A Poetics for Bullies by Stanley Elkin

First published: 1965

Type of plot: Parody

Time of work: The twentieth century

Locale: Unspecified

Principal Characters:

• Push, the narrator, a bully
• Eugene Kraft, one of his victims, a boy with a glandular disorder
• John Williams, a new boy in the neighborhood
• Mimmer, ,
• Slud, ,
• Clob, and
• Frank, several of Push's victims

The Story

The narrator, a brash schoolboy who calls himself "Push the bully," reveals whom he hates ("new kids and sissies, dumb kids and smart, rich kids, poor kids, kids who wear glasses, talk funny, show off") and what he likes, such as the specific ways he torments his victims. One day the obsequious Eugene Kraft, who suffers from a glandular disorder that makes him drool, comes to tell Push about a new boy in the neighborhood. Push has bullied Kraft into continually drinking water, and now forces him to swallow directly from the kitchen faucet. When Kraft meekly complains that the water is hot, Push assures him, with specious logic, that hot water evaporates better. After he makes Kraft gulp and stammer through his report, Push goes to confront the new boy, John Williams, whom Kraft characterizes as a kid-and-a-half.

In contrast to Push and the other local boys—Kraft, Mimmer, Slud, Clob, and Frank—John Williams does not suffer any physical, intellectual, or moral disability. Worldly, educated, self-confident, charitable, handsome, and athletic, he possesses no visible defects, seeming, in name as well as nature, to belong to a higher social order. Unlike the others, he is immune to Push's bullying.

Capable only of understanding the world as a place of imperfections, in which defect confers identity, Push is helpless to grasp the possibility of a flawless person. At Williams's home, Push's agitated efforts at bullying are easily negated by Williams's litany of care and concern for a man who is in pain, an old woman, a worried husband, and a wife in despair. Empathy and concern are foreign to Push; he winces and accuses Williams of being a lover and a bully.

During the days that follow, Push watches helplessly as Williams takes root at school, earning the admiration of his new classmates as well as the teachers and administrators. To the boys Push has bullied, Williams becomes a hero. He patiently reviews lessons with Mimmer, the "dummy"; he visits the gym with Slud, the "cripple"; he has Frank push aside the rich desserts that make him obese; and he teaches the physically repulsive Clob that true beauty comes from within. Even Kraft, whose glandular disorder seems beyond help, seems happier in Williams's company. In their love for the hero, their fear of Push is forgotten, and he, marginalized and baffled, remarks that he can understand people's hatred and grievance, but not their love or contentment.

The pivotal indignity occurs when Williams approaches Push at home, inviting him to talk. When he tells Push that he thinks he can make him happier, the bully becomes enraged at being treated like a victim. Although certain that he will lose, Push reasons that drawing Williams into a fistfight will demonstrate to the others that Williams does not have perfect knowledge or perfect charity: He will lose his aura of infallibility.

When Push strikes him, Williams quickly strikes back with unexpected zeal, and then strikes once again. Dazed, Push loses touch with the reason for his attack. On the ground, he cringes before Williams's next righteous blow, knowing only that he does not wish to be hurt. Instead of punishing the subdued Push, Williams charitably offers him his hand in friendship. Lonely and physically hurt, Push feels the need for such friendship. He is encouraged to shake Williams's hand by the other boys, Push's former victims, whose afflictions Williams has tended and whose self-esteem he has worked hard to elevate.

On the verge of joining the crowd, Push jerks back. Suppressing his own need for companionship, he vows that John Williams will never have him and realizes suddenly that it is this, his own crude independence, that constitutes Williams's lone defect. In a world once again free of perfection, Push is again Push the bully. He turns and excoriates the newfound happiness of the others. He contemptuously informs them that they will never be free of their infirmities; they are what they are: "Slud may dance and Clob may kiss but they'll never be good at it. . . . Will Mimmer do sums in his head? How do you like your lousy hunger, thin boy?" Kraft, crumbling under Push's derision, cries for someone to silence him and finally rushes at Push himself.

Despite his firm belief in the "bully's poetics," which are predicated on the nonexistence of magic, Push summons up what he calls "real magic at last: the cabala of my hate, of my irreconcilableness." He not only repels Kraft with a word but also curses him, paradoxically curing him. He causes Kraft's saliva to dry up, amazing everyone, even John Williams. They gather around the dry-mouthed and choking Kraft. Having momentarily longed for their acceptance, Push now declares, "I can't stand them near me. I move against them. I shove them away. I force them off. I press them, thrust them aside. I push through."

Bibliography

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Dougherty, David C. Stanley Elkin. Boston: Twayne, 1990.

Gass, William. Afterword to The Franchiser, by Stanley Elkin. Boston: David Godine, 1980.

MacCaffery, Larry. "Stanley Elkin's Recovery of the Ordinary." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 21, no. 2 (1978): 39-51.

Pughe, Thomas. Comic Sense: Reading Robert Coover, Stanley Elkin, Philip Roth. Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1994.

Salzman, Arthur, ed. Review of Contemporary Fiction 15, no. 2 (1995). Special Stanley Elkin issue.