began to reshape themselves. Learning continued in his history class though enthusiasm waned well below what it had been. Over several weeks, senior attendance dropped. A few students had just stopped showing up.
CHAPTER 5
Spring 2023
Naturally, it started with armbands.
The word was written in white on a black background: “ Erwachen !” (wake up). Some, for some inexplicable reason, had it written in Chinese . 唤 醒 . Two seniors had come up with the idea and began wearing the armbands as paper and tape constructions. Some of the girls wrote it in pink, some with pretty hearts and matching bracelets. A few football players included their jersey numbers on the armband along with “Seniors 2023”. Toward the end of the spring semester, nearly half of the seniors had armbands.
The other half of the senior class, by contrast, wore a small green button, almost invisible, on their lapels that read “S chlaf! ” (Sleep!) or simply wore nothing at all. Eventually, as it was rumored amongst the faculty, those refusing to wear the armband were forced to wear the button—by some of those wearing the armband. No adult member of the staff, however, could find out whether or not this was true. It was more likely, thought Hayes, that the buttons began as a rebuttal to the armbands and were worn proudly, both sides wearing signs of their prior roles in the game in terms of sides. Only a couple of students refused to wear either. It was as if the game continued though it hadn't been part of Mr. Hayes' lesson plans for months.
The game had been real and highly addictive, not like studying indifferent equations or disembodied facts in a history class or forgettable terms like “iambic pentameter” and “endoplasmic reticulum.” The game had appealed because, unlike nearly all other learning at the school, it had slant. You couldn’t avoid choosing your side. Being and choosing was the game. It wasn’t an indifferent essay on the narrative structure used by a bright little Jewish girl writing in a journal while hiding with her family behind a bookcase in Holland. You were either the little girl in a train or in a camp or in a ghetto trying to stay alive past the next culling, or you were the one dragging out families from hiding, incrementally climbing the ranks with every capture. You could find a family and drag them all to an awaiting truck or lock them into a windowless, packed boxcar and hose them down through the high bars on a cold winter’s night, with frigid water meant to bring frostbite to maybe eliminate some of the weaker ones. That sort of thing could mean promotion. You could be a camp commander and issue reprieves to a group of political prisoners at will--risking a stab in the back by an inferior or the possibility of becoming fodder for Polish bayonets the very next week. That had been the game. It was over now.
In the weeks after Richard Hayes put an abrupt and unexplained end to the game, the groups began to form. In the lunch lines, for instance, some noticeably allowed those wearing the Erwachen band into the front while the seniors wearing the green buttons lingered behind; many even stood behind underclassmen, taking their places in the rear. Richard had even noticed a few juniors and sophomores wearing the armbands.
Hayes wasn’t the only adult to notice the radical behavior of the seniors. Administrators and some teachers had condemned the armbands from the first day, some even giving wearers punitive after-school duties and even in-school suspension. A particularly vocal parent, however, an Equal Rights lawyer who had a particular interest in school law, defended the students’ rights to freedom of speech, citing a recent incident in California that was eerily similar, in which the court unanimously upheld students’ rights to wear armbands as a symbol of political voice.
After a few
CHAPTER 5
Spring 2023
Naturally, it started with armbands.
The word was written in white on a black background: “ Erwachen !” (wake up). Some, for some inexplicable reason, had it written in Chinese . 唤 醒 . Two seniors had come up with the idea and began wearing the armbands as paper and tape constructions. Some of the girls wrote it in pink, some with pretty hearts and matching bracelets. A few football players included their jersey numbers on the armband along with “Seniors 2023”. Toward the end of the spring semester, nearly half of the seniors had armbands.
The other half of the senior class, by contrast, wore a small green button, almost invisible, on their lapels that read “S chlaf! ” (Sleep!) or simply wore nothing at all. Eventually, as it was rumored amongst the faculty, those refusing to wear the armband were forced to wear the button—by some of those wearing the armband. No adult member of the staff, however, could find out whether or not this was true. It was more likely, thought Hayes, that the buttons began as a rebuttal to the armbands and were worn proudly, both sides wearing signs of their prior roles in the game in terms of sides. Only a couple of students refused to wear either. It was as if the game continued though it hadn't been part of Mr. Hayes' lesson plans for months.
The game had been real and highly addictive, not like studying indifferent equations or disembodied facts in a history class or forgettable terms like “iambic pentameter” and “endoplasmic reticulum.” The game had appealed because, unlike nearly all other learning at the school, it had slant. You couldn’t avoid choosing your side. Being and choosing was the game. It wasn’t an indifferent essay on the narrative structure used by a bright little Jewish girl writing in a journal while hiding with her family behind a bookcase in Holland. You were either the little girl in a train or in a camp or in a ghetto trying to stay alive past the next culling, or you were the one dragging out families from hiding, incrementally climbing the ranks with every capture. You could find a family and drag them all to an awaiting truck or lock them into a windowless, packed boxcar and hose them down through the high bars on a cold winter’s night, with frigid water meant to bring frostbite to maybe eliminate some of the weaker ones. That sort of thing could mean promotion. You could be a camp commander and issue reprieves to a group of political prisoners at will--risking a stab in the back by an inferior or the possibility of becoming fodder for Polish bayonets the very next week. That had been the game. It was over now.
In the weeks after Richard Hayes put an abrupt and unexplained end to the game, the groups began to form. In the lunch lines, for instance, some noticeably allowed those wearing the Erwachen band into the front while the seniors wearing the green buttons lingered behind; many even stood behind underclassmen, taking their places in the rear. Richard had even noticed a few juniors and sophomores wearing the armbands.
Hayes wasn’t the only adult to notice the radical behavior of the seniors. Administrators and some teachers had condemned the armbands from the first day, some even giving wearers punitive after-school duties and even in-school suspension. A particularly vocal parent, however, an Equal Rights lawyer who had a particular interest in school law, defended the students’ rights to freedom of speech, citing a recent incident in California that was eerily similar, in which the court unanimously upheld students’ rights to wear armbands as a symbol of political voice.
After a few
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