Staggerford (18 page)

“Stevenson wrote it years ago when he first came to town, but I don’t think even he believes in it much anymore. Until Wayne resurrected it, there were several years when it was completely forgotten.”

“Well, it’s the most arbitrary, legalistic document ever written, and wouldn’t you know it’s because it’s so arbitrary and legalistic that Wayne loves it so much. He reads it sometimes in the evening. It’s his Bible. He wouldn’t think of making special allowances for emergencies that the Faculty Handbook doesn’t provide for. He has to be firm, he says. I can see that. He’s trying to establish a reputation for firmness. But I’m afraid all it will get him in the long run is a reputation for bull-headedness.

“Why don’t you see Stevenson? He’ll give you a day with pay. He’s really mellowed a lot since he wrote that book.”

“Wayne would kill me if I went over his head.”

The bell rang for second hour as the halls emptied.

“But pay or no pay, I’m going to St. Paul tomorrow,” said Thanatopsis, returning to her classroom, her small hips lifting smartly under her tight red skirt.

“I’ll talk to Wayne,” said Miles gallantly. “I’m on the Grievance Committee.”

Miles turned and entered his classroom just as Jeff Norquist jumped out the window. Jeff had come into the room, put his books on his desk, and vaulted through the open window. It was a drop of only a few feet to the courtyard where his girl friend Annie Bird was waiting for him in the rain. The rest of second hour popped out of their desks and watched Jeff and Annie hurry across the street toward the pool hall, trying to light a wet cigarette between them on the way. Miles saw Superintendent Stevenson watching from his office window across the courtyard.

Second hour couldn’t get over Jeff’s heroic, defiant act. Second hour, which overreacted to every stimulus—a joke or a sentimental story, a threat or a burp—was crazy all hour. Lawrence Winters dropped his books on the floor. May McClure dropped her compact. Gordie Albertson’s eyes crossed. Charlie Zeney had an attack of asthma. Roxie Booth bled at the nose. At wit’s end, Miles gave them a surprise test, composing it as he went along and finishing it off with an essay question designed to keep them quiet for twenty minutes. The slowest student answered it in five.

Because his toothache grew worse and it hurt him to talk, Miles gave the same test to third hour. As he expected, third hour regarded it with great seriousness. Bernadine Temple changed her glasses to see the questions on the board. Bill Clifford sharpened four pencils. John Innes read each question with a grimace, as if he were lifting weights. William Mulholland, the scientist, studied the test from beginning to end, considered its value in the larger picture of his whole education, seemed satisfied, wrote his
name at the top of a sheet of paper, cracked six of his knuckles, and went to work.

During his free hour, Miles went to see Wayne Workman. In the outer office, where Wayne’s secretary had her desk, two sheets of paper lay on the floor, and standing on the paper, one foot on each sheet, was Hank Bird. Little Hank Bird was a sophomore and the youngest of the Sandhill Reservation family of Birds. He was the son of Bennie Bird, proprietor of the Sandhill General Store, where Superintendent Stevenson began, and ended, his tour of the reservation twenty years ago. He was the brother of Annie Bird, Jeff Norquist’s girl friend.

Wayne’s office was open and empty. Miles went in and sat down. It was a small office: two chairs for visitors, one window with a dusty Venetian blind, no carpet. To the right of Wayne’s desk was a bookcase stuffed with lost-and-found items—mittens, notebooks, padlocks—and to the left of the desk was a closet door. Wayne kept a clean desk, covered by a sheet of glass. Under the glass was a snapshot of Thanatopsis and a printed card. From where he sat, Miles read, upside down, the title on the card: “The Secret of Success.” He read the secret: “Plan your work, and work your plan.”

“Hello, Pruitt, what can I do for you?” said Wayne, stepping out of his closet.

“What were you doing in there?” asked Miles.

“Never mind. What can I do for you?”

“I came to ask you to grant Thanatopsis a day’s leave with pay.”

“Pruitt, if you don’t stop calling my wife that crazy name, I’ll have to take measures. Her name is Anna Thea.”

“Sorry. I came to ask you to give her a day off.”

“Out of the question.” Wayne sat down and with the sleeve of his suitcoat he polished the glass on his desk.

“I’m on the Grievance Committee, Wayne. It’s a reasonable request.”

“It goes against policy.” Wayne opened the top drawer
of his desk and pulled out the Faculty Handbook, a black loose-leaf notebook. “Read this.”

“I know what it says.”

“Read it anyway.” He found the page and handed the notebook to Miles.

Miles read a line or two, then, hoping to impress Wayne with how ridiculous it was, he backed up and started over, aloud:

“ ‘Absence from Duty: Illness and Death.

“ ‘Leave shall be granted by the principal, subject to the authority of the superintendent, for absences made necessary by reason of serious illness or injury to the faculty member, or by reason of death in the faculty member’s family. The faculty member’s family shall be defined to include his spouse, his children, and the spouses and children of his children; his brothers and sisters and the spouses and children of his brothers and sisters and the spouses and children of his wards; his parents or guardians and his grandparents and his uncles and aunts; as well as the parents or guardians, grandparents, brothers and sisters and spouses and children of the brothers and sisters of the spouse of the faculty member. The uncles and aunts of the spouse too.’ ”

Wayne Workman was impressed. He nodded with satisfaction.

“Do you believe this Handbook covers every exigency in life, Wayne?”

Wayne lifted his hands and shrugged. He couldn’t help policy.

“Does this mean a teacher can’t go to the funeral of a friend without losing a day’s pay?”

“We play funerals by ear, Pruitt. We can usually work something out if the funeral is close by. Funerals take an hour, and we can usually find somebody to cover a class for an hour. But my wife is asking for a whole day.”

“St. Paul is a hundred miles from here, Wayne.”

“I know where St. Paul is.”

“This woman was like a mother to Thanatopsis.”

“Goddamn you, Pruitt, for the last time, will you stop
using that ridiculous word when you’re talking about my wife? And will you please let me interpret the Faculty Handbook according to my own lights? And as for Joanie Cooper’s mother, I daresay you never once met the woman. Admit it.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I have known Joanie Cooper’s mother as long as I have known Anna Thea, and you don’t have to come in here and tell me how close a friend she was of Anna Thea’s. I know all that. I also know that it’s part of my job to interpret the Faculty Handbook according to my own lights, Grievance Committee or no Grievance Committee.”

“These days no enlightened employer docks an employee’s wages for going to a funeral.”

“Pruitt, what have you got against policy? You’re always defying policy.”

Miles stood up. “Let’s go see the man who made this policy.”

“You go see him. I’m busy.”

“All right, I will.” He turned to go. “And another thing, Wayne, why is little Hank Bird standing in your outer office?”

“He skipped school Friday.”

“Is that supposed to answer my question?”

“I’ve tried every punishment in the book on little Hank Bird and he still skips, so now I’m trying one that isn’t in the book. He’s got to stand with his two feet on those two sheets of paper for forty minutes. Maybe that will make him think twice next time he gets the urge to skip. Forty minutes is a long time when you’re standing on two sheets of paper, Pruitt. Have you ever tried it?”

“No.”

“I tried it for five minutes yesterday. Five minutes seems like an hour when you’re standing on two sheets of paper.”

Miles knew little Hank from study hall. Like so many of his fellow Indians from Sandhill, he was a good-natured stoic. On his way out of the office, Miles laid his hand on little Hank’s black thatch of hair and said, “How much time do you have left?”

Little Hank smiled broadly and said, “Till I’m sixteen.”

Miles crossed the hall to Stevenson’s outer office, where Delia Fritz, counting lunch money, told him that the superintendent was occupied. Miles said he would wait. Delia pointed to a chair and went on counting her pile of coins, four at a time, pulling them off her desk with four fingers and dropping them into a metal box on her lap.

Delia Fritz, former shoe-store clerk, and now, since Stevenson’s abdication, the true administrator of the Staggerford school system, was a whiz. She was chubby and quick. Today she was wearing three pencils in her wig. Her phone rang, and she rested the receiver between her shoulder and ear and went on counting. The caller was a parent requesting conferences with five teachers, including Miles. From memory Delia told the parent when each of the five had a free hour and added, “If you’re coming in tomorrow, you may not find Mrs. Workman, she will be away attending the funeral of a friend. If you wish to talk to Mr. Pruitt right now I think I could find him for you.” Delia winked at Miles. “Yes, that’s the one. He teaches English. Yes, senior English. Yes, a bachelor, a good catch for somebody. But he gives the young ladies very little encouragement. He’s all wrapped up in his teaching, you know. Yes, you know the type. He’s forever running off worksheets and quizzes and things like that on the Xerox. Yes, he seems to have a comfortable rapport with his students. The only criticism I’ve heard about his teaching is that his lesson plans are sketchy. I have another call on line two, Mrs. Holt. Yes, it was nice talking to you. Good-by.”

Line two was a salesman calling long distance. “Don’t bother,” said Delia. “We’re up to here in office furniture. We overbought when we built this wing. No, even if you make the trip, the superintendent will not want to talk to you. Send me your card and if the day ever comes to open bids on office furniture we’ll let you know. No, all our carpeting is like new. You’re welcome.” She hung up.

“Since when did it become your job to read lesson plans?” said Miles.

“Don’t get testy, Miles, I’m only repeating what Mr. Workman said to Mr. Stevenson about your lesson plans. ‘Sketchy’ was his word for them.”

“And about my rapport with students? Were you quoting Mr. Workman about that too?”

“No, that was what Mr. Stevenson said to Mr. Workman. He said you have a comfortable rapport with students. You’re Mr. Stevenson’s fair-haired boy, you know. That’s why he was so shocked this morning to see Jeff Norquist jump out your window.”

“What did he say?”

“He came out here to my desk, where he never comes anymore, and he said, ‘Delia, you will never believe what I just saw. I saw the Norquist boy jump out Miles Pruitt’s window. Please make an appointment for me with Dr. Maitland.’ He thought his heart was stopping.”

Miles heard the toilet flush in the superintendent’s private lavatory. Delia nodded toward the inner office.

Miles entered and saw Superintendent Stevenson making his way slowly across the deep carpet of his office, his long, angular body contracted around his heart. He cocked his head at Miles and motioned for him to sit down.

Miles shut the door behind him, but he did not sit. “Mr. Stevenson, I’ve come to ask you to waive a regulation in the Faculty Handbook. Mrs. Workman would like to take a day of emergency leave tomorrow. She wants to attend a funeral.”

It was some time before the superintendent spoke. He was settling into the position Miles saw him in from eight till three every day. He turned his swivel chair to face the window beside his desk, then tilting the chair back, he rested his feet on the pulled-out bottom drawer. He looked out across the courtyard at the windows of Miles’s empty classroom.

“Please sit down. Miles.”

He sat.

“Now, Miles, I am not a man who is easily alarmed. As a rule I take things in my stride and I don’t fuss about them.” The superintendent brushed dandruff off his left
shoulder and lapel. “But I was alarmed this morning when I saw the Norquist boy jump out the window. It gave me a start, Miles. I thought for a moment I was dreaming.” He found a speck of dandruff on his sleeve. “That classroom of yours is usually the picture of good order, Miles. I see you carrying on in there day after day. I see classes coming in and classes going out. I see students raising their hands. I see students writing at the blackboard. I see their heads bending over their work. I see good order. I see education.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Then suddenly this morning I see the Norquist boy jump out the window.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“It was that window there on the right.” Stevenson pointed to the window with a long, unsteady finger.

“Jeff Norquist is hard to handle.”

“I understand that, but he should be kept from jumping out the window.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“And I’ll tell you why.”

“I’m sure I understand why, sir. It gives the townspeople a mistaken impression of what goes on in school.”

“Oh,
that
. Never mind
that
.” He swept the air with his hand, as though brushing away a fly. “That’s not what I’m getting at. What does public opinion matter? Poof! It’s nothing. There was a time when public opinion was foremost in my thinking, but not anymore. What I’m getting at is
my
opinion,
my
reaction. When I saw Norquist jump, I thought my heart was going to stop.”

There was a long pause while Stevenson slipped his hand under his necktie and felt his breastbone. The clock on the wall was approaching lunch hour.

“Now of course there was nothing dangerous about the jump,” he continued. “The window is only four feet above the ground. It wasn’t the acrobatics of the jump that startled me. It was what the jump symbolized. This is a school with a long history of attendance problems, Miles. For twenty years it has been my job to get students into this
school who don’t want to be here, and once they’re here, to keep them here. And when I saw the Norquist boy jump out the window, I recognized the curse I’ve been fighting for twenty years—the desire of a certain percentage of our students to run away from school, to stay away, to reject what we offer them. I call it the Staggerford Curse. It’s inevitable, year after year, like sun and darkness. And to tell the truth, I’m not much concerned about it anymore.” He brushed dandruff from his right lapel, his right shoulder, his right sleeve. “No, I’m not much concerned about absenteeism anymore, not consciously at least. It’s a curse peculiar to Staggerford, and I tried to overcome it, to change it, and I couldn’t, and I’ve taught myself to face it with equanimity. I don’t wear myself down with worry. I can keep it out of my consciousness.”