“Settle down, settle down, Misfits of Physics,” I say to the Second Formers. Can’t believe I missed the miscreants.
Before I continue, Peter Frankel jabs his hand in the air, “Mr. Song, Mr. Song.”
“Yes, Mr. Wrinkled Shirt.”
He looks down at his shirt and tries to smooth one side with the palm of his hand.
“Is it true that you’re related to Mrs. Harney?” Unabashed. Little air through little opening gives high pitch, but no hindrance.
“Let’s get right to the point, shall we?” The five boys left in the Second Form after Kyle, after Tommy Underwood left the school, and Maggie Anderson still here, lean toward me from the lab stools. “I am in no way related to Mrs. Harney. She is Japanese, and I am Korean. Now, to the lesson at hand.”
At the beach I had plenty of time to think about lessons, arrange them, walk through them, list the ingredients needed. Before pairs of students, a rope is coiled, a thicker half meshed with a thinner half. All ropes and materials are on the black lab table the students surround, the table donated by the Du Ponts, the table where Kyle was pinned. Good thing the Second Formers didn’t see Kyle as a specimen, a frog.
“Before you, you will find a rope. Notice one half is thick, one half is thin. In pairs, stand up. One person hold one end and the other hold the other end. Very good. Now. Reach back into your vast memory to our discussion of waves, and tell me what will happen if the person on the thin end starts a wave motion.”
Like kindergartners standing at recess, they hold the ropes between them around the table, each student a study in disarray. Of course, one student starts a different kind of wave, both arms extended above his head, his whole body bends forward as if paying homage to a god, and the next student picks it up, and pretty soon the wave of football games and mob scenes pulses around the class.
“Ah, yes, my little football fans, I see. A wave passes fluidly if unobstructed.” The students can hardly believe their cleverness. “But if you will notice the ropes in your hands, there is an obstruction, a boundary.”
Like criminals, the pairs raise one hand each in unison, as if the rope were shackles. Their enthusiasm is underwhelming.
Peter Frankel says, “You’re calling the end of the fat rope a boundary?”
“And what would you call it?”
Peter says, “A border or something.”
“Terence, what will happen if you start a pulse on your end of the rope?”
Terence looks at the rope in his right hand, and then he turns his face to me. There is nothing in his eyes, two marbles, no questions, no concern.
Maggie Anderson, Miss Subdued but Eager, says, “I know.”
“Miss Anderson, do tell.”
“The pulse will travel from his hand to my hand.” She points from Terence’s hand along the sagging rope to her own hand. The boys erupt.
“Way to go,” “Yank it,” and “Hubba hubba” are some of the comments between laughter. Maggie Anderson, forever the lone girl.
“Enough,” I say. “Clearly, you have not left the gutter in the two weeks I was away. Tell me, what is refraction?”
Terence speaks like giving a report, “What you told us, bending.” If he flattened his voice, if he chopped the syllable, he could Kyle-speak.
“Brilliant, young man,” I say. “Bending a wave. When a wave hits a boundary, the wave changes speed and direction. In this case when the wave hits the boundary from the thin rope to the thick rope, part of the wave continues and part of it comes back. In other words, boundaries change the wave, and some of the wave reflects. Try it.”
Two by two the Second Formers step away from each other and draw the rope taut. One whips the rope, and the other can barely hold on. Another just barely shakes the rope, and the other feels nothing. Terence and Maggie make machine motions. Jerk rope up, jerk rope down.
“Smoothly,” I say. “Make waves. Be waves. Make the ropes wave.”
Misfits of Science, they smooth out their motions. They try, and they try, and eventually, they see the little refraction of the wave.
“Cool,” I hear, “Awesome,” I hear, “No way.”
The rope between Carla and me is now slack. The boundary of age and propriety refracted the wave. Some came back to me, some to her. The rope should not have been between us. The wave in the rope between Kyle and me has no boundary, no drag. The wave will not end.
“Remember, my little scientists, there is nothing without Newton. There is no action without an equal and opposite reaction.”
“It’s done,” Mr. Oral Fixation says. “No charges. Donny Zurkus has retracted his statement.” These wingback chairs, the sun through the closed windows after classes, today’s tobacco makes me sick. Way too sweet.
“So, it can be undone,” I say into pipe smoke.
“I’m not sure what you mean. Let me just say I pulled every string, called every trustee. Trustees called every connection they had in the DA’s office. Alumni called newspaper rooms across the country to quell the story. The only thing we could hope for was some distraction like, I don’t know, satanic worship at Hotchkiss or some god-awful thing. Your friend, Sam, was a key ingredient. Good heavens, man, wise up.” His words came out sideways since his pipe was in his mouth.
“And what have we done for Donny Zurkus?” I say.
Earth on us, the word that isn’t hyo, earth on son, but related. In loco parentis.
“What have we taught him?” I say.
The pipe is placed carefully in the ashtray.
“That little ne’er-do-well?” the King of Compassion says.
“What’ll he learn?” I say.
“Frankly, Song, I’m surprised at you. After all we’ve done to clear your name.” Mr. Headmaster pulls out his tobacco pouch, taps the pipe, fills the bowl.
“Mr. White, it was the misguiding of youth that brought attention to St. Timothy’s.” Two boys misguided, misguided as vectors of light, their waves speeding out of the atmosphere unimpeded.
“I don’t think I like the implication, Song,” he says into the pipe. His face close to the desk. Flames bend from the lighter into the bowl as he sucks the pipe.
“No, I’m sure not. These are boys, and as long as I am able to teach here, I will protect them. Donny Zurkus is mean, sneaky, and misguided. But he should be taught.”
“Too late, Song. His father has had him picked up, and that’s it. Donny’s out.”
My hands on the arms of the leather wingback chair, I hold on.
“Another child we’ve lost, Mr. White. Two this fall. Shame on us.”
Losing children in Korea is worse than losing limbs. Kyle was inyon, soul of my soul. Donny was a negative valence, but his negative keeps electricity flowing. Donny was doing all he could to avenge himself, to protect his pride. His choices were decisions we could have discussed. As parents, we were supposed to help.
Through the window behind Oral-Fixation White, the light is at its December angle. We are as far away from heat as we will be, and we will spin into the new year as far away from our responsibility as we’ll ever be.
Shame on us:
