The Learners: A Novel (No Series)

SCRIBNER
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. This book is a work of fiction. Oh, yes. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. You betcha. Copyright © 2008 by Charles Kidd. Yes,
C
HARLES
. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, an, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New york NY 10020. First Scribner hardcover edition February 2008.
SCRIBNER
and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work. The author is deeply grateful to the Bogliaso Foundation for its generous support. Book design by Chip Kidd, wrote it in Quark 6.0. Text is set in Bodoni Old Face, with various embellishments. Learners logo designed by Mr. F. C. Ware. Library of Congress Control Number: 2007048102. ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6488-1
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6488-8.

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1961
(October.)
We’ll Be Right Back, After This.

1961

I. Before.
(August, June.)

II. During.
(September.)

III. After.
(September–November.)

An idea ahead of its time, no matter what it is, is
not
a good idea.

—No one you’ve ever heard of

Q: And babies?

A: And babies.

—T
HE
N
EW
Y
ORK
T
IMES
,

Nov. 25, 1969

I was in the shower when I realized where I’d gone wrong. That’s a cliché now, I know, but it wasn’t then. Back then it was wildly new and
my
idea, and I would have copyrighted it had I foreseen it would become so popular, but well—as with
so
many things, who knew? Anyway, there I was, the water drilling away, its wet warmth my amniotic tide, the shower curtain a plastic, plaid uterine wall. Then it occurs to me, like a gift from God: Shoes are our friends.

Our
friends
.

Not just our acquaintances, the occasional giggly aunt and bald uncle over for dinner, the neighbors down the hall you have to say hello to—but the confidants we carefully screen and select over the course of a lifetime, our intimates. The ones who shield us from the slush, the sludge, the world’s dirt underfoot.

But their love is not unconditional. We have a bargain to keep. If we are good to them, they’ll give us everything they have, right down to their pocked, worn soles. Incredible.

Yes, this
was
news.

Clearly, I would have to change my strategy…

1961

When Tip is standing in the doorway as he is right now, it can only mean one thing. I brace myself. He shouts, eyes pleading:

“Milk!”

After two and a half months, I’m starting to get used to it. Very jarring at first, but now I’m practically a pro. I counter, with excellent timing:

“Paint!”

Aha. Got him. He wasn’t ready for
that.

“Paint?”

I raise my head from the potato chip coupon I’ve been laying out with blue pencil for the past ten minutes and arch my right eyebrow, which is all he needs. Sketchy ignores us, as always.

“Faaassssssssinating.” It’s like a gas leak from Tip’s mouth and he darts back down to his office.

And I am reminded, grateful: This
can
be a pretty fun place to work.

JUNE.

Who am I? I am Happy.

Not in any descriptive way, God knows—it’s my name. A nickname, to be more precise, which I acquired relatively late in life, as those things go. From a teacher of mine in college, freshman year. And because of that it will always be who—not what—I am.

I wear it proudly, my sleeve’s own Purple Heart.

Me: twenty-one years old, Caucasian male of mixed Anglo-Italian origin, olive-skinned, round tortoise-shell horn-rimmed glasses, hair sort of like Brandon De Wilde’s in
Shane
, otherwise not interesting to look at. Or at least that’s what the evidence would suggest.

Which is fine by me, because
I’m
the one doing the looking. I’m a graphic designer—I pretty much see the world as one great big problem to solve; one typeface, one drawing, one image at a time. Life is a lifelong assignment that must be constantly analyzed, clarified, figured out, and responded to appropriately.

I am inquisitive, though I hope not in any obnoxious way; and while I’m wary of any sort of unfamiliarity I am also quickly and easily bored by routine. I grew up in the eastern mid-Atlantic region of the United States, raised Protestant—the United Church of Christ—but have become very much of the “religion is the opiate of the people” school (the sole piece of common sense I gleaned from a course on Marxist theory, senior year), which of course I have elected to keep from my roundly nice, doting parents, lest they call the police. But I
am
close to my family, the way you are close to other people in a small crowded elevator that has temporarily stalled but will be moving any minute now. And as far as I was concerned, that minute was almost here.

Let’s see, what else. I am convinced that ALL sports are a sanctioned form of mass-demonic worship, that cathedrals and museums have traded roles in the greater culture, and that Eve Arden is woefully underappreciated by society at large—as are comic books, malted milk, cracking your neck, secret decoder rings, glass tea kettles, whoopie pies, and television test patterns. And—ahem—graphic designers. That should do for now.

Wait, I’m forgetting something. Oh.

I do
not
write poetry.

But most of all: I am eager to start my career as a newly certified Bachelor of the Arts in Graphic Design, with a very specific goal—acquiring a job at the advertising agency of Spear, Rakoff & Ware; two states away, up in New Haven, Connecticut.

Why? Simple.

It’s where Winter Sorbeck started. Long ago.

Now, yes—Winter, the teacher in question who christened me, my GD instructor during my first year at State—is a whole other story. And certainly one with no small amount of pain. But however bullying, severe, terror-inducing, and unnerving he was (and boy, was he), he was equal parts mesmerizing, eye-opening, inspiring, and brilliant. He was unlike any teacher I’d had, before or since. By the end of that spring semester he abruptly quit the faculty and vanished. I would have gladly dropped out to follow him anywhere, but no amount of amateur detective work revealed where that might be. So I bided my time, worked for the next three years to get my degree, and upon graduation decided: If I couldn’t be where Winter was now, I’d go where he’d been. In the course of solving one of his earlier assignments I discovered that he started his career at Spear, Rakoff & Ware, and if that was good enough for him, it would be good enough for me.

Mandatory, actually.

And proving difficult. No surprise there—if Winter was anything, he was difficult, as would be anyplace associated with him. But no doubt worth the trouble. I approached the firm early, in March, three months before graduation. My initial inquiry went unanswered, as did my résumé (which could have won the
Collegian’
s annual First Fiction award), and the letter of recommendation I’d extorted from the dean’s secretary. By May I was desperate, so I telephoned. The voice that greeted me hummed with the same welcome slow tone I knew from three years earlier, when I’d called for help on that gum wrapper label design problem for Winter. It was Milburne “Sketchy” Spear—the head of the art department. He didn’t remember me and I didn’t remind him—I wanted a clean start. The years had not changed his enthusiasm:

“Oh, you don’t want to work here.”

“Um, yes sir, I do.”

“Really?”

“Yes sir.”

Silence.

“Hello?”

“Sorry, I’m inking. Mind’s a porch screen when I’m inking. I’m trying to do a crowd scene with a Number 5 Pedigree pen tip. Should be using a Radio 914. Doesn’t really matter—can’t draw anymore anyway, never could. God, I
stink
. Wouldn’t you rather work someplace else? Where people didn’t stink?”

What? “No sir, I’d like to work for your firm. You know, to sort of get my feet wet.” Dreadful. Why did I say
that
?

“Heh.” He sounded like a lawnmower trying to start. “Heh. That’s what I thought. I mean, that’s what
I
thought when I got here. You know when that was?”

“No. I—”

“You know dirt?”

“Dirt?”

“Dirt.”

“Um, yes. Dirt.”

“Well, I started here the year before they discovered it.”

“I see.”

“Heh.”

“At least…it must have been spotless when you arrived.”

“Heh-heh. Can you airbrush?”

“Yes, but—”

“Operate a photo-stat machine?”

“Did you receive my résu—”

“Do you know what I’m doing right now?”

“Uh, drawing a crowd scene with a…Number 5 Pedigree pen tip?”

“No, that’s done. Now I’m trying to decide what kind of face the potato chip should have. That’s always the question. Everything’s a question.”

“Pardon?”

“For this newspaper ad. A whole half-pager, due by five. Everyone signed off on it yesterday—the crowd, see, they’ve all filed out into the street to worship a giant potato chip.”

“I see.”

“Because it’s a Krinkle Kutt. One of our biggest accounts.”

“Right.”

“Six stories tall.” His tone was casual, as if he was telling me about his brother-in-law. “So, exactly what sort of expression should it have on its face? Because obviously, it’s a very happy potato chip, to be a Krinkly Kollosus, and looked up to by all these tiny people, who adore it so.”

“Well…it’s obvious to me.”

“That right?”

“It should look
chipper
.”

“Heh.”

“So to speak.” Boy, was I making this up. Pure hokum. “You know, not so smug. He doesn’t want to frighten everyone. I mean,
I’d
be wary of a protean jagged slab of tuber towering over my fellow citizens, our fate in his many, many eyes. Especially if he’s been fried in lard. Which he has, I hope?”

“Heh. You
still
want to work here?”

“Definitely.”

But that was just the beginning. I managed to coax an appointment with Mr. Spear to show him my portfolio the first week of June; and while he did admit it wouldn’t hurt to have some extra help, he also made it clear the decision on hires wasn’t really his.

On the train to New Haven the day of our meeting, it dawned on me that this was hopeless.

Me, to me:
Do you realize what you are doing? This is what you are doing: You are going to a place you’ve never been, in a town that is totally unfamiliar, to meet with someone you don’t know, in order to convince this person to pay you (regularly) to do something you’ve never done before.

All that’s missing is Sancho Panza at your side.

Agreed. But I had to try. Winter had, successfully.

Though now that I thought of it, he went to Yale. And I went to the opposite of Yale.

This bore more weight with each approaching stop.

“…Fairfield, Bridgeport…”

Of
course
they weren’t going to take on anyone from a state university, much less one out of state.

“…Stratford, Milford…”

They obviously had some sort of direct-hire program from Yale, they’d be crazy not to.

“…and New Haven. End of the line. All out.”

What a waste of time, and sure to be humiliating. But I was used to that.

“This it?” asked the cabbie.

“I…guess so.” Was it? The address matched, but still.

The drive from the beaux arts train station, so grand with its vaulted ceilings and terrazzo floors, took less than five minutes.

And now, as he drove off, I faced a study in contrasts: the probable office building of Spear, Rakoff & Ware. It wasn’t at all what I’d pictured.

First, there were no columns in the lobby. Or trees, elevator attendants, cigar stands, shoe shine boys, or Gregory Peck. In fact, there was no lobby, at least none that I could make out from the sidewalk. There was a door. Period. It was black, cast iron, and apparently bolted shut. The only other advertising agency I’d ever seen was the one from
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
, and though I realized that was in New York (and fake New York at that), I also thought it might have represented some kind of national standard. Nope.