Steven Millhauser - Edwin Mullhouse - The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954

It was shortly after Halloween that the new boy appeared. I say appeared because I don’t remember when I first noticed him, though of course we all noticed him once he had appeared. There he sat at the back of the room, conspicuous and sullen in the last seat of the row beside the windows, with a bright blue lunchbox at his feet. Every other window was open, propped by a red dictionary, and you could see strands of his hair blowing in the chill November wind that came in over the steamblasts from the green radiator, whose black knob was turned all the way up with some notion on Miss Coco’s part of a balance between Nature and Civilization. He was obviously miserable but he sat there stonily, staring at the pencil trough in his desk. The class tried to break him down with whispers, stares, and giggles, but he showed no sign of sensitivity other than an occasional quick look about the room, as if he were trying to take in the sheer physical size of the hostility. The most aggressive notice came from that clown Billy Duda, who sat at the end of my row and was always trying to impress Mario Antonio, Len Laska, and Frank Picirillo. All four were looking the new boy over mercilessly in the few minutes left before the bell, and indeed he presented no common sight. He wore what no one had ever worn before in Franklin Pierce, a tie, a real tie, a maroon tie over a dark green shortsleeved shirt; and on the floor by his feet, in loud defiance of a society of paper bags, stood that impossibly bright blue lunchbox with its silver clasp. He was small and solid and darkly tanned, with a head somewhat too large for his shoulders and aglow with pale unmoistened hair that seemed to have had the yellow burned out of it by the sun. His face was almost a triangle, rising from the sharp point of his chin to a large brown forehead; that, and his broad, conspicuous cheekbones, lent to his face the suggestion of a rude carving. His mouth was a small thin line, his long unboyish nose was not the kind that displayed its nostrils but the other kind with its slight overhang, and under his pale eyebrows a pair of gleams escaped from behind two slits. Later I was to learn that those slits could open suddenly over strikingly large green irises that seemed to have no depth at all but only a glitter, like the backs of spoons. And there he sat, glaring at his desk with one brown arm resting on the surface from elbow to clenched fist, and in general looking as if he were defiantly pretending not to have stolen something. Edwin had glanced at him from the middle of the room but had soon lost interest. Billy Duda was uttering loud witticisms about lunchboxes and Miss Coco was writing sentences on the blackboard when the bell rang. Miss Coco put down her chalk, gave her hands a few little slaps, and stepped around her desk to her praying position at the front of the room. But instead of folding her hands, she immediately fulfilled the wildest fantasies of the meanest members of the lowest reading group by saying: “We have a nice new classmate with us today and I’m sure all of us would like to meet him and find out all about him and where he’s from. Arnold, will you please tell us a little about yourself, your name and where you come from? Stand up please, Arnold.” At the first sound of the name a ripple of titters rocked the back rows; at the second, Billy Duda produced a repulsive sound by squeezing his palms together in some nasty way. Even Edwin smiled, but quickly frowned. Miss Coco said: “I don’t see what’s so funny. Would someone mind telling me what’s so funny?” And raising her handkerchief to her nose she made little rubbing gestures as she gazed moistly from one face to the next. “William, would you like to tell me what’s so funny? Mario, would you like to tell me what’s so funny? No, of course not. Because there’s nothing funny about a name, is there. Some of us are called William, some are called Mario, some are called Jeffrey, and some Arnold.” She lowered her handkerchief. “It’s hard enough to be a brand new boy in a brand new environment without us making it more difficult for him than it is already. You should always ask yourself how would you feel. So I think we all owe a great big apology to — to Arnie, from all of us. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if old Arnie there didn’t want to share his experiences with us after the way we’ve acted today. And I wouldn’t blame him one bit. But I’m sure you’ll forgive us, won’t you, Arnie. Now won’t you stand up like a nice boy and tell us a little something about yourself?” All faces turned toward Arnie. He sat unmoving, staring at his desk. “Just a few words,” said Miss Coco. From where I sat he seemed to turn a shade darker. Perhaps he was dreaming of green valleys in Norway, perhaps he was dreaming of bloody knives and shrieking school teachers, perhaps his mind was a void, but he sat unmoving, staring at his desk, and Miss Coco, radiant with compassion, said: “Do you want me to help you, Arnold?” The class was absolutely silent now; you could hear the minute hand jump on the big clock beside George Washington. With a sad little smile Miss Coco said: “Well now, you watch me and you’ll see how easy it is, okay? Okay. And if I make any mistakes, you be sure and correct me, won’t you now. Now let’s see. My name is Arnold Hass, Hass, Hasselstrom and I have just come to Newfield all the way from Buffalo in the state of New York. Before that I came all the way across the Atlantic Ocean from Oslo, Norway. Norway is a very cold country far away across the Atlantic Ocean near Lapland. In Norway there are real reindeer and many lakes and mountains and Fords. There is always snow in Norway all year round and the girls and boys go skating, sledding, and skiing all year round. At Christmastime they fill their wooden shoes with straw and leave them outside the door for Saint Nicholas, who takes away the straw and leaves presents. But if you’re a very bad boy or a very bad girl, then he leaves coal. It’s so lovely in Norway with all the snow and the mountains and the lovely blue lakes and the ships and the. Arnold what are you”

A photograph would show Arnold Hasselstrom in profile, standing beside his desk with his back to the window and his eye wide open. Beside his feet lies an open lunchbox. Across the room Billy Duda is seated with a hand raised before his face and the fingers spread; on his face is an expression of terror. Behind him, on the blackboard, is a zigzag crack. Beside him, on the floor, lies a rock the size of a baseball.

HIS NAME WAS ARNOLD HASSELSTROM and he never smiled. No one knew anything more about him except that he lived with his grandmother in the neighborhood beyond the white sidewalk on the other side of the school. Edwin and I never saw his neighborhood or his grandmother. According to the newspapers, her name was Josephine.

It was not until a month later that he and Edwin began their unlikely friendship. Meanwhile he accumulated an awesome record of violations, and might have been a hero if he hadn’t been such a loner. He made it clear from the first day that he was not to be trifled with: that afternoon on the playground when two pals of Mario Antonio began to chant “Arrrrnie! Hey, Arrrrrnie!” he ran at them swinging a stick from which a rusty nail protruded. During the next few days on the playground before the bell he passed the initiation rites established by the tougher elements of Franklin Pierce. Watched by a semicircle of aspiring killers, among them Mario Antonio’s fifth-grade brother Tony, Arnold Hasselstrom stood under one of the high windows at the back of the school and smashed his fist into the brick wall with all his might. He remained grimly expressionless then and afterward, when Tony Antonio clapped him on the back, but I noticed that he held his hand very carefully for the next three days, and once when he swung it carelessly against the back of his chair he winced with pain. The comb test was less painful though more colorful. Len Laska demonstrated. Making a tight fist he rapped his knuckles hard with a sharp-toothed pocket comb; then keeping his fist clenched he swung his arm in a circle fifty times, and when he held up his fist for inspection, the knuckles were lightly streaked with blood. He held out the comb to Arnold Hasselstrom. But Arnold Hasselstrom shook his head, and reaching into his back pocket removed a steel comb (cries of “Shee! Hey!”). Making a tight fist he whacked his knuckles five times sharply and began to swing; on about the fifteenth swing someone gave a shout and leaped back, wiping sprayed blood from his cheek. Arnold Hasselstrom kept on swinging, flinging blooddrops out of his fist as the circle of watchers moved away; when at last he stopped they came crowding around him, exclaiming loudly. When the circle broke up, Edwin and I caught a glimpse of a hand that looked as if it had been painted with red stripes.