by Clay Chapman
DAMNED IF YOU DON’T
RICHARD: 2013
Forty blank eyes stare back at me. Glassy things, like marbles, empty of emotion. They could have been dolls. Stuffed animals. Puppets, quietly waiting for me to say something.
“Who’s ready to get messy?”
I never wanted to be a teacher. Never imagined I’d be standing in front of a group of kids—my kids—all of them waiting expectantly for me to begin our lesson for the day.
What is my plan, exactly?
What am I doing here? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself more and more lately.
The plan is to make papier-mâché piñatas, apparently. With a little flour and water, I mixed up some homemade glue—totally nontoxic—to dip our strips of newspaper into.
This particular project is a perfect distraction for when the other teachers crank up their assessments. My kids need to blow off a little steam and clobber the shit out of something.
Condrey decided today is the perfect opportunity to survey my class. “Don’t mind me,” she says, as if she were merely passing by. Completely impromptu. I can’t help but feel like I am under her microscope, being examined. It’s becoming difficult to hide my unease around her.
We have high hopes for you here, I remember her saying during my interview, taking my hand and squeezing. We want you to feel like you’re a part of our family here at Danvers…
I never thought I stood a chance at landing this job—what with my complete lack of teaching credentials. Yet, lo and behold…Now Condrey won’t stop observing me. Always popping in for an unannounced visit. Sure seems to me like she never does this for any of her other teachers. Does Dunstan get this type of treatment? Am I the only one being studied?
“Just pretend I’m not here,” she says over my shoulder, to the class, for my students’ sake—even though I’m the one being observed, not them. “What are we making today?”
“Piñatas!”
“Sounds like fun.” It doesn’t sound like she thinks it’s fun. “Just don’t hit anyone, okay?”
At the very beginning of the school year, when Mrs. Condrey took to the intercom for morning announcements and welcomed everyone back from the summer, she introduced herself to the new students by saying, I am Sylvia Condrey, your principal. The best way to remember how to spell “principal” is to remember I am your prince-ee-PAL. Friends till the end.
I couldn’t help but wonder…end of what?
My kids gather around the table as I stretch out a balloon, letting it snap against my fingers. “Whose got some strong lungs?”
Several hands shoot into the air. Not Eli’s. He keeps pretty quiet in my class, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that we’re now tethered together. I give him plenty of space, as per Tamara’s request. He stands in the back, behind everyone else. Right next to Sandy. I’ve noticed the two of them hanging out a lot more lately. Wherever Sandy is, Eli’s not far behind.
“Give this a go.” I hand the rubber intestine off to Arvind. “Now for the messy part…”
Condrey steps back. Her smile remains in place, but her masked pleasantness slips a bit.
“Stick your gluey newspaper all over the balloon, like you’re making a mummy.” My kids squeal as I drape a slimy tendril of newspaper over the balloon. “This is the main body of your piñata. Once you’re done, we can make arms and legs to create whatever you’d like. Maybe a pet? Who’s got a pet at home?”
I thought about using Weegee as an inspiration, but the last thing Eli needs is to batter his own tabby. I made a horse instead. I glance over at Condrey, feeling her eyes press down on me. I have to steer my kids clear of the notion of whacking animals with a broomstick. That’ll get me in a heap of shit with our princiPAL.
“Once the papier-mâché is dry, we cut through the hardened shell…”
I hold up the piñata I made the night before at home.
“And we pop the balloon!” I demonstrate by stabbing the scissors through the exterior, puncturing the rubber beneath. The newspaper shell remains intact. “See? All hollow.”
I notice Eli lean over and whisper into Sandy’s ear. I can’t dwell on it, not at the moment. I clock the developing rapport between those two so I can mention it to Tamara later.
I promised Tamara I wouldn’t give Elijah any preferential treatment in class. He’s had a hard time of it this year. We knew it was coming. Once the others caught on that I was married to his mother, well…you know how kids are. Always looking for their way in to needle you.
Tamara and I married over the summer. A small backyard service just next to the weeping willow. Nothing fancy. But now there’s no getting around the fact that Elijah’s stepdad is also the art teacher. It kills me. For all its progressive pedagogy, Danvers is just like any other school dealing with peer pressure. Kids’ll be kids. The students surrounding Elijah right now, the boys and girls home-birthed from parents who moved to this quaint Southern town, dragging Danvers out from its blue collar decrepitude, are just like any other kids. Bullies.
Sandy is a target, too. I haven’t quite figured her out yet. She’s a bit of an odd bird. She even looks like a bird, a hatchling fresh out of the egg. No feathers yet. Just pale skin, her veins starkly visible. She’s new to school. Just moved to Danvers over the summer. She doesn’t have many friends from what I gather. Until Eli. But when I see her in class, working on her art, I swear I can spot that spark. I don’t want to go too far. She’s only in kindergarten. Lord knows I’ve slogged through enough shitty stick figures to know what most kids draw like. But Sandy’s work is different. There’s a hint of something fundamentally other to her sketches. Yes, they’re still the drawings of a five-year-old. And yet…I see it. Maybe she’ll rub off on Eli a little.
And who knows? Maybe their burgeoning friendship will be a good thing. For both of them. Perhaps they’ll drag each other out from their shells.
I’ve prided myself on establishing our classroom as a safe haven. Our own clubhouse. No judgment. Each kid gets a sketchpad at the beginning of the year. It’s theirs, nobody else’s. They can take it home or to their other classes. All I ask is that they fill it up. Each and every page has to have its own drawing by the end of the year. Doesn’t matter what. No critiques.
All I’m after is the art. I want them to take in the world around them and try to capture it on the page. I want to see life through their eyes. See the world how they see it.
The walls of my classroom are covered in kids’ drawings. The Museum of Modern Masterpieces, I call it. I want my kids to take pride in their work. Hanging them up gives the students a sense of contributing to something special. To history. They’re adding to a legacy. Each kid writes their name at the bottom of their painting, along with the date. That’s their timestamp, so subsequent students can see how far back their legacy goes.
For as long as I can remember, I always doodled. I had a lot of time on my hands when I was younger, so I found my way to the page, sketching whenever I had a free piece a paper. If there was a blank space, I’d fill it with whatever was in my head. Let it possess the emptiness.
The images I sketched had an unsettling maturity to them, Mrs. Kittle, my seventh-grade art teacher, said. He seems to have a wealth of imagery to pull from. Where does it come from?
Then the real clincher: Did something happen to him? When he was younger?
Tim and Nancy caught on and started subsidizing my passion right away. Buying me blank notepads. Colored pencils. Magic markers. Anything and everything. They noticed that fledgling bit of talent within me and started to nurture it at whatever cost, no matter what.
They even paid for a two-year art program. Watch out, Basquiat…
Look where it got me.
“All right, gang.” I pull out the sawed-off broomstick. “Who wants to take a whack?”
All cheers. Even Eli lets out
a rebellious yell along with Sandy. No wonder I’m considered one of the more popular teachers around here. I let my kids hit things.
“Care to join us, Mrs. Condrey?” I hold out the broomstick for her, almost as a challenge.
She demurely laughs off the invitation, but her eyes tighten. Her face, the surface of herself, remains completely congenial—but I swear I can see something pinch. “You all have fun. But be safe! No accident reports.”
I find myself breathing a bit easier as soon as Condrey’s gone. It’s just me and the kids again. I have a bag of candy stashed in the bottom drawer of my desk for special occasions such as this, filling my horse up with it like stuffing inside a Thanksgiving turkey. “Follow me, everybody!”
Professor Howdy is still fresh in everyone’s minds, so it seems ever-so-inappropriate to take the kids over to the soccer field. I could still see where the blood had seeped into the ground when I biked through, the grass vaguely stained in a ruddy hue. The hose hadn’t rinsed all the red away. We string our piñata up from the basketball rim instead. The horsey dangles a good foot over everyone’s head, spinning through the air as if it’s dancing. The kids all try to grab it with their hands, but it’s just out of their reach. They look like they’re dancing with it. Spinning.
“Is that a goat?” Sandy asks behind me. I turn around, taken aback by the sound of her voice. I didn’t know she was standing so close to me.
“Good question.” I examine my papier-mâché horse, or whatever the hell it is. “I thought it might be a pony. What do you think? Help me out here.”
Sandy studies it for a moment, taking her time to make an astute assessment. “A goat.”
“A goat it is!” The goat hovers above their heads, springing up and down with each smack of the broomstick, prancing about as the kids circle around and laugh, leaping along with him. Each kid takes a turn to break him apart. I blindfold them one at a time with a bandana, guiding them along. The sawed-off broomstick I place in their hands is now their mighty sword.
“Time to slay the bleating beast!”
Watching each student swing—and usually miss—gets the kids giggling. It takes several turns before someone finally establishes contact. Nobody deals the death blow just yet.
Trey misses. Sam misses. Larissa isn’t even close.
“Who’s up next?” I call out. “Eli! How ’bout you?”
He tenses. I did it again. I called him the thing—the name—I’m not supposed to. Allowed to. Shit. The other kids egg him on, chanting, “Eee-liiiii, Eeeee-liiiii, Eeeeeee-liiiiiiiiii!” as I blindfold him and spin him around. I can see he’s blushing under the bandana. This might be more attention than he’s comfortable with.
I don’t see the broomstick coming right for my thigh.
You would lose your head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders, Tamara would say if she were here to see this, and she’d be right. It’s a surprise you haven’t walked off a cliff yet…
Laughter from his classmates swells all around. Cheers, even. Elijah pulls off his blindfold. Elation spreads all over his face, that look of anticipation. He thinks he’s just busted the goat…but then he realizes what he’s really hit. Elijah, the Teacher Slayer.
The other kids think it’s downright hilarious. Beating up his own stepdad. Bunch of bloodthirsty pricks. Elijah lowers his chin.
“It’s okay,” I say, playing down the pain. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.”
I have to keep things moving.
“Who’s next? Sandy—how about you?”
Sandy timidly steps forward. She runs her hands along the sides of her floral print dress, straight out of the Mormon sewing pattern catalogue, wiping the sweat from her palms. Some students exude overparenting vibes. Sandy has them in spades. Something about the way she engages with the others, students and teachers alike. Always hesitating for just a breath. It’s barely noticeable, but to the trained teacher, you can sense a litany of questions going through Sandy’s mind: Am I allowed to eat that? Does it have gluten in it? What artificial additives are—
THWACK.
Sandy takes the head straight off my goat. Its body bursts open in a ripe explosion of hard candy, bleeding Tootsie Roll intestines all over the asphalt. Didn’t see that coming. The mob drops to their knees and scavenges for sweets. Even Eli takes the plunge, rummaging about its guts. Sandy stands back, watching the class grab fistful after fistful of candy.
“Nice swing, Sandy,” I say. “You sure you don’t want a jawbreaker?”
She tilts her head and squints. “My mother doesn’t allow me to eat processed sugar.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.” I want to offer an olive branch. Just between you and me.
“No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” To the rest, I call out, “One more minute and we’re heading back in, guys. Fill up your pockets!” The other teachers are not fans of my piñata project, given that they have to contend with the sugar shock rocking their classrooms for the rest of the day.
There’s still time left on the clock before the bell rings, so I let the kids doodle in their notepads back in the classroom. I busy myself by picking up the damp piñatas to take back to the drying racks. Each student has a placemat with their name on it, making it easier for me to remember whose project is whose. Too many names, too many faces. They all blur together after a while.
When I pick up Sandy’s piñata—a bunny—I notice it’s crushed. “What happened here?”
Sandy doesn’t answer. She merely dips her chin, afraid to say. The shell has collapsed in on itself, as if someone stepped on it, and I’m suddenly filled with a low-grade rage.
“Who did this?” I ask the other students at her table, but none of them respond. The best I can drag out of them is a shrug. Snitches get stitches. I can’t believe this.
“It fell on the floor,” Sandy offers. I know she’s lying. Protecting her oppressors.
“Sandy. Come on…You put a lot of work into this. Who stepped on it?”
“It fell,” she repeats, her voice a dull monotone.
“Nobody’s gonna to own up to it?” I ask the entire class, hoping one of them will weed out the asswipe who did this. “Nobody? Guess that means I’m keeping everybody’s piñatas…”
A collective cry of injustice rises up from the kids.
“Sorry.” I go about the room, picking up the last of the piñatas. “You don’t disrespect your classmates like that. I won’t tolerate destroying each other’s artwork. Until someone—”
One piñata is left out, even though the drying rack is full. There seems to be an extra. That’s odd, I think. Everybody’s project is already on their own mat. Whose is this?
It’s a man. Boy? He has gray skin. The kids aren’t painting their piñatas until tomorrow, after the papier-mâché dries, but this one already has eyes. There’s an uneven line rippling across his mouth. A grimace. An expression someone makes after tasting something sour. Something yucky.
Mr. Yucky. The name pops into my head—plip—and I’m immediately brought back to—
The bell rings. Students leap from their seats and head for the door.
“Whose project is this?” I call out over the commotion, but nobody answers. My kids are already caught up in the stream, riding the current to their next class.
Maybe Eli knows. He’s already heading out the door with Sandy. “Elijah. Hold on a sec.”
He turns, doing his best to suppress his embarrassment.
Better make this quick, I think. “You know who made this?”
He stares at the man in my hand. The effigy. The doll. Whatever it is.
Mr. Yucky.
No.
It’s Mr. Yucky.
Elijah shrugs. Sandy takes his hand and the two enter the flow of students before I can say anything more.
The papier-mâch�
� has yet to harden, so the figure feels damp in my hand. Like flesh. Actual flesh. But without warmth. Without life. The clammy skin of a cadaver. I close my eyes, and in that darkness, for just a moment, I feel like I’m holding a dead man’s hand in my own.
Maybe somebody just made two papier-mâché projects? But then why not claim it.
I turn it over to see if anyone wrote their name on the underside.
There, scrawled across the sole of its right foot—what would’ve been this faceless person’s foot—is a name written in purple magic marker.
SEAN.
I throw the piñata into the trash can.
There’s no Sean in my class.
DAMNED IF YOU DO
SEAN: 1983
The stitching within its left eye had come undone. The threads had frayed, unraveling from the quartet of buttonholes. It looked like he was bleeding out.
The sock puppet refused to blink. It only stared back at Sean.
Mr. Yucky.
Peach-colored plush. Its slack mouth wrapped around the entirety of its head, its lipless grin far larger than any normal mouth should ever be.
Maybe it was more like a bear trap. That’s what the puppet’s mouth reminded Sean of. A trap. It hung open, waiting to capture his words, yearning for somebody’s voice to fill it.
At the center of the therapy puppet’s overalls, resting upon its heart, was a fluorescent green sticker. Printed along the top of the sticker, in bold block letters, was the word poison. And in fine print, barely legible from this distance: if ingested, dial 911 immediately.
Sean couldn’t read those words. Not all of them. Ingested felt foreign to him, like another language. But Sean knew that sticker. He had seen it plastered on the bottles and boxes hidden beneath their kitchen sink at home. It was an unhappy face, neon lime green skin, eyes pinched tight into lightning bolts of anguish. Its tongue stuck out from its frowning mouth.
Poison. Sean knew how to read that word because Mom had made him repeat it, a household incantation, pointing the word out wherever it materialized in their home.
