Old School

Instead of taking the train all the way back home to Seattle, the narrator instead gets off in New York and cashes out the rest of the value of his ticket. He gets a job as a busboy and shares an apartment with three Ecuadorian waiters. It is during this time that he learns of Hemingway’s suicide. He notes that, because of health issues, Hemingway never made it to his school.

The narrator goes on to work a number of different jobs and, after three years, enlists in the army, which takes him to Vietnam. The narrator offers anecdotes on what it means to live a writerly life, and how he is actually most productive when his life appears to be the most boring. But there is no one way to best live as a writer. He states, “No true account can be given of how or why you became a writer, nor is there any moment of which you can say: This is when I became a writer” (156).

During the fall of 1965, the narrator receives orders to go to Maryland for training. While cleaning out his locker, he discovers a copy of the newspaper that featured his plagiarized story. He reads it and is “no longer in any confusion as to whose story it was, or whose talent Hemingway had blessed” (157). He writes an apology note to Susan Friedman and sends it along with the copy of the newspaper. She writes back, telling him that she considers his plagiarism a compliment. He replies with an invitation to dinner, which she accepts.

They agree to meet in Washington, DC, at an Italian restaurant. He wonders if they might fall in love. She arrives very late and pokes fun at him about his military haircut. He learns a bit about her, including that she is in her second year at Georgetown Medical School, and it soon becomes clear that she is in a different league.

They reminisce about their respective prep school experiences. She sees his plagiarism of her story as an excellent prank he played on his school. She is critical of the patriarchal grip on the literary world and appreciates how, because of the narrator’s prank, Hemingway didn’t know he was reading a female author when he deemed the story victorious. She assumes this was the narrator’s intent, and he lets her believe this. Soon she has to leave and asks for the check. The narrator is embarrassed when she insists on paying. He reiterates how much he liked her story and tells her he’d read anything she writes. But she says it’s been years since she’s written anything. Upon parting, she says that writing “just cuts you off and makes you selfish and doesn’t really do any good” (163). This shocks the narrator.

Later, he assumes that “her problem was not with writing but with men” (163). To himself, he defends his literary ambitions against her declaration that writers are unworthy.

It is now the early 21st century and the narrator is a successful writer. The alumni office has been sending him bulletins. He reads them thoroughly but never interacts with the school. He learns that George has found success in academia through his study of philosophy. There is never any information about Bill.

In 1967, Dean Makepeace died of a heart attack while walking to class, having recently marred one of the school’s secretaries. In 1968, the headmaster retired. A short time later, Mr. Ramsey became headmaster. Mr. Ramsey merged their school with a local girls’ school. He recently invited the narrator to return to the school as a visiting writer. This provoked in the narrator “an almost embarrassing sense of relief” (168). The narrator doesn’t want to accept the invitation because it would make for too tidy of an ending to his expulsion story. He also plans to eventually write “something about my days at the school” and needs to “guard my fragile vision of the place” (169). Also, he’s afraid he hasn’t earned the invitation and therefore wouldn’t be able to enjoy his visit. His official reason for declining is that he has a full calendar.

The next spring, in a hotel lobby in Seattle, he runs into Mr. Ramsey, who is on a West Coast tour to raise funds from alumni. They go to the hotel bar and catch up. The narrator abruptly apologizes for not accepting the invitation to be a visiting writer. Mr. Ramsey brushes aside the apology.

Mr. Ramsey tells the narrator that there is a lengthy backstory to his expulsion. The narrator hopes he will elaborate, but Mr. Ramsey circles around and again suggests he come to the school as a visiting writer. The narrator admits to Mr. Ramsey that he feels like he has “no place at the table” (171). Mr. Ramsey dismisses this excuse and the narrator agrees that he will eventually make the visit.

The narrator prompts Mr. Ramsey to return to the expulsion story. Mr. Ramsey launches into a long story that largely concerns Dean Makepeace. When Mr. Ramsey started at the school as a young man, Dean Makepeace became a close friend. During the time after Mr. Ramsey’s wife left him, Dean Makepeace became a comforting father figure. After 30 years at the school, one morning Dean Makepeace suddenly decided to leave. Later that morning, Mr. Ramsey was brought in to evaluate the evidence against the narrator and take part in arranging the expulsion. Mr. Ramsey goes into the heart of the story and nearly completes it. However, an old friend of Mr. Ramsey’s walks into the bar and the story is left unfinished.

The narrator retells Mr. Ramsey’s story, stating, “The problem started at one of the headmaster’s teas, when a boy asked Arch (Dean Makepeace) if he had known Ernest Hemingway during World War I” (179). Dean Makepeace does not explicitly deny that he is Hemingway’s friend, and his lack of a denial leads to a rumor that he is. Dean Makepeace carries an air of mystery that captivates the students. The narrator states, “Though he hadn’t intended his silence to mean anything, from his first days at the school people drew certain conclusions from it that gave him an authority he wouldn’t otherwise have enjoyed” (180).

Dean Makepeace never told lies about his past but allowed speculation to circulate. He is respected by students and faculty, and his authority keeps others from asking specifically about his relationship with Hemingway; had they, he would have had an opportunity to refute the rumor. As his silence on the matter persists, the rumor of their friendship moves toward accepted fact. He knows they believe it and continues to let them hold this belief. However, he doesn’t consider it to be an outright lie, but rather “a kind of dozing off in his attention to the truth” (181).

Dean Makepeace never intended to be a teacher, but after his wife leaves him, he is searching for a job and a friend invites him to apply for a teaching position at the prep school. Years later, his estranged wife, whom he’s continued to support, is hit by a car and killed. He then becomes dean, a role in which he implements progressive policies, despite backlash from some alumni. Dean Makepeace suspects he is able to get away with implementing such policies, at least in part, because of his perceived association with Hemingway. As the years pass, he doesn’t think too much about others’ assumption that he and Hemingway are friends. This changes when the headmaster announces that Hemingway will be a visiting writer.

Despite the general assumption that Dean Makepeace was the reason behind Hemingway’s visit, he was not at all involved in the arrangement. Rather, school leaders planned it as a surprise for him, with a certain alum paying a massive sum to bring Hemingway to campus. Dean Makepeace is then impressed by the narrator’s winning submission.

The headmaster orders Dean Makepeace to participate in the narrator’s expulsion but he refuses, and then resigns. Dean Makepeace then explains how he has falsely let everyone believe that he is friends with Hemingway and therefore he cannot, in good faith, expel a student for deception.

Dean Makepeace goes to live with his sister in upstate New York. To escape her crabbiness, he periodically takes regional trips. He sends out letters of inquiry to other schools but receives no interest. It seems his sense of self-worth is largely entwined with the respect that students had for him. He terribly misses his job at the prep school.

Eventually, Dean Makepeace writes a letter to the headmaster in which he apologizes for resigning and asks for his job back. The headmaster welcomes him back, but on two conditions: He must no longer serve as dean and he must not reveal the truth about his relationship with Hemingway, which the headmaster claims would uselessly confuse the students. Dean Makepeace accepts.

As the new school year nears, he returns to campus, where faculty are having drinks in the headmaster’s garden. He is enthusiastically welcomed back, which makes him feel like a boy again.