Introducing himself as John (reserving Ken for his Louisiana friends), Toole took his place among the personalities of the group. As typical, he kept a certain distance from the social center. He participated
in the impromptu soirees of Company A, but he rarely craved an audience like some of the other more loquacious instructors. Candid pictures from the time depict him socializing at parties and dinners but never as the center of attention. In one picture he stands and smiles contemplatively, tapping his cigarette over an ashtray, as the other instructors, drinking at small, circular tables, cheer the arrival of a new guest. In another picture taken at the Officer's Club Christmas dinner a few weeks after his arrival, Toole holds back laughter as he looks at Bob Young, who appears to have just made an amusing comment. A momentary enthusiasm shines in Toole's eyes. He appears on the verge of offering some hilarity to complement Young's joke. He likely interjected with his trademark wit, the guests probably laughed, and Young would once again take center stage of the dinner conversation.
The poise that Toole maintained offered him that slight distance he preferred to keep. From that distance, he observed, critiqued, and offered hilarious commentary, the same process Fletcher had witnessed as they watched a mother whack her child over the head that hot summer day in New Orleans in 1960. It was this approach that characterized Toole's first interaction with David Kubach. Soon after Toole arrived, Kubach came down with tonsillitis. One night as the instructors slept in the Company A barracks, Kubach, overcome with the pain in his throat, periodically called out in raspy agony, “Oh my God!” Toole heard the suffering but remained silent. The next morning Toole asked what was wrong. When Kubach told him he had a sore throat, Toole appeared disappointed. “Oh, I thought you might be having a dark night of the soul.” They both laughed heartily.
Toole and Kubach discovered that they shared an appreciation for satirical humor, a talent Toole had mastered at least in conversation. And Kubach appreciated Toole's talent for delivering acerbic one-liners. As Kubach remembers, “It seemed his range of satire had no limit.” Tony Moore, a self-described third wheel to the Toole-Kubach relationship, made similar observations of Toole. “His satiric gifts were enormous . . . and he could be amazing in his observations.” Moore recalls one evening after watching a Sofia Loren film and noticing her glistening plump lips, Toole commented, “She looked like she had been smacked in the mouth with a ripe tomato.” It struck Moore as a unique way to express what he observed. On another occasion, Toole
parodied a recently televised White House tour, impersonating Jacqueline Kennedy as if she were giving a tour of one of the Puerto Rican barracks. Pointing to grotesque graffiti of the male anatomy and using Puerto Rican slang, Toole said in the soft and dignified voice of the First Lady, “And here we see a picture of a
bicho.
” He went on to describe the artistic merit of the image, much to the enjoyment of Company A.
Like his friends in Lafayette, his fellow instructors in Puerto Rico soon learned that his humor usually came at the expense of others in their circle. As Kubach remembers, “Everything was funny to John. We made fun of a lot of people.... He had a take-no-prisoners attitude when it came to humor.” The other instructors recognized his uncanny ability to observe and comment on human behavior. But like several of his acquaintances in Louisiana, some instructors found his sharp wit worrisome; it seemed anyone could land in his crosshairs. Moore recalls Toole “wanted to poke fun at everybody.” In retrospect, Toole reminded Moore of Thersites in
Troilus and Cressida
. Much like Thersites who mocks demi-god warriors and damns homosexuality, Toole's witticisms could sting, embarrass, and hurt. But his fellow instructors also recognized him as brilliantly perceptive and often considerate. He defended the instructors when they came under scrutiny, gaining their respect. Despite his tendency to make insensitive comments, they acknowledged his intelligence, his self-discipline and ability to mediate between them and Puerto Rican officers.
Of course, the social dynamic in Company A was only one aspect of Toole's life in Puerto Rico. Like the other instructors, he spent most of his days teaching phonetic Englishâfor six hours a day, in seven-week intervals. He would dictate, and the Puerto Rican students would repeat simple English phrases. Eventually, he asked them basic questions, and they attempted to answer in English.
He humorously illustrates the maddening effects of the dull Fort Buchanan teaching method in a letter to his parents:
As I was looking out of the office a few minutes ago, I saw an ambulance drive up to one of the Co. B classrooms. The instructor of the class, whom I know, is a very passive, scholarly Yale graduate, and I suspected
that he had finally passed out from asking, “What is this?”; “Who are you?” “Do you like to eat fried chicken?”
Much to the frustration of the highly educated instructors, the program offered no intellectual challenge. But the program was not developed around a liberal arts value of cultivating ideas or refining thought processes. It aimed at successful test scores. With tensions rising in Cuba and Vietnam, the U.S. Army wanted the recruits ready for the frontline. They needed to know how to follow orders on the battlefield, not weigh the ethics of war. But they first needed to pass the exam. Companies A, B, and C at Fort Buchanan efficiently achieved this goal. In March of 1962 an article in the
San Juan Star
describes the program: “Fort Buchanan crams 189 hours of English into an extensive seven-week instruction . . . that has no parallel elsewhere in the Army.” The leadership at Fort Buchanan was quite proud of the program, as is evident when Toole's superior Captain Gil de LaMadrid, writes, “The English Language Program of the U.S. Army Training Center, Caribbean is the only program of its type in the worldwide scope of Army operations.” But however unique or cutting edge they made it appear, at times it was despairingly oppressive for the instructors and the students. While several instructors, including Toole, could speak Spanish, which is likely one of the reasons they were assigned to Puerto Rico, they were not permitted to use that language in the classroom, although many of them did in secret. As the
San Juan Star
article describes,
English instructors . . . do not teach English by comparing the language with Spanish . . . The use of English is so stressed in Training Company “A” that no Spanish language magazines or newspapers are available for the recruits . . . And “Think in English” signs have been conspicuously placed throughout the company buildings.
While Toole had felt elevated from Lafayette upon returning to Columbia and teaching at Hunter, he now taught in a situation that seemed far below his level, although present-day institutions would label what they were doing as teaching English as a second language, and
would carry out instruction with far more cultural sensitivity. For Toole the whole experience must have taken some painful adjustment. And perhaps that is what Emilie Griffin saw troubling him when she came to Puerto Rico in January of 1962 and spent a day with Toole. They walked on the beach, ate lunch, and visited El Morro, where the waves of the Atlantic crashed below the walls of the old colonial fortress. She recalls seeing a “dark streak” that was “persistent” and “disabling” in her friend. It was the last time she ever saw him.
Eventually Toole found some degree of pleasure in his efforts at Fort Buchanan. Despite the intellectual sterility of his duties, he thrived as a teacher in Puerto Rico, as he did everyplace else he taught. In a commendation letter to Toole, Captain Gil de La Madrid writes, “Shortly after your assignment to this unit in November 1961 as an English Instructor, I observed that you would become one of the most outstanding men ever to serve in this program. This proved to be true.” The
San Juan Star
article features a photograph of Toole in the classroom. He smiles as he paces with the gait of a lecturer, punctuating his annunciation with his baton; the students appear attentive and entertained. The caption reads, “Cpl. Toole's class is a top one at Ft. Buchanan.” Somehow, Toole made the repetition of elementary English phrases engaging and innovative. His superiors took notice. They often exhibited Toole's classroom as an exemplar of the training program.
Unhampered by the shortcomings of the immersion-style instruction, Toole remained dedicated to his classes for the first six months of 1962. In one of several of his commendations, his superior observes that Toole exhibited “sincere and personal interest in the welfare and education of the Trainees.” Toole always felt responsible for the success of his students. And occasionally he recognized the conditions from which they came and the adversity they faced. On May 22, 1962, he describes his students in a letter to his parents:
We are in the middle (almost) of a cycle now. Fortunately, my current group of recruits is as pleasant as the others were. As I perhaps wrote before, these recruits are almost all volunteers, victims of unemployment in the mountains.
But as the rainy season took hold, Toole grew discontent. The cool sea breezes stilled, heat and humidity saturated the air, and “the red clay of the island . . . turned to paste.” So, too, his classes became sluggish, and as a teacher he became tired of life on the island. On June 24 he writes home:
Of the three cycles in which I have taught, this last was the most burdensome, for the recruits were almost all very young mountaineers with very limited education and backgroundsâgenerallyâof almost abject poverty. I wonder whether they have absorbed any English; we certainly wrestled with that language six hours a day for seven weeks. After the last class, a recruit said to me of another, “El se va tan bruts como vino” (“He goes away as brutish as he came.”).
With a tinge of humor, Toole begins to question the success of his classes. A few months later, after another cycle of recruits, he expresses utter exhaustion with teaching at Fort Buchanan. “I don't feel even vaguely like launching into teaching so soon again.... At the moment I don't think I could ask a class âWhat is this?' and hear âEes a weendow!' without falling on my face. Dios Mio!” After four cycles of trainees, he had reached the end of his wits.
Fortunately, the summer months offered him a break from teaching. With the decline of incoming trainees, most of Company A, including Toole's close friend Kubach, was temporarily assigned to help prepare Salinas, a national guard training area on the southern coast. The remaining instructors taught under Company B. But having impressed his superior officers, Toole secured a clerical job within the Co. A office. Thus, he was free from the classroom, and he avoided the drudgery of clearing brush and living in tents during the summer months.
Initially, he considered himself lucky. His pursuit to excel secured him a privileged seat. He spent his days in the Company A office, performing the miscellany of office work, sometimes enjoying the luxury of cold grape juice with ice cubes. While never enduring the physical trials of Salinas, he missed the casual atmosphere of convivial evenings
drinking rum and gin under the stars. Eventually, loneliness crept into his quiet office and a sadness cast its shadow over his days.
He had time and a typewriter at his disposal, so he turned to writing his parents more frequently. They replied with dire reports from New Orleans; once again the Tooles were in financial straits. As had happened throughout his life, lack of money loomed, and Thelma confided her anxieties to her son. Penury was a consistent specter; and while never destitute, the threat of such a condition darkened Toole's demeanor.
Had he been in New Orleans, he would have helped. In Puerto Rico, he had few options. Initially, his inability to aid his parents exempted him from his typical sense of obligation. He encouraged his mother's attempts to earn extra income. On June 24 he writes, “I hope that âOperation Alert' at home is working. During the summer, I know one must be more alert to search for ways and means.” As an independent elocutionist, piano teacher, and pageant director, Thelma's work tended to slow in the summer months. The schools were out of session, and many of her clients took holidays, fleeing the heat of the city. This dearth in employment coupled with her husband's wavering car sales apparently made the summer of 1962 especially difficult. “Operation Alert” was a call for “all hands on deck.” In his absence, he offers her optimism and reassurance.
By July, the situation had worsened. With the memory of having to leave their home on Webster Street still fresh in their minds, his parents questioned the viability of staying in 390 Audubon Streetâthe apartment he had found and helped furnish. Still, Toole responds to his mother in platitudes. “Whatever its drawback, 390 is a âgood deal,'” he writes. “There's little sense in anticipating crises. âWe do the best we can.'” He offers one final consolation, “High hopes that âpeace and prosperity' exist for you during the summer,” then abruptly shifts to personal hygiene. “The Thermodent seems to have no noticeable effects, but I use it regularly and realize that it is doing good for my
dientes
.” He may have wanted to quell his mother's concerns. She could overdramatize at times. His own financial struggles had plagued him enough in New York, let alone the concerns of his parents' finances. And as an army private one thousand miles away from home, he must have felt helpless, perhaps fortunately so.
Ultimately, the desperate reports from home compelled him to take action. On July 13 Toole spoke to his mother on the phone and told her of his plan. He would claim his parents as dependents and establish an allotment, essentially garnishing his paycheck to support them. Their situation must have been so desperate that he felt the need to compensate them for the cost of the phone call during which he explained his plan:
Whatever the long distance call last night cost you I hope to make up for it if my current plans for getting an allotment go through. When I spoke to the Personnel Center last week, they explained to me that I pay monthly $40 out of my $99/mo. salary; the government puts up $70 to make a total of $110 which you receive. I also understand that the government will pay more if the conditions seem to make greater payment necessary. . . . If I understand correctly, an Army investigator will call on you for an interview of some sort. I suggest that you make the case as financially clear as possible, for you should try to receive the maximum monthly payment. The payments depend (and this is important) on individual need, living conditions in the area. In your case, make the amount of recent monthly income clear.