The Great Thirst Boxed Set

by Mary C. Findley

  Chapter Four – “We’ll Give You Money.”

  Since it was Wednesday, Keith had no last period class. He turned to step out of the teachers' lounge and encountered his father. “Hey, Mr. Brady,” he teased.

  “Not you, too. Did it go that badly?” his dad sighed.

  “No, not at all. She’s amazing.” Keith hurriedly reassured his father, who practically dragged himself to the coffee machine and poured out something that looked like an oil change. “Dad, don’t drink that! Let me make another pot. Sit down.”

  He busied himself making coffee while his father sank onto the lumpy old sofa that had come from the Bradleys’ living room. “This class is going to be fantastic. But are you okay? You look even more beat than usual for a first day of school.”

  “I just got out of a two-hour meeting with some of the board members. Apparently Veronica James complained about our new teacher engaging in some reckless driving yesterday. She got a little hot because our safety director never reported it. Something I should know about?”

  “Oh … Yeah, she got mixed up about the parking lots, and Mrs. James almost took her along as a hood ornament. She apologized for that. Luckily, nobody got hurt.” He decided not to bring up the black van. The last thing his dad needed was more stress, and he was probably making too much of it himself. Talia’s reaction when I brought it up sure was odd, though.

  “We have some new parents who moved in over the summer. They are agitating about how old the facilities are, how things aren’t up to their standards – sidewalk width, bus maneuvering area, student walkway markings – That’s mostly what the meeting was about. They wanted to know why you weren’t there, since it was largely about what they consider safety issues.”

  “Dad, you keep telling me people made up that safety director job. I had class, and then I met with Talia.”

  “Talia?” His father raised his eyebrows. “Yes, I’m not sure why these people insist that this safety director is something official, either. But this seems to be the year for blowing everything out of proportion. I know what you were doing, and I told them you had other obligations. These people truly worry me. They keep talking about safety, but some of the things they bring up don’t fall under the category of safety, in my book.”

  “Like what?”

  “They started out talking about sidewalks, and then it somehow morphed into civil rights. I got to where I couldn’t even follow the chain of reasoning anymore. Our budget is too small to make all these upgrades they want. They’re saying we ought to have a daycare for teen moms. We don’t even have any teen moms this year. Penny Stewart was the only one last year. Since she had her baby, she transferred over to the Vo-Tech, where they already have a daycare. Mrs. Landis tells me she’s going to take her cosmetology licensing test in January and will probably be making more money than me before next year is out.”

  Keith grinned, but his father sobered again. “Next they started in on some kind of special bathrooms. I didn’t even get what they were hinting around about. We have handicapped stalls. Why would anybody need a private bathroom or private shower in a school?”

  “Dad … are they talking about transgender facilities?”

  “Oh, no, do you think that’s what this is all about? Political correctness masquerading as safety?” His father sank his head into his hands as Keith brought the coffee and sat across from him.

  “Haven’t we been exempt from those kinds of mandates because the area population’s so small and the income levels are so low?”

  “Yes, so far. We have so many unemployed, elderly – the tax revenue isn’t there to upgrade beyond what we’ve been doing gradually as we win grants and get extra funds. These parents wanted to put in cameras to catch bullying – all kinds of things. These are not serious issues here. They kept saying I have a ‘Mayberry mentality’. Thankfully, this Bible as Literature program’s going to bring in some revenue.”

  “Revenue? How so?”

  “Ms. Ramin showed me the paperwork. Contributing to that big database of theirs entitles us to extra grant money for every student who signs up. We need to push this, Keith. I don’t see a downside. We get to teach our students anything we want about the Bible. They get fast-tracked for college acceptance if they have the course. The course carries Advanced Placement college credit for contributing to the database with their own projects, plus we get grant money.”

  Keith saw his father’s tension slowly ease as he leaned back on the old couch and sipped the coffee. He wished he wasn’t feeling a strange knot start to form in his stomach.

  “Dad, what if – ” Keith shut his mouth. His father didn’t even open his eyes and didn’t appear to have heard him. He decided to finish the thought just in his own head for now.

  People talk about gay rights, all these other rights, just like they were civil rights. Grandpa used to say that there weren’t any civil rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – That was pretty much it. Thomas Paine had it right – Governments can’t give rights. They can only take them away. And Sam Adams said we have to figure out what the minimum is that we can give up to be able to live in a society.

  Grampa also said that even the Bill of Rights caused big problems for the country. The fact that they mentioned freedom of religion by name kinda put it in the crosshairs. What if we are buying into another fake ‘right’, the right to study and teach the Bible? What they’re just doing the same thing as with ‘gun rights’ – if the government controls rights, it’s easier to take those rights away?

  He couldn’t help the next thought that occurred to him, either. The government is telling us, “Just fill out some paperwork. Tell us how you’re teaching and studying the Bible. We’ll give you money.”

  Chapter Five – A Bradley Central “Do-Over”

  Talia had agreed that she could start the first Bible as Literature class on Friday without Keith. He had told her he sometimes had to stand in for Mr. Taylor, the PE teacher. Mr. Taylor also taught classes at the Vo-Tech, and Friday was one of those days when he had a schedule conflict.

  Talia pulled down the screen at the front of the class and flicked on the first frame of her opening presentation. The class all went, “Oooh … aaahh … ” as the fireworks burst out and filled the screen. A Bible swept onto the screen and she smiled until a boy hopped up and flipped off the lights.

  “Leave those on, please,” Talia called out. The boy had vanished back in among the herd of students – Forty-five people had signed up for the class, far more than they had expected. Now she didn’t even see who had done it.

  “It’s easier to see the screen if it’s dark,” someone protested.

  Talia heard giggling. She paused the presentation, walked to the back of the room, and switched the lights back on.

  “C’mon, we can’t see it with the lights on!”

  “Sit up,” Talia said sharply, seeing a male student leaning over, his hand on a girl’s backside. “Flee youthful lusts.”

  “Do what?” The boy sat up slowly, reluctantly.

  “She means you’re lusting after Anna,” someone snickered.

  “What do you mean, lusting?” The boy demanded. “She’s my girlfriend.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re free to paw her in my class,” Talia snapped. “You’re not respecting her, and besides, you’re just making it harder to wait until you get married.”

  “Wait for what?” someone asked.

  “For … for sex, of course,” Talia answered.

  “It says in the Bible that you have to wait to get married to have sex? What about Adam and Eve? Who married them?”

  “Naw, Adam and Eve didn’t have no sex, until after they ate the apple,” someone sniggered. Talia hurried back up to her desk for the seating chart.

  “The Bible doesn’t say that, Gary,” Talia said. “In fact, Adam performed the first wedding ceremony. He said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, Because she was taken out of m
an.

  “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

  “Hey, you forgot the last part!” A girl – Talia got the seating chart again – Rita – yelled. “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed! Whoo-hoo! So it’s okay to get naked! Nothing to be ashamed of!”

  “You know you’re not putting that in context,” Talia protested. “No one else was around. They were married. And the Fall hadn’t happened yet. You don’t get to decide what the Bible means based on what you want it to mean.”

  “What good is the Bible if it doesn’t mean anything to me?” another student piped up. “I don’t even get what it’s saying most of the time. Maybe it was good for people a long, long time ago, but it ain’t relevant to us today. It don’t deal with stuff we gotta face every day.”

  Talia switched off the viewer and crossed her arms. “You think the Bible doesn’t matter? You think we don’t need to bother about it anymore? When the lights were off in here, we were just like people without the Bible. It’s a light. It’s all we have until God makes this black, sinful world right again.

  “Listen to this. KJV? So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. God wrote the Bible. It wasn’t just people giving their opinions, like other religious books. It’s truth.”

  “Hey, this is America. We got freedoms here. We can choose what we want to believe,” someone argued.

  “America offers religious liberty, true. But the founding fathers based their laws on Bible principles. They didn’t force people to follow Christ, but they showed us which way was best for us. The Bible says we need God to be free. Psalm 119: 45 says, And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts.” Talia had lost all hope of keeping up with the seating chart. A machine-gun rattle of voices filled the room.

  “It says that in the Bible?”

  “We only have freedom if God controls us?”

  “How’s that freedom?”

  “I don’t believe that!”

  Talia shook her head in frustration. The students sat with sprawled legs, crossed arms, belligerent or bored looks. “It’s true. Every word of it. The Bible is the Word of God.”

  “They teach us one thing in school, and another thing in church. They can’t both be true.” Talia knew Keisha at least. The girl wagged her head so hard her beaded braids almost smacked – seating chart again? – Rodney’s twiddling pen out of his hand.

  “Ow!” he whined. “Ms. Ramin!”

  “Naw, My temple says evolution’s okay, just believe what you want. Religion and science, they are different things.” Rajid shrugged and went back to staring at the ceiling.

  “No, no,” Talia exclaimed. “The Bible has all the truth — about History, about Science, about everything! Truth is truth. How can there be different kinds of truth?”

  Keith – You need to call him Mr. Bradley – Talia sternly reminded herself, slipped into the back of the classroom at that moment, his tight little black curls dripping.

  Only ten minutes into the class, and the students were already bored, belligerent, or just quietly hostile. Mr. Bradley walked up from the back of the classroom, so straight and smooth, like that stick of cinnamon Talia had swirled around in her hot chocolate this morning. Oh, stop it!

  “Sit up, Kenny.” Keith struck the back of a student’s chair with the flat of his hand, the sound like a gunshot, and the boy spurted upright. “Mary Anne, put that note away before I make you read it to the class. Tom, when did you ever get the idea that it was okay to disrespect a teacher in this school like you are doing?”

  Keith stopped in front of a male student and grabbed up the notebook he had sketched a figure on. Talia gasped and realized it was a busty caricature of her with the words Sooo hawt scribbled below it.

  “Get up, Tom,” Keith ordered. The boy looked up at him uncertainly. Keith towered over most of the young people. Today he had dressed completely in black, with a leather jacket that hugged his shoulders, but the expression on his face was so stern Talia almost felt sorry for the student.

  “Hey, I’m sorry, Mr. Bradley,” Tom mumbled, but he didn’t rise.

  Keith kicked the leg of his desk. Tom was a heavy boy but the force of the blow almost knocked the desk over.

  Tom scrambled out of the chair and stood quivering before Keith.

  “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” Keith persisted. “Go up to the front of the classroom and tell Ms. Ramin you’re sorry.”

  The boy shifted and squirmed and muttered, “I’m sorry, Ms. Ramin.”

  “She’s up there.” Keith’s long arm shot out and he pointed in Talia’s direction. “You better not keep standing there, and you better not say it like that, either.”

  Tom shuffled up and stood with his head down before Talia. “I’m sorry, Ms. Ramin.”

  “I accept your apology, Tom,” Talia responded, very surprised to learn that she had a voice. Tom slunk back to his seat.

  “Don’t sit down,” Keith warned him, walking up to join Talia at the front of the room. She saw every eye in the room expand at the same time. “Everybody join Tom on your feet. Yeah, now.”

  The students stood up like one person. One desk fell over, the boy was in such a hurry. He picked it up and shoved his crumpled books back onto it.

  “Up on your toes,” Keith said.

  “You mean just the boys, right, Mr. Bradley?” a plump girl wheedled.

  “Did I say just the boys, Gretchen?”

  “No, sir.” The students rose on their toes, wobbling.

  “Put your arms straight out in front of you. Stay on your toes!” Keith rapped out. He gave a rapid-fire series of similar orders, all the while keeping the students on the balls of their feet. Five minutes later, everyone teetered and groaned and sweated.

  “Sit down,” Keith ordered. They collapsed. “Got it all out of your system now? All the disrespect, all the smart-Alec stuff, all the fooling around? Now repeat after me. I better hear everybody, and I know everybody’s voice.”

  More groans. Talia tried to describe to herself that look he gave them as silence fell. She couldn’t.

  “This is a class,” Keith said.

  “This is a class,” every voice repeated.

  “In class we pay attention.”

  “In class we pay attention.”

  “In class we respect the teacher.”

  “In class we respect the teacher.”

  Keith glared around at all of them once more. He held up his hand in a crazy gesture that reminded Talia a little of the Vulcan “Live long, and prosper” sign from Star Trek, except that he had his thumb and first finger up, his middle finger somehow impossibly halfway bent, and the other two tucked down. “It’s two and a half right now. You don’t want to know what happens at three, so there will be no more of what I saw and heard when I walked into this room. Elective doesn’t mean you get to do what you want. Everybody understands that now, correct?”

  Heads bobbed. They all sat with their hands folded, feet flat on the floor, eyes fixed on Keith.

  “Ms. Ramin, pretend we just started this class. These people get a do-over. I hope they remember that Bradley Central does not give do-overs lightly.”

  Talia’s hands shook as she went back to the desk and picked up the remote to begin the slide presentation again. The students sat in total silence through the fireworks. The Bible swam up to fill the screen again, and then the verses she had never gotten to show appeared, glowing, phrase by phrase.

  For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All flesh is li
ke grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, But the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you. 1 Peter 1:23-25

  “Welcome to the Bible as Literature class,” Talia managed to say. “We are here to tell you that the Bible is much more than just literature. It’s science, it’s history, it’s truth. It’s all true.”

  “May I please ask a question?” Tom asked, raising his hand.

  “Yes,” Talia replied, after risking a glance at Keith. She found that his eyes were fixed on hers with an odd expression, as if he were upset about something. He didn’t even seem to have heard Tom.

  “That’s a Bible verse up there on the screen, right?”

  “Yes, it’s from the New Testament, written by Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples.”

  “It says, like, people are going to live forever, right? Grass is gonna dry up and die, but people and God’s Word, they’re gonna last forever?” His voice rose on the end, far more plaintive than a mere question.

  “Well … ” Talia hesitated and glanced at Keith he seemed to be slowly snapping out of a fog.

  “People do live forever,” Keith said. “But these verses are not talking about all people being happy forever, or everybody going to heaven, or whatever most people say about immortality. There are no do-overs once you die.

  “Look at what it says up there – For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. Ms. Ramin talked about the Bible being true, and having so much to teach us. But the biggest thing of all is that it tells us about what Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus one night – Ye must be born again. Our souls are like that grass. They’re shriveled up and dead. Jesus died to bring us back to life again. That’s what the Bible tells us – How to live for real, forever, with God and Jesus.”