“Home...” one of the boys started, and Miller turned in instant reproval. The word “Shut...” burst from his mouth before he could stop it, but he never finished the sentence, never added the “up,” apparently realizing the completed sentence would be too incriminating.
But Rick knew the whole story now, and the class sensed it, and they kept their silence only with the greatest effort. A battle of wills raged before Rick’s desk, and he watched it with amazement, because it was obviously Miller who was holding the minds of his classmates captive in a clenched fist. He had given Miller a leadership pitch on Monday, but he hadn’t for a moment believed that Miller was really a leader. A troublemaker, yes, someone to laugh at, but not a person to follow seriously. He revised his thinking rapidly now, and he even wondered if he hadn’t, like Frankenstein, helped create this monster. Damnit, had he established Miller as a leader in Miller’s own mind?
He watched the battle out there, watched the students’ protest, like sand held in the tightest fist, slowly seeping through Miller’s closed fingers. It was one thing to play games with the new snot-nose teacher, but when that teacher began dropping homework on their skulls, the game wasn’t so hilarious anymore. Rick smiled, sensing the conflict, wanting to bring the battle to a head.
“Yes, homework,” he said, still smiling. “And since I don’t want you to take these books home, you can begin copying all thirty-five questions into your notebooks right now.”
“Hey, what the hell!” Carter shouted. Carter’s outburst started it. His words were livid with outrage, and his carrot-topped head seemed to lend fiery pictorial support to his indignation.
De la Cruz, a pale, thin boy with a reedy voice shouted, “Homework? How come we have thees...”
“It ain’t even the first week of school!”
“Goddamnit, talk about slave drivers...”
“I go to work after school, teach!”
“That’s enough of that!” Rick shouted. He tightened his jaws and calmly said, “Start copying the sentences now. The homework will count as one of the tests the class receives during the term. It may very well decide whether you pass or fail this course.”
The rebellion ended as suddenly as it had started. Miller smiled at his classmates coldly, his face telling them they were all jackasses for having protested in the first place. It all led to the same thing anyway, didn’t it, and now the teacher had the satisfaction of having heard them whine. He flipped open his notebook with weary superiority, and the other boys followed suit while Rick watched them copying the sentences.
“Better get them all,” he said, almost enjoying his power now. “The test will be marked on the basis of thirty-five questions.”
This time, the class was silent. They had apparently grasped the meaning of the Miller-Gandhi method of attack. They wouldn’t give Rick any more satisfaction. They would be separate stones now, held together by a mute mortar that bound them into a wall as solid as any fortress. Rick sat at his desk and watched them laboriously transcribing the sentences. His victory, if considered such at all, had been a hollow one. And aside from the momentary elation he’d felt when they’d finally broken to his will, he felt no real joy.
The silence out there was an almost tangible thing. He wanted to reach out and probe it with his finger, push at it like some gelatinous mass. He could hear the scratching of pen on looseleaf paper, could see the tops of the boys’ heads as they worked.
What the hell goes on inside those heads? he wondered.
Probably nothing. Zero. Perfect vacuum.
This is a job for a man with a vacuum cleaner, he mused.
How do you go about cleaning a vacuum? Do vacuums get dirty? How do you get inside a vacuum to begin with? Someday we’ll discuss vacuums in class. And for the best ten thousand word thesis following our discussion, I’ll award a hollow loving cup, the hollow symbolizing the vacuum, and the loving cup symbolizing the mutual love and affection the boys and I share.
That was fun, he thought wryly, what’ll we play next?
Probably charades for the rest of the term if this goddamned silent treatment persisted. The silence, of course, could be broken easily enough. Just shock them out of it, that’s all. Like using insulin on a schizophrenic. Steady now, sir, easy now. WHAM! I beg your pardon, doctor, but did you see the top of my skull? I’m sure I had one when I came in.
Shock always worked, one way or another. Cure them or kill them.
It had its definite setbacks, though, the way this sudden homework assignment did. The shock may have goosed them out of their silence, but once the shock wore off the silence returned, and with it the memory of the shock to increase the formidability of the silence. Vicious circle. Elementary, my dear Watson.
Well, my dear Watson, just what do you propose? Shall we allow the silence to smother activity, like a dense London fog? Or shall we pierce the fog occasionally, knowing it will return anyway? Well, my dear Watson, what the hell’s wrong with you, old boy? No answers? No suggestions? Nothing? Hell of a help, all right, you are.
Or should we treat the disease rather than the symptoms? If so, just what was the disease? Resentment, of course. They didn’t like his interference in the rape. Well, he didn’t like it much either, so they were even. Nobody likes polio much, for that matter, but everyone recognizes it as a disease. You can’t discount something simply because it doesn’t appeal to you.
Well, there was nothing to be done about the rape intervention. That was history, dead and gone, and rightfully in the province of the Social Studies department, with George Katz perhaps teaching a sparkling course on The Rise and Fall of Richard Dadier.
But, as with any disease, you can isolate the germ — or at least the germ-carrier. He knew who the germ carrier was in this ward, by God. His finger unconsciously tapped the Delaney card in its slot in the book.
Miller, Gregory.
He sounds like a movie star, Rick thought.
Only you and I, Watson, know that he is in reality a germ-carrier.
Shall we operate?
We shall operate. Scalpel, please. Sponge. Suture. Scotch tape...
The bell sounded.
“That’s all,” Rick said. “Pass the books down to the front of your row. Belazi and Antoro, collect them please and take them to the closet. Your homework is due tomorrow when we meet again.” He paused. “Miller, I’d like to talk to you. Would you mind waiting?”
The class began filing out silently as Belazi and Antoro picked up the grammar books. Rick gave Antoro the key, and Miller waited alongside Rick’s desk until the books were back in the closet. When Antoro and Belazi left. Rick faced Miller squarely.
“What do you say, Miller?” he said.
Miller did not smile. His face was in complete repose. He eyed Rick levelly and asked, “About what, Chief?”
“I thought we had a little talk.”
“So?”
“You led them today,” Rick said earnestly, being completely honest with the boy, using the same hook he’d used on Monday, but really meaning it this time. “But you led them the wrong way. Why?”
“Maybe you should of ought to minded your own business, Chief,” Miller said. “Ain’t many guys who like whut happened to Douglas Murray.”
“That wasn’t my fault, Miller,” Rick said seriously. “You should know that. You’d have done the same thing in my position.”
“Would I of? You don’t know me so good, Chief.”
“You’re angry because I intervened, is that it?”
“Murray’s goan to jail, you know that?”
“I had nothing to do with pressing charges, Miller.”