The Cult of Cal

In “Teenage Wasteland” I was struck by the power that Cal had at his fingertips over both the children he was tutoring and their parents. His influence over the kids and his manipulation of the parents brings back vague memories of the descriptions of those cult leaders who claimed to be the Messiah. Short of the mass suicides his tutoring business fits the bill to a T. Cal is described as having a handlebar mustache, hair “as long and stringy as Donny’s,” faded jeans, and not old enough to be a family man. This description brings to my mind a man in his late twenties or early thirties who never really grew out of his college years. He is also learned in psychology and is probably well versed in psychoanalysis. His ability to relate to the teenagers with his attitude and at the same time to psychoanalyze them and their parents is what makes him so influential on everyone he tutors. He is seemingly able to perceive a weakness or insecurity in a person and exploit it, especially with Daisy.

When he first meets Donny and Daisy he gets into Donny’s good graces by being markedly less of an adult and more of a “cool” older guy. He makes Donny call him by his nickname and not his full name, like a teacher or other authority figure would, as well as making a point to sound as though Donny’s problems were the school’s fault. He also makes a big deal out of the fact that he may call of the tutoring sessions of his own volition. To a rebellious teenage kid like Donny this approach would be very appealing after the strict teachers he encounters at his school everyday. It is our first time meeting Cal as the reader and yet we can’t help but feel that there is something a little off about him from the start. In retrospect he seems more like one of those older parents or teachers who tries to be “hip” and “with it” while falling flat on their faces after making a fool of themselves. However Cal succeeds in his attempts and gains Donny’s trust and eventually becomes more of a parental influence to Donny than his own parents.

With the parents he takes a different tact by slowly breaking down their control on their child and breaks down their confidence. In Daisy’s case he hones in on the fact that she is extremely self-conscious and takes a huge stake in Donny’s education because of her former position as a teacher. From the first meeting we see Cal systematically breaking down her control over Donny. He tells her to let him make decisions on his own and eventually Cal even takes over talking to Donny’s teachers for her. Daisy takes this as a tutoring technique but personally I feel that it is just a tactic to get her out of the picture. She has absolutely no way of knowing if he has work or if he is getting bad grades. Cal affectively becomes Donny’s father, but in doing so he dooms Donny to expulsion and his later disappearance and most likely an untimely death.

Not until it is too late does Daisy realize what he is doing and by the time she figures it all out she can’t do anything to fix it. Donny is a devout follower of Cal and he even goes to him first when he gets expelled from school, leaving a worried Daisy believing the worst. I can not figure what Cal’s intent was in his control of Donny and the other kids and it is never really clear if he has anything to do with Donny’s expulsion or disappearance. Only in the end do we find out that Cal has had as many failed students as successful ones and that many upset parents have withdrawn their children from his care. After Donny is removed from Cal’s care we stop hearing about him. But at the end when Daisy sees the bone-white stripes of sunlight in Cal’s yard she seems so be insinuating that she thinks he is to blame in some way or another. As a reader I have to agree that Cal is almost completely to blame and that he may be more involved in the disappearance than we know. (722)