On a typical school day I looked forward to instructing my creative writing class more than any other course this year. It seemed that when I was just about to throw my hands up in a fit of apathy, fourth period became my sanctuary. It also reminded me of a few youths under my guidance who still fancied themselves as artists of the written word. Today’s writing activity, however, was already tainted by the pending ruckus between Orlando and Casey. The mere vibration of a potential brouhaha in school set all of the students on the edge of their seats. They waited like bloodthirsty spectators at a gladiators’ competition.
My emergence in the classroom today didn’t provide the ordinary buffer either. By now I must’ve appeared sickly to my class. I felt sweat clinging to my shirt’s fabric, and refrained from walking by any reflective surface that would’ve reminded me of my fatigued condition. Since the kids didn’t comment on my looks, I assumed they already knew that I suffered from more than just the symptoms of a common cold or flu. Despite my obvious disadvantages, I still needed to offer some structure to the students for as long as they remained positioned at their desks.
Any experienced teacher knew that a classroom laden with idle students was like a fuse being lit to an incendiary device. Without work to distract them from one another, the students invariably erupted in a cacophony of uncorked energy. At the moment, my sluggish manner served as a deterrent to any unordinary commotion. I may have even staggered briefly as I hunched into my swivel chair behind the biggest desk in the room. Surprisingly, even Orlando and Casey refrained from scowling at one another long enough for me to take attendance. For the first time in at least a month, I marked no one absent. They must’ve already anticipated a skirmish, otherwise I would’ve had credited my lessons as being the catapult behind such perfect attendance.
Just before any rift in school, no matter how large or small, a certain clamor stirred in the classroom’s air like the odor of an incontinent skunk. Once a single whiff of this sour aroma infiltrated the students’ nostrils, they twitched and wriggled in their seats like caged vermin. At least in this discipline I had the flexibility to tailor my plans to fit the students’ ever-changing habitat. Today, I decided to alter the writing exercise so that it included a theme of friendship. Perhaps this was the proper antidote to subdue the vibe of negativity.
I surveyed fourteen expressions that looked as irritable as nursery of colicky infants. Unlike their normal routine, none of these students chattered across the rows of diagonally arranged desks today. Granted, it took me a bit longer than usual to organize my thoughts and prepare for the rigors of a stimulating lesson. But even during my frailest moments, I was confident enough to trade wits with this lot for forty-four minutes. Of course, my headache, which had progressed to nearly a chronic migraine, created an unnatural delay in my presentation. Under the circumstances, I may have felt entitled to a short reprieve from my duties, but teachers forfeited that luxury once twenty-eight pair of eyes narrowed their gazes directly toward the front of the classroom.
After fewer than twenty seconds of silence, Sierra Clark adjusted her John Lennon Walrus eyeglasses on the bridge of her nose and looked at me quizzically through a pair of round lavender lenses.
“Excuse me, Mr. Cobbs,” she said, elevating more of her elbow than her hand. “If you’re not feeling too sick, can we get started now? I just bought a new journal and I wanted to break it in.”
Leave it to Sierra to remind me why I decided to become a teacher in the first place. After all, who was I to stop art? In truth, if all my students had Sierra’s enthusiasm for writing, I’d be out of a job. Presently, I still had my own way of doing things. Over the years, I’ve ironically discovered the best lessons in class required the least amount of preparation. This strategy, or lack thereof, might’ve seemed out of sorts to those who read lesson plans as if they were scribed in granite. But as any writer would’ve begrudgingly confessed, the craft often benefited from improvisation. Teaching wasn’t much different in my mind. I attributed any success I had with my less-than-formal plans to a commitment to spontaneity.
With that notion in mind, I approached the whiteboard with a single dry-erase marker in my left hand. I must’ve appeared as unsteady as a high school romance, because the kids’ eyes bobbed and swayed with my gait. My instructions to the students were as such: “Right now, I want you all to turn to the person sitting adjacent to you and try to imagine what the most important thing is in that person’s life. Don’t ask the person any questions right away. Simply open your journals and write a sentence or two describing what you believe he or she values more than anything else.”
To clarify my instructions, I then printed them on the center of the whiteboard with the marker. As I turned away from the class, I heard paper rustling and a few whispered words that were perplexingly common in my classes: ‘Do you got a pen?’ For the record, I used to keep a stockpile of pens in a ceramic cup on my desk, but they disappeared faster than a bucket of ice cubes in a heat wave.
Not so surprisingly, none of my students seemed opposed to writing something about their friends. Even Orlando and Casey temporarily suspended their spiteful glares at one another in order to lend a hand to the task. As they wrote, I positioned myself on my desktop’s corner, posing casually in front of the room as if someone was snapping my photograph for the yearbook. Despite my untroubled façade, I clasped both of my hands firmly on the furniture for support. Nearly four minutes elapsed before the first hand raised like a flag of retreat in the back of the classroom.
Watching Lenore Rivers reluctantly lift her nymph-like fingers for assistance was something I’d been waiting to observe all semester. She was a competent girl in terms of raw academic ability, but about as socially awkward as anybody who I had ever taught. She rarely spoke in a voice above a whisper, and her best effort for any kind of oral participation usually resulted in a series of mumbled monosyllabic answers. Lenore’s shyness certainly wasn’t unique among high school girls, especially for those who hadn’t blossomed as maturely as their female counterparts. As a result, she wore sweaters and slacks two sizes bigger than her petite stature to mask what hadn’t yet developed. I viewed her as a potentially pretty girl who hid behind a straight curtain of unwashed, chestnut-colored hair.
Before Lenore’s inclination to contribute dissolved, I motioned to her. “You had a question, Lenore?” I asked. The rest of the class turned their heads as if they were swivel tops when I called her name aloud. Lenore hesitated to say anything after monitoring the show of attention pivoting toward her. But, since she had a genuine concern in relation to the assignment, she tackled her phobia succinctly.
“What if I don’t have anybody to write about?” she murmured.
The class cackled like a pack of hyenas at Lenore’s expense, but I understood her plight. Since Lenore had acquired few friends, she most likely didn’t feel at ease writing about someone she knew virtually nothing about. The two girls on her immediate left already snubbed her by shifting their desks just out of range of her doleful gaze. This was where I typically earned my money.
“I didn’t necessarily suggest that you had to pick a friend,” I said to Lenore while shifting my tone into neutral. “You can pick anyone in the class to write about—even me.”
Lenore pretended to peruse the room, hoping to ensnare the pitiful expression of someone who sought to do a noble deed. When she was about to give up, Toby Hoffman volunteered. Toby was a chubby, affable kid who had no more talent for writing than Lenore did for being an auctioneer. Although Toby had been known to take his own share of verbal jabs because of his blubbery gut and penchant for candy bars, he never let those critical voices get under his skin. If anybody could’ve ever made obesity look cool, Toby might’ve been my pick.
“She can write about me if she wants,” he offered. Lenore cast a nervous stare in the direction of Toby’s desk. Before this moment, she might’ve never noticed him before. Satisfied with this lone prospect, Lenore then sunk her head down to within three
inches of her desktop and began to scribble into her journal. Toby nonchalantly stuffed a chunk of Hershey’s chocolate in his mouth, as if rewarding himself for his chivalrous gesture.
Once that minor pitfall was backfilled, I scanned the room in search of any other potential problems. Seeing none, I resumed the lesson. “Most of you in here probably think you’ve got a pretty good idea about what your classmates value most. It’s only natural that you’d feel that way, of course, considering that you see one another at least for a short time everyday.”
As I uttered these words my attention was drawn to Orlando and Casey. They sat glum-faced three rows apart from one another, and both appeared unnerved by my rather conspicuous attempt to showcase their current spat. Perhaps it wasn’t always wise to intentionally sculpt a lesson around an unresolved circumstance within the classroom, but it kept their interest linked to something productive.
“Who wants to be the first to share what he or she wrote?” My inquiry was greeted by a gaggle of mirthless faces, save for one steadfast student. Sierra just finished writing in her new journal as her hand lifted like a sailboat’s mast. It almost reached the point where she simply called upon herself.
“If no one minds, I’ll go first,” Sierra insisted. What choice did I or the rest of the class really have other than to submissively roll our eyes? Besides, she was going to recite whatever she penned whether I or anyone else protested or not. “I wrote about Barbara Fellows,” she announced. Barbara sat crossed-legged blushing in her gothic-influenced garb, while eyeing her friend as if she expected a precise analysis.
Sierra was reading from her journal now: “Barbara likes extreme punk records, black nail polish, bronze jewelry, and old movies with Jane Fonda. She also has a tattered poster of Duran Duran taped in her locker, and thinks Simon Le Bon had a cute butt when he wore blue jeans.”
The class giggled, or at least the girls in company found Sierra’s lighthearted observations funny. Barbara’s already ruddy cheeks looked suddenly chaffed by a brisk wind. Her natural shade of blush verified the accuracy of those details, and it was an innocuous way to start class. But I was hoping for something more profound.
“Those are all good points,” I commended Sierra. “Judging by Barbara’s reaction, you seem to know your friend fairly well.” I then looked at Barbara and remarked, “Wow—a Duran Duran poster. Really? That’s a band I haven’t listened to since I was in high school myself.”
“Back in primordial times, huh, Mr. Cobbs?” Kirk Jenson quipped from his desk in the first row. He followed it up with another zinger. “You know, Barbara likes that 80’s band ’cause she’s ‘Hungry Like the Wolf” for Simon Le Bon’s butt cheeks.”
“Yes, Kirk, I got the reference. Thank you for that insightful commentary.” Kirk reminded me of Harold Wagner in some ways, particularly with his encyclopedic knowledge of cultural trivia. We could’ve volleyed nonsensical rubbish at one another for hours, but I decided not to let him distract me from my original objective. “Anyway, as I was saying,” I resumed, “Sierra wrote a few perceptive details about Barbara’s interests, but does that writing help us comprehend who Barbara is any better?”
Sierra shot me a stare cold enough to freeze a polar bear in its tracks; it was one that also indicated I had offended her. “Excuse me, Mr. Cobbs,” she piped in critically. “Are you trying to say my writing isn’t interesting?”
“No, I didn’t say that at all, Sierra,” I responded.
“But you implied it.”
“You’re misunderstanding my meaning,” I returned empathetically. “My criticism has nothing to do with how you wrote, but rather why you selected to indicate those particular details about Barbara.”
“You told us to write about what the person values more than anything else,” said Sierra, defending her position like a lioness guarding her cubs. “So that’s what I did.”
Although I was hardly at my best in terms of my ability to elaborate, I attempted to clarify my point. “Most of us instinctually write about things we see or observe through casual dialogue. And, generally speaking, that’s the formula for the majority of fiction written today. So we write about physical characteristics, such as fashion choices, or maybe a few quirky details we pick up visually or by way of conversation.”
“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do as writers?” Toby questioned.
“In a sense, yes. But I asked you to indicate what you think is the most important value of the person sitting beside you,” I reiterated. “It’s clear we learned some superficial facts about Barbara. She likes punk music, Jane Fonda flicks, Duran Duran, and maybe even an occasional glimpse at Simon Le Bon’s blue jeans.”
“I don’t believe this,” Sierra groaned. “Now you’re saying my writing is superficial?”
“Of course not,” I said, exasperatingly. “But what did the rest of us, as listeners, learn about Barbara’s personality based on what you wrote? Does any of what you mentioned help us understand her core values?”
“You didn’t ask us to describe core values, Mr. Cobbs,” Kirk stated argumentatively. “And for all we know, Barbara might be obsessed with Duran Duran.”
The students began to look at one another as if they were encamped with a room full of strangers. I watched many of their eyes fall upon the work in front of them, and it soon became evident that each of them had followed Sierra’s method of description. Of course I didn’t wish to discourage them with my soft critique, particularly Sierra. Some further embellishment was required.
“We’ve all been taught to read a certain way,” I continued, “and sometimes as readers we fail to explore beneath our shallow observations. But if any of us, including me, are ever going to aspire to be great writers—or maybe even great thinkers—we must learn to examine people and our surroundings inwardly. Does that make sense to anyone in here?”
“It’s never gonna happen,” Kirk complained.
“Well, it certainly won’t come easy,” I said. “But just think how engaging the characters we created for our stories would become if we followed this method. You see, as writers, we can’t afford to think just as a reader does. We have a duty to take our prose to the next plateau.”
Since today marked an occasion where anything seemed conceivable, seeing Lenore’s hand flick up for a second time within five minutes didn’t astonish me as it might’ve if it happened yesterday. “I think I understand what you’re trying to say, Mr. Cobbs,” she said with almost no trace of paranoia. She then folded her journal and placed her pen on its cover. “What you’re asking us to do isn’t easy,” she continued, “because nobody really shows his true self to just anyone.”
“That’s a good point, Lenore,” I agreed. “Very good.”
“Well, I don’t have any secrets,” Sierra declared tersely.
“That’s not what I heard,” said Kirk with a goofy grin.
Another round of tittering teens halted the lesson again, while Kirk appeared inordinately pleased with his juvenile wisecrack. The only boy who wasn’t amused by any of this banter was Orlando. His still glowered across the rows of desks at Casey, who presented himself as jovial as a court jester. After Orlando raised his own hand, I cautiously extended him an opportunity to participate.
“You wanted to add something to this discussion, Orlando?” I called on him.
“Yeah. This is startin’ to make a whole lotta sense, Mr. Cobbs,” he said. Although he addressed me, Orlando’s eyes remained fixated on Casey. “It’s easy to see how one friend can fool another into thinkin’ he’s something he’s not. Some people just can’t be trusted. It’s sort of like puttin’ a rat in charge of the cheese.” Orlando’s blatant insult caused an air of anxiety to sift across the classroom like a sandstorm. Until now, Casey reduced his buffoonery to a minimum, but his comical demeanor siphoned the ire from Orlando’s lungs.
“You think it’s funny screwin’ around with another guy’s girl?” Orlando fumed at Casey. The hostility in his voice jumped with his bo
dy from the desk.
Casey shortened his smirk before returning, “Hey, man, I already told you that I never touched Mona.”
From my experience, a teacher had about four seconds to diffuse an explosive exchange of words between two students in this scenario. I sensed that Orlando was about to pounce on his meeker prey, which prompted me to step in between the desks, essentially serving as an imprudent blocker.
“Orlando,” I said, pivoting in his direction first. “I want you to take your seat right now. You need to calm down.”
Orlando displayed no signs of obeying my order. He postured with his chest puffed out and both fists clenched. “I’ll sit down when that creep wipes that ugly grin off his face and admits he’s been messin’ around with my girl.”
My attention then pivoted toward Casey with the speed of a pinball ricocheting off a bumper. Casey relished attention, even if it was of the negative variety. Because of this factor, it became imperative for me to remove one of the boys from the classroom. Since Casey was less confrontational at the moment, I selected him.
“Casey, can you please step out into the hallway with me for a minute?” I asked.
“Why me? I didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”
“I’m not suggesting you did,” I returned. “I just want to speak with you privately. Can you give me a little cooperation?”
Perhaps Casey recognized that my proposal worked to his advantage, considering who waited to dismantle him if he declined. But he couldn’t leave the classroom with a hint of cowardice trailing him out the door. Both of us realized that bruised reputations in high school were harder to recover from than an actual pummeling.
Casey stood up from his desk as huffily as I anticipated and snarled, “Hey, I’m not gonna sit here and be accused of something I didn’t do anyway. So I’m outta here.” While Casey marched toward the door like a vainglorious soldier, I swung my head back in Orlando’s direction.
“You can sit down now,” I told him firmly. “I’m going to handle this.” Orlando looked at me as if I had inhaled too many fumes from my dry-erase marker kit. He already knew that I rarely involved myself at this level in the students’ social dilemmas. Despite his distrust in my commitment to intervene, he reluctantly sat behind his desk, which prompted me to forward him a nod of gratification. Maybe it was part of my job to do what wasn’t specifically outlined in contractual terms.
When I first started my career as a teacher, I worked beside a cantankerous codger who adopted me as his unofficial protégé. By the time I started in the classroom, he had already taught for over thirty-five years behind the same desk. One of the numerous tidbits of knowledge Mr. Ed Brookman conveyed to me related to this very scenario. He pontificated that the primary function of any teacher worth the ink on his certificate was to stomp out combustible temperaments before they caught aflame. In opposition to his logic, I spent the last ten years dodging the smoldering masses. Even Jack from the nursery rhyme never hurdled any candlesticks as quickly or nimbly as I.
Why had I opted to stay aloof for so many years? Was it merely a strategy for self-preservation? Or was I simply indifferent to everything that didn’t touch me directly? I didn’t know the precise reasons for my sudden show of compassion today. Metaphorically speaking, maybe I was just tired of seeing the skinny guy always getting sand kicked on him at the beach. Whatever the reason, the matters of others now mattered to me. I prepared for the calamities with an intrepidness of one who couldn’t be scorched by the flames of interference.
Casey Michaels’s ludicrous behavior most likely created as many problems for him as it alleviated. I certainly encountered my fair share of self-described comedians in my classroom throughout the years. Since Casey excelled at nothing that would’ve profited him recognition among the students outside his boisterous personality, he resorted to a pseudo-comic routine that was about as humorous as a malignant tumor on most occasions. He was a gangly boy, with feet wide enough to wear a circus clown’s ballooned shoes. I found him profoundly irritating at times, but otherwise harmless.
A few seconds after Casey exited the classroom, I greeted him in the hallway. He still brandished a crooked-tooth smirk from an equally lopsided mouth. Maybe he wanted to appear unaffected by Orlando’s accusation, and this crocodile smile was the only visible device he managed to conjure in his expression. In any event, what Casey viewed as an asset against assault was not working efficiently. He was nearly close to becoming the punch line to a bad joke.
“I think you know why I called you out here,” I said to him.
“Hey, Mr. Cobbs,” Casey tittered, “it’s not my problem. I don’t even know what the hell Orlando is talkin’ about. I never touched Mona Dukes.”
I looked more closely into the boy’s brown eyes; they seemed as bland as baked mud. But because I had routinely inspected the flickering eyes of liars for so many years, I immediately discerned that Casey believed he was being treated unfairly.
“You don’t need to convince me of anything,” I said. “I believe you.”
Casey’s smile disappeared, almost stunned by my quick acceptance. “You know, I thought Orlando and I were pretty tight. We always hang out together. I just don’t get it.”
“I’m sure he’s as confused as you are, Casey.”
“Well, I can’t do nothin’ about it now, Mr. Cobbs. Once Orlando gets something stuck in his head, he’ll be the last one to admit that he’s wrong.”
“It’s likely that neither of us will change his mind, so we have to resort to another strategy.” I then pulled forth a small pad of pre-printed hallway passes from my pant’s pocket, along with a ballpoint pen. I scribbled Casey’s name and my signature hastily on the slip and handed it to him.
“What’s this for?” Casey asked. His insipidity never ceased to amaze me.
“It’s a free ticket to the library,” I responded. “That’s where I want you to go for the remainder of this period. Can you please do that for me?”
“What the heck am I gonna do there?”
“Here’s a novel idea: try reading a book.”
“Cut me some slack, will you?”
Casey was right. Maybe I was a bit too snide with my previous comment. “Listen,” I said more contritely, “I’m not picking on you, but you and Orlando can’t be in the same classroom together right now. He needs some time to cool off.” Casey might’ve played the fool in school, but he wasn’t entirely thickheaded. He stuffed the pass in his skinny jean’s front pocket and looked down at the floor.
“So what are you gonna do about Orlando?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll deal with him in time if that’s what I need to do. The important thing to remember right now is that neither of you boys is in any trouble. I’d like to keep it that way.”
Casey’s compliance eased the tension surging inside me once again, but I still confronted a spell of lightheadedness that caused me to stumble back into the classroom’s door. Casey’s discontentment softened when he noticed that I had potentially serious issues with my health to contend with.
“You really do look sick today, Mr. Cobbs,” he mentioned. “Maybe you should go home and crash.”
I managed to compose myself by massaging my index fingers against the sides of my temples for several seconds. I knew another episode was not far away from overtaking me again, and I had no remedy to halt its progression. My sole objective now was to get Casey away from me before he witnessed more than what I felt inclined to clarify.
“Just go to the library, Casey,” I insisted. “This whole thing should blow over by tomorrow.”
“Whatever,” Casey mumbled. “But can I ask you something before I leave?”
“If you must.”
“Why do you care if Orlando and I get into a fight? You never paid attention to any of our business in the past.”
“Maybe I’ve kept my eyes closed for too long,” I uttered despondently. “But when I woke up this morning listening to the loons on Lake Endelman, I had an odd
feeling that everything was going to be different today. I don’t yet know if these changes are good or bad, but the transformation has already started.”
Casey didn’t even attempt to enunciate a response to my statement. Instead, he deemed it wiser to scamper off into the hallway, effectively removing himself from any responsibility of what happened to me next. By the time he turned the corner in the corridor, I detected a dull ringing sensation building within my brain, but it was coupled with another external sound. The chime of my cell-phone indicated that I had an incoming text message. I fumbled through my pockets, first discovering the loonie I placed there every morning, and finally retrieving my phone from the last pocket I checked. I fully expected my wife to respond to the message I left her earlier. In this case, my foresight proved correct. Rachel requested that we should meet in the school’s parking lot at 11:15 A.M, during my lunch period. Because she had never before suggested such a conference with me at school, I assumed my note pinched the intended nerve.
My reflexive intention was to confirm this appointment upon receiving it, but an oncoming spell had other designs for me. In order to avoid any further explanation to my students in regard to my health, I made sure I positioned myself against a string of lockers outside the view from within my classroom. Rachel and my students would have to stew for at least three minutes longer while I settled into yet another intermission from reality.
Chapter 30
9:58 A.M.
The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs Page 29
