Cee EEE 176 svnenousye ‘Topias WOLFF (8.1945) ‘Alabama, Tobias Wolff grew up in the state of ing high school, he worked on a ship and for 2 Gewed four years as a paratrooper, after which he studied to p ‘ntrance exams for Oxford University, rom which he {eaduated with high honors, He has published cwo memoirs This Boys Tif (989) and In Pharaoh's Army: Mem Born in Birminghs Our Story (2008). Wolff has ‘courses at Stanford University since 7997- ate make & xorybexer Oniy chen 9 poe a el weakness, go back ro work, ince an ineuine that grows sharper with 1d. A hand! f wenea licele crazy with chat word, with the pleasuse of applying it co myself, Having a job like this changed every- Fitng, Ir delivered you from the reach of your parents, from the caustic f your flends. I set you free among strangers in che eventful ‘hese you could practice being someone else until you were some” f pc money in your pocket and allowed you to believe that your ° y if ac home and school —was jusea sop 10 those deluded enotigh to imagine you sell needed them. There were three others working the fields wich me: the farmer's shy, muscle bound nephew, Clemson, who was in my class at school but to Thom { condeseended because he was just an inexperienced kid, and two wourt/THATROOM 177 Mexican brothers, Miguel and Eduardo. Miguel, short and stolid and solitary spoke very litle English, but akish Eduardo did the calking for both ofchem. While che rest of us did the heavy work, Eduardo provided i erand Iarcenious cops, the whores who loved him—I felt the actuality ofa life 1 knew nothing about yet somehow contrived to want for myself: areal life in areal world. ‘While Eduardo talked, Miguel labored silently beside us, now and aughed. He sometimes wat mile curiosity; that was ell. ‘The farmer, who owned a big spread with a lot of hay to bring in, shoul he ited more hands, He had only the four of us, and thete/ twas always the danger of rain, He was a relaxed, amiable man, but as the season wore on he gr tus longer, During the last week or so I spent the nighes with Clemson’s just down the road, so I ‘to the farm with the others sp and work until dusk. The bales were heavy with dew when we tation, and Eduardo warned the farmer thar the hay might combust, bur hhe held us to his schedule. Limping, sunburned, covered wich scratches, Teould hardly gee out of bed in the morning, But alchough I'griped with Clemson and Eduardo, Iwas secretly glad ro take my place beside them, to work as if I had no choice. Eeduardo’s car broke down toward the end of the week, and Clemson carted driving him and Miguel to and from the decrepit mocel where they lived with other seasonal workers. Sometimes, y door, we'd all just sit there, saying nothing, We were thar tired. Then one night Eduardo asked us infor a drink: Clemson, being a good boy, tried to beg off but | gor our with Miguel and Eduardo, knowing he woulda’t Ieave me. “Come on, Clem” I said, “don’t be a homo.” He looked a me, then turned the engine off "That room, Jesus. The brochers had done their best, making their beds, keeping their clothes neatly folded in open suitcases, but you got srarnped by the smell of mildew che moment you stepped inside. The floor was mushy underfoot and shedding squares of drab linoleum, the ceiling bowed and stained. The overhead light didn't quite reach the cor hers. Behind the mildew was another, unsettling smell. Clemson was a fastidious guy and writhed in distress as I made a show of being right at home. E Sringing them in. The airin the loft ramed steamy from fermen-We poured rye into our empty stomachs and listened to Eduardo, and before long we were all drunk. Someone came to the door and in Spanish, and Eduardo went outside and didn’c come d 1 kepr drinking. Clemson was half asleep, his chin id barely understand his English, and he kepe break- ing into Spanish, which I didn’ all, But he was angey-= understood that much. {At some point he went across the room and came back and put a table, right in front of him. A revolver, long barre iguel stared at me over the pistol and resumed words poured n aggrieved singsong, and I saw that his own voice ‘was lashing him on somehow, the very sound of his indignation proving that he had been wronged, feeding his rage, making him hate whoever he thought I was. was too afraid co speak. All I could do was smile leave. You can forget that the course of ‘That room= once yowventensityyOu: you're there, you can go on as if you hol your life, yea even its length will elect the force ‘wisdom of your judgments. And then you hit an icy patch on a turn one sunny March day and the wheel in your hands becomes a joke and you zno more than a spectator to your own dreamy side toward the verge, and then you remember where you are Oryou board a bus with thirty other young men. I's eat the attention of the Quakers outside the gate, they're waiting, silencly holding up their signs, looking at you noc wich reproach but with sadness and sympathy as the bus drives past them and. on toward the airport and the plane that will rake you where you would not go—and at this moment you know exactly what your desires.count for, and your plans, and all your strength of body and will. Then you know where you are, as you will know where you are when those you love die before thei you had planned for them, for yourself with them—and when your daily allowance of words and dreams is with held from you, and when your daughter drives che car straight into a tree. And if she walks away withoura scratch you still fel chat dark ceil- are. And what can you do but FLUSON/RATTLEROYAL 179 again Miguel jamped up and grabbed him byche shire and pushed him toward the door. I took over and helped Clemson outside while Miguel looked on, shrieking his disgust. Disgust! Now he was the fastidious one. Oh, how sweetly Ttended Clemson that night! I thought he'd saved my life. And maybe hehad. ‘The farmer’s barn burned to the ground that winter. When I heard about it, said, “Didn'e I tll him? I did, 1 told that stupid sumbicch not coput up wee hay.” ‘ConsioeRarions FOR CRITICAL THINKING aN»D WaITING AiG mast nsstoxse, Wiy does the narrator descr and school” as “inessental, parenthetical” (para. “a eal life in areal world” (para. 4)? (Big Wh ithe work the narrator does on the farm impor 3, Howare Eduardo and Miguel foils o one another Aig Why is Miguel so angry? 5 How does the morel room and what happens in it take on symbolic ‘meaning in this plor? Discuss the significance of paragraphs 11-12, Why do you think they appear where they do and ate set off From the rest of the story? Stevi te basecp dnebd tpt glaph a sletadc the et sespeiness Woe nd of plopeeionen iis preaed tt perch (Up Dison jour eaingof the sors Gna paragraph and how relates mile weeobinneban cher Ralph Ellison's “Battle Royal” (p. 180) or John Updike’s “A &P* (p.157). ‘RALPH ELLISON’ (1914-1994) Born in Oklahoma and educated at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he studied music, Ralph Ellison gained his reputation as a con the strength of his only published novel, Invsble Man (r952). He also published some scattered short stories and cwo collections of essays, Shadow and Act (1964) and. Going to the Territory (1986).