In spelling class, our weekly assignment was to define twenty spelling words. I jotted down the answers rapidly and turned them in. The teacher discounted them, saying that I was supposed to copy definitions from the dictionary. I told her that was boring, since I already knew the words. She scoffed at that, telling me to prove it by writing a story in which I used all the words correctly. If I made a mistake, I’d get a paddling.
The next week’s spelling list included “minute,” which I dutifully included in a story about medieval jousting. The two knights were Sir Christophoro and Sir Robbiano, sworn enemies seeking to please the king. A boy named Robbie lived near me, on the same ridge but across a narrow holler. His father bullied him and Robbie bullied me. He once held the low branch of a tree in such a fashion that when he released it, the branch sprang through the air and hit me in the face. It hurt badly and left a mark for days. Robbie defeated me in real life, but in my story, Sir Christophoro slaughtered Sir Robbiano without mercy.
My first story for spelling class included this line: “Sir Christophoro’s wound was minute.” The teacher was delighted by my apparent misuse of the word, suggesting to the class that I was trying to get attention. I protested, claiming that “minute” was correct. In an attempt to shame me before the class, she told me to fetch the Wordbook and look up “minute.” I read aloud the second definition, in which “minute” meant trivial or insignificant. She accused me of lying. When I showed her the dictionary, her expression revealed to me the enormous power of language. The short stories I subsequently wrote in spelling class forged a link between the act of writing and rebellion. Narrative was a weapon against the world, more effective than Sir Christophoro’s sword.
By sixth grade, I’d depleted the school library, an area of the lunchroom cordoned off by a flimsy row of fabric-covered partitions, and turned to my father’s personal library. He owned the fifty-four-volume hardbound set of Great Books of the Western World, two sets of encyclopedias, and a collection of scholarly works on religion, psychology, ancient history, military campaigns, and sexuality. The shelves also held popular literature and science fiction. I read constantly with no oversight or guidance and a disregard for content. They were just books: Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Homer, George Bernard Shaw, Booth Tarkington, Euripides, Thorne Smith, Leo Tolstoy, Carl Jung, Charles Darwin, Damon Runyon, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and so forth.
I was reading over my head but didn’t know it because no one told me so. I didn’t discriminate or evaluate. Each book carried the same weight, equal in its value. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn. As I gained information about the world, I realized I’d never be able to read everything and would eventually be compelled to pick and choose. Until then, I merely absorbed narrative and idea, finishing Shakespeare and picking up Heinlein, dipping into Machiavelli and then Tolkein. I was like a blind man trying to stay warm in winter, grabbing the nearest piece of wood, unable to discern hardwood or soft, concerned only with maintaining the hot steady fire that consumed everything in reach.
Reading and writing helped me defeat the tedium of school, but I continued to be a discipline problem. I can’t recall what led to my final paddling in eighth grade. Escorted by my teacher into the hall, I expected the usual punishment of three licks. She placed me against the wall and hit me six times very hard and very fast. The first three I was able to withstand, but after six, I knew I was going to cry. The prospect of public mortification when I returned to the classroom was overwhelming. Instead of crying, I began to laugh, which served as a release much the same as tears. The teacher interpreted my mirth as being directed at her. She hit me six more times. I began moving away prior to her last two strikes, and she got them in quicker, the last one hitting my upper thigh. I spun to her, pain fueling my anger. Her face was red, and tears streamed from her eyes. Utterly discombobulated, I left school. I stayed in the woods until everyone had gone home, then went back for my homework and lunch sack. The next day I learned that I’d set a school record with twelve licks, the most for a single paddling. The teacher never looked me in the eye again.
A month later I graduated from Haldeman Grade School as the 1972 valedictorian, the apex of my academic career. The lesson I’d learned best was the value of concealing my intelligence.
Chapter Fourteen