Gone are the days of Advanced Placement English as it used to exist at my high school, and I will tell you why. AP English, one of those “college-level” high school courses where you were supposed to work your ass off, take one huge test in the spring, and get enough credits to skip a class or two once you actually got to college, was defined not by the subject matter, but by the instructor, as classes often are. A teacher almost always affects how much you enjoy a class. Favorite subject + shitty teacher (where shitty teacher = particularly brainless, apathetic, patronizing or boring) = I hate this subject. Or, least favorite subject + awesome teacher (where awesome teacher = smart, caring, innovative, mindful) = I can dig this subject.
And there are, of course, some teachers who split the difference, maybe the teacher who is completely knowledgeable and probably cares that he gets his students to learn, but is un-personable.
That’s exactly where I’m headed — to an explanation of Chuckness. I say AP English is no longer the same because Chuck, the class’s long-time instructor, retired a few years back, but not before he imposed his Chuckness on me and my classmates.
The 4-1-1 on Chuck:
• He taught English.
• He was nobody’s favorite teacher.
• He was a lot of people’s least favorite teacher.
• He had a mustache.
When Chuck was my teacher, it wasn’t his mustache that interested me, not in the slightest. But now, it represents entirely what interests me about Chuck. This is because of what I now know about Chuck and his mustache, and what I deduced from what I have learned. Ready for a heavy dose of metaphor?
When I knew him five or six years ago, Chuck’s life was neither too big nor too small, but it represented what he perceived to be perfect normalcy. His manner of dress: classic khakis and a short-sleeved polo. Hair: short, light brown, naturally graying a little. Our class schedule was always pre-planned and adhered to: The first half of class was book discussion (for which Chuck kept tally marks next to our names for each comment we made, to effectively measure participation), the second half of class was vocabulary — ten words each week, with a quiz on Fridays — then preparing for the AP English exam by studying sample passages or learning and practicing the proper format to achieve a score of 7 or above on the essays (on a scale up to 9; that’s how you earned A’s in class).
But part of him must have known that he was so tidy (almost a little weenie-like; not full-on weenie, just a little) that he should make himself less so, maybe to have more in common with the rest of us in that we all have natural quirky differences, which are usually unobvious to us until someone else points them out. They make us human. It was my conclusion that he purposely integrated quirks into his personality to make himself seem more lax. The problem was that they were so obviously calculated that they never seemed natural, rather more like an automaton programmed to “be human.”
There was the golf swing, for one. Every once in awhile, he mimed a golf swing.[1] He didn’t say anything about it, before or after the act. He merely stood in front of the classroom and did the golf swing. Then he continued with whatever had been happening. The first couple of times this happened, the class reacted with confused chuckles, and then it continued to happen without reaction.
Chuck also forever played the devil’s advocate, especially when it came to the occasional “treat” class activity: The Book of Questions. That’s where Question #118 came from. Questions in the book largely fit into categories like wagering what physical attribute you would trade for an intellectual attribute (and vice versa), considering how mean you could be, or calculating how much of a risk-taker you are.
He would choose respondents for the questions he selected. When you answered, you were really answering to convince him, not to spark lively debate with the rest of the class. Whatever your answer, he always found another angle and used it to challenge you (some people really are just like that, I guess, but Chuck’s version of devil’s advocate was entirely manufactured). For many questions, different students would have various opinions, so Chuck would end up agreeing with someone. But for some questions, it would be almost inconceivable to hold any opinion but one; Chuck, however, was never fazed. Here’s another made-up but completely realistic and plausible book-of-questions moment:
“Now Miss Wickler, if you found that a good friend had AIDS, would you avoid him? How about if it was a brother or sister?[2]
“Absolutely not.”
“But don’t you think it would be too difficult to maintain a relationship without the subject of the disease making things uncomfortable?”
“But don’t you feel like your role as a friend in that situation would be burdensome? And then what happens if you remain invested and he dies — that affects your emotions negatively. I think I would probably just say ‘So long, Jack.’ ”
As I sit back and read what I just wrote, I’m thinking to myself: Did not most of what I just said describe Chuck’s mustache? That mustache, the more I think about it, was not just neat and tidy, it was forced and calculated, too. Well, obviously every mustache is somewhat calculated; unless he’s a wild mountain man, a man grooms his ‘stache. But Chuck’s mustache was more than groomed — it was militarized. It obeyed his every command, rank and file with the rest of his neatness so that it did exactly, precisely what it was supposed to — act as a mustache — without really standing out. Maybe the mustache was originally a failed attempt at another quirk that ultimately blended in instead.
And many of us, as Chuck’s students, followed suit. You had very little time to play The Game of Chuck before he decided whether you’d win or lose, because in the beginning, you showed whether you would adapt to his grooming tactics or try to combat them. He decided, consciously or subconsciously, whether you had the potential to be the way he wanted you to be in his class. There were some students who were favored beyond a doubt, and others who seemed to be perpetually luckless in Texas Chuck’em, because of their willingness (or lack thereof) to conform to his style (at this juncture, it was quite important to a bunch of honors students to keep a good GPA). And his style never changed; his classes never changed. Nobody was naturally like Chuck because Chuck wasn’t completely, humanly natural. But lord knows Chuck would never change, like his mustache never changed, like the format for one of his AP English essays never changed. What, Chuck, was so bad about somebody thinking or being outside the boundaries of that too-perfect mustache? Why, Chuck, couldn’t you figure out that this very idea was the essence of being human?
When we met Question #118 many words ago, it was still just a question in need of an answer.
“Hmm, maybe. On one hand, they are my friends for some reason, which should logically be positive reasons that outweigh any potential criticisms. I know that everyone is bugged by little things about other people, and I would be no exception. Understanding this and knowing that it’s no reason to be angry, I could use their comments to improve upon myself. On the other hand, I could just assume the things people don’t like about me and try to change them, so they’d never have to bring it up at all. Or, what if I’m worse at reading people than I’ve thought, and I’ve really picked backstabbing, conniving friends who want to kill me and take all my possessions? That would be devastating to know.”
That’s me. Chuck’s approach, however, tended to be more black and white, and of course, in contrast to my answer. Chuck would have said no, definitely, because learning that others thought he had flaws would have ruined the pleasant equilibrium in which Chuck could perceive himself as ideal. I believe if Chuck would have thought of this metaphor as I am, he would agree; he would see himself like his perfectly balanced mustache, not too big and not too small, not drawing too much attention, but still smart and neat and functional and having enough character to be considered human.
I don’t know how long Chuck had had that mustache, or if he was different before he grew it. What I know is what I described: that I can represent Chuck and his mustache using many of the same descriptors.
What shakes me up a little is what has happened since he shaved it off.
Yes, Chuck shaved off the ‘stache. This was after my high school tenure, of course. Shortly after, he ran away with the school librarian, they got married and retired.
This whirlwind of events seemed dramatically un-Chucklike; first, it was pretty dramatic, for him (not to mention sort of made for a movie). Second, it was both uncharacteristic and natural, not like his other quirks, which were uncharacteristic but unnatural (as I explained before, like he made his quirks happen on purpose).
When Chuck shaved off his mustache, it suddenly became clear what his mustache represented – that the mustache was Chuck, and vice versa. Was this the end of Chuck as we had known him, we all wondered? It was definitely the end of his mustache, but the beginning of the legacy of his mustache, almost like an artist becomes famous post mortem. He could grow it back, sure, but he and I and other people would always remember that he had shaved it off for awhile — that even for Chuck, it was possible to change, even just for the sake of change itself.
It’s refreshing to know that not even the most constant of irksome constants will stay that way forever, because Chuck’s ability to maintain his Chucknicity sort of freaked me out. Maybe that’s what we all need — to shave off our mustaches and run away and get married and write an AP English essay that doesn’t look like every other person’s AP English essay, just to show that it’s possible — at least once in a while, to ensure that we aren’t destined to be stuck.
Question #132: If you went to a beach and it turned out to be a nude beach, would you stay and go swimming? Would you swim nude? (Stock 114)
Me: “I probably would stay, because nudity doesn’t really bother me — it’s a more modern thing, to make public what used to be considered private, and to be accepting of it and even nonchalant about it. Plus, I’d probably never see the people again. In light of that, I might even swim nude.”
Chuck: “But there would undoubtedly be people there whose bodies were better-looking than yours. Wouldn’t that make you self conscious? I wouldn’t do it. That’s just too personal.”
Well, Chuck, did you ever think you’d shave off your mustache?
***
Works Cited
Stock, Gregory. The Book of Questions. Workman Publishing Company, 1985.
Works Referenced
Kuehl, Matt. E-mail correspondence. 17 Jan. 2010.
[1] Matt Kuehl told me this could be imitative of the golf swing Johnny Carson did at the end of all his monologues, but how many high school students in the 2000s have watched a Johnny Carson Tonight Show?
[2] This question kind of gives away that the book was written in 1985, I think.
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