The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy (4 page)

Though I’m rather fond of the semicolon.

The bell rang. Elizabeth and her normal friends shot out. I’d wanted to leave at the same time as Maura, but she wafted out of the room while I waited for Jackson and Luke.

“I’m going to write a long poem,” said Luke. At the end of the day, the hallways are so crowded that it’s like being swept along a river. A highly trafficked, piranha-infested river; if you make any unexpected movements, you’ll probably get whacked by an instrument case.

“Why?”

“Weren’t you listening to BradLee?”

“No,” said Jackson and I simultaneously.

“Pathetic.”

“I was trying,” I said, “but circumstances conspired to defeat me.”

“ ‘Circumstances’ meaning ‘the rack of one Maura Heldsman,’ ” said Luke.

“She doesn’t really
have
a rack,” said Jackson.

We had been over this many times before. It was an occupational hazard of being in love with a ballerina.

“Why does our every conversation return to Maura Heldsman?” Luke asked.

“You’re the one who brought her up,” Jackson told him. He keeps a mental recording of every conversation so he can note your every inconsistency. It’s both useful and highly irritating.

“We’re the oppressed,” said Luke. “I will be the bearer of
the light.” He started talking faster. “Talk about postcolonial. Talk about minimal cultural authority. That’s us. We were a beautiful indigenous society until kTV came in.” And faster. “They’re just like the British in India, the Belgians in the Congo. It’s all for their own gain, and they justify themselves with the smug belief that their culture is superior. It’s exploitation, and they’re paying us just enough that we don’t mind. So we go along with it.” Now I knew what he’d been scribbling in his notebook. Luke works through ideas first on paper.

“What does that have to do with long poems?” said Jackson.

“Weren’t you
listening
?”

“No!”

We’d reached the tributary of the journalism hallway. “I will reappropriate our culture. See you dolts later.” He negotiated the turn and floated away.

“A long poem,” I said.

“The only thing I
like
about poems is that they’re short.”

“Cat-piss and porcupines.”

Roll the tape back even further. Early September. First week of school. It was the third day, during Morning Practice, when the PA system went off.

“All students and faculty are to immediately report to the auditorium for a special announcement. Thank you.”

Luke had a theory that the secretary had a fetish for splitting infinitives on the loudspeaker. I thought that was bullshit but she sure wasn’t helping my quest to disprove it. I put down my trumpet, wiped the spit from the corners of my mouth, and left the practice cubicle.

It’s hard to imagine now, but as I joined the stream of students, I don’t think I was curious about what we’d hear. I was just relieved that Morning Practice was interrupted. Morning Practice is a ninety-minute period after first bell when all of us run off to our respective studios and ply our respective trades. It’s one of Selwyn’s best recruiting tools, although they never mention to prospective parents what a school sounds
like when a hundred instrumentalists are practicing at once. Sometimes I make myself play trumpet, and sometimes I go draw. Those are my two majors. I am mediocre at both.

I ran into Luke on the way, and we saw Jackson and Elizabeth waiting for us in front of the auditorium. Jackson and I exchanged smiles. We both considered Morning Practice a painful experience. He spent the time working on lighting design for
Giselle
, the upcoming dance performance. This task bored the crap out of him. (Literally, as he’ll tell you if you ask. I suggest you don’t.)

“I can’t
believe
they’re interrupting us,” said a girl who was still wearing a paint-splattered smock. “I was entering my
flow
.”

Her friend was noisily sucking on an oboe reed. “I know, right?”

“Like, this time has been placed upon the altar of Art,” said Elizabeth, catching my eye. “How dare they defile her temple?”

“I have made a sacred commitment to my Muse,” I said, “and she shall not, uh, be cool with this.”

Elizabeth dropped the Valley-girl voice. “This
is
annoying.”

“You’re allowed to think that, because you’re good at what you do.” In fact, Elizabeth is crazily good. She’s an art major, like me, but she specializes in graphic design. Not many Selwyn alumni can actually make a living in an artistic field, but she’s going to end up designing book covers or posters for hipster bands. “Yep, it’s the poseurs I can’t stand,” I added loudly. Oboe Sucker gave me a disgusted look.

We shuffled into the auditorium. I still couldn’t believe my luck. Instead of being trapped with my trumpet in a cubicle
that reminded me of an insane asylum, with its padded walls and intimations of despair, I got to sit with my friends in these amazing, soft, velvet seats. Selwyn poured money into the auditorium. The lighting and sound systems are top-notch, and there are lushly pleated velour curtains and even those little boxes for royalty. And the seats are seriously more comfortable than my bed.

Elizabeth got out a sheet of paper. She’d recently become so sick of us going “That’s so predictable” that she’d started making us write down predictions.

Jackson was first:
Installation of video-game kiosks within soundproof practice studios; recognition of gaming as artistic major
.

“You wish, Jackson,” said Elizabeth, peering over his shoulder. Jackson wields a controller with the precision and grace of an orchestral conductor, but his genius, like Vincent van Gogh’s, has been unrecognized in his lifetime.

“One of these days they’ll see the light.”

I hoped not. That’d just be another art form I sucked at.

Luke:
New program to bring art to low-income kids and their families
.

“Could be, could be,” said Elizabeth.

“Because nothing makes a homeless guy feel better than Rachmaninoff,” said Luke.

My turn:
New fund-raising drive
.

“Lame,” said Elizabeth.

Luke read it. “That shouldn’t count. That’s like predicting that at some moment between five and eight tomorrow morning, a large fiery orb will appear in the east.”

The teachers began applauding forcibly and shushing us, and eventually everyone noticed that Willis Wolfe had walked onstage. You’ll recognize the name if you happen to be obsessed with the eighties sitcom
Mind over Matter
and its blond, rugged star, the one with the blindingly white teeth. Teeth the color of baking soda, of laundry detergent. That’s our principal.

“Blah blah
fantastic
blah
tremendous
blah-di-blah,” said Willis Wolfe. He never says anything worth listening to. I could see his evil toady, Mr. Coluber, waiting in the wings. A prediction so obvious nobody wrote it down: Vice Principal Coluber would deliver the special announcement.

“Blahing blah blahity
awe-inspiring
.”

Elizabeth had clearly spaced too. She was rubbing the edge of the prediction paper between two fingers as if she were making a dreadlock. Elizabeth has a fantastic, tremendous, awe-inspiring head of dreadlocks. She’s half black. Obviously not the half that’s kin to Jackson “Wonderbreadface” Appelman.

“And here’s Mr. Coluber, your vice principal, who spearheaded this initiative and is here to give you the news,” said Willis Wolfe.

“Told you,” I said before remembering that I hadn’t told anyone.

“I take back the low-income idea,” said Luke. “Coluber’s too slimy.”

“Guess it’s not so predictable after all,” said Elizabeth smugly.

“Fund-raising fund-raising fund-raising,” I said.

We shut up when we saw that we were being stink-eyed by Mrs. Garlop, the old hag who doubled as our calculus teacher.

Mr. Coluber tapped the microphone. The drama kids finally shut their traps, an occurrence to be savored. “Good morning, Selwyn,” he said unctuously. Coluber is a skinny, tall guy. His eyes are hyper-focused and his hair has receded into a heart shape, which is the only thing about him that signifies he has a heart. “It’s nothing you could possibly guess,” he said. When he’s not wearing a tie, he leaves the top button of his shirt undone so tendrils of chest hair poke out. “It’s one of the most exciting things to come to Selwyn Academy.” He thinks he’s hot stuff, you can just tell.

“Spit it out,” said Elizabeth.

“The Kelvin Television network, known to you as kTV, of course”—there was a dramatic pause—“is”—pause—“filming a new reality show right here at Selwyn!”

I think Luke was the only one of us who knew this was a bad idea from the start. He began to shake his head, as slowly as windshield wipers on the drizzle setting, while Coluber told us about how they’d hold auditions to choose contestants, the best Selwyn had to offer in dance and music and drama and writing and visual art.

There’d be a challenge every episode, and every episode one of the nineteen original contestants would be kicked off. I mean, asked to step down. “Sometimes the decision will be made by the judges and sometimes by the American public
and sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, by
you
. And the prize? Oh, do we have a prize.”

It was here that the daydreams started. I was just sentient enough to see that everyone was glazed over in reveries before I was swept into one too. The American public would discover me. I’d be the hero of a new generation of teenagers trying to make it in the arts: the Guy Who Cross-Hatches. Or, if I decided the route to stardom lay with my trumpet, the Guy Who Lip-Buzzes.

And of course the hero would need a love interest. This was reality TV, after all. The producers would look around for a slim, sassy brunette. A girl as talented as I was. Maybe a dancer? Yes. A ballerina. Perfect.

And the romantic tension would build, and at last during the season finale I would take Maura Heldsman in my arms and bend her backward—her back is extremely bendy—and there would be a kiss, a long kiss, a kiss to build a dream on—

Luke elbowed me.

I shut my mouth, which had gone somewhat slack, and blinked.

“Selwyn is lost,” he said. “Lost to kTV.”

Life slid back into perspective.

I wasn’t going to be on this show. I was so skinny I had to buy skinny jeans to look normal. The stuff topping my head was more akin to underbrush than human hair, and my nose was the size of my elbow and about the same shape too. Nope, not gonna be on kTV.

To be honest, I barely belonged at Selwyn. When we were in eighth grade, my mom got a call from Luke’s mom. Mrs.
Weston told her about this arts school down their street, where the academics were outstanding and the arts were
superb
, and, career prospects or no, it could be life-changing, life-
affirming
, to be exposed so deeply to the arts, didn’t she
agree
? And my mom, a forty-two-year-old with three newborns she couldn’t tell apart, talked to my dad and said something like, “If he’s with Luke, he can’t go too wrong, and this makes the whole choosing-a-high-school thing a lot easier for us, which, given that the entire house is covered with a scrim of regurgitated breast milk, is an important consideration.” And my dad was like, “Yeah.”

I wasn’t a total philistine. I’d played trumpet since second grade, and in the pre-triplet era my mom had forced me to practice every day. (After their extraction I woke up a baby every time I touched the thing, which made for a convenient reason to leave it in its case.) And I’d always liked drawing. Nobody realized how intense Selwyn would be, but I survived. So did Jackson, who turned out to be okay at tech theater. Elizabeth and Luke thrived.

But I sure wasn’t going to be on kTV. And I knew exactly who would be.

I started looking around for those kids, to see what faces looked like as destiny unfolded before them. The piano prodigies, catbitches and a-holes every one, were glaring at each other. And there was Kyle Kimball, a serious actor who likes Shakespeare and, I’ve noticed, actually
gets
Shakespeare. He was trying to look nonchalant. Being a talented actor, he did look nonchalant. But Miki Frigging Reagler was bouncing in the springy seat, wearing the kind of openmouthed grin that
he usually reserves for the last stanza of “All That Jazz,” when he’s simultaneously licking his thumbs and conga-kicking.

He’d be on the show. They’d love him.

I already knew where Maura Heldsman was. She had a blank look on her face, which wasn’t unusual, but her friends were giggling excitedly. Then it struck me: she’d be on TV. I’d get to watch her. It wouldn’t be creepy, because everybody else would be watching her too.

I was sort of excited for this thing.

Thus it began. Nothing was inevitable, although by the time I was peering through locker slats to watch Maura Heldsman being filmed for national TV, it sure seemed that way.

After the assembly, Luke ranted for a while: Selwyn sold out, reality TV sucked, et cetera.

“So are you going to try out?” said Jackson.

“Me?”
said Luke.

“You’re easily the best writer in the school.”

He was frowning. I was on tenterhooks. This makes me sound like a horrid friend, but I did not want Luke on that show. I’d be so jealous.

“The prize sounds pretty cool,” said Jackson. “All that scholarship money.”

“True,” said Luke.

“And an agent.”

“Yeah.”

“And national exposure. You’d be famous. You’d have cool friends.”

Luke gave his head a quick shake, like a dog just out of a pond. “God,” he said. “Who do you think I am? Of course I’m not trying out. That’d go against everything I stand for.”

Phew.

“I already hate that show,” he said. He started ranting again. I tried to nod along, but I’d already decided I was cool with it. Why?