—This? No, it’s just money, she said, and shook the paper sack.—Not mine, my class. It’s what they’ve saved to buy a share in America. We’re taking a field trip in to the Stock Exchange to buy a share of stock. The boys and girls will follow its ups and downs and learn how our system works, that’s why we call it our share . . .
—In what.
—In America, yes, because actually owning it themselves they’ll feel . . .
—No, I mean what stock.
—That’s our studio lesson today deciding which one, if you want to look in on our channel. We have a resource film from the Exchange itself, too.
—Teaching our boys and girls what America is all about . . .
—Stick ’em up!
Bast’s elbow caught Mrs Joubert a reeling blow in the breast, she dropped the sack of coins and he stood for an instant poised with raised hand posed in pursuit of that injury before the flush that spread from her face to his sent him stooping to recover the sack by the top, spilling the coins from its burst bottom into the unmown strip of grass, and left him kneeling down where the wind moved her skirt.
—Poor child, why they let him run around loose . . .
—It’s the testing . . . Mister Whiteback withdrew a foot where his clocked ankle was nudged in pursuit of a dime, glancing down as it prospered to a quarter under Mrs Joubert’s expensively shod instep, and his voice was sheared off by an inhuman scream.
—What was that! . . . oh Mister Bast, I’m sorry, I didn’t hurt you . . .? She withdrew her heel from the back of his left hand as Bast got the nickel with his right, looking up from her flexed knee to start to speak.
—Those saws, they’re doing the trees in the next block, widening Burgoyne Street, said Mister Whiteback above.—I’ll drop you, if . . . Mister Bast? he retired in the box step of the rhumba now spilling from the bank out across the walk and into the grass where Bast was going at it as though finding money lost by someone else,—if you can just pick the rest of it up and drop it off for Mrs Joubert’s studio lesson?
—It was twenty-four dollars . . .
—And still get to your rehearsal, Mister Bast. To have it ready for Friday, we want to show this Foundation team how we’re motivating this cultural drive in our youngsters, it’s all in preparation for the cultural festival next spring you know, Miss Joubert . . . watch his hand there yes, to show we can make this cultural drive pay off like never before in mass consumers, mass distribution, mass publicity, just like automobiles and bathing suits . . .
—And sixty-three cents, Mrs Joubert finished, a gentle bulge rippling from her knee as she shifted her weight in departure to disappear in the swirl of her skirt as the quarter bounding from the billowing trouser cuff drew Bast in a headlong lunge after the exhaust of Whiteback’s car shearing from the curb, rounding the corner into Burgoyne Street to course through the shrieks of saws and limbs dangling in unanesthetized aerial surgery, turning at last into the faculty parking lot and into Gibbs’ limited vista from a second floor classroom window watching Mrs Joubert alight and come toward the portal beneath him, knuckles gone white where he grasped the cold radiator staring down into the loose fullness of her approach till it was gone beneath the sill, and he turned back to the darkened classroom to face the talking face in flattened animation on the screen itself until the tension of watching without listening broke the surface in a slight twitch of his own lip and turned him back to the window looking down, now into the wide eye of a camera aimed up at himself and the frieze of teachers similarly abandoned in windows surmounting the dedication of the school hewn over the entrance.
—EBΦM ΣAOH AΘΘΦBP . . .
—Oh, can you read it? asked the young man with the camera, lowering it to join the congregation of cameras, meters, and accessories strung from what convenient protrusions his lank figure afforded.
—Not exactly read it, said his companion, a scrap of paper spread on the back of a heavy book in the crook of his arm.—But I thought I’d copy it down, it might make a good epigraph for the book when I find out what it means. And get some of those blank faces. There, the one at that window having a smoke in the boys’ washroom while his class is being taught by television, speaking of technological unemployment.
—I don’t think that’s a point the Foundation wants you to stress, particularly. But it’s your book.
—But you’re paying for it.
The camera snapped and joined the others, swinging to their stride as they passed in beneath the sill and out of the view of Mister Gibbs, molested from behind by words,
——Energy may be changed but not destroyed . . .
From a basement door Mister Leroy rose into the sunlight bearing a pail and his smile, intimate even at the distance turned directly up to Gibbs before there was chance to evade it, as he glided over the gravel in the silence of the boxing shoes laced tightly to the image of nonviolence his passage insisted everywhere he went.
——Scientists believe that the total amount of energy in the world today is the same as it was at the beginning of time . . .
—Turn that off . . .
—But wait Mister Gibbs it’s not over, that’s our studio lesson we’ll be tested on . . .
—All right let’s have order here, order . . .! he’d reached the set himself and snapped it into darkness.—Put on the lights there, now. Before we go any further here, has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you’re not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of the knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from outside. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos . . .
—But we didn’t have any of this, you . . .
—That’s why you’re having it now! Just once, if you could, if somebody in this class could stop fighting off the idea of trying to think. All right, it all comes back to this question of energy doesn’t it, a concept that can’t be understood without a grasp of the second law of, yes? Can’t you hear me in the back there?
—This wasn’t in the reading assignment and that . . .
—And that . . . he paused to align pencils on his desk all pointing in the same direction before he looked up to her far in the back bunched high and girlish by a princess waist, bangs shading the face pancaked into concert with her classmates in the shadowless vacancy of youth,—that is why I am telling it to you now. Now, the concept we were discussing yesterday, first a definition . . .?
—The tendency of a body which when it is at rest to . . .
—Never mind, next . . .?
—And which when it is in motion to re . . .
—I said never mind! No one . . .? Does anyone dare try to spell it then . . .? He turned reaching high enough on the board to pull up his jacket for a glimpse of blue drawers through a hole in the trouser seat, wrote e and waited.
—E?
—Yes e, obviously. What comes next.
—N?
Gibbs repeated—n, and wrote it.
—D? as the bell rang.
—Correct, t, r, o, p, y, he finished the word and broke the chalk in emphatic underline, turning past the toss of blonde hair repeated in the thighs as she stood up and joined the surge of disorder at his back, his lower lip now caught between his teeth in a way that seemed to dam his spirit as he regained the window and the open parking lot below where now, all continent and unaware of fragmentation in another mind’s eye, Mister diCephalis came carrying a child’s umbrella in the congruous fashion it feigned here in the small, rolled, black, its handle a curve of simulated birch hooked on his wrist as he passed under the inscribed lintel and pushed at the glass door that never yet had opened in and did not now, stop
ped to unlimber the umbrella, pulled the door open, and moved at home through crowd and noise toward a door of wood and thick as his wrist which swung lightly closed behind him, not for being well hung but because its hollow core reduced it to a swinging sign for the word Principal and a sounding board diffusing the racket in the hall into the presence of moderation and benign achievement themselves diffused, along with the Horatio Alger award and fifty-six honorary degrees when hung, high in the confines of a single face framed cheaply on the wall in witness “that confidence, a belief in ourselves, individually and collectively, is a very important feature in the degree of activity you normally anticipate in our economy,” resolve that “if we have the courage, if we have got, you might say, the widely held determination to move courageously, there is no question in my mind but that it would be helpful,” only the eyes tinged with alert vexation over “whether or not a campaign for bringing about this kind of confidence is the best thing, I haven’t thought of that as a public relations problem that has yet come to me . . .”
—The fear psychology, the drills, all that stuff and junk, came the voice of Miss Flesch hacking through the diffusion that bore him on toward the inner office, eyes lowered from initial confrontation where she’d look at him, at anyone, her own eyes wide and wild as though she’d been touched privately or slapped.—It’s not the kids, they think the drills are a game, crawling under their desks and everything, they have a ball. It’s the parents that make the trouble, she concluded through bread, the gone bite in her seed roll smeared with lipstick like the coffee cup at her knee on the desk, and the cigarette, raised quivering now her contact lenses were in focus and she looked at him with neither that precipitate outrage nor, in fact, much interest at all, as he surreptitiously rid himself of the umbrella, hooked it on the rim of a metal school wastebasket, before advancing to shake hands.
—Dan? Mister Hyde, on our new school board. This is Dan diCephalis, Mister . . .
—Major Hyde, Dan. Good meeting you . . . loomed worsted with a bluish tinge in arbitrary sway over the pastel arrangement behind the desk, cordially drawing Mister diCephalis half out of a sleeve of knife edge pressed nondescript.—We all know Dan here from the school television. Driver training, right Dan?
—That, ah, yes I started giving that course but . . .
—Did a fine job too Major, but Vogel’s taken that chore on now. Vogel, the coach, he has a real sense of ahm, of cars, yes and doing a very fine job. We’ve saved Dan’s talents here for . . .
—Some elementary math and physics . . .
—On tape, Miss Flesch closed in and bit and scarred her bun and smiled the lipstick on her teeth.
—Dan’s our school psychologist now, or psycho . . . psycho . . .
—metrician. Psycho . . .
—Psychometrician, yes. In charge of all our testing and, and doing a fine job, yes. That’s why I wanted him in on this ahm, these budget questions, this equipment, some of the new testing equipment . . .
—We’re talking about the new testing equipment, Dan.
—It’s quite a budget item, yes. Now the need to justify the test results, of course, in order to justify the test results in terms of the ongoing situation, in other words, this equipment item is justified when we testor tailing, tailor testing to the norm, and since the only way we can establish this norm, in terms of this ongoing situation that is to say, is by the testing itself, somebody’s going to get left out in the cold, right? A boy who scores out at the idiot-genius level, this music-math correlation, perfectly consistent but he’s running around town sticking people up with a toy pistol. Then here’s one with no future at all on the standard aptitudes, but I was told . . .
—It isn’t the equipment it’s the holes, in this computerized scoring the holes that have been punched in some of the cards don’t, aren’t consistent with forecasts in the personality testing, the norm in each case should . . .
—Right Dan, the norm in each case supporting, or we might say being supported, substantiated that is to say, by an overall norm, so that in other words in terms of the testing the norm comes out as the norm, or we have no norm to test against, right? So that presented in these terms the equipment can be shown to justify itself, in budgetary terms that is to say, would you agree, Major?
—I’ll say one thing Dan, if you can present it at the budget meeting the way Whiteback’s just presented it here no one will dare to argue with you, and I don’t think you need to bring up these problems with your holes Dan. Might be misunderstood, lead you right back into questions about all this teaching equipment you people bought here last year that’s not even unpacked.
—There’s nothing wrong with it at all it’s just that we, that nobody understands how to use it.
—How to utilize it yes, but . . .
—What you can’t get through people’s heads, when you’re dealing with these grants and aid federal, state, foundations whatever it is, if you don’t spend you don’t get. See it at the corporate level all the time, mention an initial outlay and they grab for their wallets take this shelter idea now . . .
—Major Hyde headed up our Civil Defense Program here Dan, you may remem . . .
—Before it turned into a milksop rescue outfit and lost sight of the basics Dan, we’re talking about bringing your mobile tv unit over and giving these youngsters a looksee at my shelter, show them what . . .
—Yes well of course Dan may have ahm, may not have been living here yet when it was built back in the ahm, and did a very fine job of course when it was built before the . . .
—Before the whole country lost sight of the basics Dan, we all saw it spread right up to the national level and giving these fine youngsters a good looksee at my shelter will get them off to a fresh start, show them what America’s all about, what we have to protect . . .
—Yes well the youngsters of course are ahm, are youngsters yes but incorporating this shelter proposal in the new budget may not ahm, Vern that is to say, I don’t think Vern will . . .
—I don’t think Vern’s head’s screwed on Whiteback, if you’re going to let a District Superintendent like Vern dictate to the parents of these future citizens that they can’t exercise their democratic right to vote on an issue that may decide the whole . . .
—Yes well of course I think Senator ahm, Congressman Pecci he’s dropping by to fill us in on the chances for locating this new Cultural Center here and of course his ahm, yes is that him?
—Tell him to wait, said Miss Flesch through bread, and banged the phone down.
—Wait we can’t keep him waiting, he’s . . .
—It’s not him no it’s Skinner, this textbook salesman Mister Skinner . . . she knotted her knees,—for me.
—I’m sorry Major yes Miss Flesch here, Miss Flesch doubles in brass you might say, our top studio teacher you know that and our curriculum specialist too, she’s . . .
—Glad to see somebody who’s not afraid of work. Getting this budget across is going to take everything we can give it, they’ll be there with their hands on their wallets and their youngsters’ educations will be the last thing on their minds, take this shelter proposal if they have a good look at one before they pile in and tear the idea to pieces they . . .
—Hello . . .? Yes, yes send him right in . . .
—Mister . . .
—Congressman . . .?
—No it’s only, it’s Mister Skinner . . . she recovered her balance and her knees one to the other—I’ll be right out, she called at the figure retreating through the door weighted by a briefcase of Gladstone bag design past the threat of pinstripe coming up behind.
—Come in Senator come in, I know it’s still Congressman just getting in the habit . . .
—Mister . . .
—Whiteback, Major . . .
—diCephalis, Dan, the school . . .
—Great pleasure . . .
—Congressman . . .
—And Miss Flesch here kind of doubles in brass you might say, right Whiteb
ack? Handles the curriculum, and she’s shaping up as a real video personality on the school tv. We’re just checking out a few items before the taxpayers get their teeth into this budget, Hyde went on as the blue stone ring borne on Pecci’s hand ceased darting about in handshakes and withdrew to highlight his pinstripe presence.—The only thing on their minds is their tax rate and most of them don’t even know that, right Whiteback? As president of the bank and principal of this school setup Whiteback here gets a grandstand look at both sides of the coin, take the whole idea of locating this Cultural Center here, I don’t see why we can’t tie it right in with . . .
—Once we have their confidence . . .
—Now whether or not a campaign for bringing about this kind of confidence is the best thing, I haven’t thought of that as a public relations problem, but let’s not forget above all things the need of confidence, and that . . .
—Of course, I think nationally, it’s what you and I think of the prospects . . .
—PRwise it can’t hurt us educationwise, Miss Flesch got in through bread.
—In fact, tie it all right into this shelter item too, let people have a look with your mobile tv unit. My boy could give it sort of a tour in fact, he knows it inside out. Wall thickness, ventilation, food storage waste disposal get in a little about what America really is, what we . . .
—Just give them an inch, like with the religious holidays if they all get off Good Friday the Jewish parents want them off Seder too . . .
—Is Seder a holiday? I thought it was a . . .
—Fight over prayers in the school and that gets us right into the transportation mess, they vote against busing the Catholic kids to parochial school and we can get thirteen hundred of them dumped on us over night, then where are we?
—And take this one, custodial salaries, two hundred and thirty-three-odd thousand, up from two seventeen . . .