Silent Warrior, Chapter 14

“Trust me, Mr. George, there’s a variety of other places I’d rather be than here in my classroom: an Afghan war zone, a rape dungeon, a slaughterhouse, or maybe even hell itself,” joked Mr. Simpson as he sipped his hot coffee. “I’m sure scrubbing boogers and leftover food isn’t your idea of a fun Saturday morning either. We have all of these janitors in our school, yet they never seem to want to scrub down desks. So basically, you’re taking the job that nobody else wants to do, Mr. George. For that, you should be proud.”

Scott’s gag reflex worked overtime for a slave’s wages as he scrubbed the underside of the desks with a damp sponge. Mr. Simpson seemed sure that his pupil was going to unload landslide of stomach acids into the soapy bucket. “Yes, I know it’s not the most pleasant work I can find for you, but it needs to get done. I’m sure your fellow students will appreciate having a clean place to sit. Of course, they’re just going to stick disgusting crap under there again, but at least it’ll be good in the short term.”

After wringing out the sponge in the bucket and gagging again, Scott looked up at his teacher with bloodshot eyes and said, “This will probably earn me more detention, but you’re a monster Mr. Simpson.”

The history teacher chuckled, shook his head, and held his hands up defensively while saying, “Nah, I won’t penalize you for that. You’re in enough trouble as it is. Plus, you make a strong argument. I’m definitely going to hell for what I’m making you do today. But I have to ask…is it really that disgusting underneath there? Who knows? Maybe you’re trying to make yourself sick so that you can get out early.” He leaned to the side to get a better view of the underbelly and said, “Please do me a solid and tell me I’m wrong.”

Scott wrung out the sponge again and said, “I’ve been doing that for the past semester, Mr. Simpson. I’ve called you out on your BS and you laughed in my face every single time. For a guy who’s supposed to instill knowledge and wisdom to the next generation, you seem to not give a damn about the kids in your class.”

Mr. Simpson took a sip of his coffee and said, “Well, I guess there’s no fooling you, is there. I try hard every day to give a hoot about my students, but let’s be honest, they’re not making it easy for me. You’re hardly the worst offender when it comes to this, Scott. I’ve been hit in the face with spitballs, I’ve been called homophobic slurs even though I’m not gay, and I even had one student tell me that he was going to stab me in the chest with a butcher knife. Great stuff, huh? But through it all, I keep soldiering on.”

“But why?” asked Scott as he continued scrubbing. “If you don’t like what you do for a living, why don’t you just do something else?”

With a wag of his index finger and a blunt smile, Mr. Simpson said, “You see? That’s what everybody tells me these days. I’m sure you’d love to see me hand in my resignation and walk out those front doors to a life of rainbows and unicorns.” The teacher took off his glasses and stunned Scott with a look of hard seriousness, “But the truth is, there are no rainbows and unicorns. This is the real world, kid. And in the real world, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. I happen to be knowledgeable in history, so I teach history for a living. Is it everything I thought it was going to be? Not even close. But then again, nothing really is. You’ve got depressed rock stars and starving painters all around the world who thought they were going to waltz into happyville the day that they graduated.”

Though taken aback by his teacher’s steel eyes, Scott threw his sponge in the soapy bucket and stood up to meet them with a vengeful scowl. “So basically what you’re trying to tell me is that because you’re a miserable sack of shit, everybody else has to be too? I don’t buy that crap for one minute.”

“Speaking of being miserable,” said Mr. Simpson as he set his coffee mug on one of the now cleaned desks. “Never forget why you’re here today in the first place. Trash can violence aside, you swore in a place where it isn’t allowed. Whether you agree with that rule or not, it is the law of the land. We encourage a professional environment between these walls. That way, when you take your so-called dream job, you’ll be better equipped to thrive in it.”

“Really?” said Scott with a cocked head and raised eyebrow. “You’re taking away my self-esteem so that I can blindly follow orders and embrace my misery? This sounds like the plot of a Pink Floyd music video, if you ask me.”

Mr. Simpson slammed his fist against one of the desks and caused Scott to jump out of his skin. “No, young man. That’s not classic rock. That’s real life. You think your employers are going to care about your precious little self-esteem? That’s if you have any employers at all! This world wasn’t built on cutesy-wutesy feelings. It was built on toughness. It was built on efficiency. History’s legends didn’t build entire nations out of precious and pretty dreams.”

“No! They built entire nations on slavery and genocide!” shouted Scott, bringing the heated debate to a dead silence. These fiery seconds were spent gazing into each other’s eyes to see who would flinch first. Scott broke the stalemate by angrily whispering, “But you’re right about one thing: those conquerors don’t care about self-esteem and personal ambitions…just like you don’t care about mine! I guess you’re fit to be a history teacher after all. You relate so well to those European settlers.”

With his sour expression trembling, Mr. Simpson said, “Ouch, Scott. That hurt. That hurt badly. You know what? Forget the desks. Forget the sponge, forget the bucket, forget the boogers, forget everything! I’ve got a new assignment for you, my friend.” He approached the blackboard and pointed at it with a piece of chalk. “What was I thinking? Cleaning desks isn’t going to make the message sink in. But saying it often enough will. I want you to take this piece of chalk and write a single sentence so many times that it fills the blackboard. And no taking shortcuts by writing in huge letters!”

Arms folded and stone faced, Scott asked, “And what exactly is it you want me to write?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” said Mr. Simpson. “My job as a teacher is to impart wisdom on the next generation. You seem to believe that once you graduate the world is going to welcome you with open arms and a bowl of rainbow ice cream with sprinkles. You need to learn that things don’t work out that way. You need to learn…to ‘Embrace the suck’. It’s the mantra military personnel live by on a day-to-day basis. It’s the iron that sharpens their iron. It’s the basic building blocks for toughness. Conquering bad situations that keep getting worse will build your character, not living in a jobless fantasy.”

Scott maintained his death stare as he yanked the piece of chalk out of Mr. Simpson’s hand and placed it to the top edge of the blackboard. The teacher grabbed his mug and told him, “I’m going to get more coffee. It’s 8:45 right now, so that means you have fifteen minutes to complete your new assignment. If you try to leave early, you’ll get another hour of detention, this time tomorrow morning. Remember, Scott…’Embrace the suck!’”

As soon as Mr. Simpson exited the classroom, Scott slowly scraped the chalk across the board, little squeaking sounds piercing his eardrums. He took a deep breath and tried again, but the squeaks pounded his tired brain even more. He wanted to just throw the piece of chalk across the room and bail, but that would have been yet another victory for Tom Simpson. “If the guy has any more victories, his head will be bigger than Alan Young’s ass,” Scott said to himself in a low voice.

The very mention of the A word brought a piece of sagely advice from a beautiful fifteen year old girl to mind. For the first time since he got here, Scott had a shit-eating grin on his face. He erased the original text on the board and wrote something entirely different from embracing the suck. As the poetic words danced across the canvas, Scott’s smile became more obvious than the annoying squeaks. He even gave a goofy giggle every now and then.

Nine o’clock reared its supermodel head and Mr. Simpson finally found a bag of coffee he really liked: stronger than his own authority. He even whistled as he moseyed back to his classroom. Before he could cross the threshold, Scott beat him to it and threw his piece of chalk in the air, which landed in Mr. Simpson’s coffee mug. “Hey!” the teacher shouted as Scott strolled out into the hallway. He ultimately thought nothing of it and shook his head.

Upon seeing Scott’s tapestry of nonconformity on the blackboard, Mr. Simpson’s eyes widened and he dropped his coffee on the ground. “No…no…no…!” he whimpered over and over again while rushing up to get a better look. Sure enough, the chalkboard was filled from top to bottom, left to right with, “Scott and Adrienne sitting in a tree / F-U-C-K-I-N-G!” The teacher’s heart and mind raced at the speed of light as he slowly dropped to his knees. He then let out a primal war cry and pounded the blackboard with his fists. He even raked his nails across the board for extra ear punishment. “I’m going to…I’m going to…I’m going to kill that little bastard!”

In this nonstop assault on his own wall, Mr. Simpson could empathize with the swear-word laced rage of his own students now, but not in the way he wanted and certainly not in a way that made him rethink his conformist edge. He was a hypocrite alright, but even history’s most dangerous warriors couldn’t keep a straight story from time to time. The teacher bathed in his white hot rage. His pounds became so powerful that cracks formed on the chalkboard. Upon seeing the damage he did, he slammed his back against the wall and sat there breathing throatily while holding his sweaty head in his hands. “This war’s not over…it’s not going to fly away like a little birdie…this war…is just getting started, you little piece of shit!”