February 11, 2005
...continued from Part I...The Middle School teachers weren't much better. My Spanish instructor was a tall, lanky man of 45 and had a low tolerance for 14 year olds. None of his students cared for him either and this fact usually resulted in utter chaos, followed by a mild punishment. The penalty for speaking out of turn simply meant that the perpetrator would have to stand outside the classroom door for the duration of the period. It was a goal that every student hoped to attain.
One Friday, when the students were most spasmodic, I was in the midst of telling my friend, Frank Compos, a story about a recent trip to my grandmother's before the bell rang.
"Ya see, my grandmother has this little grocery store behind the condominiums where she lives and there's also a river that passes through right next to it where a bunch of ducks always gather. Last weekend, my grandmother gave my cousin Hillary and I a couple of bucks so that we might head over to the Dime Store across the street. Instead of buying some candy for ourselves, we decided to go to the grocery store, buy some bread and feed it to the ducks. Well, the bread was fairly cheap and we were able to buy quite a bit of it. We must have gone back in for two or three loaves, providing a huge feast for these ducks. "
Frank was nodding his head emphatically, with a big, goofy grin spread across his face and a look of expectancy in his eyes as I continued.
"One of the ducks really stood out, though, and I pointed him out to my cousin Hillary. He was an enormous bird with great, wide webbed feet and stood at attention in front of the other ducks on the shore of the river. I mean, this duck was huge, man, like he had been solely responsible for the gobbling of five loaves of bread. He was just F-A-T, fat."
Frank began to giggle at this point, as it never did take much, and I took a quick turn of the room to note that most of the students were by then gathered in their seats.
"Upon closer inspection of this giant duck, I noticed that half of the upper portion of his bill was missing! So much of it was gone that you could see his tongue if you were able to get close enough! It was the strangest sight, man, really odd. Ya see, everyone before us felt sorry for the duck with the broken bill and therefore fed him the majority of their bread crumbs, making him fat."
By this time, Frank was wondering where in the world I was going with this story (I, myself, had questioned this early on) and thus he leaned in closer, balancing himself on two legs of the desk and squinting at me with doubt. I realized it was about time to rap this baby up.
"Okay," I said, attempting to tie this all together within a quarter of a second in my mind, "so the moral of the story is, don't go around feeling sorry for everyone you see with a disability or you'll end up with a fucking duck that doesn't float."
The story was so ridiculous that it sent Frank rocking in his seat with hysterical laughter. This was not a good thing as his upright position was only secured by two desk legs and the aftershock of his physically engaging laughter left him fluttering on the floor like a fish out of water. The resounding crash coupled with my disrespectful 'F-word,' sent our instructor into a mad fury. His face quickly turned bright red and I could see the white of his teeth as his jaws clenched together in equal time with his fists.
"Uh oh," I said to Frank, while hurriedly attempting to lift his still laughing body up off the floor.
"That's it! That's it!" bellowed the mad professor, "You're out! The both of you; get out!"
Frank turned from him to look at me and asked,
"All this over a disabled duck?!"
All this before the period bell even rang...
Our English teacher, Mrs. Stimpson, was all of 5' 0" and perhaps weighed 90 pounds. What her physical appearance lacked in intimidation, her widened mouth and piercing claws more than frightfully made up for it. Not to mention the strength of her right shoulder and her precision in aim as she whizzed various scholastic objects at unsuspecting students. We were all required to shut up, sit at attention and remain motionless for the duration of her class or face the consequences of having wooden handled erasers, lengthy pieces of finger width chalk, magic markers or a 12 inch rulers flung fiercely at our heads.
Some kids wore hard hats to class while the rest of us learned to master the art of using our text books as shields.
"INCOMING!"
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTT -- BLUMP!
We dubbed her class 'Battlefield 101.'
It was in the last few days before summer break that I had my fallout with Mrs. Stimpson. Despite the fact that she did not do much to encourage our longevity in life, she did manage to keep a modicum of plants alive. Our orders were to carry these plants down three flights of stairs and place them into the designated areas of her car. The lot of us were not exactly thrilled to be doing her dirty work, but the chances of being struck down by magic marker missiles were greatly decreased during this 'group activity.'
One by one, we carried her precious cacti, venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants down to her little white sedan. The freedom of the outdoors infiltrated our senses and produced a boisterous demeanor into our young hearts. We were laughing and prancing and skipping and generally just goofing off until...
CRASH!
Gravity, coupled with a lousy excuse for a ballet move, provoked the pot which I was carrying to suddenly slip from between my hands and violently join the sidewalk with a merciless, splintering 'thud.' Formidable gasps escaped the lips of every student around me. The sun shrunk away from the sky, hiding behind a blackened cloud and furry little animals quickly scampered off into the protection of the dense woods behind the school. My shoulders tensed and I fought the urge of hurdling myself into the nearest ditch to retreat into a fetal position. I slowly turned around and looked up at the open window of Mrs. Stimpson's English class. Her figure was outlined within a darkened, hooded cloak and her clawed fingers reached out into the warm, summer air. Her screeching voice sent tingles down the length of my spine.
"Laura! Come here at once!"
With trembling knees and downcast eyes, I made my way back up the three flights of stairs and shuffled sideways into her room. The other students were sedentary now, with wide eyes and 'O' shaped mouths, barely breathing in my presence. Mrs. Stimpson's blood red eyes targeted me with a ferocious stare and her right hand instantly stabbed at my arm. She curled those those razor tipped fingers around my flesh and forced me into the hallway, backing me into a corner across the way. I looked down at her tenacious grip about my arm and suddenly felt a spark of intrepid current rush through my body.
I know not if she spoke. I know not if she even had a chance to open her mousy mouth for, in a blink of an eye, I jerked my arm free and stood before her wrought with disbelief. All of my hatred boiled inside of me, all of these years of being misunderstood flashed in front of me, I was immersed with an animosity unimaginable and I nearly knocked her over in my abrupt dash toward the steps. She called out after me but I knew better than to look behind. I simply kept on running until I reached the bottom of the stairs, burst through the building's entrance and stood out over the broken pieces of the pot I had dropped only moments before.
I looked up at the opened window, only to see no outlined figures, and cupped my hands around my mouth, shouting,
"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME? I HATE YOU!"
I half expected to see her bony visage fly through the window on a crooked broom but, alas, I have no such tale to tell...
To be continued...