The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy (7 page)

“Don’t go all philosophical on me. We
definitely
need u-sub.”

“Does u-sub have anything to do with U-boats?”

“What does
u
equal? We’re never going to be able to integrate something so complicated without u-sub.”

“Or U-turns?”

“Frick, Luke. Help me, okay?” Why did Mrs. Garlop only lurk behind us when I was the one talking about math? I actually made sense. “What does
u
equal?”

“You equal gullible. Because kTV made up that stuff. They found tiny unrelated bits of footage, and they put them together to make a story line. To
create
a story line. Which is exactly what you’re doing. You’re holding like three pieces of a big jigsaw, and you think you know what the whole picture looks like.”

I thought about that while Luke doodled a giant infinity symbol.

“How would you know? You’re holding three of the pieces too.”

“Nope, I’ve got four. Because I read up on reality TV.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? You’re lecturing me because you spent some time on the Internet last bell?”

“Yep. I pulled a WiTSOOTT.” (“WiTSOOTT” is Selwyn slang, an acronym: Wikipedia The Shit Out Of That Thing.)

“Ugh.”

We finished the math problem. We probably got it wrong.

“Let’s go talk to BradLee,” I said.

“You think it’s to that point?”

“It’s to that point.”

“Are you just saying this because Maura Heldsman was portrayed as all trampy?”

“Of course not,” I said piously. “It’s because your articles
were rejected. Because we’re being censored. Because we’re being oppressed! Like the long poem stuff. We’re the indigent, I mean, indigenous people, and the corporation—”

“So yes. It’s because you can’t take seeing Maura with other guys.”

“Yeah.”

Luke and I split up to suffer through our last two classes: bio and American history for me, French and creative writing for him. At last the final bell rang and we met outside BradLee’s empty classroom. He was sitting with his head in his hands, either tired or woebegone. Unsurprising, as he’d just taught three sections of freshman English.

“Mr. Lee,” said Luke.

“Mr. Weston,” he said.

“We need to talk to you about something important.”

Here’s what Luke explained, as I nodded along:

Luke didn’t mention to BradLee that the only reason I cared was my infatuation with Maura Heldsman. He wasn’t a crappy friend. In fact, right then in the dim classroom, gesturing and
using big words in his Lukish way, he was a particularly excellent friend.

BradLee moved to sit on top of his desk.

“They’re taking over the school,” said Luke. “They’re colonizing us as a moneymaking venture. Education is a lost cause, art is a lost cause. All is reality. Nothing is real.”

That was Luke’s conclusion. He’d obviously written it during French.

BradLee went over to the door and flipped on the lights. When he came back, his eyes were sparkling as if he were about to cry. He shuffled around some papers on his desk. Luke and I exchanged a weirded-out glance.

“You’re right,” BradLee said finally. “They’re taking over. They’ll do anything to get more people watching, to raise that Nielsen rating. Selwyn is barely a school anymore.”

“It’s not
that
bad,” I said to cheer him up. I did not want to see BradLee cry. On the grand scale of people it’s awful to see cry, where a faraway baby is a 1 and your dad is a 10, BradLee would be up there at 8 or so.

“I didn’t expect this,” he said. Then he raised his head as if he’d suddenly remembered his audience. “You guys know the story of how I got this job, right?”

Oh man, this again? BradLee was obsessed with this story. “Tell us,” said Luke. We’d allow BradLee to soothe himself with his story.

“I was living in New York after college, working in finance. I hated it. One night, my friends and I went out to a bar called Pub of America.”

“Right.” We’d heard this before.

“Terrible food. But they did have a dartboard of the fifty states. I’m whining about my job, and my buddy goes, ‘Throw a dart. Go where it leads you.’ Given my darts prowess, it’s shocking that it even landed on the board. But it did. Right in the middle. Right here. And I began thinking, Is that a
sign
”

“Excellent use of the interrobang,” said Luke.

“Thanks,” said BradLee. “Remind me to tell you a funny story about interrobangs later. Where was I?”

“The dartboard,” I said.

“I figured, maybe I could be the first English major in the history of history to use the degree. I could teach high school in Minneapolis! And it even seemed like a good idea once I sobered up. Er, not that I was very drunk.”

It would take quite a lot of alcohol for me to leave New York, move to a flyover state, and teach comma rules to teenagers.

“And what do you know, I got hired. Five years later, I’ve fallen in love with this school. Arts, education, my colleagues, you guys.”

Thus endeth the most pointless story ever.

“And I guess the point is”—yes?—“the point is, I didn’t expect this.”

“The censorship?”

“Exactly. What’s next? Are they going to censor what we can teach, what we can discuss in class?” He was looking weepy again. “What have we done?”

“We are downtrodden but not dead,” pronounced Luke, clearly trying to rouse the troops.

“What have we done?”

“Subjugated but not squished.”

We
, I thought. Weird.

Luke pulled a dingy legal pad from his backpack. “Can I use that?” He was motioning toward the backup photocopier on the rear shelf.

Good distraction, I thought. When he’d made the copy, Luke handed it to BradLee.

“This is the start of my long poem,” said Luke. “You know, revisionary mythopoesis?”

Not that again. The one time I don’t pay attention in English. And now I was sentenced to the eternal torment of not understanding revisionary mytho-something-or-other.

“We need to reclaim our society and values and culture. Through art, of course.”

BradLee looked impressed.

“Tell me what you think. If you want to read it, I mean. It’s not that good.”

That sounded as fake as anything you’d hear on
For Art’s Sake
.

“Thanks, Luke.” BradLee’s voice was kind of squeaky. God, I thought, he’s really going to cry. Despite his happy little finding-myself story. Despite all our efforts.

“We better get going,” I said loudly. “Jackson’s got the Appelvan today. He’ll be waiting.”

“Mr. Lee,” said Luke, “you’re a villager just like us. You’re not in the power structure. You haven’t sold out. You’re a teacher, but you can still be part of this folk uprising.”

I wasn’t sure when writing a long poem turned into a folk uprising, but as we walked out to the parking lot, I didn’t question it. It was probably true. If Luke Weston wanted a folk uprising, he’d get one.

I was right.

This is how our friendship worked: Luke would get into something, and shortly thereafter I would too.

So a week later, I was obsessed with taking action against kTV, just like Luke. I was embroiled and enraged and energized. I remember going to Advanced Figure Drawing the next Monday and thinking that we’d fix this. We
had
to. It all depended on us.

Dr. Fern was roaming around the class as we settled ourselves in front of the drafting boards. “Get out your manikins, students,” she said.

“Free choice today?” asked Yvonne Waters. I always liked days when we got to arrange our little wooden manikins
in whatever pose we wanted. I’d done a whole series called “White People Dance Moves.”

“No.
Giselle
is opening soon, so we’ll focus on ballet poses.”

A few girls squealed. Too bad Elizabeth was in a different section of the class; I needed someone to exchange eye-rolls with. Dr. Fern put a slide show of some postures on repeat, and my manikin, whose name is Herbert, reluctantly assumed an arabesque.

“Look at the figure and find a new form,” Dr. Fern said in her calm, meditative way. “Find another shape to draw. Not a torso, not a leg. Something outside your symbol set.” Her voice was like a yoga teacher’s. Art class was one of my favorite times of day. I’m no Bronzino, but I like drawing. The times you don’t have to think are when you get in your best thinking.

It had been a crazy week. As soon as I bought into Luke’s idea that kTV was ruining the school, I found evidence everywhere. Like, when I eavesdropped on my classmates’ conversations? They were all about
For Art’s Sake
. You used to overhear people debating the merits of
Aida
versus
Rigoletto
. Or you’d walk down the hall and hear, “Dude, I
know
, Prokofiev is the
shit
.” But now? The subject of every conversation was reality TV.

Dr. Fern gave me a chuck on the back of my neck and I snapped back to attention.

“Pull his knee back,” she said, fussing with Herbert. “You need to forget this is a body. Focus only on the angle between back and leg.”

I started to sketch again. I was grateful to have an art teacher who actually taught, unlike, say, Ms. Gage, who
wafted around the classroom with her long gray hair held up by two paintbrushes, exhorting us to
feel
the lines, to
breathe
the shading. I still wasn’t good, but I’d gotten better in Dr. Fern’s class.

Part of that was because I drew during every Morning Practice these days, unless I had to cram for a private trumpet lesson. Not that there’d been much Morning Practice lately. It was supposed to be inviolate, ninety minutes of artistic freedom. Yet kTV would need background footage, so they’d barge into the studio just as you had hit that fugue state of cross-hatching, and Trisha Meier would be cussing out her cameramen, never dropping the toothy grin. Or they’d need audience shots, so we’d all be herded into the theater and have to watch Miki Frigging Reagler do a soft-shoe number six times, cheering and laughing on demand.

“They’re ruining the school,” I murmured to Herbert.

He looked balefully back at me.

“Luke’s right. Wait till I tell you about the
Selwyn Cantos—
”

Dr. Fern was walking toward me. “Ethan, I have a question. How are you going to get into a good art college if you can’t focus for an hour-long class?”

Dr. Fern, I have an answer. I’m not going to get into a good art college.

“Back leg needs to come out even farther. Now, sketch
quickly
. This is an exercise, not a masterpiece.”

Dr. Fern has always been kind enough to pretend I’m good at art. (Either that or she’s the most sarcastic person on the face of the earth.) I think Herbert knew the truth. Every time
Dr. Fern corrected his posture, I felt more kinship with him. He was like me, the hapless clunk amidst the graced.

What I’d been about to tell Herbert was that last Friday, an issue of the
Selwyn Cantos
had come out. It had made Luke froth at the mouth. Really. He’d been reading it over lunch, and he’d just taken a big gulp of milk when he hit the unsigned review of
For Art’s Sake
. He’d spurted bubbles of rage.

Once he’d controlled the milk situation, Luke read key phrases aloud. “ ‘
For Art’s Sake
is well made and gripping, with the allure of teenage stars devoted to making it in the most unmakeable professions of all.’ ” His face was becoming more dangerous with every sentence. “ ‘Heartthrob Miki Reagler steals the show with his adorable tap-dance routine—’ ”

“Heartthrob?” I said. I was clutching my fork like a spear.

“Here’s something for you, Ethan. ‘Foxy ballerina Maura Heldsman grabs attention with her
pas de deux
both on and off the stage.’ ”

“Foxy?” I sputtered.

“ ‘She’s a talented dancer who’s also talented at flashing her sass—’ ”

“Wait,” said Elizabeth. “Her
sass
, or her—”

“Because she doesn’t really have an—” added Jackson.

“Keep reading,” I said quickly.

“ ‘At her male comrades,’ ” said Luke, “ ‘who are without exception drawn to her and her promise of romance.’ ”

Jackson took the paper from Luke, who seemed to have
lost all muscular control. “This doesn’t read like a review for a school paper,” he said. “I don’t think a student wrote it.”

“The use of the word ‘foxy’ eliminates that possibility,” said Elizabeth.

“ ‘But the theme of the series is the enduring notion that art is worthwhile for the sake of art.’ Well, that’s just wrong,” said Jackson. “
FAS
is about social drama. Which means it’s about the artists, not the art. It’s art for the sake of life, not the converse.”