belong to St. Michael’s.”
“Yes.”
“And you have a Huguenot last name.”
“Yes.”
“And your family belongs to the Yacht Club and the St. Cecilia Society and your mother was in the Junior League and your grandfather fought for the Confederacy.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“Don’t talk to me about being tiresome and predictable.”
“Be nice to me next Sunday, Will. I need a nice ethnic at this time in my life.”
“I’ll be nice,” I answered. “Good night, Annie Kate.”
“And, Will. One more thing. You’re right about me being a little crazy. But it’s a temporary thing. It will only last a little while. I promise you that. Will you promise me one thing?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t wear that silly nose next week.”
“I promise,” I said, and we both hung up laughing.
Chapter Seven
T he plebes arrived on the following day. They came from forty states and seven foreign countries. Seven hundred freshmen, most of them accompanied by their parents, entered through the Gates of Legrand on a day of astonishing clearness, a sweltering, bone-rusting day beneath a blue sky that made the heat seem all the more potent and dazzling. The campus was weightless and tense.
This was the day officially set aside for the swift business of transformation; a day when civilians would become recruits and boys would be reduced to something less than boys. The cadre was brisk, efficient, and courteous. The courtesy would vanish when the parents departed from campus that afternoon.
I spent the morning walking among the freshmen and their parents. Outside the four barracks, I witnessed scenes of unbearable tenderness in the awkward charades of sons leaving their families for the first time. I saw women kissing their sons again and again and the sons pull back blushing and moved. Fathers shook hands stiffly with their sons as they attempted to address them as men for the first time. The cadre watched, their eyes invisible beneath the oiled brims of their field caps. They joked and laughed with both the parents and the recruits. The laughter would cease when the parents left through the Gates of Legrand.
The plebes were fine-looking boys for the most part, but their eyes were lusterless and fearful. You could see in their faces the need to survive this one day, this one hour, so that they then could be about the business of surviving the year. You could feel their need to escape the soft, worried eyes of their families. They wanted to make it as easy as possible on their families and on themselves. Most of all, they wanted it to begin. At last, they wanted to measure for themselves the mystique and cunning weight of the plebe system. They wanted to test themselves in its landscape. But the landscape would not present itself until the parents left the city of Charleston.
Parents took a last measure of their sons, so that at the end of this year they could calculate how far their sons had traveled.
As the morning deepened, more and more freshmen took leave of their families and entered the main sally port of Number Two barracks to face the icefield of the cadre’s eyes. Inside the barracks, cadre members sat at card tables with file boxes and name tags, their black field hats pulled low over the eyes and noses giving each of them the appearance of a monstrous, carnivorous species of bird. Once you entered the barracks, you surrendered to the plebe system, renounced the world outside the Gates of Legrand, and submitted to the laws of the Corps.
By 1000 hours, sophomore corporals swollen with the joy of calling cadence for the first time expertly marched squads of freshmen to Durrell Hall for the ritual haircuts. Other long lines of freshmen queued up outside of Alumni Hall being fitted for uniforms. I walked across the parade ground to Durrell Hall, where I watched the ceremony of Institute barbers render new heads bald with several athletic sweeps of their humming razors. A black janitor swept the immense piles
“Yes.”
“And you have a Huguenot last name.”
“Yes.”
“And your family belongs to the Yacht Club and the St. Cecilia Society and your mother was in the Junior League and your grandfather fought for the Confederacy.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“Don’t talk to me about being tiresome and predictable.”
“Be nice to me next Sunday, Will. I need a nice ethnic at this time in my life.”
“I’ll be nice,” I answered. “Good night, Annie Kate.”
“And, Will. One more thing. You’re right about me being a little crazy. But it’s a temporary thing. It will only last a little while. I promise you that. Will you promise me one thing?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t wear that silly nose next week.”
“I promise,” I said, and we both hung up laughing.
Chapter Seven
T he plebes arrived on the following day. They came from forty states and seven foreign countries. Seven hundred freshmen, most of them accompanied by their parents, entered through the Gates of Legrand on a day of astonishing clearness, a sweltering, bone-rusting day beneath a blue sky that made the heat seem all the more potent and dazzling. The campus was weightless and tense.
This was the day officially set aside for the swift business of transformation; a day when civilians would become recruits and boys would be reduced to something less than boys. The cadre was brisk, efficient, and courteous. The courtesy would vanish when the parents departed from campus that afternoon.
I spent the morning walking among the freshmen and their parents. Outside the four barracks, I witnessed scenes of unbearable tenderness in the awkward charades of sons leaving their families for the first time. I saw women kissing their sons again and again and the sons pull back blushing and moved. Fathers shook hands stiffly with their sons as they attempted to address them as men for the first time. The cadre watched, their eyes invisible beneath the oiled brims of their field caps. They joked and laughed with both the parents and the recruits. The laughter would cease when the parents left through the Gates of Legrand.
The plebes were fine-looking boys for the most part, but their eyes were lusterless and fearful. You could see in their faces the need to survive this one day, this one hour, so that they then could be about the business of surviving the year. You could feel their need to escape the soft, worried eyes of their families. They wanted to make it as easy as possible on their families and on themselves. Most of all, they wanted it to begin. At last, they wanted to measure for themselves the mystique and cunning weight of the plebe system. They wanted to test themselves in its landscape. But the landscape would not present itself until the parents left the city of Charleston.
Parents took a last measure of their sons, so that at the end of this year they could calculate how far their sons had traveled.
As the morning deepened, more and more freshmen took leave of their families and entered the main sally port of Number Two barracks to face the icefield of the cadre’s eyes. Inside the barracks, cadre members sat at card tables with file boxes and name tags, their black field hats pulled low over the eyes and noses giving each of them the appearance of a monstrous, carnivorous species of bird. Once you entered the barracks, you surrendered to the plebe system, renounced the world outside the Gates of Legrand, and submitted to the laws of the Corps.
By 1000 hours, sophomore corporals swollen with the joy of calling cadence for the first time expertly marched squads of freshmen to Durrell Hall for the ritual haircuts. Other long lines of freshmen queued up outside of Alumni Hall being fitted for uniforms. I walked across the parade ground to Durrell Hall, where I watched the ceremony of Institute barbers render new heads bald with several athletic sweeps of their humming razors. A black janitor swept the immense piles
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