by Kate Gray
Carla turned to me at the front of the room. “Kids today,” she said with a smile. Kyle had a champion. She walked out the door.
The doorway your parents wanted me to walk though led from the apse behind the sanctuary and altar to the packed congregation. Mark was behind me. The family was behind him. I was to lead the procession to the front row. The door opened to every church pew packed, and everyone turned to the door opening. I took one step, and there was your dark, shiny coffin, with you not in it.
Lilies and roses and tulips were all over the coffin and the altar and the aisles, and I stopped, stepped back. Mark bumped into me. Mark, who got to put his arms around you when you were dating, now put his rower arms around me. Then he bent down to my ear, said, “Êtes-vous prêt?” the formal commands to start a race, “Partez.” The two Ps brushed my ear with his breath. That rest in his arms was enough. I walked into the sanctuary, past the altar, took my place in the family pew, the memorial service started with you not there.
“Miss Alta,” David said, “why do you have that old map out?” His lenses were so big that the map became a globe, two globes on his face. Each student was a globe. Each globe had stopped spinning.
Tommy Underwood said, “We’re leaving South Africa. Good riddance.” He jabbed Peter Frankel on his right.
“Not yet,” David said, “Zippo the Clown hasn’t done his project.” He twisted in his desk to look at the back row. Kyle’s head was still turned and resting on the desk. “Looks like Zippy is dead,” David said. “Good riddance.” David leaned over to get a high-five from Tommy.
“Speaking of which,” I said, “Kyle, how is your South Africa project?” I walked toward the back row. Kyle didn’t chirp or bark or make any sound.
“Kyle?” His mouth was open, and his face was so relaxed that his cheek sunk in.
“Hey, Kyle, Zippy, Zippo,” Jimmy said. “Wake up!” And he threw a crumpled paper ball. From all four rows of seats, white paper balls flew at Kyle. Even Maggie Anderson threw one.
“Enough,” I said. “Everyone stop.” I turned toward the class, raised my hands to my hips.
“Sounds like Zippo is teacher’s pet,” Tommy said.
“Am not,” Kyle said. He sat up in his chair. His hair straight up. Kyle turned like a machine in one direction, “I am re-search-ing ur-a-ni-um de-pos-its in South A-fri-ca.” Then he moved continuously back to start again. “Zip. Ping! Will re-port to-mor-row.” Kyle dropped his head on the desk.
“That’ll work,” I said. “Can anyone tell me what divestiture means?”
Maggie raised her hand straight into the air. Tommy and David sat low in their desks.
“Maggie?”
“It means when you make water go a different way.” Maggie said things louder than other students.
“That’s diverting.” Tommy shook his head.
“That’s close,” I said, “really.” Maggie sat back in her desk. “Stopping where money flows. We already know that in South Africa, the white people do the owning and the black people do the working. And you need tons of money to do that. Where does it come from?”
“The gold mines, the diamond mines, the petroleum,” Kyle said. His head back on the desk, his mouth was half flattened on the desk.
“The dead have spoken,” David said.
“Yes, Kyle, good answer. But I mean American corporations who do business in South Africa.” If I keep talking, maybe the students will leave Kyle alone.
Tommy said, “Why shouldn’t Americans do business there?” Tommy Underwood’s dad was the CEO of American Express. Tommy told us about limousines he’d ridden in Bombay and the rickshaws in the streets. He told us about Swiss chocolate in Geneva and bikinis in Bali. He knew a little about a lot of countries.
Maggie said, “Because they make money from poor people.”
“Coca-Cola, Texaco, General Electric, IBM,” I said. “Here’s how they work. How many of you get a Coke every day?” Every hand went straight up. Except Kyle and Maggie Anderson’s.
David said to Maggie, “You do too drink a soda.”
“I drink Tab,” Maggie said.
“Same difference.”
“So, everyone drinks a Coke every day. How much do you think it costs to make one can of Coke? Sixty-five cents?”
“No way,” Jimmy said.
“Twenty-five cents,” David said.
“A nickel,” Tommy said.
“So, how much does Coca-Cola make off you guys drinking Coke every day?”
“Tons,” Jimmy said.
“Loads,” David said.
“So what if they go to another country, and it costs two cents to make the Coke?”
“I’m moving there,” David said.
“So they make a profit. That’s what they’re supposed to do,” Tommy said.
“What if the white owners use their profits to run white schools but don’t let black kids go to school or vote?” I said.
“That’s not fair,” Maggie said.
“So, if you don’t drink a Coke today, the company won’t get the profit.”
“Yeah, right,” Jimmy said, “like my Coke will make a difference.” He rolled his eyes and made a big circle with his face.
Terence Franklin said, “Kind of like VW in Germany.” He never spoke. The one African American boy, he looked out the window most of the class. In his pressed shirt and tie, he always sat upright, his books arranged on his desk, his notebook open. He turned away from the windowpanes, the morning light flattening his face. “Like Volkswagen.”
“Exactly,” I said, “but no one divested.” The other Second Formers looked at each other. Then they looked at Terence.
“What do you mean?” Tommy asked. “You mean the car?”
“Yup,” Terence said. He looked down at his notebook.
“Want to explain?”
“Nope.” He folded his hands in his lap. There was something sure in Terence, something broad and winding and a part of something big.
“Okay, then,” I said, “Hitler wanted a car for German people, and he made Jews make the cars, and the sales of the cars helped kill the Jews.”
And the words out of my mouth were light blue, the color of the VW van my mother drove. She packed us in, the side door sliding left, and one of my big sisters hauling it right. It never felt shut.
In 1964 my mother put up Goldwater-for-President posters on the doors of the VW van. She spray-painted big gold letters, “RU4 AuH2O?” She believed in everything he did. But no one in our town liked Goldwater. No one believed in the Red Menace. Everyone in our small town knew my mother.
“Hey, Taylor,” a kid called at me when I waited for my mother at the Grand Union grocery store, “Are you H20?” He pointed at me inside the bus. I sat with my knees drawn up, my feet on the vinyl seat.
It was Charlie Delorenza from Catechism. He was in my sister’s class. He never did his homework.
“Hey, Taylor,” Charlie said, “your mother’s square.” I didn’t know what that meant, but he said it like my brother said “cheater.”
Charlie ran away when his mother came out of the grocery store. My mother and sisters came right after.
My mother loved that van with Goldwater on the side. She loved people flipping her off. They saw her coming down the country roads and veered toward our van. They rolled down the window and stuck a hand out, high in the air, the middle finger up. My mother beeped the bus horn. It sounded like a clown. Then she played chicken, steering toward the car. Just in time, she steered back. She laughed. My sisters ducked under the wraparound windows. I waved since I thought people were waving.
And my mother drew red lines around families she said were Democrats. None of us crossed those lines. And she painted the town in colors like pink and yellow and blue. She was the line around everyone.
There were few contours.
Song / Electric Charge
This lesson will blow them away. I’m holding lightbulbs in both hands, 120 watts each, my fingers
wrapped around the metal part. I’m the socket. We do Franklin. Franklin was amazing. City of Brotherly Love right next door. But first, we go back.
“Okay, my budding scientists,” I say, “where does electricity come from?”
“Clouds,” “sockets,” “Kyle’s hair,” they say. Everybody’s a comedian.
“That’s not it,” I say. ”Where does the word electricity come from?”
The Second Formers look at me like I asked them to graph relativity. Little Einsteins.
“How about electric?” As if that will help.
“That helps,” another comedian says in the prime of his sarcasm.
“From Elektron,” I say, and I have the discussion by myself. The budding scientists are dull today. As if they’re bright on other days. “The Greek word for amber. ‘Amber?’ you say, and I say, ‘amber.’” The Little Einsteins don’t follow.
That’s how Mean Dorothy White started the conversation with me the other day. Okay, not with amber or electricity, but with words that meant more than one thing. Each sentence was charged, and like-charges repel.
Her office door was open. The opening to some lair, the mother of the species, waiting. The Taiko drum hitting my sternum. Big beats. Not much breath in me. Ribs ringing.
“Mr. Song,” she said. “Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to see me.” Mrs. Headmaster Ma’am, always talking double. If I could pry her mouth open, I’d check her tongue for a fork.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you, Mrs. White,” I say. My mouth is full of crap.
“I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” she starts in, folds her hands. The Whites and their wingback chairs. We’re one green wingback facing another. At any distance the repulsion is inversely proportional.
“A student has been brought to my attention. You know it is rare for students of concern to be brought to my attention,” she says.
But here it is. The dreaded. She knows. My parents will find out. Other people will talk. Gossip. Tim-Tim’s teacher has ruined a young woman. Please, let me bring shame to my family. First born. Only son. Please, let me wipe the floor with my advanced degrees. Violating hyo. The Taiko beat is in my throat, and no sounds will come out of my mouth. Someone must have seen Carla slip in my door.
“His name is Kyle Harney,” she says, and the Taiko mallet does not strike. There’s air in the room, enough air in enough space. “His name,” not “her name,” is a valve opening, electricity jumping from fur to amber.
The Second Formers sit on the lab stools and spin. They wobble, and they lean. They turn around and face the other direction. The two lightbulbs I’ve been holding almost roll off the lab table when I put them down, and then I hold up the amber rod. It’s a yellow-brown color, twenty inches long, almost transparent. Solid tree sap. The fluorescent light in here doesn’t show it off.
“Masters and Mistress of Science, here is Elektra, amber, a holder of soul.” Again, that look like I’m speaking relativity to them. And they are no Einsteins.
“Mr. Song,” Peter Frankel says from the third stool on the left, “what do you mean, soul?”
One person is listening. The other students stop spinning for a moment.
“Fine question, Mr. Frankel. The Greeks believed that if an object could move other objects on its own, then it had a soul.”
“So, a cue stick has a soul?” Tommy Underwood says. Mr. Underwood often plays pool in the rec room. He should be studying.
“No, doofus,” someone says, “a cue stick doesn’t move on its own.”
“Why? I mean, not the cue stick.” Terence asked. “Why soul?” His eyes already looked like he had static electricity in his system. Of course he does.
“Well, Mr. Why-Everything, the ancient Greeks thought that anything that seemed to change itself was the very essence of life. What other elemental things can change themselves?”
“What’s elemental?” Tommy says. Reliable, that one.
“Basic,” someone says.
“Maybe clouds?” Maggie Anderson says. Encouraging, this girl.
Kyle doesn’t say anything. He turns circles on his stool. Once, twice, too many times. Mr. Harney, King of His Own Kind.
“That’s just it,” I say. “Water. It can change itself.”
Terence’s face is flat, like the lab table, dark marble. “Of course, liquid, solid, gas, but how does soul work?”
“Mr. Franklin, the Greeks believed that at the essence of all life was a force, an ability to transform, to metamorph, to move things without any outside influence. Let’s try it.”
Besides the two lightbulbs and the amber rod in front of me, I have a rabbit’s skin, gray and white, hair on one side, desiccated flesh on the other. The fur is soft, softer than skin, any skin. But fur has more texture than skin. Texture equals friction, and when an object is in motion through air or liquid, equals drag. Fur has more drag than skin.
“Is that real?” Tommy asks.
“Yes, and Mr. Underwood, you will be my assistant.” He falls forward off his stool and takes a bow before his peers. In the few steps it takes for him to assume his role, he gets three high-fives.
“Take the fur and rub the rod.”
Tommy turns his round face toward the class. One eyebrow goes up. Just one.
The boys erupt. Every boy in the class doubles over and spins away from each other, and Tommy Underwood is left with the rabbit pelt in his hand, and his face a deep red. Maggie Anderson turns red but doesn’t laugh. Young Miss doesn’t get it. But I’m the dumb one. Great way to phrase directions. Teacher of the Year.
“Okay, Mr. Underwood, enough of the gutter.” The students can’t look at each other without popping their faces, holding their sides, and spinning on the lab stools. “Go ahead, Mr. Underwood.”
Tommy runs the rabbit fur along the rod. Some kids can’t stop giggling.
“Enough, Mr. Underwood. Hold the fur two inches from the rod.”
And all of a sudden, the hair of the fur stands on end, points to the rod. As Tommy moves the pelt slightly up or down, the angle of the hair changes. The hair is pulled toward the amber. To the Greeks, the amber moved the fur. This was soul.
“Now move the pelt closer to the amber,” and sparks jump out. Tommy’s round face turns up, Mr. Jubilant.
Budding scientists say, “Wicked” and “Wow.” They say, “Let me try,” and they grab for the amber, for the fur.
Not Kyle. He spins on the stool, one, two, three times. His greased hair straight up. He says, “Loose electrons,” and he keeps spinning.
“What’s that?”
“Loose electrons.” He keeps spinning.
“Exactly. Most people thought that the friction created the electricity. But Ben Franklin identified that every object has an electrical ‘fluid,’ and rubbing them merely transfers the fluid from one to the other.”
The boys look at me and wait, like I could not possibly have said what I said. It’s a second before they double over laughing. A couple of them fall off their stools. Yeah, Teacher of the Year. I know it.
“Now look, Students of the Gutter, I meant to say that Franklin identified that the action did not give one object something. He showed that there was a transfer in a particular direction. We now call the charge negative, and Franklin was the first to see that energy was conserved.”
One student says, “I can get a charge.”
Other students laugh and yell things like “Oh, baby” and “Hubba hubba.” Maggie Anderson looks from one boy to the other and doesn’t say anything. What can one girl do in the face of all these boys?
Kyle says, “Like charges repel and unlike charges attract.”
“Exactly, Mr. Harney.” Never has there been a student like this student. Never has a student been so quick to understand science, despite my unfortunate directions. Here is a true Student of the Year. Young Mr. Science. Kyle faces the front of the lab and doesn’t spin any more. With the greased up hair and his gray sweats, he looks like a Conehead
. I hate those shows.
Mrs. White starts to tell me about Kyle.
“Mr. Song, he is the boy who was pinned to the lab table. And we suspended the student who did that. But I’ve heard Kyle is wild, out of control. Student Ambassadors in the Admissions Office were talking about him.”
“Mrs. White, let me assure you that Mr. Harney is no barbarian,” I say to her from my wingback chair. I don’t raise my voice, because a younger person must defer to an elder.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she says, “but he’s quite odd, isn’t he? Makes strange noises, always alone, nearly antisocial.” With each phrase she leans forward more. We’re differently charged and there’s a pull. It’s a fact, not a desire.
“Yes, all of that is true, but he’s an excellent student. I’m his advisor, his dorm parent, and his teacher. I know Kyle.” It’s the Korean in me that holds my tongue. If she knew the students, she’d know his brilliance. If she really cared, she’d build the Second Form boys their own rooms, she’d admit more Second Form girls, she’d have role models on the faculty for everyone. I’m the non-white, the token. Sure, it’s good she keeps her ears open. At least, she asks and investigates. That’s something.
“Why does he speak like a machine?” she says. “Does he do that with his parents, or other adults?” Dorothy White is leaning so far forward in her wingback chair she about falls off.
“Not that I know of,” I say. At the end of the conversation, I promise to pay close attention.
“There’s no telling what other students will tell their parents.” There it is, the reason. She is about as concerned about Kyle as she is about a gnat. It’s the blessed name of the school.
There’s no telling how Kyle caught her attention. But he catches everyone’s attention.
“Zippy knows everything,” a boy says.
“Mr. Know-It-All,” another says.
“Geek” was the final word.
Mr. Conehead Kyle puts his right hand on the lab table and pushes off. He spins to his left, and his knees fit underneath the lab table. One spin, two spins, he keeps spinning.
Together in this class, in the dorm, he and I have inyon. It’s like electricity, like soul, but different. More events than can be known conspired to bring us to this place, this moment. We are connected. We are cause and condition for meeting. Inyon. His electrons have passed to me and mine to him, and we are each changed without acting on each other. Both amber and fur, both spirit and flesh. In Christian terms, we are keepers of each other. In Buddhist terms, we are karma. If I consult a shaman, he’d say that Kyle is my good fortune.