Fahrenheit 1600 (Victor Kozol) (2 page)

Chapter 1

The Kozols

The town of Duryea lies midway between Scranton
and Wilkes-Barre, the two largest cities in northeastern Pennsylvania,
themselves more like large towns. Claiming a population of 140,000 in the
1930s, Scranton is now just a fraction of its former size. Only about 80,000
remain by the late 1980s and the demographic is aging. Wilkes-Barre experienced
a similar decline, sinking from 70,000 to 40,000 during the same period. With
six thousand residents, Duryea, like so many other small towns that benefitted
from the area’s coal mines, is also a smaller place than it was fifty years
ago.

Northeastern Pennsylvania once supplied the entire
East Coast with anthracite, the hard coal preferred for heating homes, hotels,
and factories. They all benefitted from an energy source that was cheap and plentiful.
But after World War II, the government ended its rationing of oil and gas.
These two competing fossil fuels from places far away like Oklahoma and Texas
were soon flooding eastward to power the booming American economy. By the
1950s, most residences and businesses had abandoned coal and switched to oil
burners or gas furnaces. The reason was simple. Heat from furnaces powered by
these fuels could be more easily regulated and there was no solid by-product
(coal cinders) to dispose of. What was left after combustion went into the air
and it would be decades before anyone cared much about that.

America in the late 1980s was still a time of
profligate energy consumption. Cars were big and woefully inefficient, gas and
oil was a negligible extra expense, but few people in the “Coal Regions” drove
their pickup trucks to a mine. Instead, they transitioned to whatever service
jobs as could be found with the government, the large local hospitals, and some
industrial plants sprinkled throughout the area—or they simply left.

The Kozol family was fortunate not to have to change
occupations with the times. Victor’s father ran a family-owned funeral business
that was established over fifty years ago by his father, and death was one of
few constants in America’s shifting cultural and economic landscape. People
died and it still cost a good bit of money to respectfully transition bodies to
ash or earth. The area’s aging population was good for business, to be sure,
but this boon was offset by a declining overall population base.

Victor, his parents, and a sister who was three
years older lived in an apartment above the funeral home in the center of
Duryea. Victor’s father, Albert, never had more than the one year of post high
school education required to receive a funeral director’s license in the state
of Pennsylvania. He always hoped his two children would get four year degrees
and, in Victor’s case, maybe become a doctor. Victor’s sister, Anne, had always
been very self-driven and decided to attend Wilkes University. She majored in
elementary education and became a teacher. Anne also met another young teacher
while earning her educational credits and got married. Albert had nephews
living down state who were both doctors. He, of course, would like nothing
better than to match his brothers with a doctor of his own in the family.

Not one to leave things to chance, Albert took
Victor aside during his junior year at Duryea High School and told him about
the great future he could have in medicine.

“I believe that every generation should do a little
better than the one before it,” said Albert as he began his rehearsed “American
Dream” speech. “My grandfather, after emigrating from Poland, worked in the
mines and then died at the age of fifty with miner’s asthma (aka black lung
disease). My father, not wanting to suffer the same fate, got involved in the
funeral business by helping an old undertaker. Later he started his own
business; and I was proud to run it when I left school, but the area isn’t what
it was. You don’t have to be stuck here, Victor. Getting a medical or legal
degree is the next step up the ladder. If you’re a doctor or a lawyer, you can
move anywhere you like. Look at your sister Anne. She has tenure and a
guaranteed income from teaching. Of course, due to the nature of our business
and the things you’ve been exposed to, I imagine you’d have a leg up in
medicine, and we’d be willing to help with the tuition fees.”

Victor’s mind immediately filled with images of
himself pulling into a large hospital in a new Mercedes Roadster. His parking
spot would have a plaque, “Reserved for Dr. Kozol.”

“Is this something you’re interested in?” Albert
asked, interrupting Victor’s reverie.

“I think so, yes.” Victor said.

Albert smiled. The problem was that Victor would say
anything to his father to get more allowance or use of the family car. He was
only average in school because he didn’t study, but he was smart enough to not
flunk or get D’s in his courses. He was never motivated to excel, but he was able
to score pretty high on his SAT’s, so college was definitely going to be
available to him. Victor’s real talents were more social. He was one of the
more popular kids in high school. He always had something to do; the phone was
usually for him.

In his senior year, Vic was no National Merit
Scholar, but his SAT’s allowed him, along with his father’s ability to pay the
tuition, to get accepted by two local colleges. With his father’s guidance and
cajoling, Vic chose Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre and selected pre-med as
his major. On a bright and cheerful September day, the family dropped Vic off
at his new apartment on South Franklin Street.

“I hope you have time to come and visit us some
weekends with all your studying,” a somewhat delusional Albert said as he shook
his son’s hand goodbye.

“Oh, I’ll try Dad,” promised Victor, his eyes
looking over his father’s shoulder observing a freshman coed in cut-off jeans
who looked like she could use some help moving a box.

As his parents’ station wagon pulled out of view,
his mother waving from the passenger seat, a feeling of euphoria overcame
Victor. For the first time in his life he was completely free. He was also no
longer in Duryea. While Wilkes-Barre was not exactly a big city, he didn’t know
every single girl here since grade school. The possibilities were endless.

Wilkes University wasn’t a big school and it wasn’t
Ivy League, but what it lacked in prestige it made up for in charm and
friendliness. It was the gateway to the professions for many local first
generation college students. Most of the resident students lived in dormitories
converted from the former homes of the industrial magnates who built the town
on the Susquehanna River during the last century. But Victor was even luckier.
He convinced his parents to let him live in an off campus apartment right away;
on the grounds that it would cost the same and would give him more privacy to
study. An advertisement on a campus message board in front of the library was
full of offers from students looking for roommates. There was no housing
shortage in this slowly contracting former coal town.

Victor had contacted Andy Moyer, whom he met once
over the summer. Andy was a computer science major and conformed to type: Lanky
dark hair cut in a mullet, or perhaps simply allowed to grow that way,
low-effort clothing choices consisting usually of sweat pants, free T-shirts,
and glasses. He was an otherwise attractive young man, but socially awkward and
eager to please the confident young Victor. He also really needed a roommate to
help pay the rent after his former roommate graduated.

For his part, Victor immediately liked the college
senior’s indifferent approach to house cleaning. The apartment was the standard
undergraduate man cave of pizza boxes, dirty socks, and Led Zeppelin posters,
but Victor knew it would be perfect for his designs and just hoped that Andy
didn’t get in the way. The key would be to get into his new roommates good
graces right from the start. To this end, Victor set up his stereo system in
the living room where Andy could also use it instead of in his room and set
about rolling a joint after stowing away his other possessions. The stereo
blasted “Kashmir.”

“Oh man, you know, I’m such a big Zeppelin fan.”
Andy said, cracking open a cola and wiping a bit of sweat from his brow after
having helped move exactly two of Victor’s boxes upstairs.

Victor feigned surprise, took a largish toke on the
joint, stretched luxuriantly and asked, “So, what’s the plan this weekend?”

“Oh, well, I hadn’t planned much. Maybe have some
guys over to watch the game tomorrow.”

“So, what, aren’t there any big parties the first
weekend?” Victor’s visions of college life were largely informed by repeat
viewings of “Animal House.” “What about the fraternities and sororities?”

“Wilkes doesn’t have any. The founder, Dr. Francis,
felt they promote ‘elitism’ and banned them. It’s one of those things about
this place you’ll get used to.” Andy shrugged.

“So what’s the policy on throwing a party of our
own?” What’s the landlady like?

A jolt of dread went through Andy at the thought of
Sophie, the building’s owner and formidable custodian, but he didn’t want to
admit to fearing an elderly woman before his younger, but clearly hipper
companion.

“Oh, she’s pretty cool. I haven’t had any problems
with her.”

This was true, but largely because Andy did little
else but write computer programs and play Dungeons and Dragons with some other
CS majors at the kitchen table. Andy always had the feeling, though, from the
cold stares Sophie gave him when he met her on the stairs that she wasn’t
someone he’d want to cross.

Victor’s mind strategized like a chess player when
it came to his own pleasures. He had already come to the conclusion that Andy’s
friend base was not going to make for a good party, nor would his dorky
roommate likely know where any of the good parties would be held. He himself
didn’t know anyone, but that was no barrier. Weren’t parties all about getting
to know people?

“Why don’t we throw a party?”

“What? When?” Andy stammered.

“Tomorrow. I’ll make some fliers. We can charge ten
bucks a head or do you think that’s too much.”

“I don’t know…”

“Okay, then five. You’re 21, right?”

“Well, yeah, but.”

“Perfect. I’ve got a bit of cash to stock the place
in the beginning. Once we get a crowd, you can always go for a beer run. It we
get cheap stuff like Stegmaier or Old Milwaukee, we should even be able to turn
a profit on this.”

“I guess…”

“Great! Well, I guess we should start making the
flyers.”

In a flight of creativity, Victor created Wilkes
University’s first ever’ Freshman Fete’, although the crowd was not limited to
freshman nor even to college students. Anyone with a fiver got in and Victor
became a minor celebrity on campus.

As Andy had feared, however, this course of events
was neither unnoticed nor approved of by Sophie who lived on the first floor.
The pair were awakened most Sunday mornings by an ill-tempered yet vigorous old
woman decked out in her Church-going clothes complete with hat and handbag. The
visit was meant to be both a punishment for the severely hungover young men and
a shaming rebuke for their behavior, although the latter aim was lost on Andy
and Victor. For them, Sunday morning was little more than a void they filled with
dreamless sleep.

Sophie would have loved nothing better to throw them
both out, but things weren’t what they used to be in Wilke-Barre. Between the
junkie on the 2
^nd
floor and the lady who kept strange hours across
the hall from her, the other clientele in her building were nothing to be proud
of.

College students were at least somewhat respectable.
It was also usually possible to get their parents to pay for larger repairs
from the damage they caused, and no matter how bad they were they always left
after a few years. By the look of this new kid, Sophie was guessing he wouldn’t
be around for very long. And, as in most things, her utterly unsentimental
nature was spot on. Victor’s social life was on a collision course with his, or
rather his father’s, dream of him becoming doctor.

Chapter 2

College Life

By January, the verdant green hills surrounding
Wilkes-Barre turned brown as the temperatures hovered in the twenties. Brisk
biting wind swept down along the Susquehanna River penetrating even the
heaviest coats. Life had moved inside, but this was a boon for Victor: His
shindigs had become so well-known around campus that they are by invitation
only, a triumph for Victor’s social life and finances. Each party usually
cleared about $100, after beverages were factored in. During this time,
Victor’s chief source of anxiety had been keeping Sophie at bay and not getting
evicted. And yet Victor’s party enterprise ironically brought him closer to
Sophie’s own anxieties as he had to contend with his own irresponsible
“temporary tenants.” A recent party guest managed to smash the toilet so badly,
Victor had to fork over $300.00 for a replacement.

Then there was the little matter of the summons from
the Wilkes-Barre police for excessive noise and disturbing the peace; and if
Sophie thought Victor was hard to pin-down for his many transgressions, the
pseudo-anonymous party set that flowed in and out of Vic’s apartment was
impossible to bring to account. Yet the party money continued and outweighed
any other concerns for the present time. The spring semester looked even more
promising than the one just ended, at least socially.

“Do you really want to go into medicine Victor?”
asked a stern Dr. Grant, Victor’s academic advisor for his pre-med program.

“Well, I was always pretty good at biology and it
seems interesting …”

Dr. Grant quickly followed this rather weak
statement of intent with a rundown of Victor’s even weaker grades the past
semester.

“Victor, aptitude and potential are wonderful
things, but they have to translate into results. Did you know that sixty
percent of pre-med freshman end up doing something else?”

Victor, not quite sure if this was a rhetorical
question, just nodded his head in acknowledgement.

“Victor, the fact of the matter is that we have a
limited number of seats available in this department for pre-med. It’s a
competitive major. A lot of young people want to become doctors.”

Again Victor nodded, feeling increasingly ill at
ease with the direction this talk was taking.

“Look, I can’t justify allowing you to stay in the
program with these grades. I’m going to have to put you on academic probation
for next semester. Everything that is C has to come up to B, but the real
problem is the D’s and F’s. They have to come up to a C; and remember, no
medical college is going to look at you with a C average. You’ll have to have
at least a B average by your senior year.”

“Okay.” Victor managed to say in a tone that was
much more optimistic than he felt. “I understand, Dr. Grant. I know I can do it
if I just focus.”

“Yes, I’m sure you can,” said Dr. Grant, grateful to
have reached the end of the conversation.

He would be able to write in his file that a warning
had been issued. Along with the letter Victor had already been sent, the
inevitable end of the young man’s pre-med aspirations was no longer his
concern.

Victor left the handsome 19
^th
century
brick townhouse which housed the biology administration, with its high ceilings
and ornate moldings, the legacy of the town’s great coal barons, feeling oddly
relieved. Deep down he knew his current entertainment enterprise was at odds
with any chance of making it to medical school. Now that the prospect of
leaving the program was placed before him, he realized that he didn’t even
mind. Who wanted to be a doctor anyway? They worked crazy hours and were
confronted by the sick and dying. His father’s business seemed downright
pleasant in comparison. At least those people were dead, not gasping physical
wrecks looking at him to halt the inevitable. Perhaps he could become an
accountant or school teacher. The course work would be easier and the job much
more pleasant. By the time he reached his door, Victor was riding a new wave of
optimism.

You’re only young once, and if you waste it now
you can’t come back later and retrieve these days of freedom and glory,
he
mused to himself.

And so Victor’s second semester at Wilkes wasn’t
really any better than the first. For one thing, he was forced to space out his
parties so as not to run afoul of Sophie’s narrowing tolerance. There was
always the nagging thought that maybe he should turn over a new leaf and
actually spend a couple hours some nights studying. But Victor fundamentally
lacked the ability to sacrifice for long term goals. Clever as he was, he was a
‘carpe diem’ sort of guy. Vic could lose himself in many ways. There was
television, listening to music, phone calls, a little pot, and yes dates with
some of the girls. Time passes quickly when you are having fun. Just as the
weather was breaking with sunny days and new life all around outside, Victor
had to face the end of the second semester. He still had no idea what he was
going to do with his life, but it seems others did.

Dr. Grant, in an even shorter meeting than the last
time, told Victor matter-of-factly that he was out of biology and pre-med. He
could switch to another major, Dr. Grant suggested sociology or psychology, and
reapply to the program if his grade improved. In this scenario, Victor would be
unlikely to graduate within four years, but that wasn’t a problem for the
school.

When Victor saw his father’s car out front to pick
him up for Easter break, he mentally reviewed how he would sell his change of
heart about going to med school. By the time his slid into the passenger’s
seat, he felt fairly confident, that is until he heard his father’s cheerful
greeting.

“And how’s Dr. Kozol doing this fine spring
morning!”

“I’m not a doctor yet, Dad!” Victor managed as the car
left the city headed for Route 81, the highway that ran northeast towards
Duryea.

After asking about his father and the business
(good, plenty of business, i.e., death), Victor decided to work in his main
objective for this trip; convince his father that flunking out of the pre-med
program was a lifestyle choice and great career move.

“You know, Dad, one of the reasons I really wanted
to be a doctor was to help people.”

“Sure Victor, that’s a nice motivation.”

“But, in today’s world a lot of people have more
mental and emotional problems. I think I might be more interested in helping
people this way.”

“What, like as a psychiatrist?”

“I was thinking of something more in the line of
therapy. I’ve been reading a lot about it.”

“Yeah, but you don’t need to go to medical school
for that stuff.”

“I guess that’s it. I’m thinking of switching my
major to psychology.”

“What! Why even go to college! You’ll never get a
job with that!”

“That’s not true, Dad. There are lots of ways you
can apply a psychology degree.”

“I don’t know, in today’s economy …”

In the back of Victor’s father’s mind, he had
resigned himself to Victor running the family business after all. And who was
to say that psychology wouldn’t be a good way to prepare for it. At least the
boy would have a college degree.

Nothing was said to Victor’s mother over the Easter
weekend filled with her famous scalloped potatoes, ham, and pickled red beets.
Victor’s sister came home for the holiday and Victor was only too happy for the
distraction.

Vic finished up the semester ingloriously by having
failed only one course, biochemistry. Of this Victor was proud. Since he lived
in an apartment and not a student dorm, staying in Wilkes-Barre for the summer
was not a problem. Victor found a job at a local market.

So Vic went back to Wilkes, and as a sophomore was
able to stay in school as a C student, but he knew he would never get back into
pre-med. So he did what he always does, he went back to periods of lethargy
punctuated by bursts of energy in throwing and attending parties. Vic realized
he had to be more careful because Sophie was always vigilant from her
downstairs perch. He knows the days she went to her sister for a visit and
schedules his affairs accordingly. Vic actually skated through two more years
of college this way. But it was the end of his junior year when things came to
a head. Vic was spending even less time in a major he really had no interest
in. His grade point average plummeted to below a D and Vic was on his way to
being finished at Wilkes.

If this wasn’t bad enough, someone left the water
running in the tub during a party, which was full of ice and beer. It
overflowed and started to leak down into Sophie’s apartment. By the time it was
noticed, a section of her kitchen ceiling collapsed into two trays of pierogis
she had just made. Sophie ordered Vic and his roommate out, but only after
presenting him with a bill for $2,000 to replace a section of the ceiling and
clean up the mess. How to keep this dual disaster from his father was going to
be the greatest challenge of Vic’s life.