“I think the standards are a trifle higher at Harvard, Pig,” Tradd interjected mildly
“Bullshit,” Pig exploded. “I can run faster, do more pushups, lift more weights, and kick more ass than anybody in the whole Ivy League.”
“What a fucking dimwit,” Mark whispered to me, nodding his head dejectedly.
“Guys at Harvard aren’t taught what to do in case of emergency. They’d shit all over themselves if the Indians were after them.”
“So would I, Pig,” I said.
“Do you know what I love about this school?” Tradd said to all of us. “I like the order and discipline of this school. Everything has a place. Everything is answered for. Tradition is honored and there is no room for chaos here, no tolerance for confusion. I think it’s this sense of sublime order that offends you, Will.”
“Will’s thinking about Poteete,” Mark said to Tradd. “So how about laying off his ass.”
“I’m not on his ass, Mark,” Tradd explained. “I’m trying to get him to see that it’s not the Institutes fault that she sometimes attracts mentally disturbed knobs.”
“Forget Poteete,” I said turning to Tradd. “What do you think is the real function of this school? What in the hell is all this about?”
“It builds character, Will,” Tradd said. “It breaks you down completely the first year, and then it spends the next three years putting you back together in the image of the Institute man, the Whole Man. You know that it broke me in ways that were really good for me. I’ve got confidence in my ability to survive anything, anywhere, and that confidence came directly from the plebe system. I think the Institute prepares you for the hardships of life better than any other school in the country.”
“I like the school for a different reason,” Mark said. “I like the school because I like you guys. You guys have been good to me. So have all the guys in R Company. I’ve never felt this close to a bunch of guys in my whole life.”
“That’s it. That’s it,” Pig agreed enthusiastically. “This is a family. We got two thousand brothers who will kick ass for any one of us. That’s what the Institute’s all about.”
All four of us locked arms and stood for a moment without saying a word, feeling the pressure of each other’s bodies. I would remember this scene on fourth division with my three roommates. I would remember the feeling of incredible tenderness, the unbearable, unspeakable fragility of the love that we could not call love even to each other. In the barracks, imprisoned for four years, boys would meet other boys and fall in love with them, but no one in the barracks could ever speak of the love they felt for each other. It was spoken of as friendship, loyalty, camaraderie, but that was not it. We loved each other in innocence. Though the barracks contained a high quotient of barbarism, it also preserved our innocence. It kept the world from storming the gates, from letting us make decisions on our own, from meeting those humans who functioned in the normal civilized world with its own customs of survival. We knew very little about the world outside the Gates of Legrand.
I later thought that at that moment, unknown to all of us, some power unknown to any of us, some arbiter of violence, was studying us surreptitiously, was opening up the barracks to the outside world, and all the beasts and centaurs and clumsy leviathans of that world, monster-eyed, deadly, impassioned, and famished for a chance to make a game of us, rushed invisibly to the center of the quadrangle for a glimpse of us, the four boys secretly in love with each other. They did not look at us disinterestedly, those beasts of our final year, those leering impatient harbingers. No, they eyed us with discrimination as if they were making their choices. I would look back on this night years later and decide that three of us would be chosen to be victims. And one of us would be prey.
Before we returned to our room, Mark asked me a question: “What did Poteete say that’s been bothering you?”
“He said something about being taken to a house. There’s no house he could be taken to that I know of. Knobs can’t even leave campus during plebe week.”
“There’s no house,” Tradd said. “That poor boy was insane.”
Part II
THE TAMING
PLEBE YEAR 1963-1964
Chapter Sixteen
I will take you down my own avenue of remembrance, which winds among the hazards and shadows of my single year as a plebe. I cannot come to this story in full voice. I want to speak for the boys who were violated by this school, the ones who left ashamed and broken and dishonored, who departed from the Institute with wounds and bitter grievances. I want also to speak for the triumphant boys who took everything the system could throw at them, endured every torment and excess, and survived the ordeal of the freshman year with a feeling of transformation and achievement that they had never felt before and would never know again with such clarity and elation.
I will speak from memory—my memory—a memory that is all refracting light slanting through prisms and dreams, a shifting, troubled riot of electrons charged with pain and wonder. My memory often seems like a city of exiled poets afire with the astonishment of language, each believing in the integrity of his own witness, each with a separate version of culture and history, and the divine essential fire that is poetry itself.
But I will try to isolate that one lonely singer who gathered the fragments of my plebe year and set the screams to music. For many years, I have refused to listen as his obsessive voice narrated the malignant litany of crimes against my boyhood. We isolate those poets who cause us the greatest pain; we silence them in any way we can. I have never allowed this furious dissident the courtesy of my full attention. His poems are songs for the dead to me. Something dies in me whenever I hear his low, courageous voice calling to me from the solitude of his exile. He has always known that someday I would have to listen to his story, that I would have to deal with the truth or falsity of his witness. He has always known that someday I must take full responsibility for his creation and that, in finally listening to him, I would be sounding the darkest fathoms of myself. I will write down his stories now as he shouts them to me. I will listen to him and listen to myself. I will get it all down.
Yet the laws of recall are subject to distortion and alienation. Memory is a trick, and I have lied so often to myself about my own role and the role of others that I am not sure I can recognize the truth about those days. But I have come to believe in the unconscious integrity of lies. I want to record even them, every one of them. Somewhere in the immensity of the lie the truth gleams like the pure, light-glazed bones of an extinct angel. Hidden in the enormous falsity of my story is the truth for all of us who began at the Institute in 1963, and for all who survived to become her sons. I write my own truth, in my own time, in my own way, and take full responsibility for its mistakes and slanders. Even the lies are part of my truth.
I return to the city of memory, to the city of exiled poets. I approach the one poet whose back is turned to me. He is frail and timorous and angry. His head is shaved and he fears the judgment of regiments. He will always be a victim, always a plebe. I tap him on the shoulder.
“Begin,” I command.
“It was the beginning of September in 1963,” he begins, and I know he will not stop until his story is ended.
It was the beginning of September in 1963 when I entered second battalion and walked up to the cadre of Romeo Company. Four of them sat at the card table thumbing through small boxes of files and index cards. The rest of the cadre watched from behind the table, their eyes invisibly appraising me beneath the shade of their field caps. They looked sleek, crisp, and efficient, and they seemed immune from the fury of the climbing Charleston sun. I was eighteen.
“Hello,” I said, resting both hands against the card table and leaning down in a gesture of intimacy to talk with the leader of the group. “My name’s Will McLean and I was told to report to R Company.”
The company commander, a slightly overweight youth, stared at my hands with an imperious demeanor and petulant, dissatisfied e
yes. His nametag read “Blasingame.” I could smell Aqua Velva steaming off his face. His brown eyes met mine for an instant before he yelled, “Get your fucking hands off my table, dumbhead.”
“Sure,” I answered, moving back a step. Two other members of the cadre swept around the table and stood on either side of me.
“Put a ‘sir’ on that, wad-waste.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Your name again, knob,” the one on my right demanded.
“Will, Will McLean.”
“You say, ‘Sir, my name is cadet recruit McLean, W P., sir.’ Do you understand, scumbag?” the executive officer of R Company said, consulting a list of names on his clipboard. He was thin and blond and had a pleasant intelligent face. His name was Wentworth.
“Your I.D. number is 16407, dumbhead,” Blasingame said. “Your room number is 4131. And you’re nothing but shit to me. Do you understand? Pop off, dumb squat.”
“Yes, sir.”
The voice on my right whispered, “You aren’t even shit to me, douchebag. You’re lower than shit to me. You’re whale shit and that sits on the bottom of the ocean. That’s as low as you can get. Do you hear me, douchebag?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you say a word until I order you to pop off, knob. Do you understand me? Pop off.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re gonna run you out of here in a week, McLean.”
“He’s the basketball jock,” a voice at the table said. I turned in the direction of the voice.
“Get your eyes off me, scumbag,” the voice ordered. “Do you want to get in my pants, scumbag? Pop off.”
“No, sir.”
“Then keep your beady eyes off my body, faggot.”
“Sir,” I said, keeping my eyes directly in front of me and addressing anyone who would listen, “I came here to play basketball for the Institute. I’m on scholarship. There must be some mistake. Coach Byrum told me that athletes received different treatment from regular cadets.”
“Oh,” several of them answered in mock surprise. “Oh, please excuse us, Mr. McLean,” Blasingame mocked, his voice full of apology. “We simply made a mistake and thought you were like any ordinary knob. We didn’t realize we had the honor of addressing a Varsity Athlete. My, oh my, but we do get confused on these first days. Did any of you boys realize we were yelling at a Varsity Athlete?”
“Oh, gracious, no,” Wentworth, the exec, said. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”
“This is terrible. How can we make it up to you, Mr. McLean?” Blasingame asked.
“It’s all right, fellas,” I answered, smiling. “Y’all just didn’t know. I should have told you right away. Everyone makes mistakes. I won’t tell anyone, so don’t worry about getting into trouble. If you would be so kind as to direct me to my room.”
“Would any of you gentlemen be so kind as to direct Mr. McLean to his room?” Blasingame inquired of his cadre.
“I would consider it a personal honor, Mr. Blasingame,” the voice on my right said. Then I felt his moist fetid breath on my ear as he said, “I’m gonna kill you, jock. I’m gonna eat your ass for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’m gonna make your life one long fucking nightmare, douchebag. I’m gonna tuck you into bed each night and pull your ass out of bed at reveille until you beg me to open up the gate so you can run home to your slut mother. I’m gonna be in your dreams, dumbhead. You’re gonna see me in the mirror, douchebag. I may decide to run you out tonight. Tonight! What do you say to that, pussy? Tell me what you say to that. Pop off.”
“No, sir,” I answered. “You won’t run me out.”
“Are you telling me I can’t run you out, scumbag?” he screamed directly in my ear. “Pop off!”
“You can’t run me out, sir.”
“He’s mine. This fucker belongs to me,” a boy said, stepping in front of me, memorizing my features as I memorized his. He was my height, but leaner, more angular, with a long rather handsome face disfigured by a cruel, lipless mouth and narrow eyes.
“He’s an English major,” Wentworth said, reading from his clipboard.
“An English major!” several voices said at once.
The boy in front of me was named Fox.
“An English major,” he said disgustedly. “Do you want to suck my dick, boy? Pop off.”
“No sir.”
“Shit, dumbhead, everyone knows English majors love to suck and blow on dicks.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Fox,” Wentworth said, still studying the clipboard. “I’m an English major.”
“What’s my name, douchebag? Pop off,” Fox said.
“Your name is Fox, sir,” I said.
“Put a ‘mister’ on that.”
“Your name is Mister Fox, sir,” I said.
“What am I, idiot?” he yelled, pointing to the insignia on his collar. “Look at my uniform and tell me what I am.”
I stared at his uniform, at the unfamiliar insignia, at his nametag, at his face. I was confused, disoriented, and I did not know what he wanted me to say.
“You better tell me what I am, idiot. Now, douchebag. Now. Say something. Anything. But you better answer me, smackhead. Now, boy. Now. Now. Now.”
I looked at his nametag and said, “Sir, you are a small carnivorous animal kin to the dog.”
The punch came from behind me, delivered by an invisible assailant, a perfect blow to the kidney. I staggered forward, fell to one knee, and almost knocked Fox and the card table over.
“Not here, Newman, you stupid bastard,” the company commander said. “Wait until you get him to his room. If a tac officer sees you, we’ll all be walking tours. If the Bear sees you, we’ll be lucky to graduate.”
“I don’t like a smartass knob,” a deep voice said from behind me.
“Get up, douchebag,” Fox commanded. “You make any more remarks like that and we’ll send you home with your nuts in your pocket. And for your information, I’m your platoon sergeant.”
Late that afternoon, before evening formation, I studied my shaved head in the mirror. I did not recognize the boy in the mirror who stared accusingly back at me, did not recognize the desperate blue eyes. I felt silly in the new summer uniform the upperclassmen had called the “gray nasties.” The uniform exuded the nauseating odor of new clothing. My hands smelled of Brasso and Kiwi polish. The heat was fierce and sweat stains spread beneath my arms, along my collar, and down my back. I spoke to my image in the mirror, “You stupid asshole, McLean. You poor dumb fucker. How did you get yourself in this mess?”
“Give me a shirt tuck, what’s-your-name?” my new roommate said behind me. “Hurry up, will you? We’ve got to get to evening formation.”
His name was Harvey Clearwater and he was from Memphis, Tennessee. “The Clearwaters of Memphis,” he had been careful to explain.
“My names Will, Harvey,” I said. “Will. It’s a simple little name. Four letters. Starts with a capital W. Ends with a little bitty word synonymous with ‘sick.’ I like being called Will. It’s a habit I got into in childhood.”
“Just give me a shirt tuck, will you? They’ll kill us if we’re late.”
“They’ll kill us if we’re early.”
“My mother certainly didn’t tell me this school would be anything like this,” Harvey said. I cannot tell you how I detested Harvey.
“Well, The Clearwaters of Memphis have always been a tight-lipped crew.”
“How do you like this place so far, tell me?” he said as I was giving him a shirt tuck.
“Oh me, Harvey,” I answered, unable to keep myself from lashing out at my roommate every time he spoke. “I’ve found myself a home. This is a fabulous place. There’s not many colleges in the country where you get to see seven of your classmates pass out from heat exhaustion the very first day of school.”
Ignoring me, he said, “I’d be big stuff in a fraternity if I’d gone to the University of Tennessee. Clearwater is a big name in Tennessee.”
&
nbsp; “Yeh, you’ve only told me that a couple of thousand times today, Harvey, and I’ve only seen you alone for ten minutes.”
“You’ve got a bad attitude, what’s-your-name.”
“I’m only beginning to have a bad attitude. I’m just getting started. In a month, I plan to have the shittiest goddam attitude in the United States.”
“I don’t want you to hurt my chances to make rank, you hear?” he said.
“What?” I could barely believe my rotten luck in getting this boy for a roommate.
“I plan to be a company commander. That’s the least I can do for Mother. What are you shooting for, whatchamacallit?”
“If my mother will let me, Harvey, I’m shooting to be a civilian by tomorrow morning.”
“They won’t let you near a telephone for two weeks. And you can’t write a letter, send up smoke signals, or pound on a tom-tom. Your mama won’t even know if you’re alive for two weeks. They lose twenty percent of the class in the first month.”
“I hope I can make up part of that twenty percent,” I said.
“You’ll know if you can take it or not after tomorrow night,” Harvey said, checking his watch.
“What happens tomorrow night that could be worse than what happened today?” I asked in alarm.
“Tomorrow is Hell Night.”
“What happens on Hell Night?”
“Let your imagination run wild,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And tell me your name just one more time. I’m terrible on names. I’ll get it this time.”
“Lee Vercingetorix. My mother was from Virginia and my father was from Gaul.”
“Bad attitude, Lee,” Harvey said, shaking his head back and forth. “Say, I’ve been having a tough time with those pushups and that constant running. I hope they let up some after Hell Night.”
“We’ve got two minutes to get to formation,” I said, turning my head sideways to read his watch.
“Will you support me, Lee?” he asked.
“Support you for what?”
“For company commander. You have to get the support of your classmates early.”