The Lords of Discipline (16 page)

The screen door slammed twice against the doorjamb, the signal of a freshman seeking entry into the room of an upperclassman.

“Drive in, dumbhead,” I called out.

Poteete appeared in the entranceway, still sweating liberally. You could almost watch him losing weight. His face spoke eloquently of the day’s rigors. His eyes, piglike and the color of tobacco leaf, were hideously swollen.

“Good evening, Mr. Poteete.”

“Cadet recruit Poteete reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.

“Not bad, Poteete,” I said admiringly. “It’s amazing how quickly you learn the little tricks they teach by torture this first week. Remove your cap when you come into an upperclassman’s room. I forgot once during my plebe week and the first sergeant almost tore my head off. That’s good. Now. At ease. Sit down and relax.”

He stood before me bracing as earnestly as when he entered the room. It was almost impossible to relax in front of an upperclassman in the first months of school. The brace became a method of defense, a natural reflex like a turtle withdrawing into its shell.

“Relax your chin, Poteete,” I ordered. “Quit bracing and sit down. You’re making me nervous. You had a tough day, didn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“Please try to remember that I’m not Snipes or any of those other assholes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m a senior private, Poteete. I have no rank and no authority except that which comes naturally to any senior in this school. There aren’t any privates around now, but there’ll be a lot of them when the Corps gets back next week. We got where we are, to our incredibly unprestigious positions, by basically not giving a shit. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve got a great personality, kid. You’re going to do well here,” I said.

“Sir, permission to make a statement, sir.”

“My God, Poteete, what do I have to do, get the General to sign a piece of paper that I just want to talk to you?”

“Sir,” he said, and his voice was whining and rasping, “sir, I was the most popular boy in my high school. People liked me there.”

“Ha! Wonderful, young dumbhead. Be sure to tell the cadre that. They’d hate to know they’d been abusing the most popular boy in his high school class. Let me do you a favor, Poteete, and suggest you keep that piece of information between us. They pick up on that kind of stuff and go for the groin. By the way, Poteete, are you sure you want to stay in this school?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “More than anything in the world. I’ve been planning to come to the Institute ever since I can remember.”

“So you’ve been fucked up a long time, Poteete.”

“Sir,” he bristled. “My father was a battalion commander in the class of 1947. He was a legend here. Sam Poteete. Have you ever heard of him?”

“Naw, not a single time in my whole life.”

“It would’ve killed him if I’d gone to Clemson or Carolina. But when I was a senior he told me I could go to any college in the country, that he wouldn’t interfere with my decision at all.”

“And you chose this place?” I asked.

“He did make one stipulation, sir. He said he would pay for my education at the Institute.”

“A legend in his own time, huh?” I said. “He sounds like a flaming asshole in his own time to me.”

“He loves this place, sir. I think he was happier here than he ever has been since.”

“How do you feel about it, Poteete?”

“I didn’t know it was going to be like this, sir. I didn’t know about the cruelty.”

“Oh, they’re just getting warmed up,” I said. “It’s just plebe week. You’ve got a big nine months to go. You’re merely seeing the birth of the ghouls this week. They’re only truly fearsome when they reach maturity in January. Then and only then is their cruelty really formidable. But by that time, if you make it that long, you could withstand an assault by the whole Chinese army.”

“Do you think I can make it, sir?” Poteete said pleadingly. “I mean, I’ve got to make it. I could never go home to Dad as a quitter.”

“You’ve got to quit crying, Poteete.”

“I can’t, sir. I’m easily upset.”

“They’ll run you out of here in a couple of days if you don’t. They already know that you cry easily, Poteete. They already know they can get to you. So now they’re going to start singling you out the way they were doing in the shower room tonight. They’ll cut you off from the herd, use you as an example, get the other freshmen to turn against you. If you don’t learn to quit crying, Poteete, it’s going to be a gang-bang every moment of your life.”

“I can’t help it, sir. It just comes.”

“I know, Poteete. I cried myself to sleep every night for three months. I cried throughout my entire plebe year. Do you know what happened to me after that?”

“No, sir.”

“I haven’t cried since. Not once. I don’t know if I’m capable of crying now.”

“So the system really works?”

“Oh, the system works fine, Poteete.”

“I hope that happens to me, sir.”

“Cry at night, Poteete. Cry in the latrine or when you’re taking a shower. But please don’t cry in front of them or you’ll be back with your father in . . . where s your hometown?”

“Sir, my hometown is Pickens, South Carolina, sir.”

“Otherwise, you’ll spend a long winter in Pickens with your father not talking to you.”

“I’ll never go back to Pickens if I quit.”

“I wouldn’t go back to Pickens if I stayed,” I answered. “But I wanted to warn you, Poteete. They have you marked now. I’ll do what I can to help you but I’m not much respected for my love of the plebe system and if they see me helping you too much, then they’ll be even tougher on you. You’ve got to become invisible to them, blend in with the background. Do everything they tell you to do. Look like you love doing it whether it’s washing down the quadrangle with a toothbrush or doing a hundred pushups. They’ve sent more than one freshman packing because of a nervous breakdown.”

“If you hate it so much, sir, why did you stay?” Poteete asked.

“Fuck you, Poteete,” I flared back. “You ain’t my analyst. I stayed for the same reason you want to stay. The upholding of the McLean tradition. That kind of crap. And do you know something else, Poteete? I was a coward. I couldn’t face the shame of having quit this dump. I envied those kids who walked out of here and started new lives that had nothing to do with the Institute or the system or the Corps. The irony of it all, Poteete, the goddam hilarious irony is that the rest of the world, if they could only know about this place, would think everybody connected with it was stark raving mad.”

Poteete looked at me suspiciously and asked, “You don’t believe in the system, Mr. McLean?”

“That’s right, dumbhead,” I answered him back meeting his gaze directly. “I don’t believe in the system.”

“Then I don’t think I should be around you, sir,” he said. “I believe in the system, sir.”

“Then I suggest you go find some members of the cadre, Poteete. They’ll be glad to indoctrinate you fully in its glories and triumphs.”

“I appreciate your trying to help, sir. I really do. But I want to be an Institute man more than anything in the world.”

“Good. Then I’m going to tell Snipes that you think he’s a zit-faced cocksucker. Then Snipes will help you to become a much better Institute man than you might have become talking to softies like me.”

“You misunderstand me, Mr. McLean. Everyone misunderstands me here.”

“I’m not going to talk to Snipes, Poteete. I break out into hives every time I see him draw a level breath.”

“Will that be all, sir?” Poteete asked, bracing again.

I put my hand on his shoulder and walked him to the door.

“Just remember this, Poteete. For what it is worth. And this is coming from a guy who doesn’t believe in the system. If you keep on crying, you won’t make it. They’ll run you out. Good luck. And come up here if you ever want the pressure off. I’ve got real nice roommates.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best, sir.”

“I hope you make it, Poteete. I hope you make it for yourself and not that prick father from Pickens, South Carolina.”

“Sir, don’t you call my father a prick,” Poteete warned.

“What will you do about it if I do, dumbhead?” I asked curiously.

“I’ll have to fight you, sir,” Poteete answered. He looked utterly pathetic as he stood there bracing and issuing me a challenge at the same time.

“Very good. Your father is not a prick. I’m sorry. Your father is a gift of the Magi. You’d have to fight me. Goddam, Poteete, you might make it after all.”

“I’ll never quit, Mr. McLean. Good night, sir. Thanks for the advice. I know you were only trying to help me.”

“Thanks for not kicking my ass, Poteete. My whole goddam life just flashed before me when you threatened physical harm. Remember, you’ve got to quit crying. Otherwise, you’re gone, Poteete. Long gone.”

Chapter Thirteen

O
n Sunday, I found the white gate on Stoll’s Alley that led down a narrow brick path to the garden of Annie Kate’s house on Church Street. There was a runaway luxuriance to the garden’s ruined profusion that made it seem sinister instead of tranquil. It was a surprising touch of wilderness in the most ardently civilized acreage in South Carolina and a perfect place for a secret rendezvous.

I saw Annie Kate sitting on a small bench behind an unoccupied carriage house, watching me through her sunglasses. An arbor of vegetation enclosed her as she waited with her hands inside her raincoat pockets. Even in the middle of a late August day, it was cool in the untended shade. She smiled at me and motioned for me to come quickly to her side, and I realized that I was visible from at least two windows of the main house. Quickly, I made my way to her. We shone, she in her faded raincoat and I in my summer uniform, like two ivory chess pieces in the green tumult of her garden.

“You wore that silly nose again,” she said.

“It breathes well and I decided to keep it.”

“I do hope you reconsider your decision,” she replied, adjusting her scarf.

“You’re wearing a different scarf,” I said.

“I’m glad you noticed. This is my favorite. The one I wore that night we met is such a tacky thing. I’ve always detested it. Tell me everything you did this week. Every single thing and don’t leave out a single detail. I’ve been so bored I almost read a book. Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t have your number. I don’t know your last name. And I didn’t know you wanted me to call you.”

“You can’t call me. Mother would be furious. Did you think about calling me? Did you want to call me?”

“Yes, I wanted to call you.”

“If you’d really wanted to call me, you’d have found a way. If you had a true romantic temperament, you’d have come here at night, climbed to my bedroom window on a ladder, and begged me to give you my telephone number,” she whispered. Since I could not see her eyes, I didn’t know if Annie Kate was teasing me or slightly out of her mind. I had never met a Southern girl who talked so boldly in my entire life and would have denied the existence of such a desperately forward creature had someone described her in accurate detail.

“That’s all I need,” I answered. “To be shot off a ladder while trying to break into a house South of Broad.”

“I’ve been so lonely this week I could’ve killed myself and never given it a second thought,” she said, speaking more to herself than to me. “When I’m alone all I can do is think and I absolutely hate to think. Especially now.”

“You look like you’ve been thinking long, deep thoughts on this bench.”

“People who go around thinking deep thoughts are usually pretentious, silly things who have no sense of who they are. I bet you sit around thinking all the time. Boys from good families are out to have good times. They detest deep thoughts as much as I do. But they’re serious about the important things.”

Taking a seat beside her, I asked, “Such as?”

“Such as preserving history, selling real estate, making a good living for their families, hiring a good staff, and sending their children to the proper schools. Charleston boys always give a good account of themselves.”

“Speaking of hiring a good staff,” I said, looking around the garden, “who’s your gardener? Johnny Appleseed or the Jolly Green Giant?”

“I’m not going to let you make me mad today,” she said. “Did you bring me a flower, Will, or a box of candy, or some other nice, thoughtful presentable?”

“No, I didn’t bring you anything,” I answered, mad at myself for not having thought of it.

“No wonder you don’t have any girl friends,” she pouted. “Not only do you have a funny nose, but I always expect that the dear sweet boys in my life will bring me a presentable when they come to my door.”

“Maybe if I was coming to your door, it would be different,” I said, my voice rising, “but I’m coming to your back yard garden. I’m not sitting in your drawing room nibbling on bennie wafers and sweets, I’m sitting beneath an eight-foot-high camellia bush and three palmetto trees. No, Annie Kate, I didn’t bring you a goddam presentable.”

She was smiling again, and her voice was teasing as she said in a flawless self-parody, “A gentleman would never, under any circumstance, use such language in front of a lady. Especially a lady of my delicate coloring and breathtaking beauty. We Charleston girls are fragile, Will. Profanity bruises us.”

“Annie Kate, do you always talk and act like you’re a complete idiot?”

“How dare you to insult me like that in my own house,” she bristled. “If you don’t understand what I’m doing, Will, then you shouldn’t ever be around women at all. I’ve been around men long enough to know that all they want is a woman who’ll make them feel smart and handsome and superior. I’ve watched women flirt with men all my life, and I’ve become goddam good at playing the coquette. In case you haven’t noticed.”

“Please,” I said. “I’m a cadet. Profanity bruises me.”

“No girl in her right mind would ever put up with someone like you. You might as well declare yourself to be a homosexual.”

“That was a joke.”

“Your calling me an idiot was not a joke.”

“I didn’t call you an idiot. I said that sometimes you talked and acted like you were an idiot.”