Adventures of Homer Fink Read online

  “The score stood two to four with but one inning left to play,” the seventh-grader continued from where he had left off. He wasn’t saying one more word than he had to. It’s easy enough to perform in your homeroom with only your teacher and friends in the audience, but most kids choke up in the auditorium.

  I wasn’t paying much attention to the speakers. They were running through Kipling’s poems and Longfellow, and a couple took shots at the preamble to the Constitution. Elaine Steigmar made a speech about one world. Elaine has long, black hair and big eyes and there’s no doubt about the fact that she matured early. Brian Spitzer was sitting right on the edge of his chair all through Elaine’s talk and I could hear Brian whispering, “You said it, Elaine. Tell them again.” That was really something, considering that Brian is never interested in history or current events.

  Patty Esposito told us about the death of her dog. I guess she wanted us to cry. When Patty’s talk was over she got a great hand. Some of the girls in her class even stood up and it wasn’t just because she was the class president. Patty had a sad expression about her face. It seemed winning the contest wasn’t important to her. Patty wanted us to think all she cared about was that her “beloved Spot” had been run over by a truck. I happen to know Patty’s brother Tony. Tony is a great guy for a catch or to go with to the Hippodrome for Saturday movies and a stage show. But usually Tony is busy because he has six sisters and has to do all the chores like taking out the garbage and raking the yard and walking the dog. I didn’t clap much for Patty.

  Little Louie Bannerman got almost as great an ovation as Patty. Little Louie is skinny and wears glasses. He’s on the honor roll all the time and with the exception of Homer Fink, Louie is the best student at 79. (Once Homer lead the honor roll with an average of 99, but more often he loses out because he only does his homework in his head or writes wild answers to essay questions. For example, Homer almost failed eighth-grade history when he answered a question on the causes of the Civil War with an essay on the origin of the Peloponnesian War.) Louie’s father is a doctor and that’s what Louie wants to be. He recited the Hippocratic oath, and I was one of the people who clapped real hard for Louie.

  Our class spoke last and Phillip Moore was on before Homer. Phillip has a clear voice with a slight Southern accent. He was born in Mississippi, but that Southern accent goes over as if he came from the Eastern Shore. It really wows the teachers. They are always calling Phillip a “real Southern gentleman,” which he is—but not because he comes from the Eastern Shore of Maryland and lives on a plantation or anything like that. Phillip’s father works for an insurance company and he got transferred from Biloxi to Baltimore.

  Phillip recited parts of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. He finished right on the button—just as Irma Micklisch raised her hand. The applause was so terrific you would have thought Phillip was going to plop a stovepipe hat on his head, get in his limousine, and drive right on up to Pennsylvania Avenue.

  It seemed to me Homer was really going to have to go some to win first prize. I wasn’t feeling too sure about Homer’s jokes going over. None of the speakers had even tried to get a laugh and the way everyone was fidgeting in his seat and whispering you could tell it had been a long assembly and the students were restless.

  But Homer Fink didn’t seem discouraged.

  Mr. Muncrief introduced him and waited for a moment until Homer joined him. There was a big smile on Mr. Muncrief’s face and he winked to Homer as he adjusted the microphone. I might have felt more confidence if Homer’s pajama pants weren’t showing beneath the cuffs of his trousers. And, even though I’m not exactly clothes-conscious, it did seem to me that the yellow palm-tree tie was out of place with a plaid shirt.

  Homer reached out his hand to greet Mr. Muncrief. I don’t know why he did that. None of the other speakers had thought of doing it. As Homer stretched out his hand, the pajama top was visible beneath his cuffs. But that wasn’t what caught Mr. Muncrief’s eye. It was all the assistant principal could do to resist retying Homer’s palm tree. The bottom flap was much longer than the top.

  Homer waited until Mr. Muncrief left the stage. Then he started across the platform after him. Homer was headed in the direction of Miss Sadie P. Everswell. I guess he thought it was important to pay his respects to the principal. It must have had something to do with the decorum of the court or protocol or something like that. I’m sure that’s the way Homer would have explained it. Miss Everswell acknowledged Homer’s greeting with a bow. She looked surprised but pleased. Something happened on Homer’s way back to the center of the stage. He only had to walk about twelve feet, but Homer Fink can make a trip like that as dangerous as a journey up the Congo. There was a wire somewhere and Homer found it. His feet did. And for a moment it seemed Homer was doing the twist or offering the first soft-shoe act on the morning’s program. When at last he was untangled, there was a ripple of laughter through the auditorium and some applause from the seventh grade.

  Homer Fink stood in front of the microphone. He paused and waited for silence. It was very smooth and I was beginning to think that Homer knew what he was doing after all. It could be he read a book on public speaking or studied the advice of his favorite Greek and Roman orators. “Go get them, Homer,” I said to myself. “Get this one for the Gip—or Pericles or anybody you like, but talk and talk soon.”

  “The time has come. The hour is upon us,” Homer began. “Arise, my fellow students, and be heard.”

  The trouble was I could hardly hear Homer Fink’s voice, and I’m sure the people in the back of the auditorium and those sitting in the balcony heard nothing at all.

  The loud-speaker was off. Homer had disconnected it. Mr. Muncrief started back to the stage, but Homer motioned for him to be seated.

  Homer Fink had a speech to make. He had thought it out carefully, preparing his argument. It was complete with gestures and grimaces.

  It was deep all right. I’m sure very few of the students would have understood but all would have been impressed. It’s not every day that a boy stands up at a general assembly and tells the teachers how to run the school. But the only impression most of us had was of Homer Fink moving his mouth silently, flailing his arms and beating his chest, and raising his arms skyward with an occasional plea to Zeus.

  Everyone had heard Homer was going to give a funny speech and that’s what we were waiting for. After a morning of “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and “Hanging Danny Deever,” we needed a few laughs. The only trouble was Homer wasn’t trying to be funny. Homer Fink had a message and when Homer felt something, he felt it strongly. As his words failed, Homer’s expressions and gestures became more and more passionate.

  Finally, Homer bounded across the stage. He was pointing at the audience. “Care! Become involved! Live!” I heard him plead. There were snickers from the seventh grade and laughter from the eighth-grade section.

  Homer pulled his tie loose and opened his collar. His pajama top was clearly visible now. It had red candy stripes. (A present from Homer’s cousins in Silver Spring who had no children of their own and were always giving Homer gifts.)

  “Look at Fink’s costume,” a girl in the eighth-grade section shrieked.

  By this time the ninth grade was finding the performance hilarious. Everybody was laughing. The teachers had given up trying to control their classes. Homer was bringing the school down. Only, it wasn’t exactly the way he intended to rip it apart. The response had nothing to do with Homer’s deep thought or the passion of his feelings.

  “Fink’s a riot. He’s a screaming idiot,” I heard Brian Spitzer say. And if he wasn’t sitting two rows behind me I would have punched Brian right in his fat face. I sunk deep in my seat. My feet pressed so hard against the auditorium floor I expected to fall to the floor below and land in the gym. It was awful.

  Homer Fink went on and on, carried away by the strength of his arguments and the sound of his own voice. But nobody heard another word. The entire school wa
s absorbed by the way Homer dressed and performed.

  He walked across the stage with his hands folded behind his back, bouncing off the balls of his feet and thinking deep, and then came to a halt and lined up his fingers. His head was nodding and his eyes were bright and his lips moved, but Irma Mickliseh had been on her feet for some time and both her arms were raised and Mrs. Newthal was ringing a bell and no one heard a word.

  I suppose Homer Fink would have tried forever if the class bell hadn’t sounded. That stopped him long enough for Mr. Muncrief to rush back to the stage, applaud, and put his arm around Homer’s shoulder. It took the assistant principal five minutes to quiet down the school and that was really something because it’s about all you can do to breathe when Mr. Muncrief signals for silence.

  The assistant principal said a few words about laughter being the wine of life or something like that. I guess he had heard enough of Homer’s speech to feel inspired because one thing for sure nobody in P.S. 79 drinks wine.

  We were on our way back to class when Phillip Moore said, “You were great, Homer. I never laughed so hard. I would have given you first prize.”

  “You deserved to win,” said Homer Fink. “My compliments.” And then he said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Of course I broke the rules. I didn’t give a speech. I wanted to try a little pantomime.”

  Homer smiled, but I could see he didn’t mean it.

  It was the first time I had ever heard Homer Fink make an excuse or seen a sign that he cared what people thought of him.

  7

  “Machiavelli drew his conclusions from the nature of mankind ascribing all things to natural causes and fortune. He returned to an approach that had been neglected since the days of Aristotle.” Homer Fink thumped me on the back.

  “Mr. Bowen called on you twice in general science,” I told Homer. “Didn’t you hear him say that Machiavelli had nothing to do with paramecium?”

  “Of course politics is not an absolute science.”

  It was three o’clock. School was out for the day. I had expected Homer would be feeling bad about his defeat in the oratory contest. But after a few minutes of Machiavelli and politics, it was obvious Homer was feeling more like his old self than ever before. He stopped on the corner of Mt. Royal, dropped his books, and looked up at the clock tower of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad terminal. “Tomorrow afternoon at precisely four o’clock, at the Mt. Royal station, I will cross the Rubicon, Richard.”

  He said this so loudly that a group of eighth-graders heard him. They came closer to see what Homer Fink was up to. They were laughing before Homer said another word.

  “Come on, Homer. Let’s go home.” I picked up his book-bag and made him take it.

  Homer tried again. “The Rubicon is a small stream which formed the boundary between Italy and Gaul. When Caesar crossed it in 49 B.C., it meant a declaration of war against Pompey.” I was walking fast and Homer had to run to keep up with me. “Didn’t you know that, Richard? What I was trying to say is that I plan to announce my candidacy for the presidency of the student council. ‘Crossing the Rubicon’ means taking a step which definitely commits a person to a given course of action. I certainly didn’t mean to imply I was traveling across the stream by means of the B and O Railroad.”

  “So long, Homer,” I said. “I’m not in the mood for crossing the Rubicon today. I’m going on home and take Pete out for a ride.”

  Homer Fink took long steps with his back slightly bent and his face down, studying the pattern of the sidewalk. He was wearing his big overcoat and the side pockets bulged. We walked silently a while and then Homer took two halves of a pomegranate from his pocket. He gave one half to me.

  We followed the island of green that runs down the middle of Park Avenue. I was balancing my books under my arm and picking the red seeds from the crimson pulp while Homer searched the ground for fall leaves.

  He found an oak leaf and put the stem in the lapel of his coat. “I’m going to run for president of the school, Richard. I’d like you to be my campaign manager.”

  I didn’t answer. That made me think about the oratory contest again and the failure of Homer’s speech.

  He must have read my mind. “I know my talk this morning was a disaster. It didn’t work out as I had planned. The craft of politics is subtle and sometimes there are great lessons to learn from small failures.”

  “You weren’t trying to do a pantomime act or anything like that,” I told him. “And right now I doubt if anybody in the school will ever take you seriously.”

  Homer grasped the trunk of a tree and swung himself around. “I’ll have to make some adjustments in my public personality. It requires concentrated planning, imagination, and discipline.”

  I said, “Why don’t you join the debating team and try to be captain of that?”

  Homer came closer, walking backward in front of me so that I could see his face. “The presidency of the school is the best platform for my ideas.”

  “Write a letter to the editor of the Sun,” I suggested. “Or maybe you could do a story for Scholastic magazine.”

  “After we have the student body behind us, we’ll be in a position to consolidate the other junior highs of the city,” said Homer. “Then, they will come to us.”

  Homer must have known that I wasn’t impressed, because he said, “Imagine we are Athens—one city-state among the many in Greece. In order to spread our influence and realize our ideas, the first thing we have to do is establish a base. Ergo—we begin by unifying Greece.”

  “Homer, have you taken a good look at P.S. 79 recently? A really good look?”

  Homer turned around and walked beside me. He was thinking that over. “The athletic failure of our school is not what concerns me, Richard.”

  “I was going to say P.S. 79 doesn’t have the slightest resemblance to the Acropolis—at least it doesn’t to me. And I’m sure most of the students don’t know what the Acropolis is and not many more would have the slightest idea what you’re talking about when you start that stuff about the Greek city-states.”

  Homer picked a seed from his pomegranate. “You think I should refrain from classical reference.” He popped the seed into his mouth and then nodding said, “I’ll consider some restraint during the early stages of the campaign.”

  I said, “Look, Homer, let’s forget it. The plain truth is you wouldn’t have any more chance than Trudy Deal to be elected president of the school.”

  “And that’s all the more reason why we must have absolutely expert assistance,” said Homer Fink.

  My mother was in the kitchen feeding the twins when Homer and I arrived. Pete was in his playpen surrounded by assorted shoes.

  “You shouldn’t let Pete play with my ski boots,” I told my mother.

  Mother said, “Good afternoon, Homer. How are you today?”

  Pete dropped the ski boot on the other side of the playpen, pointed to Homer, and screamed, “Omni—Omni—.”

  Homer Fink said to my mother, “Greetings to thee, my phantom of delight.”

  “Why Homer, no man has quoted Wordsworth to me since Mr. Sanders courted me at college.” Mother removed a jar of strained applesauce from the warming pan and lifted the top.

  “A lovely apparition, sent to be a moment’s ornament.” Homer took the jar of strained applesauce from my mother’s hand. He rinsed the baby spoon and plunked down on the floor in front of the twins.

  “Homer Fink, you are absolutely gallant,” said my mother. “Not too much applesauce now—a little at a time.”

  I said, “I was thinking about taking Pete out for a walk, Ma.” My voice didn’t exactly sound enthusiastic. Homer Fink was becoming more of a politician every moment.

  “That’s a perfectly splendid idea, darling.” My mother lifted Pete from the playpen. “I’ll have him in his snowsuit in a jiffy.”

  Pete called, “Omni—Omni—.”

  “You better say something in Latin, quick,” I told Homer. “Your protegé look
s as if he’s about to cry.”

  “If you’re sure it’s all right,” said Homer. “You’re my campaign manager.”

  I sighed and nodded and Homer recited the first line of Caesar’s Gallic War.

  I don’t know what it was about Latin, but it sure did get Pete. While Homer recited, Pete laughed and gurgled and let my mother put the snowsuit on him.

  “Did I hear you say Richard is your campaign manager?” my mother asked. “Be sure to let me know what you are running for, Homer, so I can vote for you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Sanders.” Homer was shoveling the applesauce into Romulus, and Remus was staring as if he were about to die of starvation. “The truth is I have been presumptuous in assuming Richard will manage my campaign. I regret that I offered very little inspiration this morning.”

  “Richard did mention you were a finalist in the oratory contest.”

  I had done a lot more than mention it. I was proud of Homer’s showing in the class competition and I’d been telling my family about it all week. In a way, I guess I thought it made me look good.

  “It was a small failure, Mrs. Sanders,” Homer Fink announced. “I was the school clown. You may be sure it is not a role I cherish.” Homer offered a spoonful of applesauce to Remo and then he said, “I’m sorry, Richard. I didn’t want to let you down.”

  My mother said, “I’m sure you were perfectly grand, Homer.”

  “It wasn’t your fault the microphone was disconnected,” I tried weakly and then I said, “But you just can’t go through life stumbling over wires, pulling out plugs, and raving on, Homer. What good is the greatest speech in the world if nobody hears it.”

  Homer ladled another spoonful of applesauce into Remo, and Romy grabbed the baby spoon and waved it up and down. The applesauce flew around the room splashing against the wall and over Homer Fink.

  My mother put Pete down and took the spoon from Romulus. “Some things in this world have values sufficient unto themselves, Richard. I’m sure Homer’s speech was magnificent. It was the school’s loss that they didn’t hear it.”