The strange road of memories

We were at the Hugo House last night, partly to hear Sherman Alexie speak on the topic "How Dungeons and Dragons Saved My Life".

He was kind of sheepish about "outing" himself as a D&D fan, but he described it as a way to escape his bad situation in the real world, and as one of the things that taught him storytelling.

Of course Alexie's admission made me nostalgic for my old obsession with D&D, which then reminded me of the story I'm about to tell you. Which may give more amusement to those of you who know the characters...

I was admitted to the eigth grade at Iolani while we were still in China (admitted as a "foreign student", apparently), which meant that although they could see my test scores and writing samples and whatnot, they couldn't do the "entry interview" until we got back to Hawai'i. And since most of the staff was still on summer vacation, I did my entry interview with Charles Proctor, the assistant headmaster, hereafter known as "Chuck", because he hates it.

Chuck and I talked for probably half an hour; I don't remember anything about the interview, except that at the very end he asked me if I had any more questions. I thought for a moment, and asked "Do you have a D&D club here?"

Chuck's face fell. "Oh. You're one of those." (Not, mind you, "them". "Those.")

Full of attitude at 13, I scowled back. "Yeah, I'm one of those! I didn't know there was anything wrong with it."

With a sour look, he turned back to the pile of papers on his desk, and mumbled "Yeah, there's a games club."

We were done for the day, but that exchange started an arc that continued right through until my graduation. We'd clash regularly, often with me sitting in that same chair in his office, him trying to provoke a reaction in me, but never getting one. "You're a lump! Is that what you want to be? Why are we wasting a spot in this school on a lump?"

It probably didn't help things any, in 9th grade P.E., when I cut in front of his younger daughter in a soccer game. She went down hard and wrong, and I learned just how sickening the sound of a radius bone breaking is. Chuck blamed me, of course, and our already poor relations deteriorated.

More clashes, a few great teachers left because they couldn't stand him, and more sessions in his office.

And then came graduation day. Chuck was reading the names of the graduates, as he always did, droning through the list with the regularity of a pasty-faced metronome. "Laura Duckworth... Laura Duguay... Tammy Durez..."

And then a pause. Not a long one, half a beat at most. "David Edelstein." Another brief pause, and then back to the metronome: "Laura Fan... Lana'i Ferguson..."

As I walked across the podium I could hear my father's laugh in the audience. I winked at Chuck as I walked by. And the look on his face matched the look on mine: There was nothing more he could ever do to me. I had passed out of his sphere of petty influence. He had lost.