Nathaniel Tower is a high school English teacher. He has written many nonfiction pieces based on surprising encounters in the classroom. These pieces are gathering virtual dust until he puts them into a book. His short fiction has been published in many places. He is the founder and editor of a fiction magazine, Bartleby Snopes (www.bartlebysnopes.com). His first novel, A Reason To Kill, is forthcoming from MuseItUp Publishing.
J.C. Doesn't Always Stand for Jesus Christ
J.C. Doesn't Always Stand for Jesus Christ
Generally it is easy to distinguish the difference between the serious response and the response used solely for generating
laughter.
Take for instance M.C. When asked during a discussion on Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird why Scout and Jem are going downtown, he may respond boisterously, “To get some.” This response is obviously designed to evoke laughter from the surrounding students. No one could seriously suggest that this eight year old girl and twelve year old boy in a classic piece of literature about childhood innocence and tolerance could possibly be going downtown to engage in some sort of sexual activity. M.C. of course know this, and he likely knows why they are going downtown for real, but he chooses to respond without any seriousness because he finds this silly answer to be his more rewarding option. He sees no value in telling the class that the children are going to see what their father is doing. To his response, my only response can be, “What are they trying to get? Are they trying to get the knowledge of what their father is doing downtown? Is that what you were trying to say? Very good, M.C.” At this point of course the laughter dies and the boisterous student feels momentarily foolish. But he will not be deterred from doing it again; his intended purpose was laughter, and he indeed got, even if only momentarily, some.
Now take R.Z. Asked the same question later on a quiz, R.Z. does not know the answer because his knowledge of the book is rather limited. He does at least know that Scout and Jem are rather young, and he does know that Scout is a girl and Jem is a boy and that they are siblings, but he has absolutely no concept of why they are going downtown. A child that does not read and only occasionally pays attention in class will naturally be at a disadvantage on the quiz (although many of them don't even know that). He could respond with a simple, “I don’t know,” but that would make it obvious that he does not read, and for some reason he doesn’t think that I know he doesn’t read. He chooses instead to opt for the silly answer, the answer, mind you, that only I will see. And so he writes, “They go downtown to get some and so that Scout can work the corners.” The boy obviously does not believe that this young girl is a prostitute, nor does he expect that I would share such a crude answer with the class. He merely does this to amuse himself. He feels satisfaction because in his ignorance, he has at least something that makes him laugh. That way he can forget about the fact that he just doesn’t know the answer. To him, he has succeeded until the paper is returned with the failing grade on the top.
Now, let’s take J.C. Putting it rather nicely, J.C. is a terrible student. He has a 15%, battling it out between two other students for last place in my class. The other two do have a year on him, so he might have the advantage in this fight for last. This particular child has said classic lines such as “Mr. T, can I go to the bathroom because there is a black snake wrestling with my butthole and he is about to win?” Now, although this sounds as if the lad is trying to generate laughter, he in fact is serious at the same time. He actually believes this to be an appropriate way to ask for permission to use the restroom.
Let’s get something straight before we go on. J.C. is not in any way a Christ figure. As an English scholar, I am well aware that the presence of Christ figures is abundant in literature. If there is a Christ figure in any of my classroom tales, I would have to suggest it to be myself, for after all, I am the one continuously martyring myself in front of the classroom. But that is neither here nor there, and I am certainly not worthy of such a comparison, so let us move on.
J.C. as of late has decided to become a serious student. This has been something long in the making, for the child has said many times during the course of the year that he wants to work hard and pull up his grade, but only today has he begun to make good on his promise. I’m not sure what is prompting the change. I don’t have the heart to tell him he might as well give up because it is mathematically impossible for him to pass the class. At least his few weeks of scholarly work will help him prepare for taking it again (hopefully not with me) next year.
We have just concluded the trial scene from To Kill a Mockingbird. It is obvious to anyone who has read the book and possesses the I.Q. of a slug or higher that Tom Robinson is not guilty of the crime of rape. I ask the students to respond to the following prompt: Using only information present in the trial, write a ten sentence argument explaining whether Tom is guilty or innocent.
J.C. focuses all of his attention to this ten point task, honestly believing that this one single assignment can pull his grade out of a nearly bottomless pit. The boy has absolutely no concept of how mathematics works. This assignment could be worth 500 points, and acing it would maybe triple his grade (that would give him a forty-five percent, folks). Passing at this point is futile, but damn it, he is going to try.
For fifteen solid minutes, J.C. has his head buried in his work, scribbling furiously as he tries to unleash ten sentences of brilliance. I assume that he, like all of my other students, will have some solid reasoning behind Tom Robinson’s innocence, using any number of the facts that strongly support the man’s case.
J.C. is the last to turn in his paper, and he seems rather proud of his work. He has shared it with no one, and he turns it in with great conviction as the bell rings. He believes that he is now a hardworking student, and he believes that he will now pass my class.
For some reason I save his response for last. After reading approximately 100 responses, every single one of them arguing somewhat intelligently the case of Tom’s innocence, I finally get to Mr. J.C.’s, and it is far from prophetic. Below is his manuscript, retyped exactly as presented to me.
I think Tom Robinson is guilty. Based on what Mayella said I think he is. That is to big of a story just to make up. He got questioned a lot, a he sounded like he wasn’t truthful. The thing that didn’t sound truthful was when he said he didn’t beat her. I think he was lying. He is crippled and he doesn’t get a lot of action. Even though he has 3 kids he got fed up with his wife. I think he just wanted some white choclate. That is why I Tom Robinson beat Mayella.
Now there is a solid argument. Up until this day, I thought this child had no future. Now I think we have a future lawyer on our hands. I am convinced that the jury in the novel read his argument and that is why they found Tom guilty, not because they were a bunch of racist fools. Of course J.C. himself once proclaimed that he “hates niggers” (not exactly something Jesus would say), so maybe he is just looking at the case from the same viewpoint as the jurors.
By the way, I gave him nine out of ten points. Hey, he worked hard, and now he has a 16%. That hole is getting smaller every day. Good work J.C.
And I thought my headache couldn’t get any worse. Seventh hour. The Hollister crew is chirping away, clustered together in a mass of popular clothing. Identical in appearance, each is adorned in a shirt that makes this group appear more popular than the rest. Ironically, not one of them appears to look remotely like the ads suggest they should. Perhaps these particular Hollister shirts did not come with the magic to turn the wearer into a man rippling with muscles and waxed clean of body hair. Rather, these barely pubescent youths possess no muscles, average height of 5’5”, voices as squeaky as the birds chirping outside the window. Please would some divine force save me from this dismal hell of commercial popularity.
Dictionary day. Life couldn’t be easier for these kids. Take these twenty words, look them up in your groups of four. Five words each. Thirty minutes. Now this is dumbing down the education so that all can succeed. Not one of them possesses dictionary savvy though. I could look up all twenty words before a single group has completed this remedial task.
Little Miss Clown has decided to work alone. Good choice. I’m sure the eye makeup permanently tattooed to your face in that winged pattern will give you the power to look up all of the words before a group can complete the task. Don’t you want to work in a group, the kind and concerned teacher asks. No, I work better alone. Okay, Little Miss Clown. Good luck.
Like I’m performing some civic duty, I scan the room, observing each group, offering assistance for each cry of “this word isn’t in the dictionary.” They all are, I have repeated at least five times. I checked right before class, and I rechecked five times during the classes that convened before you. Life would be easier had I just given them the definitions. But what skill would that be? Hey kids, here is the easiest way for you to learn something for the test.
I assume that in a previous life (even though I don’t believe in that sort of thing) I was a convicted felon, perhaps a violent murderer, and this is my life sentence of community service for recompense. Life indebted to society for some unknown crime. How Kafkaesque. At least that modest paycheck puts me above the poverty line.
Ten minutes have passed. Round back to Little Miss Clown. Blank paper, blank stare, wings flapping with each blink. Dictionary open, head cocked in the direction of the plethora of words below, keeping as much distance between the eyes and book as humanly possible. If she blinks any more, she will fly away. Just don’t get to close to the sun, Icarus, you brave soul.
“Why is your paper blank?” a compassionate voice issued from my lips inquires.
Shrug.
Not a good enough answer. Repeat question, less compassion emitted this time.
Shrug repeated, followed by words. “I can’t see the dictionary,” mumbles the voice, winged makeup trying to flap away from me with each word.
“Have you tried bringing your head closer?” The compassion is gone. The sarcasm is ready to flow. Restrain yourself. Not with this one.
“I can’t see the words.”
Long pause. Catch the old breath. Count to ten. Breathe in, breathe out. Slowly.
Forcefully, exhibiting no sign of the patience that should have been created by that tried and true breathing pattern, I rip a dictionary with slightly larger words away from a less needy student. Delicately, I place the enlarged print on the Clown’s desk and swap the unreadable print over to the smiling girl beside her. The observant students surrounding this clown all know what I’m thinking. Not the Hollister crew though. I guess a brain doesn’t come with those shirts either.
“Try this.” Passion completely exhausted. Time to get away, go back to the Hollister crew, see if they are looking up words or looking at the latest catalog.
The matching outfits are working decently enough together, although the rapid movement of their mouths would suggest otherwise. Half the words have been discovered. Surely anyone can complete this task. Ten minutes remaining. Sanity will return soon.
I continue to make my way around the classroom, dreading the moment when I return to that Clown’s desk, fretting the paper will still stare blankly at me. I proudly observe several completed definition lists on my journey to the circus, each one securing my belief that this task has a failure rate of zero.
Here we are, back to the big show. What have you done, or not done, for me now?
Unbelievable. I’m dumbfounded. Still blank. Nothing. Twenty minutes with a dictionary and not a word to be found.
“Why is your paper still blank?” the compassionless voice ejects from compassionless lips.
“I can’t find any words,” the mumble replies exuding no sense of confidence.
“What word are you looking for?” I ask, not caring that I have just ended my speech with a preposition. Like she knows what that is.
“This one.” Finger points carelessly at the top word. Cleave. She can’t find “cleave.”
“Of course you can’t fucking find it. You’re looking in the ‘I’s. Have you tried looking in the fucking ‘C’s?” The question, of course, comes out absent of the expletives, but the tone suggests them nonetheless. One child in particular laughs nearby, trying to make eye contact with me, trying to goad me into laughter. At least he recognizes that I might as well laugh off my frustration. I have no control over whether or not this child has the intellectual capacity to find a monosyllabic word in the dictionary. ‘I’ and ‘C’ aren’t that close, Little Miss Clown. Nor do they look alike when written by any intelligent hand.
“I tried looking everywhere for it. I just can’t find it,” the mumble emits, not understanding why I’m frustrated. She is the one, after all, who has spent her life attempting to find this word in the wrong section of the book.
“Just try looking in the ‘C’ section. The alphabet is on the board. Use it.” The words come out much more flustered than intended. Blank stare up at me, wings flashing stupidly indicating no ability to fly, reminiscent of the dodo. She doesn’t get what I am telling her to do. With five minutes to go in my daily service to mankind, I lose it. It hits me right there at that moment that the only thing to do is laugh at this situation. What the hell else can I do? Eye contact is finally made with the aforementioned child, a child who has finished his words and managed to have gotten by in life without the need for the clothing from Hollister to guide him. Laughter bursts through my cheeks and I must turn away from the Clown. She has no clue I am laughing at her, and she continues to mumble at the dictionary that will not show her the right words. The bell rings. Thank you for ending my day on a laugh, Miss Clown.
You’ve found your calling in life. Too bad Fools aren’t really in demand any more.
A Moment of (Very Fleeting) Sympathy (January 20, 2010. Issue 13.)
There’s only ever been one student I’ve truly felt sorry for. There have been many others who have been able to elicit fleeting sympathy. Like the kid who picked his arms and face until he bled profusely. Or the kid with caveman posture whose wheeled backpack was constantly kicked over in the hallways. Or the girl named after the atmosphere who looked like a basset hound. Or even the sex-addict pyromaniac whose parents force-fed her birth control pills buried in dinner. These cases were only enough to make me feel a twinge of sorrow. In spite of many deformities, I never could shake the notion that they were somehow masters of their own fate.
Paul, on the other hand, was master of nothing. The dumbness of youth’s exploits is not always intentional or deserved. Sometimes, although humorous, the dumbness is unfortunate, as is the case with this large melon of a manchild. The size of an offensive tackle, but with none of the athletic prowess, Paul thundered when he stomped through the hallways in his generic brand triple-width tennis shoes. During the warm months, he donned collared shirts partially tucked into his mesh athletic shorts. His paste-red thighs launched out of the shorts like mighty oaks, as wide at the top as they were at the bottom. When he arrived at my door each day during second period, the waist of his shorts found itself plastered uncomfortably somewhere between his cavernous belly button and massive manbreasts. Designed baggy for a game of pickup basketball, the shorts clung tightly and unevenly to his skin, protruding into crevices and allowing other parts to protrude out.
Physical appearance and wardrobe were not Paul’s only deficiencies. Socially, he was more out of place than his outfit. His voice was a low and incomprehensible bellowing, like the echo of a vast cave to a drunk, and to decipher anything he voiced was a miracle. The only message I could ever decode from his chesty bawl was some gibberish about “national Chevy Tahoe day,” and the frequent question as to whether or not I had thrown anyone out the window.
I have to give the kid credit. In spite of everything, he was the happiest damn kid that ever stepped foot into my classroom. There was nothing anyone could do to take that away from him. Perhaps he transcended all of the materialness and gossip and meanness of teenagers. Or maybe he just didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on. Either way, he was in a happy place, which is more than I could ever say for myself. Unfortunately, his happiness was not contagious. Whenever Paul entered a room there were certainly chuckles, but always the awkward kind because even a bunch of cruel teens knew that maybe they were going too far with this one.
The most memorable experience with Paul occurred on a day when the temperature just wasn’t quite right for shorts, so in he walked garnished in a hideous pair of vomit-colored corduroys, somehow a waist size too big for his rotund figure. Paul did not have the fashion sense to wear a belt, so he relied on his mountainous chest 
to keep the pants in place.
When Paul squeezed into his oversized desk that day, something went amiss. The jostling required to maneuver himself within the tight wooden confines loosened his chest’s grip on the pants, the waist sliding drastically downward in the back.
Behind Paul sat a girl who usually didn’t know when to say when. In an act of kindness that day, she did not intentionally avert the public’s attention to Paul’s misfortune.
“I think Paul needs to go to the bathroom,” she whispered to me.
“Paul, do you need to go to the bathroom?” I asked in my talking-to-a-deaf-kindergartener tone.
“No, I’m okay,” the beast shouted, his voice booming around the room, the desk further plunging into his stomach at the rise and fall caused by the utterance.
“Then I think he needs a drink,” the girl pleaded.
At this point, I realized something was wrong. I’m not sure exactly why she didn’t just shout it out, but at that point it was no longer necessary. I think even Paul knew then. The lowering of the pants had created an apparent gap between the pants and the shirt, giving her a perfect view of his ass crack.
I knew I needed to save Paul the best I could. He had never done anything to harm anyone, and although annoying and incomprehensible, he always meant well.
“Paul,” I said, my voice disguised in deep concern, “I think you should get a drink. You look thirsty.”
“Okay,” his voice roared like a wounded steam engine.
In one sweeping motion, Paul rose to his feet, the desk sliding off his belly and crashing to the floor. Down with the desk went the corduroys, and out came an ass that put the full moon to shame. Paul twisted around to escape the clutches of the desk, unaware of the eyes widening at the sight of his enormous tomato-red cheeks. All laughter was contained even as he marched out of the classroom, ass still blinding us. Right before he reached the door, his mammoth hands dropped to the belt loops and gave a mighty tug, covering his ass for good.
Class continued awkwardly as we all wondered whether or not we had been flashed or mooned by the gentle ogre. I don’t think there was any intent, nor did I ever share the clothing problem with his parents (who were likely the product of generations of inbreeding and feasting on grease). But I’ll always wonder if maybe Paul had the last laugh on all of us. After all, his parents insisted to the school that he was a “normal” child, whatever the hell that means. Given what I’ve seen, maybe they’re not too far off. Still, I’ve got to feel sorry for the kid.
The Purple Color (August 20, 2009. Issue 8.)
Another hour at the primate house, the sixth one of the day, is winding to a close. We’ve been learning about thesis statements and topic sentences, which the 9th graders claim for at least the second time this year that they have never heard of. The very thought of hearing “What’s a thesis statement?” again gives me the urge to sprint out of the classroom and away from the school forever, hurdling all over all of them as I make my getaway. And I still have to go over the lesson one more class period. Can I get a sub?
The bell rings. At this point, one of my delightful repeaters, doing his best to fail again because he just can’t get enough of those crazy lovers Romeo and Juliet (maybe they won’t kill themselves next time) or of his favorite novel To Kill a Mockingbird (did you know that Scout is a girl? Took me three reads to get that one), approaches me, a folder as thick as this volume torn carelessly in half. On top was his Shakespeare packet, which alone shocked me. He may not do any of his work, but at least the young man holds on to all of his papers. I better give him a few extra points for participation.
“How may I help you?” I ask the aging freshman, whose percentage is as high as his age. By the time he is sixty, he’ll be able to pass the class.
“Tom ripped my papers.”
Ah, Tom. One of my star pupils. Actually, the kid is smart. He gets some A’s. But he looks like a dinosaur, brontosaur perhaps, and his annoyance level is unprecedented. The kid can’t keep his mouth closed in any situation, and his mind is just twisted. Not to digress, but digression here is necessary, and it does relate to thesis. He at least understood the concept. For his essay, he wanted to use the thesis, “Although Mr. Nopes’s khakis and Mr. Nopes’s jeans both look good on him, his khakis are better because they are tighter and the color makes him look naked.” Imagine, the one kid who really gets the thesis statement, and that’s what he writes.
Considering the two I’m dealing with, I try to take a jovial approach to the situation. I am certain that something absurd is about to happen. Hopefully this won’t be one of those times where I lose it and burst out laughing in a kid’s face as if he is some kind of clown trying to make me laugh. It seems that I have a lot of clowns.
“Tom, did you rip his papers?”
“Nooooooo,” the lad replied smiling, extending the word with a number of O’s that clearly indicates his guilt. I call it the “yeah I did it and thought it was funny but I don’t want to admit it” tone. It’s pretty much a confession. I would imagine it would hold up in court. “Did you kill him?” “Noooooooo.” “Guilty.” 
“Tom, why did you rip his papers?”
“Because he stole my Airhead,” this time with conviction.
Solid excuse. Destroying someone’s property because they took your ten cent piece of candy.
My seventh hour students are trickling in, catching the brilliance of this dialogue. Of course they will ask about it during class. And that’s the only time they’ll pay attention. I’ll do what I usually do. “If you’re really good, I’ll tell you at the end of class.” And then they won’t be good. But I’ll probably have to tell them anyway just to keep them in their seats for the last two minutes.
“Tom, you ripped all his papers because he stole your ten cent candy?” I come right out and say it. No sugar-coating here. “Is that a rational act, Tom?” I must use his name every time I address him to keep his focus.
“No, there’s more to it,” he replies with a smirk.
“Okay, then why did you rip his papers, Tom?” My jovial quality is wearing off, and I’m not expecting much of a punch line from this mind-numbing situation. Usually when they find it funny, I don’t and it’s not.
“Well, I don’t think I should tell you,” the smirk growing wider across his brontosaur-like face. I wonder if they were this intelligent during the Mesozoic Era.
“Tell me, Tom,” my patience almost expired, not a good sign when the bell is about to commence the next round. It’s like a boxing match where I am bleeding in the corner after six rounds, my trainer is stitching me up, and the bell rings to start the next pummeling session before he finishes the last stitch. I have to fight even though I’m not ready.
“He told me that I had a purple dildo in my mouth and that I like cock in my butt,” this time said with a straight face, feigning offense.
An incredulous me turns my head to the other child and responds, “Did you really say that?”
“Yup,” the superstar repeater replies with great pride, as if what he has said is worthy of a Pulitzer, or at least of some extra credit aside what I should already give him for having all of his unfinished papers from the whole year piled into the same folder.
I do the only fair thing a mediator can do in this situation. “Well, then you deserved to have your papers torn,” I tell him, tossing the torn folder and its contents back to the sixteen or seventeen year old.
Shocked, he swaggers to the trashcan, furiously deposits the torn contents into the receptacle, and walks frustrated out of the room, giggles echoing all around. Of course he forgets all about everything as soon as he leaves the room.
Yeah, like you needed those papers anyway.. The only thing you could have used them for was a fire to keep yourself warm. See you next year. I doubt he’ll ask me for new copies of everything tomorrow.
Hey, at least the kid stays in school
A Visit to the Deepest Circles of Hell (April 9, 2009. New Pink Moon. Issue 3)
Most kids need little to no introduction for their stories to be understood. That is not to say that they are not of significant personage. Rather, it is merely that a simple story can capture the essence of most children’s personalities. Not so with this child. This one needs plenty of introductions for him to even seem fathomable. Let’s call him Ted Hiash.
This story is not merely a story about Ted; it is also a story about my own personal triumph.
For this story we must travel back in time to my first year in the classroom. Here, I muse reveal my own personal shortcomings. Discipline and classroom management were certainly not my fortes. In fact, that one particular group of sophomores, a group of hellhounds all assigned to this singular classroom, just flat out exhausted me. My first year teaching, my last class of the day, and they were the most hellish group of youth ever assembled. The Children of the Corn had nothing on these monsters. These children knew precisely how to torture any individual, and I was their unlucky and unsuspecting target, ill prepared for such beasts having never been to any of the circles of hell myself. Hell, Dante would have struggled in this room.
Ted Hiash appeared of a normal disposition. There was certainly nothing grotesque about his appearance. Height for his age was average. Sandy brown hair always maintained in a fashion that suggested he cared but not too much about the way he looked. This was in the day before the widespread explosion of Hollister popularity, that sector of clothing covered mostly by the dynamic duo of Abercrombie and his friend Fitch or by that ultimately patriotic store, American Eagle. Although I never caught a glimpse of the writing on Ted’s undershirt, I can only imagine that he wore the clothing of both manufactures in unison, always ready to show off his unsurpassed ability to appear popular..
Aside from his general appearance, the child had to me no normal tendencies. While a casual observer (for example, a principal coming to visit a class) of the child would likely have found nothing objectionable about Mr. Hiash, anyone who watched the child on a routine basis could tell that were this really Hades, then he was none other than Cerberus, the vicious three-headed hellhound. His eyes were constantly glazed over, showing the remnants of the high he had achieved during his luncheon hour. Sitting was not one of his hobbies, nor was silence, and especially not schoolwork. The child possessed less than 20% in my class, a class that, in accordance with the proper standards of public high schools, essentially is passable by any student that merely completes the work in a timely fashion. The only time I would receive work from Ted was when someone else would complete it for him. That rarely occurred, for the child constantly surrounded himself with other hellish figures that nightly haunt teachers and parents across the globe. Unfortunately, I know that these children actually exist. I pity those who feel these children are the stuff of dreams, movies and myths.
While Ted may not yet sound like a deadly beast, I do not want to overdo his description to suggest something unfathomable to the reader. I will simply say that the child was unfathomable to any person grounded in reality, and I assure you that no description I could possibly provide would in fact be overdone. Rather, all descriptions of him are underdone, for a beast of his nature could only be truly captured by the language of hell. As Lucifer was not available for interview at the time this story was drafted, I cannot provide any such description, and therefore the reader will simply have to accept me at my word. If you do have the misfortune of visiting hell in the afterlife, I am sure you will bump into this slobbering monster yourself.
The child and the class had defeated me many times over. I was exhausted daily when they entered my room, and they simply left me weary. I figured if I could survive this class, then I could survive the duration of this profession. This was my trial.
On what started as any usual class for this unusual bunch, I attempted to get all of the minions seated to begin a simple set of discussion questions that would guide us for the rest of the class. Nothing difficult was laid before this group, but with great difficulty, several began the task, the rest doing whatever possible to avoid beginning.
Students were walking around aimlessly, throwing markers at each other, folding paper airplanes, playing cards in the back of the room. The few that worked on their questions possessed some miraculously divine skill of concentration.
Attempting to gain some semblance of control, if not solely for my sanity then for the children that actually seemed to want to be hard at work even if they were the vast minority, I threatened detentions for students not in their seats. Most were sensible enough to give into this threat, and this left all but Ted seated.
Ted continued to wander about, showing no sign of respect of subordination.
At this point, the exhausted teacher resorted to the last thing he knew to do.
“Ted,” I said from close proximity, a clear view into the glazed eyes of a marijuana user, “you can either sit down here or you can sit down in the principal’s office.”
Ted of course opted for the unmentioned third choice, and continued to walk around the room, yelling and throwing objects at his now almost working peers.
“Okay Ted,” anger seething out of me. “I am going to have to call the principal to come get you.”
What he said next I could not possibly have been prepared for, regardless of how many college classes I had taken in the art of classroom management or discipline. If I brought this one back to my professors, I doubt any would even believe that such a monster existed.
“I’m going to kick you in the balls,” the child said, avoiding eye contact, but reporting it in a matter of fact way that gave no indication that his threat was as empty as the one I had made regarding those detentions.
In disbelief, I scanned my brain for any stored knowledge that could possibly help me in this situation. The class, shockingly not in disbelief, but surprised a little as their ears perked up and a silence hushed over the room. Everything in the room waited silently for my next move. Ted had just thrown down a monster hand, and everyone wanted to know what I could play in response.
When I found that my brain was devoid of any potential solution to this problem, I decided to do the only rational thing. Slowly, all eyes gazing upon me, I opened my stance, spreading the legs of my khaki pants until they created a generous teepee beneath me, my crotch wide open and defenseless.
The boy may have shocked me with his words, but mine shocked him even more. “Go ahead,” the spread-eagle teacher said. “Take your best shot.”
I didn’t blink. I didn’t flinch. I just stood, legs spread in my pissing stance, staring at the child in his now glazeless eyes, waiting for his move. I had stunned the high right out of him, and my hand had trumped his. And now the class waited with bated breath for Cerberus’s move. His bark was mighty, but how was his bite?
Move did he indeed. Turned on his back heels, and walked dejectedly with his three heads low to the ground. Moved straight to his seat and sat quietly for the rest of the class period, the first time he had ever done so.
I called your bluff, you son of a bitch.
But I wish the bastard would have kicked me; the pain in my nuts wouldn’t possibly have matched the pain in the ass he started giving me again just a week later. I guess when you are emasculated while high, you forget quickly. But I suppose I did get the last laugh after all. I kept my job, and that shit head didn’t even graduate. Enjoy guarding hell. Oh wait, I think you need a high school diploma for that job.