Teach Me

by R. A. Nelson

  “Huh?”

  “When you think about it. All the things out there in the world that piss you off. The injustice. The stupidity. Sometimes in the middle of the night, it makes me need to scream. So that’s what I want everybody in the room to do right now. Scream.”

  “No shit?” Britton says.

  “Sure.”

  “How loud?” Kenny says.

  “Jetliner crash. Make my ears bleed. Think about something that really drives you crazy and let it all out.”

  You, I say to myself. What is happening to me? You really drive me crazy. Wackers. Bonko. Gone.

  You make me need to scream.

  “Ready?”

  Yes.

  “Okay, I’ll give you a countdown.” He ticks off numbers with his fingers. “Five, four, three, two, one—”

  Blastoff.

  We scream, all twenty-two of us.

  I pour my everlasting soul into the scream. I haven’t yelled this loud since grade school. I had forgotten how good it feels. It’s almost like a twisted kind of singing.

  The yowling in the closed space is cleansing and horrifying. How thick are these walls? I notice Mr. Mann doesn’t scream. Maybe it would be too much. Something important might break inside us.

  He cuts us off with a throat-slashing gesture. It takes a few heartbeats for things to completely stop. A few people are coughing from the effort. We’re waiting for him to say something, make the room okay again. He stares.

  “So?” Matt the Jesus Phreak says.

  “So now we wait,” Mr. Mann says. “Quietly.”

  Thirty seconds pass. A whole minute. I’m watching him as much as the clock. Two. Are we listening for something? Whether we are or not, something comes.

  The door swings open. It’s our principal, Zeb Greasy.

  That’s not his real name, just what everybody calls him. He’s large, has dark, allergic eyes, a big head, thinning hair. A good old Alabama boy. He should be coaching a football team somewhere; in fact, he has. That’s the quickest way to zoom up the ranks in the Heart of Dixie.

  “Is everything okay in here, Mr. Mann?” Zeb Greasy says, scowling.

  “Fine,” Mr. Mann says. “We’re fine. Just working on a little drama.”

  “Well,” Zeb says without smiling, “maybe next time don’t make it quite so . . . dramatic.” And he’s gone.

  I look at Mr. Mann. We’re fine. I’m fine. I’ve never been so—

  Fine.

  aboriginal eyes

  Water.

  The days sail through winter into March.

  I’m driving in Wilkie Collins with Schuyler.

  The road ahead is partly flooded with spring rain. The ground is low here, but the water isn’t deep. Wilkie cleaves through with barely a twinkle.

  Mr. Mann’s apartment complex is next to a swamp clotted with cypress trees. It’s an orange-brick place called Sunlake. Architectural style: Pretend It’s a House.

  Today there is no sun and the only sign of the lake is a disemboweled beaver, intestines red as a can of Dad’s Old Spice deodorant.

  His apartment is on the second floor. Building 9. What a perfect number. As we circle the complex a third time, I’m totaling up what I know.

  “We talk nearly every day. He’s from Massachusetts. I think his parents might be dead. He never mentions them. He taught somewhere in Huntsville before he came here. Likes to wear three-button pullover shirts and Dockers. No jewelry. Wallet in his left rear pocket—”

  “Cologne?”

  “Ivory soap.”

  Schuyler makes a face as if he’s about to puke and scratches at mustard on Wilkie’s dash. “I can’t believe you’re hung up on this cretin. I thought you were the Girl With the X-ray Eyes?”

  Schuyler has called me that since at least the sixth grade, says I can see through anybody. What’s inside their hearts, their minds.

  “Don’t worry. I am,” I say. “I’ve had crushes on teachers before. Ninth grade, remember? Something about the way Mr. Jennings said the word Precambrian—”

  “Horny Howard. Yeah, I remember. Something about the way he slobbered all over Lacey Carver, too.”

  “Shut up! But this isn’t a crush. This is Napoleon and Josephine.”

  “So which one are you?”

  I poke him in the ribs and Wilkie Collins swerves, nearly clipping a newspaper rack. My first official act as Incorrigible Teen. We pass Mr. Mann’s building a fifth time and circle again. Schuyler emits an Empire State Building top-of-the-stairs groan.

  “Come on, Nine, I’m starving.”

  “Here.”

  I bump open Wilkie’s glove box, pull out a pulverized packet from Wendy’s. Schuyler tears it open, dumps cracker dust down his throat.

  “Blech!”

  Now he’s spitting out the window.

  “Hey!” I yell. “At least wait till you get out of the car, you— you Aborigine!”

  “Blug! Crap—how long has that been in there? It’s a plot! You’re trying to poison me! Just so you can spend all your time stalking that organ-grinder.”

  “Sorry.” I laugh.

  He spits again. “And I’ll have you know the Pintudjara are a dang fastidious people.”

  “Crocodile Dundee. The first one.”

  “Man. You’re too good. Bleh. Come on, let’s get out of here. Now I’m thirsty too.”

  “But he might be coming back soon.”

  “So? What’re you going to do, knock him on the head and drag him off in the bushes?”

  “I just want to look.”

  Atomic sigh. “I won’t say he’s ugly, but—”

  “But you can’t ‘cause you know he’s gorgeous. Nose just the right shape. Amazing eyes. Broad shoulders. Perfect butt.”

  “Swollen prostate.”

  “He’s not that old!”

  “You’re making me sick, Nine.”

  I giggle maliciously. “Sorry. But it’s too much fun.”

  “But is he smart? In the right way, I mean.”

  “Snob. Elitist. You need to take his class.”

  Schuyler closes his eyes wearily and lays his head back. “I’m already two language arts ahead of you.”

  “At the expense of your scientific education.”

  “So call me well rounded.”

  I touch his shoulder; Wilkie swerves again. “Kind of bony, actually.”

  “See? You want me to get any bonier?”

  “Don’t worry. You’re not going to blow away anytime soon.”

  He starts tickling me in the side until I have to pull over.

  “Cut it out!”

  I’m laughing, trying not to squeal or pee my pants. Schuyler never used to do this. These days he’s constantly touching. Tickling the back of my neck, grabbing my head.

  “Stop it! Come on, Schuyler, please!”

  He lets up. “You ready to leave?”

  “Okay. Okay!” I’m wiping at tears. “But at least let me call. Give me Mom’s cell.”

  “What for?”

  I find the number on the torn-out phone book page and dial. On the fourth ring Mr. Mann’s beautiful recorded baritone picks up. His message is loud; I have to hold it away from my ear:

  “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to. Mark Twain.”

  Beep.

  Schuyler burps just as I’m hanging up.

  “Cut it out! He probably heard you!”

  “I hope he did. What a pretentious weenie roaster—”

  “He’s sweet.”

  “Uh-oh. Call Nostradoofus. The Last Days are upon us. You just used the word sweet.” Schuyler moans and turns on the radio. The Radio Guy immediately mentions the time.

  “I knew it!”

  We’re late for work at the Ground-Up Cow Face Burgers.

  “Keep your war girdle on, Hippolyte,” I say. “We’ll get there.”

  “Mythological Amazonian queen who battled Hercules,” Schuyler says. “Go!”

  But I have to look one more time.


  His building. Number 9.

  His door. Number 220.

  This number is destiny, too. It’s the same number of the abrasive used to polish telescope mirrors:

  Number 220 Grit.

  It makes me think of a word:

  Rub.

  empress of grease

  I’m doing it again.

  Obsessing at the drink dispenser.

  Brown soda flows over my fingers; makes for sticky change. “Sorry.”

  Schuyler’s stuffing his face with cheese from the condiment shelf. I’m not hungry.

  “Any sign of Beezle Bob yet?” I say.

  Beezle Bob is the Pimple-Faced Shift Manager with a Little College. He drives a vintage VW Bug. The only cars I see in the lot belong to the other kids working with us, Mary Katie, Country, and Threatt.

  “Y’all going to the prom?” Country says.

  He fills up my space with his chest. Country is big and doughy. You can tell his mother cuts his hair. Everybody calls him Country because he speaks fluent Mobile Home.

  “Yes,” I lie.

  “Who with?”

  “Me,” Threatt says. I push him as he goes by.

  Threatt is a foot shorter than Country. He has the largest, most expressive eyes of any human being I’ve ever seen. His name rhymes with feet. His Cow Face Burger hat is perched at a sassy angle on his perfect hair.

  “What about you?” Country asks Schuyler.

  “He ain’t got his license yet,” Threatt says. “He’s scared.”

  Schuyler frowns.

  “It’s true!” Threatt says. “But that’s cool. Just get your father to hire you a limousine. It’s not that much for one night. Buy your baby a big corsage. Just don’t accidentally-on-purpose pin it through her nipple.”

  “Ooh. That’s what I’m talking about,” Mary Katie says from the drive-thru. The back of her corn silk hair is bobbed pink. If her pants were any lower on her Mini Cooper butt, the drive-thru would be R-rated. “Except a corsage is supposed to be pinned on the arm, not the boob, Threatt.”

  “But then you might stick her in her jugglers vein,” Country says.

  “God,” Schuyler says under his breath. “This place destroys brain cells. If my mind were Antarctica, I would have just lost the Ross Shelf.”

  He plunges a load of fries into the spattering grease, thumbs the red timer button.

  I fiddle with the cups so I can get closer to him. “Why don’t you get your license just to shut them up?”

  “Because I don’t want to.”

  “Why?”

  “I hate cars. They hate me.”

  “Hey,” Beezle Bob says, coming around the corner. “I’m not feeling so warm and fuzzy about you myself right at the moment.”

  We take our stations. The supper crowd is arriving.

  “I can’t believe it,” Schuyler says from behind the grill. “He’s here again.”

  His voice is a chain pulling me back to earth. I was daydreaming of living at Sunlake.

  “Beezle Bob?”

  “No. Piltdown Mann.”

  “Really!”

  It’s true. Mr. Mann’s coming through the door in a short-sleeved shirt, arms casually muscular. His steps are long. I feel every footfall inside my body. Molten images flare and ricochet: Mr. Mann, his shirt off, lifting me onto the counter.

  “You don’t have to get all jacked about it,” Schuyler says. “Doesn’t that cradle robber eat anywhere else?”

  Mr. Mann has been coming here off and on for weeks. “Writers don’t cook; they compose,” he likes to say.

  He’s memorized my schedule. Emily by day, E. coli by night. He usually orders the same thing. I’m convinced he’s saving all his decision-making synapses for me.

  He’s holding a book under his arm. I read the title upside down as he puts it next to the register: The Annals of Tacitus.

  “Beach book?”

  He shows his lopsided smile, goosing my heart. “Hi, Carolina. It starts slowly, but when you get to the murderous bisexual Nero, it’s hotter than Grisham.”

  Sometimes I can’t believe we’ve come this far. That we’re talking this way. There’s a silence. For once in my life, I’m not uncomfortable.

  “You check out that Amherst web site?” he says.

  I nod. “Emily’s house is a lot nicer than I pictured. Two-story brick Italianate. It says they’re fixing to restore it to its original color, baby-poop yellow.”

  “Fixing. A serviceable word. Can I have a mint julep with my order, Miss Scarlett?”

  “Quiet! You should talk, Mr. Boston Baked Beans. Besides, you know what I mean. From her poems I was expecting Little House on the Prairie or Walden Pond.”

  “Things were a lot more goddamn pastoral back then.”

  I rap his knuckles with a coffee straw. “Control yourself, Captain Trashmouth. You’re in the Bible Belt now, son.”

  “Saints preserve us.” The dazzling eyes cut left and right. “And while we’re on the subject of turning human beings into jams and jellies, I think I would make a kick-ass Seville marmalade. You I would peg as raspberry jam.”

  “Huh?”

  “An inside joke for Trappist monks. They make their own preserves at Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Mass. Only twenty-eight miles from Emily’s front steps. Tastes like heaven.”

  While I’m thinking about this, the places he used to live, what he looked like walking around there, he asks a question.

  “Do you ever think you were born a century too late?”

  I nod. “All the time. Except for the Hubble.”

  “Space Telescope?”

  “Yep. Have you ever seen the picture of the gas pillars in M16, the Eagle Nebula?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s a place where stars are being born. You’ve got to see it. It’s looks like the fingers of God; it ’s—”

  “Nine,” Beezle Bob snaps from his cubbyhole office. His face is a glowering dot-to-dot.

  More customers arrive. I speed pour five drinks and return with Mr. Mann’s cholesterol.

  “I hope you enjoy your meal.” Our fingers touch.

  “Hope is the thing with feathers,” Mr. Mann says. I don’t know if he’s quoting Emily or just being delectably weird.

  “Ooh,” Mary Katie says from the drive-thru, flipping her bubble gum hair.

  I’ve got to be careful. I can’t let other people besides Schuyler notice I have a thing for my teacher.

  Does he have a thing for me?

  Please.

  It’s so easy to get carried away when you know there is no chance. But if there is—if there really is? If it’s not all just my imagination— what does that mean? To a man? That he likes me? Wants to be around me? Teach me poetry? Or does he want to undress me, touch me, kiss me, hold me? Be with me for the rest of my life? Love me?

  Or just recommend a few killer books?

  “Disgusting,” Schuyler says when Mr. Mann sits down. “Worse. Antediluvian.”

  I giggle stupidly—he’s tickling me again. Finally I can’t stand it anymore and thump his paper hat in the french fry grease to get away. “Go burn something, Spartacus.”

  Like always, Mr. Mann takes a long time to eat. He reads one-handed. When the crowd has thinned, I drift out to the dining room to wipe things down. I polish the Formica off the table next to his. When Beezle Bob leaves early, I actually sit down and we talk until closing.

  Back home I check the web and find this:

  www.spencerabbey.org/preserves/

  Then something even better:

  HOPE is the thing with feathers

  That perches in the soul,

  And sings the tune without the words,

  And never stops at all

  kissing africa

  Spring.

  As goofy as it sounds, there’s something inside my blood that’s gathering steam.

  But I approach the problem scientifically.

  I’m methodical in my love.

&nbs
p; I pursue without pursuing, watch without watching. Wait without waiting.

  Our days become a kind of Brownian Motion: emotional molecules herding the two of us toward a particular desired outcome.

  The way I hang around, the questions I ask, the not-so-accidental meetings—he has to know.

  Does he know?

  Confession of the Day:

  I’ve swiped Mr. Mann’s picture from the school web site.

  Back home I turn it into a j-peg, blow it up 400 percent. His eyes become lakes in the Ngorongoro basin. Lips, rills of sand. Neck, a salt plain in Tanzania.

  Kiss the picture. No good. Try again.

  This time I study the picture a long, long time.

  I put Kitty Nation out, lock my bedroom door, and bury my face in my pillow, bunching the warm, bulgy fabric against my mouth. I move my head slowly from side to side, eyes closed, lips making the cloth wet, crushing the pillow until it wraps around either side of my head, pushing hard into the softness, his face shining in my inner eye.

  Better.

  Now he’s tilting his head, eyes gone smoky, eyelids at half-mast. He’s feeling this kiss so much, he needs to close his eyes but can’t—he has to watch me even though I can’t watch him. It’s too much to see his face this close, too intensely beautiful—I clutch at the pillow, squeezing with all my strength, pushing my body into his, mixing our particles. Forever. Forever.

  Best.

  The telephone rings.

  I try to pick it up, drop it on the floor.

  “What!” I yell miserably through the sheet.

  “You got a cold?” Schuyler says. “Or were you asleep?”

  “No.” I’m trying to rub the pixel burn out of my eyes, actually.

  “You know,” he says, “it’s theorized primitive man got as much as twelve hours a—”

  “Please, Schuyler. Give it a rest.” And give me one too, while you’re at it.

  “Okay. Mom wanted me to remind you, the work-a-thon is tomorrow.”

  No.

  It all comes back to me.

  Painting, cleaning, hauling away trash at the elementary school where his mother teaches. Worse, Schuyler can’t go—he has a chess tournament in Nashville. Where can I hide? Bosnia? The Marianas Trench?

  “Aw, man. I don’t feel up to it.”

  “Come on. You promised. Besides, you owe me. Remember that lab animal you stuck me with for a work partner last year?”