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In Support of the Academy PART I CHAPTER II SECTION I
By The Host
Here's the first half of the second chapter. Hope you enjoy!
Here's to You, Holden Getty!
‘My name is Holden Getty, but you can call me God.’
Thus I introduced myself to all assembled on that grey July day. The threat of rain was palpable; our day’s activities were fortunately scheduled inside.
That salutation, stilted and unfunny as it was, aptly set up my chosen persona for the weeks ahead. I was still convinced there was no Real Me, at least none that I had yet discovered (I was searching doggedly), so I felt free to adopt and display other personalities within my limited range of expression. Today I had decided to be eccentric. These seemed like smart kids. They might be receptive to eccentricity.
I recalled something Harold had said about a year ago, words that struck at a resonant truth somewhere deep inside me. He said, ‘Holden’s not popular enough to be appreciated as he is. If he was popular, he’d be accepted as cool, or trend-setting, or original. As it is, he’s just weird.’
Harold was right, of course. He was decidedly strange, even more so than I. He was perpetually unpredictable, at times bold, crude, quiet, profound. Were it not for his swaggering confidence, and an almost imperceptible strain of self-determinism throughout his actions, one might conclude that he was unbalanced. He was the most popular guy in town.
I was convinced that the key to acceptance was to act in such a way from the beginning – refuse to be ignored. Then one must prove oneself a level-headed, compassionate, intelligent gentleman, when the situation called for a level-headed, compassionate, intelligent gentleman. This would secure popularity, and eventually allow one to be totally oneself.
My mistake had been to lay low for my first years in Port Crandall. I concentrated on intelligence and compassion, and only later blossomed into something unique. With no firm base of friendly support, I was shunned by many, ignored by many more. All I had to do was handle myself accordingly from the moment I met new friends. I had never considered the possibility that there might be something else that set Harold and I apart; something such as his overwhelming self-assurance.
Still, one of my conclusions proved true. These were smart kids, and they were receptive to eccentricity. Indeed, they were originals all, and by forcing myself to stand out from the crowd I blended perfectly for the first time. Go figure.
The first twenty-four hours of the Seminar was a blur of faces and figures, at the time and in memory. Most of the attendees knew each other, being fellow students from Waterton Academy’s prestigious Enhanced Program. Waterton had tried to recruit me to E.P. a year prior, but I decided at the last moment to remain in Port Crandall with my friends. I repeat: Go figure.
I remember only snatches of those first frenzied hours. There were the ‘ice-breakers’ usual for this sort of event, and a long lecture on negotiation skills given by Mr Bartleby Bloom. I betrayed myself in there; I took notes doggedly, realizing full well that this was the sort of lesson I’d never learn by studying. Some of those around me visibly fought sleep while others quickly gave in. I, on the other hand, was rapt. Bloom was a fascinating speaker. He had mastered the power of modulation, of tone and speed; he gesticulated wildly yet with a bizarre clarity. I was duly impressed.
That was my very first time inside Waterton Academy. It was surprisingly unimpressive. The school had been built in the early sixties, a time known in the annals of public architecture as the Ugly Period, with all the splendorous stylings of a small airport or light industrial park. There were a few long, dark, drab corridors lined with now-empty lockers. Sepia tones abounded, even on the floors, which had once been green (maybe) but had been worn by years of muddy boots. The few open classrooms we used for sleeping quarters were quite different from those of the newer Laurier High. For one thing, they were significantly larger rooms; thirty students could fit comfortably in one of these classes, while twenty would be seriously crammed in Laurier’s square rooms. For another, the windows were larger, letting natural light filter to the corners. Most surprising, however, was height. The brown walls lifted the ceiling almost ten feet above my head. The lights hung several feet below that, unlike the lights set into the tiles at Laurier. There were still paper planes stuck on top of some of the winking lights in one or two or three of the rooms.
The sense of size that permeated the school did not carry with it a feeling of grandeur. Instead it fought a losing battle with the musty perils of age and under-funding and decay. The greatness of Waterton Academy was little evidenced by the school itself.
Erected 1964 AD. The phrase was misleading. Yes, the building was barely forty years old, but the Academy went back further than that. It had been established a century and a half ago as a private school, attended by the children of the very coal and steel barons that built Cape Breton Island (or, more rightly, built personal fortunes on the backs of Cape Bretoners). The town of Waterton’s prosperity toppled with the stock market in 1928, but still the Academy persisted. The coal barons are all gone now, the steel-makers dead. Their great mansions, those that remain, are now hoary skeletons hiding Friday-night adventures. The fine wallpapers have been redecorated with graffiti and grunge, the fine furnishings have been left to ruin and to rot. Still the town perseveres, as does the Academy. History and memory don’t decay as swiftly as old leather and silk, and history and memory are the only resources Waterton has left.
The Academy was granted to the Canadian government in the 1960s. Perhaps protesting its new owners, the school was ostensibly struck by lightning the next year and burned to the ground. The new school, completed ten months later, was a profanity against the reputation of the Academy.
The building was simple, cheap, modern, and drab, all things that Waterton Academy had not been. Against fervent opposition, the school was named for the old Academy upon whose foundations it shakily poised. The Academy’s attempted suicide had been thwarted.
Rumours, later disproved, said that the former headmaster, one Fenwick Kyte, had set the old school aflame.
So? What do you think? Please comment! I'll post some more of this chapter tomorrow or the next day.
-The Host
3/31/2003 1:54:51 AM
Comment on this fan fiction!
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