“Hey, come on, teach,” Kramer said. “What else you got?”
“I’ve got plenty more,” Edwards said. “Don’t worry. Here, listen to the trombones.”
“Ain’t you got nobody singin’?”
“Well, you just heard Bunny...”
“Yeah, I mean somebody who knows how to sing.”
“Well, yes, I have. As soon as this one is over, I’ll... I’ll see what else I have.”
“Aw, take it off now,” Liggett shouted.
“This is really a classic,” Edwards said lamely. “Will Bradley. Have you ever heard of Ray McKinley?”
“Who?”
“Ray Mc— he got his start with Bradley. He was... a... the drummer with the Bradley... combo. He...”
“Any relation to President McKinley?”
“Well, well no, I don’t think so. That is...”
“What the hell is this, a history lesson? Come on, let’s have some music.”
Edwards lifted the arm near the end of the record and quickly took the disc from the turntable.
“I’ve got a lot of vocals,” he said. “Some of them, I’m sure will... a lot of vocals. Here’s... here’s one by Ella Mae Morse. It’s called ‘Cow-Cow Boo—”
“More history!” Falanzo shouted. “Finley Breeze Morse, we’re gettin’.”
“Come on, Josh-wah!” Alexander shouted. “What the hell you hidin’ in that goddamned box?”
“Watch your language, Alexander,” Edwards warned.
“Agh, let’s see what the hell he’s hiding,” Alexander shouted to the class. Vallera leaped to his feet and started for the record case. Edwards had already put the Morse disc on the turntable, and he dropped the arm now, whirled, and shouted, “Sit down, Vallera.”
“What you got in the box, teach?” Vallera yelled.
“Keep away from those records!” Edwards yelled. He rushed to the record case and stood before it, his arms widespread, like a cop trying to hold back a throng of parade watchers. “Keep away!” he yelled.
Well, dig the little bastard! Damn if those records ain’t like a woman to him. Look at the little sonofabitch! You’d think he was protecting some pussy.
“We want some good stuff,” Vallera insisted, reaching for the records. Edwards shoved him away, and then backed up against the case again, his arms still widespread.
“I’ll choose the records!” he yelled. “You keep away!”
“So choose some good ones!” Jones shouted.
“Oh, get the hell out of the way,” Vallera yelled. He shoved Edwards, and Edwards staggered and then went flying back against the blackboard.
“Keep away from that case!” he screamed, but Vallera already had a record in his hands, and he held it up and shouted, “ ‘Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!’ ”
“Put that record—” Edwards started.
“You want to hear that one?” Vallera roared.
“No!” the class shouted in unison, rising out of their seats now, ready to join in the fun. Edwards flung himself off the blackboard, rushing toward Vallera, but the record had already left Vallera’s hands, was spinning through the air in a dizzying black arc.
Edwards stopped short and made a grab for the record, but it was beyond his reach, and it hit the wooden floor, and the crash was lost in the din that had suddenly sprung up in the classroom.
“ ‘Cherokee’!” Vallera shouted. “You want to hear this crap?”
“NO!” the class bellowed. “Throw it out!”
Edwards was down on his hands and knees, scrambling for the broken record. He saw the second record leave Vallera’s hands, sail across the room, and smack into the wall alongside the light switch and the bulletin board. Black shards showered from the wall, and Edwards turned to the second record, dropping the pieces of the first record, and then whirling and rushing over to Vallera.
Jones grabbed his arm and spun him back across the room, and Liggett shoved Vallera away from the record case and yelled, “Here’s ‘Kalamazoo.’ What am I bid for ‘Kalamazoo’?”
“Smash the friggin’ thing!” someone shouted.
“No!” Edwards yelled. “No, don’t! Stop it, stop it! You don’t know what you’re...”
The record hit the wall, splashed off it in a dozen flying black pieces. Someone else was at the record case now, and Edwards was rushing across the room, trying to stop him. A boy in the first row stuck out his foot, and Edwards fell forward on his face, his glasses shattering on the bridge of his nose.
“Stop it!” he yelled. “Please, you don’t know what...”
He tried to get to his feet, the bridge of his nose bleeding. He struggled about blindly, searching for the elusive record case now, trying to push past the knot of boys swarming around his desk.
Sonofabitch, this had turned into a real party after all! Goddamn, if those records weren’t smashing all over the joint like hand grenades! Man alive, this was a surprise all right, the best damn class they’d had all term!
“Here’s ‘B-19’!” And then the crash as the record hit the wall and exploded.
“ ‘Concerto for Cootie’!” And another crash, and then the crashes came one after the other, like machine-gun fire, because everybody had his hands in the record case, and everybody was yelling all at once and throwing records, and the floor was covered with shining black shards.
“ ‘Sophisticated Lady’!”
“Not that one,” Edwards shouted. “Please, that’s my...”
And then the crash and then another voice yelling, “ ‘Harlem Nocturne,’ ” and the crash, and then “ ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’!” and Edwards blindly tore at the backs of the boys as the record splattered against the ceiling and showered black slivers on them.
“ ‘Tippin’ In’!” and Edwards was screaming wildly now like a woman, just screaming and saying nothing, and when the crash came, he slugged the boy nearest him, slugged him with all the power of his arm, slugged him blindly because his glasses were on the floor with the broken records, trampled under the feet of the milling boys, crushed into the wooden floor.
And then one of the boys grabbed the case, and shouted, “Here it goes!” and he held it in both hands, swung it down beneath his knees, holding it tightly, holding it the way a basketball player holds the ball when he’s taking a foul shot. He brought his arms up straight and stiff, just the way Captain Schaefer had taught him to do. The case left his hands, sailed upward toward the ceiling, hung at the apogee of its orbit like a square rocket in flight, and then plunged toward the floor, upside down, the records tumbling from their slots, falling like black rain, crashing against the floor, shattering, singly, spattering, the case thudding to the floor, too.
“You bastards!” Edwards screamed. “You dirty bastards!”
The boys kicked around the records that had miraculously escaped damage, and then they realized all this screaming and yelling and crashing around was going to bring somebody damned soon, so they cut out for the door, leaving Edwards on the floor with his broken records and dented case, leaving Edwards mumbling, “You bastards” over and over again. The machine shop upstairs was in operation, and so the boys were lucky because the racket all but drowned out the good fun they were having. Christie Paulson was teaching a Science class next door, but it was a well-known fact that Christie was a deaf old crumb who wouldn’t hear a ton of nitro if it exploded in one of his own test tubes. So the boys were lucky, and they ran like bastards, away from the room, each one ready to swear they’d had no part in the mess there, each one ready to swear Edwards had dismissed them early, and they sure as hell didn’t know what had happened after that.