Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition (34 page)

So I guess maybe that’ll be the next step in evolution—to break clean like those first amphibians who crawled out of the mud into the sunshine, and who never did go back to the sea.

(1953)

I
T WAS SEVEN-THIRTY
in the morning. Waddling, clanking, muddy machines were tearing a hill to pieces behind a restaurant, and trucks were hauling the pieces away. Inside the restaurant, dishes rattled on their shelves. Tables quaked, and a very kind fat man with a headful of music looked down at the jiggling yolks of his breakfast eggs. His wife was visiting relatives out of town. He was on his own.

The kind fat man was George M. Helmholtz, a man of forty, head of the music department of Lincoln High School, and director of the band. Life had treated him well. Each year he dreamed the same big dream. He dreamed of leading as fine a band as there was on the face of the earth. And each year the dream came true.

It came true because Helmholtz was sure that a man couldn’t have a better dream than his. Faced by this unnerving sureness, Kiwanians, Rotarians, and Lions paid for band uniforms that cost twice as much as their best suits, school administrators let Helmholtz raid the budget for expensive props, and youngsters played their hearts out for him. When youngsters had no talent, Helmholtz made them play on guts alone.

Everything was good about Helmholtz’s life save his finances. He was so dazzled by his big dream that he was a child in the marketplace. Ten years before, he had sold the hill behind the restaurant to Bert Quinn, the restaurant owner, for
one thousand dollars. It was now apparent, even to Helmholtz, that Helmholtz had been had.

Quinn sat down in the booth with the bandmaster. He was a bachelor, a small, dark, humorless man. He wasn’t a well man. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t stop working, he couldn’t smile warmly. He had only two moods: one suspicious and self-pitying, the other arrogant and boastful. The first mood applied when he was losing money. The second mood applied when he was making it.

Quinn was in the arrogant and boastful mood when he sat down with Helmholtz. He sucked whistlingly on a toothpick, and talked of vision—his own.

“I wonder how many eyes saw the hill before I did?” said Quinn. “Thousands and thousands, I’ll bet—and not one saw what I saw. How many eyes?”

“Mine, at least,” said Helmholtz. All the hill had meant to him was a panting climb, free blackberries, taxes, and a place for band picnics.

“You inherit the hill from your old man, and it’s nothing but a pain in the neck to you,” said Quinn. “So you figure you’ll stick me with it.”

“I didn’t figure to stick you,” Helmholtz protested. “The good Lord knows the price was more than fair.”

“You say that now,” said Quinn gleefully. “Sure, Helmholtz, you say that now. Now you see the shopping district’s got to grow. Now you see what I saw.”

“Yes,” said Helmholtz. “Too late, too late.” He looked around for some diversion, and saw a fifteen-year-old boy coming toward him, mopping the aisle between booths.

The boy was small but with tough, stringy muscles standing out on his neck and forearms. Childhood lingered in his features, but when he paused to rest, his fingers went hopefully to the silky beginnings of sideburns and a mustache. He mopped like a robot, jerkily, brainlessly, but took pains not to splash suds over the toes of his black boots.

“So what do I do when I get the hill?” said Quinn. “I
tear it down, and it’s like somebody pulled down a dam. All of a sudden everybody wants to build a store where the hill was.”

“Um,” said Helmholtz. He smiled genially at the boy. The boy looked through him without a twitch of recognition.

“We all got something,” said Quinn. “You got music; I got vision.” And he smiled, for it was perfectly clear to both where the money lay. “Think big!” said Quinn. “Dream big! That’s what vision is. Keep your eyes wider open than anybody else’s.”

“That boy,” said Helmholtz, “I’ve seen him around school, but I never knew his name.”

Quinn laughed cheerlessly. “Billy the Kid? The storm trooper? Rudolph Valentino? Flash Gordon?” He called the boy.… “Hey, Jim! come here a minute.”

Helmholtz was appalled to see that the boy’s eyes were as expressionless as oysters.

“This is my brother-in-law’s kid by another marriage—before he married my sister,” said Quinn. “His name’s Jim Donnini, and he’s from the south side of Chicago, and he’s very tough.”

Jim Donnini’s hands tightened on the mop handle.

“How do you do?” said Helmholtz.

“Hi,” said Jim emptily.

“He’s living with me now,” said Quinn. “He’s my baby now.”

“You want a lift to school, Jim?”

“Yeah, he wants a lift to school,” said Quinn. “See what you make of him. He won’t talk to me.” He turned to Jim. “Go on, kid, wash up and shave.”

Robotlike, Jim marched away.

“Where are his parents?”

“His mother’s dead. His old man married my sister, walked out on her, and stuck her with him. Then the court didn’t like the way she was raising him, and put him in foster homes for a while. Then they decided to get him clear out of
Chicago, so they stuck me with him.” He shook his head. “Life’s a funny thing, Helmholtz.”

“Not very funny, sometimes,” said Helmholtz. He pushed his eggs away.

“Like some whole new race of people coming up,” said Quinn wonderingly. “Nothing like the kids we got around here. Those boots, the black jacket—and he won’t talk. He won’t run around with the other kids. Won’t study. I don’t think he can even read and write very good.”

“Does he like music at all? Or drawing? Or animals?” said Helmholtz. “Does he collect anything?”

“You know what he likes?” said Quinn. “He likes to polish those boots—get off by himself and polish those boots. And when he’s really in heaven is when he can get off by himself, spread comic books all around him on the floor, polish his boots, and watch television.” He smiled ruefully. “Yeah, he had a collection too. And I took it away from him and threw it in the river.”

“Threw it in the river?” said Helmholtz.

“Yeah,” said Quinn. “Eight knives—some with blades as long as your hand.”

Helmholtz paled. “Oh.” A prickling sensation spread over the back of his neck. “This is a new problem at Lincoln High. I hardly know what to think about it.” He swept spilled salt together in a neat little pile, just as he would have liked to sweep together his scattered thoughts. “It’s a kind of sickness, isn’t it? That’s the way to look at it?”

“Sick?” said Quinn. He slapped the table. “You can say that again!” He tapped his chest. “And Doctor Quinn is just the man to give him what’s good for what ails him.”

“What’s that?” said Helmholtz.

“No more talk about the poor little sick boy,” said Quinn grimly. “That’s all he’s heard from the social workers and the juvenile court, and God knows who all. From now on, he’s the no-good bum of a man. I’ll ride his tail till he straightens up
and flies right or winds up in the can for life. One way or the other.”

“I see,” said Helmholtz.

·    ·    ·

“Like listening to music?” said Helmholtz to Jim brightly, as they rode to school in Helmholtz’s car.

Jim said nothing. He was stroking his mustache and sideburns, which he had not shaved off.

“Ever drum with the fingers or keep time with your feet?” said Helmholtz. He had noticed that Jim’s boots were decorated with chains that had no function but to jingle as he walked.

Jim sighed with ennui.

“Or whistle?” said Helmholtz. “If you do any of those things, it’s just like picking up the keys to a whole new world—a world as beautiful as any world can be.”

Jim gave a soft Bronx cheer.

“There!” said Helmholtz. “You’ve illustrated the basic principle of the family of brass wind instruments. The glorious voice of every one of them starts with a buzz on the lips.”

The seat springs of Helmholtz’s old car creaked under Jim, as Jim shifted his weight. Helmholtz took this as a sign of interest, and he turned to smile in comradely fashion. But Jim had shifted his weight in order to get a cigarette from inside his tight leather jacket.

Helmholtz was too upset to comment at once. It was only at the end of the ride, as he turned into the teachers’ parking lot, that he thought of something to say.

“Sometimes,” said Helmholtz, “I get so lonely and disgusted, I don’t see how I can stand it. I feel like doing all kinds of crazy things, just for the heck of it—things that might even be bad for me.”

Jim blew a smoke ring expertly.

“And then!” said Helmholtz. He snapped his fingers and honked his horn. “And then, Jim, I remember I’ve got at least
one tiny corner of the universe I can make just the way I want it! I can go to it and gloat over it until I’m brand-new and happy again.”

“Aren’t you the lucky one?” said Jim. He yawned.

“I am, for a fact,” said Helmholtz. “My corner of the universe happens to be the air around my band. I can fill it with music. Mr. Beeler, in zoology, has his butterflies. Mr. Trottman, in physics, has his pendulum and tuning forks. Making sure everybody has a corner like that is about the biggest job we teachers have. I—”

The car door opened and slammed, and Jim was gone. Helmholtz stamped out Jim’s cigarette and buried it under the gravel of the parking lot.

·    ·    ·

Helmholtz’s first class of the morning was C Band, where beginners thumped and wheezed and tooted as best they could, and looked down the long, long, long road through ? Band to A Band, the Lincoln High School Ten Square Band, the finest band in the world.

Helmholtz stepped onto the podium and raised his baton. “You are better than you think,” he said. “A-one, a-two, a-three.” Down came the baton.

C Band set out in its quest for beauty—set out like a rusty switch engine, with valves stuck, pipes clogged, unions leaking, bearings dry.

Helmholtz was still smiling at the end of the hour, because he’d heard in his mind the music as it was going to be someday. His throat was raw, for he had been singing with the band for the whole hour. He stepped into the hall for a drink from the fountain.

As he drank, he heard the jingling of chains. He looked up at Jim Donnini. Rivers of students flowed between classrooms, pausing in friendly eddies, flowing on again. Jim was alone. When he paused, it wasn’t to greet anyone, but to polish the toes of his boots on his trousers legs. He had the air of a spy
in a melodrama, missing nothing, liking nothing, looking forward to the great day when everything would be turned upside down.

“Hello, Jim,” said Helmholtz. “Say, I was just thinking about you. We’ve got a lot of clubs and teams that meet after school. And that’s a good way to get to know a lot of people.”

Jim measured Helmholtz carefully with his eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to know a lot of people,” he said. “Ever think of that?” He set his feet down hard to make his chains jingle as he walked away.

When Helmholtz returned to the podium for a rehearsal of ? Band, there was a note waiting for him, calling him to a special faculty meeting.

The meeting was about vandalism.

Someone had broken into the school and wrecked the office of Mr. Crane, head of the English Department. The poor man’s treasures—books, diplomas, snapshots of England, the beginnings of eleven novels—had been ripped and crumpled, mixed, dumped and trampled, and drenched with ink.

Helmholtz was sickened. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t bring himself to think about it. It didn’t become real to him until late that night, in a dream. In the dream Helmholtz saw a boy with barracuda teeth, with claws like baling hooks. The monster climbed into a window of the high school and dropped to the floor of the band rehearsal room. The monster clawed to shreds the heads of the biggest drum in the state. Helmholtz woke up howling. There was nothing to do but dress and go to the school.

·    ·    ·

At two in the morning, Helmholtz caressed the drum heads in the band rehearsal room, with the night watchman looking on. He rolled the drum back and forth on its cart, and he turned the light inside on and off, on and off. The drum was unharmed. The night watchman left to make his rounds.

The band’s treasure house was safe. With the contentment
of a miser counting his money, Helmholtz fondled the rest of the instruments, one by one. And then he began to polish the sousaphones. As he polished, he could hear the great horns roaring, could see them flashing in the sunlight, with the Stars and Stripes and the banner of Lincoln High going before.

“Yump-yump, tiddle-tiddle, yump-yump, tiddle-tiddle!” sang Helmholtz happily. “Yump-yump-yump, ra-a-a-a-a-a, yump-yump, yump-yump—boom!”

As he paused to choose the next number for his imaginary band to play, he heard a furtive noise in the chemistry laboratory next door. Helmholtz sneaked into the hall, jerked open the laboratory door, and flashed on the lights. Jim Donnini had a bottle of acid in either hand. He was splashing acid over the periodic table of the elements, over the blackboards covered with formulas, over the bust of Lavoisier. The scene was the most repulsive thing Helmholtz could have looked upon.

Jim smiled with thin bravado.

“Get out,” said Helmholtz.

“What’re you gonna do?” said Jim.

“Clean up. Save what I can,” said Helmholtz dazedly. He picked up a wad of cotton waste and began wiping up the acid.

“You gonna call the cops?” said Jim.

“I—I don’t know,” said Helmholtz. “No thoughts come. If I’d caught you hurting the bass drum, I think I would have killed you with a single blow. But I wouldn’t have had any intelligent thoughts about what you were—what you thought you were doing.”

“It’s about time this place got set on its ear,” said Jim.

“Is it?” said Helmholtz. “That must be so, if one of our students wants to murder it.”

“What good is it?” said Jim.

“Not much good, I guess,” said Helmholtz. “It’s just the best thing human beings ever managed to do.” He was helpless, talking to himself. He had a bag of tricks for making boys behave like men—tricks that played on boyish fears and dreams
and loves. But here was a boy without fear, without dreams, without love.