Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  “Just Becca.”

  “Sorry. Becca.” God, the names on these kids. “If no one saw who shot Lincoln?”

  “Right.”

  “Then it happened, but we wouldn’t know who did it.”

  “What if people never saw the person who did it but they had their suspicions? What if John Wilkes Booth had been heard saying around town that he really didn’t like President Lincoln and thought he would be better off dead?”

  “He’s innocent until proven guilty by a lawyer.”

  “Right. Sort of. But what if so many people believe John Wilkes Booth did it that when books are written about Abraham Lincoln, Booth is identified as the assassin over and over and over again. Martin.”

  “Someone’s gettin’ sued.” He points at me sharply. It is a political point he is making. Ten bucks says daddy is a doctor with a dinner table passion for tort reform.

  “Someone’s getting sued. Who’s getting sued, Martin?”

  “Whoever lied about Booth.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Maybe someone gets sued. But what happens if that’s the story that ends up in your history books? Todd, books closed please. Thank you.”

  “Same thing. Someone gets sued.” Another jab at the air with his finger.

  “Anyone else? Anybody. Let’s see some hands. Alice.”

  “Then history is wrong.”

  Bingo.

  “Ah hah! History is wrong. Good! Well, what you mean is that the history book is wrong. Or might be wrong, correct?”

  I nod encouragingly at the room, row by row, ending with Ashley. She glowers back at me with an intensity of malice I cannot explain other than to assume that Brittany and Carmen have filled her head with lies about last night. It occurs to me that she could probably pro-vide a perfect example of an unreliable historical perspective. Our eyes lock. I want to force her to speak just to get a better read of her problem. I never get the chance.

  “He could’a faked his own death.” It’s Bill this time, a bookish bug-like boy with glasses that make his eyes the size of tennis balls.

  “Well, okay, um, there’s an extreme opinion for you. Maybe he was shot by someone else … maybe he faked his own death … maybe he choked on a pretzel. And maybe he was actually killed by a forty four-caliber chunk of lead. The study of history is the process of critically evaluating opinions about what happened in the past. Okay?”

  I traverse the room looking at them, trying to assess the absorption level; trying to gauge the comprehension. I lose the individuals in the greater array. They are one organism. They are a single face with thirty-one slackened jaws chewing at least sixty pieces of gum at me in a kind of slow hypnotic tandem. Sixty-two eyes are blinking in syncopated rhythm as they try to take in my meaning. They resemble a mob of young, idling cannibals keeping their muscles loose.

  “Start thinking of history as subjective perception first, factual reality second.”

  Chew. Chew. Blink. Chew. Chew. Blink. Then a hand. “Stephanie.”

  “How could Lincoln fake his own death if they have the body?” It is Todd, a gangly redhead who, with disturbing alacrity, hurls himself upon the question before I can shut it down. “‘Cause it was a Lincoln look-alike.”

  “Well, okay. Okay, guys …” but Tiphannie cuts me off. “Maybe someone poisoned that pretzel.”

  Cyndee leaps into the fray. “He was pretzel-poisoned first and then shot just in case the poison didn’t work.”

  At least I have their attention. At least they are participating. I tell myself this in the usual self-delusional, silver-lined tone that I have long-since come to associate with disappointment. It is surely the same tone that trembled gaily off a violin string onto the deck of the Titanic.

  “There was no pretzel, Cyndee,” I say.

  “But you said . . .”

  “President Bush choked on a pretzel, not Abraham Lincoln.”

  An eerie silence floods the room. I can feel their eyes upon me.

  The chewing is now just a little sharper. Something has changed. I am too thick to figure it out.

  “He did not. You’re making that up.” It’s Andy from the center of the pack.

  “No. Seriously.” I am wide-eyed and sincere. “That really happened. No kidding. Choked on a pretzel while watching football in the White House, fell off the couch and smacked his head on a table, knocking himself out. Big bruise the next day.”

  “No way!” No fewer than four of them shout at me.

  “I kid you not. It really happened. January of 2002, roughly on the ten year anniversary of the night that his father projectile vomited into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister.”

  “Booooo . . .”

  I’m a high school history teacher getting booed in my own class-room. They will believe that Abraham Lincoln faked his own assassination, but . . .

  “Sorry, folks. It’s a fact.”

  “It’s opinion!”

  “No. This is not opinion,” I say stupidly. “This is historical fact.”

  “You weren’t there!”

  “No, you’re right, I wasn’t there. But we know that something happened because of the big bruise on the President’s face the next day. And as for the Prime Minister back in ‘92, well, I guess you can ask his dry cleaner.”

  “Booooo…”

  “Enough with the booing, whoever you are.”

  “Booooo!”

  “I said, enough with . . .”

  There is a knock at the door and a frizzy charcoal-haired woman whom I recognize as the principal’s assistant, brusquely enters and hand’s me a note. She exits as I read. ‘Please see me after third period. Thank you.’ It is stamped at the bottom: ‘Robert B. Robertson, Principal, Bertrand J. Wilson High School.’

  I realize the problem immediately. I have not returned my signed acknowledgement of having received and understood the new security and evacuation procedures. Verified allegiance to these procedures is, we have been informed, a district-wide mandate to be strictly enforced by the new Principal of Wilson High; Bob, he insists that we call him Bob. I have already spent far too long wondering whether any parents could actually have named their child Robert Bob Robertson.

  Principal Bob is clearly taking no chances. If the school was attacked by Al Qaeda this afternoon, I would be a liability, and maybe even under suspicion. I cannot help the rolling of my eyes as I stuff the note into my pocket.

  “Okay. Let’s leave poor Mr. Lincoln alone and see if we can refocus the question a little. Let’s talk about history as theory. History as supposition. History unproven. Can anyone give me an example of history as theory?”

  Chew. Chew. Chew. Blink. “Anyone? Yes, Patrick.”

  “Evolution.”

  “Excellent,” I say with a smile as I seize the third rail of modern high school curricula. Evolution is an historical theory, right?”

  “No way.” Brent, third column, fourth seat back. “Evolution is fact. We evolved.”

  “Evolved from what?”

  “Apes.”

  “Who saw that happen?”

  “Darwin.”

  “Darwin was there when we evolved from apes?”

  “Uh, no, but he found out about it.”

  “He found out about it?”

  Brent nods, trying to look comfortable with his answer. I indulge a light, oh-so-brief discussion of evolutionary theory making all the room I can for the debate over microevolution, explaining that there are many who have a hard time accepting that everything on the planet from humans to dinosaurs to seagulls ultimately can be traced back to a single form of microbial life in a puddle of swamp sludge.

  “Does everybody here agree with the theory of evolution? Kashawnda.”

  “I didn’t come from no swamp sludge.”

  “No. You came from your mother and father. That’s not really the theory. The question is whether the human species evolved out of something more primitive.”

  “People came from Jesus.”

  “Okay. Creationism.
Good. We don’t want to go too deep here, but that is another historical theory. Right? That humans did not evolve into humans, but were created by God. Not Jesus exactly, but God.”

  Kashawnda, again. This time not bothering raising her hand. “Jesus is God.”

  “Okay … but, according to the Christian faith, not the God that created life. Jesus is the …”

  “Jesus is Lord.”

  “But, Kashawnda …”

  “Jesus is KING and the SAVIOR of all mankind.”

  “Okay, right, but …”

  “And a sav-i-or is a cre-a-tor.” She is speaking slowly as though I am an idiot who does not know the meaning of the word savior. “People came from Jesus, not no stinky-ass swamp sludge.”

  The class laughs at Kashawnda’s sassy pluck, and her overdone, loose-necked givin’ the teacher what-for attitude. It is approbation for which someone like Todd might have killed.

  Kashawnda, however, seems unmoved. She is staring at me with grim, self-righteous determination. In the face of my age and authority and what even she must concede is my superior knowledge on everything else, little Kashawnda, with her jaws set and her hands grip-ping the sides of her desk, is making her stand for Jesus.

  “Well, no,” I say to her cautiously, “actually a savior is not a creator. Those are different things. A savior …”

  “Jesus is Lord, Mr. Johns. Lord and cre-a-tor. The Bible tells me so. That’s all there is to it.”

  I am being challenged by a fourteen-year old girl on the matter of her own religious understanding. She has wagered it all on the strength of her convictions and not a single shred more. The class around her is now still and there is not a soul in the room who does not understand that, more than anything else I have said up to this point, it is whatever I say next that will define me as their teacher.

  I am much smarter than to roll up my sleeves with Kashawnda Davis on the meaning of the word “savior.” I fully understand and respect that I am not her only teacher; that this is not my domain or my place in her life; that she has parents and ministers and, presumably, Sunday school teachers and maybe even snake handlers who will tend to her doctrinal confusion. I am here only because the Socratic method – always a risk with children – has lead me here; from Lincoln to Darwin to Jesus. I am perfectly capable of retracing my steps and simply choosing less personal and provocative elucidations on the unreliability of historical dogma.

  Or, I can prove that I am every bit the idiot that Kashawnda thinks I am.

  “That’s your faith, Kashawnda; your religious opinion.”

  “No. It a fact.” She actually points her pen at me, her lips tightly puckered like a pink island in a dark sea.

  “A fact? Not according to the Muslims,” I say, because stupidity has its own momentum. “Not according to the Jews, or the Hindus. Or the American Indian. Or the Athabascan. Or the Buddhist. Or the Aborigine. Or the atheist.”

  “Then those people aren’t Christian.”

  “Precisely, Kashawnda. They are not Christian. That is my point. Not everybody is Christian. Not everybody is an American. Not everybody comes from the same race of people. Not everyone sees the world or its history in the same way or from the same perspective. Christianity, like all religion, is a kind of historical theory. Maybe it’s right and maybe it’s wrong, but there are lots of theories out there for you to consider.”

  “Not a theory. Fact. If they ain’t Christian then they goin’ to Hell when the raptor come.” Kashawnda crosses her arms tightly over her chest.

  “A raptor is a large bird with talons and a taste for meat. I think you mean Rapture.”

  “They goin’ to Hell. It a fact.”

  “And how do you know it’s a fact?”

  “The Bible.”

  “Who wrote the Bible?”

  “God. I mean Jesus.”

  “I assume, Kashawnda, you are not telling us that The Bible is the autobiography of Jesus Christ?”

  “The Lord wrote it.”

  “No, Kashawnda. Men wrote the Bible. Just like men wrote the Koran and the Tora. Religious scholars wrote the Bible. Kings and their minions re-wrote the Bible. The Bible is as much a document of political and social history as it is a sacred religious text. God did not actually, you know, write the Bible.”

  “It’s the WORD of God. God told them how to write it. Told them what to say.”

  “Wait. Let’s slow down.” Kashawnda shrugs and slumps back into her seat; body language to show me her lack of concern that anything I might say or do – slow down, speed up, stand on my head or change into a goat – could ever weaken her resolve.

  “How do you know what is written down in the Bible about Jesus is true?”

  “I believe it.”

  “I know you believe it. I’m asking you why you believe it.”

  “The Bible tells me so.”

  There is a chorus of snorting from the back.

  “Todd. Up here. How about giving Kashawnda your attention and respect. Okay? Thank you. Sorry, Kashawnda. So, did the people who wrote the Bible know Jesus?”

  “Yes. They were his best friends.”

  “So they spent a lot of time around him?”

  “Yes.”

  “They knew what he looked like?”

  There is an instant of hesitation, but Kashawnda nods. “What did Jesus look like?”

  “Long brown hair and blue eyes.”

  “What color was his skin?”

  “Jesus loves all the races.”

  “But what did he look like?”

  “White.”

  “Because the Bible tells you so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, what about all of those Bible-reading Christians who believe Jesus was a black man; that he had dark skin and dark eyes like an Egyptian or an Arab?”

  Kashawnda opens her mouth in silent shock and looks around the room for confirmation of the heresy. “No way!”

  Bill and Lacey are each independently shaking their heads. Two other students cross their arms in silent disagreement.

  “That’s another theory about Jesus that you might want to con-sider. He looked like a typical Middle-Eastern man.”

  “Jesus was not a towel-head!” It’s Bradley from the back row.

  “I think the word you are searching for is Muslim, not towel-head, which I think a lot of people would find very offensive. You can disagree in this class all you want, but you do have to be respectful.”

  “I’m not respectful to terrorists,” says Bradley.

  “You think all Muslims are terrorists?”

  “Maybe not all of them, but most of them.”

  “Most Muslims are terrorists?”

  “Prob’ly.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “9-11.”

  “What about September 11 makes you think that most Muslims are terrorists?”

  “That’s where they came from?”

  “Who?”

  “The terrorists.”

  “The terrorists came from where?”

  “Muslim.”

  “The terrorists came from Muslim?”

  “I mean Muslim…ania.”

  “Bradley, a Muslim is a person who believes in and practices the religion of Islam. Muslumania is not a place. It’s not even a word. Todd …I’m not going to warn you again. Taren, eyes up here. I know. I know. Eyes up here. Thank you. Bradley, are you trying to say that because the 9-11 terrorists were Islamic and because we hear a lot in the news about Islamic terrorists and terrorists committing acts of violence in the name of Allah and Islam, that all or most Muslims are terrorists? Is that your point?”

  “Uh, yes?”

  “Okay. Well, next semester we are going to talk a little about the Crusades back in the 11th 12th and 13th centuries. Do you know what the Crusades were?”

  Bradley shakes his head, suddenly out of his depth.

  “Hundreds of years of military campaigns in which a whole lot of Christians slaughtered a whol
e lot of Muslims in the name of religion. In the name of Jesus Christ. Along the way, they ended up killing a whole lot of Jews and a bunch of Byzantine Christians just for good measure.”

  Bradley is silent.

  “So, Bradley, I guess my question is, do you believe that all Christians are terrorists just like you believe that all Muslims are terrorists?”

  “Christians aren’t terrorists.”

  “What about most Christians?”

  “No.”

  “Some?”

  “No.”

  “One?”

  “No.”

  “Who launched the Crusades?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “The Pope. Who was it on our first day that said his favorite historical figure was the Pope? I don’t remember now, but somebody said it. Well it was the Pope – the spiritual leader of all Christendom – who started the reign of terror we call the Crusades.”

  “Did not,” says Bradley.

  “Afraid so. Pope Urban II. The Christian Emperor Alexius wanted the Turks off his back and he asked the Pope for help. And so the Pope started what he called a War of the Cross to take back the holy lands from the unbelievers. Countries were invaded and homes were burned and people were murdered and raped and mutilated all in the name of Jesus Christ. It was kind of like 9-11 only millions of times greater in scope and lasting hundreds of years. Doesn’t that make the Pope a kind of 11th Century Osama Bin Laden?”

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t that make Christians terrorists?”

  “No.”

  “Right. It does not make Christians terrorists any more than 9-11 makes Muslims terrorists, because terrorism is not a religion, it’s an act of violence committed for political ends. Everyone understand?”

  Blink. Blink. Blink. Chew. Chew. Chew.

  “Anyone disagree with that?”

  Nothing.

  “Okay. We got a little off track there with the towel-head comment. Kashawnda and I were talking about birds of prey and Jesus as an historical figure. And I was saying that it stands to reason that Jesus looked like, well, he looked more like a black Muslim than a white Christian.”

  Kashawnda is a chunk of black granite.

  “Are you Jewish?” It is a sharp, accusatory question.

  “No, Kashawnda, I’m not Jewish. But what difference would it make if I were?”