Honor Student

Because he walked to work, John B. was in a better position than the rest of us to consider contemporary bumper-sticker communication, such as it is. The rest of us might have been familiar with the stickers he spoke of, but being car-bound commuters ("In the Drone," John B. liked to rag), we were petitioned daily by so many platitudes, pleas and promotions, that we had become for the most part desensitized, and rarely made a proper study of any of them. Whether I LOVE MY WIFE was blasting by at 80 miles per hour or trudging along at 2, we tended not to mull. But John B., on his strolls to and from our local institution of higher learning, found the opportunity to mull, and mull he did. He was an academic, after all. He could not help himself.

"Passed a car today whose owner BRAKES FOR BOILED PEANUTS," he began over a round at Tug's. "Another that STILL PRAYS. So what? Why is it my business? Who cares?"

"Sounds like you do," Blake muttered.

"They care," said Mitch.

"I'm just wondering why they need to tell me," said John B.

"Well, you would wonder that," said Mitch.

Yes, John B. would. Most perplexing to him were the perversions, distortions and general misrepresentations that our state flag had recently been subjected to. On the official standard, a palmetto tree and crescent moon stand in bright white against a navy-blue backdrop. A lovely emblem, John B. noted, if you have no experience with the insects that commonly hive in palmetto trees—cockroaches, which in our town can grow to the size and adopt the audacity of domestic pets. He supposed that a fellow might find the emblem charming and apt, if that fellow is under the impression that the thousands of palmetto trees recently drilled into the local landscape, to accessorize condominiums and parking lots, have always been here. By the time John B. finished his invective against our state tree, we wondered how he could care at all about our state flag, much less what was being done to it on the hind ends of cars.

But he did care, to the point where he began keeping a running log of observed infractions, a sort of taxonomy of contemporary crescent-moon-and-palmetto-tree derivatives. For starters, there were those decals that had not distorted the shape of the tree-and-moon, but the color. The local co-eds preferred the pink option—to match, John B. presumed, the pink pajama pants they customarily wore to class

"They wear that?" said Mitch. "To class?"

"They do. But my point is our state flag. In pink. You've seen this?"

We had seen this. We'd seen, too, the Clemson-orange tree-and-moon; the Gamecock garnet-and-black; the Citadel blue-and-white. We'd seen the Confederate-flag overlay and the American-flag overlay; the tree-and-moon warped into the shape of a turkey foot, a martini glass, a baseball/soccer ball/basketball (available in the various school colors). Yes, we'd seen the many identifiers and signifiers (John B.'s words) that could be foisted upon what was otherwise a simple, fairly straightforward emblem. But we'd been here for the duration; we'd been exposed to this kind of thing for years; and we failed to register the same bafflement as John B., who had only recently moved back. Seeing him so bewildered, we could not help feeling for the man.

"That American-flag version is interesting," said Blake. "It may be a sign of progress."

"How in God's name?" said John B.

"Used to be in South Carolina, some wouldn't fly the American flag. On principle."

"My granddaddy never did," said Mitch.

"So maybe it's progress," said Blake. "You've got the South Carolina flag and the American flag, together. United."

"United in schlock," John B. said. "Forgive me if I fail to call that progress. Where do people buy these things, anyway?"

"I don't know. Scarlett O'Hara's?"

A local tourist shop that offered everything from BEEN-THERE-DRANK-THAT beer cozies to FRANKLY-MY-DEAR-I-DON'T-GIVE-A-DAMN boxer shorts—which shop, naturally, John B. took special offense to.

"Scarlett O'Hara's," he groaned. "Enough said."

Indeed. And to ensure that not another word was said on the matter, Blake asked if John B. would like another drink.

"A double, if you please," said John B.

He let the matter drop for a few weeks, having learned from these first forays into detailed decal taxonomy that maybe bumper stickers were not worth the furrowed brow. But there came a day when, along his route to our local institution of higher learning, he discovered two stickers that he simply could not let lie. In fairness to him, they were entirely new even to us, the jaded car-bound commuters. The first sticker, John B. reported, read, I'M NOT FROM THE SOUTH, BUT I GOT HERE AS FAST AS I COULD, with a Confederate battle flag for punctuation.

"Least he's honest," said Blake. "Admits to being a transplant."

"True," said Mitch. "You see these 'NATIVE' stickers—with the 't' and the dot over the 'i' making the palmetto tree and the moon?—and you don't know. Any fool from any fool place can put a 'NATIVE' sticker on his car."

"My point is, why'd this guy get here so fast? For the lingering racism? The worst of the South? That the kind of transplant you want? It's embarrassing."

"Well," said Mitch.

"Well," said John B., "it gets better. Or worse, really. On his other rear window is the real gem. He's got one there that says, 'STOP THE SO-CALLED ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THE SOUTH: FLY THE FLAG.' "

"Do what?" said Mitch.

"So-called... ethnic cleansing?" said Blake.

"I don't know what to make of that," said Mitch. "Doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

"It doesn't make any sense," said John B. "It makes counter-sense. It's wrong on maybe every level. It's wrong within its own wrongness."

"Maybe the guy's just a moron, JB," said Blake.

"Hah," said Mitch. "Definitely."

The rest of us left it at that, but John B. did not. No. He took it upon himself to write a letter to the driver of the van. He told us he was going to write this letter, then two weeks later reported that he was almost done with this letter—he was two weeks shaping and revising the thing—and in the interest of documenting his time back home, I requested a copy, presented below, before he placed the original on the van's windshield. The reader will note that the letter is quintessential John B.: At once deferential and pointed, at once polite and firm, it is, above all else, most concerned:

Dear Sir,

First, thank you. Each morning I find my coffee doing a little less for me in the way of general awareness, and your most prominent bumper sticker invariably quickens the blood. When I come across your most prominent bumper sticker, I am usually en route to my job as a teacher of Freshman Composition. While this line of work presents a great deal of frustration ("Roderigo puts Desdemona on a pedal stool," "Blanche DuBois is a real pre-madonna," etc.), I do tend to take it home with me. Which brings me to the point of this letter: If you will kindly indulge an old school marm, I would like to help clear up a few syntax issues vis-a-vis your most prominent bumper sticker, and respectfully request your help in clearing up other issues vis-a-vis the same.

As you may know, the modifying phrase "so-called" renders the meaning of that which follows ironic or sarcastic. By using "so-called," the speaker implicates both the expression and, in a backhanded way, those who use it. For example, let's say I wanted to protest the ignorance that, in my modest opinion, has for so long kept our comer of the world from realizing its true potential. I would not want to buy a bumper sticker, should one exist, that reads, "STOP THE SO-CALLED IGNORANCE IN OUR STATE: PROOFREAD YOUR WORK!" That would imply that ignorance is not a problem at all—which, let's be realistic, it is. What's more, this bumper sticker would suggest that whoever is saying we have an ignorance problem is way off the mark. So: because ignorance is a problem, and because I sincerely believe it is, such a bumper sticker, on my bumper, would make me an idiot. My particular protest of ignorance would betray my own ignorance, in which case I would be making a nasty mockery of myself. I know we can agree on this: It would be pretty ridiculous for me to mock myself, especially on my own car.

Sir, I ask your forgiveness if I've gotten this all wrong. It's just possible that both you and the producers of your most prominent bumper sticker actually do take issue with the expression "ethnic cleansing." After all, it is a loaded expression, with sinister implications that are not to be taken lightly. If you feel that whatever it is that's being done to your ethnic group (whatever that group may be) should be called something else, then you are right to include the "so-called" modifier. And if you take issue with whomever it is that's calling whatever it is that's being done to your ethnic group (whatever that group may be)—if you take issue with those who call it "ethnic cleansing," then your most prominent bumper sticker is right on target.

Forgive my presumption, but I just cannot believe that this is the case. Your less prominent bumper sticker—"I'm Not From the South, But I Got Here as Fast As I Could"—has a forthrightness (and syntactic integrity, excepting the "fast," which should of course be "quickly") that simply is not reflected in your most prominent bumper sticker. If you will forgive my presumption again, I think you truly believe that someone out there is trying to cleanse our fair-region of your ethnic group, whatever that group may be. And I think you truly believe that flying the Confederate flag will remedy this problem. If this is the case, I would strongly encourage you to correct your most prominent bumper sticker, lest it contribute to the further degeneration of our dear language—and, of equal importance to you, misrepresent your beliefs.

In closing, I cannot help but wonder where you found your most prominent bumper sticker. It does not look home-made. I try to picture the office where people are coming up with this kind of thing, a place where folks are so horribly lost. For an old school marm like me, it is truly, truly disheartening.

Sincerely, John B. Clayland

There is no telling exactly what the driver of the van made of the letter. To be sure, he did not revise, much less remove, the bumper sticker in question. A few days after John B. left the letter under the windshield wiper, he in fact discovered a new, third sticker on the van. Placed just below and between the other two, it read, MY KID BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT.

"Am I the honor student?" John B. wondered at Tug's.

"You're the honor student," laughed Blake.

"It's not funny," said John B., his eyes wide and unblinking, haunted, as if he were coming up hard against some horror.

"Well, hell, JB," said Blake. "It's just bumper stickers."

"Roger that," said Mitch. "It's just words, JB."

John B.'s face tightened—the brow furrowing, eyes narrowing. "Just words?" he said. "Just words? What else do we have, Mitch?"

"We've got rum, JB," said Blake. "Tug does. Want another?"

"Just words?" John B. said again.

"Have another rum drink," said Mitch. "Come on. Cap."

John B. considered. His face slackened, composing now an expression somewhere between bemusement and resignation. "I will," he said. "I'll have another rum drink. But don't say just words, Mitch. OK?"

"OK."

"OK," said John B. "OK."