El Paso: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

he had finally arrived in the most magnificent household imaginable, only to be shipped off to a place full of strangers, no matter how wealthy and sophisticated they might be.
    Colonel Shaughnessy had arranged an imposing entrance into Groton for Arthur. That morning, he timed it precisely so his private railcar would deliver his son to the rail station just as the other boys were arriving on the public trains. For a few moments the ploy seemed to work. Arthur stepped down from the gleaming railcar, with Bomba carrying his bags. A hush came over the throng of Groton boys on the platform while they gaped at this strange person arriving as if from another world, a world different and even more exalted than their own. Then from the back of the crowd someone started it.
    “Would Mr. Astor wish his bags to be taken for him?” came a loud voice.
    Everyone took up the cry.
    “Would Mr. Astor like his shoes shined?” somebody said to great laughter.
    “Could someone arrange for flowers in Mr. Astor’s private suites!”
    Bomba put on his fiercest expression and parted the derisive crowd, with Arthur tagging behind, mortified.
    “Will someone please call Mr. Astor’s personal motor coach!” a shout went up.
    It was not a good beginning for Arthur Shaughnessy at the Groton School. And in time, no matter how Arthur tried, it only got worse.
    When they learned his name, Shaughnessy, there was more mockery. They called him a harp and a bog-trotter and a fish-eater. All the Irish slurs to hurt and embarrass. When Arthur protested that his family was not Catholic, they ridiculed this, too, saying behind his back that this was no better than the Jews changing their names so as to take over the country.
    Hazing became an art form.
    They short-sheeted his bedclothes and put toads and beetles in his desk drawers in his dorm room. Someone even taped a piece of Limburger cheese to the back of his closet—it took him a week to find the source of the odor. Once he returned from class to find lace curtains put up around his window. Arthur became a loner, which of course made it worse. Boys often got the treatment from the Groton elite and were expected to be good-natured about it. But Arthur kept sullenly to himself, thinking that at the orphanage at least they all tried to get along. Then one day the dam burst.
    It was the end of the first term, and so far Arthur had made good marks in all of his studies. But when he was called on and stood to read a class paper on the history of the Ostrogoths, he discovered his hands were black after he reached into his satchel. Someone had poured ink into it, ruining the work. Arthur turned red; his breath caught in his throat. He thought he was going to choke. Tears welled in his eyes as his classmates smirked at one another and the instructor stood waiting impatiently. Finally Arthur burst out, “I hate all of you! You’re wicked bastards! You’re . . . you’re . . .”
    People began laughing. The instructor marched to Arthur and snatched his wrist and led him from the room to the dean’s office for punishment. Arthur could hear the scathing laughter from the classroom all the way down the stairs and out of the building. Back in his room, he stared out of the window until it was dark and even afterward. He envied the birds he saw wheeling in the air and wished he could be like them. When he got back to Boston for the holidays two days later, Arthur informed his father that he would not be returning to Groton.
    “You cannot quit, Arthur! It’s the worst thing you can do. All boys get hazed at boarding school.” They were sitting in the study, the Colonel behind his desk, distressed, Arthur in his chair.
    Arthur merely looked at him. The Colonel knew that when Arthur made up his mind it was hard to change it, and tried a different tack.
    “Look, son, why don’t you think about it over the holidays? Just think about going back for the last term. It might be bad, but then, next year, you’ll