Waves transmit energy over distance. They travel through the medium but do not displace the medium. So, through a dorm room wall, people can hear others talking, but the wall is not affected by the sound. The speed of a wave depends on the medium through which it travels. Rumor through media moves faster than rumor through people. The speed of a sound wave through air is generally 343 m/s under normal circumstances, but increase pressure and intensity, and one has headline news.
Mr. Zurkus was in my parents’ living room in San Diego within minutes of the news release, his muscle-boy body in a new suit riding up the screen. My parents never fix their vertical hold. Bad-Boy Zurkus, his new suit flapping as he walks through reporters.
Today I’m sitting in Oral-Fixation White’s office. Suspension from teaching means house arrest. I walk inside the apartment in circles when students go to class. Bad-Boy Zurkus says I killed Kyle by touching him.
Today White is a smoke machine. Back and forth, back and forth in front of the windows. Far below is the lake. On the lake the water is the medium for waves. The wind causes energy to move through the water.
“You must have done something.”
White stops, puts both hands on the back of his wingback chair.
Virginia tobacco. Not enough air in the too small office.
“The teenage mind is untoward,” I say.
My parents will not answer the phone today. My parents will not leave their kitchen. No visitors. My mother will fill the rice cooker, and steam will rise from the bubbling pot. The pot will rattle, and the switch will flip when the rice is done.
White, King of the Phone Calls, his secretary holds calls while I’m grilled. School attorney calling every five minutes.
“You did nothing and Donny does this?” He holds his pipe to his mouth. “Unlikely.”
In North Korea, justice is based on loyalty to the state. Every family is placed in a class: core, wavering, or hostile. If hostile, no possibility of hospital or education, little food. If caught talking to foreigners, you disappear. Interrogation is kneeling with metal rod held between thighs. It drops, and they use it on you. No nice-nice, like talks with pipe-smoking lion pacing in his cage.
“Mr. Zurkus needs help,” I say.
He stops. No more Doppler effect of the sound. When the source of the sound wave moves, the frequency and wavelength depend on that motion. The sound appears to bend. Now, it’s a direct hit.
He turns, faces me. “What the hell is wrong with you? Your career is ruined, the school is smeared all over the TV, and you think Donny needs help? God, man.”
Who can say what teenagers do? Some of them study, take notes, go to Harvard; some lie awake and devise pranks, Young Sirs of Mischief and Misrepresentation; and some hang from rafters.
“Maybe he’s stuck in Hamlet,” I say.
“Come again?”
“Ask an English teacher, ask Alta.”
“Song, don’t be glib.”
“Glib, I’m not.”
Mr. Headmaster looks away, moves to his desk. His shoulders are rounded. He leans over the mess of his desk. The lines around his eyes are deeper; the circles are darker. What Administration means is barrier reef. They keep storms off shore. What happens when a storm is too big for them to keep away? Crashing. Destruction. What Administration forgets is the flesh. Donny is a boy, perhaps malevolent, certainly misguided.
And waves have anomalies. The sneaker wave can occur anytime, anywhere, in moderate and dry conditions. Undersea depth irregularities often focus wave energy, waves from offshore storms encounter shoaling, strong currents exacerbate incoming waves, and sneaker waves can snatch a grown man as much as 100 meters up the beach. Never turn your back on the ocean.
Sneaker-Wave Zurkus.
“We have to do something and do it now. Couldn’t come at a worse time.” He lights another match, sticks it in the pipe. Ugly habit.
“Suspending me from teaching is not action?”
“Not enough,” White says. He sucks the flame down the pipe.
What action could quell the hunger of reporters? In Korea there were incentives for neighbors to rat on neighbors. Too little food makes everyone conniving. Saying that someone sat on a pile of newspapers with pictures of leaders on the front page meant that person disappears. Saying someone plots to leave North Korea, the family disappears.
“What do we know about Zurkus?” White says. “Christ Almighty, his father is Union Textile.”
“Didn’t you go to school with him or summer in the Hamptons?”
White looks up, the stupid pipe sticking out from his mouth. Who in this century smokes pipes? He’s staring at his bookcase.
“No, he’s not a Princeton man, but Stanford.” White turns to me. “Didn’t your friend Okinawa go there?” His eyes are hot blue in the middle, like flames from Bunsen burners.
“Sam? Omura? Yes.”
Those who graduate from private education are one percent of the population. They become the top ten percent who run and own the country. Behind the scenes they operate a very simple wave model, called Destructive Interference:
Two scientists hold either end of a string. One yanks his end down, sending a wave, while the other pulls up by exactly the same amount. When the waves meet in the middle, each will cancel out the displacement of the other. The tricky thing is that the waves will not dissipate. The waves will pass each other and continue on their merry way.
In other words, each wave may lose its original intent, but each will be satisfied. That’s how it works. Donny and I don’t talk. Other people make things disappear, even though the energy keeps moving.
Sam Omura, the top donor to the sciences, the top alumnus. Mr. Teacher of Teachers. He might know Bad-Boy’s father. He might know the right words to say.
White says, “I’ll make the call. Sam Omura and Charles Zurkus III are a good match.”