The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

After I regained awareness of my surroundings once again, I realized how pointless it was for me to even bother changing my shirt. Even before I reentered the school, I sensed a fresh layer of perspiration leeching through my clothing’s fabric. It unnerved me that I had brought such undesired attention to my circumstances. The repulsion I presently felt toward my wife and Leon Chase had visibly transformed my disposition. It was presently impossible for me to conceal the resentment surging within my brain like an infected wound.

  I managed to progress a few steps farther into the corridor before another ongoing tormentor reemerged. Evidently, my respite from the hallways hadn’t discouraged the custodian from tending to other duties. He continued to mop the spotless tiles with a technique that duplicated Van Gogh’s Impressionistic artistry. In spite of the custodian’s affable nature, I wasn’t ready to partake in his pithy tidbits in regard to my own welfare. With my current mood so unbalanced, I hardly managed to contain an urge to slap the mop’s handle from the man’s hands.

  “I didn’t expect you back inside so soon,” said the custodian unctuously. I didn’t answer him at first. Instead, I watched him ring the mop’s head out into a plastic bucket of clean water. Amazingly, there wasn’t any indication of dirt on the floor or in the container.

  “You’re still here?” I asked, somewhat peevishly.

  “Just got back,” he noted. “Had a big mess to clean up down in the cafeteria. Those little urchins sure know how to ruin your day, don’t they?”

  I almost let the custodian’s words sail innocuously over my head, but then I remembered that this man’s comments only seemed irrelevant on the surface. “What? Did they knock over a garbage bin or something?”

  The custodian looked offended by my facetious remark. He then shook his head and replied, “I’m afraid it’s a bit more grim than that. A couple of kids got into a pretty big scuffle last period.” He continued to squeeze the water out of the mop before swirling it around my feet in a figure eight pattern. Then, almost winking at me, he remarked, “Wiped quite a puddle of blood off the floor. Nothing for the squeamish to look at, of course.”

  “Blood?” I repeated. By now my eyes were fixated on the bucket’s contents. I didn’t detect any discoloration in the water, but still took the custodian at his word. “Are you saying there was a fight?”

  “Why are you acting so surprised, Cobbs? That’s par for the course around this place. I clean up the raw spillage of teen angst on a daily basis.”

  Even if the custodian was being accurate, and I didn’t believe he was, I refused to squander time debating the veracity of his claim. “Who was fighting?”

  “You see what you can miss when you’re out strolling around the parking lot fetching for random licks of sunlight? I’m telling you, Cobbs, you can’t dawdle for a second in this joint without expecting to find yourself outside the loop.”

  “Just tell me what happened?”

  The custodian tilted closer to my ear, relishing in his superiority in the delivery of gossip. “Well, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that bully Drew Mincer or not,” he started, “but apparently he likes to kick the living snot out of hapless kids half his size.”

  My heart must’ve hesitated for a beat or two as I listened to the custodian’s account. It felt as though he jabbed me in the gut with his mop’s handle. I already surmised that Drew’s latest victim was Stanley Glacer. My attention shifted away from the custodian momentarily when I noticed a few students progressing rowdily down the hallway. The trio of boys appeared animated, alternating ersatz punches at one another as if to reenact the pugilism they witnessed. I managed to summon the attention of one of these boys before he advanced too far away from me.

  “Are you coming from the cafeteria?” I asked. The boy’s cherubic face was not familiar to me. I presumed he was a freshman, no older than fifteen.

  “Yeah,” he bellowed, brimming with an enthrallment reserved for watching the pummeling of peers. “Did you hear about the fight?”

  “I just got word.”

  “Drew Mincer really pounded that ugly kid’s face inside out.”

  “Are they both in the office now?”

  The boy shrugged his shoulders and rushed up beside his friends. “I think so,” he called back to me. My intention was to check on Stanley’s condition for myself, and I hoped that the hearsay was grossly exaggerated. Before doing so, however, I thought about extracting a couple more pertinent facts from the custodian. But when I motioned back toward him, the man and his mop had disappeared. Not even a trace of moisture reflected off the floor’s surface.

  Within a few minutes, I returned to the principal’s office. A potent blend of cucumbers and hairspray greeted me before I stepped within ten feet of Mrs. Finnegan’s desk. She perched officiously in front of a computer’s screen, barely acknowledging me as she tapped her manicured fingers on a keyboard with a stenographer’s systematic cadence. As it was with most of my interactions with Lemus’s secretary, she assumed the militant air of the Gestapo anytime I strayed too close to her desk. On this occasion, Chrissie might’ve sensed my anxiety, and I had no doubt that she recognized the aftereffects of my sickness. I offered her a compulsory smile, which matched the mendaciousness of her own greeting.

  Although I stood in front of a counter that served as a barricade from Lemus’s office, I already scanned the two rooms situated behind Mrs. Finnegan’s desk. These designated areas served as holding pens for students in wait of the principal’s discipline. In the closest room to me, I noticed Drew sitting placidly at one table with both his arms crossed defiantly in front of his chest. His expression seemed typically devoid of emotion. After noticing me monitoring him through the room’s window, Drew straightened the middle finger of his left hand and thrust it in my direction. Had it not meant my teaching certificate and reputation, I would’ve charged into that room and smacked the self-satisfied grin off of Drew’s smug lips.

  Before I exacted any justice, however, Mrs. Finnegan reminded me why I suddenly found the normally agreeable aroma of cucumbers nauseating.

  “Mr. Cobbs,” she said authoritatively. “If this isn’t an emergency, you know that all faculty members are required to have an appointment before coming in here.”

  “I didn’t have any time to make an appointment,” I insisted.

  “Well, we’re very busy right now. You’ll have to come back later.”

  “Look, Mrs. Finnegan, I’m already here now, and I’ve heard about the fight in the cafeteria.” My eyes remained darting around the office while I spoke, but Stanley Glacer wasn’t anywhere in sight. I assumed he was behind Lemus’s closed door. “I can see Drew’s up to his foul games again, but where’s the other boy?”

  Mrs. Finnegan stopped clattering her white-tipped nails on her keyboard. She released an exasperated sigh before complaining. “I think this has become an administrative matter now. So why don’t you just return to your classroom and let Dr. Lemus handle this situation from here.”

  “I’m only trying to find out if Stanley is okay,” I contested. “Did he come in here or is he in the nurse’s suite?”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time, Mr. Cobbs. This isn’t a concern for you. We have the situation under control.”

  “Can we just skip all this protocol and talk like human beings, Chrissie? I know that Stanley Glacer was in a fight earlier with Drew, and I need to find out if he’s going to be okay.”

  “Are you always so persistent?”

  “Only when I need to be.”

  “Well,” she stated insolently, “Unlike some of us who pose as professionals in this school, Mr. Cobbs, I follow the rules.”

  Mrs. Finnegan’s stiltedness was nothing unique, but her acrimonious tone clearly hinted of an unmerited contempt she felt toward me. I assumed Dr. Lemus had already briefed his secretary on those targets he planned to root out of this school like prickly weeds from a garden. I don’t know exactly what prompted me to engage this woman into an irritable ex
change of words, but I suddenly felt invigorated by a borrowed bit of wisdom.

  “You know, Mrs. Finnegan,” I remarked while leaning nonchalantly across the counter. “It still smells like ripe cucumbers in this office.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, batting her eyes saccharinely. “It seems that we’ve already had this conversation earlier this morning.”

  “But I didn’t mention that certain species of snakes emit a similar odor, did I?”

  She lifted a quizzical eyebrow toward me and returned, “Don’t you have a class to teach, Mr. Cobbs?”

  “Probably,” I snickered. “I just thought I’d let you know that it only makes sense for a snake smelling like cucumbers to seek out a similar scent.” The secretary’s eyes then centered on a bottle of lotion set on her desk’s corner. I made it a point to tilt my head toward the ceiling and inhale the fragrance pervading throughout the room.

  “Are you intentionally trying to provoke me?” she questioned.

  “No. I was just wondering if you had any problems with snakes in here.”

  “Snakes? Are you being serious?”

  “Only if you believe in those sort of tales.”

  “Well, there aren’t any snakes in this building.”

  “Maybe you’re not looking in all the right places,” I suggested with a charmer’s finesse.

  I continued to gaze fixedly over Mrs. Finnegan’s shoulder, almost gesturing to Lemus’s closed office door with my chin. She suddenly lost her ability to concentrate on anything other than me.

  “As I said,” she hissed, “we don’t have any snakes in this office.”

  “Well, I believe you, Mrs. Finnegan, but those reptiles are known for their wily nature. They generally only come out of hiding when no one else is around.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” she avowed. “In the meantime, Mr. Cobbs, I’m sure you have plenty of students who could benefit from your insightfulness.”

  Our volley of derisive banter might have continued had it not been for an interruption we both anticipated. As the door directly behind Mrs. Finnegan’s desk unlatched, I adjusted my stance to greet Morgan Lemus properly. The principal exited his office with Stanley walking beside him sedately. The boy pressed an icepack against his left nostril, but appeared otherwise uninjured. It didn’t take Mrs. Finnegan more than two seconds to start flipping her hands through her tresses in a subconscious bid to display her femininity.

  Anyone who cared to watch Lemus with scrutiny would’ve quickly determined that he had about as much talent for running the operations of a high school as an invalid did at being an aerobics instructor. As pitiful as Lemus was in his administrative duties, he may have looked even more awkward in the manner he carried himself. The balding man walked with a conspicuous limp, which was rumored to have originated from the aftereffects of a clubfoot. I wouldn’t normally fault a fellow for malformations beyond his control, but my intrinsic dislike for his methods compelled me to make an exception.

  Lemus’s mealy complexion hinted that he might’ve been as internally lily-livered as he was on the surface. I’ve known invertebrates that displayed more backbone than this toady clod. It pained me to even acknowledge his authority with any semblance of professionalism. His pretentious bowties always irked me, too, and today’s polka dotted attention-grabber served as another mark against modesty. In addition to his brassy demeanor, Lemus owned another characteristic that was impossible to disregard. His left eye appeared disproportionately larger than his right, and because of his forehead’s oblong shape, at a distance it presented the illusion that he had only one eye. Rumors circulated that he had his right eye gouged from its socket with a pencil while breaking up a middle-school skirmish many years ago.

  I never cared to substantiate the story’s credibility regarding Lemus’s glass eye, but the majority of high school students were pitiless when detecting flaws in those paid salaries to pass judgment against them. Some of them even showed a surprising capacity for ingenuity when assigning insulting monikers. Therefore, I cannot claim ownership to our one-eyed principal’s nickname.

  The students borrowed from what they learned when studying Homer’s “The Odyssey” and combined it with a bit of wordplay to formulate Lemus’s soubriquet. They recalled a passage from the epic poem in Book 9 where Odysseus and his men were inadvertently trapped in a monstrous Cyclops’ cave. The name of this single-eyed carnivore was Polyphemus. By extension, the students generally tagged Lemus as ‘Cyclops,’ and I hardly managed to conceal a chuckle every time I heard it.

  I almost expected an inhospitable scowl from Lemus’s paper-thin lips when he noticed me standing outside the counter in front of Mrs. Finnegan’s desk. Instead of acknowledging him, I centered my attention on Stanley Glacer. Even at close range the amount of damage to Stanley’s face was nominal. Aside from an icepack, I might’ve not even guessed that he was involved in a fight with Drew Mincer. Many of Drew’s former targets weren’t so fortunate following such a confrontation.

  At this point, I wasn’t certain if my input would’ve served as a remedy, but I decided to fulfill my self-imposed responsibility toward the boy anyway. “How are you doing, Stanley? Are you okay?” Before he attempted to respond, Lemus cast a prodigious shadow in front of me. The principal wasn’t competent of much else other than leveling his weight against anyone who dared to intersect the boundaries he had drawn to divide us.

  As always, Lemus revealed no immediate reaction to my contributions. Rather than address me directly, he pivoted toward his secretary to express his power obliquely. “Mrs. Finnegan, I don’t recall having an appointment scheduled with Mr. Cobbs this morning.”

  “Mr. Cobbs doesn’t have an appointment,” she answered while flashing a disdainful grin toward me.

  Lemus had an ambiguous way of taunting the faculty without stating his ire, and most of my colleagues slunk away from his office like scolded puppies. In this instance, I held my position as if my feet were entangled in the roots of a cucumber patch.

  “This fight wasn’t Stanley’s fault,” I insisted. “I’m just here to verify that.”

  Lemus’s one good eye enlarged like a yellow spotlight cast upon a prisoner as he focused it unsteadily upon me. “Excuse me,” he interjected. “I’m quite capable of determining who is accountable for what around this school without your opinion.”

  I simply placated the principal by saying, “I agree, Dr. Lemus. But I think we both know who’s at fault here.” My stare beamed toward the adjacent room where Drew Mincer sat waiting for punishment. “You need to get that bully out of this school before he really hurts someone.”

  “The policies and procedures for discipline, Mr. Cobbs, will be my decision, not yours. I hope that I’m being perfectly clear with you.”

  Rather than fan Lemus’s volatility, I concentrated on Stanley’s expression, which was blank as a crisp sheet of notebook paper. It surprised me that the boy forwarded no apparent emotion. He didn’t even bother to look at me. After a few additional seconds of avoidance, Stanley looked sheepishly at Lemus and murmured, “I’d like to go back to class now.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Lemus remarked to him. “But are you sure you’re not hurt? If you’re not up to finishing school today, Stanley, I can call your parents and you can go home early.”

  “No,” replied Stanley without hesitation. “I have to get my study guide for my statistics class. Besides, I’m feeling fine.” Stanley’s insistence to remain in school struck me as a tad unusual, especially since the majority of students in his position would’ve opted for an excuse to leave school with the principal’s permission. In this case, Stanley pulled the icepack away from his nose to display the full extent of his injury. His nose was slightly swollen with a dried dash of blood encircling his left nostril.

  “Looks like the bleeding stopped,” Lemus noted.

  “You see,” said Stanley. “No big deal.”

  The principal might’ve been content to let the matter end here,
but I still needed to clarify my intentions. Maybe I demonstrated too much compassion for Stanley in this instance, but I felt obligated beyond the promise I had made to Mrs. Fassal.

  “When you’re ready, Stanley,” I offered, “I’ll walk you to your next class.”

  Stanley, Lemus, and Mrs. Finnegan appeared simultaneously bemused by my sudden display of altruism. The boy flipped the icepack on the counter and wiped crumbled flecks of blood from his face. “I’m ready to go now,” he announced.

  I watched Lemus snidely pondering my suggestion, although since it was met with no objection from Stanley, he had no choice but to relent. “I won’t keep you from your studies,” he told Stanley, “and since Mr. Cobbs has so graciously volunteered to escort you to class, I will let you go now.”

  Stanley scampered away from Lemus and continued to cross through the counter’s narrow opening. I followed the boy out of the office, but sensed Lemus watching me as if I had an ulterior objective for my actions. I gathered that Stanley felt no aftereffects from the altercation with Drew. He dashed quickly through the corridor, even though he knew that I intentionally tracked his footsteps. He eventually paused at his locker, while doing his best to ignore my presence. When I stopped next to the boy, partially depleted of breath, he glared at me as if I had offended him in someway.

  “What do you want, Mr. Cobbs?” he snapped. Stanley faced his locker now, dialing the lock’s combination skittishly. “I don’t need you to walk me to class.”

  “Don’t you want to talk about what happened?” I countered. I watched patiently as Stanley clicked open the locker’s door and pulled a textbook from a neat stack of papers on the upper shelf.

  “I don’t have anything else to say,” he uttered while still inspecting his locker’s orderly interior. “Besides, you and me both know that Drew’s behavior can’t be stopped by a suspension or whatever. So big deal. I got a bloody nose and a bucket of trash dumped on my head. And Drew gets three days off from school. That’s fair, right?”

  I realized, of course, that Stanley had become desensitized to the abuse thrust upon him by his classmates, but it still bothered me that he accepted it without any visible aggression. “There’s no denying that Drew Mincer is a creep, Stanley. I just hope Dr. Lemus expels him this time around. It’s the only solution left as far as I can tell.”

  Stanley said nothing in the form of words, but he slammed his locker’s door with more force than necessary. He seemed strangely aloof when commenting, “Let’s face it, Mr. Cobbs, things aren’t ever gonna change around here.” He still refused to look at me when speaking his mind. “I’ll be graduating soon, and with any luck I won’t be forced to socialize with people who hate my guts because of the way I look. But I know for sure that they’ll be another kid just like me standing in this hallway next year waiting to get humiliated by guys like Drew Mincer.”

  “I’d like to believe that you’re exaggerating,” I said, disheartened by Stanley’s insight.

  “But you know I’m not, Mr. Cobbs. It’s a never-ending cycle, and it doesn’t matter how many rules you put in place to try and prevent kids from harassing one another. Bullies will always prey on the weak. It’s practically a law of nature.”

  “There must be a way to curtail it,” I insisted. “We have to try something.”

  Stanley looked at me dispassionately and shook his head as if he was the teacher and I the student. “If there is a way to stop bullying,” he mumbled, “it won’t be any of the adults around here who’ll make it happen.” The boy’s eyes then sailed away from me, almost as if lured by a vision unseen by me. I remained silent, perhaps mulling over another flashback from my own youth. For whatever reason, I reached my hand out and tugged gently on Stanley’s shoulder. My gesture stalled the boy momentarily.

  “Before you leave,” I told him, “I want you to understand that I tried to talk to Drew earlier this morning. I know you didn’t want me to get involved, but I couldn’t stand back and let a fight happen without trying to stop it.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I just wanted you to know that some people really do care.”

  Still playing the role of an educator, Stanley glanced at me with a heightened level of eruditeness. “So I guess we both learned something from this whole event,” he said almost cloyingly. “Today’s lesson, Mr. Cobbs, is that you now know how little influence you have around here. I hope you don’t mind taking advice from a teenager, but remember this day the next time you feel like making an impact. Take it from someone who knows the truth. It’s no fun being insignificant, and it hurts even more when you find out that your best effort just isn’t good enough.”

  Stanley brushed my hand away from his shoulder and proceeded down the hallway. I stood mute and reflected upon the sagacious advice from a boy who seemed to possess a wisdom that belied his age. Something in his stride, however, indicated that he wasn’t resigned to letting this incident go away as easily as he wanted me to believe. He suddenly moved like a kid who felt vindicated by his resolutions rather than defeated.

  Chapter 41

  11:53 A.M.