Read Online The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston - Free Book Online Page B

the college gates, roaring to be let in. It was late afternoon in mid-December and the Townies had already gone home. The ’Tories rushed to the windows to see what was going on.
    “Who is it?” Slogger said, but I had recognized my father’s voice right off. I ran out of the dorm and across the field, to shouts of mock encouragement from the bay boys.
    “It’s Smallwood’s old man,” I heard someone say. “He’s absolutely pissed. Go get him, Smallwood, go get him. Ask him if there’s any left for us.”
    “Headmaster Reeves,” my father roared, shaking the bars of the gate. “Whoremaster Reeves, Charlie Smallwood would like to have a word with you, Whoremaster Reeves. Let me in. Or perhapsyou would like to join me, sir; we could have a little chat right here outside the gate. It won’t take but a minute, sir, I assure you. It concerns my son, you see, my son whom you have judged to be unsuitable, an honest mistake, I’m sure. Perhaps you would better understand him if you spent some time with me, perhaps then you would see him in an altogether different light.”
    By the time I reached the gate, the porter, a little old fellow named Antle who stayed in a hut by the gate to monitor the comings and goings of the boys, was beside himself. He wore a sod cap and, as if he had never left the Feild after graduation, a school blazer bearing the crest of Bishop Feild.
    “Be quiet, sir, be quiet,” Antle was saying, standing well out of reach of my father’s hands, wringing his own. “If you don’t be quiet, they’ll have the ’Stab on you.”
    “I have friends in the constabulary,” my father said.
    “Go on home, father,” I said. “Go on home now.”
    “ Joe ,” my father said, as if the last person he had expected to run into at the school was me. He looked like he’d come straight up from the waterfront, for he was wearing his coveralls with the row of pencils in the pocket and a pair of black, salt-stained leather boots, and he had his toting pole in his hand. He was bareheaded, his hair sticking up like he had just removed his stocking cap, though there was no sign of it.
    “Go get Headmaster Reeves, Joe,” he said. “Tell him your father, Charlie Smallwood, would like to have a little word with him.” At the word little , he made a motion with his thumb and index finger not very far apart.
    “He’s not here,” I said. “He had to go to a meeting somewhere. Why don’t you just go home?”
    “WHOREMASTER REEVES,” my father shouted, throwing back his head, eyes closed as if the better to hear himself, the better to revel in the sound of his own voice. The boys at the windows of the dorm were in hysterics. “You tell him, Charlie,” Slogger shouted.
    “Hello, boys,” my father shouted. “You’re all good boys, all suitable, I’m sure. But you’re no better than my Joe, I don’t care what Whoremaster Reeves says, you’re no better than my Joe. He’s got some backbone, Joe does. WHOREMASTER REEVES.”
    He grabbed the bars of the gate and shook them again. “Charlie Smallwood is no good, chop him up for firewood,” he said, further inciting the ’Tories. I turned and looked at the headmaster’s residence. I had lied about Reeves not being there, but there was no sign of him at any of the windows. Antle looked beseechingly at me.
    “The ’Stab will be here soon,” Antle said, on the verge of tears. “The headmaster won’t stand for this; he’ll call the ’Stab for sure.”
    “I don’t care about the ’Stab,” my father said.
    “What will the headmaster think?” Antle said. “Oh my, oh my.”
    “I’ll go out and talk to him,” I said.
    “Oh, no,” Antle said. “Oh, no, I’m not allowed to let you out. And if I open the gate, he’ll come in. I can’t open the gate.”
    “Open the gate,” my father said.
    Without giving Antle a chance to go through the motions of trying to stop me, I climbed the gate and dropped down on the other side to a burst of applause