Free The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son by Pat Conroy Page A

kid had to say.
    “You had a lot to say and you said it well,” she replied.
    “Thank you so much,” I said.
    “I played golf once a week with Walter Trammell,” Cloide said, with mischief in his eyes.
    “I hear my superintendent was a very good golfer,” I said.
    “He used to beat me every time we played,” he said. “Then you came along.”
    “I don’t understand what I had to do with his golf game,” I said, puzzled.
    “Well, you ruined his whole life. That’s just for starters. When your book and movie came out, he became one of the most hated men in America. The same school board that fired you fired him a couple years later—what you did to him haunted him to his death.”
    “I used to have nightmares about Walter Trammell,” I said.
    Cloide said, “You whipped his ass, and Trammell knew it and so did the whole town.”
    “Good. I couldn’t be happier. But his golf game?”
    “Every time we went out to a golf course, he would get ready to tee off on the first hole,” Cloide explained. “Walter would begin his backswing, and I’d say, ‘Pat Conroy,’ and his arms would palsy up and begin shaking—they would actually spasm when I said your name. It ruined his golf game.”
    And finally. A month later, I attended a black-tie affair when Penn Center announced that I was one of the two inductees into the 1862 Circle, a prestigious fellowship that usually goes to one of the pillars of the black community around Beaufort. The circle is named in honor of the dedicated band of Quaker teachers who left their homes in Philadelphia to teach slaves freed from local plantations. The Beaufort slaves were the first freedmen in the former Confederate state, and the Penn School became the center of the Geechee-Gullah culture in the lowcountry. Penn Center was begun in 1862 in what was known as the Port Royal Experiment.
    Sallie Anne Robinson surprised me by showing up to introduce me, and she gave a moving and elegant talk about our time on Daufuskie when I was a young man and Sallie Anne was a child. I had been her teacher forty-one years ago and I still could remember how she combed her hair and what clothes she’d wear to class.
    It was a night of deep reconciliation for me, because when I was fired from Daufuskie, I expected Penn Center would throw their support to me. After all, I had practically spent my high school years going to seminars and workshops over there. At Penn Center, I’d met Martin Luther King Jr. and the entire leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In addition, I had taught the first Afro American history course at the former all-white Beaufort High School.
    Though Penn Center did not inform me of their decision, I walked into the Hampton courtroom that day in December of 1970 and my knees nearly gave way beneath me when I saw the board of Penn Center sitting on the side of the board of education and Walt Trammell. When I saw black friends of mine sitting beside white administrators who would tell the court under oath that I was a worthless teacher, a liar and a cheat, a book thief, and a clear danger to children. No one from Penn Center would look, speak to, or acknowledge me. Julia Johnson, the black woman who taught in the next room to me, whom I pulled off two of my kids when I found her beating them with a leather strap, was sitting next to the head of Penn Center, and they were in the middle of an animated talk. Someone had sabotaged the boat that was bringing a group of islanders as my witnesses. I didn’t have a single witness from the island.
    My Beaufort High English teacher, Gene Norris, rushed to my side.
    “Why would Penn Center do this to me, Gene?” I asked. “They practically raised me.”
    “I’ve told you that race is one of the most dangerous subjects in the world,” Gene said. “The board of Penn Center decided it was more important to back up a black teacher than to defend a white one. It’s despicable, Pat, but sometimes it’s the