Chapter 5 - Research
I went to the library after church on Sunday, trying to forget about the impending crisis of Summer School by immersing myself in writing. Sergeant Smithers was there, and I asked him right away if he knew about Chris Poulos’ alter ego.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “I didn’t know that. Of course, I don’t listen to that station, really, so I wouldn’t have heard the name anyway. But it doesn’t surprise me at all that he would go for a job like that; it puts him in the public eye and makes for instant recognition.”
“And helps him pick up girls.”
“Yes, of course. Or at least, he thinks it will.”
We didn’t talk long; I had some research and some writing to do, and I couldn’t let the Sergeant in on what I was doing. One of the great things about the Sergeant was that he wasn’t the least bit nosy. He would never ask what I was doing if I didn’t volunteer anything. So I just sat with my head down and worked on some of my essays.
The Sergeant had actually helped me with some great advice, although he had no idea how I was applying it. I didn’t want to tell him that I was getting involved in a massive cheating ring; I didn’t think he’d approve. But he had told me something back in December, when I was planning for two term papers, that made a lot of sense.
“You know,” he said, “a lot of writers get themselves in trouble, probably because of the way they’re taught to approach an essay, by getting locked into a thesis and then struggling to find facts that support it. You end up looking like a second-rate politician who says something people want to hear and then has to twist the facts to back it up. Don’t try to make your research fit your thesis; make your thesis fit your research. If you go into it with a preconceived point to prove, you may find that your research doesn’t support it as well as you hoped. You have your subject matter chosen, right? So go and do as much research as you possibly can, and then formulate a thesis that fits the facts, and that you can support with solid arguments.”
Well, that was great advice, and I was planning to use it with all of these papers I was writing. Not that I was doing much research – I didn’t have time for that. My essays were basically going to be all bullshit, anyway. That’s what I was good at – bullshit. But I needed solid and verifiable quotes and legitimate citations for each paper. That was one of the things that Amy and I guaranteed each and every customer – that if their teachers actually checked any of their references, unlikely as it was, they would hold up to scrutiny.
So, essentially, I was doing things backwards. I was writing down as many impressive-sounding quotes as I could for each subject matter, which I had a list of, and writing out the citations for the books I pulled them from, as well as for books I used for background information. For instance, three Seniors were doing their papers on the nineteenth century labor movement, so I wrote down a bunch of quotes from Samuel Gompers and Eugene Debs, knowing I could work them into whatever bullshit essay I threw together.
I was planning to go down to the UVM library with my sister on Monday and spend most of the day there getting quotes and citations. Amy was working both Sunday and Monday, and we were planning a short session at Jane’s on Monday night, then an all-day marathon on Tuesday. I worked a couple of hours at the library, finishing three short essays and outlining some of the long ones.
That night, we had toasted cheese sandwiches, which was a Sunday favorite, then we all settled in to watch Ed Sullivan. It was a pretty awful show, for me, at least. Eydie Gorme sang two show tunes, and my older sisters, who both played piano, ridiculed her because they said she was flat. “How can they let her sing on Ed Sullivan if she can’t hit her notes?”
The attraction “for the youngsters” was Freddie and the Dreamers. My siblings were all excited about it, but this was one of the groups that my friends and I hated. The term “bubble gum” wasn’t current at the time, as applied to pop music, but that’s what it was. My Dad left the room in disgust; he hated almost all popular music – said it was just “bang, bang, bang.” I thought, if he thinks these guys are wild, what’s he going to think about The Rolling Stones next week?
Monday morning, I rode down to Burlington with my Dad and my oldest sister. He dropped us off at the library, and I walked in with her. I had been there a couple of times; they would let me in as long as I was with a student, but I couldn’t take anything out, which was okay with me. If I really wanted to take something home, I would ask my sister to get it.
I spent the whole morning there, finding source books for each of the subjects I was writing on, from books I knew weren’t at the library in Essex. Teachers were a lot less likely to verify a citation if they had to go down to Burlington to do it. By eleven o’clock, I had dozens of source citations written down in my notebook and dozens of quotes I thought I would be able to use. At that point, I was getting hungry, but eating in the library wasn’t allowed, and I knew that if I left I wouldn’t be able to get back in, so I stayed until about twelve-thirty, getting quite a bit of writing done, then I walked down to the bus stop on Colchester Avenue and waited for the bus.
To my surprise, my friends Kate and Jackie were on the bus, and I walked to the back and sat down with them.
“I hope you don’t mind if I eat,” I said as I put down my bag of notebooks on the seat beside me and pulled out a bottle of orange soda and the sandwich my Mom had made for me.
Kate laughed and Jackie held out a bag of cookies she was carrying. “We’ve just had our lunch,” Jackie said, “but there are still cookies left. Help yourself.”
I happily grabbed a couple of chocolate chip cookies and immediately ate one, then set the other aside while I started on my sandwich.
“Thanks, Jackie!” I said through a mouthful of food.
They explained that they had spent the morning walking around Burlington and doing a little shopping.
“Our last stop was Val Carter’s record shop,” Kate said as she handed me a brown paper bag. “Want to see?”
I nodded as I wiped my fingers and reached for the bag, wondering if I’d be able to hide my disappointment if it was Herman’s Hermits. But it wasn’t; the bag held two 45’s, one from The Moody Blues and the other from The Seekers.
“Good stuff,” I said, “I like them both.”
We talked a little bit about music while I ate. Jackie was a pretty serious folk music fan, especially favoring Peter, Paul and Mary and Ian and Sylvia. Kate’s tastes were a little more towards rock, but The Moody Blues was a pretty radical step for both of them. I told them about The Planets at the dance on Saturday, and they exchanged amused grimaces.
“Those guys are hoods, Denny,” Kate said with obvious disapproval, “You shouldn’t be hanging out with people like that.”
I shrugged, a little embarrassed. “They’re not so bad,” I said, but I knew that, a year earlier, I would have agreed with her and would have avoided Karl and Mac and the others. But then I became a troublemaker in good standing.
“Were any kids from our school there?” Jackie asked, her curiosity overcoming her disapproval.
“A few,” I said, naming the eighth graders who were there and describing how Stewie and Bobbo and Gary, Mac’s brother, had been thrown out.
The girls laughed, and Kate said, “But they didn’t throw you out?”
“No, no; we were perfectly well behaved.”
Kate pointed at the bag full of notebooks on the seat beside me. “What have you been doing?”
“Umm, I’ve been at the UVM library. Doing some research; personal stuff, mostly.”
“Maybe,” Jackie said, “you should be working on your French.”
Kate shook her head sadly. “We heard about Summer School. That’s going to be Hell for you guys.”
“Especially,” Jackie added, “with Mrs. Pratt teaching it.”
I groaned. That was the thing that made it doubly horrible – Mrs. Pratt was the one who would be teaching us all summer.
Jackie’s face had assumed a kind of “lecturing Mom” look, and she said, “I still don’t understand why you guys can’t get along with her. It’s like you’ve been at war with her all year.”
“Well,” I said, petulantly, “she started it.”
“Really?” Kate said, with a vastly condescending tone. She was right, of course, but I wasn’t admitting it.
“She must be as unhappy about it as you are,” Jackie said.
“Huh? Why?”
They both rolled their eyes.
“Denny, haven’t you been paying attention?” Kate said. Then she threw her hands in the air. “What am I saying? Of course you haven’t. If you’d been paying attention, you wouldn’t be in the spot you’re in.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jackie patiently explained it to me. “She’s been talking about it ever since Christmas. She and her husband have been saving up for a vacation in Europe this summer; Belgium, Holland, and France. But they’ve decided they can’t afford it this year. That’s why she’s available to teach Summer School.”
I had a brief, disturbing vision of the kind of man who would marry a blowsy, ill-tempered witch like Mrs. Pratt – I hadn’t even considered it possible – and then I realized what she was saying.
“You mean, the only reason she’s teaching us is because she can’t go to Europe?”
“That’s right,” Jackie replied, “They’re putting it off another year and she’s working this summer to save money."
Well, that was interesting. It didn’t change anything, but it was good to know.