Dead Poets Society (5 page)

Neil looked through the annual as Charlie nudged his leg. “Nolan,” he hissed. As the dean approached, Neil passed the book under the table to Cameron, who immediately handed it over to Todd, who looked at him questioningly, then took it.

“Enjoying your classes, Mr. Perry?” Nolan asked as he paused at the boys’ table.

“Yes, sir, very much,” Neil said.

“And our Mr. Keating? Finding him interesting, boys?”

“Yes, sir,” Charlie said. “We were just talking about that, sir.”

“Good,” Nolan said approvingly. “We’re very excited about him. He was a Rhodes scholar, you know.” The boys smiled and nodded.

Nolan walked to another table. Todd pulled out the annual from under the table and leafed through it on his lap as he finished lunch

“I’ll take the annual back,” Neil said to Todd, as they got up to leave the dining room.

“What are you going to do with it?” Todd asked hesitantly.

“A little research,” Neil said, smiling smugly.

After classes, Neil, Charlie, Meeks, Pitts, Cameron, and Todd headed back to the dorm together. They spotted Mr. Keating, wearing his sport coat and a scarf, walking across the lawn with an arm full of books.

“Mr. Keating?” Neil called after him. “Sir? O Captain! My Captain?” Keating stopped and waited for the boys to catch up with him. “What was the Dead Poets Society, sir?” Neil asked. For a split second, Keating’s face reddened. “I was just looking in an old annual,” Neil explained, “and …”

“Nothing wrong with research,” Keating said, regaining his composure.

The boys waited for him to say more. “But what was it?” Neil pressed.

Keating looked around to make sure that no one was watching. “A secret organization,” he almost whispered. “I don’t know how the present administration would look upon it, but I doubt the reaction would be favorable.” His eyes scanned the campus as the boys held their breaths. “Can you boys keep a secret?” They nodded instantly. “The Dead Poets was a society dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life. That phrase is by Thoreau and was invoked at every meeting,” he explained. “A small group of us would meet at the old cave, and we would take turns reading Shelley, Thoreau, Whitman, our own verse—and the enchantment of the moment let it work its magic on us.” Keating’s eyes glowed, recalling the experience.

“You mean it was a bunch of guys sitting around reading poetry?” Knox asked, bewildered.

Keating smiled. “Both sexes participated, Mr. Overstreet. And believe me, we didn’t simply read … we let it drip from our tongues like honey. Women swooned, spirits soared … gods were created, gentlemen.”

The boys stood silent for a moment. “What did the name mean?” Neil asked. “Did you only read dead poets?”

“All poetry was acceptable, Mr. Perry. The name simply referred to the fact that, to join the organization, you had to be dead.”

“What?”
the boys said in chorus.

“The living were simply pledges. Full membership required a lifetime of apprenticeship. Alas, even I’m still a lowly initiate,” he explained.

The boys looked at one another in amazement. “The last meeting must have been fifteen years ago,” Keating recalled. He looked around again to make sure no one was observing, then turned and strode away.

“I say we go tonight,” Neil said excitedly when Keating was out of sight. “Everybody in?”

“Where is this cave he’s talking about?” Pitts asked.

“Beyond the stream. I think I know where it is,” Neil answered.

“That’s miles,” Pitts complained.

“Sounds boring to me,” Cameron said.

“Don’t come, then,” Charlie shot back.

“You know how many demerits we’re talking about here?” Cameron asked Charlie.

“So don’t come!” Charlie said. “Please!”

Cameron relented. “All I’m saying is, we have to be careful. We can’t get caught.”

“Well, no kidding, Sherlock,” Charlie retorted sarcastically.

“Who’s in?” Neil asked, silencing the argument.

“I’m in,” Charlie said first.

“Me too,” Cameron added.

Neil looked at Knox, Pitts, and Meeks. Pitts hesitated. “Well …”

“Oh, come on, Pitts,” Charlie said.

“His grades are hurting, Charlie,” Meeks said in Pitts’s defense.

“Then you can help him, Meeks,” Neil suggested.

“What is this, a midnight study group?” Pitts asked, still unsure.

“Forget it, Pitts,” Neil said. “You’re coming. Meeks, are your grades hurting, too?” Everyone laughed.

“All right,” Meeks said. “I’ll try anything
once
.”

“Except sex,” Charlie laughed. “Right, Meeks, old boy?” Meeks blushed as the boys laughed and horsed around him.

“I’m in as long as we’re careful,” Cameron said.

“Knox?” Charlie continued.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

“Come on,” Charlie encouraged. “It will help you get Chris.”

“It will?” Knox looked mystified. “How do you figure that?”

“Didn’t you hear Keating say women swooned!”

“But why?” Knox asked, still uncertain.

The group started to break up, and Knox followed Charlie toward the dorm.

“Why do they swoon, Charlie? Tell me, why do they swoon?” Knox’s question remained unanswered when off in the distance a bell rang, summoning the boys to dinner.

After dinner, Neil and Todd went to study hall and sat down at a table together.

“Listen,” Neil said to his roommate in a hushed voice. “I’m inviting you to the society meeting.” Neil had noticed that no one had asked Todd if he was in. “You can’t expect everybody to think of you all the time. Nobody knows you. And you never talk to anyone!”

“Thanks,” Todd said, “but its not a question of that.”

“What is it then?” Neil asked.

“I—I just don’t want to come,” he stammered.

“But why?” Neil asked. “Don’t you understand what Keating is saying? Don’t you want to do something about it?” Neil quickly turned a page in his book as a study proctor walked by, eyeing the boys suspiciously.

“Yes,” Todd whispered, after the proctor was out of earshot. “But …”

“But what, Todd? Tell me,” Neil begged.

Todd looked down. “I don’t want to read.”

“What?” Neil looked at him incredulously.

“Keating said everybody took turns reading,” Todd said. “I don’t want to do it.”

“God, you really have a problem, don’t you?” Neil shook his head. “How can it hurt you to read? I mean, isn’t that what this is all about? Expressing yourself?”

“Neil, I can’t explain it.” Todd blushed. “I just don’t want to do it.”

Neil shuffled his papers angrily as he looked at Todd. Then he thought of something. “What if you didn’t have to read?” Neil suggested. “What if you just came and listened?”

“That’s not the way it works,” Todd pointed out. “If I join, the guys will want me to read.”

“I know, but what if they said you didn’t have to?”

“You mean
ask them
?” Todd’s face reddened. “Neil, it’s embarrassing.”

“No, it’s not,” Neil said, jumping up from his seat. “Just wait here.”

“Neil,” Todd called, as the proctor turned and gave him a disapproving look.

Neil was off before Todd could stop him. He slumped miserably in his seat, then opened his history book and began to take notes.

Neil talked in low tones to Charlie and Knox in the dorm hall as the evening parade of prebedtime activity went on around them. Boys moved about the hallway in pajamas, carrying pillows under one arm and books under the other. Neil threw his towel over his shoulder, patted Knox on the back, and headed toward his room. He tossed the towel aside and noticed something on his desk that wasn’t there before.

He hesitated momentarily, then picked up an old, well-worn poetry anthology. He opened it and, inside the cover, written in longhand, was the name “J. Keating.” Neil read aloud the inscription under the signature. “Dead Poets.” He stretched out on his bed and began skimming the thin yellowed pages of the old text. He read for about an hour, vaguely aware of the hallway sounds quieting down, doors slamming shut, and lights being turned off.
There goes Dr. Hager; he’s still up,
Neil thought, hearing the resident dorm marshal shuffling up and down the hallway, making sure all was quiet. He seemed to stop right in front of Neil’s closed door.

“Quiet,” Dr. Hager said aloud, shaking his head. “Too quiet.”

Several hours later, certain that everyone was deep in sleep, the boys met at the gnarled old maple tree. They had bundled themselves in winter hats, coats, and gloves, and a few of them had brought flashlights to guide the way. “Gggrrr!” The sound of the school hunting-dog startled them as he sniffed his way out of the bushes.

“Nice doggie,” Pitts said, stuffing some cookies in his mouth and leaving a pile of them on the ground. “Let’s move it,” he hissed as the dog homed in on the food.

“Good thinking, Pittsie,” Neil said as the boys crossed the campus under the light of a sky glowing with stars.

“It’s cold,” Todd complained as they escaped the open, windblown campus and moved through an eerie pine forest, looking for the cave. Charlie ran ahead as the others trudged slowly in the cold.

“We’re almost there,” Knox said as they reached the bank of the stream and began searching for the cave that was supposed to exist somewhere among the tree roots and brush.

“Yaa! I’m a dead poet!” Charlie shouted, suddenly popping out of nowhere. He had found the cave.

“Ahh!” Meeks shrieked. “Eat it, Dalton,” Meeks said to Charlie, recovering his composure.

“This is it, boys,” Charlie smiled. “We’re home!”

The boys crowded into the dark cave and spent several minutes gathering sticks and wood, trying to light a fire. The fire came to life and warmed the barren interior. The boys stood silently, as if in a holy sanctuary.

“I hereby reconvene the Welton Chapter of the Dead Poets Society,” Neil said solemnly. “These meetings will be conducted by me and by the rest of the new initiates now present. Todd Anderson, because he prefers not to read, will keep minutes of the meetings.” Todd winced as Neil spoke, unhappy but unable to speak up for himself.

“I will now read the traditional opening message from society member Henry David Thoreau.” Neil opened the book that Keating had left him and read: “‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.’” He skipped through the text. “‘I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life!’”

“I’ll second that!” Charlie interrupted.

“‘To put to rout all that was not life,’” Neil continued, skipping again. “‘And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’” There was a long silence.

“Pledge Overstreet,” Neil said.

Knox rose. Neil handed him the book. Knox found another page and read: “‘If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.’ Yes!” Knox said, his eyes blazing. “I want success with Chris!”

Charlie took the book from Knox. “Come on, man,” he said, making a face at Knox, “this is serious.” Charlie cleared his throat.

“Author anonymous,” Charlie laughed as he handed the book to Pitts.

“‘Here lies my wife: here let her lie. Now she’s at rest … And so am I!’” Pitts giggled. “John Dryden, 1631–1700. I never thought those guys had a sense of humor!” he said.

Pitts handed the book to Todd while the boys laughed at his joke. Todd froze, holding the book, and Neil quickly took it before the others noticed.

Charlie grabbed the book from Neil and read:

“Teach me to love? Go teach thyself more wit:

I chief professor am of it.

The god of love, If such a thing there be,

May learn to love from me.”

The boys “oohhed and aahhed” at Charlie’s alleged prowess. “Come on guys, we gotta be serious,” Neil said.

Cameron took the book. “This is serious,” he said and began to read:

“We are the music makers

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lonely sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World losers and world forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams: