In the Fall They Come Back

by Robert Bausch

  I looked at Happy. He was a thin, bright-looking boy, with light blond hair that he kept closely cropped to his head. “Happy did you think you were in trouble?”

  “I never know what I do wrong,” he said. “I’m always doing it though.” The students laughed. Mrs. Creighton smiled broadly and regarded the class. Then she winked at me, walked to the side door, and went into the Math room. I heard her say, “Good morning.” I was very happy that she forgot I had been late that day. I was once again aware of my good fortune—even if North’s morning offering was still slightly tainting the air.

  I learned to wake up much earlier than necessary, and to leave my apartment in plenty of time to arrive where I was supposed to be, when I was supposed to be there. In the beginning, I actually looked forward to driving the bus. It wasn’t that big, but it gave me power I’d never dreamed was possible in traffic. When I stopped, everybody had to stop. When I got going again, everybody could be on their way. And it wasn’t bad driving it to and from work. I always had company, and it was easy to park the thing in the back of the parking lot at our apartment complex. The landlord didn’t even give me any guff about it. She seemed glad to have it there, and impressed that I was a teacher. But maybe I only projected that attitude onto her. I was impressed, I can tell you. It is a powerful feeling sometimes.

  3

  Small Miracles

  Except for what happened with little George Meeker, my first year in the classroom went rather smoothly. In fact, I think it’s fair to say I had more trouble outside the classroom than in it. I had students who didn’t care and who wanted to fail, so of course I failed them. I got through mostly though without having to do that too often. I’d call parents and talk to them, I’d arrange conferences with them, and generally take the time that the job required to keep everybody on track.

  I wouldn’t vouch for how much anybody learned about writing. They learned one hell of a lot about the world, eventually, but you can’t really teach writing by talking about it, any more than you can teach somebody how to ride a bike that way. You’ve got to put a person on a bike and run alongside of him until he gets the idea, and if you want to teach writing you have to make your students write. So I had them writing every day. As I’d promised, they each had to keep a daily journal. I also had them writing book reports, business letters, and personal narratives about what happened to them over the summer, or about what they wanted to do over the holidays, or during spring break. I had them write about abortion, and gun control, and civil rights, and capital punishment. I had them describing what Rocky Road ice cream tastes like; or a raw potato; or pasta with meat sauce. Describe, analyze, compare and contrast, define … write, write, write. I also told them that I would not read any page that was folded over in their journals. It was not a promise, so I didn’t think I would feel too bad if I did what Mrs. Creighton demanded of me.

  In any case, I soon realized it was impossible to read every page of the journals with so many students. So I learned to just briefly skim through, speed reading the pages without really concentrating on much of anything. Every now and then I’d write in the margin, “Thank you for sharing.” Or, “This is good,” or, “Well done,” or “It’s good to be honest.” Stuff I almost never had to explain, and could be applied next to almost any text. Sometimes I didn’t read the journals at all; I was so pressed for time I only paged through and wrote my equivocal marginal notes without reading a word. Even doing that took hours. (Remember, I had 120 to 130 journals to read each week.) There were very few folded pages and those I did read, I saw nothing in them that warranted either being folded over or my interest. At least in the beginning.

  But I had them writing at least. The problem was, of course, you can’t really learn much about writing unless you have a pretty good editor—and I mean both line by line, and overall—and there was no way any human being, even Superman, could keep up with so much writing from so many people over so short a time. I don’t want to keep harping on it, but you must understand: to teach writing you have to respond to their writing. What do you do with them while you’re taking the time to respond to what they’ve written? You get them to write something else. But this does something pretty fatal to your energy and your willingness to plug away on the work they’ve already turned in, because you know as soon as you’re done with it, they will have something else to turn in, and while you’re working on that, what do you have them do? Write something else, and it goes on and on like that until, I suppose, a teacher finally burns out. I don’t know how long it would have taken me. After two years, I was okay, but who knows? I’ve heard that when a teacher burns out it really is like going down in flames. Talk about the rock up the hill. Compared to an ordinary high school English teacher, Sisyphus had it made.

  Still, I got into it sometimes. The problem wasn’t always daunting if you got students who were smart and fun to work with. I had students I really treasured. It’s only natural, of course. You are drawn to talent because you see results fairly quickly and you feel good about that. You feel as though you’re accomplishing something. Also I had students I felt sorry for. George Meeker was one of those. He suffered at the hands of his classmates and of his parents, who gave every indication of a terrible lack of civility and grace. What happened with him is as good an indication as any of what I came to see as my duty, and it was this idea of what my duty was that got me in all the trouble.

  Forgive me. I don’t want to be glib about this. When the thing that ultimately ruins you has begun, you don’t necessarily recognize it at the outset. In fact, you might not notice it at all. The truth is: Nothing on earth, ruinous or otherwise, announces itself the way we’d like it to. Until the last few weeks of my last year, I think you could say my work was at least satisfactory. For some students it was probably outstanding. Perhaps most of the others would easily forget my name and everything we did in our classes. I don’t think that’s true, but I don’t know.

  One of the most important people I came to know in those two years was Francis Bible. I met him before I’d taught my first class. He was the oldest teacher at Glenn Acres School, white-haired, tall and craggy, and he insisted on being called “Professor Bible.” In a way—in a very good way—he turned out to be a sort of mentor to me. When I first saw him, at the faculty meeting that afternoon the day I was hired, I thought he was Mrs. Creighton’s father. He walked up to her and put his hands on both sides of her face and kissed her on the forehead. (She was embarrassed a little I think, because I witnessed it.) Then he turned to me and smiled. “Who is this young man?” He leaned toward me, his great mane of white hair so imposing that I took a step back. He wore a white suit, a thin black tie. His face was broad and round, with jaws that looked puffy and red. His glasses, wire-rimmed and thick, inflated his eyes, and his heavy white brows crowded around the lenses like ornamental weeds. He was tall and paunchy, with bulky shoulders and arms that bulged under his tight-fitting white suit jacket.

  “This is our new English teacher,” Mrs. Creighton said. Then she nodded at Bible and told me who he was.

  I shook his hand, told him I was happy to meet him. I said it was a very interesting last name.

  “It just means book,” he said. “You’ve certainly met folks named Bookman, Booker, and so on. Yes?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “It’s Greek. Bible.” He still held onto my hand. “I’m not from Greece.”

  I looked down at my hand and he let go of it. “I teach social studies and history here,” he said.

  I nodded approval.

  “And a little bit of life,” he whispered.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Engaging,” he said loudly. His voice boomed in the hallway where we were standing. Mrs. Creighton frowned at him as he turned to her. “An engaging young man; I wonder if he smokes.” Mrs. Creighton’s frown only deepened. She did not approve, but she was not really frustrated with him. It was clear that she revered him in a way; that she was only waiting
for him to quiet and settle down so she could get started with the meeting.

  Bible turned to me. “Do you smoke, lad?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “If I ask you for a cigarette then certainly give me one.”

  “I will, if I have one.”

  “Let’s hope you do. I’ll teach you things if you take care of me.” He turned back to Mrs. Creighton and said, “Let’s get on with our meeting, Julia.”

  The meeting took place in the Math room, which happened to be the first room I saw when I came for my interview. It had Florida windows that ran from one side of the door all the way around the room to the other side of the building. These windows were wide open, of course, but not just because of the residue of North’s morning deposit and ultimate clean up, but also because the weather was blisteringly hot, and the air conditioner wasn’t working that day. The other rooms would have been too stuffy, according to Mrs. Creighton, who sat at the front, her glasses again on the tip of her nose. She had changed clothes from this morning. Now she wore a bright white blouse, orange slacks and white sandals, her toenails painted dark red. She had a multicolored light scarf around her neck and draped down the front. She spoke with stentorian exactness to calm everybody down.

  “I have lots of things to cover today, people,” she said.

  I was so happy to be sitting there, employed, at a real faculty meeting. What kept going through my mind was that I was a member of the faculty. Me. Faculty. I couldn’t believe it.

  I’ve already described Professor Bible, who sat in the front row, directly in front of Mrs. Creighton. I was off to the side, under one of the open windows. Next to Bible was Doreen Corrigan, the Business, Typing, and part-time Math teacher. She was young, athletic-looking—with white jeans, penny loafers, and a blue button-down shirt. She had light brown hair that she wore very short—a man’s cut. A necklace with very small blue stones adorned her neck. Her green eyes were sharp and highly critical of everything she looked upon. She did not have good skin—early and continuing battles with acne had scarred her with red blotches and pockmarks on her neck, jaw, and even her cheeks and around her mouth, but she didn’t seem to care about it.

  “As I’m sure you’ve all guessed,” Mrs. Creighton said, “we have a new English teacher.” She pointed at me and I nodded.

  There was a French teacher, who came to teach one class in the morning each day and then left the premises. I think I saw her only once or twice the whole time I was there. Her name escapes me.

  On the other side of Doreen Corrigan was the Home Economics teacher, Mrs. Brown, who was massive and quiet. She did not look up. She took notes with a sawed-off pencil that almost disappeared between huge, puffy fingers. The mass of skin under her chin was larger and seemed to weigh more than anything above her jawline. She had jet black hair and dark eyes. If she were willing and able to lose two or three hundred pounds she would be absolutely beautiful. As it was, she looked like a manatee wearing a human mask.

  I immediately felt sorry for her.

  I tried not to look her way, afraid the look of pity on my face would be perfectly readable, so I concentrated on Professor Bible. He had a tall glass of water on his desk and tipped it a bit to sip from it every few seconds as the meeting progressed. He did not say anything, although he may have been listening. I couldn’t tell. When the glass was about half empty, he withdrew a piece of chalk from his breast pocket and placed it in the glass, watched it float to the bottom. Then he set the glass on the edge of his desk and left it there. I kept waiting for him to take another sip out of it—I think I was afraid he would do that, but he didn’t. At one point, for no apparent reason, he turned to me and smiled, then sat back in his chair and appeared to concentrate on Mrs. Creighton, who spoke of the “enrollment” success for the year. “We’ve got full classes across the board,” she said.

  “And very few convicted felons in this bunch,” Bible added.

  Mrs. Creighton ignored him.

  He whispered to me, “Most of the parents are worse than their children.”

  Mrs. Creighton said, “Leslie Warren is back with us this year.”

  The room seemed to shrink a little, as if everyone drew in air at once and brought the walls in closer.

  “Again?” Doreen Corrigan said.

  “She is determined this time,” Mrs. Creighton said. “She has promised to behave herself.”

  Bible shifted in his seat a little. Then he whispered to me, “She’s dangerous. Stay away from her.”

  He tried to warn me.

  Mrs. Creighton talked awhile about how to handle her and in the process explained to me that she wouldn’t be in my class until her senior year, if she made it that far. She understood everyone’s reluctance to work with her. “But her mother says she is a different girl.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  Bible, still whispering only to me said, “She’s ruinously beautiful. She’s promiscuous. She’s into drugs.”

  “Professor Bible, please,” Mrs. Creighton said.

  He spoke a little louder. “Just informing our new young teacher.”

  “He’ll learn about her soon enough,” Doreen said.

  Bible nodded her way, then turned back to me. “Leslie is angry at everyone she meets. She thinks she’s smarter and more sophisticated than the ‘boobs’ at this place.”

  “I guess I’m glad she’s not in my class.”

  “She won’t last the year,” Doreen said.

  Glenn Acres was a private school. So we were all free to do more with our students than teachers in public schools. We had less to fear from school boards, and even parents. We were not governed by the county, except for fire codes and curriculum requirements. Methods were our own. So I did use some pretty unorthodox methods at times, to “get in amongst them and stir them up” as Professor Bible used to say.

  That was the other thing about being a private school. People had to have money to enroll their children at Glenn Acres. Even so, many of the students who came there had been expelled from the public schools, and could not be enrolled anywhere else. These were kids who had gotten into serious trouble with the law and the state had simply given up on them. Their parents had money though, and did not want to allow them to quit school, so they came to Glenn Acres. Also, some of our students were the children of parents who were decidedly upper crust and did not want their children attending a public school. They wanted something better and more challenging. It was definitely a strange mixture. Kids who had been charged with crimes alongside those whose parents were attachés and ambassadors. Washington, D.C., is famous for its odd populace. You might see an actor or talk show host in Hollywood or New York, but in Washington, you could find yourself sitting next to a famous senator or congressman, or a member of the White House staff, or even the king of Burundi. You might end up with children in your classes who were the unruly, undisciplined, spoiled sons and daughters of these people.

  Shortly after my first day teaching classes, Professor Bible called me into his classroom. It was just off the hallway, across from Mrs. Creighton’s office. I stood in the door, waiting to see what he wanted, and he was planted behind his desk, holding another glass in front of him with a piece of chalk in it. I was feeling pretty good about how the day had gone.

  He looked up at me. “Well,” he said.

  I asked him what he was doing with the chalk.

  “I’ll show you tomorrow.”

  I waited, but he sat there, just watching the glass—as though he expected the chalk to suddenly dissolve, or shoot up into the air.

  “You wanted me for something?” I said.

  “Yes. Yes, yes.” He still didn’t take his eyes off the glass. “I was wondering if you wanted to sit down here for a minute.”

  I walked over and sat across from him in a student desk.

  “You’re new at this,” he said.

  “I am.”

  “You have children?”

  “No. I’m only
twenty-five. I’ll be twenty-six in August.”

  He met my eyes now. “You married?”

  “I’m thinking of it. Annie and I—I have a roommate and we’re …”

  “Yes, your generation does things that way.”

  I had no response to that. I thought he was probably old enough to be my grandfather. I understood his reluctance to accept our way of doing things. He put both hands up and placed them on either side of the glass with the chalk in it.

  “I sure am curious about that chalk.”

  “Special kind. I get it special. Not the cheap stuff they buy here. This is quality chalk.”

  I said nothing.

  “Well let me have a cigarette and then I want to ask you something.”

  “I don’t have cigarettes on me.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have a little fellow in your morning class.”

  “Which class?”

  “Junior—eleventh grade. George Meeker.”

  “I don’t know yet—I haven’t got my roster memorized, or …”

  “He’s in your first period class. A little fellow. Wears horn-rimmed glasses.”

  I nodded. “I think I remember him.”

  “I had him all last year for history. He won’t be in any of my classes this year.”

  “Is there something wrong with him?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him. No, not with him.”

  I waited.

  “I want you to pay close attention to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Look closely at his neck, his eyes, and the back of his hands. Let me know if you see any bruises, or unusual marks.”

  “Really,” I said. “So we’ve got one of those.”