A Hole in Juan

by Gillian Roberts

  I’d call the police later, and they would politely sneer. “Something bad,” “sodium,” “um-hm . . .” And they’d already know about the sodium because I assumed they took samples of the glop on the floor.

  It seemed best to stick to today’s plan for as long as I could and that, of course, was to foment a revolution.

  I didn’t have to rouse any eleventh grade rabbles. Cheryl Stevens was their classmate. They knew about her problems and the solution she’d chosen without my saying a word. She’d told enough of them (which may have meant only one), and now they were all enraged.

  “It was a good poem,” a chubby girl named Ginger said. “It made me feel sad and it made me think.”

  Of course, that was its crime in Havermeyer’s eyes.

  All I had to do was give them a forum for their indignation and outrage. I murmured that their sentiments were shared by the seniors, and I mentioned the notice about the Antigone Brigade. But they knew about the brigade already, so my actions hardly constituted authentic agitation. If they wound up in a kerfuffle, it would pretty much be because they’d arrived in one.

  It was fun, moving from class to class, building on the rumors that had crisscrossed the school. Perhaps I had invented a new occupation: inside agitator. Cheryl Stevens became a rallying cry, a promise. All I had to do was prey—or, more politely, build—on their innate disdain for whatever adults had done, to set their adolescent energy free and watch it be ignited by righteous indignation.

  No wonder so many of the world’s most appalling revolutionaries were practically children. They’re ready and eager for almost anything—as long as it doesn’t smack of being a part of the established norm, and in this case, the curriculum.

  It was almost too easy to get them going, and only now and then did I wonder if all boneheaded rabble-rousers were as convinced of their rightness as I was. I’d seen tragedy defined as the deadly clash of “right and right.” I pushed that idea away. How can you think of yourself as radical if you’re basing your argument on the Constitution of your country?

  At lunch, Louis Applegate made it a point to sit as far from me as possible—not that I minded in the least—and to avoid all eye contact. Fine with me. I tried to psych out the rest of the faculty, to see if I was a demon in their eyes, too, but I couldn’t get a feel for it. What I thought I sensed was fear. They knew about Cheryl, and I didn’t want to believe they thought the treatment of her “infraction” was correct. But jobs were few and far between, and boat rocking was frightening. Their polite table talk was forced and stilted.

  I felt as if weights had been put on my head. Not that our situation here was world shaking, but it was, on a small scale, a good example of how repression takes over. With jobs and security at stake, who speaks up?

  The silence also gave me a moment’s pause about what I was doing, but turning back didn’t feel possible. I didn’t know what would happen when the axe actually fell, but having decided to put my neck in position for the executioner, I wasn’t about to move it. However, I didn’t want to sit and feel the chill any longer than was necessary, so I ate quickly and excused myself to take a short walk. The air would help clear my head.

  I didn’t make it past the office. Harriet swooped out and grabbed the corner of my sweater, saying, “Look! Here she is!”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “You! Here you are—I recognized the blue sweater and guess what? Mrs. Wilson’s here—she just popped in and wants to see you.”

  “Now? I was going for a walk.” By this point, the solid and intent Mrs. Wilson faced me, nodding.

  “Thought I’d have more time today,” she said in a rapid clip, “but things piled up. I was on my lunch hour and realized this was it—now or never—so here I am. Let’s talk.”

  No wonder her son was so good at sports. He’d have had to learn to run fast to avoid this human dynamo. Not a syllable asking if this was a good time for me.

  I tried again. “I was just going outside for some fresh—”

  “Good. We’ll walk together. Too many students here anyway and this is sensitive.”

  I was feeling fairly sensitive myself, but with Harriet rolling her eyes in the background, I meekly accompanied Wilson’s mother out the front door. I wasn’t sure my blue sweater was warm enough but the woman would not have tolerated indecision, so I walked out, shivering in the brisk air.

  “Mrs. Wilson, I’m sorry, but I don’t have much time before—”

  She held her hand up before I had finished the sentence. “Serenity.” She walked briskly, as if we had to reach a goal before my time ran out.

  I thought “Serenity” was a password, a goal, an aspiration, and I didn’t know how to respond and wound up stammering. “I—I—Mrs. Wilson, I—”

  “Call me Serenity.”

  How disappointed her parents must have been with their optimistically, but wrongly named child.

  “First name, no formality,” she snapped. “I’m asking a favor.” She didn’t bother to slow her pace, or look my way as she barked out her sentences.

  I wondered what constituted a favor for her. She seemed the type to take what she wanted, or beat it into submission. I walked as quickly as I could, and waited for the next move.

  “It’s Donald.”

  Again, I missed a mental beat because nobody called him that. A few people called him Donny, but Wilson was the almost-universal name used.

  “Donald must be transferred to another English section and I want to know whether that will hurt his grades.”

  “Wait! What? We don’t have that many sections. His entire schedule would be . . . Why?”

  “His future is jeopardized.”

  “By my English class?” It is difficult demonstrating righteous indignation while running to keep up with somebody. I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and make her turn and notice my insulted expression.

  “Not your class,” she said, still looking and marching straight ahead. “Not your fault. The people in it. He needs to be separated from corrupting influences. This is his senior year. Everything matters. It’s too late to change schools. He wouldn’t be on the teams. He wouldn’t stand a chance. He—”

  “Halt!” I shouted.

  A woman who’d made her way halfway across the street stopped and turned, then shook her head and trundled on.

  “Stop and speak to me directly so I can understand what you’re talking about.”

  Un-Serenity continued walking, but she slowed down and eventually stopped. I flashed back on those drivers-ed films that told you how many yards it took a car going twenty-five miles an hour to stop; how many yards if you were going fifty, and so forth. It took Serenity Wilson half a block. “The people in his class,” she said, turning toward me.

  “What people?”

  She shook her head. “This is about Donald. I am not going to get other students in trouble. Even if I believe they should be. This is about my son.”

  “Academically? Have his grades noticeably changed? As far as I can see he’s performing pretty much as he always—”

  She shook her head again, and one foot nervously tapped. “Do you know—you must, right?—that his chemistry teacher is near death?” She waited for formal acknowledgment.

  I nodded.

  “Do you realize that did not have to happen?”

  “What are you saying?” A headache clamped my temples. How did she know about it and would she tell me?

  “I thought I made that clear. I want my son placed in classes with other people. Different people. The school is small, but not that small. And a man is judged by the company he keeps.”

  “His friends—”

  “They aren’t true friends. Not anymore. And that is my decision to make, in any case. My question is whether relocating will harm his grades.”

  “I don’t even know if it’s possible because of what it would do to his other classes, his entire schedule—”

  “Why don’t we leave that to me. I know it might b
e complicated, but I’ll handle it. I’m starting with you because English has never been Donald’s strong point academically.”

  I didn’t think Donald had a strong point academically. He had strong legs and great hand-eye coordination and upper body strength, but the thinking muscle wasn’t much to write home about.

  She cleared her throat.

  “I can’t answer you,” I said. “I teach one other senior section. If he enters that . . .” I shrugged. “They’re following the same syllabus, so—”

  “It won’t make a difference, is that what you’re saying?”

  “If he moves into that section. But if he moves to another teacher’s class—which might be necessary because—”

  “—of the rest of his schedule. Yes.”

  I shouldn’t have been as angry as I was, but what should or shouldn’t be wasn’t mattering much at the moment. I wasted a moment considering telling her off and using that avenue to being fired, but once again, she was peripheral, not the issue, and unworthy of that honor. I wanted to be fired for sowing dissention, for spreading insurrection. I wanted to deal with ideas, not overly protective and obnoxious mothers.

  She did make me soften to Wilson, whose aggressive and rough-edged personality I now understood a bit. Another teacher had warned me that his parents had delusions of their son’s grandeur and any failings on his part were blamed on the school.

  I guess this time it was his classmates who were to blame for whatever it was that was going wrong, but what was? And why his friends? “Can you give me more information about your reasons for this?”

  “It’s a bad class. There are terrible influences in it and my son is susceptible. It’s a dangerous place to be and . . . and . . .”

  I couldn’t believe she was faltering, searching for words, unsure of herself.

  “. . . I’m afraid for him.”

  That stopped me for a minute. “What do you fear? What’s happened? What connection does that class have to Juan Reyes’s accident?”

  She had lost all her bravado and she looked directly at me and said, with no animation, “I don’t know. I only know something’s different. Something frightening is going on.”

  “What gives you that—”

  Challenged, un-Serenity returned. “I simply know! They are dangerous and the chemistry—their chemistry—is bad. I want him out.”

  “Who are these ‘they’ you keep mentioning?”

  “That class. That group.”

  “His friends.”

  She shrugged.

  “Then you should talk to the headmaster.” I tried not to sound as chilly—physically and emotionally—as I felt. “And the counselor. I can’t change anybody’s schedule.”

  “And if he switches to your other section, he won’t have any additional difficulties.” It was a declaration, an instruction, not a question.

  “I hope not.” And luckily, before she tried to make me promise her humiliating actions wouldn’t have any effect on her son’s behavior and grades, neither of which were good to begin with, the bell rang, saving us all.

  I heard the din upstairs even before I was on the first tread. I forced myself to walk the steps at a normal pace, thinking only: Do not let that noise be coming from my room.

  But, indeed, my room or the space right outside it was the noise’s epicenter. It was some relief to realize that while the students sounded agitated, they did not sound as if a catastrophe had taken place, and in fact, most of the talk was relatively hushed.

  Nita and Allie were again in a huddle off to the side, across the hallway from their classmates, and judging by body language, once again disagreeing. This time, few words were exchanged, as if they both knew the other’s position and had reached an angry impasse. Nita stood her place, hands folded across her chest, half turned away from her friend, her expression stony.

  Allie reverted to shaking her head slowly, then more quickly, then slowly again, as if she could not get beyond the gigantic “No!” roiling inside her.

  I am not arrogant—or insane—enough to interfere in the normal fluctuations of the student body’s interpersonal relationships. I see histrionic displays on a daily basis, but at this point, this ongoing dispute between the two girls warranted a question or two.

  The worst that could happen would be that they’d unite against a common enemy—me—and be as happily close as they’d been the past two years. “What’s up?” I asked, keeping the question casual.

  “Nothing. Why?” Allie’s voice was brittle as an icicle. “We’re talking.”

  I felt a hand on my arm. “Miss Pepper,” Susan Blackburn said, “how is Mr. Reyes? Do you know any more about his condition?”

  “That’s what we were talking about,” Allie said.

  I didn’t bother to look at her or Nita. She was lying, and if Nita didn’t correct her, she was lying, too.

  Nita said nothing.

  I repeated what I’d been told. “He’s alive, but critical, and as far as I know, still unconscious. He’s had surgery and if he recovers, he’s going to need a great deal of cosmetic surgery because most of the glass hit his face, his lips, and eyes in particular.”

  All three girls winced, as did everyone within earshot.

  “He lost a lot of blood, too. He has, at best, a long haul ahead.”

  I felt cruel, making the prognosis as painful and slow as it really was going to be. The unvarnished truth felt like a whip with which to punish them.

  Which I supposed was my frustrated motive, because even though I couldn’t prove it, I believed that they—the sodium-stealing seniors—some or all of them, were involved in Juan Reyes’s disaster.

  “Thank you.” Susan’s voice was tiny and defeated.

  I turned back to the girls at war, and caught Allie giving Nita a look that chilled me through, it was so clearly a warning.

  “Thank you,” Nita said to me, and turned and walked into my room, followed by Allie, both of them silent now.

  It had been a useless nonconversation except for realizing that Nita was the weak link. All I needed now was an idea of what the chain was, so I’d know what to do with that information.

  I entered the room to warning shhhh!s, a scramble to get to their chairs, and then, silence.

  I thought the easiest road was to behave as if nothing exceptional was going on. Maybe that would make it so. “Today,” I said, “we’re moving ahead to the unit on critical thinking. You’ll be reading, discussing, and then writing on a variety of subjects, most of which are controversial, so there are no right or wrong answers. The point will be to formulate your position and express it in writing.”

  I gave them a moment for the obligatory expressions of pained boredom, then switched gears. “But before we get to that,” I said, “I saw the notice about the Antigone Brigade. Anybody want to bring me up to speed on what that means?”

  Allie’s expression changed to one of self-satisfaction. “It means we have values, beliefs, and we know our rights—everybody’s rights.”

  “Great. But what’s the brigade part about?”

  Now there were sideways glances, a silent mass checking in with one another. The decision had been made. Do not tell Pepper.

  “We’ve got ideas—but only in the planning stage,” Allie said.

  I asked a few more questions and received a few more abstract responses about the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech, and democracy. The brigade was for those things.

  “You can’t just let things happen,” Allie said. “You have to protest, to stand up for your rights—for everybody’s rights.”

  A great sentiment, so why did Nita dart a look of pure anguish at her supposed best friend?

  I suddenly felt their silence grow deeper and more significant, and I knew it wasn’t anything I was doing. It was the hush that anticipates something, the same something, perhaps, that had caused the preclass buzzing.

  Almost in unison, their glances shifted to the doorway, as well they might.

  Wils
on stood there in his T-shirt, holding a white-and-blue striped tailored shirt up to his face. Only one slitted and swollen eye was visible as he glanced at me before heading toward his seat.

  “Wait—” I said, “you shouldn’t—you need—” I couldn’t help but think of his mother. Had we been standing outside the school talking about dangerous acquaintances while this was happening to her son? She’d said she was afraid for him. Her fears seemed justified.

  The class still looked at the doorway, and I turned again and saw Seth, with a red-blue bruise covering his cheek and a bloody nose he was trying to stanch with an already saturated tissue.

  “My God! Both of you—come here—you need the nurse, or a hospital. Who did this to you?” I admit I was babbling, helping nothing, covering the silence that grew ever more dense and frightening.

  The bleeding boys and their classmates behaved as if their entry and appearance were completely normal, as if it was standard operating procedure to enter class leaking valuable bodily fluids.

  Nobody had gasped in surprise. No one now whispered or commented. The room remained unnaturally still except for the shuffle of the two boys’ steps and the snuffles from Seth’s battered nose.

  I had to repeat “Come here!” three times until they turned at the same time—they looked choreographed—and moved toward me.

  “Who did this to you?” I asked, sure some renegade group of toughs had decided our school was fair game. It was the big city, after all.

  Wilson raised one shoulder a millimeter.

  “You don’t know who they were?”

  Three eyes—one of Wilson’s was so swollen shut it might as well not have existed—stared blankly at me. I checked the classroom for cues, but the seniors were into meaningful eye contact with one another, not with me.

  I looked back at the bruised boys. “Then you were not attacked by invaders from Mars. What is going on? Why would you . . . No matter what disagreements, why . . . You guys play on the same teams, are friends!”

  No. Maybe still on the same teams for sports, but no longer close. Seth had seemed separate from them—physically and emotionally—the past few days.