impressed him. I send my best, also. Thanks for writing, and for your misplaced concern (misplaced, but very welcome) I’m fine, and looking forward to getting back in harness.
Love and good wishes,
Johnny,
P.S. for the last time, kiddo, get off that cocaine.
J.
December 29, 1975
Dear Johnny,
I think this the hardest,binerest letter I’ve had to write in my sixteen years of school administration-not only because you’re a good friend but because you’re a damned good teacher. There is no way to gild the lily on this, so guess I won’t even try.
There was a special meeting of the school board last evening (at the behest of two members I won’t name, but they were on the board when you were teaching here and I think you can probably guess the names), and they voted 5—2 to ask that your contract be withdrawn. The reason: you’re too controversial to be effective as a teacher. I came very close to tendering my own resignation; I was that disgusted. If it wasn’t for Maureen and the kids, I think I would have. This abortion isn’t even on a par with tossing Rabbit, Run or Catcher in the Rye out of the classroom. This is worse. It stinks.
I told them that, but I might as well have been talking in Esperanto or igpay atinlay. All they can see is that your picture was in Newsweek and the New York Times and that the Castle Rock story was on the national network news broadcasts. Too controversial! Five old men in trusses, the kind of men who are more interested in hair length than in textbooks, more involved in finding out who might smoke pot on the faculty than in finding out how to get some twentieth-century equipment for the Sci Wing.
I have written a strong letter of protest to the board-at-large, and with a little arm-twisting I believe I can get Irving Finegold to cosign it with me. But I’d also be less than truthful if I told you there was a hope in hell of gettingthose five old men to change their minds.
My honest advice to you is to get yourself a lawyer, Johnny. You signed that blueback in good faith, and I believe you can squeeze them for every last cent of your salary, whether you ever step into a Cleaves Mills classroom or not. And call me when you feel like talking.
With all my heart, I’m sorry.
Your friend,
Dave Pelsen
16
Johnny stood beside the mailbox with Dave’s letter in his hand, looking down at it unbelievingly. It was the last day of 1975, clear and bitingly cold. His breath came out of his nostrils in fine white jets of smoke.
“Shit,” he whispered. “Oh man, oh shit.”
Numbly, still not assimilating it totally, he leaned down to see what else the mailman had brought him. As usual, the box was crammed full. It had just been luck that Dave’s letter had been sticking out at the end.
There was a white, fluttering slip of paper telling him to call at the post office for the packages, the inevitable packages. My husband deserted me in 1969, here is a pair of his socks, tell me where he is so I can get child-support out of the bastard. My baby choked to death last year, here is his rattle, please write and tell me if he is happy with the angels. I didn’t have him baptized because his father did not approve and now my heart is breaking. The endless litany.
What a talent God has given you, Johnny.
The reason: You’re too controversial to be effective as a teacher.
In a sudden vicious spasm he began to rake letters and manila envelopes out of the box, dropping some in the snow. The inevitable headache began to form around his temples like two dark clouds that would slowly draw together, enveloping him in pain. Sudden tears began to slip down his cheeks, and in the deep, still cold, they froze to glittering tracks almost immediately.
He bent and began to pick up the letters he had dropped; he saw one, doubled and trebled through the prisms of his tears, addressed in heavy dark pencil to JOHN SMITH SIKIK SEER
Sikik seer, that’s me. His hands began to tremble wildly and he dropped everything, including Dave’s letter. It fluttered down like a leaf and landed print side up among the other letters, all the other letters. Through his helpless tears he could see the letterhead, and the motto below the torch: