concealing improvised explosive devices in their pockets. Tally-board black marks and pensums, though well suited to the nature and color of our misbehavior, failed to stop the wars. Ink sales at the smoke shop soared.
Firing a fountain pen demands supple wrists and keen hand-eye coordination, the same skills required in foosball. So it should come as no surprise that Cesar was an accomplished sharpshooter, or that I was one of his regular targets. Of all our inky showdowns, only oneleaves an indelible mark. Forty years on, I can still conjure up the scene in cinematic detail.
The setting is a Belvedere hallway. In the presence of half a dozen boys, a scrawny ten-year-old finds himself squaring off against a beefy enemy two years his senior. In my mind’s eye, the camera travels over the face of the older kid—thick dark hair, beady black eyes, sly smile—before moving across the snow-white expanse of a freshly laundered No. 1 Dress shirt, the pocket of which holsters an ebony-black Montblanc of German manufacture.
{© Norman Perryman}
Group Captain Watts.
The twelve-year-old draws his weapon, unscrews the cap, and slips it over the barrel. He cocks his arm so that the gold nib of the pen hovers a few inches above his shoulder and then leans forward, poised to fire, while his rival bobs from side to side.
The twelve-year-old squints as he takes aim and, after a few feints, empties the Montblanc with a quick flick of the wrist.
Moments later, I look down to discover black spatter marks dotting the legs of my pants. A couple of bystanders, allies of Cesar, let out a round of cheers.
Okay, so you got me. But now it’s Nosey’s turn. I unholster my weapon, an American-made Parker 45. The Parker might lack the elegance of the Montblanc, but like the Colt .45 revolver after which it is named, it’s sturdy and reliable.
As I take aim, anticipating the satisfaction of transforming my white-shirted adversary into a spotted dairy cow, Cesar serpentines with unexpected agility.
The tension mounts until I empty my chamber.
Flick!
A brief silence follows, during which I survey my target, my target surveys himself, and the onlookers survey us both.
“Blew it, Kikewheel!” Winn shouts when it becomes obvious that Cesar’s shirt is as white as it was before I discharged my pen.
Cesar smiles and takes a bow.
How could I have missed? I was standing barely ten feet away.
“No, he didn’t!” Woody suddenly yells.
All eyes turn toward Cesar, whose grimace of pleasure abruptly disappears. Confused, he again inspects himself and finds no black marks anywhere on his clothes. “What? Where?”
Woody points.
A wave of satisfaction flows through me once I realize that my shot has, in fact, hit its mark. A single blob of ink has smacked Cesar right in the kisser.
“What? Where?” Cesar says a second time.
His questions rupture the black globule. It spreads over his lips and teeth, then travels down his chin, where a subsidiary droplet begins to pool. Then, for what seems like an eternity, the secondary bead grows until it, too, bursts, and the ink, once more airborne, continues its descent until it strikes the breast pocket of Cesar’s No. 1 Dress shirt.
My triumph was fleeting. But in that moment of intense joy, I felt as if I’d channeled the determination and achievement of a Swiss underdog marksman from an earlier time, William Tell.
“I S UPOSE M Y I NFERIORITY W ILL L AST ”
My reputation as an inkslinger might have been secure after the showdown with Cesar, but I was hopeless when it came to using pens as they were intended to be used. The Rules required me to write a letterhome once a week. My mother, true to her archival tendencies, retained seven of those dispatches: six originals addressed to her plus a photocopy of an aerogram she forwarded on to my father’s aunt, a Viennese émigré who ran a boardinghouse in South London.
None of the seven letters mentions Cesar. I only told my mother about him
Firing a fountain pen demands supple wrists and keen hand-eye coordination, the same skills required in foosball. So it should come as no surprise that Cesar was an accomplished sharpshooter, or that I was one of his regular targets. Of all our inky showdowns, only oneleaves an indelible mark. Forty years on, I can still conjure up the scene in cinematic detail.
The setting is a Belvedere hallway. In the presence of half a dozen boys, a scrawny ten-year-old finds himself squaring off against a beefy enemy two years his senior. In my mind’s eye, the camera travels over the face of the older kid—thick dark hair, beady black eyes, sly smile—before moving across the snow-white expanse of a freshly laundered No. 1 Dress shirt, the pocket of which holsters an ebony-black Montblanc of German manufacture.
{© Norman Perryman}
Group Captain Watts.
The twelve-year-old draws his weapon, unscrews the cap, and slips it over the barrel. He cocks his arm so that the gold nib of the pen hovers a few inches above his shoulder and then leans forward, poised to fire, while his rival bobs from side to side.
The twelve-year-old squints as he takes aim and, after a few feints, empties the Montblanc with a quick flick of the wrist.
Moments later, I look down to discover black spatter marks dotting the legs of my pants. A couple of bystanders, allies of Cesar, let out a round of cheers.
Okay, so you got me. But now it’s Nosey’s turn. I unholster my weapon, an American-made Parker 45. The Parker might lack the elegance of the Montblanc, but like the Colt .45 revolver after which it is named, it’s sturdy and reliable.
As I take aim, anticipating the satisfaction of transforming my white-shirted adversary into a spotted dairy cow, Cesar serpentines with unexpected agility.
The tension mounts until I empty my chamber.
Flick!
A brief silence follows, during which I survey my target, my target surveys himself, and the onlookers survey us both.
“Blew it, Kikewheel!” Winn shouts when it becomes obvious that Cesar’s shirt is as white as it was before I discharged my pen.
Cesar smiles and takes a bow.
How could I have missed? I was standing barely ten feet away.
“No, he didn’t!” Woody suddenly yells.
All eyes turn toward Cesar, whose grimace of pleasure abruptly disappears. Confused, he again inspects himself and finds no black marks anywhere on his clothes. “What? Where?”
Woody points.
A wave of satisfaction flows through me once I realize that my shot has, in fact, hit its mark. A single blob of ink has smacked Cesar right in the kisser.
“What? Where?” Cesar says a second time.
His questions rupture the black globule. It spreads over his lips and teeth, then travels down his chin, where a subsidiary droplet begins to pool. Then, for what seems like an eternity, the secondary bead grows until it, too, bursts, and the ink, once more airborne, continues its descent until it strikes the breast pocket of Cesar’s No. 1 Dress shirt.
My triumph was fleeting. But in that moment of intense joy, I felt as if I’d channeled the determination and achievement of a Swiss underdog marksman from an earlier time, William Tell.
“I S UPOSE M Y I NFERIORITY W ILL L AST ”
My reputation as an inkslinger might have been secure after the showdown with Cesar, but I was hopeless when it came to using pens as they were intended to be used. The Rules required me to write a letterhome once a week. My mother, true to her archival tendencies, retained seven of those dispatches: six originals addressed to her plus a photocopy of an aerogram she forwarded on to my father’s aunt, a Viennese émigré who ran a boardinghouse in South London.
None of the seven letters mentions Cesar. I only told my mother about him
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