Chapter 37: You Did Your Homework

October 30, 1986, McKinley, Ohio

“I don’t see how we can find that he helped the cheater,” I said when we gathered in private after the testimony. “Both students denied it, including the one who admitted cheating...”

“Who can’t be believed, as an admitted cheater,” Scott said, interrupting.

“The report stated that he admitted it as soon as he was confronted,” I replied. “He came clean and accepted his punishment. He made a mistake, confessed, and now he has a doubly-difficult course through medical school and will have a tough time Matching at a top school because he has a black mark on his record. Everything else is not just circumstantial, but also has a logical explanation.”

“He only confessed after he’d been caught,” Scott protested.

“Why would he confess otherwise?” Tracey asked. “Yes, we’re supposed to turn ourselves in if we violate the ethics code, but come on, who would do that? Even the reverend here wouldn’t do that!”

“Deacon,” I corrected. “Of course, I’d never cheat nor allow anyone to cheat from me.”

“I wasn’t accusing you, just trying to make a point.”

“Just to correct your misperception, the entire point of confession is that you are doing it willingly, without having been ‘caught’, so to speak. So yes, actually, I would turn myself in.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he replied.

“We’re getting off-topic,” Mary said. “Mike, I take it there is nothing that would change your mind?”

“Short of hard evidence, or even circumstantial evidence that didn’t have a logical reason, no. Well, a confession, but we had a flat-out denial. I don’t think we can put a blemish on William Turner’s record based on the flimsy evidence we have. That said, if Thomas Kincaid had said that they conspired, it would be a different story.”

“I think Mike has a point,” Nelson said. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Scott said disgustedly. “We have to be unanimous and Mike isn’t going to change his mind.”

“Let’s take a formal vote,” Mary said. “Mike?”

“No violation.”

“Scott?”

“Violation.”

“Nelson?”

“No violation.”

“Tracey?”

“No violation.”

“And my vote is also that there was no violation. The vote is four to one for no violation. The charges are dismissed.”

“Cheaters always cheat,” Scott said disgustedly. “We’ll be back.”

I really had nothing to say, so I left and joined my study group and Sophia in the cafeteria.

“How’d it go?” Clarissa asked.

“You heard the evidence, what do you THINK happened?”

“It had to be unanimous, and there was nothing I heard that would have convinced you to find he’d committed a violation, so I’d say he walked.”

“Correct,” I replied. “If someone is going to get a black mark on their record, there needs to be a confession or clear proof. It was all circumstantial, and every one of the items had a logical, rational explanation.”

“What was the vote?” Fran asked.

“I’m not permitted to reveal that,” I replied. “Are we going to study?”

“I don’t think so,” Fran replied. “It’s already almost 4:00pm, and we’re all in good shape, I think.”

“I could stand to lose a few pounds,” Nadine declared, causing everyone to laugh.

“Me, too,” Fran agreed.

“You are both very nice looking,” Maryam offered.

“Nadine, we should hit the gym together,” Fran said. “Maybe before class three days a week?”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” Nadine agreed. “You other girls could join us. You, too, Peter. Mike runs every day with his wife, so I suspect he’s not interested.”

“I was never a gym rat,” I said. “Running and karate were my things. I want to start karate again, but right now, there’s just not enough time. I figure sometime around PGY3.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that,” Peter said. “You can hold me accountable.”

“Are First Years allowed?” Sophia asked.

“We’re not complete snobs yet!” Clarissa declared mirthfully. “That doesn’t happen until Fourth Year!”

We all laughed, because some of the Fourth Year students really looked down on First Years, much the same way High School Seniors did Freshmen.

“How are you doing in anatomy lab, Sophia?”

“It’s a cast-iron bitch, but I’m hanging in there. Our study group is decent, but probably not as good as yours. Being able to borrow your notes, and Clarissa’s, has helped a lot. And the flashcard idea was fantastic. I carry a deck in my purse all the time, and when I’m standing in line or waiting anywhere, I review them.”

“Greek should be easy for you, right?” Peter asked.

“That’s a piece of cake, though to hear my grandmothers talk, I am ruining the most beautiful language in the world when I speak it.”

“One thing Russian will NEVER be is a contender for ‘most beautiful language’!” Clarissa declared.

“Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekov, Dostoyevsky, and Solzhenitsyn on lines one through five,” I chuckled.

“Have you read them in Russian?” Nadine asked.

“Some. My Russian is passable at best, and I really don’t use it these days. I spoke it reasonably well through grade school, but once my grandmother stopped babysitting for us, I didn’t speak it very much until I was courting Tasha. And even her dad had pity on me in that regard.”

“Maryam, do you speak Arabic?” Nadine asked.

“Yes. Our church back home uses a lot of Arabic, just as Sophia’s uses Greek. Mike’s church is all English with a few Russian prayers on special occasions for older members.”

“Church Slavonic, actually,” I corrected. “It compares to modern Russian as Shakespeare compares to modern English.”

“I Melt with You is one of my favorite songs,” Nadine deadpanned.

I laughed right away, and then Clarissa laughed as well.

“Nice,” I observed. “For those of you not laughing, I Melt with You is a song by a British ‘New Wave’ band called Modern English. Most likely that’s the only song you’ve ever heard. It received a lot of radio playtime because it was in Valley Girl. I never saw the movie, but I know the song, and I have the album it’s from — After the Snow.”

“If you didn’t know, Nadine,” Clarissa said, “Mike has a huge...”

she paused long enough for the others except Maryam to laugh, then continued.

“ ... music collection, both albums and CDs.”

“Not appropriate, Clarissa,” Maryam reprimanded her.

“I apologize for offending you,” Clarissa said.

I wanted to say that I had taken no offense at the joke, but that might bother Maryam just as much. Clarissa and I exchanged a quick, surreptitious look, conveying that I wasn’t bothered.

“What genre?” Nadine asked.

“Eclectic,” I replied. “Everything from Abacab to Zenyatta Mondatta, from ABBA to ZZ Top and from Johann Sebastian Bach to Francesco Zappa.”

“You’re comparing Bach and Zappa?” Nadine asked.

I chuckled, “No, but yes. Francesco Zappa was an Italian cellist and composer. Frank Zappa released an album of his chamber music about two years ago. So, Zappa covered Zappa, so to speak. I don’t think they’re related, but it’s possible. Zappa is Sicilian, Greek, and Arab. If you don’t know, he testified last year before Congress about music censorship, and basically made the Congressmen and pro-censorship people look like idiots.”

“Mark Twain once said ‘Sir, you are an idiot and a Congressman, but I repeat myself’!” Fran declared.

“He might have a point, at least in this regard!” I declared. “The idea of a rating system like the one used for movies and prohibiting the sale of certain music to people under eighteen is frightening.”

“I don’t think at any point in history you would call someone who censored books or music ‘the good guys’,” Fran declared.

“Melody said that a number of times,” I added. “And she’s right. It’s the number one tactic of the Communists to control the populace.”

“With the ‘Ministry of Truth’ being the government propaganda organization, just as in Orwell, right?” Clarissa asked.

“Well, there is a play on the names of the two major newspapers my grandfather uses. Pravda means ‘Truth’ and Izvestia means ‘News’. In Russian, the joke is that there is no Izvestia in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestia.”

“Mike, don’t you think there is music that is inappropriate for kids?” Maryam asked.

“The problem is,” I replied, “that what you think is inappropriate, and what I think is inappropriate, and what Fran thinks is inappropriate, are very likely not the same thing. And I’m positive that Tipper Gore is wrong. I resolve that by choosing not to buy an album which I find offensive.”

“Right, but we’re talking about kids buying them, not adults.”

“Parents should educate their children about music,” I said. “In fact, that was one of the points Zappa made in his testimony. But, no matter what you do, you can’t stop teens from listening to music they want to hear any more than you can stop them from drinking if they want to drink, smoking if they want to smoke, or having sex if they want to do that. Given it’s a lost cause, why let the censors gain a foothold? We’re not talking pornographic material here, just very suggestive material. At best, I’d call it PG, though if you understand the references, it could be R in some people’s minds.”

“I’d say some songs are more than suggestive,” Nadine said. “She Bop? Tonight’s the Night? Not that I’d ban them, just that they’re pretty explicit.”

“Not by the way we mean ‘explicit’ when we’re talking about movies or literature,” Fran countered. “Those silly ‘Harlequin Romances’ are suggestive, but not explicit. Sure, they use euphemisms, but they aren’t explicit. Music is no different. And NOBODY would dare try to create a rating system for books.”

I chuckled, “I give you the Roman Catholic Church and the «Index Librorum Prohibitorum»!”

“Not to mention the ‘adult’ versus ‘kids’ sections at libraries,” Clarissa interjected. “I had to get special permission from my parents to check out books from the ‘adult’ section, and we’re not talking ‘adult’ as in Fanny Hill or Lady Chatterley’s Lover!”

“And don’t forget all the attempts to ban books from schools and libraries,” Peter added.

“And,” I added, “we can’t forget what we read about in our human reproduction course at Taft. The Comstock Act banned the circulation of, and I’m quoting, ‘Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use’, which included, among other things, medical information about contraception, or any contraceptive devices or medicine, as well as medical information about abortion. Think about that — they banned mailing medical journals if they contained any discussion of contraception or abortion.

“From High School, I remember that Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, an anthology of poetry, was taken out of circulation in Boston under threat of prosecution over the use of explicit language in some of the poems. It was published in Philadelphia instead, and you can guess the result without any difficulty.”

“Sold out the first day, right?” Nadine asked with a smirk.

“Exactly.”

“OK, OK, I was wrong!” Fran declared, shaking her head.

“If we aren’t going to study, I’m going to head home,” I said. “We’re doing what amounts to a dress rehearsal tonight. I’ll see you there, Sophia.”

Everyone said ‘goodbye’ and I headed home, surprising Elizaveta, and giving us an extra forty minutes to work on an addition to our little family.

October 31, 1986, Goshen, Ohio

“Hi! I’m Linda Kane, secretary to Principal Thomas! Welcome!”

“Thank you!” Kim replied. “I’m Kim, and we spoke on the phone. On my right is Mike, on my left is José, and one beat behind, as always, is our drummer, Sticks.”

“Gee, thanks Kim,” Sticks deadpanned.

“It’s good to meet you all. Who are the others?”

“Sophia and Robby, who are our emcees and frontmen, along with Elizaveta, Dona, Clarissa, and Tessa, all of whom will help us unpack and set up. Tessa will run the soundboard, if that’s OK with you.”

That last was a new development, but Tessa had run the soundboard for her High School concerts, and after talking with Kim, they’d agreed she could be our ‘sound man’, which would help with our cover story for the extra people.

“It should be,” Mrs. Kane replied. “I’ll check with the concert band teacher to make sure. Let me show you to the teacher’s lounge, which you can use, and then to the stage. All the cords, plugs, and outlets should be properly labeled, but if you have any questions, I’ll find someone who can answer them for you.”

“We appreciate it!” Kim replied. “Could we go to the stage first to drop off our equipment?”

Mrs. Kane laughed, “Yes, I suppose it doesn’t make sense to push the cart with the drums on it past the backstage entrance!”

We all followed Mrs. Kane to the door to the stage, leaving all the instruments and equipment.

“No chicken wire,” Robby said. “That’s a good sign!”

We all laughed and Mrs. Kane looked confused.

“It’s a reference to The Blues Brothers,” Sophia said. “It’s part of our schtick.”

“That movie was set in Chicago, right?”

“Yes.”

“My son lives in Chicago, and I’m fairly certain he’s seen it a few times.”

“We think the kids will get it,” Robby said. “And if not, well, then it’s an inside joke for us!”

“And the chicken wire?”

“It was to protect the band from the audience throwing bottles.”

“Oh, heavens! I don’t think you need to worry about that here!”

“You haven’t heard us play,” José chuckled.

She shook her head, and then led us to the lounge.

“There are cans of soft drinks and a pitcher of water in the refrigerator, so please help yourselves.”

“Thanks,” Kim said.

“Are you all college students?” Mrs. Kane asked.

“Mike, Clarissa, and Sophia are in medical school; the rest of us, except for Tessa, are Seniors or grad students at Taft; Tessa is a dispatcher for the McKinley Fire Department. May I ask what your son does?”

“He’s what they call a ‘futures and commodities broker’, and specializes in trading currency. He’s the same age as all of you.”

“Man did I make a wrong career decision when I blew out my knee!” Sticks said, shaking his head.

“It’s not too late,” Mrs. Kane said with a smile. “He started in the mailroom with no college education at all and worked his way up.”

“One of our friends went to work for a guy who owns a company like that in Chicago,” José said.

“My son works for Spurgeon Capital.”

“That’s the guy!”

“Lara’s dad is friends with him, and shares a condo in Monaco and a chalet in Switzerland with them,” I said.

“Small world!” Mrs. Kane said. “I’ll leave you to get set up. If you need me, I’ll be in the auditorium supervising.”

“Thanks again,” Kim said.

Mrs. Kane left, and we headed to the stage.

“Can you imagine being twenty-four or twenty-five and being a stockbroker?” Sticks said, shaking his head. “They make ridiculous amounts of money.”

“The doctors will make good money in a few years,” Kim said. “And they’re actually providing a valuable service to the community!”

“And traders don’t?” I asked.

“Don’t get her started,” Sticks warned. “She’s a hard-core anti-capitalist.”

“She accepts the filthy lucre from our music just like the rest of us!” José declared.

“A girl’s gotta eat!” Kim replied. “But that doesn’t mean banks and the stock market are positive influences on society!”

“Jefferson certainly didn’t trust them any more than he trusted standing armies,” I replied. “But forget politics! We’re here to make music!”

“And you think music isn’t political?” Kim asked.

“Zappa? Yes. Code Blue? No.”

“He does have a point,” Tessa said. “You guys are about as edgy as a dull razor!”

“‘Give the people what they want’, is my motto,” Sticks said. “Which is why I’m popular with the ladies!”

Everyone laughed, and we got to work setting up. After everything was in place, Tessa went to the soundboard and we did some sound checks, then warmed up with I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll and Old Time Rock and Roll. Once we were satisfied we were ready, and that the sound was strong, but not overpowering in the gym, we went back to the lounge. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Kane came to give us a five-minute warning. I changed into my scrubs, then put on a black suit jacket, fedora, and sunglasses, while José did the same, though he had on his Chelsea jersey under his black suit jacket.

“I hope this works, or we may need the chicken wire!” José said as the four of us headed for the stage.

When Robby and Sophia went onto the stage in front of the curtain and began their schtick, Kim played Peter Gunn on her keyboards, using the ‘instrument’ feature. The assembled students and faculty laughed and clapped at the announcement of us as ‘The Good Old Blues Brothers Boys Band from Chicago’. Kim changed the settings on her keyboard and we kicked off with Rawhide and segued to Stand by Your Man.

Those were really well received, and there was a smattering of sounds of disappointment when José and I shed our jackets and sunglasses, but both kept our fedoras. After the first minute of I’ve Got the Music in Me, the kids started to dance and things went smoothly with our revised playlist, moving the slower songs towards the end.

It didn’t surprise me when girls came up to the edge of the stage and made it clear they were interested in José and me, and I could feel the daggers being looked at them from Elizaveta who was backstage. I almost laughed at the scene which popped into my head of my wife, also a High School student, chasing them from the gym with her flogger. When we concluded our first set with Radio Ga Ga, the girls tried to talk to us but were quickly shooed away by teachers.