Page 15 of Playworld

Deb leaned back. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” she said.

“Abracadabra,” I said, and tapped a struck match to my palm.

Cuff to fingertips, my entire hand ignited. I screamed, then jumped from my stool, furiously beating the appendage against my leg until the conflagration was put out.

Miss Brodsky hurried over and was now bent double with me, looking with real concern as I examined my hand. She was holding a fire extinguisher. “Are you all right?” she asked.

The hair on my fingers was singed off, but the skin, now a brightening pink, was undamaged. I nodded.

“You’re sure?” she said.

“Positive,” I answered, and, taking a deep breath, stood up straight. Everyone was staring at us.

“Good,” she replied, and then her expression darkened.“Now go explain yourself to Mr. Fistly.”

I made the long walk to Mr. Fistly’s office. When I arrived, I addressed myself to Miss Abbasi, the upper school secretary. “Is Mr. Fistly in?” I asked, as if we had a scheduled meeting. Miss Abbasi’s ear for inflection was remarkable; she gave a dismissive nod in his door’s direction, not a word more articulate than the disappointment she conveyed in that look and gesture: that I was back, that I remained on the radar, that Inever learned.

Mr. Fistly kept his office lamp-lit, eschewing the overhead lights—it was an office for a reader. Along with his administrative duties, he taught a select British lit seminar. For those privileged students who intentionally found their way here to chat about, say,Gulliver’s Travels(a favorite of his, I’d overheard), who were offered a seat across from his desk or perhaps on his couch, beside his wingback chair, where my parents and I had been called in to meet with him at the semester’s start to discuss, in his words, “my inherently unique challenges” given my “middling middle school performance” and my “professional obligations,” I imagined it was a very pleasant place to pass the time.

Upon entering, the rules of the exchange were inviolate: I was required to report exactly why I’d come and precisely what I’d done. He would tolerate no diminishment of my crime and absolutely no excuse. Film acting, my father liked to say, was all in the eyes, and while I incriminated myself, Fistly steadily gazed at me. His wavy reddish hair had the sculpted firmness of something detachable, like a barrister’s wig. His large nose was pronouncedly hooked, more menacing because of the pride he took in its raptor-like prominence. He twiddled his thumbs while I talked. He studied me. He even chuckled when I got to my combustible moment—a breathy laugh that revealed his very long, straight teeth, though his brows remained frozen. Toward the end of my account, he began to flush in anticipation of his response, which, I realized, he’d been formulating ahead of my conclusion, and this high coloring, intensified by his chronic razor burn, blurred the line between fury and delight, for he was smiling when he spoke.

“In all my years in education,” Fistly began, “I’ve found I cannot help but engage in what one might call a Darwinian specification of students.This is not merely a categorization of certain types, like ‘jock’ or ‘nerd,’ but also an enumeration of their inherent qualities. It makes one more appreciative of Shakespeare’s genius, he having comprehensively cataloged all of creation’s characters, fool to king. Speaking offools,I have always been fascinated by the class clown, by his desperate need to be the center of attention. The sadlyneuroticway he shifts everyone’s focus back to himself, in spite of the vital information his teacher is working so hard to impart. Now listen to me”—Fistly chuckled—“going on with my tiny observations, selfishly keeping you from learning science. Forcing you to losemoreground and making your alreadywoefulacademic standing more woeful still. Does that sort of behavior seem…familiar? You will serve detention this Saturday.”

Math class, toward day’s end, was where I took my final licks. After negotiating the first five problems with relative ease—these no different from our practice problems but for the numbers—there came that moment when I arrived at the sixth question, where I inevitably stumbled as I collected the variable terms and then dropped them so that they spilled everywhere. I could spend all day in this classroom and never realize its solution. I was also, I noticed, the only person sitting up. I gazed upon everyone’s humped backs, listened to their pencil point taps, their eraser squeaks, the methodical tick of the clock, and what was clear to me, first and foremost, was that Fistly was right. I was losing more ground. My situation was unsustainable. And I prayed for a way out.

There was a knock at the door. Miss Abbasi entered, quietly apologized to the teacher for the intrusion, and then handed me a note.

Call Your Agent.

You Have an Audition This Afternoon.

Love, Dad

Things couldn’t go on like this. Not in November. Not once wrestling season started.

How to lose acting from this equation?

And then, with a cold certainty that strong math students must enjoy, it dawned on me I could subtract this term, at least for a while.

I turned in my quiz and, showing Mr. Graff the note, left theclassroom and made straight for the school’s pay phone in the front hall. When I called my father at his studio, I managed to contain my fury.

“It’s a big deal,” Dad said of my upcoming audition, “reading for a director like Paul Mazursky.”

I didn’t know who that was. “How long will you be at your office?” I asked.

“I have a booking at three.”

While I tried to get my breathing under control, he said, “Everything okay?”

I told him I was fine. I said goodbye and then called Brent, my agent, who told me who Mazursky was, that he’d liked my work inThe Talon Effect,and then he gave me the audition’s address and time.

“Can you schedule it for earlier?” I asked.

“No can do,” Brent said.

“Can you call my school and tell them I have to leavenow?”

“What happened, Griff? Dog eat your homework again?”