Bright Before Us (20 page)

As I sat, Jacob's mother approached my desk.
Mr. Mason,
she said.

My mind dissolved into panic; instinctively, I stalled.
Just one second,
I said, beginning to take attendance.

I need to speak with you,
she said.

I'll just be a second,
I said again.

That was when I noticed Simon was absent. I glanced around the room to make sure, craning my neck to see behind various children. I looked back down at the list. A full four seconds passed with Jacob's mother standing beside me before I realized Jacob was missing, too.

Jake's not here today?
I said, finally looking up at her.

I watched her hesitate, out of patience but not ready to say whatever difficult thing she was about to say. I swallowed, stood, and strode purposefully away from her.
Mr. Noel,
I said, walking toward him.
Any word on Simon and his mom? Did you see them outside?

He shifted his weight and looked at Mrs. Stone, who spoke.
Simon won't be in,
she said.
I think it's better if you speak to his mother.

I nodded.
Fair enough.

I set the children up with their Xeroxed math problems, delaying, looking busy. Jacob's mother still stood quietly beside my desk. I looked out the window. Where was Buckingham? I was certain he would come for me.

Mr. Mason, my pencil broke!
said Jamil.

Yeah, okay,
I said.

And then clarity dropped on me like a cartoon anvil: come on, you think they're going to come
arrest
you? For what? Accessory to a suicide you imagined—an accessory from three hundred feet away, no less? Get a fucking grip, I thought. And the missing kids—they were probably just sick, absent for the reasons immuno-compromised small children are often absent. The flu, a cold, an ugly cough. Jacob might have had another asthma attack.

I was ready to put all of it out of my head—was actually walking toward the parents to say a formal good morning—when another possibility came to me. I stopped, turned on my heel, and walked to the telephone, mounted to the wall next to the chalkboard. After one ring the nasal-voiced Ms. Levitt—the only other secondgrade teacher at Hawthorne—answered. I could hear the raucous conversation behind her.

Oh,
she said.

In her voice I read the entire situation: she hadn't expected to receive the call so soon.

I laughed a short, miserable little laugh, hung up, and dialed the principal's office. Now I looked openly at the parents clustered in the corner, the rings trilling in my ear. I saved my nastiest expression for Jacob's mother, still hovering at my desk.

The principal answered.

You transferred my student,
I said.
You put him in another class?

Silence.

Finally, she spoke.
It's my job to respect the parents' wishes.

I suppose Jacob ...
I said, my voice cracking. I recovered, straightened my posture.
Transferred out too, I'm assuming.

I looked again at Jacob's mother. Her expression was one I recognized—Greta used it whenever forced to tell me how short I fell of her expectations.

We can talk about this later,
the principal said. She sounded tired, and suddenly it made sense: she was picking her battles, aware of how futile this interaction was. Because soon I would be gone. She was keeping me only as long as she had to.

I was going to be fired.

Right,
I said, hanging up. The kids were watching. They seemed miles away. I looked one of them in the face and tensed with alarm: full seconds passed before I could remember her name.

I became aware of pain in the palm of my hand, and when I looked down four half-moons were branded into my palm—I had squeezed my fist so hard my overgrown fingernails had cut four red smiles. I was fully sober, buzzing with the agony of total awareness.

To Jacob's mother, I said,
Tell Jake Mr. Mason says he's sorry.

She tried to speak, but I was already turning away.
Listen up,
I said to the kids.
Mr. Noel has something to talk about with all of you.

I glanced at Caleb's father, his mouth open slightly.

He's going to tell you what it's like to be a firefighter,
I said, motioning for him to take my seat: the stool before
the wall of windows, the place from which I had delivered my energetic talks on compound words and A. A. Milne, where I had led the students in funny tongue twisters and quoted Fred Rogers.

Mr. Noel took the stool. As he spoke—
I was one of the first responders to the Oakland Hills back in '91
—I fumbled through my desk, resigned and exhausted. I nearly gasped when I came across five over-the-counter nighttime painkillers, like tiny morsels of salvation, rolling loose in my top drawer. Three times I pretended to cough, clapping a hand over my mouth, and turned to the wall to swallow the pills dry. I closed my eyes, feeling my surroundings soften and fade, suffusing with surplus light like an overexposed photograph.

For a little while, in the beginning of my career, I was sure that teaching was the only job I could ever do. That buoyant certainty had existed for me only once previously. It has been my particular curse to watch the only two meaningful things in my life fail utterly. In both cases, there were many indications of the coming defeat; I either ignored them or, more probably, was not smart enough to recognize them for what they were.

But now that time has passed, I can see the first moments when my belief began to falter—it survived intact for a blissful couple of months at Hawthorne, and then one November afternoon it cracked. I had stayed late to get ahead on grading. Through the wall of windows facing the street, I noticed Emma waiting for her mother.
I watched a dingy black car pull up to the curb; Emma tossed her bag into the backseat and then sat beside it. Through the open window, I heard her mother's voice jump to a sharp clip.
I told you not to slam the goddamn door.
She twisted her body like a wrung towel, popped Emma on the mouth with her knuckles, and drove away.

Breathing like a marathoner, I set my red pen down and retreated to the roof, to the lawn chair. One second I had been a confident man, a virtuous teacher; the next, I was certain I was of no consequence. Looking out at the gray water, I thought of that distance I had once found so endearing—the sense that I was watching them become people, that I was witnessing their first encounters with the world. I felt that distance reconfigure into something dark and baleful. They weren't enigmatic little wonders. They were miniature adults. They were just as weighed down by their own shitty impediments, their same painful burdens, as their grown counterparts. I was watching them become people, yes—I was watching them become people they someday would not want to be.

My conviction began to sag with a weight it could not bear. I vowed to continue despite my uncertainty, despite my fear that whatever I gave them—these children I taught, these children I would someday father—would be too little. In spite of me, they would coast forward on rails someone else had built, or rails I would build unknowingly, mistakes I would pass on to them without even knowing I had done so.

And that was how I came to be sitting on a beach, reading the paper, neglecting a classroom of children who trusted me. That was how I came to fail them. It was the story of my life: I performed by rote, dutifully persisting
long after I'd ceased to believe in the endeavor—thinking that sacrifice made me noble, thinking it made me good.

After recess the children filed back in. I watched Jeffrey trip another kid and laugh hysterically when he stumbled.
Hey, Jeff,
I called. He looked up and I shook my head sluggishly.
Come on, guy, you know better,
I said. I scanned the room: they all fidgeted, chattering at one another.

Mr. Mason,
one of them said. I looked down, and Benjamin stared up at me.

Yeah?
I said.

I didn't do it, but the other boys did,
he said.

He stared up at me, dumb.

What?
I snapped.
Did what?

I leaned down and held his shoulders. My hands felt huge, swollen.
Tell me,
I said.

His nose was encrusted, his eyes glassy. His frame felt shrunken and bizarre to me, like I was holding a doll. I didn't touch them very often, and when I did, I was surprised by their size—the alarming lack of mass, the ease with which they could be overtaken.

I didn't do anything,
he said.

I looked down and saw his hands—filthier than I can describe, dirt caked beneath the fingernails. I felt myself recoil, pulling away from him, walking backward toward my desk. Seconds later, Mrs. Stone jumped in to divert their attention. I pretended to be engrossed in a stack of papers.
Who wants to play bingo?
she said.

Get through today,
I said under my breath.
You'll be gone by tomorrow.
The call was coming; I knew it.
Get through today,
I said again, picking up my attendance book to take post-recess roll.

B-24,
Mrs. Stone called.
Who has their bingo card ready?

I ticked down the list:
present
,
present
. Two kids, apart from those transferred out, were missing. Emma, the sickly girl with the quick-handed mother, and Edmund, my happy-go-lucky pet. I walked to the door to scan the hallway. We'd been back in class for ten minutes. I had seen them that morning. They had just been there.

Did anyone see Ed or Emma outside?
I asked the kids.

A few looked over.

I-14,
Mrs. Stone said, as though I were invisible.

Hello?
I raised my voice.
Did anybody see Edmund or Emma?

The children listening shook their heads. Without thinking, I clenched my fist again, and before I caught myself I had opened the cuts on my palms, a wincing pain radiating up my hand.
Shit,
I muttered, beneath the din. I glanced around looking for a tissue to wipe away the small amount of blood, and when I couldn't find one, I walked across the hall to the boys' bathroom.

 

The irony is that I had a first-aid kit right there in my bottom desk drawer. I guess I forgot that, though I opened it at least three times a week—they were always hurting themselves, hurting each other. Band-Aids were cure-alls. They coveted them, begged for them even when they weren't necessary. I could have just opened the drawer, pulled out a bandage,
slapped it on, and forgotten about it. This is how it works, in the wake of avoidable events: the moments prior beg for obsessive reevaluation. But this particular variable, upon reflection, feels too small, too stupid to be the catalyst for what followed.

 

The boys' bathroom smelled like piss and cleaning solvents. I pushed backward through the door with my elbows raised, like a surgeon avoiding contamination. I held a paper towel to my palm, stepping over a puddle in front of the sink. And then I held still, suddenly alert. I felt something in there: furtiveness, as though the air had quieted upon my approach. One stall was open, the other shut, and I sensed that I was intruding. A kid must be sick, I thought. He's waiting for me to leave. I grabbed a few more industrial brown paper towels from the dispenser, started toward the door, and heard a small human sound, like a sniff, a cough, some minute disturbance of the air that indicated a presence. It wasn't the right kind of sound; that's the best way I can describe it. Look in the stall, I thought. The thought came from somewhere far removed from intellect. I knocked on the door and heard a whisper, but couldn't make out the words.
You need to come out of there,
I said.
This is a teacher. I need you to come out right now.
No answer.
I'm coming in, kiddo.
I pulled a coin from my pocket, pushed it into the lock's slit, turned it horizontally, and pushed the door.