This girl Lucy Becker is the first to answer, and she basically says that my gun belongs in the Holocaust museum in DC, and makes a speech about the importance of documenting our mistakes so we are not doomed to repeat them.[31]
“Counterpoint?” Herr Silverman says.
This kid Jack Williams who is kind of smart and interesting argues that the gun should be destroyed and talks about the rise of neo-Nazis who collect such things. Jack argues that if all Nazi propaganda were destroyed, no one would be able to use it to recruit new Nazis. “That’s why President Obama buried Osama bin Laden at sea,” Jack says. “So no one could use his grave as a symbol.”
“Very interesting rebuttal, Jack,” Herr Silverman says. “Responses from the class?”
Kids in my class go back and forth about what to do with the gun, and—even though I asked the question—their answers start to freak me out a little. I mean I have a real Nazi gun in my backpack and everyone is talking about what to do with it, only they don’t know that my hypothetical ethical question was real—they don’t know that I have the gun on me right now.
They are all so remarkably stupid—but still, I start to worry that maybe one of them will put it together and guess why I asked that question on this particular day, and then they’ll all lynch me.[32]
I worry so much that I start to sweat in my seat.
I feel really mixed up, and it’s like I just want it all to end—everything.
And yet at the same time, I want someone to figure it out, to piece together all the hints I’ve been dropping all day long, for years and years even, but no one ever figures it out, and I’m beginning to see why people go mad and do awful things—like the Nazis and Hitler and Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and Cho Seung-Hui all[33] did and so many other horrific people whom we learn about in school and—You know what? Fuck Linda for forgetting my birthday—FUCK HER—because how do you forget giving birth to someone eighteen years ago today and IRRESPONSIBLE and IRRESPONSIBLE and selfish and culpable and inhumane and—
“Leonard?” Herr Silverman says.
Everyone has turned his or her head and is looking at me.
“Concluding thoughts?”
I’m supposed to summarize the points of view regarding what to do with the P-38 and say which side I think won the debate, but I haven’t been listening and I can’t exactly say what I really think.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know anything today,” I say, and then accidentally sigh.
Herr Silverman looks into my eyes until I look back into his and then I sort of plead with him using mental telepathy, thinking, Please just move on. It’s my birthday. I only have a few more hours on this planet. Please. Be kind. Let me off the hook.
“It’s a hard question, Leonard. A good one. I don’t know either,” Herr Silverman says, totally saving me.
The übermorons roll their eyes and exchange glances.
He moves on to the lecture part of the class, discussing the concept of doubling, or being two different people at once—the good WWII German dad who eats a civilized dinner with his family at a formal table and reads bedtime stories to his children before he kisses their foreheads and tucks them into bed, all after spending the entire day ignoring the screams of Jewish women and children, gassing away, and heaving corpses into awful mass graves.
Basically, Herr Silverman says that we can simultaneously be human and monster—that both of those possibilities are in all of us.
Some of the stupid kids argue with him, saying they aren’t like the Nazis and never could be, because Herr Silverman says we all double in some ways. And everyone in the class knows exactly what he’s talking about, even if they pretend they don’t.
Like how the kids the teachers think are the nicest are really the kids who drink tons of alcohol on weekends and drive drunk and date-rape everyone all the time and are constantly making less popular and truly nice kids feel shitty about themselves. But these same awful students transform themselves in front of the adults in power, so they will get the good college letters of recommendation and special privileges. I’ve never once cheated on a test or plagiarized, and Herr Silverman is probably the only teacher in the building who would write me a college-recommendation letter if I wanted one.
Our valedictorian, Trish MacArthur, got character letters from the most popular teachers in the building, and every student at this school knows she throws the most insane parties, where booze and drugs are prevalent and cops are regular visitors—but since her dad is the mayor, they just say, “Keep the noise down.” A kid OD’d at her house last year and ended up in the hospital. And, magically, Trish MacArthur’s reputation among faculty members remained untarnished. She’s in A.P. English with me and she offered me two hundred bucks to “help her” with her Hamlet paper. She batted her eyelashes at me, crossed her ankles, pushed her boobs together with her shoulders, and said, “Please?” all helpless, just like she does with the male faculty members. They love it too. That girl really knows how to get what she wants. I told her to fuck off, of course. Called her a “broken valedictorian” and a “sham,” at which point she uncrossed her ankles, let gravity do what it would with her boobs, stopped blinking like her eyelids were butterfly wings, and in a gruff, age-appropriate voice, she said, “Do you even have a purpose here at this high school? You’re useless, Leonard Peacock.”
Then she flipped me off and walked away.
That’s our valedictorian.
Our finest.
Trish MacArthur.
“How do you know what you would have done if you were forced by your government to commit crimes but you still wanted to be a good parent?” Herr Silverman says. “Were the Germans evil or were they responding to the social and political climate of their day?”
My classmates are mostly baffled.
As I listen to their whiny answers and attempts to place themselves on high moral pedestals, I realize the gap between them and me is widening as we get older.
The lies are so vivid, they’re beginning to burn out my retinas.
Today’s lecture pisses off the übermorons big-time, like the truth always does. And yet it makes me feel comforted somehow, not because Nazi officers did horrible things, but because Herr Silverman is trying to expose what everyone else in the world hides at all costs.
It’s a depressing reality, how my classmates make love to their ignorance, and I mostly tune out and wait for class to end so I can give Herr Silverman his present and be closer to the Leonard Peacock finish line.
NINETEEN
When the bell rings, I stay seated.
Herr Silverman dutifully stands by the door and says good-bye to each student as he or she leaves.
I can tell he cares about everyone—even the stupidest among us.
It’s like he’s a saint or something.
Most kids rush out without even making eye contact, although Herr Silverman tries to give everyone his or her own individual good-bye.
It makes a difference, let me tell you, even if the übermorons in my class don’t appreciate it.
There have been days when Herr Silverman was the only person to look me in the eye.
The only person all day long.
It’s a simple thing, but simple things matter.
“So,” Herr Silverman says as he closes the door.[34] “You wanted to speak with me.”
“About that question I asked in class today,” I say.
He sits down at the desk next to mine and says, “Ah, what to do with the Nazi gun.”
31
This is probably the standard answer that would score you the top mark on the essay portion of the SAT.
32
You may think that lynching is a means to an end if I wish to die, and I do, but being ripped apart limb by limb by übermoronic classmates is hardly a picturesque way to go. Death by übermorons is überunappealing.
33
You should read about all of those killers. They all have a lot in common. I bet they felt lonely in many ways, helpless, FORGOTTEN, ignored, alienated, irrelevant, cynical, and sad. Read about them. You really should. You can learn a lot. More than I can explain here.
34
Most teachers refuse to close the door when they are alone with a student, saying it’s against the law or something, which is pretty stupid. It’s like everyone thinks teenagers are about to get raped every second of the day and that an open door can protect you. (It can’t. How could it?) But Herr Silverman closes the door, which makes me trust him. He doesn’t play by their rules; he plays by the right rules.