The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

After returning to the reality of my surroundings, I realized that I was alone at my desk. My arms dangled listlessly at my sides, trembling involuntarily. But I had already anticipated these lingering symptoms of my disorder. Gradually, as my vision cleared, I glanced toward the clock stationed above my classroom’s door. The dull ache encompassing my head caused me to recall my appointment with Dr. Pearson. I still had another hour and thirty-three minutes before I was due to see him. At this moment, I didn’t even know if I still possessed the energy to make it to his office. Just driving the two and a half miles to the medical complex without passing out seemed like an insurmountable task at this point.

  Maybe it was safer for me to take refuge from this day’s events inside my classroom, but I was quickly schooled to the contrary. Within a few seconds, a peculiar odor seeped through the room’s ventilation system. I, of course, recognized the metallic fragrance from earlier today on several occasions, but I had yet to identify its source—until now. Certain aromas, such as an old book, a newly opened jar of PLAY-DOH, or maybe a freshly mown lawn in spring always provoked remembrances. For me, the sense of smell became a portal to my youth, and perhaps one of the few credible pathways to traveling backwards through time.

  When I was a young boy, perhaps not more than ten-years-old, I remembered forcing myself to stay up late in the summertime in order to greet my father when he returned home from his third shift at the labeling plant. Sometimes I’d drift to sleep in front of the television set, while Boris Karloff or Vincent Price hammed it up in those irreplaceable late-night thrillers that sculpted my imagination. On many of these humid evenings, I was awakened by a scent that hinted of my father’s arrival. After finding me on the living room’s couch, he’d reach down with his calloused hand and playfully muss my hair, and invariably deposited a peculiar smell on my clothing and skin from his own. Apparently, the solvent used at the factory was pungent and easily transferable. My father most likely never noticed this distinct odor, but my mother must’ve berated him for fifteen thousand nights that it wasn’t healthy to wear his work clothes into the house. Whether the substance was toxic or not made no difference in my mind; I just knew that it always reminded me of my father coming back home.

  Until this morning, that labeling glue was far removed from my memory. But the custodian brought it back to me on a day that I most needed it. And here it was again, as distinct as any other common stench permeating this school’s corridors. I assumed the custodian must’ve worked with the same chemicals as my father had done years ago. At any rate, it was impossible for the custodian to surprise me with his approach. I immediately noticed the man standing outside my closed door. He stopped momentarily in view through the door’s panel of glass, posing with his thick-handled broom as if he had nothing else to do other than antagonize me.

  I didn’t even try to avoid his inquisitive gaze at this stage. My earlier request that he remained outside range of my eyes (and nose) obviously proved unconvincing in his mind. Rather than dismiss him in hopes that it might’ve altered his routine, I offered him a conciliatory nod of my chin. He took this obligatory gesture as an invitation to open the door and waltz inside my classroom.

  “You know, we have to stop meeting like this,” he said with a mocking musicality in his tone. “I mean what are the odds that we’d see each other again today?”

  “Considering that you’re stalking me around the building, I’d say they’re darn good.” Since my voice wasn’t too threatening, the custodian ambled closer to my desk. As always, his prop piece served as a crutch more so than a cleaning device. He leaned on that broom’s handle as if he had one leg rather than two. But I was more concerned with something else now. “Since you’re here, I wanted to ask you what kind of wax you’re using to polish these floors?”

  The custodian flashed me a peculiar grin, before holding up the bristled end of his broom for my inspection. “This is just a dry broom,” he replied, seemingly perplexed by my inquiry.

  “You were cleaning with a mop before,” I noted. “But whatever you’re putting down on the tiles has an odd smell to it, don’t you think?”

  He then sniffed at the air like a hound dog on the scent of a quail. Then he gesticulated his arms in an exaggerated fashion and said, “I don’t smell anything, Cobbs. But if you want to get a nose full of foul scents around this place, search no farther than the boy’s locker room after gym. That’s fetid enough to knock a carcass back into consciousness.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. This is different,” I insisted. “I’m talking about a chemical odor, maybe like an adhesive solvent. Do you use anything like that?”

  “You mean like glue?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Don’t you smell it, too?”

  The custodian tilted his nose toward the ventilation grate in the room’s ceiling, inhaling the circulating air wistfully. He then declared, “Sorry. I don’t smell anything like you’re describing. And I can’t remember the last time I used any glue around this school. Must be your imagination.”

  Perhaps the custodian was right. I supposed it was possible for my mind to replicate the scent, thereby making it only distinguishable to me. But I wasn’t yet satisfied with this explanation. I stood up from my desk, and motioned toward the custodian as if I aimed to take hold of him. I didn’t touch the man, but I angled my face close enough to his body to catch a whiff of his overalls. I determined that the glue’s odor was not any stronger or weaker in proximity to my position to him.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” I stated. “Before I saw you standing outside my door, I didn’t smell anything unusual. Now I can’t get the glue’s scent out of my nose.”

  “Maybe this mysterious glue-smell is trying to tell us something,” the custodian suggested.

  “Like what?”

  “Could it be that we have a special bond together now?” he quipped.

  “You know, you’re the only man I ever met who puns more terribly than I do.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Look, I know it’s been a tough day for you, Cobbs,” the custodian said in his appeasing manner. “But are you really surprised that things aren’t going so smoothly? It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you just took the rest of the day off. Go fishing, or catch a flick.”

  I paused in my thoughts about the glue to consider another quandary. “How do you know what kind of a day I’m having anyway?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding me? Have you taken a gander in the mirror lately, ol’ friend? You’re not exactly looking like a sculpture by Michelangelo. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so haggard before.”

  In this observation I couldn’t fault the custodian’s veracity, but that still didn’t compel me to entertain his company more than necessary. I attempted to usher him out of my classroom, but the man always dished out intriguing words when I least wanted to indulge in them.

  “Before you get back to teaching, I’d like to pick your brain for a minute.”

  Did I even need to mention that he’d been digging at my mind all day? My response was somewhat sarcastic. “I thought you already had all the answers to everything there is to know.”

  “No one bats a thousand,” he said without a hiccup in his delivery. “I just wanted to get your opinion on the big brouhaha that went on here earlier today between Drew Mincer and that homely kid.”

  “His name is Stanley Glacer,” I returned defensively. “And I don’t think the fight turned out to be much of anything. I’m just glad nobody really got hurt, especially Stanley.”

  “I guess I’m more interested in what happened prior to the fight,” the custodian mentioned almost as an afterthought. “The way I heard it, you talked to both boys separately before they actually fought.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “It’s not important. I don’t pay attention to those little details. I was just wondering how you think you handled the situation?”


  If the custodian’s question was genuine, it struck me as insensitive at best. But it also triggered my ire for another reason. “You really think it’s appropriate to follow me around this school all day, don’t you?”

  “We’ve been through this already, Cobbs. Do you want to answer my question or not?”

  “I don’t like your accusatory tone,” I told him.

  “Did I accuse you of anything? I merely asked you how you think you managed the situation. Is that so wrong?”

  “It sounds like you’re implying that I didn’t do enough to prevent the fight. I took the necessary steps to stop it, but we both know that it didn’t work out in my favor. Does that answer your question?”

  The custodian bowed his chin contritely before saying, “Sorry if I offended you, Cobbs. Don’t take everything so personally, though. And by the way, I just thought you’d like to know that there’s still time to amend things.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “Must I spell everything out for an English teacher?”

  I suddenly suspected that this custodian had acquired information not yet known to me. But, as always, his motivations remained elusive. For reasons I didn’t presently understand, he averted my eyes when I turned toward him.

  “I don’t have time to solve any riddles,” I told him flatly. “If you have something to say, then do so.”

  “Wow,” the custodian sighed, “you really are trussed tighter than the Gordian Knot. But, seeing that you’re not in the shrewdest gumshoe in town, I’ll make it easy for you. Think back to this morning. Do you remember where you first spoke to Stanley?”

  Although I couldn’t claim that my memory was as foolproof as it once had been, this detail was still vivid in my mind. “We were in the boys’ lavatory.”

  “The one near the principal’s office?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  The custodian nodded his head approvingly at what I deemed as an insignificant recollection. Surprisingly, he didn’t follow up with any comment, leaving me to further speculate where his intentions lied. I watched him curiously as he resumed sweeping the spotless floor with his broom. I assumed he was stalling on purpose to heighten my dander again.

  “Why do you care where I initially spoke to Stanley anyway?” I asked.

  “When I’m trying to solve a problem, Cobbs, I always go back to the beginning.”

  “What problem? The fight between Drew and Stanley is over. Drew is in Lemus’s office right now.”

  “So that’s it then? You really think everything is going to be hunky-dory now that Lemus has stepped in, huh?”

  “I’m not sure what to think. I just don’t see the relevance in what you’re saying to me at the moment.”

  “You will. But in case you’re not too handy at untying intricate pieces of information, I’ll give you an Alexandrian Solution. Go back to that lavatory and take another careful look around. There might be more for you to see.”

  “Why? What am I supposed to be looking for?”

  “I just replaced two fluorescent bulbs over the stalls,” he mentioned as he might have addressed a fleeting notion. “Kids have no respect for school property nowadays. Two of those bulbs were deliberately shattered. And you can’t see too clearly in a dark bathroom, right? ”

  “You’re not making any sense,” I insisted. “What do you want me to search for in the lavatory?”

  The custodian leaned closer to my ear and simply whispered, “Anything that doesn’t belong there.”

  Seemingly by design, this custodian had adopted a habit of divulging too much information when I least wanted to hear it and not nearly enough when I did. In this instance, his words sounded almost admonitory. In spite of my eagerness to learn more from him, he opted to remain mute on the topic. He continued to sweep the floor as if I wasn’t currently a factor in his present stream of thought. Rather than labor with his vague methods of communication, I decided to appease my own curiosity. Honestly, I hadn’t given the lavatory a second thought since my interaction with Stanley, but I now felt obligated to inspect the premises as instructed. As I departed my classroom, I didn’t bother to excuse myself from the custodian. Besides, I had no qualms that I’d be sans his presence for a period longer than I’d regret.

  Due to its proximity to the main office, the boys’ lavatory in question was noticeably empty during instructional time. Even the corridor outside the principal’s office lacked the typical number of dawdlers, which in turn provided Lemus with a flawed assumption that the students were always in class on time. As I turned into the corridor on this occasion, however, I noticed one boy hesitating outside the lavatory’s door. Given the peculiar nature of my mission, his reluctance to walk in either direction seized my attention. After I moved closer toward the boy, I recognized his bulging green knapsack. Only one other student in this school carted a piece of luggage on his back like a day-glow turtle, and that was how I usually spotted Harold Wagner.

  Since Harold’s eyes remained fixated on the lavatory’s door as though he was assessing its grade of hardwood, he didn’t acknowledge my approach. But before I managed to startle him, he ducked sneakily into the bathroom. I maintained my gait until reaching the same door, but hesitated to follow him inside immediately. What was I doing? Why had I permitted a custodian to manipulate my actions as though he was tinkering with a child’s intellect? I felt embarrassed for being so easily piloted. I almost retreated from the door, but then I remembered what Miss Dixon had shown me on Harold’s cell-phone.

  My procrastination instigated a headache, but rather than forfeit my position and potentially succumb to another episode, I charged forward into the lavatory as if primed to infiltrate a drug cartel. What I witnessed inside was a far less adrenaline-pumping scenario. Harold stood in front of the lavatory’s sink basin washing his hands. He initially seemed startled by my brisk entrance, but made no movement to suggest that he was doing anything outside the norm. I immediately surveyed the restroom, including the four stalls, which were unoccupied. Nothing seemed unusual, and as the custodian had indicated, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling were all replaced.

  Beneath the fresh glow of artificial light, Harold’s face appeared noticeably pallid, but perhaps none more so than my own. Unusually, he dispensed more soap on his hands than I’d ever seen a teenager use before, and lathered it between his palms until the suds leeched through the creases in his fingers. He remained committed to washing his hands, even after my reflection cast visibly into the mirror mounted on the wall in front of him.

  “Harold,” I said, keeping my voice pitched just modestly above the sound of the faucet’s rushing water. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class right now?” Seeing that he wasn’t violating any rules, I didn’t know what to say to him at first. Harold, who was rarely lost for words, responded nonverbally to my question by pointing to a yellow hall pass on a dry portion of the sink’s surface. I didn’t bother checking the pass. I was more concerned with his austereness and the fervency in which he continued to slather soap in his hands. His frenzied cleansing prompted me to jest, “Out, damned spot!”

  Harold usually extended at least an artificial smirk towards my literary allusions, but not this time. I waited until the water stopped and he dried his hands before proceeding to inveigle any further information out of him. “I was a little confused when I saw you standing out in the hallway a few minutes ago. It looked like you didn’t want to come in here for some reason.”

  The gawky boy shrugged his shoulders before bending to retrieve his knapsack lying on the tiles beside a wastepaper basket. His eyes remained focused on the floor rather than my face. “Did I do something wrong, Mr. Cobbs?” he asked unrepentantly.

  “No, I didn’t say that.”

  “But you barged in here like a storm trooper chasing Han Solo,” he noted. I couldn’t challenge the boy’s observation. Perhaps my anxiety was a bit premature, but I wasn’t prepared to let him exit the lavatory until he allevia
ted whatever concerns I may have formed. Even when Harold wasn’t in my classroom, I expected him to greet me with one or two of his odd-but-true tales. But he also omitted this from his repartee. Instead, he replaced his loquaciousness with a blank, reserved expression.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked him. “You don’t look like you’re feeling very well.”

  Harold angled his arms through the straps of his book bag and looked at me standoffishly. “I’m fine. “You know, Mr. Cobbs, you’re looking a bit sickly yourself.”

  It wasn’t necessary for me to confirm Harold’s criticism by checking my image in the mirror, but his deflection of my question didn’t yet pacify my suspicions. Although I purposely blocked Harold’s path from exiting the lavatory, he could’ve easily angled around me. I had no right to detain him any longer. My only hope to extend our conversation was to abruptly bring up the text message from his cell-phone.

  “As long as you’re here,” I mentioned, “I wanted to ask you about something.” The boy’s cheeks puffed out as if he had difficulty exhaling. I presumed my persistence was doing exactly as I hoped. “Miss Dixon told me that she found your cell-phone in her classroom earlier today.”

  “So?”

  “Did you lose your cell-phone, Harold?”

  Harold patted his pockets as if just noticing his phone was missing. “Oh, I must’ve forgot it in her class after all. I’m glad she found it, though.”

  “Well, she wasn’t so thrilled about what she accidentally discovered on it.”

  “What do you mean?” Harold replied innocently.

  “She showed me a text message that you sent to someone with the initials S.G. Does that sound familiar to you?” Harold’s reluctance to respond immediately in regard to this matter caused me to deduce that he had more to divulge than he was willing to confess. As he fidgeted in place, perhaps trying to formulate an explanation to my query, I noticed his eyes shifting periodically to examine the four stalls behind me. I pivoted in my stance to where he aimed his gaze, but noticed nothing unusual other than the door to the fourth stall being partially ajar.

  “Miss Dixon was a little upset by what she read in that one message,” I continued.

  “What can I say? She must get bent out of shape pretty easily.”

  “So the message to S.G. didn’t mean anything?”

  Harold hesitated again, this time furrowing his brow as if inconvenienced by the uncertainty in my own voice. “I don’t even remember half the things I text to my friends,” he finally revealed.

  “You mentioned a plan happening of some kind, and indicated that there’s no backing out of it.” The boy’s lips tightened as he processed my words. “Does it ring a bell now?”

  “Ah, that’s right. Yeah. I wrote it. What’s the big deal anyway?”

  “The text seems rather cryptic, don’t you think?”

  “Only if you’re paranoid. It’s just a reminder for senior cut day, that’s all.”

  Senior cut day was an unsanctioned excuse for every twelfth-grader to skip all their classes on a designated day before graduation. It was a covert tradition passed down from year-to-year by the upperclassmen. Harold didn’t strike me as a helmsman for such an operation, but I didn’t have any solid evidence to disprove his account save for one fact.

  “You haven’t cut my class all year, Harold,” I remarked. “Why would you be so gung-ho on doing it now?”

  “I don’t know. I’m only a senior in high school once, right?” His voice still crackled as if he was in the midst of puberty. “A lot of kids skip class everyday, and I’ve never seen you get on their cases before.”

  Harold was right, of course. I’d been remiss in my duties for far too many years, and certainly couldn’t expect to rectify all of my shortcomings in one day. But something in the boy’s mannerisms still seemed irregular to me. Even beneath the intensity of the fluorescent bulbs, his face glistened with more sweat than I deemed reasonable.

  “Are you nervous about something?” I asked.

  “Why? Should I be?”

  “I just want to make sure you’re telling me the truth.”

  “I have nothing to hide from you, Mr. Cobbs. You shouldn’t worry about me.”

  “May I ask you something else then?”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s about this person with the initials S.G. Do you want to tell me his full name?”

  Harold appeared peeved by my questioning, which rapidly digressed into an interrogation. “I don’t see why that’s important,” he returned. “Does Miss Dixon still have my phone?”

  “She might, but there’s a good chance she already turned it into Dr. Lemus’s office.” Harold’s complexion turned a bit more ashen as he digested that possibility. If I pressed him harder now, the fissures in his defense might’ve cracked apart like a war-torn facade. “She was almost convinced that you were planning to do something drastic.”

  “The lady must have a vivid imagination. I can’t explain it. Maybe she’s watching too much television.”

  Beforehand, I might’ve concurred with Harold’s assessment, but now I wasn’t so swift to undermine Miss Dixon’s cautionary habits. At this point, Harold’s poise stabilized as he gradually discerned that I had no tangible details to prevent him from exiting the lavatory.

  “I should get back to class now,” he suggested, while grabbing the slip of paper from the sink.”

  “So that’s it then? Are you sure you don’t have anything else to tell me?” My words were fraught with desperation now, and this boy had too much savvy to misinterpret his blatant advantage.

  “Unless Dr. Lemus has changed school policy since this morning,” he said glibly, “then I don’t think a student can get into any trouble for just texting about cutting class, can he?”

  “Technically, no. But here’s what I believe, Harold, and feel free to correct me if I stray too far from the truth. I’m sure by now that you’ve heard that Stanley Glacer had a fight today with Drew Mincer.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I was thinking that the S.G. in your text message is Stanley Glacer. Are you two friends?”

  Harold displayed his indecision again as he locked his eyes on a neutral place on the bathroom’s wall. Several seconds elapsed before he admitted, “We talk now and then. I see him in the hallways after second period. Is that also an unwritten violation?”

  “Then you boys don’t have any classes together?” I remarked, ignoring his sarcasm.

  “Nope.”

  “So it’s likely that you did send Stanley that message, isn’t it?”

  “What’s the difference, Mr. Cobbs?”

  This was where I became tongue-tied, only because I didn’t yet know if the text message mattered at all. Presently, I had no basis to accuse Harold of anything more aggressive than plotting to cut school. Maybe Harold didn’t respect or trust me to assist him with any real calamities he might’ve faced. Either way, I was powerless to keep him from returning to his classroom. He stepped around me with his head still slunk toward the tiles. Before he left, however, he stopped momentarily by the lavatory’s door and offered me a forlorn glance. I felt as though he tried to channel the courage to transmit a telepathic plea for help, but the gesture was fleeting. In another second, he pushed open the door and left me standing alone. I then listened to an unremitting plop of water dripping from the sink’s faucet.

  I gradually centered my attention on another conundrum. It didn’t rate as a significant problem until I realized that I hadn’t fully inspected the lavatory. My eyes then swerved toward the toilets’ petitioned walls. The fourth stall’s door still swung ajar on its hinge. This discrepancy inclined me to give it a closer look. I approached the stall’s door tentatively, almost expecting it to fly open and whack me in the head. But, as I indicated earlier, no one was inside the enclosure. I might’ve turned away at this instance if it was not for the glue’s aroma seeping into my nostrils again. As I clasped my fingers
on the door’s metal latch, the odor intensified. The smell became so concentrated that I felt justified in inspecting the three other stalls to make certain the custodian wasn’t hiding inside. My search proved unproductive.

  Still unfulfilled with my examination, I returned to the fourth stall and pushed its door fully open. The toilet appeared virtually unused; its white surface reflected the overhead light of the newly installed fluorescent bulbs. The only evidence of this toilet being visited since its last sterilization existed in the form of a single sheet of tissue paper stuck to the seat’s bottom rim. I normally wouldn’t have bothered to check into this matter any further, but the glue’s noxious fumes wafted into my face with the dizzying impact of a hypnotist’s command.

  Within seconds, I sensed my legs bending like rubbery sticks toward the toilet. I managed to hold myself partially upright against the ceramic fixture, but my knees already connected with the tiles. Now under the trance of the glue’s pungent fumes, I leaned forward toward the bowl, angling my face over the blue-tinged water. A feverish urge to vomit overwhelmed me, but I hadn’t eaten anything to cause me to regurgitate anything more than a mouthful of bile. The bitterness of this substance forced me to grapple the toilet with both hands as if I was intent on ripping it from the floor.

  Eventually, my sensation to puke subsided and my throat muscles relaxed, but the throbbing in my temples had nullified any sense of relief. If I had to pass out again, I didn’t want to be discovered drowned prone in toilet water. In a bid to regain my stance, I leaned my torso forward and pressed my forehead against the plumbing pipes attached to the wall behind the toilet. The metal pipes felt cool against my skin, and I managed to stabilize myself for a few seconds. But I knew this was only a brief amnesty from the onset of another episode.

  Then, before my hands released the bowl, I repositioned my grip near its base. It was here that I felt something strange—something that didn’t belong. My fingers brushed up against a metallic object. Although I couldn’t yet see the item, I knew that it was not attached to the toilet. I then readjusted my gaze so that I could see behind the toilet. The room’s brightness, (courtesy of the recently replaced bulbs), dissolved any shadows from this area. My eyes immediately flooded with dread at what I observed. A steel casing gleamed under the weight of my hand. I flinched and then withdrew my fingers, allowing me to uncover a small caliber handgun.

  For a moment I stared at the gun as if it wasn’t truly there, but no amount of blinking or wishing on my part made the weapon vanish. As I retracted my hand, I realized that my fingertips had already contaminated the piece. Whoever left the gun here certainly did so by design, but I doubt it was meant for my detection. And now my prints were deposited on the weapon. I couldn’t ignore the simple science of this gun being recovered and linked to me at a later time. Whether I wanted to accept the responsibility or not, this gun could not be ignored.

  At present, I could only surmise this weapon’s purpose and speculate on who hid it here. Was it the custodian? He must’ve stashed it here for me to find. But why would he go to such lengths to frighten me? I maneuvered my hand methodically back to the gun. I then grasped its wooden handle as tenderly as butterfly landing on a wildflower’s petal. I had never touched a weapon before, and it caused my palm to tremble with a vigorous sensation. In this same instance, my head continued to pulsate. I drew the weapon closer to me, but then released it again when I could no longer sustain the symptoms of my distress. Despite my resistance, my legs betrayed me once again, and I collapsed against the toilet like an invalid deprived of his wheelchair. It soon became inevitable that I had no chance of escaping this predicament for at least three additional minutes. While leaning against the stall’s petition, I cocked my head back and stared up languidly into the fluorescent bulbs’ white glare. No amount of light, however, barred my vision from fading into the innermost regions of blackness.

  Chapter 46

  1:26 P.M.