The Sledding Hill Page 11

  “Because your kids won’t read less controversial books,” Ms. Lloyd says back.

  “You are a teacher,” he says. “It’s your job to require our kids to read them.”

  “You are offering me a solution that makes kids hate to read, Mr. Godfrey, and that is simply not acceptable.”

  “What they read is just as important as that they read.”

  “That’s absurd. Reading is the door to learning.”

  Another voice says, “Once we allow evil into our minds, it’s impossible to eradicate it. We’re against this book because it is irresponsible.”

  Another says, “I can’t believe an employee of the school knows so little about our kids that she would not pay attention to the kind of filth that is out there today. We can’t stop it from being written, but we can stop it from infiltrating our schools. This is a perfect example of why we need to be vigilant.”

  Several students laugh loudly, call taunts.

  Things start to get a bit ugly then, and Mr. Northcutt pounds his gavel to restore order, threatening to clear the room or end the meeting if people don’t calm down.

  I notice Montana West is not present to represent the furnace-room kids, and it takes me less than a minimillimicrosecond to find her three blocks away, wrapping up the homework her father told her she had to finish before she leaves the house. She rushes toward her car, which she has been forbidden to drive until she “straightens up.” She must be straightened, ’cause she’s planning on getting in.

  At the Legion Hall, person after person steps to the mike, calling alternately for decency or intellectual freedom. I can’t help wishing Eddie were here to see what he started yesterday.

  Chad Nash steps up. The audience waits, hears his nervous breathing into the mike, his mouth is so close. And he says it. “I’m gay,” he says. To a person, the YFC kids go wide-eyed. “And I’m a member of YFC. I’m so scared I can’t see straight, because I believe in God and I don’t want to go to hell, but I don’t want to live the rest of my life this scared. There is a character in the book who is also gay. When I read about him, I felt better. It was the first time in my life I ever read about a gay person being brave, except for the guy on 9/11 who helped bring the airplane down before it hit the Capitol building. I read Warren Peece and I felt hope. And then they took it away because of the very thing that I thought made it good. I feel awful right now because I know everybody is going to hate me.” His gaze darts until it falls on the YFC group. “But I’m glad I said it, because I’d rather have you hate me than hold this secret inside me anymore.” He stands a little longer, looking confused. “I guess I better go now.”

  The meeting approaches two hours in length. Kids support Chad Nash; kids condemn him. A kid from the furnace room says Warren Peece is the only book he ever read; a kid from YFC says it’s the most disgusting book he ever read. A kid from the furnace room says the kid from YFC didn’t read it because it got constipated. The kid from YFC says that’s confiscated, you moron. Northcutt brings down the gavel on comments like that again and again.

  Since I can be all places at once, I see my father at the back of the room, glancing at his watch, at the same time I see Eddie Proffit crouching in an orderly’s closet about fifteen feet from his room in the county hospital, waiting for the hall to clear so he can sprint to his escape. My man Eddie is not going to miss this meeting and the great surprise just because he’s crazy. He’s been in the closet almost forty-five minutes, and each time he starts for the door another hospital employee appears in the hall. Suddenly all is clear, and he scurries to the exit, slides out unseen, and runs toward the American Legion Hall, just under three miles away.

  A red Saturn pulls into the American Legion Hall parking lot when Eddie is still a mile away. My dad sees the headlights through the rear window and quietly moves to the door to greet his invited guest.

  “Calvin Bartholomew,” he says, extending his hand.

  “Chris Crutcher,” the stranger says, gripping it.

  “Glad you could make it,” Dad says.

  “I think I am, too,” Crutcher says. “How bad is it?”

  “About what you’d expect,” Dad says.

  Crutcher says, “That bad. Is the Proffit boy here to introduce me?”

  Dad shakes his head. “Long story, but he’s in the county hospital awaiting a psychological evaluation.”

  “I won’t even guess how that came about.”

  Dad smiles. “They’re prescribing an exorcism.”

  The two step into the back of the room and remain standing, unnoticed. “We’ll let them talk a while longer, and when the board president calls for an end to public testimony, I’ll introduce you.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The crowd is intimidating. Crutcher speaks before large groups often enough, but is usually invited by people who pay him, which, he believes, means they want to hear what he has to say. Though he has been challenged and even banned before, he has never sat through a meeting where so many people came right out and called him evil. It works in his favor, though, because he feels a righteous anger rising, and he has the element of surprise.

  When the line has dwindled, Mr. Tarter gets up. “I’ve been in this community more than twenty years,” he says, smiling and nodding to the crowd, “both as a teacher and a pastor. I may have as much investment in your town and your schools as anyone in this room.”

  Nods from the members of his church, not so many from others, though many nonmembers believe they owe a great debt to Sanford Tarter. He is hard-nosed when it comes to discipline, but few students pass through his classroom without becoming competent in the written and spoken language. To say the least he is a formidable force.

  “I have nothing but respect for Ruth Lloyd. She has been a valuable resource to me and other members of the faculty, and she is a tireless advocate for kids and for literacy. But this isn’t about that. In an era of school shootings and declining family values and teachers being handcuffed from using tried-and-true disciplinary techniques, in this era of drugs and immoral behavior, the stakes are way too high. The characters in Chris Crutcher’s books are disrespectful in their speech and in their actions. They are willful and to a great extent are left on their own to make decisions way too important for adolescents to make, again, particularly in light of our current culture. Either we protect our children and our values, or we don’t. I for one think this is the place we start. Certainly Crutcher’s book isn’t the worst; it’s simply the one that brought this problem to our attention. The truth is, I believe his stories are irrelevant and only marginally well written. The important factor is, Bear Creek, Idaho, can go against national trends and reclaim our pride. I think we can be a beacon to the rest of the country, set an example of decency.

  “As a teacher and pastor, I understand the meaning of separation of church and state, and the material in this book is appropriate for neither.

  “I have said before, and I say again, having been to the man’s website, that his true agenda may very well be homosexuality. Homosexuality in this book and in several others he’s written is treated as if it’s as common as a rash. You just heard the testimony of a boy who now feels the decision to be homosexual is okay. Enough said. I’m about to call for a vote here, and I hope this school board, as it represents the community, will use common sense.”

  The back door bangs open, and my tenacious buddy, soaked in sweat from running three miles at state cross-country-meet speed, stands backed by the porch light. He brushes past my dad, stops to ask Chris Crutcher if he’s Chris Crutcher, is delighted to discover he is, and strides to the microphone.

  The crowd is nearly dumbstruck. Though roughly fifty percent of them already understand the meaning of “surreal,” they’ll all know it after tonight. They thought my boy Eddie was safely socked away.

  “Hey,” he says. “I’ll make this quick, because I have a feeling the night guys at the loony bin have already discovered the pillows under my covers aren’
t me, so they’ll be here with nets in a minute. Two things: When I was out of my mind with fear because I kept seeing dead people all over the place, Mr. Tarter told me probably God was scaring me into being good, which meant scaring me into getting baptized. He and the Youth for Christ kids tried to get me to hurry up so I could join them here tonight and fight for getting rid of this book. But I was a bad guy, like a spy. I want everybody to know Mr. Tarter is the one behind all this. He told us in the youth group that he couldn’t get directly involved because of the two hats he wears. I guess that’s legal and everything, but it’s kind of deceptive, which teachers and preachers aren’t supposed to be. Anyway, I read Warren Peece when I was feeling so alone I could barely breathe. I found friends there. They weren’t as good as having my friend Billy B., but Billy B. is gone and my dad is gone, and my friends in this book stood in pretty good. Wanna know why? Of course you do. Because they felt as alone as I did. When I heard somebody wanted the book banned, it almost felt like one more friend was dying, and I couldn’t stand that, so I turned myself into a spy to see if I could stop them. But I couldn’t. They’re too strong. Billy B.’s dad actually got fired from the school for reading to the kids who didn’t read very well and the ones who couldn’t afford to get the book on Amazon.com and finish it. A guy who works at the school got fired for firing kids up to read. Life gets ‘curiouser and curiouser.’ I got that from a book.

  “Anyway, I decided to do what Mr. Tarter said and go to Chris Crutcher’s website, and guess what I found. I found Chris Crutcher, and he lives only about a hundred miles from here. And guess what else? His phone number is right there on the website. So I called him up. And guess what else else? He came. So I’m not going to talk anymore and get myself put away again. I’m going to let him talk. Please welcome the author of Warren Peece and many other good books with bad words—Chris Crutcher.”

  Almost in unison, the crowd turns to see Crutcher walking down the aisle.

  “And by the way,” Eddie says. “I know I’m not Jesus.”

  17

  FIRST-NAME BASIS

  “Good evening. I appreciate your allowing me to be here tonight and giving me this time.”

  Maxwell West stands. “Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Crutcher is not on our list of speakers. We have spent more than enough time to make a decision, and he clearly has an agenda.”

  “Come on, West. Let the man talk. He drove a hundred miles; you want him to see us as inhospitable? He doesn’t have any more of an agenda than you do.” It’s Robert McMaster, a logger who has been silent all evening. His words meet with general agreement.

  But Mr. Northcutt comes down on Mr. West’s side, citing his point of order as being valid.

  The back door swings open again, and Montana West storms down the aisle toward the mike looking like Rosemary’s teenager. She’s wearing so much black and silver she could be mistaken for an Oakland Raider. Black skirt, black T-shirt with LEVITICUS SUCKS emblazoned in shiny silver across the chest, black boots. Every hole in her body not put there by the universe is plugged with silver jewelry, and she wears spiked wrist and ankle bands. She carries a black notebook right up to the microphone, brushing past Chris Crutcher. “Excuse me,” she says, and lowers the mike to her level. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, I was supposed to deliver the pro-Warren Peece presentation, but my dad wouldn’t let me out of the house until my homework was finished.” She takes papers from the notebook and hands them to her father. “All done, Daddy. Check it for me, will you?”

  Maxwell West does not take the papers.

  “Young lady,” Mr. Northcutt says, “that shirt is totally inappropriate for these proceedings. I cannot—”

  “You’re right,” Montana says. “But my chest isn’t big enough for ‘Mr. Tarter’s Red Brick Church’ or ‘The Bear Creek School Board,’ so I had to settle for ‘Leviticus.’”

  “I can’t allow you to wear it here.”

  Montana crosses her arms over her torso, with both hands gripping the lower hem of the shirt. “If you insist,” she says, and starts to pull it off.

  “NO!” Maxwell yells. “DON’T YOU DARE, YOUNG LADY.”

  She lets the shirt fall back. “Jeez. Make up your mind.” Montana takes out several pieces of paper from the notebook and holds them open in front of the microphone. “One out of three girls is sexually abused,” she says, reading from the paper. “One out of five boys. The statistics on both boys and girls who are emotionally or physically abused are hard to zero in on because of definition, but understand that if you’re in a class of twenty-five kids, there are several. Approximately one in ten humans is gay. Anywhere from twenty to sixty-five percent of the students in a high-school classroom are sexually active in some way; could be higher. Every class has at least one kid who’s anorexic or bulimic and one who cuts herself or himself. I’m one of those. I cut on myself because it’s pain I can control, instead of pain from you-know-where from you-know-who that I can’t control. When I feel like I have no control, I get it wherever I can. When you try to control what we think, we feel out of control. We think you’re cowards when you won’t talk with us.”

  “Montana, this is not the time or the place for this. I’m asking you to step away from that microphone. We’ll talk about this at home.”

  “You kidding?” she says. “You know how long I’m going to be grounded for this?” Then, “Of course you do.”

  She turns back to the crowd. “Those are some of the issues that get talked about in Warren Peece. Can’t give you the statistics on drug and alcohol use in our school, but it’s safe to say there isn’t a teenager in this room who doesn’t know at least three kids who are in trouble. Mr. Tarter, and the rest of you teachers, too: The next time you stand in front of your classroom, give yourself a moment of silence, look around the room, and do the math. Ask yourself if you have the ba—the courage to talk to us about them.”

  She stares at the section with the most teachers, adjusts the mike. “I read the book. I was pushed for time when it was assigned, and I was going to scam it; you know, read a little and pry the rest out of my friends or Ms. Lloyd, and slide with a B. But then you guys tried to censor it, so I read every word. Twice.

  “It was a pretty good book. I’ve read better. But what was way cool was that a bunch of kids I like liked it way more than I did. They started talking about the issues and the characters and all the things teachers say they want us to talk about in regard to a book. You need to understand—some of my friends have never read a book cover to cover; I have friends who take pride in being ignorant. But they read this book and they liked it, and that’s all anyone should have to say.”

  The room is silent. Crutcher stands off to the side, trying to read the faces in the crowd. Eddie nods and pumps his fist slightly. He really wishes this girl would fall in love with him just so he could be seen with her. I wish she would, too.

  Montana recognizes Chris Crutcher from his picture on the back flap, registers just a hint of surprise, and regroups. “Mr. Crutcher seems to be standing right here, and I don’t know whether or not he has the guts to talk to us about those things, but I do know he has the guts to write about them and that’s more than we get from you most of the time. Thank you, Mr. Crutcher. And if I’d known you were here I wouldn’t have said, ‘I’ve read better.’”

  Crutcher smiles. “You can call me Chris.”

  “If you don’t want to lose us,” Montana says to the crowd, “stop trying to tell us how to think. It makes it almost impossible to respect you.” She squints her eyes at the board. “I know we don’t have a prayer to stop the banning of this book, because I know how many of you are Red Brickers. So go ahead. Take it. We’ll find it and read it, and we’ll post a list at the city library of every book you ban and read every one of them. We’ll carry them, front cover out, all over campus, and we’ll talk about them, loud, with one another.”

  Montana starts to walk away and quickly turns back. “And if you don’t let Mr. Crutcher
talk, you are nothing but cowards.”

  Montana walks down the aisle to huge applause.

  Crutcher stands next to the microphone, unsettled because he doesn’t know protocol, whether to talk or wait for permission. He takes his cue from Montana West.

  “Tell you what,” he says. “You don’t have to let me talk. I don’t have anything to say that could come close in accuracy to what you just heard. So my presentation is this.” He points to Montana as she walks out the back door. “What she said.”

  Within a half hour, Crutcher is sitting in a local coffee shop with Ms. Lloyd and Dad and my good friend Eddie Proffit, who has miraculously been spared by the owners of the booby hatch.

  By the time they get their second cup of coffee, Warren Peece and the rest of Crutcher’s books have been removed from the shelves of the Bear Creek High School library.

  18

  GETTING PUBLISHED

  I sit high in the stacks for the next week while the Bear Creek High School library is cleansed of Chris Crutcher, and subsequently of Alex Sanchez and Terry Davis and some of Walter Dean Myers, Judy Blume, Alice Walker, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Cormier, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling. It is also cleansed of Ms. Lloyd, because she can simply no longer work where there is no respect for literature. In truth, far more of the townspeople are against censorship than for, but the school board has the last say. The Reverend Tarter and his followers were far less successful when they brought their same complaints to the city library. That board has not been infiltrated. Many high-school students begin using the city library almost exclusively, creating jobs for Ms. Lloyd and my dad.