Mary McCray glossed over her roll call sheet one more time
and shook her pudgy head at some of the names on her list. At least two or
three of them were cops. Four of them were multi-level sex offenders. Others
were attending sensitivity classes for the very first time. But one name on
this list made her chuckle in disgust: Darren Stars, a rock icon with more
privilege than any of his cop classmates. “Who in the hell calls himself Darren
Stars?” Mary asked herself.
Steeling her nerves for the worst, she sighed and reached
high to twist the doorknob to the classroom. Some of the “students” snickered
at their obvious height advantage over Mary. They also had a sizable youth
advantage since Miss McCray’s wrinkly skin and wavy gray hair gave away her
age. She wore a green dress with a white apron over it, like she was about to
bake cookies instead of teach a sensitivity class. In order to meet her
students’ gazes, she had to crawl up on the teacher’s desk and sit on the edge,
swinging her oversized feet as she did so.
These degenerates smiled with the kind of juvenility one
would expect from a high school classroom, which was where this special
training session took place. Mary checked the roll call sheet to make sure
everyone was accounted for, but used it as an excuse to hide her face from
these humiliating stares. Some of these men looked like they just did time in
the pokey, all muscled, tattooed, and dressed in T-shirts, jeans, and sometimes
tank tops.
It was Darren Stars who caught her eye (and her ire) the
most. “Feet off the desk, Mr. Stars,” ordered Mary, to which the long-haired,
leather jacket wearing rock star reluctantly complied.
Crossing her arms upon her lap, she was finally ready to
greet these students with a stern gaze and a gruff voice. “My name is Mary
McCray. I am a sensitivity counselor. You are all hardened criminals, which is
why you’re here today. My job is to provide you all with the tools to do better
deeds in this world. How you handle those tools is completely up to you. Some
of you will succeed, most of you will end up back in prison.”
Mary pulled her thick rimmed glasses off and cleaned the
lenses with her apron. “But for a small minority of you, prison was never a
clear and present danger. Whether it’s because of your wealth, your celebrity
status, or just the fact that you wield any kind of authority at all, your
massive privilege has kept you out of trouble. But if you think your money is
any good here, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m here to straighten you all out and
nobody gets a free pass. Any questions?”
Darren Stars stood up and said, “Yeah, I’ve got one. How
come your parents aren’t supervising you?” That earned a collective horse laugh
from the rest of the classmates.
“Well, clearly your parents are even more irresponsible if
they give you a goofy ass name like Darren Stars!” That earned an “ooohhh” from
the crowd and the arrogant rock star sat down slowly in shame. “Actually, I’m
glad you made yourself obvious, Mr. Stars, because our lesson for the day has a
lot to do with why you’re here specifically. Correct me if I’m wrong, but
didn’t you get busted at one of your shows for punching a traumatized fan’s
guide dog?”
“Guide dog, my ass! That motherfucker was howling his head
off while I was trying to sing a song. He was ruining a fun night of music for
everyone.”
“Yes, because punching a defenseless animal is the only
number one hit you can produce these days,” said Mary with a cross-armed glare.
Another collective “ooo” reverberated off the classroom walls, not unlike Darren’s
guitar during a show. “Personally, I would have locked you up right then and
there. But since you’re such a big celebrity who needs coddling and swaddling,
you ended up here instead. Well, I have just the curriculum for you and your
socially elite friends.”
Mary leapt off the desk and pulled a TV remote that looked
like a magic wand from her apron. With one click, a white projector screen
lowered in front of the chalkboard. With another click, the lights went out.
“Gentlemen…and Mr. Stars, I want you to have a look at something.”
Another click of the button projected a montage of animal
cruelty onto the screen. Elephants in India were being punched repeatedly
in order to get them to paint. Monkeys laid in wooden crates with shackles
around their necks and ankles. A cat was being thrown into oncoming traffic
down below from a highway pass. Teenagers were shooting BB guns at helpless
ducks, injuring their wings and snapping their legs in half.
Mary grinned mischievously at her students as most of them shed
tears over the graphic footage, but wouldn’t go into a full-on crying spell.
“So…a lot of you ARE capable of having empathy for others. That’s a good sign.
Channel that sadness into our lesson for the day. But first…here’s a little
something for the edgy man-children in the back.”
Another click of her wand and this time footage of pit bull
abuse flashed across the screen. Upper snouts were being dislodged with
crowbars. Dogs fought each other and spread their guts all over a dirt floor.
One precious pup was being strung up on a rope and made to exercise on a
treadmill while pulling a ten pound dumbbell. Even more tears poured from the
students’ eyes while some of them tried to look away from the footage.
Upon catching Darren yawning with an uncovered mouth, Mary
paused the video, illuminated the room, and asked, “Am I boring you, Mr. Stars?
Is this not extreme enough for your tastes?”
“Now that I think about it, Nickelback is more metal than
this garbage. Fuck it, I’m out of here.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stars, but leaving is not an option!” barked
Mary as her eyes and the eyes of her glaring students shined bright red. Every
fiery eyeball locked upon Darren in an attempt to make the egomaniac feel
somewhat smaller.
Instead he smirked and waved it all off. “I’ve had mushroom
highs that were trippier than this. You ain’t fooling anybody, old lady.”
“I assure you, Mr. Stars, this is not a drug hallucination.
Everything you see before you is as real as it gets. I repeat…everything you
see before you!” Mary flashed an evil smile as she clicked her wand and
neon-eyed warrior pit bulls leapt from the screen and growled at Darren. “Go
ahead. Punch them. I dare you. If you do have the balls to do it, they’ll be
quickly ripped from your pencil legs along with your thumb tack penis!”
No matter how violently the dogs barked, Darren wouldn’t
budge. He laughed at them and said, “I really should get off the heroin.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Stars. Get him, my pretties.
Have lunch!” bellowed Mary as the pit bulls rushed towards Darren and chewed on
his flesh.
What happened to the rock star was not a trippy dream, but a
waking nightmare. Mary folded her arms and grinned while the monstrous dogs
chewed and clawed pieces of flesh and blood from Darren’s body. He screamed while
gagging on his own life juices. He tried to throw punches and kicks to the
rabid animals, but they just chewed harder and harder, as if it was their last
meal before being starved to death in the dog fighting circuit. “If they send
me more losers like this guy, I won’t have to ever go to PetSmart again,” Mary
joked while being splashed with blood.
“Hey! What’s going on here?!” snapped an authoritative
voice, prompting the magic to come to a grinding halt. The dogs disappeared in
a puff of smoke, the brainwashed students had normal eyes again, but Darren was
still bleeding from asshole to appetite. The voice belonged to a cop bursting
into the room, a cop flanked by his uniformed partner and a chubby music
executive in a fancy suit.
While the two cops held Mary at bay with their weapons, the
executive rushed up to the bloody and battered Darren and said, “Oh my god…this
is…I’m just…this is beautiful!”
“What?!” screeched Darren. “How is this beautiful? I’m
bleeding to death because of that fucking bitch and her stupid dogs!”
“Hear me out, hear me out,” said the executive. “Rock music
these days is all about blood and guts, right? Well, you’ve got the perfect
imagery going on here. We can print promotional material for days, months,
maybe even years. You are the quintessential badass of rock and roll with this
bloody look. Let’s go back to the studio and get pictures of you. You’ll look
like a million bucks on any CD cover!”
“Hold on a goddamn minute!” shouted Mary. “He’s not going
anywhere until he finishes sensitivity training! He ain’t anywhere near a
passing grade. I told him that celebrity privilege bullshit wasn’t going to fly
here! Mr. Stars, sit back down and don’t leave the classroom until I say you
can! Officers, back me up here! Tell him he’s no different from the rest!”
“…Yeah…about that…” The lead officer opened fire on the
sorceress teacher and put several slugs in her head, bringing her sensitivity
class and her life to a brutal end. If anybody asked, the cop could just lie
his ass off and delete the contradictions in his story from his file. Mary
McCray had all the magic in the world, but none of it could summon the power
she needed to take on a corrupt system. Everybody had a price and everything
was paid for, including a new tombstone for the dwarven teacher.
