler and I are about the oldest people on the bus. I'm the only kid without the school blazer, so I guess this makes me a celebrity. All the little kids look at me about eight times each, and I can hear my name repeated a few times. I try to look as though I don't hear it.
"What's your first name?" I ask Altschuler.
"Everyone call
s me Altschuler. Just like everyone will call you Ross," he answers.
"Oh," I say.
Altschuler is quiet for a minute and so am I until he says, "It's Douglas."
"Mine's David," I say. "Everyone calls me Davy though."
"Oh," Altschuler says. "We call each other by our last names here except for Malcolm. Everyone calls him by his first name. He's the only one."
The bus gets started. The kids in the bus going to the East Side between 57th and 72nd yell at us as we pull away. They shout things together as though they are cheering, like "The West Side ain't the best side!" and "You're living your life at the point of a knife." The little kids in my bus yell right back, "If you live East, you're a beast."
I can see right away that I'm going to hear these chants for a long time, so I say to Altschuler, "Is this the only way to get home?"
"It's part of the tuition," he answers. "I walk a lot. I don't live far."
I ask him where he lives and he tells me, and it's the street next to mine, so I say something brilliant like "It's a small world." Altschuler doesn't answer that declaration, and I can't say that I blame him. We get off the bus together at about the fourth stop on the route, and I tell Altschuler that I meant it when I said it was OK with me if he wanted to play Caesar in that dumb play Miss Stuart decided we should put together. He says that he will like playing Brutus. He says that one thing he hates is people who betray friendships and confidences. He will make Brutus appear like a snake in the grass. I tell him that I'd have to read the play again before I could agree that Brutus should be played like a snake in the grass.
"People who betray friends are snakes," Altschuler says. "Good-bye," he says and goes off to his house a block away from mine.
It has begun to get dark by the time I get home, and I am disappointed that it has. I had wanted to take Fred for a long walk today. This is the first day since we got to New York that he has been alone most of the time. When I come in he's crazy to see me and jumps in the air like he's a ballerina, he's so eager to give me a smack and one of his lick jobs. He squirts all over the floor in his excitement. Mother comes to greet me and sees that Fred has beat me to it.
"Cripes!" she declares. "Is there going to be a flood every time you come through the door?"
She turns right around and gets some paper towels from the kitchen. I tell her that I'll take care of it and that it's nothing. I tell her that I'll take Fred out right away so that he won't mess up her floors any more. I tell her that Fred just got excited, that's all. She says sure, sure, sure, and she stumbles a little bit when she bends to wipe up Fred's business. There's not much, just a small puddle no bigger than two or three quarters, but to hear Mother talk about it, Fred has half the Atlantic Ocean in him.
"He did it to me too," she says.
"That's because he was glad to see you."
"That kind of glad I can do without. Go ahead. Take him out."
She gives me a kiss, sort of, and I can tell that she has begun very early to have her before-dinner drinks. Fred and I pounce down the stairs and go for our stroll. When he lifts his leg on the fire hydrant across from the house, I tell him that he is a very good dog for holding so much inside him. He keeps his leg up for three minutes, it seems to me, and it never stops coming. I don't know what Mother got so excited about. He could have left the whole thing up there if he weren't as good a dog as he is.
ltschuler is waiting for the bus on the corner of my .street the next morning. I say hello to him, and he just nods. I ask a lot of dumb questions about whether or not the bus is always on time, and if we will get seats, and what happens if we miss it. Altschuler just shrugs his shoulders or nods his head to answer me, and the less he says the dumber my questions get. I'm angry at him. I'm trying to be friendly, and he's acting like I'm a big annoyance. I'm glad when I see the bus pulling up in five minutes. Altschuler goes right to the rear seat again, and a couple of little kids who were sitting there jump up and move to seats toward the front. I tell myself not to be so friendly and to sit in one of the front seats myself. Altschuler can keep his silence to himself. I don't need it.
"I'm Frankie Menlo," the little kid I sit next to says. "I'm eight."
"I'm Davy Ross."
"I know," Frankie says. "Are you rich?"
"No," I answer.
"Neither am I. I have cousins in New Jersey who are though."
"It's probably fun to visit them."
"I guess so."
"You're probably richer than you think," I say.
"I don't think so. My cousins have a color television set. We don't. Do you?"
No.
"They also get bigger allowances than I do, even Margaret Mary and she's only five."
"You'll get a bigger allowance someday," I tell Frankie.
"My allowance is adjusted to the United States Government cost-of-living index," he says. "Last week it was a dollar and eighteen cents. My father wants me to be a businessman.
I ask him if they call him Menlo at school or Frankie. He says they won't call him Menlo until the fifth grade, but I can call him Menlo. He's a pretty bright little kid, and I tell him I'd be glad to call him Menlo if he wants me to. He asks if I will sit with him every morning. I look around at Altschuler, who has himself spread out in the back of the bus as though he owns it, and I tell Menlo that I'll sit with him a lot but maybe not every morning. He says that will be fine, and then he tells me that he likes me a lot. The bus has arrived at school.
"I like you too, Menlo," I tell him, which I am glad to do since he's the first person to exert himself and welcome me to this school. I don't care if he's only eight.
Menlo takes hold of my hand when we get out of the bus, and we walk toward the school together. Menlo runs ahead to tell some other little kids his own age about me. I know he does because he keeps pointing to me as they stand around outside. I pass them, and he says, "See you on the bus this afternoon, Ross."
"Right, Menlo," I say.
The kid smiles, and all his friends look at him and me with a sort of envious look. I can hear them calling him Frankie, and I guess that Frankie has taken several leaps ahead in his buddies' eyes now that an old kid like me calls him Menlo.
I don't feel so conspicuous in school on the second day, and a couple of the guys ask me to sit next to them during morning chapel, which is only for about fifteen minutes and isn't bad. The priest reads a couple of things from the Bible, and we say a few prayers and sing two hymns. I know the Lord's Prayer of course, so I can say that one OK, but I don't know the other prayers. I guess that I'll have to learn a whole lot of prayers before long. Davy the monk. And I don't know the hymns either. Even if I did, I wouldn't sing them, being the hummer that I am from way back. It's worse now because my voice cracks all the time. Boy, me and puberty!
I see Altschuler waiting outside when we leave chapel and I ask him if everyone doesn't have to go. He says it's optional for non-Episcopalians.
"It is?" I say. "I didn't know that. I thought everyone had to go."
No.
"What are you?" I ask.
For a few seconds he looks at me as though I'm crazy. I wonder if I've asked something no one ever asked him before. Kids at home used to know what everyone was because there were only so many things you could be in a little town. Or you could be nothing, of course, except for Christmas and Easter, and then you could choose from a lot of churches, as I frequently did. My grandmother did too, though she went to church more than twice a year. Come to think of it, she would go to one church several times in a row, then go to another one in the same way. She got involved with the Methodists, the Unitarians, the Catholics, and the Congregationalists, and she got a lot of mail from all of them, asking her to contribute to building funds. Churches in my town were always building new schools or community halls or new churches even.
After Altschuler has had his fill of staring at me, he says, "I'm an agnostic."
"What's that?"
"It's someone who doesn'
t know if there's a God or not.
"Do you have special churches?"
"Agnostics don't go to church. The point of being an agnostic is that you're not certain if there should be any churches."
"Oh," I say. "Are your parents agnostics too?"
Altschuler looks at me again as though he doesn't believe the question I asked, but finally he says, "We don't talk about religion at home. It's a personal thing for us to make up our own minds about."
I tell Altschuler that I guess I'm an agnostic too, but that I've never thought very much about it. I tell him about my church-going habits, which are not regular, as I explained, and that people in my family seemed to move from one church to the other without bringing God's wrath down on them. By this time we are in the algebra class, and Altschuler is talking to me in a regular if not friendly way, so I sit behind him after I introduce myself to the teacher.
The rest of the day goes by fine, though Altschuler doesn't have anything else to say to me. When it's time for physical education, we go to this crummy dark gymnasium in the school's basement and change into shorts and Tshirts for basketball. Altschuler is the class jock, it develops, and he plays circles around everyone. I just sort of mess around, and no one goes batty when I manage to sink a few long ones. Malcolm is the class clown on the basketball floor as well as in the classroom. He can't dribble. He bounces the ball on the floor once but can't bring his hand and the ball together again, so he makes a big joke of it and tells me that he hates basketball. He says he's a good football player and I should see him playing guard on the varsity team next fall. Malcolm is two times the size of any of the other kids, so I suppose the school sits him down in the middle of the line and figures opposing teams will have a rough time just getting around him. Malcolm laughs a lot whenever he gets the basketball by accident. All the kids yell at him when that happens. "Toss it here, Malcolm!" "Let's have the ball, Malcolm!" Everyone knows that Malcolm will never try to lob in a basket.