By the time
Robert was a junior, he had reached a height of six feet, one inch. His hair
was cut short because Ida preferred it that way. He liked a certain green
hopsack shirt that he wore all too often in the warm months, and he liked a
certain green corduroy pullover that he wore all too often in the cold months.
During the fall and spring, he was most often to be seen wearing a tan, brown,
and brick CPO coat—even indoors. He had a collection of turtleneck inserts in
different colors, and he frequently wore them. When he wore sports coats for
public piano performances, he generally wore clip-on bow ties, one of which—a
dark red crushed velvet—was his favorite. He wanted a Nehru jacket, but Ida was
not fond of them. She was, however, fond of the new polyester suits, and Robert
received a dark blue one with a reversible vest of dark blue on one side and
orange plaid on the other. It would not be long before Ida would begin to fill
his closet with what came to be called “leisure suits,” accompanied by polyester
shirts in mod styles. Robert’s favorite leisure suit was a caramel-colored one
with ivory running stitches at every hem. The shirt that he most often wore
with it had baby blue flowers overlapping russet flowers amid forest-green
leaves.
One day at school,
Robert (attired in his CPO coat and hopsack shirt) was talking with Dennis as
they filed band music. They had been reading Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.
“He should
have named it Nineteen Seventy,”
Dennis said.
“Doublethink
and thoughtcrimes are already here,” Robert offered.
“Big
Brother is watching us,” Dennis commented.
“We’re
living in Oceania,” Robert remarked.
“‘Attention!
Your attention please,’” Dennis quoted, sounding just like the school intercom.
Robert
glanced up from the sheaf of musical scores in his hand. His eyes clouded over.
He could see Big Brother in the school’s main office, Winston Smith teaching
chemistry, and Julia O’Brien teaching English. Robert turned to Dennis and …
… a satire,
1985, was born!
Assisted by
Mr. Boots’ hall passes, Robert and Dennis devoted weeks to the writing and
illustrating of 1985.
But how
could such an artistic work be duplicated and shared with adoring readers as an
octopus releases purple ink into the sea before making its escape?
Robert
approached the desk of the main office.
“Yes,
Robert?” Mrs. Brutus greeted him.
“Could I
have a stack of purple ditto masters (for a satire that will be distributed
throughout the school)?” Robert asked.
“Yes,” Mrs.
Brutus smiled, returning to her desk. “Help yourself.”
Robert
pressed an inch of masters between his thumb and fingers and hoped to keep them
together, so that it would not be obvious how many he was taking.
“Thank
you,” he said, as he walked nonchalantly toward the door.
“I assume those
are for a school project,” Mrs. Brutus spoke up while sorting papers.
“Yes, they’re
for a project (parodying Nineteen
Eighty-Four and caricaturing the teachers),” Robert confirmed.
Mrs. Brutus
shot him a keen look but went back to her work.
For days,
Robert carefully transferred the illustrations to purple ditto masters. The
front page sported disintegrating Greek columns and a pediment above a portrait
of Winston Smith, the chemistry teacher. The title 1985 appeared to be carved from stone and cracking. Here and there
throughout the work were portraits of additional characters, dressed as Orwell
described but otherwise looking very much like other teachers. Next, Robert
patiently typed every page of the lengthy satire that Dennis and he had
composed. Robert had only enough masters, and he could not afford typographical
errors. When he made one—which was rare, as slowly and deliberately as he was
progressing—he threw away that precious master and started the page again.
Finally, the book was complete.
Running the
copies was all that remained.
How?
Dennis and
Robert turned to Susan, who knew her way around the office.
“Now,
wait!” Susan said. “You want me to run copies of a satire?”
“Yes,”
Dennis said, sheepishly.
“Let me see
it,” Susan said.
She
hurriedly read the first few pages and looked up with beams of sunlight playing
about her eyes.
“Oh, this
is good,” she said. Then she
explained that an allotment system specified how many pages could be duplicated
for a student project. She said she would look into running off pages for
Robert and Dennis, but, at most, only a few copies could be produced.
Later, she
brought Dennis and Robert a heavy stack of pages exuding the intoxicating balm
of damp purple ditto ink.
“These are
all I could make,” Susan said.
“How can we
ever thank you?” Dennis asked, grinning.
“Don’t
thank me!” she said. “I just hope you don’t get in trouble.”
Robert and
Dennis assembled and stapled thirty copies of 1985. The next morning, they clandestinely placed them here and
there in the school and in the gym. No authors’ names appeared on the booklet,
thereby giving the writers plausible deniability.
In English
class that afternoon, Miss Matthews said, “Alright! Who wrote 1985?”
No one
spoke.
Miss
Matthews stared at Robert.
“Robert,
this has your name written all over it,” she said.
“Show me
where!” Robert exclaimed, as if he truly wanted to know.
Miss
Matthews faced Dennis.
“Dennis, do
you have something you want to tell me?” she asked.
“I can’t
think of anything,” Dennis said.
“Well, I
wanted to tell the authors that this is a creative send-up,” Miss Matthews
commented. “The teachers have been talking about it all morning. The book shows
a deep understanding of irony and a mastery of character development. Whoever
wrote it can take pride in a job well done.”
Robert
raised his hand.
“Yes,
Robert,” Miss Matthews acknowledged.
“Are you
saying that no one is upset?”
Miss
Matthews smiled. “No, no one is upset,” she answered. “In fact, the response
has been quite the opposite. The teachers are genuinely impressed with the
talent and skill of the authors, whoever
they may be.”
Later, in
the parking lot, Robert asked Dennis, “Should we take credit for it?’
Dennis
frowned and shook his head. “Are you crazy?”
So 1985 remained anonymous.
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