The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

After I awakened, I realized that my head had plummeted onto my desktop like a cannonball firing into a ship’s broadside. But another sensation proved more embarrassing at the moment. I sensed a trickle of tepid fluid squiggling over my upper lip like a moist fingertip. The metallic taste of this substance hinted that it wasn’t sweat. A collective gasp from the students watching me verified that blood flowed in a consistent stream from my left nostril. By the time I regained my faculties, a reservoir of maroon liquid bloomed out like a crushed rose across my cheek and desk. A few kids assembled around me, some of them rapidly drawing cell-phones from their waistlines and handbags as if they had Doc Holiday’s dexterity at the O.K. Corral.

  Rebecca Templeton stood nearest to me. This twelfth-grader always styled her mustard-colored hair in French braids, which for some reason made me think she should’ve been offering me a mug of hot cocoa. In this instance, however, she held forth three white tissues in her quivering hand. These napkins wouldn’t stay so colorless for much longer. I snatched them from her fingers and immediately soaked up the blood spurting from my nose. By now, even the most asinine students in the room saw that I had a problem beyond their range of ridicule.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Cobbs?” Rebecca asked. A frightful glance from her sage-leaf colored eyes assured me that her inquiry was genuine.

  “I’ll be okay, Becky,” I said, using her preferred name.

  “Is that real blood?” another male student questioned, which triggered the ire from several intolerant onlookers.

  “Duh? What do you think, brainiac?” said an elliptical-faced girl named Gabby.

  “What happened, Mr. Cobbs?” Rebecca resumed, while yanking another handful of tissue paper from her purse. I wasn’t too keen on answering any questions at the moment, but gladly sopped up the spillage with the offered material.

  “We thought you were having a seizure or something,” she gasped.

  “How long was I unconscious?”

  “At least three or four minutes,” several students responded in unison.

  “Look, I’ll explain everything later,” I reassured them. “Right now I need for you all to get back into your seats and settle down. I’m going to be fine.” My lie even sounded disingenuous to me at this point, but I didn’t need a bevy of phone calls from overprotective parents complaining that their kids were traumatized by my illness. As it now stood, my sole objective was to get out of this classroom as swiftly as possible, but I still felt too weak to phone the office for assistance. Luckily, Rebecca kept watch over me with the same vigilance as Florence Nightingale.

  “Becky, can you please pick up the phone and dial the main office—just press zero and tell the secretary that I need coverage for the rest of the day.”

  Rebecca acted according to my request as I continued to clean up as much of my own blood that the tissue paper absorbed. The last thing I wanted was the custodian to poke his head into my room for another poorly timed homily. Surprisingly, the students remained relatively tame as I went through this process; a few of the squeamish lowered their heads. Had this been their peers’ blood I had no doubt that they’d be jumping around the room like a bunch of yelping yahoos.

  By the time Rebecca called for my replacement, I had already positioned myself near the classroom’s door. I leaned groggily against the bulletin board, but made certain I wasn’t depositing any blood on the walls or posters. At least five minutes elapsed before I distinguished the sound of Mrs. Fassal hobbling up the hallway toward my room.

  Mrs. Fassal walked as fast as anyone with a pair of decrepit legs could have been expected to do, and under different circumstances the students might’ve hurled forth a few insensitive jokes about her geriatric status. But today they sat at their desks as mute as a monastery of tonsured monks. Upon entering the classroom, as Mrs. Fassal’s eyes connected with mine, I sensed her maternal instinct taking precedence.

  “Oh, dear,” she sighed. Apparently, it was more than the splotchy blood on my skin that caused such an empathetic reaction from this woman. “You really shouldn’t be here today, Corbin.” Rather than reaffirm the obvious, I simply motioned to a wad of ruby-colored tissue pinched under my nose. I’m sure my wan face and slumped posture only supported her observations. In spite of my urge to depart this scene as discreetly as possible, I refused to leave before telling the old schoolteacher that I hadn’t ignored her earlier request.

  “I just wanted you to know that I tried to stop the fight between Stanley and Drew. I guess my influence isn’t what it used to be.”

  Mrs. Fassal nodded her chin contritely as she scanned the students, counting them at their seats with a wag from her distorted index finger. In truth, my words seemed like an afterthought to her now. “You have more than enough to contend with than fretting over such things,” she replied. “Had I known you were so sick, I would’ve handled the situation myself.”

  Regardless of Mrs. Fassal’s effort to appease me, I sensed a breath of disappointment altering her voice. I had no misconceptions about her refraining from any future consultations with me when it came to students’ discipline. Such a notion wouldn’t have fazed me on any other day, but I now looked upon this outcome as another failure on my part. Eventually, after a man surpassed a point of irrelevance, people stopped expecting anything from him.

  I exited the classroom with an intention of visiting the school’s nurse. My nosebleed still hadn’t clotted, and I wondered if this was somehow connected to my sickness or from the impact of my face slamming against the desktop when I passed out. In order to avoid any further interaction with a few hallway stragglers, I quickened my footsteps. But I should’ve surmised that nothing short of a full-out sprint could’ve averted the custodian’s surveillance of these corridors. An odor of epoxy from the factory where my father worked provided me with a vital clue of the custodian’s whereabouts. When I turned into an empty hall, he stood there waiting for me.

  As had been the case in every instance where I encountered the custodian today, he appeared artificially engaged in the activity of mopping the floor. His trade may have seemed innocuous earlier on, but I now surmised that he had an ulterior motivation. Perhaps even more astonishing than the episodes I endured was the proficiency in his quest to pursue me as doggedly as a shadow at high noon. I intended to scurry past him without forwarding any polite banter, but he was prepared to detain me by purposely impeding my passage with his mop’s handle.

  The knot of bloodstained tissue paper lodged against my nostril provided him a prime opportunity to lure me into conversation yet again. “Don’t tell me I have another gore-fest to clean up,” he chortled. “By the way, it doesn’t look like you came out on the winning end of things.”

  If informing the custodian that I was involved in a physical altercation would’ve made him disappear any faster, I might’ve conceded to it. But, seeing that he didn’t intend on leaving me alone for as long as I remained in school, I decided to discourage his interaction by reserving my opinion for a few seconds. Of course, he had the resiliency of a chronic illness in this sort of game.

  “I suppose one fight around here everyday is enough,” I offered, “but at least this last one between Drew and Stanley might’ve done something useful.”

  “Really?” the custodian remarked. “And what might that be?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? After all, you seem to know all the ins and outs of every nook and crevice within this building.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m a very modest man, Cobbs. Tell me something that might’ve escaped my eye.”

  Without even recognizing it, I halted my movement entirely. After assuring that we were still alone in the corridor I said, “Drew will likely be suspended for three-to-five days. At the very least, the halls will be calmer for awhile.”

  “And what happens after his suspension is over? Not that I’m keeping count, but I think that bully has spent more time at home than in school over the past four years. I don’t see anything stopping Drew from coming back and ma
king trouble for his next victim.”

  From a teacher’s perspective, the solution to this quandary was as elementary as a first grade arithmetic problem. If Drew’s academic fate fell in my hands, I would’ve expelled him from the premises. But alas, such decisions were beyond my authority to enact. Regrettably, Principal Lemus was empowered to administer discipline, and in this capacity he was as functionless as feet on a fish.

  Had it not been for my current condition, I may have continued to entertain the custodian with my observations. I learned that the most effective method in preventing any elaboration from him was to keep moving. He revealed a tendency to appear spontaneously and without warning, but he also had a limited range of pursuit. In this case, my attempt to dismiss him by simply walking away served as a catalyst for his irritability.

  “You know, Cobbs,” he said, “There was another teacher who worked here a long time ago who reminded me a lot of you.” The custodian’s cunning tone managed to entice me in a way that a child was lured to a sweet cake. “If I didn’t know any better, you might’ve passed as his twin.”

  It suddenly occurred to me how inadequate my knowledge was of this custodian’s past. The oddity of his statement caused me to wonder the length of time he worked at this high school. “I’ve been here almost twenty years,” I said. “In all that time I don’t remember any other teacher around here who looked like me. What was his name?”

  The custodian resumed his customary stance by leaning over his mop’s handle like he was framed in rubber and wire. A glimmer in his wily eyes told me he wielded more showmanship than the Great Houdini.

  “My memory can’t file and store details the same way yours once could,” he noted. “I know he was a smart guy overall, but I won’t say that I didn’t pity him at times.”

  “Since you’ve forgotten his name, he couldn’t have made too much of an impression on you.”

  “Names don’t stay with me as long as stories do.”

  “What’s your story then?”

  The custodian continued to swirl his mop languorously on the polished tiles, seemingly deaf to my prior question. While waiting for his response, I glanced at my feet and watched my own blurred reflection swaying on the floor like a ghost.

  “You think I have a tale worth telling?” he questioned curtly.

  “I’m just trying to recall how long I’ve seen you working at this school. In my estimation, you couldn’t have been here for more than a few months.”

  “As I told you right from the beginning,” he advised, “you got to be a lot keener than that when focusing your eyes on things around this place.”

  “How long then?”

  “Oh, it’s accurate to say I’ve been on the job just as many years as you have, Cobbs. No longer or less.”

  “That’s impossible. I may be oblivious to a fault, but I would’ve met you long before now.”

  The custodian only needed to gesture to the ball of burgundy tissue clogging my nostril to remind me of my current disability. “The brain is a delicate organ,” he said. “And a man’s memory never lasts as long as it should.”

  “I haven’t lost my memory yet—not entirely anyway.”

  “Are you positive? I’m betting you don’t even recall our conversation from yesterday, do you?”

  I paused to mull over the previous day’s details. Oddly, I couldn’t identify a solitary moment before this morning where we interacted. Since my defense was now decisively weakened, I had involuntarily set myself under the custodian’s scrutiny once again.

  “I’m going to be blunt with you,” he continued. “I think guys like you have very selective memories.”

  If the custodian hoped to offend me, then he accomplished as much. “You don’t know me well enough to say that,” I countered. “And I don’t know you either.”

  “Given your current crisis you may actually believe such bunk, but the truth is that I’ve been cleaning up your droppings for years now, Cobbs.”

  Almost on cue, I dislodged the clump of tissue paper from my nostril in order to inhale an unfiltered whiff of the solvent-scented air. With this action, a dollop of blood dripped from my nose and splashed like a crimson nickel on the spot where the custodian had just finished mopping. He extended me a calculating grin as he swiped the mop’s head over the soiled floor.

  “As I was saying,” he proceeded, “this teacher I started telling you about had the same cavalier attitude as you.”

  “You really see me that way?”

  “C’mon, Cobbs, a better question is: who, besides yourself, doesn’t see you that way? Heck, before you got sick you wandered around this school as if you didn’t give a hoot in hell about the world or anyone in it.”

  Had I really been that visibly aloof? Apparently, if a man whom I hadn’t even talked to regularly noticed my ambivalence, I must’ve cast a leaden shadow in the classrooms I trundled through. “I never meant to seem so distant,” I announced, lamentably.

  “Well, there’s no wisdom in doubling back through streams already crossed, right? I guess the salvation in teaching is that you always have a shot to make up for what you haven’t done in the past.”

  “What haven’t I done?”

  “First, let me finish my story about this teacher,” the custodian resumed. “On the surface, he was likable guy, always grinning and humble. It only seemed natural that the other teachers and students felt at ease when teasing him now and again. More often than not he’d end up being a willing punch line to their jokes. Anyway, the fellow took it all in stride, and kept his opinions about the politics of education to himself. But, just like you, Cobbs, this man was conflicted. His playful personality started to fade after a short time. It was a subtle change at first, but noticeable to anyone who knew him. Eventually, he just got bitter. The things he used to laugh at now made him angry. So he started to shun people, and ultimately stopped talking to everyone but me.”

  As the custodian relayed this anonymous teacher’s history, I attempted to envision a face that matched these characteristics, but my mind revealed nothing. Too many teachers had come and gone over the past two decades. It had reached an embarrassing stage where I barely communicated with people in my own department.

  “How long did he work here?” I asked.

  “Longer than he preferred.”

  “So what happened to the guy?”

  “Well, despite his reputation as a carefree comedian, he tried to merit some respect from his colleagues and students, but it was already too late.”

  “It’s never too late to change.”

  “Maybe it’s easier to change yourself, Cobbs, than it is to alter the way other people feel about you. In any event, he couldn’t shake off his role as a jokester. No one ever believed he had a serious side, too.”

  “And I take it he just got frustrated and quit?”

  “Not exactly,” the custodian replied somberly. “His whole life started to unravel like a ball of string rolling zigzag downhill. He became obsessed with the idea that his wife was having an affair, so much to the point where he made himself physically ill. From what I remember, a few doctors diagnosed him as having some kind of a compulsive disorder, and a hypochondriac.”

  I couldn’t deny the coincidences that this teacher shared with me, but I was still fixated on one disclosure. “Tell me something,” I said eagerly, “was his wife really involved with someone else?” The custodian returned his mop to a tin bucket, where wine-colored water now churned like a miniature whirlpool. Even after examining his twisted smile I couldn’t determine a definitive response. “You didn’t answer me,” I stated again. “Was the guy’s wife cheating on him or not?”

  “You know, he begged his wife repeatedly over several weeks for that answer. She denied sleeping around, of course. This woman, alongside her family, doctors, and friends tried to persuade him into believing his overactive imagination was to blame. They almost had this luckless chap convinced that he was loony.”

  “What was the o
utcome?”

  “As it turned out, the teacher’s imagination wasn’t nearly as fertile as his wife’s sex life. As it usually does, the truth eventually shredded the sultry seams in her threadwork of lies. She ended up getting knocked up by another man, which officially put an end to his diagnosis as a victim of paranoia.”

  My lungs felt nearly deflated at the pronouncement of these words, and I couldn’t help but to suspect that the custodian’s message was an indirect assault upon my own situation. Exactly how much he knew about my dilemma with Rachel outside of here was still an ambiguity to me, and I didn’t intend on letting him extract anymore than he already knew.

  “Finding out about his wife’s affair proved to be too much information, or TMI as the kids text nowadays,” the custodian went on. “I suppose every man reaches his limit.” The custodian paused and stared dolefully into the tainted water swirling within the bucket near his feet. “I’d like to give you a neat and clean ending to this story, Cobbs, but maybe it’s best to let you come up with your own conclusion.”

  “I’d rather not. Tell me the rest.” The custodian’s features turned as hard as a hickory stump now. I hadn’t the patience to wait for his explanation a second longer. “You can’t tell me a story and shave off the ending. That’s not the way it works.”

  “Oh, we’re now following the customs of orators? Haven’t you ever heard of a cliffhanger?”

  “Just tell me what happened to the guy.”

  “Honestly, I expected more creativity from a literature teacher such as yourself. Wouldn’t you find it more stimulating if you crafted a suitable resolution?”

  “We’re not talking about fiction here. This is real life.”

  “And you suddenly recognize the difference?” The custodian chuckled in the fashion I learned to loathe. Despite my plea, he had no intention of divulging anything else in regard to this matter with me. “You’re a bright fellow,” he then said, “and I feel like I’d be doing a disservice to you by spoiling your chance to invent something truly satisfying.”

  Once again the custodian managed to lure me into a conversation I wanted to initially avoid. Rather than permit him to bait me any further, I decided to proceed toward the nurse’s office to at least acquire some fresh tissue for my persistent nosebleed. The custodian, of course, had a knack at stalling me at my most inconvenient moments, and here was no exception.

  “Tell me something, Cobbs,” he said to me before I stepped too far away. “Did you find it any easier to navigate that lavatory with the new lights I put in over the stall?”

  I floundered momentarily, before spinning toward the custodian with a dizzying effect on my stance. My intention was to address his remark, but the circumstances caused an innate chill to jab at my reflexes like an iron-fisted prizefighter. I hadn’t forgotten about the gun, and now a more essential question loomed in my thoughts. Was it even conceivable that the custodian planted the weapon for me to find? I shifted my position hastily toward him to explore this possibility.

  “You seem to pay a particular amount of attention to that lavatory,” I mentioned. “I’m sure there are trafficked areas in this building that aren’t nearly so well lit.”

  “Glad you still appreciate hard work, Cobbs. In my way of thinking, a school’s lavatories are a lot like a restaurant’s bathrooms. You can tell how good a product is just by looking in the places where people spend the least amount of time.”

  “I’ll try to keep that mind,” I noted. “Do you need to tell me anything else before I leave?” I gathered the custodian couldn’t resist an open invitation to interject his point of view.

  “Maybe I’ve got a little personal advice for you,” he suggested. “Of course, I’m hoping you don’t mind taking some guidance from a guy holding a mop.”

  “I’ll make an exception in your case,” I jested.

  “Let me be the first to admit that we got off to an awkward start this morning,” he said. “And I know you wouldn’t ordinarily look at me for any sage-worthy instruction. But sometimes you learn the most when you’re not perusing the pages of a book. Don’t view everything that goes wrong for you so severely. People don’t really want to complicate your life as much as they want to unburden their own worlds. We all get down on ourselves at times, but when other folks see you in that kind of mood they have a tendency to back away. It’s not so much about hating you as it is about preserving whatever happiness still lingers within them. Take a moment every day and think about something good that you’ve done. It might help you appreciate what the hell is really going on.”

  The custodian then tipped his cap, and his round eyes glistened like shamrocks in the corridor’s dull light. He continued with his business of mopping as I pondered his words. Despite the sincerity of his pledge to me, I couldn’t simply forget about the gun. I still wondered what else this man knew about my life, and why I felt so vulnerable to his perceptions. Even if I wished for him to disappear, I knew that he wouldn’t be gone for too long. A voice stirring within my head whispered that he’d be roaming these hallways for as long as I remained at Ravendale High School. Right now, I wasn’t thoroughly convinced that this was the worst possible news to accept.

  Chapter 52

  1:56 P.M.