Substitute

by Nicholson Baker

  “Widow’s peak!” said Mr. Nelson. “Who knows what a widow’s peak is? If you pull your hair back, if you have a point, that’s a widow’s peak.” Slowly he verified three widow’s peaks. Brooke wrote a three on the board.

  “Long eyelashes!” said Mr. Nelson. He counted; Brooke recorded. Three.

  “Dimples!” said Mr. Nelson.

  Brooke said, “Everybody smile right now! One, two, three, you’ve got one. Dylan, smile at me! No dimples.” Dylan was, of course, devastatingly handsome.

  Ginny, in braids, appeared in the door, apologizing for being late.

  “Can you roll your tongue?” asked Brooke. “Are your knuckles hairy?”

  The girl looked at her knuckles. “A little hairy, yes,” she said.

  Did she have long eyelashes?

  “Yes, I do!” said Ginny. “I think I do.”

  Mr. Nelson inhaled and, glancing at the worksheet, said, “CLEFT CHIN.”

  “What the heck is that?” said Cole.

  “Some people call it ‘butt chin,’” Mr. Nelson explained.

  We counted earlobes, whether attached or pendulous, and lips, thick or thin. Brooke pointed toward Drew. “You’ve got thick lips.” She pointed toward Mason, who was one of perhaps four black or mixed-race kids in the high school. “You have thick lips,” she said. Then she looked at her friend Polly. “You’ve definitely got big lips—I think we know why.”

  “Who’s got regular lips?” Mr. Nelson said. “I see one, maybe two thick lips.”

  “What are we doing?” asked Riley suddenly. He’d been doing sneaky things on his iPad.

  “I see seven,” said Brooke.

  “I don’t think it’s as common as you think it is,” said Mr. Nelson.

  “Fine,” said Brooke. “I’ll put two.”

  How many people had hitchhiker’s thumb? How many had color-blindness? How many could wiggle their ears?

  Jasmine could wiggle her ears, said Brooke. Jasmine, who was shy, held up her palm: No, thank you.

  “I’ve seen her do it,” said Cayley.

  “We can vouch,” said Brooke.

  “Okay, GEOGRAPHIC TONGUE,” said Mr. Nelson. Here the class took a wrong turn. The worksheet defined geographic tongue as “the ability to flip over the end of your tongue.” In fact, geographic tongue is a state of affairs in which one’s tongue develops darker rounded patches on its surface; it has nothing to do with tongue movements. Mr. Nelson, having done some misguided Internet research, projected a screenload of Google images of severe and shocking cases of geographic tongue, intermingled with half a dozen other horrendous oral conditions. He tapped one of the images on the screen. “Kind of looks like thrush, almost,” he said, as the class gagged and gasped.

  “That’s hot,” said Paige.

  Mr. Nelson asked the students to stick out their tongues to see if anyone had mottled red patches.

  “This is gross,” said Cole.

  “It is gross,” Mr. Nelson agreed. “Anybody that has that, or even thinks they have it?”

  Cole stuck out his tongue.

  “That’s hotter,” said Paige.

  “So no one has one of those gross tongues?” Brooke asked.

  “There was more than one like that in the last class,” Mr. Nelson said.

  “Ew,” said Cayley. “There are people like that walking around?”

  Brooke, who had teacherly instincts, wanted to move things along. She got us through “claw toe,” which included a discussion of foot binding. “All righty, then!” she said, imitating Ms. Accardo. “We didn’t do hairy elbows.”

  “Who’s got hairy elbows?” said Mr. Nelson. “Anybody?”

  “What the heck?” said Cole.

  Ginny inspected her elbow. “I’ve got this one hair,” she said. “Does that count?”

  Mr. Nelson felt that one hair did count. “I don’t think it has to be a lot,” he said. “We probably don’t have any bushy elbows.” He giggled to himself.

  “How about you, Dylan?” asked Brooke, with a playful smile.

  Dylan shook his head.

  “Are you sure?” said Brooke.

  Paige leaned toward Dylan’s elbow and studied it. “There’s like three hairs.”

  “That counts,” said Mr. Nelson.

  “I knew it,” said Brooke. “He’s just a hairy person.”

  Mr. Nelson began laboriously finding percentages.

  “WHO is making noises?” said Paige. She held her hands over her ears. “Fricking Riley, he does this thing on his iPad where it vibrates at a frequency that only certain people can hear, and it gives you like the worst headache EVER. He’s been doing it for the past three blocks of class, because he thinks it’s hilarious. Everybody’s like, Ow.”

  Mr. Nelson was lost in his arithmetic at the chalkboard. I read Drew’s IEP sheet, which claimed that he had “emotional disturbances.” I hadn’t noticed any. Drew was an easygoing, likeable kid with dyslexia, who sometimes got fed up with his schoolwork.

  Finally Mr. Nelson stood back from the board. “All right, so there’s your result. It goes on the back page, guys.”

  Riley played the high-pitched iPad sound again, using an app called Sound Grenade. “Ow, stop!” said Paige.

  “I’m not doing it!” said Riley.

  “Yes you are.”

  Cayley said, “So, Riley, I told everyone in this class that you are a transgender cross-dresser. You’re welcome.”

  Mr. Nelson said, “It looks like tongue-rolling is the majority.”

  A louder, lower-frequency squeak came from Riley’s iPad.

  “I’m going to have to fight someone,” said Paige, getting up.

  Cayley, Cole, and Paige began wrestling with Riley over his iPad.

  “Ow—bitch!” said Riley. Lots of laughter from the girls.

  “GUYS,” said Mr. Nelson. “Guys, can you listen up, please.”

  The scuffling subsided.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Nelson.

  “Go away!” said Riley to Cole. “Stop posting your problems on Facebook! He’s posting his ex-girlfriends. He’s got a lot of them.”

  That reminded Paige of something a boy named Zane had done. “He was like, I don’t have any ex-girlfriends. I was like, How is that possible? He’s like, I kill them off after I’m done. I was FREAKED OUT. I was like, Get away from me. I don’t want you near me.” She looked across the room. “Ralph, stop hitting yourself.”

  More laughter. “You’re such a dick.”

  “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

  “Guys? ALL RIGHT, GUYS, LISTEN UP. The typical Mainer is going to be a tongue-rolling, short-eyebrowed, bald-elbowed, hairy-knuckled, straight-chinned, dimpled person. Lobe-eared, thin-lipped, non-hitchhiker’s-thumb, right-handed, non-ear-wiggling, smooth-tongued, and—uh—normal-toed.”

  “So we just write all of that for number one?” asked Brooke.

  “Look at your data,” Mr. Nelson said. “If the whole population breeded, and if you did a sample of the children, most of the population would have or not have the traits on here, statistically. Does that make sense?”

  I showed Drew where to copy Mr. Nelson’s statistical chart on the worksheet, so he could get credit.

  “Bald eyebrows,” murmured Ginny.

  “What?” said Dylan.

  “BARE-HAIRED KNUCKLES,” sang Ralph, in a Bon Jovi falsetto.

  The drumsticks came out again and began tapping out triplets.

  Mr. Nelson read the last question on the worksheet: “Do you think that if you moved to, let’s say Mongolia, the same percentage of people would be tongue rollers? Explain why/why not.”

  “Yes—or—no,” said Ginny.

  “We don’t know anything about Mongolia,” said Mr. Nelson.

  “I was going to sa
y because they speak a different language,” said Ginny.

  “It’s a different gene pool,” said Brooke.

  “I think this is somehow related to languages where people roll their r’s a lot,” said Mr. Nelson. “Like the French, maybe. I think it’s a French trait.”

  “I am French, hundred percent, both sides,” said Cayley.

  “We don’t really know anything about Mongolians,” said Mr. Nelson.

  “Hairy-knuckle syndrome!” shouted Ginny, and laughed.

  “That’s hot,” said Paige.

  “The Eastern cultures, they tend to have hair in the ears,” said Mr. Nelson.

  Peals of melodious laughter from the girls. “Oh my goodness,” said Cayley. “My whole day was like this. Riley, is it raining?”

  “It’s melting out,” said Riley.

  “It better be.”

  Aiden got up and walked toward the door. He’d had it.

  “Aiden, you’re not done!” said Brooke.

  “I am, actually,” said Aiden.

  “Are you guys writing the numbers down?” said Mr. Nelson.

  I went over to the two drummers. “That’s driving me insane,” I said. “Is it driving you insane?”

  “Not at all,” said Ralph.

  “Guys, back to your seats!” said Mr. Nelson. “You’re not done yet. Listen up! I’m trying to give you the information you need. BACK TO YOUR SEATS.”

  The PA system came on. “Excuse the interruption! Nina Deloitte to the main office, please. Nina Deloitte to the main office.”

  Paige started putting up the chairs. “I’m done,” she said with finality.

  Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. First wave.

  “THIS IS YOUR DATA,” called out Mr. Nelson.

  Half the students trundled out. I said goodbye to Drew.

  “You were talking mad shit and she just like punched me in the face!” said Riley, as he left.

  Mr. Nelson erased the board. He sat at his desk with his hands folded, waiting for the second wave to leave.

  “Do you only do science?” I asked him.

  “No, I’m all over,” said Mr. Nelson. “Yesterday I was doing testing. Tuesday and Wednesday was the middle school, in the resource room. And then Monday, Freshman English.” At night he was on call as an ambulance driver.

  The bell bonged and the second-wave students trouped out. Jasmine said, “Bye, thank you,” to Mr. Nelson. He and I walked to the office together and turned in our badges and said good night.

  I walked to the car and turned the key. Antebellum reform, suicide, Hitler Youth, more antebellum reform, and amateur genetics, all in six and a half hours. “What the fuck,” I said.

  Day Eight, finito.

  DAY NINE. Tuesday, April 1, 2014

  LASSWELL MIDDLE SCHOOL, EIGHTH GRADE

  I CAN WRITE, BUT I DON’T WRITE

  IT WAS APRIL FOOL’S DAY at Lasswell Middle School. “You’re Mr. Monette today, all day,” said the secretary, Elaine. Mr. Monette’s room was in Team Ganges, and he taught eighth-graders language arts. At the lockers outside room 83, Wyatt, with an orange Superman logo on his shirt, saw me and froze. “Wait, are you subbing for Mr. Monette?”

  I said I was.

  “Yessss!” He pumped his fists and did a little dance with his friend, who was wearing a cape: No real work for them today.

  I found the staff bathroom and blew my nose and tried to wake up.

  “Students are working on a unit on Conflict in short stories,” Mr. Monette’s sub plans said. “Their rough drafts should be completed today and their final drafts are due tomorrow.” I cleared some space on the desk and poured some coffee from a thermos. Prentice sat down near me and stared into space. “How are you doing?” I asked. “Did you get enough sleep?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Me neither.” It was homeroom, so I didn’t have to teach anything.

  “Hey, Mr. Whatsyourname!” said Bethany, dressed as Wonder Woman.

  A teacher came by. “It’s Superhero Day,” she explained. “Some of them have chosen to dress up, so that will create a stir.”

  “Sean, that’s quite the outfit!” said Bethany.

  “My sister’s annoying,” said Felicity, who was also dressed as Wonder Woman. “She’s like, ‘I’m cute, I’m real cute!’ I’m like, ‘Shut up, you’re retarded.’”

  “Don’t tell her those words,” said Bethany.

  Felicity said, “She’s like, ‘Well, you’re retarded, too.’”

  Marielle sat down. “What’s your name, Mr.—?”

  “Baker. So it’s Superhero Day?”

  “Yes, it’s Spirit Week,” said Marielle. “We raise money. Right now we’re raising money for a school in Cameroon.”

  I asked how the superhero outfits related to that.

  “We have to bring in a dollar if we want to wear an outfit.” Marielle rubbed her finger. “I burned myself.”

  “Toaster accident?” I said.

  “No, ironing,” said Marielle.

  The PA lady came on. “Good morning, if you could please rise and say with me the Pledge of Allegiance.” We rose; we said it. The lunch menu was hot buffalo-wing wrap-it-ups with shredded cheese, brown rice pilaf, romaine and tomato mix, carrot coins, chilled apple juice, and milk choices. Milk choices, there were always milk choices. She read the names of the artists of the week. “And here’s another list, of students who will receive a super student award, due to their considerate and kind behavior to others.” There were three boys and four girls. “Congratulations to these students,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be excellent to hear your name read on this announcement, too?” Then the president of the student council made an announcement. “Good morning, LMS!” he said. “Today is Superhero Day. I’m excited to see all the costumes people brought in to wear.” He described the private school in Cameroon that was the recipient of superhero money. “There are a hundred and forty students in the school,” he said. “The students get two meals a day, plus their education.” The money raised by middle schoolers would pay for a storage tank for clean water, he said. “There is no running water at the school. Students have to carry water down the street in buckets.”

  The first-block students filled the room, and there were a lot of them. “I remember you from science,” said John. I wrote my name on the board and waved my arms and shouted and got the class to look up. “I guess you’re thinking about conflict today? Conflict in short stories?”

  A quiet girl nodded; her name was Bailey.

  I said I didn’t understand what conflict was, and why we needed to look for it.

  “I don’t understand it either,” said Bailey. She had a photocopy of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” on her desk.

  I said, “SO BAILEY’S READING ‘THE TELL-TALE HEART,’ which is about the scary heart that’s beating and all that. What’s the conflict?”

  Shelby raised his hand. “He chopped him up.”

  “That’s something that happened,” I said.

  “It’s person versus person,” said Aaron.

  “I see, it’s a fight,” I said.

  Melissa raised her hand. “It was person versus self.”

  “That’s what they say, right, it’s person versus self,” I said. “I guess you’re right.”

  The class went back to talking. I looked down at the sub plans. I had nothing to offer them. Somebody started noisily sharpening a pencil.

  I raised my voice to Mr. Boxer levels. “HOW MANY PEOPLE have actually read the story that you’re supposed to read?”

  Lots of hands went up.

  “So you’re supposed to write a rough draft of an essay about internal and external conflict. Why do you think they came up with this word that somehow sums up all short stories? Why wouldn’t it be that a short story is about what is beautiful and
interesting in life?”

  The class went quiet. Payson said, “Because there’d be no fun in that?”

  I said, “Something has to go wrong?”

  Payson nodded. “Something always has to go wrong in order for something else to go right.”

  I asked people to say what other stories they’d read.

  “‘The Sniper,’” said Harley. “It’s about a guy who’s on a mission. He had to shoot this old lady, and afterwards there was another sniper on another roof that shot him in the arm. And then he went down and realized it was his brother.”

  “Do NOT give away the ending, Harley!” said Tamara.

  The conflict was easy to spot in that one, I said, because the people in it actually have guns. “How often in real life do people actually shoot each other?”

  “Every day,” said Katylynn.

  “Every day somewhere in the world,” I said. “But in your own immediate experience, in Maine.”

  Victor, who was small and freckled, said, “People shoot theirselves every day in Maine.”

  “That’s sad,” said Shelby, making a fake crying face.

  “Shut up,” said Victor.

  “It matters what you’re talking about,” said Christopher. “I could shoot Rodney right now, in the face, with a paintball gun. It can hurt him. And maybe I want him to be hurt.”

  “Do you play paintball together?”

  “No, I’m just saying if I shot him in the face, which I really want to do right now—”

  “Don’t shoot me in the face!” said Rodney.

  “Let me ask you this,” I said. “Guys, when you woke up this morning, what was the conflict in your life?”

  “Going to school?” said Melissa, who was wearing a pink headband that morning.

  The wall phone rang. I answered. The secretary asked if I’d taken attendance in homeroom. I said I’d forgotten to take it. She said not to worry. I said goodbye and hung up.

  “Shut up, Chris,” said Rodney.

  I said, “When you realized you had to get up and go to school, what was your feeling inside?”

  “Tired,” said Melissa. “And I was disappointed. Pretty much. I hate going to school.”