"She asked me not to tell anyone. " He answered. "She didn't want anyone knowing she fucked. "
"I see. " I nodded. "So why did you tell me just now?"
"Well," He stammered. "It's been a while and I know you won't tell anyone. "
"Ahhh. " I nodded. "I get it. "
We walked in silence for a few minutes. Finally I asked, "Mike, do you ever think about what you're gonna do AFTER high school?"
"What?"
"After high school?" I repeated. "It's gonna end some day you know. What are you gonna do with your life?"
"You sound like a fuckin' school counselor. " He informed me, almost angrily.
"High school ain't ever gonna end man. It's a fuckin' prison. "
"In a way. " I allowed. "But some day you'll be freed from it. You ever think about what comes next?"
"No. " He said, his tone telling me to drop the subject. "I don't. "
Mr. Achmed was surprised to see me hand in homework to him that morning. He was even more surprised to find it was correct. He expressed his pleasure with my work and made a point of calling on me during class. Most of the time I managed to come up with the right answers to his questions. Instead of making me happy however, it kind of pissed me off.
Now that I was supplying the right answers to his questions he was paying attention to me. But before, when I was flunking all of his tests and getting an F or a D in his class, I was simply ignored. The same was true for my other teachers. Now I'm not a screaming liberal that likes to blame everyone but the person responsible, but there is a certain amount of responsibility instilled in a teacher isn't there? Why hadn't I been helped along before this? Why had I been allowed to simply sit in class and flunk without even a single pulling aside by a teacher? Cynicism was the answer of course.
It was the answer, but it wasn't an excuse. I had been a paramedic and, except for cops, you would be hard pressed to find a more cynical group of people. I had been called out for so much bullshit in the course of my career that I assumed everyone was full of shit until proven otherwise. People called us for hangnails, for colds, for ear infections that their kids had. And they reported these things as finger amputations, difficulty breathing, and head injuries. But never had I acted upon this cynicism. If someone said they were having chest pain, then they were having chest pain and I treated it appropriately even if they were twenty-five year olds only trying to get out of work for the day. If someone said they were short of breath than they were short of breath, even if they were speaking in complete paragraphs. If you acted on your cynicism you would be right probably ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But that one time you were wrong would bite you in the ass hard.
My teachers obviously assumed that trying to reach a disinterested student was a waste of time. Most of the time it probably would have been. But sometimes it wouldn't have been. Shouldn't they have been extending at least a little effort when someone like me simply sat in their classrooms and paid no attention? How many people that might have been turned around had just been allowed to sink into the abyss because the teachers assumed they were lost causes and directed their full attention to those that showed an interest in their subjects?
I was surprised by how strongly I felt about this subject and was quite pissed off by the time I left Algebra and headed for American History. My feelings were reinforced when I explained to the teacher that I didn't have my homework that day but that I would turn it in tomorrow.
"Fine Billy. " She said absently, moving onto the next student, obviously not believing that I was going to turn in anything the next day. Granted I did not make a habit of turning in the homework but had she ever talked to me about this? No. Had she ever called my parents and talked to them about it? No. To her I was a lost cause, unworthy of her attention. She would expend no efforts towards me unless I showed HER that I was interested in her subject. Why wasn't she trying to GET me interested in her subject? Why was she simply letting me sit there every day? What system was encouraging this?
Her lecture that day was on the role of Southern abolitionists in the beginnings of the drive towards the Civil War. She portrayed them as saintly people, dedicated to the cause of abolishing the evil institution of slavery. She implied to the class that they were right up there with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in American History. About halfway through I could take no more. I raised my hand.
She ignored it for quite some time but finally was forced to call on me.
"Yes Billy?" She said. "Do you have a question?"
"Yes. " I nodded. "I'm just curious about something. You just told us that the abolitionists used to use protests to influence those southern slaveholders. Exactly what kind of protests are you talking about?"
She gave me THE LOOK for a moment and then said, "Well, they used a variety of methods. Boycotts of services and that sort of thing. "
"That sort of thing?" I said. "Isn't it true that they used to attack slave holders and their families in the middle of the night? Burning down their houses and hacking the men and even the women and children to death?"
She nearly choked but she composed herself quickly. "Well, there were some cases of the more fanatical elements doing things like that of course. But that was rare. Usually they used the other measures I talked about. You have to understand that these people felt very strongly about anti-slavery. About it's wrongness. It's only natural that some of them went off the deep end as it were. "
"Really?" I pressed further. "I actually read that grotesque violence was more the rule than the exception. I guess I must have read wrong. But to answer your other point about them feeling that it was wrong. Don't you think that these abolitionists were motivated more by economic factors than religious or moralistic ones?"
She was now speechless.
"I mean think about it. Who were the southern abolitionists? Poor whites for the most part, right?"
"Well yes," She nodded, "But… "
"Poor whites without jobs. How could they compete with slave labor? They couldn't. Isn't it true they also used to kill the slaves when they would attack a plantation? Hardly sounds like people that are just interested in freeing the slaves now, does it?"
"Well again Billy," She said firmly. "What you are talking about was the exception, not the rule. There were SOME incidents as you described but usually they used economic measures like boycotts to achieve their ends. And many of them were imprisoned or killed by the corrupt southern system for their efforts. "
"Well of course they were. " I snorted. "They were destroying valuable property and threatening a near-perfect economic system. The plantation owners ran the law after all. I imagine they came down rather hard on them when they caught them. "
She was actually flustered by what I'd said. "Well that's a very interesting point of view Billy. " She told me. "But I think we've discussed it enough now. If you don't mind, I'll get back to the lecture now. "
"Sure. " I smiled.
"Okay," She said, "Now back in 1858 there was a group called… "
Though I had no homework for Mrs. Crookshank either, she did not ignore me in class as she usually did. She remembered my dissertation on the blood cell the previous day and began probing at me to see if it was simply a well-studied joke on my part or not. Her lecture was on the major arteries of the body and she fired her first shot less than two minutes into it.
"Now can anyone tell me the name of the arteries that feed the kidneys?" She asked and then, without waiting for anyone to put up his or her hand, turned to me. "Billy, maybe you can tell us?"
She thought she had me I'm sure. I'd been doing what I usually did in her class; watching her alluring form move back and forth and not looking as if I was paying the least bit of attention to her words.