Read Online The Man Without a Face by ALEXANDER_ - Free Book Online
Authors: ALEXANDER_
Tags: antique
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before he slipped through the window, so I left earlier than usual, and arrived up at McLeod’s house about a quarter to eight.
Usually, when I walked into the room we always worked in, he was there. This morning he wasn’t. He wasn’t in the bam, either, because I went and looked. Since the horse stall was empty, too, I guessed he was still out riding. He’d kept me so busy that I hadn’t asked about the horse, or anything else. It was work, work, work. I always had the feeling that if I said anything personal at all, like What do you do the rest of the time? or Is it true you write porno? or even Did you teach? (he’d never even answered that one, or maybe I hadn’t put it in the form of a question. Besides, who needed to ask?)—he’d toss me out. I knew he was telling the truth when he said he was sorry he’d got into this, because he made it perfectly obvious that if I put one toe over some kind of invisible line he’d drawn—such as not doing any of the whacking big assignments he’d dole out, or saying casually “Aeneas sure was a pompous ass”—I’d just get one of his chilling stares as though I had done something socially unacceptable. Because of the lousy
59
exam, but also not to give him the satisfaction of getting rid of me, I kept on my side of the line, which meant keeping my mouth shut. Which was a pity, in a way, and a waste, because over the years I had really perfected the technique of how to keep a teacher from coming to grips with the fact that you haven’t done your homework or don’t know the answer to the question he’s asking you.
In the school I go to it’s considered repressive and damaging to the personality for a teacher not to pick up any subject a kid introduces. So if you don’t know the correct dates of the Civil War, say, you just let on that you can’t get your mind off the industrial ravages to the ecology or the terrible inequities of the electoral system or the racist nature of education or the Vietnam War or something like that, and if you have any skill at all you’ll probably never have to feed him back the Civil War dates. One girl got so overwrought and convincing over dates representing an authoritarian approach to education that the teacher never mentioned them again. Some of the really hip kids have managed to carry it right through graduation, after which, of course (and if they know they’ll blow their Regents), they drop out as a protest against the Establishment. There was only one teacher who didn’t go along with that and who was crass enough to keep at you until it finally became evident that you hadn’t a clue as to what he was talking about, hadn’t read the assignment, and couldn’t hack his questions. So we had a secret meeting of the student body, after which the kids produced symptoms of such mass neurosis when they got home that the parents held their own emergency meeting and all but marched on the school. The teacher was fired.
But Monster McLeod obviously went by the old fascist methods, and since he had me where it hurts and St. Matthew’s apparently really cared how much you knew about
60
that pietistic ass Aeneas and his soggy girlfriend Dido, who kept reminding me more and more of Mother when she wants me to do something, I knew I had to live with it.
But to get back to that morning, I poked around the bam, looking at some of the harness on the wall and breathing in the smells of hay and horse and leather. There was a ladder going up to the upper part so I went up and waded around in the hay. It was really cool. I lay down and rolled like a puppy. The hay tickled my nose and my mouth and my midriff where my shirt rolled up. Then I got up and plunged around to another side and looked through a low square window with open shutters. It was a much better view than from the house. From here you could see the whole curve of the coastline: the village far below and to the right, the dinghy pier, the beach, and beyond, the rocks
Usually, when I walked into the room we always worked in, he was there. This morning he wasn’t. He wasn’t in the bam, either, because I went and looked. Since the horse stall was empty, too, I guessed he was still out riding. He’d kept me so busy that I hadn’t asked about the horse, or anything else. It was work, work, work. I always had the feeling that if I said anything personal at all, like What do you do the rest of the time? or Is it true you write porno? or even Did you teach? (he’d never even answered that one, or maybe I hadn’t put it in the form of a question. Besides, who needed to ask?)—he’d toss me out. I knew he was telling the truth when he said he was sorry he’d got into this, because he made it perfectly obvious that if I put one toe over some kind of invisible line he’d drawn—such as not doing any of the whacking big assignments he’d dole out, or saying casually “Aeneas sure was a pompous ass”—I’d just get one of his chilling stares as though I had done something socially unacceptable. Because of the lousy
59
exam, but also not to give him the satisfaction of getting rid of me, I kept on my side of the line, which meant keeping my mouth shut. Which was a pity, in a way, and a waste, because over the years I had really perfected the technique of how to keep a teacher from coming to grips with the fact that you haven’t done your homework or don’t know the answer to the question he’s asking you.
In the school I go to it’s considered repressive and damaging to the personality for a teacher not to pick up any subject a kid introduces. So if you don’t know the correct dates of the Civil War, say, you just let on that you can’t get your mind off the industrial ravages to the ecology or the terrible inequities of the electoral system or the racist nature of education or the Vietnam War or something like that, and if you have any skill at all you’ll probably never have to feed him back the Civil War dates. One girl got so overwrought and convincing over dates representing an authoritarian approach to education that the teacher never mentioned them again. Some of the really hip kids have managed to carry it right through graduation, after which, of course (and if they know they’ll blow their Regents), they drop out as a protest against the Establishment. There was only one teacher who didn’t go along with that and who was crass enough to keep at you until it finally became evident that you hadn’t a clue as to what he was talking about, hadn’t read the assignment, and couldn’t hack his questions. So we had a secret meeting of the student body, after which the kids produced symptoms of such mass neurosis when they got home that the parents held their own emergency meeting and all but marched on the school. The teacher was fired.
But Monster McLeod obviously went by the old fascist methods, and since he had me where it hurts and St. Matthew’s apparently really cared how much you knew about
60
that pietistic ass Aeneas and his soggy girlfriend Dido, who kept reminding me more and more of Mother when she wants me to do something, I knew I had to live with it.
But to get back to that morning, I poked around the bam, looking at some of the harness on the wall and breathing in the smells of hay and horse and leather. There was a ladder going up to the upper part so I went up and waded around in the hay. It was really cool. I lay down and rolled like a puppy. The hay tickled my nose and my mouth and my midriff where my shirt rolled up. Then I got up and plunged around to another side and looked through a low square window with open shutters. It was a much better view than from the house. From here you could see the whole curve of the coastline: the village far below and to the right, the dinghy pier, the beach, and beyond, the rocks
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