by R. R. Banks
"Has anyone seen Jason this morning?" I asked.
The students looked around at each other, some of them looking as though they weren't even sure who I was talking about. I couldn't really blame them. He had only shown up for one homeroom class and he hadn't spoken to anybody during it. Teenagers weren't exactly known for being particularly detail-oriented and if I were one of them I probably wouldn't even realize that he was there, either. I sighed and sat down behind my desk, jotting a note next to Jason's name on my roster. I could let it go that he had missed the first homeroom, but now I needed to start keeping track of each period that he missed or was late to, so I could report them to the front office when he reached the threshold allowed by the school. I hoped that it didn't come to that. I didn't want to be that person in his life. He was obviously struggling to cope with moving to a new town and starting at a new school in the middle of the year, and I didn't want to make it harder on him. Hopefully, he would straighten up soon and we could put the rocky beginning behind us. At the same time, if he didn't, I would have no choice but to do my job.
Later that afternoon I was preparing for my History class when I heard a ruckus out in the hallway. The desks in the classroom were still empty, except for one girl sitting in the back corner. She was always the first to arrive since her last class was in the room right next door and as she always, she was deeply engrossed in the thick book opened on her desk in front of her. I figured that since it was just her and I was just going to be right outside of the room it was safe to leave her, and I rushed in the direction of the growing noise. The hallway was congested with students and many of them went scurrying when they saw me approaching. The rest tightened their formation in the center of the hallway, closing around the point of their focus. It was something I had seen before and I knew exactly what was happening. I stalked up to the knot of students, demanding they move out of my way. Enough of them did to grant me access to the two girls locked in apparent mortal combat on the floor.
I ignored all of the strictly-given instructions about never making physical contact with any of the students and reached down to grab the girl on top by the back of her jacket. I hauled her up from the floor shouting at both of them to stop. They continued to flail at each other for several seconds until I was able to totally disentangle them and push the girl in my hand behind me.
These kids never fucking cease to amaze me. When did girls turn into such monsters? They were always bitches when I was younger, but I never felt like they were going to throw down like the testosterone-fueled guys.
"What's wrong with the two of you?" I shouted.
Some of the students that had gathered around to watch the fight snickered and I turned my glare toward them.
"And what do you think you're doing?" I snapped at them. "Did you buy a pay-per-view ticket? I don't think so. Get to class."
The group scattered and the girl that had been lying on the ground tried to join them, but I stopped her.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"To class, like you said."
"No. Not the two of you. You'll be going to the office to explain to Mrs. Applegate how you could confuse the Humanities hallway with an octagon."
As I swiftly led the girls through the hallway and to the office, I called over my shoulder to a teacher's aide to watch my class for me. Then I turned back to the girls.
"What was this all about anyway?"
"She was looking at my boyfriend," one seethed.
I paused, waiting for the rest of the story that I was positive had to be coming. It didn't come. I blinked a few times.
"That's it?"
"Yes."
"Are you serious?" I looked between the two of them incredulously. "You've got to be fricking kidding me. Are you married? Did she fling herself on him naked?"
"No."
"No. How long have you and your boyfriend been together?"
"Six months."
"Which is clearly enough of a commitment to threaten your physical safety and get yourself kicked out of school for."
Both girls fell silent and sulked the rest of the way to the office and until I plopped them into the chairs in the vice principal's office. I gave Mrs. Applegate a brief rundown of what I had witnessed in the hallway and then raced back down the hall toward my classroom, feeling like I had just established the type of teacher I was going to be. The satisfaction that I felt disappeared quickly when I turned down the hall and heard voices coming from the direction of my classroom. I was heading toward it when I saw the teacher's aide step out of another classroom.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
She pulled her water bottle away from her mouth and looked at me with widened eyes.
"Drinking water," she said.
"You are supposed to be keeping an eye on my class," I said.
"I thought that you just meant you wanted me to look in on them," she said.
"No," I said. "I meant that I wanted you to keep an eye on them. I had to bring the two girls who were fighting to the office."
The college student looked like she was trying to come up with something to say, but I didn't give her a chance to finish. I walked into the classroom and found it in utter chaos. Students were sitting on the desks, one couple was in the corner groping each other, and a paper airplane zipped by my face nearly clipping my nose. All it needed was a choreographed dance sequence and it would be a bad 80's teen movie. I stomped to the front of the classroom and shouted over their voices to get their attention.
"Really?" I asked.
Most of the students in the classroom had the decency to at least look embarrassed at their behavior, but my eyes fell on a particular face that looked far more smug than it did remorseful.
"Do you have a hall pass?" Jason asked.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Well," he said. "It seems to me that you're tardy to class. Do you have a hall pass to excuse you?"
He was slumped down in his desk chair, his arms rested on the pressed wood surface in front of him. I glared at him but didn't say anything. The last thing I was going to do was feed into his attitude. I walked over to my desk and picked up the notebook that held my lesson plans.
"Get out your textbooks and open them to chapter five. I want all the review questions for chapters five through seven completed and turned in by the end of class. No talking. No sharing notes. No sharing textbooks. This will count as a quiz score toward your final grade."
The room fell silent and I dropped down into my chair by my desk. I opened the drawer and looked in at my cell phone. I knew that I wasn't supposed to be using it during school hours, but the drama of how the afternoon was unfolding had ruined my good mood and I wanted to get it back. I reached in and scrolled through my contacts until I found Garrett's number. He had programmed it in the night before and I clicked on it now, pulling up a blank text message. I stared at the screen, trying to come up with what I should say. Memories from the night before rushed back into my mind and I squirmed slightly in my seat, crossing my legs against the throbbing between my thighs that began as I imagined Garrett’s mouth on my skin and my body stretching to accommodate him. Finally, I typed 'hi' and sent it. My cheeks burned, and I closed the drawer quickly.
The bell indicating the end of class finally rang and my students streamed past my desk to drop their papers. Jason was the last to approach and I looked up at him as he lowered his partially filled paper to the stack.
"Why didn't you finish"? I asked.
"Because I didn't," he said.
I let out a sigh.
"Look, Jason," I said. "I don't know what problem you have with me, but it ends now. You need to report back here at the end of the day."
"Why?" he asked.
"For detention," I said.
"Detention?" he asked. "For what?"
"For your attitude, rudeness, and disrespect. And because you didn't finish your assignment. You'll come here after school and finish your work, and we'll talk about yo
ur future conduct in my class."
"I can't."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't come here after school today."
"It wasn't a request, Jason. You have detention today."
"I can't come here after school today," he repeated. "There's a workout with the baseball team. Tryouts are next week."
"I don't think that's my problem."
"I have to be there to work out with the team."
"Is it a mandatory workout?"
"No, but I'm new and the coach doesn't know me. I need to show him that I'm serious and get in front of him as much as I can before tryouts."
"Well, I'm sorry, Jason. Maybe you should have thought about the importance of the baseball team before you acted out the way that you did."
The truth was that I actually did feel sorry. I could see how important the team was to him, but that didn't change the way that he had acted or the fact that he hadn't finished his work. As he had said, the workout wasn't mandatory. I couldn't imagine that missing one workout was going to hurt his chances. Besides, he was in school for an education, not to play baseball. It was much more important for him to get good grades and he wasn't going to do that if he kept going down the path that he was on now. I was determined that I wasn't going to be the one who let him fall through the cracks. I wasn't going to be the teacher that just gave up on him or turned my back on him, expecting that he was already a lost cause and there was no point in putting forth the energy or the effort to help him. I was going to stop his downward spiral now.
"Look," he said. "I'm sorry about the crack about the hall pass."
"I appreciate that. But that's not enough to just make the situation go away. You had ample time to finish this assignment during class. In fact, you are the only one in class who appears to not have finished, and that's not acceptable. Come here at the end of the day, get it done, and we'll start with a fresh slate tomorrow."
I looked down at my desk and started grading the first of the papers, putting an end to the conversation. Jason let out an exasperated sound and stomped out of the classroom. In the brief moment of silence between those students leaving and the next coming in, I heard the buzz from inside my drawer that indicated I had gotten a text message. I opened the drawer and peeked in.
"Hi," the message said. "The boys say thank you for the trifle. They wish that they were here last night."
Well, I'm certainly glad they weren't.
Two hours later I sat at the desk, waiting for Jason to show up after his last class of the day.
Half an hour after that I was fairly certain that he wasn't going to show up.
Ten minutes after that, I was pissed.
Chapter Seven
Garrett
I was staring into the Chinese takeout container I was holding, contemplating life and its direction as it may be told by the remaining Lo Mein noodles in the bottom of the box when my phone rang. Jason was chewing his way through what seemed like his twentieth egg roll, and he didn't pause when he reached for my phone where it sat on the table beside him. He grabbed it and handed it to me, where I sat, on the floor across from him. The dining room table was still covered with boxes and I told myself that I was going to have to spend my first day off unpacking. I wasn't looking forward to that, but it was better than the prospect of spending all of my meals at home sitting on the floor.
"Hello?" I said into the phone.
"Mr. Allen?"
"Yes," I said.
"This is Mr. Jefferson, from the high school."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Jefferson. How are you?"
"I'm doing all right," he said. "The wife is especially making meatloaf for this evening, and that's one of my favorites, so I'm looking forward to getting home. She has one of her shows on tonight, so I'll probably be spending most of my time in my study getting through some of those books I always say I'm going to finish."
I nodded as I finished another bite of my food.
"That sounds good," I said. "What can I do for you this evening?"
"Oh," the principal said as if he had forgotten why he had called me in the first place. "I'm calling about your son."
"Jason?" I asked.
I wasn't sure why I asked that. He was my only son.
"Unfortunately, yes. His teacher, Miss Martin, tells me that he did not report for his detention this afternoon."
"Detention?" I asked. "Why did he get detention?"
"She didn't share that information with me," Mr. Jefferson said. "She came into my office this afternoon to report that she had told Jason to stay after school with her to discuss a behavioral issue that he had today, and to complete an assignment that he failed to turn in, but he didn't come."
"I'm sorry about that," I said. "I'll have a talk with him."
"Please do that," the principal said. "He is facing more serious disciplinary action if this can't be handled."
"Don't worry," I said. "I will make sure that it's handled. Thank you for calling me. Enjoy your meatloaf."
"Thank you. Have a good night."
I ended the call and glared at Jason. He looked back at me with an expression that told me that he knew exactly why I had received that call. He let out a dramatic sigh and set his takeout container down in front of him.
"I couldn't go," he said before I even had the chance to tell him about the call.
"Jason, he said you had detention. You can't just not go to a detention."
"I had to, Dad. There was a workout this afternoon with the baseball team."
"You skipped detention with one of your teachers so that you could go run laps around a baseball field?" I asked.
"You make it sound like it doesn't matter," he said.
"That's not what I'm saying, Jason. I do know how important baseball is, but I also know how important school is."
Jason rolled his eyes.
"I didn't say that school wasn't important, Dad. But I had to go to the workout this afternoon. The team is really, really good and if I want any chance at all of getting on to it before this spring I need to show 100% dedication and commitment to the team. Not showing up for a workout would look like I just didn't care or like I thought that I was going to get some sort of special treatment because of you."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"A couple of the guys on the team were saying that I better not get on the team just because you're the new fire chief. I wanted to make sure that I earned my way onto the team. I want to be in the best shape that I can be, and I want to show how dedicated I am, even if all these workouts aren't mandatory."
I had to admit that I was impressed by my son. I'd been angry when the principal said that he hadn't shown up to his detention, expecting that Jason had just decided that he didn't need to go because he didn't feel like it. Now that I heard how earnest he was in his explanation of why he didn't go to the detention, though, I was more frustrated at the principal. It was obvious that this was extenuating circumstances and they should have been able to be more flexible with him.
"Did you tell your teacher that you needed to go to baseball practice this afternoon?" I asked.
"I did," he said, nodding. "I told her that I was trying out for the team and that I needed to go to the workout."
"Why did she give you a detention in the first place?"
"She didn't like my attitude and I didn't get an assignment done that she gave us during class. I even apologized for the way that I talked to her, but it didn't matter."
"You apologized to her? And she still wouldn't reschedule or just let it go?"
"No."
Jason looked dejected and any frustration and anger that I had felt toward him was now directed at this teacher.
"What's this woman like?" I asked.
He shrugged.
"Pretty miserable, I guess. She's old and dowdy and always in a really bitchy mood. If I had to make a guess, I would say that she probably doesn't get a whole lot of male attention."
"Jason," I scolde
d.
He shrugged and reached for his food again.
"It's the truth," he said. "I'm just saying it as I see it. I think if she got a little bit more companionship she would probably be nicer, and the school would be a better place."
I stared at my son and realized with a sinking feeling in my belly that this was my doing. His perceptions about women and his willingness to be so callous and disrespectful were my fault. He had been shaped by watching the end of my marriage to his mother and how I had handled any other interaction with women since then. I watched Jason continue to eat, unfazed by the bitterness that he had just expressed about his teacher. My mind went to the moments that had created this in him and what had given him these perceptions.
Ten years earlier…
I'd never driven so fast through the base. I had never broken any of those posted rules or done anything that might threaten my position. Being in the military had been the only thing that had saved my young family, that had saved me, and I didn't want to do anything that might threaten the future that it held for me. That night, though, the only thing that was on my mind was the words of the man in the mess hall. I had heard him mutter my wife's name and it brought my attention to the conversation he was having at the table beside me. I hated the nights when I was on duty and wasn't able to be at home to have dinner with Valerie and Jason. There were many days when I was up and out of the house before my young son was awake for the day, and by the time I got back, he was already in bed for the night. The times when I was able to be home and have dinner with them were cherished. They were the times when I was able to spend time with Jason and actually be a part of his nighttime routine. It was rare, however, and there were more nights than not when I had to work and wasn't able to be there for him. This was one of those nights but hearing what the man had said about Valerie had taken all of my attention away from my duties for the night.
I had my suspicions. I couldn't help but notice the way that her personality had changed, and the odd things about our home over the last few months. I had come home several times to a stripped bed and sheets that were in the washing machine. A few times I had found more than one glass in the sink, or a cigarette butt outside when she wasn't a smoker. Valerie had always been able to explain those things away. Jason had an accident and wet the bed. They had been watching a movie together and he spilled his juice. Some of the other wives had come over for a drink and had stepped outside to have a smoke. I accepted every excuse that she gave me. I felt like I didn't really have another option. If I didn't accept what she said and convinced myself that each one of them was plausible, it would force me to deal with the reality that I knew was there. It would force me to come to terms with what I had already figured out was happening.
