Oblivion_ stories - By David Foster Wallace Page 0,42

traumatic for anyone, especially young children.

LATER, MR. DEMATTEIS WAS FORCED OUT OF THE WHOLESALE NEWSPAPER DELIVERY TRADE BY WHAT CHRIS DEMATTEIS SAID WERE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZED CRIME THAT WERE MOVING DOWN FROM CLEVELAND AND TAKING OVER ALL NEWSPAPER AND COIN OPERATED VENDING MACHINE BUSINESSES IN THE STATE, FORCING MR. DEMATTEIS TO TAKE A JOB AS A TAXI DISPATCHER, BUT AT LEAST CHRIS STOPPED HAVING TO GET UP SO EARLY THAT HE COULD NOT STAY AWAKE IN HIS CLASSES, AND LATER DISCOVERED A NATURAL TALENT FOR MANUAL MACHINE OPERATION IN MR. VAUGHAN’S INDUSTRIAL ARTS CLASS AT FISHINGER, AND IS NOW A SHOP STEWARD AT PRECISION TOOL & DIE ONLY A FEW BLOCKS FROM MY OWN FIRM’S OFFICES.

In the midst of writing on the chalkboard, illustrating that the phrase due process of law appears identically in both the Vth and XIVth Amendments, Mr. Richard Allen Johnson inadvertently inserted something else in the phrase, as well—the capital word KILL. Ellen Morrison, Sanjay Rabindranath, and some other of the class’s more diligent pupils, copying down word for word what Mr. Johnson was putting up on the chalkboard, discovered that they had written due process KILL of law and that that, too, was what was on the chalkboard, which Mr. Johnson had stepped one or two steps back from and was looking up in evident puzzlement at what was written there. At least, many classmates later reported this as puzzlement because of the way, even though the sub was facing the chalkboard and thus had his back to the class, his head was now cocked curiously over to the side, not unlike a dog’s when it hears a certain type of high sound, and he remained that way for a moment before shaking his head slightly as if shaking off some confusion and, using the board’s eraser to erase the KILL of law, replaced it with the correct of law. As usual, Chris DeMatteis had his head on his desk in the second row and was asleep, because his father and older brothers ran a newspaper delivery service for newsstands and retail vendors covering over a third of the city early in the morning, and often they made DeMatteis get up as early as 3:00 in the morning to pitch in and help, even if it was a school day, and DeMatteis often fell asleep in his classes, especially if it was a sub. Mandy Blemm, who most of the other children at R. B. Hayes knew very little about in terms of the realities of her personal life or history (both I and Tim Applewhite had been placed in Miss Clennon’s slow readers class with Blemm in 3rd grade, although Applewhite later got bused to a special school in Minerva Park, as he just could not read at all—he literally was a slow reader, whereas Blemm and I were not), rarely ever even took her book or pencils out in class, and always sat looking at the desktop in a withdrawn or sullen manner, and never paid attention or completed any of her assignments, until the school authorities reached a point where they became so concerned that they began making plans to have Blemm transferred to Minerva Park as well, at which time she would abruptly begin completing her assignments and being involved in classroom goings on. Then, as soon as the administrative heat was off, she would once more revert to just sitting there staring at her desktop or biting dead skin off of the sides of her thumbnail very slowly for the whole class period. She had also been known to eat paste. Everyone was a little afraid of her. At the same time, Frankie Caldwell, who now works in Dayton as a quality control inspector for Uniroyal, had his head down and was drawing something on his theme paper with great precision and intensity. Alison Standish (who later moved away) was absent again. Meanwhile, the Xth Amendment (the first I-IX are what comprise the familiar Bill of Rights, although the Xth Amendment was adopted simultaneously in 1791) contains the phrase The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, and so forth, which Mr. Johnson, while at the board, according to Ellen Morrison and every other pupil taking notes, wrote as The powers not delegated KILL to the United States THEM by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it KILL THEM to the States, at which time there was again, evidently, another long