The Boo (17 page)

“Colonel, this is Sergeant Adamson again. Yep, we got another one. This kid was speeding, driving without a license, and sassing a police officer. Can you come get him?” “Yes, Sir. I’ll be right down.”

When the weekend was over,
Boo
had freed five cadets on sight recognition. Total bail was over 600 dollars.

The Boo
says he was 44 years old before he knew a Chief of Police and then he became acquainted with five of them. In taking care of cadets and summer school students
The Boo
found it difficult at times to raise $300.00 on a Sunday morning to bail a few “lambs” out of jail. He established contact with all Chiefs of Police in the area and with their cooperation worked out the following solution.
The Boo
would be notified as soon as a cadet was apprehended for speeding, fighting, etc.
The Boo
could have a cadet released on sight recognition, return him to barracks and then produce the culprit in time for court.

In addition to protect the cadets, where possible against court charges on their records (the services are wary of awarding commissions to people with court records) the authorities were generally agreeable to drop a $25.00 fine for 10/60/3 months restriction awarded by The Citadel.

Five-year men did not give a crap about the military traditions and responsibilities inherent in a Citadel education. After all, it was only a miscarriage of justice they were still at the school; and, their classmates had already begun their careers, married their sweethearts, and commenced to live like ordinary human beings. So a certain amount of residual bitterness rested in the soul of each five-year man on campus. When
The Boo
took over as Assistant Commandant he immediately saw the five-year man would be most likely to skip parade, sleep through chapel, or sneak out to Charleston for a quick beer. To alleviate the alienation of fifth year men somewhat,
The Boo
instituted a policy which enjoyed immediate and gratifying success. He took the salute gun detail, the group of cadets responsible for firing the cannons at parade, and filled its ranks completely with five-year men. This, in fact, became the only criterion for membership in the group—that your shadow had graced The Citadel campus past the date when the rest of your class left the campus. The psychological impact on these men was considerable. A five-year man whose appearance reminded one of a perfect blend between a custodian and a grave digger suddenly blossomed into a shining picture postcard image of the perfect cadet. Others who had skipped as many parades as there were Fridays became prompt and eager at the parade formations. They cut their hair, shined their shoes, and performed their task efficiently and with conspicuous pride. All of which supported one of
The Boo’s
dusty theories that every man, no matter how disreputable or undesirable he seems, needs to belong and to function and to contribute something valuable to the effort of the entire group.

Young girl crying on the phone. Great heaving sobs. “I’m pregnant. That son of a bitch, Cadet Varlenti, won’t marry me. I thought a cadet was a gentleman. He promised me, Colonel, he promised me.”

This is a facsimile of a conversation
The Boo
received sometime in 1962. If a cadet became a surprised father and left the surprised and expectant mother to cast her fate to the many prevailing winds of Charleston,
The Boo
would often receive hysterical phone calls demanding justice from the reluctant cadet. In this case, as in all the others,
The Boo
called five cadets into Jenkins Hall. The cadets remained downstairs at strict attention. He brought the girl out of his office (she had dressed to the teeth for this event). Together they stood upstairs looking at the five cadets.
Boo
had selected four of them at random from the Corps. One of them was Cadet Varlenti. “Right face,”
The Boo
roared. “Left face,” he roared again. “Which one is it, honey?”
The Boo
asked. “I don’t know, Colonel.” She could not pick out the cadet who supposedly had fathered her child.

A mother called Colonel Courvoisie one afternoon just before Corps Day. She said, “Colonel, I hate to bother you but I just had to call someone. My daughter is seventeen and has been dating Cadet J for about a month. He is the first boy she has ever dated. Well, Colonel, he invited her to the Corps Day Hop with him. I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled she was. We went downtown to buy a dress. We found one that was absolutely beautiful. It was expensive, but we both loved it. Then she had her hair fixed for the prom. And all of her girl friends know about it. Well, Colonel, Cadet J called last night and broke the date. My daughter didn’t go to school today because … well … I had to call somebody.” “Madame,”
The Boo
answered, “I may be able to help you.” At the Corps Day Hop, Colonel and Mrs. Courvoisie stood in the receiving line. When Cadet J and his date passed by, Mrs. Courvoisie couldn’t help but remark to her husband that the girl was wearing a particularly attractive dress.

Harry Lester was a bum from the very first day he entered Lesesne Gate to the very last. He was a discipline problem in the highest, purest sense of the term. He and
The Boo
squared off several times during his infamous years as a cadet. But one of
The Boo’s
greatest surprises as Assistant Commandant came several years after Harry graduated, when Harry called and said, “Colonel, I think it is a disgrace to The Citadel for cadets to be going around Charleston with ‘El Cid’ stickers on their windows. Can you do something about it? If they aren’t proud enough to put Citadel stickers on their cars, then keep them in on the weekends.”

From that moment on
The Boo
believed in the resurrection and regeneration of bums.

Alf Garbade looked like the typical jock, sort of square-shaped, thick-trunked and powerful. He played fullback on the football team and achieved a certain amount of success. Like many jocks, his feet were faster than his brain, and he found himself in summer school after the rest of his class had graduated in June. Toward the middle of August, Alf started acting a little funny. He would lie in bed for days at a time, staring at the ceiling in absolute silence, or babbling incoherently to no one in particular. His roommate, becoming extremely concerned, went to
The Boo’s
house one night to ask for advice.
The Boo
went over to see Alf himself. When
The Boo
came into the room, Garbade never looked up, just lay on his back, with a glazed and sightless expression, not saying anything to anybody. When
The Boo
spoke to him, no response whatsoever registered in Alf’s eyes and he gave no indication that anything
The Boo
said to him got past the wall he had erected between himself and the world. Alf snapped out of it in time to take and pass his exams. He and his roommate came over to the Courvoisie house to say goodbye. While saying appropriate farewells, Alf slipped his Citadel ring from his finger. “Colonel, take this ring, I don’t deserve to wear it.”
The Boo
took the ring. Alf’s roommate came back later and said he would get Alf to take it back.
The Boo
never learned what was eating Alf, what restless, ineluctable guilt lived inside of him that he could not verbalize or release. He wanted to talk, he wanted to expurgate his guilt, and he wanted to do some symbolic act in retribution, this
The Boo
was sure of. He never found out. For Alf never came back.

Poor, skinny Ulysses S. Simmons distinguished himself the very first week he was at The Citadel. Now anyone whose first name and subsequent initial summon up visions of the general who humbled Robert E. Lee is going to find it hard plowing in the school which prides itself on firing the first shot of the Civil War. Ulysses indeed felt the grinning corporals with the grits and gravy voices were tougher on him than on other freshmen. The whole system upset him so much, in fact, that on the fourth morning he was at The Citadel he woke up feeling strangely, looked in the mirror, and saw that he was bracing for no reason. When he tried to relax, he found that he could not, that he had lost all control of his throat muscles and that no matter how hard he tried, his chin remained rigidly tucked against his throat. This worried Ulysses a great deal. When the upperclassmen learned of his malady, they hooted and hollered, giggled and snickered at poor Ulysses twice as vigorously as they had before. They ordered him to relax, to stand “at ease,” to stick his chin out as far as he could—all to no available, for the chin of Ulysses remained fixed and riveted in the bracing position. After great deliberation, Ulysses went to the hospital for treatment. Doctor Hugh Cathcart scratched his head, admitted puzzlement, muttered something about psychology and mental chaos, and put Ulysses to bed. Ulysses braced in his sleep and when he was awake, when he ate breakfast and when he went to the bathroom. He was not goldbricking. Finally, through an act of God, the involuntary bracing stopped after seven days. Ulysses went back to the Corps with considerable fame and notoriety earned from his strange and unexplained week. All the generals, the colonels, the secretaries, and the street cleaners on campus knew the story of Ulysses, the knob who couldn’t stop bracing.
The Boo
met Ulysses on one of his daily visits to the hospital and asked him how he was getting along. They chatted every day that week. When it was over,
The Boo
had made a friend for a four-year period. The only requirement
Boo
had passed in the eyes of Ulysses was kindness and concern when the world about him mocked the name and eccentricity of Ulysses S. Simmons.

So they became friends. After a disconcerting beginning Ulysses started to adjust to the life in the corps. He talked to Colonel Courvoisie every time they met on campus and even went over to see
The Boo
and his wife at night, just to chat and swap stories, if nothing else. The boy wanted someone to talk to, this was obvious to both Colonel and Mrs. Courvoisie, so they encouraged his visits. After a year or two of visiting and becoming comfortable in the Courvoisie household, Ulysses related how the tension between him and his father was becoming almost unbearable, that the father barely spoke to him at home, and that the father was very displeased that Ulysses was very unathletic and had failed to gain rank in the Corps of Cadets. True, Simmons did not gain immense popularity at The Citadel. A tinge of effeminacy did little to bolster his status among cadets very conscious of the masculine image they felt a military school should project. He never got rank. Nor did he ever make an athletic squad. But he did several things at The Citadel which
The Boo
felt Mr. Simmons should recognize.

Ulysses won gold stars at The Citadel for two consecutive semesters, no small feat in a school where the spit-shined shoe is often more admired than the quality point. He also was an avid participant in the intramural program in his company, and even though he was basically one of the poorest athletes ever produced above the Mason-Dixon line, he tried like hell to play whatever sport was in season. But Mr. Simmons was not interested in any accomplishments of his older son. He was more concerned with Ulysses’ younger brother, an athletic, handsome kid four years younger than Ulysses. The younger boy was a star halfback on his high school football team and very popular with everyone at the school. The younger son represented and embodied everything Mr. Simmons had hoped for in Ulysses; the younger son, in essence, was the son Mr. Simmons had wanted and finally gotten. He simply didn’t give a damn about Ulysses.

In November of his senior year, Ulysses came over to the Courvoisie house looking a bit more dejected than usual. “What’s wrong, Bubba, you look like judgment day is here and gone?” “Colonel, it’s the Ring Hop,” Simmons answered. “Don’t you have a date? We can arrange that if you want.” “No, Colonel, I have a date. Mom’s coming down to watch me go through the ring. My grandfather is coming, too. But Dad isn’t coming, Colonel.” “Why not, Bubba? Is he sick, dead, or just dying?” “None of those. My brother has a football game that night and Dad doesn’t want to miss it.” “Well, that’s a shame, Bubba, I’m awful sorry.” “I just wanted to tell you, Colonel.” “Thanks, Ulysses.”

The next day Colonel Courvoisie called Mrs. Simmons on the phone. He called hesitatingly. He had a habit of calling parents who were putting too much pressure on their sons and asking them to lay off a bit. At anytime the parent could tell him to go to hell or go flush himself down the nearest commode and there would be nothing he could do about it. But he usually called anyway.

Mrs. Simmons answered the phone. “Hello, Madame. This is Courvoisie of The Citadel.” “Is Ulysses in trouble?” Mrs. Simmons asked in a frantic, customary maternal response. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Simmons. But he might be. He came over to my house last night a little upset. He said his father wasn’t coming to the Ring Hop because he wanted to see his other son play a football game.” “Yes, Colonel, I tried to talk to my husband, but he doesn’t seem to understand.” “Yes, Ma‘am, I understand. Maybe you should try to tell him how important the Ring Hop is to the cadet, what it means to him and what it should mean to the cadet’s parents. Your son has been greatly hurt by your husband, Madame. I just called to see if you could persuade your husband to give up one football game for the sake of his oldest son. I think it would do Ulysses a great deal of good. He loves his father very much, but doesn’t seem to think his father feels the same way.” “I’ll try to persuade him, Colonel. Thanks so much for calling.”

The next night Ulysses walked through the ring with his girl. His mother was very proud. So was his father, even though he later went back to his motel room to call his younger son to see who won the game.