The Case of the Misplaced Hero, Page 2

delusions about invisible heroes, or about how right she was about the cynical, boring, vapid world.

  However college wasn't designed for not thinking. If you stay there long enough -- as Alex most certainly did -- sooner or later you will be lured into thinking. And thinking will change your life....

  Episode 3

  The Invisible Man

  In college Alex made a point of evading success. He had no ambition. He indulged sometimes in pranks, but he never cheated, except now and then he would flunk a class intentionally. The fact was, he didn't want to graduate. School suited him. He had the money to stay, and he had no place else he wanted to go. Why not? He could be a perpetual student.

  And even though he had outgrown his aunt's fanciful games, he sometimes longed for a world like the one she made up for them, a world where honor and glory didn't seem so... dumb.

  In his fifth year of college, on his third go round at a second year literature class, he planned to simply skip the final paper. It was the easiest way to flunk a class, after all. But when he saw the topic, he got a sudden idea and decided to write it after all.

  The assignment was to discuss one of the books they had read that term from the point of view of one of the great literary critics. Alex had read all the novels, but he had not paid any attention at all to the lectures about literary theory. He couldn't have even named one of the critics if he'd tried, let alone written a paper about one.

  But one of the books had brought Aunt Flavia and her little midnight talk to mind. The Invisible Man was a serious modern novel about a man of color who slowly and inexorably becomes disillusioned with the promises of opportunity and equality in modern society.

  By the end the hero of the book has been utterly stripped of every one of his illusions, and he realizes that he is virtually invisible to the cynical world around him, and that invisibility gives him power. The man vows to use that power to hold society accountable to the values it pretended to hold dear.

  The book probably meant that the guy was just going to write a book about it all, but when Alex read that scene, he heard his aunt's voice, telling him how heroes lie fallow, unnoticed, unappreciated -- invisible. The man in the book was dismissed and ignored because of his race, but wasn't that a variation on how the wealthy and blue-blooded heroes adventure stories are ignored and dismissed for their uselessness?

  And wouldn't it be really inappropriate to compare the two?

  It would be a perfect way to fail the class, and also be a tribute to Aunt Flavia, since it was near the anniversary of her death. A grand gesture, if a little useless, like a misplaced hero. A good way to end the school year.

  After the term ended, Alex normally would have taken off and never bothered to pick up his paper or check his grades, but this time, he couldn't help thinking about that paper. Would the professor comment at all, or just flunk him? Or might he even like it?

  Alex went to the department office and picked up his papers. He went out into the hall and hesitated before opening the envelope. Then he laughed at himself for bothering to care, and he tore it open.

  The essay was crumpled, as though someone had balled it up and thrown it away -- then retrieved it and flattened it again. Scrawled across the top, in bold red letters was:

  NONSENSE!

  And then below that was the grade.

  "4.0"

  A perfect score. There were no other marks on the essay.

  Alex went back into the office to inquire as to whether Professor Thornton was still on campus. The overworked and disapproving secretary informed him, shortly, that he could find Old Thorny enjoying "happy hour" at a local restaurant across the street.

  Episode 4

  The Outrage of Old Thorny

  Professor Thornton was a living, breathing, human caricature. He wore a tweed coat with leather patches at the elbows, and had mustard stains on his tie, and tousled graying hair. His lectures seemed like well-tuned performances of an old vaudevillian -- performed so often without varying that Alex had never been sure that Old Thorny even knew what he was saying any more. Just put on the same show twice a day, take a bow and answer the same old questions by rote.

  Alex found him sitting at a table by the window in the favorite Mexican hangout. Old Thorny had an nearly empty pitcher of beer in front of him and a completely empty margarita glass. He was vainly trying to get the attention of the waitress who seemed determined not to see him.

  But then Thorny saw Alex and he half stood, and pointed at Alex, shouting.

  "Then give him a drink!"

  The waitress looked at Alex and said, through a clenched jaw, "Are you with him?"

  "I, uh, wanted to talk to him."

  "Take him home," she said.

  "That boy shattered my existence with his nonsense!" he called out in a booming stage voice, and a dead-on impression of Richard Burton. "Give him a drink!"

  Alex agreed to take him home.

  "She won't give me another drink," said Thorny as Alex got him to his feet. "She thinks four is too many."

  "You've already had three?"

  "I've already had five."

  "And you're still above the table."

  "Perhaps," he said. "I lie when I get drunk. And I can't count. I may have had only three. In which case I need more. I am trying to wash your nonsense out of my head."

  By this time, Alex had maneuvered him out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk.

  Since neither of them had a car, they walked. It wasn't far to Thorny's house, apparently, just across the river.

  As they walked Alex waved the envelope with his essay under the professor's nose. The professor squinted at it and then waved his hand dismissively.

  "You're not so clever, my boy," he said.

  "I got a four point," said Alex, but the old man waved him off again.

  "Do you think, in forty years of teaching, I haven't had students say 'up yours' with an assignment before? It's dreary how you all do the same thing. I tell you to discuss the novel form the point of view of an established critic, and you pick your dear old Aunt Bessy!"

  "Aunt Flavia," said Alex.

  "Auntie Mame. I don't care. You're not the first one to choose grandmaw or Hitler, or Snoopy, or Snoop Dawg. Not clever at all."

  "Then why the four point?"

  They were crossing the bridge over the river, and the professor stopped, and held on to the railing for a moment. He might have been thinking, or just on the verge of passing out.

  "Because," he said finally. "In all of it, all my teaching days, I have never seen anyone compare Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man to Zorro. Not once."

  "Nobody's ever made a ridiculous comparison?"

  "Nobody's ever meant it."

  The professor pushed past him and headed the rest of the way across the bridge.

  "I didn't actually mean it," said Alex. "I was just--"

  Old Thorny stopped, but he didn't turn around. He balled his fists, and his shoulders raised up stiffly.

  "You don't understand!" he said, half shouting. Then he finally wheeled around. "you made me believe it!"

  "I didn't mean to," said Alex. "I meant to do the opposite, actually."

  "For just one small shining moment, I believed in what you were saying. I believed that the modern world and Zorro could coexist. Then I came crashing back to reality when you misspelled 'there.' T-h-e-i-r is the possessive. T-h-e-r-e is the place."

  "Sorry, I was trying to flunk."

  "Bah!" Old Thorny wheeled around and began to stagger away.

  "It was a tribute to my aunt. She really believed in Zorro," said Alex. "But she was eccentric. I mean, she also advised me to go jump in the lake."

  At that, the professor stopped again. He half turned, as if puzzled.

  "Jump in the lake? She told you to go jump in the lake?"

  "Not told, advised," said Alex. "It wasn't an insult, it was a recommendation."

  "Why?"


  "I don't know," said Alex with a shrug. "She had interesting ideas."

  "Of course she did," said the old professor, and he stood swaying for a moment, and his head turned slowly toward the river. "Jump in the lake. See what happens. That's splendid."

  By this time the professor had moved beyond the bridge, so he couldn't just jump in, but Alex didn't like the manic look in his eyes. Alex braced himself to catch the old man if he tried to race back to the center of the bridge and throw himself in.

  "Let's do it!" said the professor, but instead of heading back onto the bridge, he jumped the lower barrier next to him and ran down the bank.

  Alex had no choice but to vault over and try to catch him.

  Episode 5

  The Wrong River

  The professor was picking up speed as he stumbled drunkenly down the bank.

  "Professor, that water's filthy," called Alex from the top of the barrier. "You should see what's in it under a microscope!"

  "You took biology?" the professor shouted from below. "Good for you! Humanities is a dead subject."

  Alex leapt down and raced after him. The man, though, changed direction, and headed for the base of the bridge. Alex shot right by, straight toward the river. He caught himself at the edge, just where the firm grassy ground sloped down into the mud. He teetered a moment and looked into the murky water.

  It was smooth and calm on this fine evening, and though the moving water had ripples, the surface reflected bits of Alex back at himself, along with bits of the sky and the spidery trees. The ripples blended these pieces together and it seemed like blending two separate pictures. Like seeing multiple scenes at