The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

At a more optimistic stage in my life, I believed a creative writing course at the high school level was an elective reserved for students who were dedicated to the craft of perfecting prose and poetry. At present, I could not pretend that all of the students in my writing course had any such aspirations in mind. By taking two English electives, the seniors were able to bypass the twelfth grade British Literature requirement, thereby escaping a hefty dose of challenging text in exchange for a blank journal. In their unseasoned minds, it was far easier to fake a vague interest in writing than it was for reading anything of substance. Thankfully, I still encountered exceptions to this trend. My favorite moments as a teacher involved interacting with those few students who still valued the creative process and technique of storytelling.

  By the time I arrived at my classroom for the start of fourth period, an obvious friction buzzed in the air like an agitated beehive. A group of kids unknown to this hallway at this particular time had already assembled outside my classroom. Some of them leaned against a chain of lockers with one foot tucked up against the metal panels like a bunch of flamingos waiting for a shrimp buffet. In my experience, students lingering in the hallway were harbingers for trouble. Since I recognized only a few people in the crowd, I assumed most of my students had already entered the class.

  It took me a few seconds to pick out a familiar face. “Hey, Sierra,” I called out to a plain girl shouldering her way through the loiterers. Sierra Clark looked like a Beatnik poet straight out of Greenwich Village in the 1950’s. She didn’t own a stitch of clothing a shade lighter than gray. Even on cloudy days, she sported oversized sunglasses that consumed the better portion of her pale, freckled face. As far as being a writer, Sierra was rarely seen without her journal in hand. By nature and reputation, she was a poet, and often volunteered to share her stanzas of teenage torment with her classmates.

  “How’s it going, Mr. C?” said Sierra as she casually strode toward me. Ironically, the fraught rhythm of this girl’s poetry never showed in her demeanor. She moved like a walking tranquilizer, almost floating through the corridor on a sedative of self-contentment.

  “Well, I’m a little confused right now,” I replied. “Why are all these kids standing around in this hallway?”

  Sierra craned her neck to glance over my shoulder to see inside the classroom. Ten of my fourteen students were already sitting at their desks. “There’s going to be a fight,” Sierra remarked. “Is Casey in there yet?”

  I pivoted my head to take a look into the room at the desk where Casey usually did most of his gabbing. Casey was the type of kid who would’ve been overlooked in most crowds had it not been for his animated behavior. He was on time today, but obviously distracted by several students who huddled around him as if he was a quarterback at the Super Bowl. One student was noticeably missing. His friend Orlando hadn’t yet arrived to class.

  “Casey’s inside,” I answered Sierra. Apparently, disruptive news zipped around this school faster than a pandemic. Sierra simply smiled in a devious manner that indicated her knowledge of a forthcoming confrontation. Because of my conversation with Mona a few minutes earlier, I also surmised a brewing dilemma.

  “You shouldn’t let Orlando in class today,” Sierra muttered as she ducked under my shoulder and proceeded to find her seat closest to my desk.

  Before starting class, I decided to break up some of the spectators who had assembled to watch the main event. If there was going to be a physical altercation, it wasn’t going to happen in my classroom. For the past ten years my record for classroom management remained spotless, and I intended to keep all administrative paperwork down to a minimum. The first strategy in subduing any fight was to remove the potential instigators. In this case, that meant clearing the hallway before Orlando arrived to greet the masses.

  “Come on,” I exclaimed to the hoard of testy teens. My voice was barely discernible above their chatter. “You all need to get to class right now.” For emphasis, I began waving my hands like a traffic cop during rush hour. Since I wasn’t especially known for my authoritativeness, most of these kids looked at me as if I had just swallowed a fistful of recreational drugs. They had no intention of budging a step in any direction until two safety officers emerged in the hallway. Perhaps it was overkill for our security purposes, but Dr. Lemus hired the beefiest man I ever set eyes upon as the primary watchman. Wayne Kramer spoke in a voice almost as prodigious as his belly.

  “Walk and talk!” Kramer bellowed at the dawdlers. “Don’t make me ask you scrawny buttheads twice!” Oddly, the kids responded to backhanded threats and insults when delivered by someone who was at least two hundred pounds heavier than they were. Upon seeing Kramer and the other safety officer, the nest of dullards scattered like dry leaves in a windstorm. As Kramer waddled by, he nodded one of his chins at me to demonstrate his mastery of student conduct. I returned a conciliatory nod to acknowledge my appreciation for his assistance.

  The last straggler disappeared without complaint before Orlando Rodriquez made his belated appearance. A gumshoe wasn’t required to ascertain the cause for Orlando’s perpetual tardiness. He usually drifted through the corridors like a demagnetized compass, periodically stopping to admire his reflection in a door’s glass window or a trophy case. Unlike Casey, Orlando didn’t need any loquacious banter to attract the students’ attention. In my estimation, Orlando would’ve made short work of his buddy in a fight. But I also knew that Orlando wasn’t a troublemaker, and he picked his battles with the scrutiny of a wily general. While not particularly tall, he had a stocky build and muscled forearms, which included tribal tattoos in black ink. His hair was the color of fresh asphalt, and rarely mussed. Sierra Clark once mentioned that he had eyes the shade of midnight, and then she wrote a poem about it.

  As Orlando rambled up the hallway today in his baggy dungarees, I immediately recognized the confliction spreading through his expression like a wildfire. When he reached my classroom, his eyebrows were angled like a line of soot across his forehead. Since I already knew the source of his fiery mindset, I had no intention of letting him blaze inside and cremate Casey Michaels. He stopped just shy of my classroom’s threshold, almost warning me with an incinerating gaze to clear out of his path.

  “Are you gonna let me in or what?” he asked me.

  “That depends, Orlando.”

  “C’mon, Mr. Cobbs, I’m really not in the mood.”

  “Really? It looks to me like you’re in the mood to do something that you shouldn’t.”

  Orlando combed his fingers through the wedges of his spiked hair. His gunmetal-blue eyes flashed with a yellow tincture, just how Sierra described them in her poem. I had an inclination that he wanted to shove me aside and complete what he had come here to do.

  “Don’t make my problem your problem,” he told me, trying not to grimace.

  “Anything that happens in my classroom becomes an inherited problem,” I stipulated. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, Orlando. I know what’s going on between you and your girlfriend. I just don’t want any trouble, you understand?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend anymore,” he corrected me. His face then took on a shade of scarlet. I never observed such a rapid show of irritation in the boy’s face before this moment. His moonlit eyes seemed to stare right through me and hone in on Casey like two heat-seeking missiles. “I need to straighten something out with Casey.”

  “Now isn’t a good time. I can see that you’re quite upset.”

  “Damn right. Wouldn’t you be angry if you found out that someone was messin’ around with your wife behind your back?”

  “The way I heard it, that’s not accurate. Now I know you and Casey have been friends a long time. I don’t want you to do anything stupid that you’ll regret later on.”

  “Well, maybe Casey should’ve thought about that before he took Mona out cruising in his car.”

  “Did you ask Mona if that’s true?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he retorted. �
��Of course she’s gonna deny going out with him. That’s why they call it cheating, Mr. Cobbs. Mona might be a little slut, but she’s not dumb.”

  “Hey, watch your mouth. Besides, that’s not how she is and you know it. Mona is a nice girl. Maybe you should ask yourself why you’re choosing not to believe her.”

  “Because I know she’s full of crap.”

  “How do you know for certain?”

  Orlando flared his nostrils at me like a cornered bull right before it charged the matador. Then, without moving from his defiant stance, he drew his hand into the front pocket of his faded blue jeans and pulled forth what looked like a piece of woman’s jewelry. After he opened his palm fully, I determined that it was in fact a gold earring with garnet stones set in its spiral design. He displayed it with the surety of a fingerprint at a crime scene.

  “I found this in Casey’s car on our way home from a concert the other night. It was underneath the passenger’s seat.”

  “And you’re assuming that this is Mona’s earring?”

  “Nah, Mr. Cobbs, I’m not assuming anything. I know it’s hers.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I bought her these earrings for her birthday back in January,” Orlando answered with a satisfactory glint. “I looked all over the Internet to find the kind she wanted, complete with her birthstones. She’s still wearing the other one.”

  “So this is your only evidence?”

  “What else do I need? There’s no other way this earring could’ve gotten in Casey’s car unless she was in it.”

  Orlando’s logic served him sufficiently in this instance, but it was not an entirely foolproof rationalization. I decided to explore this issue more thoroughly. “One question, Orlando: can you think of any time when you, Mona, and Casey were all in his car together?”

  Orlando started shaking his head before I finished my inquiry. “No way, man. As far as I know, Mona’s never been in Casey’s car when I was around.”

  “Never? You’ve dated her for almost two years, and you’ve been friends with Casey since you started high school. Are you telling me you guys never went to the mall together, maybe a movie, or out to eat somewhere in his car?”

  “Nope. Not since January anyway.”

  As Orlando calculated the details from the past several months, I watched him flip the earring over in his hand. Then, just by chance, I noticed that the earring’s clasp was still attached to its stem. “Hold on a second,” I said, reaching out my own hand parallel to Orlando’s fingers. “May I see that earring for a moment?”

  “Be my guest,” he replied before dropping the piece of jewelry into my palm.

  I examined the earring briefly to confirm my observation, and I was surprised that Orlando hadn’t discerned the identical detail. “You see this,” I said, showing him the earring’s clasp. “If, as you suspect, Mona lost this in Casey’s car, I’m assuming you think it fell out of her earlobe?”

  “Of course. She hasn’t taken those earrings off since I bought them for her, except maybe before she goes to bed.”

  “But notice the clasp on the earring’s back, Orlando. It’s still attached. Is this the way you found it in Casey’s car?”

  “Yeah. Just like you see it now.”

  “Well, then it couldn’t have fallen out of her ear with the clasp still fastened, could it?” I didn’t wish to sound glib, but it was almost an unavoidable instinct in this case. Orlando looked at me dumbfounded, but perhaps this was merely to camouflage the embarrassment for his shortsighted conclusion. I assumed he wasn’t going to concede to such a practical notion.

  “Your theory still doesn’t explain how Mona’s earring got in Casey’s car, Mr. Cobbs,” he said smugly.

  “True. But it also clearly paints a picture of how it didn’t get there.”

  “So how do you think Mona’s earring ended up in Casey’s car if she didn’t drop it in there?”

  “I can’t answer that. Maybe you picked it up by accident one night after she took it off and dropped it in his car yourself. I’m sure if you think about it long enough you’ll come up with a few conclusions that’ll make sense.”

  “I guess you think you’re a modern day Sherlock Holmes or something, huh?” he grimaced.

  “Far from it,” I replied. “But it stands to reason that Mona might be telling you the truth.”

  “I’m not so convinced just yet. Besides, it’s already too late. I dumped her last period.”

  “It’s never too late to apologize and admit that you were wrong.”

  Orlando appeared miffed by my suggestion. I should’ve anticipated his next statement. “I don’t ever remember asking you to get involved in my business, Mr. Cobbs. So just back off and leave things alone until I can figure out what to do.”

  “Fair enough, but let me tell you a couple things about my business. I’m here to make sure my students get an education. This isn’t as simple as it sounds when I have guys like you looking to rip another kid’s head off because of a rumor that you can’t even verify. And my second point, which might be a bit outside the realm of my job description, is to see that good kids don’t get their feelings trampled on. Now maybe that makes me an interferer, but seeing Mona crying in the stairwell isn’t something I can just overlook.”

  Orlando stuffed the earring back into his pocket and winced at me as if I had just kicked him in his shin. Perhaps there was a trace of guilt sifting through his expression. I decided to assist him with his feelings.

  “You know, it’s been quite a few years since I’ve been to a prom,” I said, “but I’m guessing that it’s not too easy to find a date a month before the event. I imagine Mona is feeling a bit slighted, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Hey, that’s not my problem. For all I care, she can go with Casey. He needs a date, too.”

  “So you’re not even going to consider that you could be wrong about her?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not gonna back down now. That’s just the way I am.”

  Orlando’s position disappointed me, but I wasn’t surprised. In fact, few students his age ever conceded to their missteps in judgment. To worsen matters, I didn’t have the time to reaffirm my point; the other kids were already waiting for me in class.

  “I can do one of two things right now,” I offered Orlando. “I could let you in class if you promise to leave Casey alone. You can sit on the other side of the room, and just pretend he isn’t there.”

  “What’s the other option?”

  “You can spend the rest of this period in Dr. Lemus’s office and think things over. Under the circumstances, this might not be such a bad idea.”

  Orlando made his choice without any hesitation. “You know, I’m feeling kinda creative today. So, if you don’t mind, I think I’d rather stay in class.”

  For a student who hadn’t bothered to bring his journal to class in over a week, I surmised that Orlando’s creativity in the craft of writing had abandoned him long ago. But since he hadn’t yet done anything wrong, I couldn’t justify sending him to the office without his acceptance.

  “Promise me that you’ll behave,” I said to him sternly.

  “As long as Casey keeps his big mouth shut and stays away from me, we won’t have a problem. But this ain’t over by a long shot, Mr. Cobbs. My reputation still means something around here.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it does,” I responded dispassionately. In the unwritten code of courtship among teenagers, even if Mona Dukes simply appeared enamored with Casey, Orlando had an obligation to defend his territory. Whether I agreed with this brand of adolescent honor or not wasn’t important. If Orlando elected to avoid a confrontation at some point, the students would’ve naturally sided with the aggressor and branded him as a coward. Once such an unsavory label was affixed to you in high school, it stuck better than the strongest glues ever manufactured.

  I shifted to the side of the doorway to permit Orlando access into the classroom. A pounding sensation had already
returned to my head, and my cheeks crawled with a cold sweat. Orlando must’ve noticed me wobbling a bit, but I managed to catch myself against the door’s frame.

  “Hey, you gonna be alright, Mr. Cobbs? You don’t look so hot.”

  “I’ll be fine, Orlando,” I sighed. “Now go and wait for me in class. I’ll join you guys in a few minutes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I glanced at my watch and answered tellingly, “Oh, absolutely. Just a few minutes, no more or less.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Orlando spared me any additional comments and walked into a mostly silent classroom. I expected some commotion as he and Casey exchanged hot glares, but neither boy uttered a word. The other students remained strangely mute, too. At the moment, I didn’t have the stamina to join them. I stood outside my classroom, hugging the door as if it was a long lost relative. It was the only thing keeping me on my feet.

  The physical effects of my episodes, although predictable, hadn’t diminished since this morning. Perspiration still dribbled from my temples, and my upper lip quivered as if I had stepped barefooted into two buckets of ice. My heartbeat increased at least twofold as well, and I knew that my body couldn’t withstand much more of this torment. It seemed unlikely that I’d be able to hide my spells from now on. The hallway’s vacancy was no shield from the prying eyes that watched me inside the classroom. Yet I was still completely susceptible to the convolutions within my brain.

  Chapter 28

  9:44 A.M.