“By ‘awesome,’ you mean ‘terrible,’” Mrs. T. said.
“Well, yeah,” L. said.
“But why is the horse white?” P. asked. “Why’d the writer have to make that horse be a white horse?”
“Good point, P.,” Mrs. T. said. “It’s problematic.” They had this sort of conversation all the time: P. always asked Mrs. T. why something had to be either black or white, and Mrs. T. always answered him carefully, like she was trying hard to give the answer P. wanted so that they could talk about something else, anything else. “Why did the author have to make the horse white? Exactly.”
“But then again,” P. said, “it had to suck being that white horse, being sat on all the time by that bloody, gross white boy. White boy sitting on white horse. It’s like sitting on yourself or something.” P. paused for a second, trying to work all this out in his head. “It’s like everything white is his own worst enemy. Maybe that’s what the writer was trying to say.”
Mrs. T. nodded and wagged her finger at P. in an excited yes-I-think-you’ve-hit-the-nail-right-on-the-head sort of way. “Exactly,” she said, and then she turned to J. and asked, “What about you, J.? What do you think?”
Everyone looked at J. She was fingering her scar, and I could tell she was trying not to cry. J.’s father was in Iraq. Everyone’s father or mother, it seemed, was in Iraq. But J. was the only one trying not to cry about it. I wondered if that meant something had happened to her father the way something had happened to mine. Everyone but me looked away from her; even Mrs. T. pretended to be very interested in something underneath one of her fingernails. “I think it’s bullcrap,” J. finally whispered, so softly that you could pretend you didn’t hear it, which is exactly what
Mrs. T. did.
“And you, Miller?” Mrs. T. said. I knew that Mrs. T. didn’t like me. All my other English teachers had liked me, but not Mrs. T. Maybe because on the first day of class, when she’d asked what I’d read over the summer, I’d told her I’d read sixty-three books. She’d put her hands on her hips and pinched her lips and looked at me like I had done something wrong. I had been about to explain that some of those books were pretty short, which wasn’t even true. But L. didn’t give me the chance.
“So,” L. had said, “I find when it comes to reading, quality is more important than quantity.”
“Very good, L.,” Mrs. T. had said. “That’s using your mine-duh.”
Anyway, Mrs. T. was waiting for me to say what I felt about the America on the Same Page book. What I felt when I was reading it was what I felt now: I wanted it to be over so I could read something else. I mean, it was fine. It was a book, and so it couldn’t be that bad. But it wasn’t as good as it could have been. At one point in the book, the boy realized that “the world was killing and death.” Really? I wondered when I read that. Is that all the world is? And if that’s all the world is, then can’t books be about something else? Anything else? Exley’s book had been written during the Vietnam War, and it was about the war a little, but mostly it was about a bunch of other things. I wondered if this war would have to be over before A Fan’s Notes could be chosen as an America on the Same Page book. Except the way things were going, it seemed like the war would never be over. And if the war were never over, then we’d keep reading books about war, and A Fan’s Notes would never be an America on the Same Page book. That seemed terrible to me, more terrible than any of the terrible things that happened in the America on the Same Page book; I couldn’t stand for it to be true. I wondered if my dad couldn’t stand for it to be true, either, and if this was why he joined the army and went to Iraq in the first place: to help the war end so that people could stop reading the books they were reading or start reading A Fan’s Notes. That made some sense, but not enough sense. Because my dad loved A Fan’s Notes so much that he basically didn’t do anything the book didn’t tell him to, and there was nothing in the book that said he or anyone else should go to war or do anything else, really, except drink beer and sit on the davenport and read. But my dad went to Iraq anyway. Did that mean he’d decided that the boy in the America on the Same Page book was right, that the world was nothing but killing and death, and that if that were true, then he’d better stop reading A Fan’s Notes and get off the davenport and join the rest of the world? That seemed more terrible than anything else; I couldn’t stand for it to be true, either, just like I couldn’t stand to just sit around and watch my dad in his hospital bed. This was why, of course, I had to find Exley. And this was also why, during this entire time, I was writing a list of Exley’s favorite sayings and expressions. I figured it’d be easier to recognize him if I knew the way he talked by heart. I was so into writing the list that I didn’t notice that Mrs. T. had walked up to my desk until she reached down and snatched up the piece of paper. She read it, her face getting redder and redder; I could feel my face getting redder and redder, too, especially when Mrs. T. handed me back the piece of paper and asked me to please stand up and read what I’d written out loud. I really didn’t want to do it. But when Mrs. T. was asking me to do it, she was really telling me. When a teacher tells you to do something, you have to do it, especially if you don’t want to. This is what it means to be educated.
Anyway, here’s what I read:
EXLEY’S FAVORITE WORDS AND SAYINGS
Jesus H. Keeriiisst.
For Christ’s sake.
The trip began on a depressing note.
I had incapacitated myself.
Cha (you).
You’re a goddamn drunken Irish poet!
C’mon, friend.
How does one get into this business?
Oh, Jesus, Frank!
Oh, Frank, baby!
Aw, c’mon, you goofies!
It is very wearying to be honest.
Nobody, but nobody.
I’ve got human life — do you understand that? Human life! — in my hands.
Literary idolaters fell somewhere between blubbering ninnies and acutely frustrated maidens.
It was my fate, my destiny, my end, to be a fan.
Life isn’t all a goddamn football game!
I wanted to risk great happiness but I never got the chance.
There are certain appeals that quite startle and benumb the heart.
Fuck you.
After I finished, Harold clapped, like he always did for me when I read something aloud in class. J. gave me a little smile, like she didn’t know exactly what I was talking about but wanted me to keep talking anyway. But no one else clapped or smiled at me or even looked in my direction. They were all looking at one another as though someone — me, or them — had totally misunderstood the assignment.
“So whatever that means,” L. finally said.
“That was completely inappropriate, Miller,” Mrs. T. said. She had gone back to her desk and was holding her grade book in one hand, her red pen in the other. We got either a minus or a check for our “freewrite.” I guess that was true for this assignment, too. I could tell by the way Mrs. T.’s pen moved that I got a minus. I don’t know about you, but bad grades make me feel like I have to go to the bathroom. They make me feel anxious, and when I get anxious, I’ll say things I shouldn’t.