Laporte just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, search me.
CHAPTER 13
Again, Horse uses an overhead projector, which has the lines from John Milton’s “Areopagitica.” It reads:
It was from out the rinde of one aerpple tasted,
that the knowledge of good and evil as two twins
cleaving together leapt forth into the World.
A white projection in an otherwise dark room.
“Good and evil are opposing forces. Milton is not saying that Eden was good, and then Satan introduced evil. No. Satan brought both into being, because, Milton would argue, you cannot know good without knowing evil. That is the point of the fall, Milton argues. Choice. Free will. Satan God, really gives mankind... okay, Sally, womankind, too... gives the world a choice. We are not animals who just do, but aware beings that now have to choose the right path. The devil has given man an amazing gift: the chance to choose goodness.”
This is how Horse began the school day.
Then, he took attendance.
Looking out the window a bit later, Horse declared a lesson in memory and nostalgia.
“Remember when you were a child,” he said to the class. Being seventh graders, they are unsure if they are still children or not. Before anyone can answer, he says to them, “You have begun to wonder if you are wearing the right clothes, listening to the correct music, and if your body is keeping up with others.” He smiles. “Or, keeping up too much…”
Letting that sit a moment, he walks over to the window.
“This is a difficult time. At some point, soon, you will have to decide if you take cues from others or yourself.
“I want you to remember a time when you just thought about what you liked. When you had fun. Collected dolls. Watched cartoons. And played in the snow.”
He looks out at the white landscape.
Soon, two farm kids were setting up an old two burner Coleman stove on the edge of the parking lot that overlooks a small, steep hill. Three others have filled a canning pot, burned black on the bottom, with water. Another carries the lid, following the pot to the stove. Horse has sent a non-threatening girl to the cafeteria to beg a few dozen hot cocoa packets and disposable hot cups. The rest raid the younger classrooms for sleds, asking their old teachers if they can borrow them for the afternoon.
At the top of the hill stands Horse, joined by Wells.
“They look like they’re having fun,” the principal says.
“Perhaps we don’t see it enough.”
“I’m sure there’s a pedagogical reason for this lesson.”
“Inducing memories and nostalgia for a lesson in history.”
“Really?” Wells says. “I was joking.”
The two watch as Horse’s class makes its way up and down the hill. One kid trying to stand on the sled, surfing to the bottom; he makes it three feet before planting his face in the snow. Two get snow down their backs, leading to piercing squeals. A train forms. People go down without sleds. In the windows of the school, kids in other classes look out with longing. Wells stands by the Coleman and ladles out cups of hot cocoa to the tired, happy students.
“I’m going to hear about this,” he says to Horse. “Someone is going to complain that classroom management was a bear because you were having fun outside.”
“Tell them about the essay,” Horse replies. “Before we leave, each of these kids is going to have to crank out a two-page essay recounting a sledding experience. Personal essay. Memoir.”
“Really?” Even Wells is surprised.
“Geeze,” a girl says, overhearing the conversation. She’s wearing a hat she knit in the month leading up to the holiday break. “He’s not kidding. Every fun thing we do is followed by an essay.”
“I guess that’s good,” Wells tells her.
“It beats just doing another essay,” another student adds. This one has no hat, and really red ears. He then takes a sip of hot cocoa.
The students gone for the day, Horse is bent over his desk, correcting a miserable series of spelling lessons that go on without end. They did not write an essay; he had told them to tell anyone who asked that an essay was imminent. Instead, he gave the originally scheduled spelling test.
“Mr. Horse?”
At the door stands a timid man small in stature. Wearing a tucked-in plaid shirt, khaki pants, and a sport jacket, he is leaning slightly into the room. Left hand gripping the door frame, he waits for permission to enter.
Looking up, Horse is surprised to see Amanda’s father. “Mr. Tomlinson…”
Showing polite surprise, the man says, “You remember me!”
“From parent conferences and happier times.” Horse puts his pen down and leans back in his chair. “Amanda was one of those success stories teachers remember.”
“She has done well. How are things with you?”
Mr. Tomlinson enters the room and approaches the desk. Nearly every week, for nearly a year, he entered Horse’s room for a meeting of some sort. Little had changed; he made his way towards a plastic chair in the front row.
“I just solved the interesting problem of a student who never did any homework during basketball season.”
“It takes a lot of time to play a sport.” He sat down.
“True, but you also have to maintain a passing grade to play. Typically, it’s a motivator. Their grades drop during the off season.”
“Typically…”
“But it wasn’t the basketball. No. The mother is poor. She’s also on public assistance. And she’s agoraphobic.”
“A fear of going out in public.”
“Typically. So, she doesn’t get around to cashing checks and paying bills on a regular basis. That leads to her power getting shut off. No power, no lights. No lights...”
“No homework.”
“As winter kicked in, the kid was going to bed at five o’clock; when it got dark. Interestingly, he hates basketball, but it gets him out after five and he can shower. No power, no hot water.”
“That’s horrible.”
But even as he says the words, it is clear his heart isn’t into the problems of others. Mr. Tomlinson is here for a reason, which Horse knew when the father knocked on the doorjamb. The story paused, they both smile.
“People have to put up with a lot,” the teacher says, breaking the silence.
“I hope Mr. Wells is taking care of things for her...”
“It’s what he does.”
The emotion in the room turns as they come to the matter at hand.
“I don’t know if you should be here. I have heard there are lawyers who talk for us.”
“You should have told me.”
“She’s not a student here. You’re not a parent here anymore.”
“She’s a child. I’m her parent.”
“A child that was pregnant.”
“She’s still a child.”
“To her father…” Horse thought about the other man, Amanda’s partner, the one who was now not going to be a father. “To, you, she’ll always be a child, but to Amanda... She doesn’t think of herself as a child anymore.”
Tomlinson crumpled within his clothes.
“No. That seems to be the way of teenagers.”
The old teacher’s voice changed, now. Sympathetic. Soft. With barely a whisper he said, “She hasn’t been a child for a while.”
The father jumped to his feet in defense, screaming, desperate, “You had no right saying anything.”
“Do you remember when Amanda came to my class?”
His voice was calm.
Before him was a desperate man, full of regrets, who wanted someone to listen.
To be heard.
Horse was hoping to escape without being punched.
“Yes.” Calm. “It was the year after her mother died.”
“After years of your wife battling cancer, I believe.”
“Yes.”
“She had stopped participating in class years before
.”
“Amanda had problems,” the father conceded, resigned.
“At the time we were talking about an alternative placement. Amanda hit a girl. She took that girl by the scruff of the neck and slammed her face into the desktop.” Open palm, Horse simulated shoving a head into his own desk, slamming the desktop to loud effect. “The girl raged. She fumed. No one wanted her.”
A soft voice. “Yes, I remember.” A voice of misery.
“She was out of control and couldn’t read beyond a second grade level or do much math. Angry and stupid. That was the word.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Where were you?”
“Excuse me?”
Until then, Horse had been taking Mr. Tomlinson down an expected path, allowing the father to vent while Horse patted his back and made understanding noises. Any other teacher would have done the same, and been glad when the parent left without filing a grievance with the administration.
No one was like Horse.
“Your daughter had just gone through a horrible ordeal of watching her mother die. She had no skills and couldn’t control herself. Where were you?”
Most teachers didn’t call parents bad at their jobs; they let parents do that to them. Yet, here was Horse… Tomlinson could not believe it. It was his fault? No, no…
“I helped her and supported her...” Tomlinson stammered.
“You were supposed to protect her.”
“I did!” It came out louder than he had expected.
“She was falling apart.”
“And I did my best.”
“That was where her childhood went. It died with your wife.”
Then, there was silence.
Tomlinson was struck… not knowing what to say. Unable… Unable to fathom how the conversation had gotten to this point. To be attacked…
“I don’t think you can use cliches...” he sputtered at last.
“I’m not. Events like that change people.”
“I did my best.”
“Of course you did. And you did your best now.”
Which just made Tomlinson angry.
“Then why did she get pregnant?!”
Stop agreeing with me, he wanted to shout. Goddamn it, stop making me angry with you and then agreeing with me!
Horse, calmly replied, “That’s not your fault.”
“Then whose fault is it?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course you say that. You don’t think I see what you’re trying to do? You’re to blame!”
“For what? For you wife dying of cancer? For your daughter growing up?”
In a low hiss the father spit out, “For getting involved!”
“Like I did in seventh grade?”
Now it was Horse’s time to be angry. He had suffered Tomlinson’s self-pity parade long enough—he felt sorry for the man—but it was time for the man to either throw a punch, slam a door, or break down and cry.
“No one wanted your daughter. Even Mr. Wells, who is a hopeless romantic when it comes to the power of public school, wanted to ship her off. I had twenty-seven kids that year, and your daughter needed to be locked in a closet to gain control, and still I took her because if they shipped her off she would have been lost.”
“And I appreciate that,” Tomlinson said, retreating. “I always will. That does not change...”
“I was Teacher Of The Year that year.”
“I know. I nominated you.”
“I also almost lost my job for that.”
“I know. I went to the school board.”
“And now...”
“This is different.”
“Because you forget where she was?”
“Just because she was troubled in the past does not excuse...”
Horse ignored this. “Because she did not turn out as you wanted?”
“This is not my fault.”
“No,” Horse said bluntly. “It’s your daughter’s.”
“It can’t be the decision of a seventeen-year-old girl.”
“The law says otherwise.”
Again, Mr. Tomlinson’s mind left him. He jumped from his chair, and Horse was sure that this time he would hit him. A parent had done so last year—jumped clear over his own desk—and clocked him.
“That’s your answer? The law says otherwise? I wouldn’t let her get her teeth cleaned without my permission. I don’t think she CAN get her teeth cleaned without my permission. But she can get an abortion? What kind of law is that?”
“Speak with your congressman.”
“This isn’t about the law; this is about my daughter and what’s right.”
“It’s about her getting pregnant.”
“It’s about her childhood.”
“It’s about her being an adult. And you don’t like it.”
“No,” the father said. He stood there, a foot before Horse’s desk, fists tight, elbows locked. “No, I don’t.”
“So why am I to blame?”
“Because you taught her.”
“I taught her to read and write.”
Tomlinson’s body relaxed a bit, but he did not sit. He seemed unsure of what to do, or where his thoughts were taking him. His mind reeled.
“You taught her to sit still. To listen. To think. To persevere. You gave her self- worth. She thrived in your class. And THEN she learned to read and write.”
“But giving her options now... I’m overstepping?”
“No!” He was exasperated. “This is different.”
“Because I did not follow the party line.”
“There is a moral code that teachers need to follow.”
Horse laughed.
“What do you think I do here all day? You don’t know what I leave at the door. We start out every morning with the Pledge of Allegiance, and my own hypocrisy just grows from there.”
“I don’t think of you as a hypocrite.”
“People should be glad I wear pants every morning.” Again, Horse laughed. “Do you know what education is? It’s the truth. We teach students truth, because then, when they grow up, they don’t see the world as one big hypocritical mess that they have to figure out. We teach them to think for themselves.”
“Is this your version of truth?” He stood there, not backing down. His mind clearing. He remembered why he came here. “My daughter is getting an abortion at seventeen.”
“Fine. I’ll let you into the dirty little secret of the education profession. Teaching isn’t about truth at all. It’s about reading and writing. It’s about test scores. Do you know why I tamed your daughter?”
“No.” He didn’t want to know. He wanted righteous anger.
“Because I was stuck with her. I don’t care who they put in here. I don’t advocate. I don’t complain. I deal. I take whoever, because this is a public school and we take whoever comes in the door and make what we can of the mess. That’s the beauty of public education. That’s the dream. The American Dream. The great equalizer. The envy of the world. That any crazy and idiot with a host of problems can come ambling in the door and we will teach them. We’ll not only teach them, but actually get results. Or, that’s the expectation. Get results, while we get spat on and jeered for having health care and a dental plan and actually joining a union and then having the budget cut out from under us. That’s teaching.
“And do you know why I fixed your daughter all of those years ago? Because she was not going to read or write until she would stop howling. And her actions were stopping the other kids from learning. Not because they were a distraction, but because they gave them an excuse in my class not to work. The blame went on Amanda. So I stopped it. I fixed her. And, everyone learned.”
The father stood, nostrils flaring, body tense. Horse knew that he didn’t want to know, but the man had come into his classroom and dumped all of this guilt and blame onto his desk… He hadn’t a choice; the father needed to see the truth if he ever wanted to move past this with his daughter.
“I didn’t know you were so Machiavellian about teaching.”
“What, did you think it was passion? Do you see a stupid apple pin on my lapel? This is my job. Reading. Writing. They learn and go on. I get a paycheck.”
Horse anticipated the next question.
“I never seek students out. She came to me. Amanda, last week, was seeking my sanctioning her actions, which I did not do.”
“In just giving her the information...”
“In giving her the information I took away her excuse. Now informed, she had to act. Even no action was a choice. She chose to terminate motherhood for now. I gave her a choice.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“She chose sex. You didn’t. I didn’t. She made a choice that did not work out well for her. My question is: why are you upset?”
The father stood and cried. It was a quiet weep with his back shuddering silently, a handful of tears before the nose began to run. Horse stood stupidly with a box of tissues held out a foot from Tomlinson’s head.
“I feel like I failed,” the father said at last.
“You did not fail. This is about Amanda.”
But Horse didn’t say if Amanda failed or not.
Then the two were in silence.
Eventually, Horse went back to his correcting, trying not to notice the man just standing at the foot of his desk.
It wasn’t less than half an hour before Mr. Tomlinson had pulled himself enough together to walk from the room and into the hallway.
Across the hall, Jones was watching a video on his laptop that he’s considering using in class the next day. Leaning back in his chair, headphones on, he didn’t notice the upset form of Mr. Tomlinson quietly walk into his classroom and take the seat closest to the door. The teacher laughed, while the father could hear faint sounds coming from the earpieces.
As the clip ends, Jones looked up and ha a small jolt, realizing someone else is in the room.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“... I just need a minute. Can I sit here... for a minute?”
“Sure. Take all of the time you want,” Jones replied, returning his eyes to the computer screen. He clicks on the keyboard, and Mr. Tomlinson hears noise from the headphones again.
Absentee List_An Old Horse Mystery Page 12