Love May Fail

by Matthew Quick

  Rock-and-roll front men were allowed to wear makeup and tease out their long hair—androgyny was being sold on MTV every day—but homosexuality was still taboo.

  The lead singer of Skid Row, Sebastian Bach, definitely teased his hair out to look like a woman, and he also used to wear a shirt that read AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD.

  It didn’t even seem wrong to wear that T-shirt when I was in high school, which is insane now, looking back.

  When I walked into Mr. Vernon’s classroom on the first day of school, he announced we were having a pop test worth twenty-five percent of our marking period grade.

  I instantly hated him.

  Everyone in the entire class groaned.

  More than one of the boys whispered, “This is bullshit.”

  And I agreed.

  My heart was pounding.

  Worse yet was the fact that this thirtysomething man in canary-yellow shirtsleeves, with a lumpy tire of flesh around his midsection and a hairline that was racing toward the back of his neck—he used to gel long wispy strands to his pink scalp so it was sort of striped—was so sure of himself. It was offensive.

  He’s a high school teacher, for Christ’s sake, I remember thinking.

  Follow the rules, pal.

  “Clear your desks of everything except a writing utensil,” he said. “Let’s go. This will take the entire period. You’ll need every minute.”

  My palms began to sweat, and I felt nauseous.

  I had pretty crippling test-taking anxiety even when I studied for days in advance and was prepared, so this was my absolute worst anxiety nightmare turned real.

  We had not been assigned summer reading.

  What the hell could he be testing us on?

  As backpacks were dropped to the floor and kicked under desks, Mr. Vernon passed out lined paper. He instructed everyone to take two sheets and then wait for directions. Once he had all of the paper passed out, he said, “Do not even think about looking at one another’s answers, because I will be watching you like our school mascot—a hawk. If I even so much as suspect you are cheating, I will fail you on the spot. Today’s test will be worth one-fourth of your first marking period grade. And this test is pass/fail. Zero or one hundred. If you fail today, the best grade you can receive for the first quarter is a seventy-five, and that’s if you score hundreds on everything else for the entire marking period and never miss a homework assignment.”

  “That’s not fair!” someone yelled.

  I agreed.

  “Starting now, if you speak—even one word—for the rest of the period, you automatically score a zero. So do not speak. I’m serious. You don’t want to test me.”

  Oh, how I hated Mr. Vernon at this moment. I fantasized about marching right out of the room and straight to guidance so that I could demand to be transferred to another teacher.

  “Write your full name on the first line of your first piece of paper.”

  We all did that as Mr. Vernon paced our rows.

  “Skip a line and write the number one, followed by a period. After that, I want you to write a paragraph about how you feel right now. Do you think this test is fair? Are you looking forward to being in my class? Tell the truth. If you lie, I will know. And I will fail you. I will not be offended by the truth. I promise. I want you to be honest here. It’s important. So how do you feel? That’s question one. Go.”

  Everyone stared at Mr. Vernon. We were dumbfounded. Was this some sort of joke?

  “You have three minutes. So I suggest you start writing. Remember, this counts for twenty-five percent of your first marking period grade.”

  Someone began writing, I don’t remember who it was, but then the rest of us followed suit like so many dumb blinking sheep.

  I remember thinking that if Mr. Vernon wanted the truth, I would give it to him. And so I wrote about how I had always had test anxiety, and his surprising us with this stupid and completely unfair test was unprofessional and unkind. I said I was not looking forward to his class based on what I had experienced thus far and was strongly considering transferring out as soon as possible. I finished by writing something about absolutely loving my previous English classes, just to make him feel bad and also to let him know I wasn’t a math and science person predisposed to disliking any and all literature classes. I wanted him to know this was about him specifically, and I did so with unbridled seventeen-year-old righteousness and fury.

  I was still scribbling angrily when he said, “Pencils down. Skip a line and write the number two. Then answer this question: What do you think should happen on the first day of senior English class? What would you have the students do if the roles were reversed—if you were me? Remember to be honest. You are being graded on your honesty.”

  I remember being incensed.

  I would definitely NOT ask my students to do impossible things, I remember writing. I would maybe make them feel welcome. Talk about what books we were going to read. I don’t know, maybe it might be a good idea to hand out a syllabus? Pass out the first assigned novel? Act like a normal regular teacher and not some freak on a power trip? Be gentle and kind and . . .

  I erased many of those lines, but Mr. Vernon saw me, walked over to my desk, and said, “That’s the wrong side of the pencil, Ms. . . . Ms. . . . What is your name? I don’t know you.”

  I pointed to my lips to remind him that he had forbidden us to speak.

  “You may answer this question,” he said.

  “Kane. It’s Portia Kane.”

  “Ms. Portia Kane.” He smiled kindly at me. “Be honest. I can take it. Rewrite exactly what you wrote the first time. Don’t doubt yourself.” He winked at me once, and then addressed the class. “All of you need to stop doubting yourselves!”

  I blew away the tiny pink eraser worms and quickly retraced my cursive into the dented grooves of the paper.

  “Okay,” Mr. Vernon said. “Take the second piece of paper and make a paper airplane. And if you are thinking you don’t know how to make a paper airplane, shame on you! There are no rules. Make a paper airplane any way you want. And then decorate it with drawings or doodles or your name or anything you wish. But you must make a paper airplane and decorate it. Make it uniquely yours!”

  This was getting very weird.

  “Why are you looking to your peers for answers?” Mr. Vernon said, holding his palms up in the air and shrugging in disappointment. “There is no right or wrong way to make a paper airplane at this very moment in time. Just do it and then decorate it the best you can. Make it yours!”

  One of the boys in the front row began folding, and then the rest of us did too.

  I had no idea how to make a paper airplane, so I began to glance around the room.

  “Ms. Kane,” Mr. Vernon said.

  I met his eyes.

  “No cheating.”

  I returned my gaze to the paper on my desk, felt my cheeks burn, and cursed Mr. Vernon in my mind.

  Why was he picking on me?

  I’m sure other girls were looking at the boys to see how it was done. What a sexist thing to ask us to do. Would Mr. Vernon be asking us to build racetracks for Matchbox cars next? I was so angry.

  But I began to fold and fold and fold some more until I had something that resembled a paper airplane, if only in an abstract way, and then I was writing my name on the body of it.

  Portia Kane Airways.

  I smiled in spite of myself.

  I drew little windows and then little faces in the windows.

  My airline would have women pilots, I thought, and then drew a picture of myself looking out from the chair in the cockpit. Why not?

  “On your first piece of paper, skip a line and write the number three followed by a period. In a brief paragraph describe and evaluate your paper airplane. Remember, you are being graded on your honesty. So be truthful. Is your air
plane any good? Do you like how it came out?”

  I studied my paper airplane, and even though I had enjoyed creating it just seconds ago, the folds didn’t look even and the faces in the windows looked childish—like what a four-year-old would draw—and then I thought that you wouldn’t even be able to see faces looking out of an airplane because of the glare maybe, but I wasn’t sure. I had never been on an airplane in my life, and that made me feel ashamed too, because everyone else I knew had flown at least once. Of course, Mom hadn’t had enough money to send me on the British Literature trip to London the year before. I remember writing something about my airplane being the worst one in the class, but insisting that it wasn’t my fault. If I had known what this test was on, I would have surely spent the summer reading books on how to make a superior paper airplane. I would have practiced my folds every day. I would have consulted origami how-to books even, and then I felt proud of myself for using the word origami.

  I wasn’t finished writing when Mr. Vernon said, “Skip a line and write the number four followed by a period. Now I want you to close your eyes.”

  We all began to look at each other again.

  Mr. Vernon was insane if he thought we were going to close our eyes.

  “What are you afraid of? Just close your eyes. You do it every night before you fall asleep, so I know you know how. Remember, this test is worth twenty-five percent of your first marking period grade. If you don’t close your eyes in the next five seconds—and keep them closed until I say—you will receive a zero. No peeking!”

  My eyes snapped shut, and I guessed everyone else’s did too, because Mr. Vernon continued.

  “I want you to imagine standing with your paper airplane in your hand, walking over to the windows. Admiring the world outside. The beautiful day that seems to be everywhere but in this school, at least judging by the looks on many of your faces. Imagine your arm reaching out into this warm September day. The sun on your skin. The palpable feeling of escape accelerating your heartbeat. Now see your hand coming back toward the classroom. Your paper airplane is between your thumb and forefinger. You push it out toward the sky and let go. Watch its flight. Does it soar off into the heavens like a fierce majestic eagle? Does it take an immediate nosedive for the ground before crashing and burning? Or does it do something else entirely?” He paused for a second. “Open your eyes and describe the flight of your plane exactly as you imagined it in your mind.”

  Everyone began writing.

  I saw my plane fall from my hand like a dead rat—I couldn’t wait to let go of its tail so I could wash my hands of it—straight down to the grass below. I remember being very proud of my rat simile, as trite and inaccurate as it sounds now. I also remember writing failure in big capital letters too, almost as if I were proud of my own perceived incompetence.

  “Skip a line and write the number five followed by a period,” Mr. Vernon said. “When I say go, I want you to stand—remembering that if you talk, you fail—and take your paper airplane over to the window, stick your arm out into the sunlight, give your plane a throw, and watch it fly. Keep watching until it hits the ground. Make a mental movie of it. Then I want you to go outside and retrieve your airplane quickly—without running—return to your desk, and describe your airplane’s actual flight in great exact detail. Remember, you are not being graded on the flight, but on the degree of honesty you employ while describing the flight. If you are honest, you will receive an A. Go.”

  No one moved.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  I remember James Hallaran standing first. He always wore a black leather jacket, drove a late 1970s Camaro painted aqua, and kept a pack of Marlboro Reds rolled in his T-shirt sleeve. Outside of school he’d have a cigarette tucked behind his left ear like he was John Travolta in Grease, although he looked more like Billy Idol.

  This cliché of a rebel walked to the window and threw his airplane.

  I remember him grinning as he watched it sail through the air.

  Then he laughed in this curt way, like he had just gotten away with smoking a joint in front of the principal, and made his way to the door.

  “Very good, Mr. . . .”

  James spun around, pushed his lips together, locked them with an imaginary key, shrugged comically, and then spun around on the heel of his left boot quickly enough to make the chain that connected his wallet to his belt loop rise.

  “You and I are going to get along,” Mr. Vernon called after him, smiling.

  James lifted a thumb over his head as he walked out the door.

  Then many of the other boys began giving their paper airplanes the gift of flight, and soon many of the popular girls did the same.

  Being neither male nor popular, I was one of the last to stand.

  It felt good to be moving in class, and the sun warmed my skin when I extended my arm out of the window, although my plane didn’t fly, but spun and sadly seesawed its way to the ground.

  I was embarrassed as I exited the classroom, walked down the hallway and the stairs, and found Portia Kane Airways’ first female manned aircraft stuck in a bush.

  Does a female pilot make it an unmanned plane? I thought, and smiled.

  Back up in Mr. Vernon’s classroom, I wrote exactly what I had seen, likening my plane’s flight to that of an oak leaf plucked free from a tree by a gust of September wind, and feeling more than a little proud of the metaphor.

  “Pencils down,” Mr. Vernon said. “Now I want you to reread your answers. Put a plus sign next to the answers that seem optimistic and positive. Put a minus sign next to the answers that seem pessimistic and gloomy. Remember, you are being graded on your honesty.”

  As I reread my answers, I realized that I would be giving myself all minuses, because all of my answers were “pessimistic and gloomy.” And this made me angry, because I wasn’t a pessimistic and gloomy person.

  Or was I?

  Mr. Vernon had tricked me somehow. I wanted desperately to put little plus signs next to all of my paragraphs, because I had always thought of myself as a reasonably optimistic person, but it would be dishonest, and we were being graded on honesty.

  “Pass your papers forward. You may keep your airplanes.”

  We did as he asked, and once he had all of the papers in his hand, he tapped the pile straight. “How did you feel when I announced that you were going to be tested today? What did you write? Be honest. You may speak when called upon.”

  A few kids raised their hands and said they felt betrayed, scared, worried, annoyed, anxious—mostly what I would have said. When Mr. Vernon asked, “How about you?” and pointed to me, I shrugged.

  “You can tell the truth, Ms. . . .”

  “Kane. I just told you that ten seconds ago.”

  “Forgive me. I have more than a hundred new names to learn, and it’s only the first day of school. But how did you feel when I announced the test today, Ms. Kane?”

  “Angry,” I said, too quickly.

  “Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t fair.”

  “Why wasn’t it fair?”

  “Because you didn’t give us a chance to study. We didn’t even know what the test was about. It wasn’t fair.”

  “Would studying have helped you today?” he asked.

  I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I didn’t like it.

  “I could have read up on how to make paper airplanes.”

  “Do you think that would have improved your grade, considering the fact that you’re being graded on honesty today and not your ability to make paper airplanes?”

  I felt my face turning red.

  Mr. Vernon picked another victim—and in my memory it’s Danielle Bass. I see her red hair teased out wildly and stiff with hair spray, like Axl Rose’s in the “Welcome to the Jungle” video.

  “It was just different,” she answered.


  “And different is bad?” Mr. Vernon asked her.

  “Usually,” Danielle said. In my memory, she’s wearing black lipstick.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know. Just is.”

  “Don’t give average answers,” Mr. Vernon said. “You’re better than that. I can tell. Try to be articulate. You can do it. You’re smarter than you think. All of you are. Trust me.”

  Danielle squinted at him.

  “Is it safe to assume that everyone found the idea of a pop test on the first day of class unpleasant?”

  We all began glancing around the room.

  “Don’t be such sheep!” he yelled. “Think for yourself. That’s the problem. Consensus kills art and intellectual progress! I could see it in your eyes. You were all terrified by the word test. Just four little letters. Ridiculous. But let me ask you this question: Have you ever taken one of my tests before? No, you haven’t. So how would you know what that experience entails, let alone if you would like it? Why did you all think it was going to be a bad experience?”

  James Hallaran called out without raising his hand. “We assumed it would be a bad experience because all of the tests we’ve been taking since kindergarten have sucked—emphatically.”

  Mr. Vernon smiled and nodded. “I like your use of the word emphatically. Yes, I do. But if you are going to use sexual metaphors in my class, Mr. Hallaran, please be more original. Also, raise your hand when you want to speak, okay?”

  James nodded back, and I noticed that he too was smiling. I could tell he liked Mr. Vernon, and it was then—right at that very moment—that I began to realize we all were going to like him. That he was in complete control, and he had tricked us. James Hallaran was the first to figure it out. Maybe I was the second.