calls I make every day or two? It’s just the latest in an endless series of gaps in our relationship. The gaps have jagged edges, and they bite right into my soul, if a fallen Catholic like me can be said to have a soul.
Jake doesn’t seem surprised to see me. He looks at me and nods, not happy, not sad, and most amazingly, not nervous.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hello, Jake.”
He turns to the headmaster and gestures at the empty chair. “Is this for me?”
“Yes, it is, Jacob. Please sit down.”
Almost nobody calls him “Jacob.” He’s been “Jake” ever since he was a baby, but not to his mother, who chose the name and loathes the nickname. “Jake sounds like the name of a cardsharp,” she always complained. In any case, Jacob-Jake sits in the chair, leans back and crosses his legs, the very poster child for Not a Worry in the World, Inc.
The headmaster, on the other hand, looks as if he could use a drink. “I was talking to your father about your essay.”
“I figured, Mr. Plymouth.”
“As I recall, you said you stand by what you’ve written.”
“Yes, I do.”
“And you’re not sorry about what you’ve written?”
“Of course not.”
“So what you’ve written here is how you truly feel about this school. You believe it to be a sham.”
“Yes, totally.”
“And you really would like to see the entire system collapse, as you say, under the weight of its own bullshit?”
Jake shrugs. “Well, it wouldn’t bother me if it did.”
My son is both abrupt and polite, an unusual combination. He stares at the headmaster, whose forehead, I now see, glistens with a light glaze of sweat. He turns to me and spreads his hands.
“You can see the position I’m in,” he says. “Can’t you?”
“It seems to me that your position is fine,” I reply. “I’m a little more concerned about Jake’s position.”
Jake uncrosses his legs. “What is my position?”
The headmaster hesitates. “Well, Jacob. Unless you have a change of heart about what you’ve expressed in this essay, I do not see how you can continue attending this school.”
Jake doesn’t exactly sit up straight, but he takes most of the slack out of his slouch. “You’re expelling me?”
“That’s what it would come to, yes.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I say, “hang on a second. Nobody got shot, nobody got stabbed here. A few opinions were expressed, that’s all.”
“This was more than just a few opinions, Mr. Sullivan. This was an indictment of the system that’s worked at this school since 1732.” He holds up Jake’s essay. “With concepts this subversive, he becomes a potential threat to the rest of the student body.”
“Oh, come on, man!” I say. “If anything this essay helps you sell the school’s ideology!”
“I’m afraid we don’t see it that way.”
When a man is cornered, I’ve noticed, he’ll often turn to the collective noun for comfort.
“If there’s a ‘we’ involved in Jake’s fate,” I say, “I’d like to meet the people who compose it.”
The headmaster is about to say something, but Jake speaks first.
“Subversive,” he says, “is the very word they used throughout the McCarthy hearings. Funny we should be studying that in history class just now.”
The headmaster doesn’t much like being compared to Senator Joseph McCarthy, and my son clearly does not think much of the headmaster, who gazes at Jake for a moment before turning back to me.
“I am the final word on these matters,” he says calmly. “The ‘we’ refers to those on the school board, with whom I confer on all key decisions. But the final decision is mine.”
“And the key to everything is an apology from my son?”
“That’s right. A sincere apology.”
“Otherwise, he’s out.”
“I’m afraid so.” He holds his hands up appeasingly. “No rush. Take the weekend and think things through.”
What he means, really, is that we should let Jake’s mother get involved in the matter, and she’ll straighten it out to everyone’s satisfaction. He’s trying to buy time, but my son won’t let him.
Jake gets to his feet. “You can have my apology right now,” he begins. “I’m sorry, truly sorry, that a man in your position can be this frightened and freaked out by words on a page. I’m also sorry you dragged my father into this mess. He never liked this school in the first place, and not just because it’s ridiculously expensive. Am I right, Dad?”
I lick my dry lips. “I’ve had some issues with it.”
I’m sweating from places I never even knew I had. The headmaster’s face looks as if it’s been dusted with flour. He manages to force a slight smile as he says, “Is there anything else, Jacob?”
“Yes, sir. I just hope that somehow you manage to develop a sense of humor. But it’s probably too late. It’s not really the kind of thing you learn. You’re pretty much born with it, or you’re not.”
The headmaster gets to his feet, which leaves me as the only one still sitting. “All right, Jacob,” he says. “Go and clean out your locker.”
There’s the tiniest of grins on Jake’s face, as if he’s on the opposite side of a chessboard and just suckered his opponent into the very move he’d been hoping for. Slowly, oh so slowly, Jake reaches for the knot in his tie, undoes it, pulls it from around his neck, and tosses it on the headmaster’s desk before walking out. A heartbeat later he pokes his head back in, looking only at me. Peter Plymouth no longer exists, as far as Jake is concerned.
“Meet you in front in five, Dad.”
“Okay, Jake.”
The headmaster picks up the tie, rolls it into a coil, and hands it to me, as solemnly as they hand folded flags to the mothers of dead soldiers. “I’m very sorry it had to happen this way, Mr. Sullivan.”
I stick the coiled tie in my pocket. I’m obviously expected to leave the office, but I don’t budge. We still have business to conduct, but Mr. Plymouth doesn’t seem to realize this.
“What about my refund?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The tuition.
