Mr. Cathcart arrived exactly when he always did on the first day of school, fifteen minutes past when he was supposed to. The massive iron-barred gate that isolated the theater's distinct outdoor space from the common ground surrounding it was unlocked, which Mr. Cathcart took as a bad omen for what was to come. He swirled his coffee cup a little and was relieved to discover he had plenty left. When he entered the back room of the theater, he was greeted by a tiny and officious leadership student who demanded to know who "Mr. Cathcart" was—it sounded like a pseudonym—and why he dared intrude until he realized he was talking to someone who was supposed to be there; instead of apologizing, the student shouted something behind him, and Ms. Wolfe came out.
"Hey, this is my theater! What are you doing here so early?" Mr. Cathcart said jovially, trying to disguise his irritation with humor.
"The theater is school property—you just work in the back and do your little theater things whenever we need them, and if we decide you ought to work outside on the damp asphalt, you'd better bring a blanket. You're late, but no matter. We already have everything under control."
"Already have what under control? Your little leadership kid in the suit was about to drag me out of my own theater until I told him who I was."
"Growing pains, Mr. Cathcart. Everyone gets them. We need a few more teachers to supervise the assembly—you'll do. Come with me," Ms. Wolfe insisted, and they walked at a brisk pace to the lobby, where a few teachers milled about and clutched paperwork, consulting with the leadership representatives present.
"Since when did we have this much paperwork?" Mr. Cathcart asked in astonishment.
"We have a new way of doing things. More efficient. We decided, in consultation with our new student council, that this school lacks discipline. Many of the current students are beyond hope; everyone but a few idealists believes that. But the new kids... yes, I think we can get something done there." Mr. Cathcart refrained from commenting further, wisely assessing that now would be a poor time for dissent, but Ms. Wolfe kept talking verbosely to anyone else who would listen.
Mr. T led a few other teachers in supervising the assembly, which as club members were generously volunteering their time, really meant scowling appropriately at the right times to get any freshmen with attitude in line. As they queued outside in the cold to enter the theater, they were checked for appropriate paperwork; those who had lost their papers or simply creased them too badly were sent to a separate line, where their infractions were marked. Improper posture was corrected appropriately, or as appropriately as they could without using a meter stick to slap hunched spines. Ms. Norris, despite generally trying her hardest to avoid freshmen, came out too under the belief that it was never too soon to teach students something new. It was a remarkable transformation indeed to see shrill, shrimpy youngsters learn in an instant the value of following orders! Most teachers who taught freshmen were split on whether their boundless energy and occasional snark were things to be encouraged, and as much as these traits had their time and place, this wasn't it.
Frank sat in the back of the theater, even more out of sight than his usual seat as usher; Juliet had earlier expressed a strong desire to be the new freshmen's first impression of Heller on stage, saying that he was a bit "severe." An observant freshman who appeared not to know anyone else came to sit next to him and immediately noticed something wrong:
"What's up with your suit and tie? There's no dress code here, you can relax a little."
"I'm not a freshman, don't worry. I'm Frank, your school president. Nice to meet you," Frank said, extending his hand.
"Why are you back here instead of on stage?"
"Juliet thought she could do a better job, so I thought I'd humor her a little. Leadership is about delegation, and to be honest, it's been far more satisfying admiring my work from afar. You lose that perspective when you're in the thick of things."
"Well, since you're president, why don't you help me out: your classmates out there were being bullies. One of them had a megaphone. Can't they just chill a little?"
"You seem like a smart kid. Come to the How To Be A Good Person Club today; that's where all the real cognoscenti meet. You can either be shepherded around all year or work to be the one cracking the whip yourself—how does that sound?" The freshman meekly nodded. "Anyway, we'd best be quiet now. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
By the time the freshmen had come up from the theater, some wearing red stickers to indicate their disobedience or blue stickers to signal good conduct, Alan and his squadron had scrubbed the hallways to a shiny luster and carpeted the walls with motivational posters, one of which explained the new caste system. Frank had enjoyed reading Brave New World greatly, and Ms. Foster had verified that as long as no students were denied food and rankings had no direct bearing on academic performance, color-coding the student body was merely immoral, not illegal. The TVs that typically displayed boring motivational quotes in the hallways now displayed exciting pearls of wisdom, many taken from How To Be A Good Person, and showed brief motivational skits:
"I'm so glad to be an Alpha," Juliet announced as cheerfully as she could. "I get to sit on the lawn and I have priority seating for assemblies. I'm glad I'm not a Delta, or even worse, an Epsilon. They aren't allowed to sit at all during breaks, and they need to perform community service. They also attend reeducation sessions after school. I'm a good kid. I don't talk with Deltas or Epsilons. Everyone works for every one else. We can't do without any one. Even Epsilons are useful. We couldn't do without Epsilons."
"I'm only a Beta," Behrooz declared. "I have some of the same privileges as Juliet, but not all. I'm not invited to Friday breakfasts or Monday movie nights. But I can still sit in most places, and I am deserving of respect due to my seniority. If I work hard enough, I can become an Alpha."
"I'm an average Gamma," Alan continued. "I do what Alphas and Betas tell me, and I tell Deltas and Epsilons what to do. I can check my social credit score on the free TigerTalk app, where I can also see my grades and caste-level announcements. Regardless of my ranking, I'm proud to be a Tiger."
"I'm a lowly Epsilon," Frank slurred. "I'm of below-average intellect and hold defiant tendencies. I am physically weak and generally deficient, not because of my genetics, but because of my lack of willpower. It is the burden of those above me to take care of me, and only through impossible effort may I advance in the ranks. There is no hope for me."
"We all are proud to be Tigers," the four of them announced in unison.
Jason needed little encouragement to dislike Alan, and Alan's new attitude was impetus enough. Alan wasn't quite clear on what conventional formal dress entailed, and wore a fedora along with his slick, black suit; his hair appeared gelled. And when he saw Jason in the hallway, he walked straight toward him, ignoring the others who tried in vain to weave around him smoothly, grasping his hand with his own simultaneously icy and oily hand to say hello and welcome him to a new era. Jason didn't think it was sweat, as his own hand now smelled of cheap cologne that in another reincarnation probably could serve as paint thinner. And off Alan went, not even pretending to have any interest in conversation, only making sure that he was seen and that it was known who was boss—in case any of the freshmen didn't recognize him from the assembly, his face on posters with such tasteful slogans as "Avoid bright colors" and "Don't be a simpleton" would endure his memory was forever seared in everyone's mind. Nobody dared tell him he was tasteless, as the consequences were unknown. The smell on his hand bothered Jason, so he went to follow Alan to make him apologize, snaking through a crowd of students who parted like the Red Sea to respect Jason's Alpha status. But by the time Jason made it outside, he couldn't see him anywhere; he went to pick up his complimentary hot chocolate and watch the nearest TV screen, which flashed frenetically between visuals.
Jason was willing to admit his involvement with the present situation; he had helped code TigerTalk partially because Frank paid him $1000 in cash and partially because they were friends. Frank had promised Jason a cushy position in the administration as befitting his unwavering support in the cabal, but neither of them knew exactly what would be suitable until Jason suggested "chief propaganda officer." Frank thought this such a crucial position that he couldn't believe he didn't think of it earlier, and Jason was happy to be in a position that seemed suitably Stalinist. Unfortunately, this meant he couldn't always ignore Alan:
"Hey Jason, what's up!" Alan had shouted at him during a robotics meeting a week before school officially began. Jason groaned; this was supposed to be neutral ground. He was the new leader after Pranav left, and he was thus entirely within his authority to make such declarations.
"So, I was thinking," Alan continued before Jason could acknowledge his greeting, "isn't this so exciting? We're finally in control of the school—or we are, you're just a consultant—what better validation of our philosophy could you ask for?"
"I'm just as valued in this as you are, Alan, if not more so," Jason insisted. "We knew about the 'juice' sting sophomore year, long before you ever did. You just follow orders, Alan, you don't take initiative with anything. Keep yourself busy with your paperwork and leave us to do the real thinking."
"There's nothing wrong with following orders, Jason. We're all human, and humans need something to sink their teeth into or their minds wander. And when minds wander, all sorts of bad stuff happens. It sounds like your mind has been doing a bit of wandering itself, so buck up, Jason. Change is hard for all of us."
Jason pretended to consider Alan's words carefully: "Oh, well that's a different matter then. For a moment there I thought you lost your marbles." Alan was such a brat. Frank had told Jason that privately, and so it was really true and not just another layer of deception with no end in sight. It wasn't that Alan's vision was inherently distasteful; he was a good ideologue and believed as told. He was merely inelegant, and much of that was because he had chosen to be visible. Visibility had its place—Juliet and Behrooz were visible, and nobody thought them crude or heartless—but it was better to speak softly and carry a big stick. Everyone knew about the KGB, and yet they operated silently; why couldn't Alan do the same?
Frank and Alan met a few days later at school, silently staring with eager eyes at the school that was entirely theirs. Alan still felt hurt after Jason had doubted his leadership ability, and now saw an opportunity to curry favor:
"Can we get rid of Jason already? He's so annoying. I think we should make him a Beta, show him who's really boss." Frank burst out in laughter.
"That's nonsense, Alan. Jason is an invaluable member of our team, and even if you can't see the tangible benefits of his actions, I certainly can. Let's focus on the future, because the future is only what we make today. What do you think about patriotism?"
Alan sat up like a shot. "That's it," he cried excitedly. "There was something missing—and now I know what it is." He banged his fist down into his palm. "No patriotism," he declared. Frank rolled his eyes.
"I appreciate your enthusiasm, and even before I told you what I had in mind too. How about the national anthem? Every day during first period—take out the ten minutes per week we waste on leadership announcements and spread it out a little. Everyone knows it, and the best thing is, anyone who's against it is against America."
"I never knew it was that simple!"
"It really is. I'll draft the letter and print it, we can all sign, and I know Mr. Kurtz will be glad to see this happen. We don't need to announce this to the students in advance, right? It will be a surprise."
John encountered a surprise of his own during his first period, tutoring with Ms. Liu. She had come to him at the end of the previous school year, believing he would be suitably altruistic while not simultaneously being busy, with the tempting offer of having a tangible impact.
"These aren't the AP kids, you know. They need more support, and it's our duty to provide that. You can do anything you want to do with them, John—if you want to teach them how to be good people, the power's all yours."
"I wouldn't want to infringe on Frank's authority, Ms. Liu."
"Well, that's not the point anyway. I trust you to be patient with them and show a little sympathy. That's what a good person does, right?"
John was the first to arrive to class, which surprised him; he did not think he was that punctual, but clearly the freshmen had not yet learned respect. That would change, John hoped. Ms. Liu was once again pleased to see him, and urged him to sit down in the back; none of the freshmen would be so precocious as to require academic support before their first real classes.
"The other tutor's getting her schedule sorted out in the office, but she'll be here in a few seconds—I see her walking now," Ms. Liu told him while John stared at the ceiling lights. John's gaze shifted to the door just as Regina pushed her way in. John's face contorted into a brief scowl, which Ms. Liu but not Regina noticed, and Regina went to sit a safe distance from him eagerly.
"Do you two, um, know each other?" Ms. Liu asked with a tinge of worry.
"Oh yeah, of course we do! John and I are the best of friends," Regina declared, and before John could voice his objections Ms. Liu laughed with glee: "I'd expect nothing less. Things are going to be a bit different this year, as I'm sure you know, so we have an especially important responsibility this year. Not that our work is never important—it's always important—but it's just that there's a lot to take in. My chart here tells me you're an Alpha, John, and Regina's a Beta. These students are likely to be Gammas, Deltas, or even Epsilons. You've all read Brave New World right, you know how this goes?"
"Yeah, it's really ingenious," John admitted. "I've always felt like high school has all these unstated social hierarchies; even I struggle to understand exactly where I stand. How nice of leadership to take away that cognitive burden and do the thinking for us."
"Not quite, John. I think I may be judging this too early, but while we still have a few moments, I think this is kind of clever, actually, demonstrating how absurd and harmful those distinctions are. Well, Frank didn't actually have to do this—this was an idea he maybe could have left on the drawing board or as a club exercise—but if after a few weeks, people are sick of this and demand to treat everyone equally, maybe that's progress? I take what I can get."
John was privately seething. What sort of role model was Regina for impressionable young minds? For one, she was a Beta, but her flaws extended beyond that. No good person would dance on the beach with classmates or kiss her boyfriend at school; both those reflected an inability to separate business and pleasure, and the last thing he would want in his classes is to see more people flirt. Her attitudes in general skewed liberal; Regina believed in personal choices as long as they did not affect others, but for some reason she was completely apathetic about John's emotional anguish at his classmates fornicating or drinking beer or smoking marijuana. What a hypocrite! One thing was becoming extremely clear, and that was that any flaws in the class were due to her and her alone.
After all the students arrived, Ms. Liu engaged them in mild small talk about seating arrangements and stationery until the PA system turned on with a chirp.
"Hello Tigers!" Ms. Wolfe's voice radiated, still simultaneously energetic and flat like always. "In order to ensure compliance with, I want to make sure I'm reading this correctly, the 'Committee for Rejuvenating American Principles,' we are going to start every day henceforth on the right foot and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, then sing our national anthem! Please turn and face the flag; you will be expected to memorize the words by next week. Teachers, please assign merits and demerits appropriately." Ms. Liu's students turned to each other with puzzled faces, but were too shell-shocked to raise any fuss.
"I pledge allegiance..." everyone continued, all the way through a desultory crescendo at "the home of the brave." Ms. Liu tried her hardest to set an example for her students and sang the loudest out of all of them; Regina had considered joining the choir once, and articulated every consonant even when John seemed to be content with verbal mush. John thought he was an excellent singer; nobody ever asked him, but if they ever did he'd be sure to indicate as such. He strove in vain to emulate his idols, mumbling Marlon Brando and crooning Frank Sinatra, and while he imitated their styles he did not imitate their musicality.
"Ms. Liu?" The same freshman who had met Frank earlier raised his hand tremulously.
"Yes, uh... Harry!"
"Will we have to do this every day? At the assembly this morning I met a kid who said he was the president, and he seemed pretty happy about all of this. But I don't know, we've never had to do anything like this before. Wouldn't our time be better spent on learning values like dignity besides empty, symbolic gestures?" Ms. Liu chortled—she told every student besides the really bad ones that they were her favorite, but with Harry she was starting to mean it:
"Good point, Harry! I don't think it's an entirely symbolic gesture, not any more so than anything else. There's a certain value in tradition that we just need to accept for its own sake, and I think all of you have your own traditions that you or your parents do without any greater purpose. Do Christmas trees alone teach us charity? And I think just to bring us all into the year and get to know each other a bit better, that would be a great discussion topic. So let's move our desks in a circle..."
John already felt his attention wander, even as he and Regina moved their desks to join the rest. He was promised heartfelt moments of mutual understanding—not that he'd know what they would look like—but this wasn't at all what he had hoped for. John did not know what he was hoping for, really; he did not even know why he was tutoring. He had taken Ms. Liu's off-hand suggestion as an order, and for that reason he was with faces he did not recognize, faces which looked very different from his. John was in disbelief when one kid described how every November, they would build an altar with a name he knew he would immediately forget to celebrate those lost, or how kids felt guilt because their grandparents lived in another country and spoke a different language. John wanted happy stories, not ones tinged with the bittersweet; he wanted algebra worksheets from which he could discern no morality, not buzzwords like empathy and socioemotional learning. Ms. Liu thanked both of them effusively as they left; he did not think the thanks were deserved, as what had they done?
John hated to admit that a freshman, a mere Beta, could be right about something, but what Harry had said about the anthem gnawed on John's mind enough that John went to talk to Alan after school. Alan stood above the student parking lot waving at all the students leaving, none of whom he knew and none of whom cared to return the gesture. He did the same to John too before remembering that despite his dopey expression, John was not a freshman.
"Hey John, what's up? It's a new day—be your own sunshine."
"I saw that poster already. I don't have much time to chat, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on a little something that came up in class earlier. A freshman made a good point earlier—"
"And what's the freshman's rank?"
"Beta, but that's really not relevant. So he, Harry, was wondering that if we play the anthem every day, then won't it lose some of its meaning? It's a symbolic gesture, anyway, a trinket of our patriotism like all the flags in the classrooms I didn't even notice were there until today."
"John, John, John... do you think our brave soldiers view the national anthem as a symbolic gesture? When President Underwood wept last year at the 9/11 memorial as they sang the national anthem, do you think that was just a puny symbolic gesture? In fact, it's nothing of the sort. Our nation's fate rests on moral virtue, and nothing is more moral than the national anthem."
"So tell me Alan, what's one moral that comes from the national anthem? If someone isn't roused to tears through Pavlovian conditioning, what's their next move?"
"Well, uh, the answer is obvious, yes, umm..." Alan stalled confidently, "Loyalty. There's nothing more important than loyalty."
"Loyalty to whom? The school? The nation?"
"Well, those two things are really synonymous when you think about it. We attend a public school, ultimately run by the state, and then run by the nation if you go up the food chain far enough. So you can't have one without another, just like you can't have peanut butter without jelly."
"So why should we be loyal to our school? We show up, get an education, meet friends, then leave. Isn't that all there is to it? Do sinners look covetously at the other team during football games? I want to understand your point of view here."
"Like I said earlier, that's what our nation is built on. Our army serves the United States and is not a mercenary force—let's ignore Blackwater for the sake of argument—there's no other way you can have it. Likewise, we serve the school and think little else. What's good for the school is good for you. With our flesh and blood we build our new Great Wall."
"Huh?" John raised an eyebrow.
"It's a Chinese proverb Frank told me. But he says that we'll be just as formidable as an army if we work together with one concerted spirit."
"The Great Wall was sieged by Mongols, remember."
"You're missing the point here! So I think we both agree that without patriotism, our society cannot function. So what's more patriotic than the national anthem? You tell me." Alan looked even more smug as usual, and he still waved at scared students as they walked down the steps to freedom.
"So just to recap, we play the national anthem now because it embodies moral virtue, and moral virtue is important because it's patriotic, and there is nothing more patriotic than the national anthem? Am I getting that right?" Alan eagerly nodded: "Exactly, John. I hope now you understand the importance of our fight. We're the first ones bold enough to make these changes." Alan walked away with a smirk, and John left too. Maybe Alan wasn't good at explaining things. John didn't see why a song out of all things, one with no complex plot or theme, could hold such power; based on the lackadaisical delivery in class earlier, his peers thought the same. He didn't object to the anthem being played at club meetings, as there they were fighting for order and dignity. He just didn't think that every student had volunteered for that duty.
Beth's communication with Behrooz followed a predictable daily routine: they'd talk before their first class, maybe a bit at lunch if Behrooz wasn't with his friends or if she wasn't with hers, definitely a bit in the evening, and they always said good night. She found that they had exhausted most of the novel topics that they had strong opinions on long ago—greatest hits never failed to disappoint, even if most of them were Behrooz explaining how well his DJ gigs were going. She rarely attended his parties not only for fear of a conflict of interest, but because she found them banal. Louis bothered her, Ted too when he occasionally showed up, and she had better things to do than drink beer and be flirted with. They weren't even best friends on Snapchat (as much as a good person ought to avoid social media, the practical interpretation which most in the club followed who were interesting enough to be popular on social media used was "avoid frivolous usage of social media—act with purpose").
For this reason their conversation had begun to wane, and sometimes she went days without even seeing his head in the hallway. Beth had been promised that with the new school year, they would see each other more at school events, but things like "Alpha Meet And Greet" didn't sound like they would offer much one-on-one quality time. She still was going to go that night—it was only proper—but she planned on not enjoying the experience at all. Beth hoped for more community at cheer practice with Juliet, but found instead resentment and petty rivalry: the cheer coach, whom the members of the team called "Coach Mama" for reasons unclear, proved a surprising supporter of the new system in place, and consequently declared Juliet the head of the cheer team because of her superior social credit score. Beth and Juliet were the only ones happy about this change; the others chafed under Juliet's peppy authority, knowing fully that she never attended their parties or did anything exciting. Some Deltas and Epsilons who were forced to run extra laps for no reason but their rank had the clever idea of filing an official complaint through the TigerTalk app, but discovered the feature was only available to Betas and above.
Frank, who had spent a few hours with Mr. Kurtz and Ms. Wolfe sorting through the first day's worth of feedback to discard all even vaguely critical, and Juliet were some of the last few students left on campus. Frank had made the calculated gamble of taking the route that wound past the football field to the street, hoping that the cheerleaders would have been long gone, but his legendary luck had failed him: Juliet was zipping up her bag when she saw Frank's frame in the distance, and she immediately hurried over to say hello. This wasn't their first encounter that day: all four of the student council officers were required to share a class period for leadership, which meant they all sat at a tiny round table and did their other homework, and Frank also had decided in yet another spurt of goodwill to serve as the TA for Mr. T. He was greatly excited about this initially—statistics was a strong subject for him, even at the college level, and Mr. T never failed to keep him occupied—and less excited when he discovered Juliet was a student in his period.
"Third time's the charm, right?" Frank laughed meekly, looking around to make sure that nobody saw them. As usual, Juliet launched into a passionately-delivered summary of her day, putting particular emphasis on how much everyone loved singing the national anthem and her newfound seniority on the cheer team. "I hope every day is as good as this one," she proclaimed, and added suddenly: "With all our new work, I think we ought to have another meal somewhere, it's been a few weeks; I heard there's a new Indian restaurant downtown. The weather's still warm, we can sit on the patio, and you know what you always say, fresh air builds a healthy body and healthy mind."
"I'll message Alan and Behrooz then. You're right, as always: each day is going to bring more and more work, and since we aren't spending all our time at school together, we can make up that time elsewhere. Emails, maybe, like normal people. Now that I think about it, Alan and Behrooz are handling the meet and greet tonight, so I think we'd have to wait for the weekend. Sorry." Juliet rolled her eyes, interpreting Frank's purposeful denial as mere obliviousness.
"Why do they have to be brought into everything? They're self-sufficient. We all are. I could invite Regina and Tom if you're not interested then. They're Betas, but you know, they're the next best thing." Frank bristled at his own logic being used against him, but he considered himself a good sport; it was only fair that she try to compensate for his history of half-truths and misdirection. He could spin this into propaganda somehow, he hoped. Good publicity, that was the term.
"I'll make the reservation. My treat," he resolutely declared, and Frank walked Juliet to her car before heading home himself.
Discussion Questions:
Contrast this beginning, once again, with the first chapter. What's different in tone?
What makes Ms. Liu's freshman class different from the other classroom scenes we've seen? How is her attitude different now from other teachers?
Whose behavior aligns most with How To Be A Good Person's principles?