In the Fall They Come Back

by Robert Bausch

  “What?”

  “Finish that sentence.”

  “What was it again?”

  “You weren’t listening.”

  “Yes I was.”

  “Okay, finish this sentence: white businesses and jobs in the white segment, and in the black segment …”

  Leslie said, “Black businesses and jobs.”

  “No,” Bible said. “You don’t have black businesses and jobs in the black segments, you have white businesses and jobs.”

  “And that’s because of racism,” I said, wanting to be part of this teaching effort.

  But Bible said, “No, not directly. It’s because the schools in the black segments are underfunded, and therefore scarcely capable of providing the kind of education the white schools provide. Since for decades the ‘separate’ education was not sufficient, the level of education among the populace in the black segments was always inadequate. In consequence, you have poverty in the black segments of most cities, and the businesses and jobs are mostly white. Blacks can’t get jobs that provide economic wealth as well as self-respect and dignity, so the poverty only gets worse. Because of the poverty, and lack of education, people naturally judge black men and women to be inferior. This feeds the racism. You have the poverty because blacks can’t get good jobs, and they can’t get good jobs because of job discrimination, and we have job discrimination because blacks in the black segments are undereducated and therefore are judged inferior. It goes in a circle like that, on and on. This feeds a kind of racism most of the white population would deny now, but still you have job discrimination because black men and women are judged to be ill prepared and badly educated. So the condition persists. Year after year and decade after decade. It feeds on itself and festers. You want to change that, right?”

  “Sure I do,” Leslie said, and it was clear she intended to say something else, but she stopped. Nothing Bible did or said made her stop. I think her own bright mind caught up with her and she could see where Professor Bible was going. There was a long silence.

  “How?” Bible said finally, and then he waited, the question out there like something musical and full of longing. Then he said, “You can’t move whole segments of cities. You can’t take houses and apartment buildings in the black part of town, pick them up and move them to the white side of town and vice versa. You can’t move black schools and white schools around. They are where they are. So you have to move people. You open up housing opportunities to blacks. That’s first: equal housing. While you’re waiting for the two races to begin to equalize in location, which takes a lot of years, you bus black students to white schools and white students to black schools—you mix them. You open up the colleges and universities to black students—which has taken the army and U.S. Marshals in some places—but eventually, with time and with programs to get black students admitted to good schools—also an ‘affirmative action’ program—you begin to equalize education. And all of this will be completely useless, unless you do something to equalize the situation with jobs.”

  Leslie nodded her head slowly. I could see she was definitely listening and I couldn’t help myself. I blurted out, “I sure hope you do get into my class next year, Leslie.”

  She turned to me and smiled.

  “So,” Bible said. “You see my point?”

  She was still looking at me.

  Bible went on, “You begin to chip away at the job discrimination by providing affirmative action; by insisting that folks look for qualified blacks.” It seemed as though Leslie had stopped listening, that she was only paying attention to me, and I suddenly felt anxious and sorry for Bible so I faced him, hoping helplessly that Leslie would do the same. “That’s all affirmative action is,” he was saying. “That’s all it was meant to be. It is, simply, a remedy at law, used to cure a very bad, socially undesirable situation.” Now Bible unfolded his arms and laid them on the desk in front of him, leaned forward so that his face was not more than a foot from Leslie’s face. “See?” he said, gently.

  She turned back to him. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Bible smiled, then looked at me. I could see he was once again happy in it—feeling the joy of his work, and I felt again a terrible stab of sadness at what was waiting for him at the end of the year. He looked so satisfied and happy, smiling sweetly at his young student.

  Knowing that some errant part of me wanted to be like Professor Bible, I was suddenly frightened; sick with fear that I’d end up in the same place. He thought he’d made a difference to Leslie, and maybe he did. It occurs to me now that I can’t say for sure he didn’t. He changed my mind about the whole affirmative action thing. But you don’t normally change a person’s mind with oratory, or questions, nor with leaning over a desk and saying, “See?” And even if you could change one mind that way, what difference would it make, really? What if Bible actually changed Leslie Warren’s mind about affirmative action? That difference was no more remarkable or valuable than the difference you make when you stand on a beach and pour a shot glass of whiskey in the water. It’s still the ocean, and your whiskey disappears in it. When a student Leslie’s age—even a good smart student, as she clearly was—expressed an opinion about politics or morality, she was only spouting what Mom and Dad believed. And as soon as Leslie got home and told her mother and father what Bible had “taught” her, they’d go to work on her. They’d get in there and stir it all up again about blacks being treated like children. And what would Leslie do then? She’d eventually reject what her parents believed about it, but that was bound to happen anyway. What was Bible’s affect on her? Really, what was it? And to live your whole life for that? To go around saying you were doing some good? I didn’t see the difference between that and saying you were engaged in changing the ocean to whiskey with a shot glass.

  When Leslie had gone, I asked Professor Bible about how the treatment of his foot was going. I did not say anything about the letter Doreen got from her sister, of course, but I told him I thought it was very dangerous for him to wait too long to have the procedure that might save his life. He surveyed the room and the hall outside as if I had just revealed something secret to him, but he said nothing. The expression on his face was inscrutable. I could not tell what he might be thinking or feeling. His deep blue eyes, looking almost gray in the afternoon light that leaked through the venetian blinds, seemed to freeze on me.

  “I thought I should say something to you again,” I told him.

  “It was kind of you,” he said quietly. It was almost a whisper. “But …” He didn’t finish. Again he was silent and I sat there looking into those eyes, wondering what the hell I was supposed to say.

  “If there’s any chance,” I said, weakly. “I mean if it gets worse or …”

  “It’s not any better. I’m to see the doctor this afternoon,” he said, and then he folded his hands again across his breast. “Is there anything else?”

  “I’m sorry.” I wanted to tell him that I had told Doreen and Annie, but I didn’t.

  “I don’t suppose you brought some cigarettes with you?”

  “No.”

  “I feel the need for a cigarette right now.”

  “I hope they can do something so you don’t lose anything more than the toe.”

  This made him impatient. He seemed to be looking for someplace to let his eyes fall, then he got up out of the chair. “Go get me a cigarette,” he said. “Would you just do that?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  I went and got him a cigarette. He sat down at his desk and lit it. He was almost in a hurry to get it going.

  Days went by. I didn’t know what else I could do. I couldn’t keep bringing it up to him. Still, Doreen wouldn’t let me alone about it. What was he doing? Had he seen his doctor? Was the treatment working? My answer was always, “I don’t know Doreen, he won’t talk about it.”

  “Well it’s silly,” she said, one day. “Everybody knows about it now.”

  “Mrs. Creighton knows?”


  “Well doesn’t she?”

  “I don’t think she does.”

  “I’ve heard my students whispering about it.”

  “I have too, and they weren’t whispering.”

  We were standing in the parking lot, getting ready to hop on our respective buses and drive students home. Doreen was smoking a cigarette, one foot up on the steps leading into her bus. I stood next to her, my keys in my hand. Her passengers were all loaded and jabbering and so were mine. It was an unseasonably warm, late February afternoon, and I wasn’t in much of a hurry. Annie was going to be working late, again, and I really had nothing to do.

  We watched Bible emerge from the building and limp to his car.

  “I think I’m going to say something to him,” Doreen whispered.

  “No you are not.”

  “He must know the secret is out now. He must.”

  “You’ve got to wait until he comes to you.”

  “I wish you didn’t feel like you have to always tell me what to do,” she said, in a normal voice, now—and not too warmly either.

  “I wasn’t aware that was happening.”

  She looked me in the eye, told me I was a control freak, and then climbed up into her bus. She flipped her cigarette at my feet and I stepped on it for her. I leaned down to pick it up, and caught her looking at me, with this odd, crooked smile on her face. It was a look of frustration, I guess, but I think I saw scorn too.

  “See you,” I said.

  She shook her head, smiling now, and drove off.

  I made up my mind not to worry about Professor Bible. I had a pile of journals to go through, and I didn’t want to waste time thinking about something I could do nothing about. I hated feeling so helpless.

  (George) folded

  2-16-86

  Mark Talbot told me that Bible is dying I don’t know what he’s supposed to have but he’s going to die. You could never tell. Yesterday Bible told us a story about when he was a young teacher and I thought he was going to cry at the end of it. Must be sad to be at the end of yourself like that. Dad hasn’t hit me in a long time. He still yells sometimes but not so much anymore. I’m better than I was and feel more like I do now than I did before.

  2-18-86

  This wierd chick in biology. Suzanne Rule walks like she’s looking for a four-leaf clover head bent down. She’s skinny and stick like. Looks like one of those things the shepherds carried around in Bethlehem. She’s got bright red hair and ugly freckles. The big red kind all splotchy like she spilled beet juice all over herself. She doesn’t talk and yesterday before Miss Nagle’s math class Mark Talbot and Happy tried to get her to straighten up. They were bending down trying to look up in her eyes, get her to look at us, and Happy got down on the floor on his back and scooted under her bent over head just like she was a car and he was a mechanic and he was going to have a look under her. She was wearing a dress and she didn’t understand what he was doing. They were laughing and all, just trying to get her to be more comfortable, but then Happy got up real fast and said shit she’s crying. I saw water I guess it was tears, dripping on the floor. She was definitely crying. I felt sorry for her. I think I should tell somebody what happened.

  (Happy) folded

  2-16-86

  Suzanne Rule is really fucked up.

  (Mark Talbot) folded

  2-16-86

  Here’s a secret for you. If you’re unfolding these pages and reading them, and I think you are—I think you are, because I would and everybody I know would—Professor Bible has Millenium’s disease, or something like that. And at the end of the year he’s going to die. Whatever kind of weird disease he’s got you can’t tell he’s got it. He looks the same, but at the end of the year, when folks will be graduating from this place, Professor Bible’s going to be graduating from life. I guess he’s old enough to move on. Must suck to be him though. I wonder how old Bible is. He said something in class today about the meaning of history, and then he sort of let out this croaking sound like a frog or something and tears in his eyes.

  2-18-06

  I think when birds die they must fly too high and let the sky take them. You almost never see one lying on the ground. I wonder how old they get. Bible told us about listening to the heart of the world and everybody laughed at him. Jaime Nichols actually asked him what the world’s heart sounds like. Everybody really laughed at her and so I told them all to shut up. Bible made me sit in the back of the room. Jaime watched me the whole time, and then after school I took her down to the railroad trestle, near where she lives and we made out for a while. I gave her some dope and got her good and high and then she says, let’s fuck, and I said sure. So we got up on top of the bench near the back of the trestle and I took her clothes off and then I took mine off and then she proceeds to say come in from behind and I went ahead and did it. She is really nasty when she gets excited. I hope she doesn’t get pregnant. She’s a slut is what she is and dumb as a bag of grass seed but I think I might get her to go back down there with me sometime.

  I spent most of the night after going over the journals trying to figure out what to do about Suzanne Rule. I was not bothered by the revelations of sex and dope. There was nothing I could do about that and I knew it—they would have their excesses in spite of what any of us might dream up to stop them, but I didn’t see how I could overlook the small, stupid harassment of Suzanne Rule. From the point of view of the boys, it was just a mistake. I believed the journal entry. I didn’t think they meant her any harm, but I couldn’t decide if what happened was worth revealing. I would have to let it be known that I was reading the folded entries. I wondered if I should talk to Mrs. Creighton or to Mark Talbot and Happy about what had happened. Could a stupid prank cause lasting trouble? What kind of damage did Mark and Happy do? The poor girl was crying and no matter what they intended, they were looking up her skirt. I realized there was nothing I could do but keep my eye on all of them.

  21

  Certain Things Come to Light

  A week or so later, Professor Bible stopped at my door just before the eight o’clock bell and asked me if I could come to his classroom at lunchtime for a talk. His expression was serious, almost baleful—and I think I might have thought he was angry. I know I did not look forward to whatever our talk would be about, but when the time came, I took a pack of cigarettes out of my desk and went to his classroom. He was not sitting at his desk. He stood at a small bank of double windows that looked out on the field and the highway that ran by the school. He had his hands hitched in the back of his pants at the belt, the tail of his jacket hiked up sort of on his elbows, and he stared out the window as if he were judging everything in his view, taking it all in with his graying eyes. I know he must have been thinking of his retirement; of the end of all this; but there was no expression on his face, and when he turned back into the room, he took in what he saw with the same slow, concentrated apprehension. He seemed to be looking for something as he approached me, and then he said, “Time, Ben. I’m thinking about time.” He said this as if time was something he might just buy if the price was right; as if he was appraising the view from the window to determine if it would be worthwhile to buy another decade.

  I had not done anything about those journal entries about Suzanne Rule. In fact I had not asked anyone about them. Not even Annie. But I was feeling tremendously affectionate toward Professor Bible at that moment and I knew there was no one I could trust more completely to guide me in the right direction, so I thought this might be the best time to broach the subject. I showed him the cigarettes.

  “Well,” he said. “I think I will.” He opened the window, then sat down in one of the student desks next to it, and signaled me to hand him one. I did and he lit it right there.

  “You sure Mrs. Creighton doesn’t mind you smoking in here?” I said.

  He didn’t seem to hear me. He reached over and unlatched the dusty screen then propped it up with a ball point pen. It was a gray, icy day, with occasional salvos of s
leet and freezing rain. I stood there watching him smoke, and felt the cold air filtering into the room. Outside, cars hissed up the wet streets in steady surges, almost like the sound of waves on a beach.

  “I’ve discovered a sort of problem,” I said. “In the journal entries of …”

  “Ben,” Bible said. “I’m afraid you’ve let me down.”

  I had nothing to say to that. He was not looking at me, and suddenly I wanted to get out of there because I was pretty sure I knew what was coming. He waited for me to respond, but I just sat down in the student desk nearest him and remained silent. Without looking at me, he got up, crossed the room, retrieved a piece of paper and handed it to me. He sat back down and I said nothing.

  “Read that,” he instructed.

  It was a letter, apparently from the parent of one of his students. In it, she asked him if he would please consider withdrawing from the classroom, so the young students in his classes would not be “exposed to the terrible thing that is happening to you.”

  “What,” I said. “Is she afraid it’s catching?”

  “She doesn’t want me to keep teaching while I’m dying.”

  My heart stuttered. “Who said you were dying?”

  “She thinks it’s insensitive of me to go on, letting the children watch my ‘decline.’ That’s what she says, Ben. Go ahead, finish reading.”

  I didn’t want to but I did. It said:

  This is the time in the lives of our young when they should feel that the world is a good place and they can have what they want if they only try hard enough. I am so sorry for your condition, and when my son told me of it I prayed for you and I still pray for you. But won’t you please consider what it might do to the young students in your class to be exposed to your suffering? Please don’t take this in the wrong way. I will pray for you until the end of the earth; my husband will pray for you. But we both feel the young people are better served by a younger teacher—one who has the time and energy and youth, to devote to learning the important things. Our students should not be so worried about their teachers. My son actually broke down crying last night when he told me of this. So I know they love you. Won’t you consider them now, too? I hope you can take this suggestion in the spirit it is offered.