Now, Little Big Tom had said, or rather mimed, that Pride and Prejudice was “brutal,” and I knew what he meant, but in the end, I found I didn’t quite agree. I mean, I could not be less interested in the trials and tribulations of silly families trying to marry off their silly daughters to silly rich guys in silly olde England. But once you got used to their strange way of talking, it was actually pretty funny in places, like the author was kind of subtly making fun of the characters and their weird, awkward, money-grubbing world. Most of all, though, there was something impressive and, I don’t know, satisfying about how the sentences would go off in all sorts of different directions and then manage to land everything safely and with a kind of unexpected neatness right at the end. This chick was a good writer, better than a truckload of Pynchons and Salingers. If only she hadn’t chosen such a lame subject. If she had written about, say, spies, or juvenile delinquents, or ghosts, or hobbits, or space worms, or even about paranoid druggies who think garbage cans are mailboxes, there’d have been no stopping her.
Seeing my dad through this book’s eyes, or even imagining he had read it, wasn’t happening, obviously. I didn’t even try. This definitely put the book in the second tier as far as I was concerned, but you know: they can’t all be Brighton Rock.
So yeah, not my thing, really, except for the sentences. But as I’ve said, females seem to like it a lot, as I learned when the book fell out of my backpack during lunch on the Quad with the “pep band” people, and the girls around who saw it kind of shrieked and started mumbling “Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy,” like they couldn’t help themselves. That’s what they always do when this book is mentioned. Try mentioning it around some girls sometime and see. (Mr. Darcy is the name of the ten-thousand-a-year rich guy who’s kind of a dick.)
“Why are you reading that?” said this near-normal girl named (kidding you not) Blossom van Kinkle, in an accusing yet mildly amused tone. That was unfortunate, as she was probably the second- or third-hottest girl in the “pep band,” and truth be told, I’d been hoping I could, somehow, take advantage of my current neutral status and apply the secrets of women revealed in such a way as to induce her to enter into a ramoning-type situation with me. I could feel my precious neutral status, and any chance at ramoning anyone, draining away rapidly as it began to dawn on all in the vicinity, band people though they were, that I was some kind of book reader.
This was not good, the most King Dork moment I’d had since my time at Clearview began.
I guess it’s a pretty unusual book for a guy to read, but it’s unusual for a guy to read any book at all. You can get away with doing it, but not if you look like you’re enjoying it too much: that enrages normal people like almost nothing else. Openly flaunting enjoyment of a book at Hillmont High would mark you as a target for an immediate game of involuntary “smear the queer” with the book as the “ball” and a subsequent lifetime of extra physical and psychological abuse. True, I have used books to shut out the world and deter human interaction, but in a high school environment this tactic must be used sparingly. If word gets out, rest assured, they will hunt you down. Then you can kiss your book, and possibly your very ass, goodbye. I had been careful to conceal my book-reading habit as much as I could at Hillmont, but I suppose the relatively lax atmosphere of Clearview had made me sloppy.
They were staring at me. I didn’t know what to say.
It could have been ugly. But in the end I was saved by the Robot.
“Oh, it must be for Pizzaballa’s list,” she said, and I believe I noticed her wink at me, though I could have been imagining it.
There were sympathetic groans and all was suddenly back to the way it had been before. Mrs. Pizzaballa’s “reading journal” list was notorious, evidently, and all appeared to have been forgiven in the wave of empathy caused by the very thought of it. Blossom van Kinkle was even smiling at me now, which I’d never noticed her doing before. Thanks, Jane. I owe you one.
Sam Hellerman would have advised, I’m sure, remaining aloof from Blossom van Kinkle, but remaining aloof on purpose just ain’t my bag, baby.
“I play guitar,” I said. “In a band.” “And,” my eyes added, “I should deem it an honour propitiously fulfilled indeed were my esteem to meet with reciprocation in your tender, discerning heart.”
And I couldn’t be sure, but I believe those words kindled a little extra light in Blossom van Kinkle’s delicate amber eyes. At least, she didn’t turn away or spit on me or anything, which was good, and she wasn’t all the way across the street like Jeans Skirt Girl either, which was even better.
I mentioned Mrs. Pizzaballa’s list already, that big handout she distributed on the first day of class. It turned out to be more than a simple reading list, as I’d initially assumed. It was instead an annotated list of what seemed like just about every school-approved book there was, with a little paragraph describing each one and a score from one to ten on each as well, representing how important or difficult Mrs. Pizzaballa thought it was. The assignment was to select and read a given book and write a brief review or comment in your “book-reading journal,” which she would collect and grade at the end of each week, giving you some portion of the book’s total points, depending on how much she liked your review. The problem with the whole thing, and the reason for all the groans from the “pep band” people when the Robot mentioned it, was that she was a very harsh grader if she didn’t like what you wrote, and to pass her class you needed to have accumulated at least 100 points by the end of the term. A few weeks and eleven “reviews” in, I had a grand total of zero points. I had no idea what she wanted, but it wasn’t the usual three sentences about how Holden Caulfield was the voice of a generation and a genuine authentic personality that exploded off the page fully formed just waiting for you to worship him.
“Passing a class” at Hillmont had been a mere formality requiring no particular effort, but they seemed to take it a bit more seriously here, so I wasn’t sure what to do, or what would happen if I kept getting zeros.
After that first week of zeros, I’d stayed after the piano-bell and asked Mrs. Pizzaballa for a little clarity as to what she expected in a book-reading journal review.
“The worms crawl in,” she replied. “The worms crawl out. The worms play pinochle on your snout.”
That was, of course, absolutely no help. But I was glad she said it nonetheless. Applying any attention at all to schoolwork was unfamiliar territory for me, but here was a puzzle, a question for the ages: what did Pizzaballa want? I began to set about the business of racking my brain for an answer. Perhaps, I thought, there’s something important about books that school could teach me after all, and Mrs. Pizzaballa’s methods, unorthodox as they are, will ultimately lead me there. Perhaps I will look back on this time as the moment when literature came alive for me, thanks to the teacher who made a difference. I sincerely doubted it, but, you know, it was a thought nevertheless.
But if you’ve noted how petty, how superficial, how downright minor this is as a high school worry, well, you’re not wrong. Because by and large, Clearview High was a cakewalk. Sure, maybe you’ll have a tough time figuring out what a given teacher wants, and you certainly have to endure an atmosphere thick with noxious “school spirit” jacket-varsity fumes, and perhaps having to pretend to be something you’re not each and every day will eventually take its psychological toll. But it’s hard to describe what it feels like just to sit on the grass at lunch without having to brace yourself for a savage, life-threatening attack. I had a circle of sort-of friends to eat lunch with, including a few I could almost say I genuinely liked, and I didn’t have to worry about any of them ever trying to kill me. Which, frankly, was more than I could say for Sam Hellerman with complete confidence. The normal people at Clearview were comparative pussycats. Even PE wasn’t too bad, and I’m not even exaggerating all that much.
I could get used to this, I thought, though thinking that made me hate myself a little. I was maybe halfway used to it already, if truth be told.