During the course of my lifetime, I always found that the most lucid moments of my day transpired in the morning. This was as true with my own appetence to write as it was with the ability to tutor my literature classes. Before a spell of melancholy disrupted my visions, I routinely reminisced about my walks to Lake Endelman with my journal in hand. Oftentimes, before the sun arched above the evergreens, I’d sit upon the flat rock with my pen barely nicking the pulp of a blank page, knowing that the Muses would’ve instilled my imagination as surely as the sunlight’s rays soothed my skin. I relied on this reoccurring comfort for years, but most of those moments now seemed akin to a shadowy dream.
Gradually, the custodian’s whistling dissipated from my mind, only to be supplanted by the loons’ haunting harmonies. I typically settled behind my desk in front of the classroom with fresh energy brimming from my eyes, as if the promise of today’s instruction was somehow superior to my previous attempts to inspire. It’s mentioned that few professions outside of teaching afforded an opportunity to begin anew on a daily basis. In this way, a failure in one class conceivably offered a hope for redemption in the next. I had operated within this discipline for many years, and only recently wondered if it amounted to nothing more than a cleverly guised charade.
Good fortune had enabled me to secure my own classroom this year. Such a minor victory may have sounded insignificant to those on the outside, but acquiring an unshared room was a commodity in a school that couldn’t be guaranteed nowadays. Even in high school, most teachers garlanded their classroom’s walls and bulletin boards in a conventional manner by hanging inspirational slogans and course-related posters to stipulate messages that sounded as rehearsed as a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. In the past, I resisted such insipid contrivances, but because of escalating scrutiny from an intrusive administration, I eventually conformed. This year, my classroom’s wall space looked like it was decorated with a photojournalist’s portfolio, albeit one who was influenced by literary classics.
My inherited display of scribe-savvy innovators provided enough visual stimulation to satiate even the most ravenous faction of Dr. Lemus’s regime. I learned to welcome the laminated images of Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer when I flicked on my classroom’s light every morning. Of course, so that I didn’t get accused (whether rightly or wrongly) of uncorking the literary cannon with a predominately male bombardment, I managed to mix a few female authors and poets into the campaign, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mary Shelley, and The Bronte Sisters. The centerpiece of this entire collection, however, had nothing to do with my subject material, at least not in a direct sense.
I hung a reproduction of a painting that I had admired since my boyhood just above the whiteboard at the classroom’s center. Surprisingly, some of my students recognized it as the logo from Swan Song Records, which the iconic English rock band Led Zeppelin launched in the mid-1970s. This line drawing of a winged and unclad Apollo rising in arched ecstasy in front of a descending sun had a deeper meaning to me, at least since my studies of art and Greek Mythology. The image’s source, as I explained to my classes, came from a 19th century American painter and sculptor by the name of William Rimmer. He entitled it ‘Evening: Fall of Day.’”
In terms of educational maxims, which caused me queasiness from digesting, I managed to manufacture one slogan and display it above the classroom’s door. I couldn’t locate its original author, but I remembered that my mother had repeated something similar to me in my youth. I created this poster on a rectangular scrap of white cardboard, stenciled with a red permanent marker. It read: “The First Step to a Better Tomorrow Begins Today.” I don’t know if any of my students really believed in such pithy wisdom or not because they had yet to acknowledge it. In the classroom, sometimes that’s a good omen.
After I unloaded my bag of a few pens and a soft cover version of Homer’s “The Iliad,” I turned my attention toward the desktop computer positioned on an adjacent table. Its screen illuminated with the high school’s homepage. Logging into a personal account and checking email became a pivotal part in a teacher’s routine over the past eight years. I reluctantly adapted to such procedures; only Mrs. Fassal resisted today’s technology with the same tenacity as her descendants might’ve rejected a spoonful of castor oil.
I usually classified the majority of mail I received as junk, which managed to siphon through the school’s security system with uncanny frequency. Occasionally I’d scroll the mouse’s pointer upon something important, or at least a note worth perusing. Some of my students preferred emailing their assigned papers, and I had no qualms about this method, providing they submitted their essays on time. In this instance, one of my charges decided that two weeks was an appropriate amount of time to let me wait for his composition on heroism.
Honestly, Aaron Mann’s procrastination on this thesis stunned me. I certainly didn’t rate him as one of my more conscientious students, but I figured this topic would’ve aligned conveniently with his infatuation for warfare. Aaron had become somewhat of a spokesperson for the U.S. military, and he already specified his intentions of enlisting in the Marines upon graduation from high school this forthcoming June. Not unlike so many other unsullied recruits, this seventeen-year-old boy wanted to retrace his father’s boot steps onto foreign battlefields.
As expected, Aaron’s essay reflected the rhetoric undoubtedly instilled in him since his youth. I couldn’t pretend to share Aaron’s enthusiasm for organized combat, but to deny the functionality of a robust military in today’s out of kilter world was a quarrel not even the staunchest peacekeepers could’ve upheld. At the same time, Aaron’s propensity for violence, whether camouflaged beneath patriotic bunting or not, worried me. I’m certain there were phases in every young man’s life where he envisioned himself as a rescuer to meek and indigent people. In truth, military propaganda was designed to romanticize conflict and the soldiers’ call for duty. The irony was that anyone who miraculously survived a firefight in the field soon realized that the attainment of glory was cruelly overstated.
Of course, convincing Aaron of such a realistic perspective was a futile undertaking. The cocksure commando-in-training had already convinced himself that he was predestined to match Achilles’ conquests once unleashed upon the Middle Eastern terrorists. I had no intention of tarnishing his grandiose reverie. After all, I knew better than most that dreams were crafted to flourish within oneself, if nowhere else at all. But I wondered if Aaron had sampled enough of Homer’s epic poem to discover the Greek’s most fabled hero’s fate.
Aaron’s obsession with jingoistic pursuits was not by any means atypical in the aftermath of 9-11. In the days following the single largest loss of life on American soil since the Battle of Antietam in 1862, the public’s patriotism surged through the stratosphere like a launched missile. Suddenly the notion of retaliation hadn’t seemed more appropriate since World War II. Over the years, I’ve watched several gung-ho students march to a similar cadence, while aiming to uncover purpose in their callow lives. In this way, Aaron’s current fervency reminded me of another student who graduated in the class of 2002.
By all accounts, Rusty Travil turned the September 2001 assault on America into his own vendetta for justice, and few ever faulted him for his enthusiasm. I, however, questioned Rusty’s motivations. Only a few months prior to his flag-waving epiphany, the gangly boy expressed a desire to study music. As recently as the spring semester of the same year, I recalled seeing him bopping through the hallways with a tangerine-colored Telecaster strapped to his shoulder. Replacing his electric guitar with a semiautomatic weapon just didn’t register as a natural transition.
Perhaps I overstepped my boundaries as an educator by attempting to persuade Rusty to resist impulsivity when making life-changing choices. Joining a pending war as a means to avenge a despicable deed shouldn’t have been decided over a slice of pizza and soda. But Rusty already had it imprinted in his mind that he’d be exchanging gunfire and grenades with al-Qaeda
before his nineteenth birthday. My consternation was intensified by the knowledge that the boy had never once hinted toward a fixation with military campaigns prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon buildings. It humbled me to know that he had an ability to achieve his goal without my blessing or guidance.
Staying true to his intended ambition, Rusty graduated from the Marine Corps’ boot camp within five months after leaving Ravendale High School. Before the end of his first year of service, he was shipped off to Iraq to serve part in a search-and-destroy convoy throughout the desert regions outside of Baghdad. During his battalion’s first run, Rusty’s transport Humvee struck an IED, instantly killing him and four other infantrymen, including a second lieutenant in command. They said Rusty Travil died a hero on that arid day in 2003. To accentuate that notion, Rusty’s mangled corpse was buried in Arlington’s cemetery with all the pageantry and pomp bestowed upon the casualties of war. A superbly uniformed officer handed Mrs. Travil a folded flag, and soon thereafter a gold-burnished plaque, commemorating her son’s life and death, was promptly added to Ravendale’s Hall of Fame.
Occasionally I ventured over to that seldom-visited breezeway adjacent to the school’s gymnasium. Rusty was not the only alumni to meet a premature end in our school’s history. The corridor’s undersized showcase displayed veterans’ memorabilia dating back to at least Vietnam. In my mind, those boys all died while fighting courageously for causes they were too ignorant to comprehend. I couldn’t help but to think that I failed Rusty in some way, and if I had been more resolute in my protest against his enlistment I might’ve prevented his demise. His memory will be preserved as a soldier, but I will remember him as an amiable kid who strummed an orange guitar without ever having a proper chance of singing songs of experience.
I wasn’t prepared to let Aaron Mann duplicate such a foolhardy fight for recognition. In my own way, I aimed to highlight the pitfalls of heroism, using Achilles and other ancient demigods to demonstrate the eternal disenchantment of those who feared death’s anonymity. I read over Aaron’s essay with eager eyes, hoping to uncover a nuance in logic where he contradicted his emotions. This boy would’ve never been mistaken for a great writer, but his points on this subject remained cogent throughout the essay.
Before I finished scrolling through the entire document, I sensed my vision falling out of focus. The computer’s screen became blurry, only to be eventually segmented behind a vibrant blue haze. A throbbing sensation in my left temple simultaneously caused me to wrench backwards in my chair, almost as if tethered by a taut rope. Once a wave of cold sweat swelled across my forehead and cheeks, I knew that I had no chance of eluding another episode. I meekly closed my eyes and conceded to the next journey within a subconscious mind that adhered to few limitations.
Chapter 12
7:06 A.M.
The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs Page 11
