Language Arts (34 page)

The class format was simple and unvarying: Mrs. Braxton greeted the children as they got settled and then directed them to open their textbooks to the day's lesson, which had titles like “Story Basics: Protagonist and Problem,” “Conflict: The Heart of Story,” and “Character Attributes: Dreamers and Doers.” They began by reading a story aloud, one paragraph at a time, going around the circle so that everyone got a turn; this was followed by a discussion of the accompanying study questions, vocabulary words, and concepts.

The stories themselves weren't that great—Charles still preferred the fantastic narratives and characters of comic books and sci-fi/horror movies—but they weren't bad either,
Reader's Digest
–type excerpts from English-language classics like
Huckleberry Finn,
Uncle Tom's Cabin,
even
Moby-Dick.
More and more, he found himself looking forward to Language Arts.

There were never any tests, and there was a definite sense that Language Arts class questions didn't have right or wrong answers.

In your opinion,
what makes a character heroic?

Who are the heroes in your life? Do you consider yourself to be a hero? Why or why not?

What does it mean to be a dreamer? What does it mean to be a doer? Which are you?

What is an example of an internal conflict? What is an example of an external conflict? In your opinion, which kind of conflict makes for the best kind of story?

What is a climax? Give an example of a climax in a story you've read or a movie you've seen.

Have you ever wanted something really badly? Was there something in the way of getting what you wanted? How far would you go to get something you really want?

The other great surprise of Language Arts was Mrs. Braxton herself. A completely different side of her personality emerged during those thirty minutes; she was calm, relaxed, congenial—more like a tea-party hostess than a despot.

A protagonist is someone you root for.
Pro
= “for, in favor of.”

An antagonist is the protagonist's enemy.
Anti
= “against, opposed to.”

Astrida raised her hand. “Why isn't it
anti-agonist
?”

“What a good question, Astrida!” Mrs. Braxton replied. “I can't say that I know the answer to that . . .” She shrugged, sighed, and added with obvious fondness, “Ah, well. You will find, children, that this English language of ours is full of idiosyncrasies.”

The best and brightest had no idea what
idiosyncrasies
meant, nor did they care; they were too busy being bowled over by the fact that Mrs. Braxton had just admitted to a roomful of fourth-graders that she didn't know everything.

Describe yourself using the prefixes
pro-
and
anti-
.

I am pro-American! I am anti-Communist! I am pro-math! I am anti–fish sticks!

Sometimes the discussions got a little rowdy, but Mrs. Braxton did nothing to squelch the enthusiasm so long as the children took turns, raised their hands, and listened with open minds to everyone's opinion. She actually appeared
happy
—even happier than when Charles produced a perfect row of Palmer loops. What a
relief
it was to know that he and Mr. Austin Norman Palmer weren't the only sources of pleasure in Mrs. Braxton's life.

Language Arts remained enjoyable right up to the Friday when class began not with a story but with Mrs. Braxton instructing the children to turn to page 60 and read aloud the guidelines listed under “Unit One Assignment: Writing Your First Short Story.”

“But . . . what is our story supposed to be
about?
” Astrida asked.

Mrs. Braxton smiled, tolerantly. “Well, one of the things we all seem to agree on is that good stories feature an extraordinary protagonist, so why don't you begin there?” Astrida opened her mouth to protest, but Mrs. Braxton held up her hand and addressed the group at large. “Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time.”

It was at that moment Charles realized there was a downside to questions that had no right or wrong answers.

He and Dana continued to meet in the lunchroom, peeling icing and practicing unusual approaches to the Palmer Method, but as the days passed and Charles remained unable to come up with an
extraordinary protagonist,
he left Language Arts class feeling worried and often arrived at Dana's table subdued and preoccupied.

Dana seemed to sense this, and he began bringing a new fervency to their noontime lessons. “Let's make
loopuhzzz!
” he suggested. And by
loopuhzzz
he meant any kind of writing.

“Okay. Try this.” Charles demonstrated. “Start to make a regular loop, so go up, but then stop at the top, and when you come back down, don't let the loop be fat. Make it skinny.”

“Ha! Not fat,” Dana stage-whispered, “like Mrs. Braxton.”

“Then put a dot up here, like . . . a cherry on a sundae.”

“Or a sun.”

“Son?”

“Sun!” Dana repeated happily. He added a series of jagged lines. “See?”

“Oh, right,” Charles replied, but he wasn't seeing the sun. The addition of Dana's zigzags emanating from the dot instead reminded him of the RKO radio tower at the start of one of his favorite horror movies,
The Thing.
Donnie Bothwell was the person who'd informed him that the weird clicking noise accompanying the image of the radio tower wasn't part of the movie soundtrack but Morse code spelling out
An RKO Radio Picture.
Donnie had a merit badge in Signaling.

“I'll try now!” Dana proclaimed.

He inscribed his version of a lowercase
i,
going slowly and smoothly through the up-down part, and then executing the dot by stabbing at the paper as if wielding an épée. His aim wasn't perfect, but he had the right idea. He practiced making more
i'
s, soon filling another page in his Big Chief drawing tablet. Charles made a mental note to bring another one to school soon; Dana went through them so quickly.

Dana had come a long way with his penmanship—but he only demonstrated this when the two of them were alone together in the cafeteria. Charles always wondered why Dana never revealed to Mrs. Braxton, or the rest of the children in room 104, how good he could be.

To keep himself busy while Dana practiced, Charles started making a list:
it, is, in, if, ill . . .

“What you do?” Dana asked. Simple dots had become too boring; he'd taken to topping his
i'
s with energetically scribbled orbs that were the size of dimes.

Inch, itch . . .
“Huh?”

Dana continued. “In that class. What you do in that class when you go away with
Ass
-trid?”

IQ, idea, Iron Man . . .

“You mean Language Arts?”

“Yes, that place you go with the other smart kids.”

“I'm not smart,” Charles replied.
Invisible, instant, insane . . .

“Yes you
are
smart, Char-Lee. You best at
loopuhz
. Better than Brax the Ax!”

Invincible, interior, interrupt
. . .
Charles thought about telling Dana that just because he could make loops didn't mean he was smart, but he had a feeling it would hurt Dana's feelings.

Intelligence.

“We're supposed to write a story.”

“Supposed to write a story. Supposed to write a story about what?”

“I don't know. That's the problem. A hero. Somebody special. Somebody you root for . . . I can't think of anything good to write about.”

“You'll think of something, Char-Lee,” Dana said, giving a final spiraling flourish to a dot that was the size of a half-dollar. “You'll think of something good to write about for your story. I root for
you
.”

•♦•

The collaborators do not speak to each other; they do not look each other in the eye; their time together is limited to thirty minutes twice a week. They sit side by side behind a white trifold screen that will gradually be transformed through their efforts. Sometimes they finish a particular section in only two sessions; sometimes it takes longer.

Mrs. D'Amati arrives. She might gesture to Romy, in which case Romy delivers magazines, scissors, and adhesives; she might prefer solitude, and on those occasions Giorgia busies herself inscribing long rows of loops, up-down, and bedspring ovals on any of the many textures and colors of plain paper made available to her. She might do a little of both activities during the hour she works alone. By her choice of pictures, Mrs. D'Amati determines the theme of these constructions.

When Cody arrives, he walks quickly to Mrs. D'Amati's table, sits next to her at a distance of about four feet, and starts tearing whatever is available: magazines, Mrs. D'Amati's practice pages. Romy is there to help; she glues the scissored bits and torn strips to the screen as directed.

At some point in every class, Mrs. D'Amati makes at least one attempt to get Cody to take up a pen or pencil and write; he refuses these overtures.

Mrs. D'Amati leaves. Cody keeps going.

The end result: large triptych collages jam-packed with alternating stripes of color and text—irregularly shaped images and bits of handwriting.

Babies and mothers, fathers and daughters, baked goods, flowers, churches, fields, teachers and students, soldiers, sisters, and all things bridal: dresses, gloves, veils, ribbons, shoes, bouquets, and kissing couples.

Anyone who looks closely begins to suspect that buried within this visual cacophony are heroes and villains; comedies; tragedies; commingled mysteries waiting to be solved.

The Youngs, the Gurnees, and Charles and Alison gathered at the Pinehurst house at eight o'clock in the morning; the plan for the weekend was to put in two ten-hour days.

As soon as everyone arrived, Alison presented them all with copies of her
SUGGESTED DIVISION OF LABOR
list. There were three major tasks that needed doing in advance of the upcoming deliveries: repainting all the rooms with zero–volatile-organic-compound paint, pulling up the old stained and mildewed carpeting throughout the house, and deep cleaning with an assortment of nontoxic products.

It turned out that Ted Gurnee was a handy sort of fellow with a varied skill set. He seemed to know a little about everything related to construction: electricity, plumbing, carpentry. He was also meticulous and detail-minded, someone who obviously thrived on
sweating the small stuff
and so was forever finding small, noncritical, but still (in his mind at least) important tasks—none of which were on Alison's list.

Within a few hours, it was obvious that Ted's preoccupations with things like polishing door hardware to a high gloss and acquiring matching switch-plate covers were driving Alison crazy.
Ted,
she kept saying,
I think it's more important right now that we focus on accomplishing the large, overarching jobs; there will be plenty of time later for small projects,
to which Ted always replied,
Oh, absolutely, I agree, this won't take long at all, I'll be done in ten minutes,
a sure indication that whatever it was would take at least an hour and a half and involve several unscheduled trips to Home Depot.

Ted's affable cluelessness when it came to Alison's management style caused Charles to develop a certain fondness for him; he began acting as Ted's ad hoc apprentice, accompanying him on his hardware-store jaunts, pairing up with him once they returned, taking lessons in Wiring and Plumbing 101, often in direct violation of Alison's work assignments. In addition to enjoying Ted's company, Charles found it perversely rewarding, thwarting Alison in this way, seeing the look on her face every time he made his own decision about what to do and when to do it.

Although Charles had written a brief note of apology—

Dear Alison, I'm sorry if my comments about your conversion activities upset you and/or seemed insensitive. I hope becoming a Jew brings you every happiness. Mazel tov. Sincerely, C.

—she hadn't responded, and he could tell that she was still angry. Her phony cordiality in front of the others riled him, inciting what he knew to be a completely immature desire to aggravate, but in Charles's opinion he had as much of a right to immaturity in this situation as she did.

Of course, they'd have plenty of time to argue over the coming week, if they chose: the Youngs and the Gurnees had traditional jobs, but Charles (on vacation) and Alison (self-employed) could work at the house from eight to five Monday through Friday, adding to their labors the roles of contractor managers and shipment-receiving clerks.

On Monday, Charles made a point of arriving half an hour early. Alison wasn't the only one who had a key. He was already pulling up staples in the living-room floor when she arrived. They did not greet each other.

The house was large; it was easy enough to stay separated as the week wore on. The delivery people and contractors came and went; Charles let Alison handle them.

Midweek, Charles started to wonder where Alison's beau was during all this. If he was such an important character in her life, why the hell wasn't he
here,
helping?

He decided to ask.

“Where's your friend?”

“My friend?”

“That guy you've been seeing.”

“You mean my
fiancé?
”

“Yes. Him.”

“You're asking now? After all this time?”

About an hour later, she sought him out in the basement, where he was scrubbing down the concrete floor, and added, “He's in California, teaching a weeklong aikido intensive.”

Charles wondered why Steven/Jackie/Jean-Claude had to go all the way to California; it was plenty intense right here.