Failing French

I failed French in my junior year at Choate. I failed French because Jesse Couisnard des Closette (his real name) hated me. Looking back on it there were many dimensions to his hatred. Jesse was jealous. For a Frenchman anything to do with love and sex creates the most rabid kind of hate. Jesse was fat. He was always out of breath and sweating. His beret, yes he wore a beret in cased you missed the whole French thing, was soiled always damp. During class he would flop the beret on his desk. It looked like a wet rag. As soon as class was over he would slide a still wet beret back in place hiding a growing bald spot.

I innocently spent a lot of time with the man's wife. She was my tutor. I couldn't speak French. She couldn't speak Texan. There was still plenty of high plains drifter in my voice. I'd spent three years being socialized by preppies before failing French. I didn't wear pointed boots or cowboy hats anymore. My Texas drawl died after six months in Greenwich. Having classmates laugh when I opened my mouth killed the accent. When it came time to speak French you could hear Texas elementary education in my flat uninspired tones. French is about rolling r's and j's. What they wanted me to do with my tongue just seemed unnatural and ostentatious. I would have pronounced that word Austentaytious back in the pointy toe boots days. Actually, ostentatious is a Connecticut word. If my friends in Dallas heard such a word come out of my mouth they would beat me up on principle. Texas was about making things simple cutting to the bone. Connecticut was about layering on adding as much as possible. Different countries and maybe different planets is how I think of it now.

I remember when a friend, Richard Bramlet, moved to New York and came back to Dallas. One day we were having a Pulp Fiction conversation while playing basketball in his driveway about the "little differences" between life in the east and life in Texas. What struck me most unbelievable was you didn't have to say "yes sir” and "yes mam" to all adults at all times in New York. I couldn't wrap my ten-year-old mind around a world of such chaos. Consequence was so sure and swift to such discourtesy in my Texas world that I knew Richard was making it up.

I failed French because Jesse was fat and old. There was never anything between his wife, a pretty petite American, and me. She was kind and supportive of my stumbling efforts to speak a language no Texan was meant to speak. Texans speak Spanish (DUH) for good reason. Jesse Couisnard des Closette hated the idea of me as much as who I was. There was no winning. I know this now because I apply my fifty-year-old mind to the problem. Then I kept trying to roll r's and exaggerate j's and v's.

Jesse enjoyed flunking me. The administrators at Choate didn't enjoy telling my family or me. They must have seen the hatred Jesse had for me. He didn't hide things well. Their call about my failure was almost apologetic. I didn't hear the apology then. I was in crisis. Life as I knew it was over. The "plan b" was to attend summer school at Brunswick, a day school in Greenwich, and take a test at the end of the summer back at Choate to test the work. That test would determine if I could return for senior year.

After this call, I walked across the street to Greenwich High and registered. Greenwich High felt different. Before Choate I went to Central Junior High. Moving from Central to Greenwich High would have been natural and unquestioned. Two years into a very different world and Greenwich High felt like an Albert Speer design. The ubiquitous institutional gray, large common rooms, pervasive lockers and constant noise even in the summer marked Greenwich High as a different place. The physical plant wasn't as spread out as Choate and there was three times as many students. I wasn't going to be in Kansas anymore if I didn't pass that test.

The funny thing is I probably couldn't flunk that test. I think Jesse's wife spoke to Mr. Maddox, Choate's Dean of Students. She told him the back-story. Showing up and signing my name meant I was back in. In Cool Hand Luke fashion, Jesse and I had a "Failure to communicate". That analogy makes me more rebellious and aware than I was, but anytime you get a chance to compare yourself to Paul Newman take it (is my advice). I passed French in my senior year with extra care and feeding and plenty of distance between Jesse and his wife. Mr. Maddox enrolled me at Rosemary Hall, a beautiful fifteen-minute walk through the woods from Choate. I remember the smell of pine trees as I walked up to Rosemary every Monday and Wednesday practicing rolling my r's and being as ostentatious as possible.