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!”

Silent Warrior, Chapter 11

A clear mind was all Scott George ever wanted. Clear of Mr. Simpson’s condescension. Clear of Alan Young’s brand of “humor”. Clear of worms that had no business being there in the first place. While his brainwaves weren’t a complete heavenly paradise, he was able to dry his eyes long enough to get through art class in one piece. The whispers of his classmates weren’t obtrusive enough to hold his attention. Instead his focus was pinpointed on a drawing he had been working on since the opening buzzer.

Rainbow colored flowers decorated the borders of Scott’s drawing. Pink clouds filled the negative spaces in between with a crisp golden sunshine lingering in the background. In the center of this latest masterpiece was heaven’s most beautiful angel. Instead of a radiating golden light, she brightened the picture with green flames and a purple haze. Rather than looking at the subject, her face turned slightly away with shyness, her hair down to her chest and her face a brilliant shade of red.

Unfortunately for the cloud nine-residing Scott, his one true love wouldn’t be in English class to see this marvelous masterpiece he created. Her desk remained empty throughout the entire hour and that brought a disappointed frown to his face. Where could she be? Did somebody figure out that she and Scott were dating? He hid his face as much as he could that day, fearing the absolute worst. It could have been a simple case of her coming down with a fever, but Scott’s mind wasn’t a place where rational adult thinking took place.

By the time lunch period rolled around, Scott still tried looking for Adrienne, even going back to the spot they sat at yesterday. He even visited the salad bar, which was slightly better than the spongy chicken nuggets, but not by much. He wanted to follow her advice as much as humanly possible and not worry about some stupid worms crawling in his meal. He took his Caesar dressing-covered greenery and sat at the same empty spot he took yesterday, hoping Adrienne would miraculously show up.

A few nibbles of spinach later, nothing. A few more nibbles, still nothing. A half hour of rabbit bites and Adrienne still hadn’t shown up. With nobody coming to save him this time, Scott’s stomach began to ache and flare up as he felt funny little creatures crawling around in his intestines. He felt as though an alien was going to pop out of his body and latch onto his face at any moment. And then an oddly comforting hand touched his shoulders and he was back to reality. When he saw who the hand belonged to, Scott’s comfort died down like a wounded animal.

“How long have you been standing there?” he asked.

“Long enough to see you writhe around in pain for whatever reason. My history class isn’t that bad, you know,” said Mr. Simpson with an unfunny smirk. “Mind if I sit here? Of course you don’t. We have much to discuss.” The history teacher took a seat across from Scott and folded his hands across the table. “I’m assuming that the reason you didn’t show up to my class today was because Miss Williams had a little chat with you.”

“Where’s Adrienne?” asked Scott pointblank before covering his mouth quickly.

“That’s none of your business,” said Mr. Simpson. “Besides, I wouldn’t know her whereabouts anyways. We haven’t talked in such a long time. Kind of like the way you and I never talk anymore except to breathe fire down each other’s necks. Actually, you’re the one who insists on not talking, which is why your grade is currently standing at a C- when it could be much higher.”

“if you came here to make fun of my introversion, then I’m going to go sit somewhere else,” said Scott, who tried to stand up only to have Mr. Simpson grab him by the wrist and sit him down again.

“Trust me, Scott, I didn’t come here for amateur comedy night. We really do have a lot to talk about, especially as it pertains to your punishment for not showing up to after-school detention. You didn’t think there’d be an easy way out, did you? There never is, my little silent warrior. But you should at least be thankful that this wasn’t a court appearance instead. If it had been, you’d be in jail. At least with school, some of the harsh punishment is easy to serve.”

Scott leaned his face closer to his teacher’s as a way to suppress his deepest fears. “Principal Williams basically told me that my fate was in your hands. If that’s the case, then stop wasting my goddamn time and tell me what’s going on.”

“I had no idea your ‘goddamn’ time was so valuable to you, Mr. George. You certainly didn’t feel that way about me when you left me hanging for thirty minutes straight. Isn’t my time valuable as well? Considering I’m several decades older than you, I’d say that’s the case. Well, you’re not going to waste my time anymore, buddy-boy. You want to learn your fate? Here it is. If you have any plans this weekend, cancel them. You’re going to serve an hour of detention bright and early Saturday morning.”

“What?!”

Cleaning his glasses with the waist of his shirt, Mr. Simpson said, “I believe I made myself abundantly clear. Since we’re spending an hour of quality time together, I’ll have to think of something for you to do other than clean off the desks, thought that can be pretty time consuming. Students love to leave unspeakable objects underneath the desks whether it’s chewed bubblegum, nose goblins, graffiti, god knows what else. One time I caught a student sticking gummy worms underneath the desk.”

The gummy worm trigger caused Scott to gag and lurch as he fought desperately to hold his salad down. He could feel the adrenaline sewage bubble up in his stomach…then to his chest…then to the back of his throat where he could taste it. He swallowed a massive tidal wave of saliva to keep the burst of bile down. He breathed heavily with his tongue hanging out, like a dog locked in a hot car.

“Listen,” said Mr. Simpson while holding his hands up in mock defense. “I know cleaning off dirty desks isn’t the most pleasant way to spend an hour of detention, but for the first time in your young life, it isn’t your fault, Scott. Kids today have no respect for public property. They think a desk is their own personal toilet.”

Scott’s violent breathing muffled most of his words when he said, “F…fuck this shit…I’m not coming.”

Mr. Simpson let out a sarcastic laugh and leaned in closer so that his diabolic eyes could shoot straight fire into Scott’s already burning pupils. “Oh, you’re going to show up alright. You’re not getting away with anything this time around. Eight o’clock in the morning sharp, not a second late. If you even think about bailing on me again, you might as well stay at home for the rest of your life, because you won’t be allowed back on school grounds. I’ll have you expelled from this place so fast your head will spin. And then what’ll you do with your life? Treat sewage? Clean toilets? Dig ditches? Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be a lot more fun than taking another history class from me. Compared to those disgusting jobs, cleaning off desks doesn’t seem so bad, does it?”

The teacher stood up and allowed Scott to keep choking down whatever was boiling in his throat. Mr. Simpson pointed a finger at his student and said, “Remember: eight o’clock on the dot. I’ll be waiting with a fresh cup of coffee, though you’ll probably won’t want to put anything in your mouth after the grungy work you’ll have to do. See you soon!” He gave a two finger salute and walked out of sight.

Scott’s mind raced with schizophrenic banter and a crippling headache. His stomach felt as though he had endured gyroscopic torture. His throat, eyes, and face burned worse than if he stuck his head in the same deep fryer the kitchen used to make those awful nuggets. Not being able to fight the good fight against his own body much longer, he rushed towards a garbage can and unleashed a waterfall of vomit that stunk to high hell. He could hear the other students backing away in a hurry. Some of them laughed. Some of them made disgusted “eww” sounds. A few of the girls gave off a shriek of horror. Scott didn’t care. He unloaded his weapon of mass disgust all over the inside of the garbage can.

He then slid down on the floor on his ass and breathed so heavily that the remaining students held their noses at his oral stench. If he had taken a diarrhea dump in that garbage can, it would have smelled like a bed of roses compared to this mess. Speaking of roses…

“Are you done, Mr. George?” asked Mr. Simpson while holding a piece of paper. “I wanted to give this to you before you forgot it. Nice work, if I do say so myself. It’s no history essay, but it’s still pretty good. You should be proud of yourself.” He handed Scott the drawing he made from art class and patted him on the shoulder before attempting once more to walk out of sight.

Scott gazed deeply into the drawing and wiped off a stream of chunky spittle that hit the page. He banged his own head backwards into the soft garbage can repeatedly while the buzzer for the next class echoed throughout his agonizing head. It might as well have been a room full of babies crying instead of a buzzer. He felt like he could be one of those babies right now. How simple life would have been at that moment.