I WAS LEFT STANDING THERE, alone, in the middle of the gym floor, in the painted circle, baffled. I looked at the manual in my hand. I knew now, for certain, that I was holding the last version. My work was over. There wasn’t even any need for me to resign. Still, I’d gone to a lot of trouble to make my resignation memorable, to give it wit, grace, and style. I started again at the beginning. I delivered my entire speech and read my entire story, to an empty house. The story was—well, let’s be frank—it wasn’t ready. It really needed more work—much more work. The ending had lots of problems. Mr. Winters, waspish ruler of the Young Salts Summer Sailing Camp, was cast adrift in a tiny dinghy by mutinous Salts. It was a fitting end, but hackneyed. Even I could see that. I’d tacked it on in haste, rushed it, and I regretted it. When I finished, I looked up at the empty seats, and I was, I’m willing to admit now, glad that there wasn’t a Tar in them. My resignation speech was another story altogether. I had put plenty of time in on that, worked and reworked it, polished and buffed it. It was ready. Every little pause, every inflection, every nuance was exactly as it should have been. I couldn’t have done it any better if I’d practiced for another week, and that ending was, I’m forced by honesty to say, perfect—just perfect. “So,” I said, “the next time you find a dollar and wonder how to spend it, the way Larry did in the story, I hope you’ll shrug and grin and say what my grandfather would say: ‘If you’re not ready to do something the way it should be done, then you’re not ready to do it at all. If you’re going to buy wax teeth, buy them for the whole gang.’” I’m sure that if there had been any Tars left in the gym, they would have loved it. They would have laughed at the funny parts and applauded me when I finished, and when I passed out the wax teeth they would certainly have come swarming out of the bleachers to gather around me and shake my hand and punch my shoulder and clap me on the back, and I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that if they hadn’t been out there chasing Mr. Summers into the night they would have hoisted me onto their shoulders and carried me around the gym a couple of times, singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Years later, that’s just what happened, at the end of the Larry Peters novel that I called—but you’ve guessed already—Mutiny.
[This concludes “The Young Tars” and Little Follies. The serialization of The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy will continue with the beginning of the Preface to Herb ’n’ Lorna.]
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