The Dreamcatcher, Chapter Two: “Haddon” By Jamie Kirkpatrick

(Author’s Note: This is the second chapter of “The Dreamcatcher,” a serial story in this space.)

 By the time the newly-minted Dr. Solomon DeSouza accepted a position in cyber security with the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, and his wife, Mrs. Hyacinth DeSouza, reported to her new job at the Department of Education in downtown Washington, DC, the family had moved to a small rambler in Silver Spring, Maryland, an appropriately diverse enclave accessible to both parental postings.

Little Tatu had just turned eleven and was preparing to enter fifth grade. His parents decided to enroll him at Haddon, a well-respected, all-boys school in the adjacent suburb of Bethesda. Coming from the relative freedom and independence of the Montessori method, the transition to the academic discipline and social mores of Haddon was not easy for Tatu. Moreover, Haddon boys were interested in sports almost to a fault, while Tatu was anything but athletic. In the fall, he tried soccer, but his large, black-rimmed glasses came home broken—twice. In winter, he attempted to dribble a basketball but couldn’t manage more than a bounce or two before losing control to gravity. In spring, Tatu’s parents bought him a tennis racket in hopes he might make new friends on the court. But the ball never seemed to find the strings of Tatu’s racket, and by the end of the first week of spring sports, Tatu was a spectator, not a participant, sitting and studying on the sidelines.

That was when the teasing began in earnest. As his parents ascended their respective professional ladders, Tatu descended his social staircase. One of the more popular boys in his class decided Tatu was a stupid name, and that his classmate’s real name was Ragu, as in the spaghetti sauce. From that moment on, his classmates rechristened him ‘Ragu,’ which soon morphed into ‘Clam,’ which was the acronym for Ragu’s advertising jingle, “Cook Like A Mother.” Tatu at home, Clam at school.

A lesser spirit might have withered on Haddon’s thorny social vine, but all the taunts and teasing never seemed to penetrate Tatu’s sense of self.  During recess or after school, he retreated to the library and, using his Montessori skills, began to reach for the stars in what was becoming to be known in academic circles as STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. To relax, he played Sudoku. By the end of fifth grade, he was doing algebra. In the summer between fifth and sixth grade, he conquered geometry. By the time he graduated from Middle School, Tatu was versant in multivariable calculus. The mathematical world and its STEM shoreline was his proverbial oyster.

This might seem like a pathway to scholarly success, but a single lane is hardly a highway. Tatu had very little interest in his other required subjects: his foreign language class (Spanish) bored him; American History made him somnambulant; and his Upper School English classes tortured him with their aphorisms and ambiguities. Haddon prided itself on developing men of character who could think and write as well as wrestle and play lacrosse, but Tatu adamantly stayed in his own STEM lane. That he was a social orphan never seemed to bother him, nor did he bring any apparent social malaise home from school.

As a result, Solomon and Hyacinth were oblivious to Tatu’s situation. Absorbed in their own jobs and used to Tatu’s closed bedroom door, they focused all their attention on their careers up until the day when Tatu, midway through his junior year in Haddon’s Upper School, came home and announced that his college counselor wanted to schedule a family meeting to discuss Tatu’s college aspirations. Solomon and Hyacinth immediately saw an opportunity to ascend another rung on the ladder of the American dream and threw themselves into high gear. They did their research and then, with Tatu in tow, they went off to meet with Haddon’s college counselor, a seasoned veteran of the college admissions wars. Solomon and Hyacinth expressed their desire—more, their expectation—that Tatu attend an Ivy league institution. The counselor listened patiently, then diplomatically pointed out that while Tatu did indeed excel in STEM-related subjects such as math, computer science, and robotics, his overall GPA put him somewhere in the fifth decile of his class, well below the standard of what any Ivy League institution would deem acceptable for admission. Moreover, the counselor said, Tatu did not have any meaningful extracurricular activities, nor was his college essay—his Personal Statement, the counselor called it—likely to impress an admissions officer. “Aim a bit lower,” he suggested.

As a result, for reasons neither Solomon nor Hyacinth could quite fathom, the counselor strongly recommended adding a few what he called “foundation schools” to the list of schools to which Tatu should apply. That neither Solomon nor Hyacinth had never heard of any of these schools made for a rather ticklish meeting, but in the end, they agreed that in addition to Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, and Cornell, Tatu would also submit applications to Stanford, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana (“Our alma mater!” Solomon proudly told the counselor), the University of Michigan, and someplace called Clark, a well-regarded private research institution located in Worcester, Massachusetts, which, the counselor assured them, had world-class STEM programs. Tatu remained silent throughout the meeting.

Now you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that midway through the following year, Tatu was rejected at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, and Cornell. He was also denied at Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan. Perhaps because both his parents had once attended the University of Illinois, Tatu made it to the Wait List there, but that was as far as he got. Thankfully, he was accepted at Clark. Haddon’s college counselor breathed a sign of relief. Hyacinth and Solomon were disappointed, but a generous scholarship from Clark helped to soften the blow.

I’ll be right back….

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

His new novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon.