“So you’ve said.” This was a statement. Her face seemed on the verge of a kind of knowing smile.
“I do like some things about it.”
We were quiet again for a moment. Then she said, “Hell, who would ever want to do this for the little bit of money we make?”
“You got me.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“I don’t really know,” I told her. “I felt very lucky to get this job. Most times I try to remember that.”
“You know, it’s probably a good thing we don’t make a lot of money. I wouldn’t want to work with anybody who got into this business for the money.”
“Nor would I.”
“You’re so young,” she said.
“I’m not that young.”
“Wait until you turn thirty, then talk about ambition and what’s temporary.”
“You’re thirty years old?”
“Thirty-five.” She seemed proud of it.
“I had no idea you were that old.”
She only stared at me, shaking her head. Leslie Warren had moved out of sight on the other side of the building. I really wasn’t worried about her. I figured we already had a pretty good relationship.
29
Adventures in Literature
Days, then weeks went by. As I expected, Leslie Warren was perfectly fine. She sat at her desk, quietly; she worked when I asked everybody to work. She wrote entries in her journal about clothes and actresses and movies and the places she had traveled. She was always impeccably dressed—every day she looked like a fashion model. I said a few things in class that made her laugh, and when I did I counted it as a major triumph.
Eventually, Mrs. Creighton felt comfortable leaving Suzanne alone in the room with me. She took her own notes, but kept her chair turned to the side, so all I saw of her was the red hair hanging down by her face.
One day, about a week after Mrs. Creighton stopped attending, Leslie got up in the middle of class and started for the door.
“Leslie, where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m going out to have a cigarette.”
“Wait until break time.”
“I want one now.” She had a reasonable tone. She was explaining to me.
“I’d like one myself,” I said. “But let’s wait until class is over. It’s only another twenty minutes.”
She frowned. I thought she was going to stamp her foot, but she only bent at the knee a bit, and then stood flat-footed again. “But I want one now,” she whined.
“But class is not over. I’ve not finished.”
There was a long silence. She extended her lower lip until she looked like a five-year-old, pouting. Her head tilted slightly downward, her eyes gazing at me under those dark, ill-tempered brows, she said, “Can’t I just go have one now?”
Everyone was watching her.
“Leslie,” I said. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
She stood there for a moment, considering, then she took her seat. No further argument, and very limited petulance, or attitude. I wished Doreen had been there to see it.
Things were going well enough in all of my classes each day, and I had plenty of time to finalize and present my lesson plans to Mrs. Creighton. She frowned when she saw I was bent on repeating my holocaust project with the juniors and seniors, but she said nothing. I showed different films this time, since most of my students had been with me the year before. I still wanted films that showed the bodies, the bulldozers, the long lines of naked men, women, and children, but I also gave them a good drama or two about the struggle to conquer such evil in the world. They saw Days of Glory with Gregory Peck, and Battle Cry with Van Heflin and Aldo Ray.
I typed up the numbers for each class. In bold type I wrote: Of the millions of Jews deported from occupied countries, almost no one over fifty or under twelve was allowed to live. I showed them pictures of the bodies, the survivors, the ovens, the roving gas trucks, the SS firing squads, and the killing ditches. “This,” I said, “was Hitler.” It didn’t take long, but they all knew. After each film or handout, I had them write in their journals. I didn’t read the journals too closely, right away—I scanned rather cursorily, just to get the flavor of them. I planned on a lot of rewriting for everybody.
I had the seniors fourth period, and every day Leslie Warren was first to arrive. She always came in slowly, watching me; then she’d sit in a chair to my left, her back to the books that lined the sidewall. I had arranged the desks into a U-shaped pattern, down one wall, across the back, and up the other. Behind the back chairs was Suzanne’s desk. Most of the seniors would take the time between classes to go outside and smoke cigarettes, but Suzanne Rule always came in next, head down as usual. She’d take her seat. Leslie always smiled over at her and said politely, “Hello.” And Suzanne would nod her head a bit; start to raise her hand a little. Some mornings she’d almost look up, but then something would fail in what appeared to be a mechanism in her neck and her head would sort of slump back into position. Leslie did not ever say anything else to her, and it never seemed to bother her that she barely got a response from Suzanne. Then George Meeker would wander in, not paying much attention to anyone. He always sat in a chair in front of the large picture window. He’d nod my way, take his seat and stare out the window.
Except for this awkward beginning to what was my second-to-last class of the day, Leslie Warren was a model of behavior, and Suzanne Rule was—well, you can’t really worry overmuch about the behavior of a statue—Suzanne Rule was a model of behavior as well. I could only assume she was hearing what we talked about in class.
I probably should have left things as they were, but one day in late fall, I just had to try to break into the awkward silence that always ensued after Leslie, Suzanne, and George were seated and comfortable.
“Isn’t it a lovely morning,” I said, very loud. I wanted to be cheerful. The day before I had just returned a huge stack of their papers. Suzanne Rule earned an A with a paper entitled “Monkey Paw.” She described a method of trapping monkeys by putting part of a banana inside a gourd attached to a sturdy rope. The monkey puts his open hand inside the hole to get the banana, but when he forms a fist, he can’t get his hand out of the gourd. He’s trapped. “It never occurs to him to let go of the banana and open his hand,” she wrote. She likened the monkey trap to “the human condition.” We are “given life (the banana) and we hold onto it, even when the world turns out to be a small hole.” It was pretty good, though a little frightening. The tone of it was humorous, though, so I didn’t worry overmuch.
George wrote a paper about how much he enjoyed weightlifting; he said he’d “finally gotten into something [his] dad was proud of.” I really believed the beatings had pretty much stopped.
Leslie got a C on her paper. I thought I was being fair. I didn’t want to give her a C but it was not much of a paper; in fact it was a little below average—something she clearly dashed off the morning she turned it in. It was one page, and told the story of an Embassy dinner she attended with her father—a “top executive at Exxon” who “traveled the world for the biggest oil company in the world.” At the dinner, Ronald Reagan made an appearance and she shook hands with him. When she saw the grade, she sat up straight and glared at me. I thought she was a little shocked that she’d passed the assignment.
At any rate, that morning I felt sort of invincible, and as I said, I wanted to break into the uncomfortable silence. Also, I thought it was time to get beyond the Nazis. But when I said, “Good morning,” I got no response. Leslie paged through her loose-leaf notebook, and Suzanne simply stared at her desk. George smiled.
After a long silence, I sat down and waited. I cleared my throat, and when I caught Leslie looking at me, I said, “How are you this fine morning?”
“Do you like being so tall?” she asked.
“Ah.” I felt my face begin to take on color. “Well, I’m not really all that tall.”
“I heard what you did at Prom la
st year.”
I really did not know what she was talking about at first, so I just stared at her.
“Miss Corrigan raved about you in class. She said you just—oh, what was the word she used. It was just perfect. I’ve got to think of it …”
I didn’t want her to go on about it, but I have to say a part of me was glad Doreen had been talking about me, and Leslie thought I was a hero. Wouldn’t that please you? “I think I know what you’re referring to,” I said. “Believe me it was nothing.”
“No. Miss Corrigan said you—the guy was a big, mean-looking dude and looked like he was going to kill Mr. Creighton, but you fixed it.”
“We just went and had a cigarette.”
“Defused! That’s it. She said you defused the situation.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Is that what you did?”
“I suppose.”
“Why did I get a C on my paper?”
This took me back a bit. She sat there, staring at me, her face expressionless.
“You got a C because it was a C paper. I wrote on it about what you should have done to get a better result. Did you read my notes?”
Nothing could have prepared me for what Leslie said next. Her eyes sort of half-closed and she leaned toward me a bit and in a breathy, lilting voice said, “I bet you fuck real good, don’t you.”
“Pardon?” I heard her, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“I bet you’re real good in bed.” She let her voice linger on the word real.
What would you say in a circumstance like that? I didn’t say anything. I mean, Suzanne Rule was sitting right there, listening with her little red ears. George pretended to be reading in his journal, but his eyes moved my way a little then went back to the page he was reading. I looked at the book on my desk—Adventures in Literature—and tried to get my mind to recognize other words again. I’d like to say that I was thinking about how sad it is that to sell the greatest ideas and thoughts that ever shimmered through the human brain, educators believe they have to present literature as though it’s an amusement park ride. I struggled to keep my eyes from wandering over to Leslie Warren’s knees. I could not think of even one word. I didn’t remember any ideas; not love, or charity, or mercy, or anything. Seconds crawled by, then Leslie said, “I bet you do it so slow, don’t you?” She was smiling on every syllable but I did not face her. I wanted somebody else to come into the room. I was acutely aware of her eyes, staring at me, her legs slightly splayed. She shifted a bit, moving her feet further apart and leaning back in the desk chair. “I bet you and me could really fuck sweetly,” she whispered. Suzanne Rule had not moved. She remained bent over her desk, staring at the blonde wood.
You know what I said, finally? I coughed, on purpose, stalling for time, then I said, “That will be enough of that kind of talk, Leslie.”
I saw Suzanne Rule’s hands move a little bit toward the edge of her desk. I did not want to swallow or make any sudden movements with my face or my hands. I felt my heart increasing and my whole head felt like it was burning. I looked at my hands.
A student named Harvey Mailler came in, smelling of smoke. I was never so glad to see anybody in my life. He wore cowboy boots, and a long draping coat that was too warm for that time of year. “Hey Leslie,” he said.
“Hey.” She sat forward a bit.
A few others filtered in and sat down.
“Harvey,” I said, gulping. “I’m glad you’re here.” He glared at me suspiciously. I said, “Could you open the door and tell the others it’s time to come in?”
“Sure, Teach.”
Leslie ran her fingers through her hair, stroking it, still staring at me. Her lips were darker today, and so were the shadows over her eyes. Suzanne Rule moved slightly in her seat, a small adjustment for comfort, turning her head a little more toward the wall, but I could definitely see that she was upset.
I didn’t know what was happening on my face, but I still felt heat in my jaw and behind my eyes. I might have said something more, if I could find any thoughts in my soft, buttery brain, but nothing was happening there.
Then suddenly the words so this is what everybody is talking about raced through my brain and I realized I was angry. I felt betrayed; I had been nothing but kind to her and didn’t deserve this treatment. I might not have gotten so involved with Leslie if I had not done what I did next: I walked over to her and lifted her out of the chair. She came up easily enough and we walked to the door where I gently placed her outside in the hall. I didn’t push her, I merely kept her moving, and I insured she would be outside the room when she stopped moving. I know, I did lay a hand on her, but it was only to get her out of the room. “Go to Ms. Creighton, right now,” I said.
“For what?” She was peering up at me, her lips slightly parted, an expression of limitless sorrow and innocence on her face.
“Just go there. I will talk to you with Mrs. Creighton, after class.” I closed the door and went back to the front of the room.
She opened the door and started to come back in.
“Go to the office,” I said, and I was pretty loud. She did not seem to know much about what was happening to her expression. In spite of her apparent intelligence and power over others, her mouth was open almost as loosely as one of the hounds.
“Did you hear me?” I said.
“I’m going to report you, for saying that to me,” she said.
“Report me.”
Harvey came back in, and most of the others trailed in behind him.
“Thanks, Harvey,” I said.
“Sure, dude.”
The crush of students entering and taking seats seemed to silence Leslie. She stood there with her hands in front of her and the lovely hair draped over one side of her face, covering one eye. She stared at me as if she believed her gaze would eventually wear away flesh and cause wounds. “I’m going to report you,” she said again.
“For what?”
“For saying that to me.”
“Saying what to you?”
“You know what you said.”
I looked at the top of Suzanne’s head. “I didn’t say anything but to go to the office.”
“You said more than that.”
“Go on,” I said, more loudly now and really angry. Then I yelled at her. “Get out! Now!” The whole class jumped.
She glared at me a second longer, then she turned to Suzanne Rule, whispered, “Bye,” and closed the door. Suzanne Rule reached up and pushed a few strands of hair back over the top of her ears, then went back to the same position.
“Suzanne,” I said. “You heard what happened.”
She did not move.
“George?” I said.
He looked at me with a pleading expression; begged me with his eyes. He did not want this trouble.
I stood there until everyone was seated and settled, then I said, “Before we start today, I want to give you all a writing assignment.”
They groaned, opened backpacks and got out notebooks and pens. Still shaking a bit inside, I walked around and sat on the front of my desk. When the confusion subsided and they were ready I said, “I want you to answer some questions for me but I want you to put your answers in the form of an essay.”
Some of them looked around, exchanged knowing glances.
“How long does it have to be?” Harvey said.
“I want you to write it until you’re finished, and when you’re finished I want you to stop.” A few of them laughed. I wrote the word “civility” on the blackboard. “I want you to write about this word. Write about what it means to you.”
“You mean a definition?” Jaime Nichols asked.
“Well, if that’s all you can say about it. I want to know how you define it. How would you like to be treated? What do you see as civil behavior?”
Mrs. Creighton came in and took a seat in front of Suzanne Rule. She did not look directly at me, but her face was not expressionless. She looked very concerned.
When the class was over, I collected the essays. The place emptied as quickly as it always did, and only Suzanne Rule and Mrs. Creighton remained in the room. I stacked the papers in front of me and waited. Mrs. Creighton was writing on a pad in front of Suzanne, whispering to her. Suzanne stood up finally, as far as she ever stood up, picked up her notebook with the pad of paper in it, and slouched out the door.
“Well,” I said.
Mrs. Creighton took her glasses off and let them drop on the chain around her neck. She was not facing me, but I could see she was thinking about what to say.
“I’m sorry I had to send Leslie out like that. But—”
“I’m sorry too.”
“She was being very disrespectful.”
“I know she can be that way.”
“I wouldn’t have—I’m sorry it came to that,” I said. “But I just couldn’t let her remain in the class.”
She turned to me. “Did you say anything to her?”
“I told her I would not allow her to speak like that in this class.”
“What did she say?”
Somehow, I managed to tell her. I don’t know if the words even registered. Her face did not change. “You said nothing else to her?”
“I told her to go to the office.”
“You made no comment about her—about her sex?”
“What, you mean gender?”
“No. I mean her sex. Did you comment on her—did you say anything at all about having desire for her?”
“What did she say I said to her?”
She glanced above my head, briefly, as if she were considering, then she met my gaze again. “I don’t want to repeat those words.”
I wanted to say, “You didn’t mind making me repeat them,” but I said nothing.
“You didn’t tell her you wanted to have sex with her?”
“Of course not.”
“She says you did.”
“You know I didn’t.”
“Was anyone else here?”
“Suzanne was here. So was George Meeker.”
She shook her head. “Are you absolutely certain that you said nothing she could have misunderstood?”
In the Fall They Come Back Page 22
