Bryce
The Second Semester
Chapter 14 - Guinea Pig
Wednesday began with French Literature. The class was to have read Chateaubriand’s short novel René, which was initially an episode in his long epic entitled Les Natchez written between 1793 and 1799, and reflecting the author’s disillusionment with the French Revolution and the Enlightenment which spawned it, and his travels in America. René was first published as a supplement to Le génie du christianisme in 1802, and, because of its immediate popularity, published separately in 1805. The work falls into a genre common to the Romantic movement, parallel to Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers of 1774 and Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage of 1812-18. As was true of these other examples of Romantic Weltschmertz, the work contained a great deal of autobiography. It reflected the disillusionment with a world which had believed all was possible through the triumph of reason, only to find in the application of reason during the French Revolution the result was a strumpet crowned as the Goddess of Reason on the high altar of Notre Dame, and 17,000 victims of the guillotine in Paris alone during the ten month height of the Terror in 1793-94.
All three Romantic works involve a sensitive young man who is disappointed in love and in the world around him, who then goes on his travels, and finds the rest of the world just as bad as home. As René puts it after visiting Greece and Italy, “the ancient world had no certainty, the modern world no beauty.” After returning home, he found society oppressive. He complains that he found that “my only task was to shrink my soul and bring it down to society’s level,” a sentiment with which many modern young people would agree. After an emotional scene in which René’s sister enters a convent rather than give in to her incestuous feelings for him, he goes off to the New World. There is no evidence that Chateaubriand’s real sister harbored any such feelings, although his later admirer, Lord Byron was widely rumored to have had an affair with his half-sister. In the novella, René goes to live with the Natchez Indians in Louisiana, but is shortly thereafter killed in a skirmish between the Natchez and the French. The Romantic hero has to die. This was brought out even more strongly in Goethe’s work, where the hero, Werther, kills himself after arranging a display with his finger pointing to the text of his letter to his unavailable love. It is said that all over Europe there were young men dressed like Werther stretched out under a tree, their brains blown out, their fingers pointing to the relevant passage in Goethe’s work. At least, Chateaubriand’s work did not inspire a new wave of suicides.
Discussion in class revolved around the theme of disillusion and disgust with the everyday world in which one found oneself. Bryce took a moderate role in the discussion, more interested in Marc’s extensive participation, seconding every sentiment which condemned the everyday world as impossibly trite, pedestrian, and bourgeois. He could not help but wonder whether Marc had moments in which, like Werther, he gave up on the world, and contemplated suicide. He weighed in only to comment that, as the trite but true expression has it, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Marc responded, “But is it a temporary problem? From what we have seen here, and even last week, the world we humans have created is pretty disgusting, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to improve it significantly.”
On that depressing note, the class concluded.
On Friday, having had enough of Chateaubriand, they would begin consideration of Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), known by his pen-name Stendhal, and his novel Le Rouge et Le Noir of 1830, still very much in the Romantic era.
As related at the end of Chapter 13 of this saga, after putting in some time at the GLBT information desk, required of him as an officer, Bryce was accosted by Gary Woodson, the Club President, who told him about the endorsement of the Club’s position by Sigma Alpha Tau and other student organizations. Then, when another student came to sit at the desk, Gary said to Bryce, “Come with me to the Administration Building.” The building had another name, that of a past president of the institution, but no one used that name. It was just the Administration Building – where the offices of the President and a series of Vice-Presidents, Associate Vice-Presidents, and Assistant Vice-Presidents, as well as a few people who actually did some work, were located.
“Why would I want to go there instead of have lunch with Damon?” Bryce queried.
“I got advance notice there will be an announcement about the demonstrators,” Woodson replied.
Looking dissatisfied at having to go without letting Damon know what was happening, Bryce nevertheless followed Woodson. He reached into his pocket and found his phone, and sent Damon a text message before gathering with a handful of others in a plush office, where the President of the University would make an announcement to the press. There were several representatives of the print and electronic media already present, with a couple of cameras on tall tripods taking up a great deal of space. Eight minutes after the announced time, President Garfield Rodes entered the arena. He was a man in his late fifties, considerably overweight, and with an orotund speaking style to accompany his rotund physique. He was usually called President Rodes by faculty, as they felt uneasy acknowledging his doctorates. One was from a small religiously affiliated institution, and the other two were honoris causa granted as a result of considerable lobbying and string pulling on the part of the President. He had no known academic expertise, but had been recommended by the Board of Trustees because he was reputed to be a great fund raiser, and appointed by the Governor of the State because he had considerable backing in the legislature.
Reading from a prepared script, in lengthy sentences of opaque verbiage, President Rodes announced that he had reconsidered the decisions announced the previous week. He suggested those decisions had been made by the Vice-President for Student Affairs rather than by him. He was now the bearer of kindness and mercy. It was the old good cop/bad cop ploy, in a way. It was always an underling who was blamed, and the man at the top was always right. Despite the artificiality of the entire performance, Bryce was pleased with the outcome. In response to “many” appeals from constituents, and especially from various student bodies, President Rodes was reducing the penalties handed out to those demonstrators in “that unfortunate incident last Monday” who had been suspended. Their suspension was reduced by having a letter of reprimand placed in their file. After being suspended for a week and a half, they were now invited to resume their education, “having benefitted from the opportunity to reconsider their inappropriate conduct.” It was at best a poor and reluctant concession, but at least about eighteen students would be able to resume their studies if they so chose. Bryce wondered how many would accept this backhanded concession.
As Bryce and Gary walked away from the public relations event, they overheard several students make comments about the “mealy mouthed” and “ass-backward” way the President chose to reverse the prior week’s decision. Evidently, no one on campus would be fooled by the publicity stunt. Bryce commented to Gary, “Newspeak is alive and well on the University of Clifton campus.” Unfortunately, Gary had not read Orwell’s 1984.
By the time Bryce got to the cafeteria, it was too late to get lunch, but Damon had set aside a sandwich from a vending machine and a coke for him. The sandwich tasted like cardboard, but Bryce appreciated the thought, and decided it might keep his stomach from growling during Biology and History, after which he could get some real food. He passed on to Damon the news from the President’s photo op.
After History, Bryce walked back to the University Center, where he grabbed a few slices of pizza from the Pizza Hut outlet in the basement. He was seated there, eating this late lunch, when Josh Young happened by. Josh came up to Bryce in a strange mood. He was resentful and congratulatory at the same time.
“I heard about the President’s decision this morning. I guess maybe your approach worked better than mine would have,” he conceded.
“Thanks, Josh. It was not just my approach, though. A lot of others contributed to this. Have you seen the list of student organizations supporting us on the GLBT web site?” Bryce responded.
“Yeah, I saw. Anyway, I’m glad those guys got a second chance,” Josh mumbled, and started to move away.
“Josh,” Bryce called him back. “Please consider coming back to the GLBT Club. You know we can always use all the support we can get.”
“I don’t know. I kind of burned my bridges,” Josh said.
“Nonsense,” Bryce replied. “None of that is written in stone. A writer I’m fond of, G. K. Chesterton, once said, People say as you have made your bed, so you must lie in it, but I disagree. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God, I’ll get up and make it over.”
“I’ll think about it,” Josh said, and this time he did walk away.
That evening after dinner, Bryce began working on his Psychology paper by interviewing Damon in depth about his life before arriving on the University campus. He already knew a lot of the material, but hearing it all again, in consecutive sessions, was absolutely depressing. Having learned something from the class, Bryce knew to get a signed informed consent form from Damon before beginning the formal interview, and to record the interview in case someone wanted to check his accuracy later. The session on Wednesday evening was only the first. Damon’s story was so traumatic neither guy could stand to cover the entire thing in one sitting, so it was strung out over four days.
Damon was born on 14 February 1991. He was the fourth surviving child of his mother, with an older brother, two older sisters, and one younger sister. In addition, his mother had two miscarriages and three abortions that he knew about, and there was a brother who died very young. Damon obviously was not a devotee of Newspeak, as he simply said his mother was a whore. He had, in fact, never heard the term ‘sex worker’ until Bryce mentioned it. His mother was clearly not too bright, as she kept getting pregnant by a variety of men. There were four fathers of record for the five surviving children. Damon was not certain whether she did not know about contraception, was too lazy to do anything about it, or could not afford it. She had a knack of finding out about free services, so he suspected it was not the last possibility. He said he used the term ‘father of record’ advisedly, as his mother had a way of guessing which of her various liaisons resulted in a particular pregnancy. Whether the Ernest Watson on his birth certificate was his actual biological father was certainly a mystery, and one not likely to be solved. Damon could not remember ever meeting anyone named Ernest Watson. The male in the house he first remembered was the father of his younger sister, or at least the father of record, and he left when Damon was about four years old. There were a series of men after that. Most of them were violent, lazy, and abusive both verbally and physically. He was fairly certain one of them was mentally deficient, or in his direct words, “crazy as a loon.” The man talked about being a king in Africa, but it all came from a movie he had seen, Coming to America with Eddie Murphy. Another was particularly abusive, and Damon was pretty certain he was wanted by the police for the murder of another woman, and was just using his mother as a means of hiding out until the heat was off. Damon showed Bryce several places on his body where there were the scars from cigarette burns inflicted by that particular “daddy” or “uncle” or whatever he was being called. None of them stayed around for very long. On the whole, that was a blessing.
Of course, growing up involved interaction with his siblings - technically half-siblings, as none had the same father of record as Damon. The one who dominated Damon’s memories was his only surviving brother, Tyson, who was six years older than he. Tyson was described as brutal, aggressive, and dumb. From a very early age until shortly before Damon left for the University, Tyson made numerous attempts to rape his brother. With a grin, Damon attributed this to his outstanding beauty, and to Tyson being envious of him. There were very few such attempts in the more recent years, as Damon learned how to defend himself and grew in strength. The recent ones tended to come when Tyson was drunk or high on some drug. Although Damon managed to avoid rape, he was beaten several times, once severely enough that he had to be carried to the emergency room, having saved himself only by crawling under a bed and refusing to come out. Of course, the hospital was told he got his injuries by falling down the stairs. Damon showed Bryce another scar to illustrate this story. His sisters did not actually inflict physical damage on Damon, like Tyson did. Of the two older ones, Vanessa was actually helpful and kind, at least when she was not focused on her latest boyfriend. She seemed headed in the same direction as their mother, having already birthed two children. She’s also the one who responded to his Christmas card. Vanessa and the next child, Wanita, had the same father of record, who was said to have remained in the apartment for over two years. Wanita was a lot different than Vanessa, though. She was petty, and always tried to put Damon down. From the earliest times, she made fun of him and embarrassed him with catty comments. For example, on one occasion when he was six years old, she discovered that the underpants he was wearing had a hole in one cheek, and she told everyone at school, so some of the older boys held him and dropped his pants, so the entire playground could see the hole. Later, Wanita constantly made cutting remarks about Damon’s failure to have a girlfriend, although whether she actually knew he was gay, or was just being mean, was never clear. Most likely she was just being mean, because if she had known he was gay, she probably would have told everyone, and then there would have been hell to pay, as the story about the guy who had his nuts cut off illustrates. Damon’s younger sister was named Alondra, and she was vicious. As a child she loved to attack Damon and play nasty tricks on him, but as they grew up her attacks were more verbal than physical. For reasons which he never could fathom, she seemed to hate him with a passion. Maybe it was just her way of dealing with their environment.
Looking back on it, Damon was constantly amazed that he had survived. In the early years of infancy, it was not so much physical abuse as simple neglect which was the primary threat, although the physical abuse took place from time to time. The apartment was incredibly filthy, undoubtedly harboring germs left over from the Black Death. Of course, he could not remember it himself, but he had often been allowed to go for several days without a change of diaper. He knew this because Tyson and Wanita used to taunt him with it, calling him “Stinker,” and because he did remember his sister Alondra being treated this way. Their mother was often absent, and even when she was physically present she was quite frequently drunk or high. They went for days without a real meal, scrounging for whatever was found anywhere in the apartment, sometimes fighting for food with each other. On those occasions, Tyson always came out on top, as he was the oldest and bigger than anyone else. Damon also vividly remembered asking neighbors, and even strangers, for food. He also admitted to stealing food from neighbors and stores. The welfare checks were theoretically adequate to feed the entire family, but they were used for alcohol and crack as often as for anything actually nourishing. The same was true of clothing. Damon never had new clothes unless it was something he “liberated” from a store himself. He wore Tyson’s discards and items obtained from a “thrift shop” run by the Salvation Army, and in consequence he always looked awkward. Some of the older boys at school joked that he was the K-Mart blue light special that no one wanted.
There were a few positive associations from those years. Damon discovered that he could amuse people, and avoid being picked on in consequence, by imitating actors on the television. It was in this way that he began to acquire a command of standard American English, without at the time realizing what he was doing. He also found a refuge with an elderly man called Mr. Gentry, about the only person who was kind to him. Mr. Gentry encouraged him to keep asking questions, and to stick with it when life seemed impossible. Unfortunately, Mr. Gentry died while Damon was still young.
There was the personal satisfaction of learning, and knowing things others, especially Tyson, did not know. It was this which led him to make friends with an Hispanic boy his own age named Sandoval. He learned Spanish, or at least a ghetto version of Spanish, from this friend, but they could only meet in secret. In the projects, blacks and Hispanics did not mix. They were rivals for control of the same turf. But Sandoval was tough. He told Damon he would talk to anyone he wanted, and no one could prevent him. Unfortunately, that was not true. When Damon was 15, his friend Sandoval was shot and killed. The crime was never solved, and nothing was said to him, but he had a very strong suspicion it was because Sandoval was the strong, independent person he was, and would not kowtow to the party line. Damon could never decide whether it was blacks like his brother Tyson who killed Sandoval for getting too friendly with one of them, or his own Hispanics who did it to impose that same barriers to cross-group friendships. Once Damon had read Romeo and Juliet, he considered that the rivalries between the blacks and the Hispanics in the projects was a lot like that of the Capulets and the Montagues, and just as stupid.
The only other ‘friend,’ if you could call them that, from his days in the projects was the Computer Guy. Damon never knew his name. Computer Guy was overweight, did not bathe often enough (but that was hardly unusual in the projects), smoked incessantly, and wore thick glasses which made his eyes look like those of some bug. But he took a liking to Damon after he found the boy complaining about the outdated computers at the local school, and taught him all sorts of skills not included in the usual curriculum, some of which were definitely illegal. Last year, Computer Guy was arrested, and was now serving time because of some of his unauthorized use of his skills. So, that was it. Mr. Gentry died. Sandoval was killed. Computer Guy was in prison. All the people who showed Damon any human kindness seemed to have bad ends. There was no one else, so growing up was a lonely proposition.
Damon had survived because he was stubborn. He refused to be beaten down by his environment. Where it came from exactly, he was not sure, but from a very early age he was determined to escape the projects. Maybe it was something inherited from that unknown Ernest Watson. Maybe it was television. He not only mimicked the people he saw, but noticed the very different way they lived from what he knew around him. In any case, from an early age his entire focus was on getting out of the projects. There seemed to be three routes, crime, sports, and education. But crime often resulted in getting killed, or, if you were merely unlucky, getting arrested and thrown into jail. Damon did not feel powerful enough to be successful at crime, and besides, he had some gut feelings that treating people the way you had to in order to succeed in crime was just wrong. It was like the way everyone treated him, and he hated it. As to sports, that seemed to mean football or basketball as far as the projects were concerned. He was not big enough to be a success at football, and he was not tall enough to be outstanding at basketball. That left education.
Education was dangerous. It was definitely not cool to be book smart in the projects. Damon often purposely put down wrong answers on tests, so he would not stand out too much from the rest of the class. But he learned the material. He would sneak over to the nearest public library, which was used by most of the neighborhood as a place to meet people or hang out on rainy days, and secrete himself in a corner where he could read without attracting attention. Once he began to learn about computers, he also found lots to read there. When he discovered that, although the computers available to students at his school were slow and outdated, in the Principal’s office there was the latest model, with various features that were only alluded to in his computer classes, he took to breaking in after dark, and spending long hours on the Principal’s computer. The man never noticed. But Damon found out what was needed to pass standardized tests, and to get scholarships, and he got out of the projects. He was determined never to go back.
It seemed to Bryce that Damon was a perfect example of the validity of the Humanistic approach to the Psychology of Personality. By all rights, he should never have been able to leave the projects. He must have inherited good genes from somewhere, perhaps that elusive father, but even so his environment was enough to crush a less determined soul. Not only that, but Bryce remembered from his talks last semester with Father Miller the assertion that God gave humans the power of free will so we could freely love him, and we did this by doing right and avoiding wrong. Damon seemed in a general way to have a pretty strong sense of right and wrong, despite all the factors pushing him in the other direction. As they talked, the convergence of the Humanistic school’s outlook and what Bryce believed from his religious convictions became clearer, and all he learned about Damon and his struggles seemed to be empirical evidence supporting both. Gathering the data from Damon was painful. It was painful to Damon to relive his life before escaping the projects, and it was painful to Bryce to hear how his beloved had suffered. Writing the paper setting down what he had learned, his conclusions, and the evidence for them was not painful at all. That simply flowed.