The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (3 page)

“Without a fight?” Deirdre Fitzgerald frowned.

“There was one,” Baines said. “It was a doozy. But she’s going to have to tell you about that. So far as the record shows, Karen left this school on excellent terms with the principal. She has a grand letter of recommendation from the book killer.”

“Sounds like they must have struck some kind of bargain,” Deirdre Fitzgerald said. “But what?”

Nora Baines laughed. “I am sworn to say no more. I’ve probably said too much already. But I did not want you to think that Karen was a wimp. She came through in the end. She came through beautifully.”

Deirdre Fitzgerald put her fingers together and pressed hard. “And now … it’s my turn, I suppose.”

“Gordon’s pretty mad,” Barney said as he, Luke, and Kate walked down the front steps that afternoon after their last class. “But he’s missing the point. That’s the way people talked then. Mark Twain is just showing the way it was.”

“We all know the way it was,” Kate said sharply. “That doesn’t mean Gordon and the other black kids have to have ‘nigger’ shoved in their faces on every page.”

“Some people are too damn sensitive,” Luke said. “Nobody’s calling
them
that. The book was written a long time ago.”

“Just like a dumb Swede.” Kate looked at him.

“Now that’s different.” Luke smiled. “You’re making it personal. But I don’t mind, honey.”

“You watch that!” Kate glared at him and then suddenly smiled. “Okay, you’re entitled. But I’ll tell you
guys something else. That’s not all that’s poisonous about
Huckleberry Finn
. I read the whole thing last night. All the women in it are yo-yos. You’ll see. No, maybe you won’t. In fact, I’m sure you won’t. This book is just going to reinforce your ignorance about women.”

Striding past them, Mr. Moore waved heartily.

“And don’t you tell me”—Kate pointed to Barney as he waved back at the principal—“that’s the way it was then. There were plenty of women in the nineteenth century who were strong and brilliant and talked back to stupid men. And who weren’t always going around saying ‘nigger,’ like the women in that book.”

“Are you saying,” Barney said softly, “that we ought to take all the copies of
Huckleberry Finn
and make a bonfire out of them?”

“Crude. Sometimes you are very crude,” Kate said. “What I am saying is that Mrs. Baines could have picked a book that isn’t so offensive, that isn’t so—so crude.”

“Honey,” Luke said, “you just did a great selling job. Now I can’t wait to read that book. Nothing I like better than something that’s real offensive. Keeps me awake.”

“Do you find it’s really worth all that effort?” Kate started to walk away. “Staying awake, I mean.”

“Do you know what’s the matter with her?” Luke said to Barney as they walked in the opposite direction. “She takes everything so damn seriously. She never has any fun.”

“That’s
her fun,” Barney said. “Sticking pins in people. And sometimes she has a good sharp point. But not this time. Still, I like her. She keeps
me
awake.”

“Because she’s so offensive?” Luke grinned.

“I wouldn’t put it that way.” Barney, turning around, watched Kate crossing the campus. “I wouldn’t put it that way at all.”

   One wall of the principal’s office was covered with framed photographs—all of them with himself, smiling, standing next to a visiting dignitary. There were at least half a dozen shots of Mr. Moore with the mayor of the town—a small, glowing man who had first been elected to that office before the students at George Mason High were born. Several governors were on the wall, along with judges who had also spoken at school assemblies. And there were a number of authors. You could tell they were authors because they were always giving Mr. Moore a book. Sometimes the book was upside down, but neither the principal nor the author seemed to mind.

There was even a Hollywood star on that wall. John Wayne. Years ago he had been making a movie in the town, and Mr. Moore had asked him to come talk to the students. Nobody seemed to remember much of what he had said, but everybody was very proud and pleased that Mr. Wayne had actually been inside George Mason High. Almost everybody. In the back of the hall, a few students—this was during the Vietnam War—
had been carrying signs asking John Wayne if he preferred his Vietnamese babies baked or fried.

A bunch of students and faculty members tore the signs down and hustled the troublemakers outside. The principal had apologized to Mr. Wayne. But Duke—that was his nickname—standing up there so big and so calm, he said he didn’t mind those noisy students. That’s the American way, Duke said—speaking your mind even if there’s nothing in it. He got a big cheer for that.

Looking at the wall the morning that Mr. McLean was due for his
Huckleberry Finn
appointment, it occurred to Mr. Moore that practically all the photographs were of whites. There were a couple of black ministers; the president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; a young black soprano who had won a regional competition but had then sunk like a stone; and a once and former black member of the school board. But that was about it.

Mr. Moore was wondering whether anyone in the social studies department had a large photograph of Martin Luther King, but he dropped the idea. It would look phony—the only photograph on the wall without himself in it. Maybe he could say he’d been sick that day. No, too curious a coincidence. Well, he must invite more black speakers. There was certainly an imbalance on that wall. It would take a while to make it ten percent black, but that was a sound goal. Mr. Moore felt good at having made this affirmative-action decision.

He looked at his watch, frowned, and wished he had
made that decision some time ago. There was a knock at the door.

“Yes, Rena?” Mr. Moore said.

His secretary opened the door. “Mr. McLean to see you.”

   Carl McLean had done all of the talking, occasionally nodding to his son, first to supply a page reference, and then
Huckleberry Finn
itself—from which Mr. McLean would then read in a firm, angry voice. At least, the principal was thinking, the black parent had not seemed to pay any particular attention to the wall of photographs.

“It is not only the profusion, the infestation of the word ‘nigger’ in this book,” Carl McLean continued. “I have shown you more than enough of that. Every time a black child sees that word, it is an insult, a profound insult. But underneath all these insults, of course, is the utterly barbarous attitude toward black people this epithet reflects. Gordon, that dialogue about the accident on the steamboat—”

“Page one ninety-three, Dad.” Gordon handed his father the copy of
Huckleberry Finn.”

“They are talking about an accident”—Carl McLean looked at the principal, who was raptly following his every word—“and there is this dialogue:

“ ‘We blowed out a cylinder head.’

“ ‘Good gracious! Anybody hurt?’

“ ‘No’m. Killed a nigger.’

“ ‘Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.’ ”

The father closed the book and gave it back to his son. “Now,” Carl McLean said, “there is no question that’s the way most whites felt about blacks at the time. And if the truth be told, at the present time as well. But is that suitable material for a classroom where the young are presumably being educated to become, at long last, civilized in matters of race?”

“Well”—Mr. Moore cleared his throat—“it’s been a long time since I read
Huckleberry Finn
myself. I guess I was about Gordon’s age”—he smiled at the student, who did not smile back—“when I had to read it for school too. I did refresh my recollection of it, to some extent, last night; and while I am no scholar in the American novel, the possibility occurs to me that Mark Twain was expressing disapproval of racial bigotry in that passage.”

Leaning forward, Carl McLean pointed at the book in his son’s lap and then at the principal. “On that page there is not a line, not a word, of disapproval of the concept that black people are not human. Not from any of the characters. Not from the narrator, Finn. And nowhere else in the book is there any disapproval of the use of the word ‘nigger’ or of the diseased state of mind of those who use that word.”

“But surely,” Mr. Moore said soothingly, “in class discussion, Ms. Baines, an excellent teacher, and certainly a person without a speck of prejudice—”

“Now listen—” Carl McLean put a finger on the principal’s desk. “I have no doubt that the teacher will say the right thing about how badly those white folks treated blacks. But let me tell you something, sir. What is going to stay in the minds of these kids, white and black, is: ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger.’ And they are also going to remember the ignorance and superstition of the so-called sympathetic black character, ‘Nigger Jim,’ as well as the ignorance and superstition of every other black, without exception, in this book.”

Gordon McLean was nodding vigorously at every point made by his father, who continued: “Mr. Twain was one hell of a good writer. That’s why this book is still alive. So it doesn’t much matter what a teacher says about it, how she explains it. The book speaks very powerfully for itself. And what it keeps saying is ‘nigger.’ ”

Carl McLean rose. “Let me lay it right on the line, Mr. Moore. I do not want my son, or any other black child, to have to hear in a classroom, day after day, ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger.’ It’s demeaning and degrading and, if you will excuse me,
stupid
on the part of whoever selected that book. I believe I have made myself clear, and I expect the book will be pulled out of the course. Immediately!”

The principal also rose. “I hear you,” he said. “I hear you loud and clear, Mr. McLean. And certainly, any parent who feels that strongly that a particular book is not right for his child—”

“Come on, Mr. Moore. I know what you’re going to say, but I said
any
black child. Not just Gordon. No, that won’t work—excusing only my son from having to read the book. It wouldn’t be fair, in any case, because that book is a basic part of the course. If Gordon doesn’t read it, he’s going to know only part of what everybody else is studying. And on the other hand, for God’s sake, they’ll be talking about that book in class. What is Gordon supposed to do—hold his hands over his ears? There is only one thing you can do, Mr. Moore.
Huckleberry Finn
has to be
eliminated!”

Carl McLean waved a finger at the principal. “And it has to be eliminated not only from the curriculum. That book cannot be allowed to remain in the school library for any child who may come upon it. You yourself said that your teacher would interpret the book correctly, and I pointed out that no amount of interpretation can undo the harm of that book’s language. But for the sake of argument, suppose you have a point. All the more reason to remove the book from the
library
, where a child just picks it up, reads it—figuring it’s okay because it’s in the school—and gets no interpretation from anybody. That way the book is guaranteed to do harm.
Huckleberry Finn
has no proper place
anywhere
in George Mason High School.”

“Mr. McLean,” said the principal, “I very much appreciate your coming in this morning. We want to know, we need to know, our parents’ concerns about the school. After all, you are our employers. On this particular
matter, you will appreciate that I have to consult with the faculty and librarian, but I can assure you that this will all be done swiftly, and I shall be in touch with you very shortly.”

“Give me a date,” Carl McLean said.

“A week from today at the latest. You have my word.”

“You understand”—McLean stared at him—“that I am not bargaining. Either the book goes, or there will be a mobilization of a good many parents besides myself.”

Mr. Moore held out his hand. “Again, I hear you. It has been a pleasure meeting with you.”

McLean just barely shook the principal’s hand, motioned to his son to get up, and said at the door, jerking his thumb toward the wall of photographs, “Sure aren’t many blacks up there. Maybe you ought to put up a group picture of the kitchen and custodial staff. That’d balance it out some.”

The next morning, zooming down the corridor toward a class that had somehow started without him, Gordon McLean, seeing Nora Baines approaching, slowed just enough to proclaim, “Huck Finn is dead!
Dead! Dead!”
and sailed on.

“What on earth?” She looked after him, shook her head, and was about to go on when Maggie Crowley, a lanky, cheerful-looking woman in her late twenties, came around the corner.

Normally Baines kept her distance from Maggie Crowley, being suspicious of anyone in constant good spirits, particularly anyone teaching at George Mason High School. “You’ve got to be deaf, dumb, and blind, or loony,” Baines had told Deirdre Fitzgerald, “to walk around like she does with a smile all the time.” However, Baines had recently acquired a certain respect for Crowley. Maggie had not only created a new course,
American Problems, for this new school year, but had actually gotten the principal to approve it despite the controversies its guest speakers might stir up.

Crowley had worked on Mr. Moore all last spring; and he had finally given her a go-ahead only after having exacted a pledge that, as the principal put it, “Every single controversial subject—which means everything you will be covering in this course—must be dealt with objectively. It is your responsibility to see that
all
sides are fairly presented.”

“How did you get him to even consider going for it?” Nora Baines had asked last May when the approval came through.

“Mighty Mike came to realize, with a lot of nudging from me”—Maggie had laughed—“that through the guest speakers, this would be a way to appease those parents who keep complaining that their kids only get the ‘liberal’ point of view on everything. From the textbooks and the teachers, and what not.

“There’s some truth to that, you know,” Maggie had said. “Nobody at George Mason teaches that the earth is flat or that the poor should all be sterilized or that the only way to deal with Russia is to cremate it. Though, from what I hear in the teachers’ lounge, some of our colleagues do believe in one or more of the above. They just don’t teach it.