Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille

by James Van Pelt

  “Medusa and her two sisters. The Gorgons were misunderstood.” Her breath grew short. “It’s not too late, Allan. Embrace me now. Be with me, and we will be eternal.”

  The third temptation: a single move, and the intervening sheet would be gone. I could cover her, and my hardness would meet hers, forever. No more fleshy disappointments. No blind stumbling among the blind who didn’t recognize the world they lived in. No reading books that none understood or talked of or cared about. It could be all Lynn and stone and our glittering underground world. I could see it now: we’d become the castle walls that stand long after the defenders have left the ramparts, the darkling cave that held dragons, the tall rocks at Stonehenge, all everlasting. I could be like that too with Lynn, an unseen monument to literature and love. Might someone stumble upon us in a far future? What would they make of the lovers’ statue?

  I could choose to be immortal and unchanging, or I could stay among the flawed, the human.

  Stone crept across the side or her mouth. “Quick,” she whispered. Then an eye glazed over, and what once was liquid and living stilled. I tried to squeeze her hand, to communicate what I couldn’t say and what she couldn’t hear, now, but her hands had already gone rigid. My heart froze. I might as well have turned to stone for the little I did in Lynn’s last moments with me. At the end, her sheet crystallized. With a touch, it shattered, leaving Lynn on her bed, waiting for me to join her for all time. The empress of limestone.

  Finally, the grief drove me out of her room and out of Rock House. The front door gave way stiffly, reluctantly. Outside, a hard winter sun glared off an unbroken snow field. My eyes burned and watered. I covered them for minutes before I could look upon the sunlit world. Across the snow, trees’ bare limbs rattled in the wind. Late spring had become winter.

  I waded into the snow.

  A year later, I looked for Rock House again. Underbrush choked the trail so I made a dozen bad turns, but when I came to the clearing, there was no door. Just rough stone, cool even on a hot, summer day. I rested my face against the hard surface. The rock wall would last as long as time, as long as Rick and Lynn.

  In silence, the mountain neither praised nor condemned. It only stood, like those great immortal books that Rick and Lynn and I read late at night, night after night, intertwined on his bed. All those marvelous authors whose works became human monuments. They would survive forever. So, with my fragile flesh pressed against the unmoving stone, I couldn’t help feeling that hesitation stole my choice. My chance to last had passed.

  Behind me, the sun heated the waving grass. Trees creaked and leaves brushed against one another in an unceasing whisper. All living, living until winter came and stilled them, living until new grass and leaves and trees replaced them, temporary, fleshy and weak. Pretty in the sad way a soap bubble buoyed in the wind is pretty, catching the light until it pops.

  I trudged away from Rock House, deeper and deeper into the living land, empty of all hope.

  If you can, some time, rest your hand on a castle wall. Touch a statue. Pick up a round rock from a river and put it in your pocket.

  Only stone goes on.

  MRS. HATCHER’S EVALUATION

  Yesterday’s conversation with Principal Wahr kept Vice Principal Salas awake all night. “We need to cut the dead weight, Salas. Those teachers who aren’t on board with the new curriculum will be moved out, and I want them moved out immediately.” Wahr, a skinny man with just the barest wisps of white hair on an otherwise bald head, kept one hand on his keyboard and the other on his phone. As he talked, he studied his computer screen which Salas couldn’t see. “Hatcher’s the worst. She ignores the lesson plan template we instituted last year. She doesn’t write her objectives on the board for the students to see, and I’ve sat in her class. Lecture from the tardy bell to the dismissal bell. She’s a dinosaur. I’m adding her to your evaluations. Vice Principal Leanny has ignored Hatcher’s performance forever. We need fresh eyes on her.”

  “I haven’t heard anything bad about Hatcher,” said Salas. “She earned teacher of the year two years ago.”

  “Popular student vote. Doesn’t mean squat.” Wahr leaned forward. “Here’s how I know she needs to go. My son is going to be a freshman next year, and I don’t want him in her class. Best practice, Salas. We’re a ‘best practice’ school, and all the studies say lecture doesn’t work in social studies.” Wahr turned his attention back to the computer screen, then tapped a couple keys. “Watch her. I’ve got to eliminate a teaching position, and now that the state has removed tenure protection, she’s the best candidate. Here’s two other possibilities. You’re doing their evaluations now.” Wahr dropped file folders on the desk between them. “Evaluate and choose. Somebody’s got to go. Budget, Salas. Budget and best practice.”

  He knew Hatcher, a pleasant, older woman, tending toward fat, who looked like Salas’s grandmother. He’d never observed her teaching, though. That night, as the moon moved a tree’s shadow across his bedroom wall, Salas realized he’d have to start Hatcher’s evaluation immediately. He’d get notes from Leanny, then drop in to Hatcher’s last period American History class.

  Vice Principal Salas organized his day by piles. The tallish one on the left contained discipline action sheets for students in trouble, many for attendance issues, but also for cell phones in the classroom, smoking, drugs, insubordination, and one for a Theodore Remmick, a freshman who’d brought a small propane torch to school in his backpack. Parent contact sheets made the middle pile. He spent most days on the phone talking to parents, often about the first stack. Teacher evaluations made up the third pile. Much of the time he avoided the third pile. He’d been vice principal at Hareton High for fourteen years, and he knew all the teachers. If they weren’t sending kids for discipline (which meant they weren’t good at classroom management), then he limited his contact with them to drop in visits while they were teaching. Salas evaluated the N-Z teachers. Leanny handled the other half of the alphabet.

  Salas dreaded evaluations. Before he’d taken the vice principal job, he’d taught four P.E. classes and one Remedial Reading (his minor had been English), so he felt silly trying to evaluate the academic disciplines. He’d gone into P.E. because he liked sports and kids. He’d been an indifferent student himself.

  “Hi, Salas. What did you need?” Vice Principal Leanny leaned into his office without stepping in, her gray-rooted dark hair pulled into a ponytail. She’d started teaching French and Spanish the same year Hatcher joined the faculty, but moved into administration after ten years. With Jack Quinn’s retirement from tech ed three years ago, the two women were the longest tenured employees in the building and old friends.

  “What can you tell me about Mrs. Hatcher?”

  Leanny grimaced. “Wahr’s after her, isn’t he? It’s not the first time. Best teacher we have. I don’t know why Wahr wants to mix up the evaluations. I’ve been giving her exemplaries as long as I can remember.”

  “No one gets exemplaries!” Wahr had directed them not to give teachers the highest rating. He had said, “Everyone can get better. Besides, if we give a teacher the highest rating, it’s hard to fire him.”

  “I know. Wahr has a fit.”

  Salas said, “I heard she ignores the curriculum and just lectures. That doesn’t sound good.”

  “You haven’t observed her, have you? Don’t do a drive by. Give her a half hour.”

  “Can you send me your notes on her for this year? I need to get up to speed.”

  “Sure. Check your e-mail later.” Leanny rubbed her forehead, as if she had a headache. “Theodore Remmick is waiting outside. Is he for you? His family lives on my street. They’re a piece of work.”

  Salas sighed. “Yeah, send him in.”

  “By the way, I heard you’re Wahr’s hit man now.”

  “What?” He glanced guiltily at the folders the principal had given him.

  “Wahr hands that duty off. He’s never fired anyone. The last time the school lost teac
hers, he gave it to the head counselor. Sorry it’s you. The counselor quit the next year. He worried he’d be asked to do it again.”

  Salas shrugged. “What are you going to do? Send Remmick in, would you?”

  Theodore Remmick has to be the smallest boy in the freshman class, thought Salas. The boy’s feet hovered above the floor as he sat in the chair by the round table where Salas talked to the discipline problems. Remmick’s nose was narrow, and his hair hung over his eyes as he looked down.

  “Why a propane torch?” said Salas. “What were you going to do with it?”

  Remmick said, “Did you know a cow didn’t kick over a lantern in the O’Leary’s barn to start the Chicago fire in 1871? Some newspaper guy invented the story to sell papers.” Remmick smiled without looking up. “Like a fire that killed 300 people needed a fabrication to be more interesting.”

  Salas paused. Sometimes a kid would deny the accusation. Sometimes he rationalized or defended, or he wouldn’t speak at all. Talking nonsense introduced a new tactic.

  “You know, a propane torch is a safety issue.”

  “The fire burned so hot the roofs blocks away caught fire before the flames reached them. The fire jumped the Chicago River. That’s a big river. And it kept going. Started on Sunday morning and didn’t stop until Monday evening when the wind died and it rained.”

  “What does this have to do with a propane torch? Were you going to burn something?”

  Remmick brushed the hair off his forehead. His eyes were brown and clear. “From Lake Michigan’s shore, the sky above the city turned orange. Thousands of people fled to the lake. I saw flame tornadoes rising through the smoke, and it roared like a train.” He closed his eyes as if feeling heat on his face.

  “Son, why’d you bring a propane torch to school?” Salas put the torch on his desk. It was tiny, a hobbiest’s tool, not much larger than a cigarette lighter.

  “Project for class. Can I go now? I’m missing band.” He squirmed in his seat.

  Salas looked at the boy thoughtfully. “They don’t have torches in the shop?”

  “I’m not in shop. History. It’s a group assignment. I volunteered it.”

  The discipline guide for the district didn’t list a propane torch in any category, so Salas decided to lump it under “item inappropriate for a school setting” on the action sheet. “A week lunch detention, and any project in the future that involves flame or explosions, assume you can’t do it.”

  Remmick hopped from the chair, and then offered Salas his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Salas. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  When the boy left, Salas shook his head. I could write a book, he thought for the umpteenth time in his education career.

  The History department head, Mr. Young, really was young. The wall posters still hadn’t yellowed, and he flinched when he saw Salas at the door: a classic, inexperienced reaction. He had become the department head by arriving late at the meeting last spring, when the history teachers voted on who would attend the extra meetings and take charge of the departmental paperwork.

  “According to the district pacing guidelines, the American History classes should be looking at the causes of WWI. If she’s only to 1871, she’s almost a half century behind.” Young ran his finger down the teaching objectives for the class. “They should know mutual defense alliances, nationalism, militarism and imperialism, and from the unit they will be able to discuss America’s emergence as a military and industrial power. They only get a week. We have to be to the Cold War by April’s end or the first week in May.” He thumbed open a section in the notebook. “We have two required benchmarks for the unit: a multiple choice test and a short essay question. I have the rubric for the essay if you’d like to see it.”

  Salas tried to look interested. He remembered being 15 himself and his own tour through American History. He recalled biplanes from WWI, but nothing else, which made him think about Snoopy vs. the Red Baron. Of the classes he’d hated, history bored him the most. If it weren’t for sports eligibility, he’d never be motivated to pass.

  Salas almost asked Young what he thought of Mrs. Hatcher, but he didn’t want to start rumors.

  From the back, Hatcher’s classroom looked like most social studies rooms. She’d covered one wall in maps. Presidents and historical scenes covered the other wall. A long whiteboard stretched across the front. Book-filled cabinets stood behind him. He smelled dry erase markers and carpet cleaner as he leveraged himself into a student desk the right size for a 6th grader, maybe, but not comfortable for an adult.

  Mrs. Hatcher stood beside her desk at the front, straightening papers—she’d waved when he walked in. Salas filled in the preliminary observations on the evaluation check list. Although Hatcher did have writing on her white board, Salas didn’t understand it. In one column were names: “DeKoven, Meagher, Catherine, Barber.” Then some presidents: “Harrison, Jackson, Adams, Monroe” Then some states: “Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Ontario.” Salas was pretty sure Ontario was in Canada. She’d written one sentence on the board: “It ends at Fullerton Ave.”

  What Hatcher had not written were the class learning targets, which were required. Somewhere she should have posted what teaching standards the students were addressing for the day, and what they should be expected to do when the lesson ended. Salas had the WWI standards Young had given him, including, “I will be able to explain why America became involved in the First World War.”

  Students trickled into the room, taking desks around Salas. Theodore Remmick came in, nodded in Salas’s direction, then found his place. A dark-haired girl who clearly didn’t know the dress code, dressed showing too much skin, sat in the desk in front of him. “You look pretty mature to be a freshman,” she said.

  “Just a visit,” said Salas.

  The tardy bell rang. Salas waited for tardy students so he could record Hatcher’s procedure with them, but students filled all the desks, and there were no tardies. Conversation buzzed in the room.

  Hatcher started speaking without asking for the students to quit talking. Salas gave her a low mark in the “Commands student attention before beginning instruction” category.

  “We’ve moved the Chicago Fire project to Saturday.” By the time she said “Saturday,” the room had grown quiet. “Can somebody bring a big box fan? I’ll provide the extension cord.”

  A boy sitting underneath the covered wagons poster raised his hand.

  “Thank you, Sean. Remember it’s at 10:00 in the back parking lot.” She stepped behind her podium. “We’re going to jump four years to 1876 today and talk about the Battle of the Greasy Grass, which some might recognize as the Indian name for the battle better known as Custer’s Last Stand.”

  Salas flicked through the required social studies scope and sequence guide for American History. He couldn’t find the Chicago Fire, and the class should have covered Custer’s Last Stand a month earlier, and only in passing. The district’s guidelines emphasized teaching the industrial revolution into the 1870s, and to be “cautious” in discussing “controversial” topics, which included the “resettlement of indigenous natives.”

  “Five years after Chicago’s devastating fire, the city was rebuilding and recovering to become one of America’s busiest commerce centers. Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away, in the Montana wilds, General George Armstrong Custer led the 7th Calvary in an attempt to return Cheyenne and Lakota Indians to their reservations.”

  Most students were not taking notes, and although they weren’t talking, they didn’t seem to be paying attention to Hatcher, either. Her soft, almost melodious voice lulled him, and within a few minutes, he lost track. The dress code violation slumped into her desk so her shoulders lowered to the chair’s top. He wrote a comment on the evaluation sheet, “Straightforward lecture. No attempt to engage students’ attention.” He also noted she hadn’t given the students a task, like taking notes, nor had she handed out any aids to guide their thinking, like a graphical organizer or an outline template.
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  Hatcher droned on and on. Salas looked up at the clock. Only ten minutes into the class. He thought about leaving and then returning to watch what she did in the last five minutes, but the room’s warmth relaxed him. Several students had closed their eyes. Besides, the waiting papers in his office weren’t going anywhere.

  His thoughts drifted to what he knew about The Battle of the Little Big Horn: almost nothing. He’d seen a movie with Dustin Hoffman in it years before, Little Big Man, that had the battle in it.

  Hatcher’s voice rose and fell in the background, like a breeze. Salas listened, and he found himself imagining the sun setting behind the low Montana hills. He pictured sitting on a horse blanket, back from the cooking fire. It had been too hot during the day for him to want to sit closer. He leaned against his bedding, his mind drifting. They’d been told not to set up tents, which meant they’d do a night march, another long, stumbling trek in the dark, walking from one desolate spot to the next.

  Salas twitched, then looked around the room. Had any students noticed he’d almost gone to sleep? None appeared to be looking at him, though. Some were in the exaggerated slump mode like the girl sitting in front of him. A couple rested their heads on their arms. Some propped their elbows on their desks and cupped their chins.

  Still, Hatcher continued talking. “Single-shot Springfield carbines jammed when overheated,” she said, and then went on to horses used as breastworks. Twenty minutes passed. Salas closed his eyes. The pencil in his hand grew heavy, reminding him of a gun stock, how it would feel, its solidity. He propped the gun across his knees, sitting on the ground. In the distance, gunfire, the heavy pop of Springfields filled the afternoon air. Custer’s forces, he thought. Custer would drive the enemy back and join them. There were so many hostiles! Even their women were in the battle, waving blankets, scaring the horses away. Did Reno and Benteen know what they were doing?