Staggerford (19 page)

He turned to look Miles in the eye.

“But I can’t control my subconscious, Miles. My
emotional
reaction to absenteeism. These twenty years have left me with a conditioned reflex, a strong involuntary emotion concerning the Staggerford Curse. When I saw the Norquist boy jump out the window I could reason with myself and say in my mind, ‘So what,’ but I couldn’t control my heart, Miles. I thought my heart was going to stop.”

The lunch-hour bell rang. The halls filled. Here in this office, where the superintendent had insulated himself from his school, the voices and the noise of slamming lockers sounded far away.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Miles?”

“Yes,” Miles said, although he wasn’t sure. Stevenson’s voice always made him sleepy.

“We can’t control our involuntary reactions to things, can we?”

“No, I guess we can’t.”

Delia Fritz poked her head in the door and said she was going to lunch. “When you leave,” she told Miles, “shut the outer door. It will lock after you.”

The halls grew quiet. Everyone was down in the lunchroom, standing in line for butter sandwiches and hamburger-macaroni-tomato hot dish.

“I’m sorry it happened,” Miles said.

“Think nothing of it,” said Stevenson. “I only mention it because you know about my little secret.” He lowered his voice. “Viola, I believe, told Imogene Kite all about the valve in my heart when you were over for bridge, and I assume Imogene told you. Any shock, you know …”

“I won’t let it happen again.”

The superintendent nodded. “I’m sure you won’t. And even if it did happen again, I doubt if my heart would stop. It’s only the first time that one is startled by something like that. But even so …”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Of course not.”

“Now, what I came to ask is this. Mrs. Workman would like a day of emergency leave for the funeral of her best friend’s mother. I think she should have it.”

“What did she die of? Was it her heart?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I’ll bet it was her heart.”

“It may have been. I’m not at all sure.”

“How old was she?”

Miles didn’t know. “Eighty-nine,” he said.

“Eighty-nine. Think of it.”

“Yes.”

“Eighty-nine. That’s a good long life.”

“Yes. And she was very close to Mrs. Workman. I really think she should be granted a full day with pay.”

“Of course she should.”

“But there is no provision for it in the Handbook.”

“The what?”

“The Faculty Handbook.”

“Oh,
that
.” Stevenson swept the air again with his hand, indicating that the Handbook, like public opinion, amounted to no more than a pesky fly. “Never mind
that.”

He took his feet off the pulled-out drawer and set them carefully on the carpet. He turned in his swivel chair and for no reason Miles could think of, except perhaps that his insulated office had made him lonesome, he warmly shook his hand.

“Tell Anna Thea Workman she shall have her day with pay. Excuse me for not getting up.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stevenson.”

“Be sure you hear the snap of the lock when you close the outer door.”

Leaving the office, Miles glanced back and saw the superintendent facing the windows again, but bending forward now in his swivel chair with his elbows on his knees. He was brushing the dandruff from his eyebrows and watching it settle on the carpet.

Miles pulled the outer door shut and heard the snap of the lock.

Miles used his noon hour to visit Doc Oppegaard’s office on Main Street. He found Stella Gibbon and the dentist sitting together in the waiting room, lunching on wine and cheese.

“Wine at noon?” said Miles, not finding fault, merely surprised.

Stella and the dentist looked at each other and giggled.

Miles told them he had a toothache.

“Help yourself,” said Doc Oppegaard, pointing to the wine bottle, obviously not ready to go to work.

Miles thanked him, and as he looked about the waiting room for a third wine glass, Stella went into another room and brought him a paper cup meant for mouthwash.

The dentist poured. “Here’s to Stella,” he said. They touched wine glasses, and when Miles held forward his soft paper cup, the dentist and Stella collapsed from laughter. Stella sank into a chair, shaking until her eyes watered and her thighs were exposed under the creeping skirt of her scanty white uniform.

“You must have started early,” said Miles, pouring himself more wine, for his cup held but a swallow.

Doc took off his glasses and wiped his eyes and blew his large nose. “We did for a fact,” he said. “We had a cancellation at eleven.”

After Stella quit laughing and pulled down her skirt, she and the dentist led Miles into the examination room, where
they fitted him out in a lead vest and trained the X-ray machine on him and set it to buzzing for what seemed like a dangerously long time. The picture must have been alarming, for Doc grew sober as he studied it, then he peered into Miles’s mouth, causing Miles to gag on his cheesy breath.

“Do you want to see something?” Doc asked Stella. She crowded in for a look. “It’s the wisdom tooth on the lower left. It has come in sideways and the root is curled around his jawbone.”

“Oh, it’s so
ugly
,” said Stella.

“Go ahead and pull it,” Miles said. “I have forty minutes left of my lunch hour.”

“No, no,” said the dentist. “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. That’s a job for Karstenburg in Duluth.”

Stella said, “Yes, Dr. Karstenburg is your answer.”

Looking up at Stella as she spoke, Miles saw the bright new lines of gold outlining her eyeteeth and anchoring the handsome new bridge that didn’t cost her a penny. Her smile was splendid.

“Yes, Karstenburg is your man,” said Doc. “He specializes in wisdom teeth. He’s been known to pull forty-eight teeth in one day. And I’m not talking about baby teeth. I’m talking about impossible cases. Teeth with roots like fishhooks. Teeth like yours.”

“Call him,” said Miles.

Stella went to the phone and called Duluth and got Miles an appointment with Dr. Karstenburg for the next day.

“So soon?” said Miles. “If he’s so busy, how is that possible?”

“He works fast,” said Doc.

On the way out of the examination room, Miles glanced at Doc Oppegaard’s appointment book and saw (confirming his suspicions) nothing scheduled any day of the week between eleven and one.

Like the host and hostess at a party, Doc and Stella saw him to the door, and on the front step the dentist asked him how old he was.

“Thirty-five,” said Miles.

“I was rid of all my wisdom teeth by the time I was twenty-three,” said Doc.

Stella giggled.

The rain was all but over. The brisk west wind was tearing the clouds to shreds.

After fifth hour Beverly Bingham approached Miles as he stood at his door, but she was shouldered out of position by Wayne Workman, who said angrily, “Pruitt, I understand you went over my head.”

“I told you I was going to see Stevenson. You said, ‘Go ahead.’ ”

“Pruitt, what do I smell on your breath?”

“Oh … Well …”

“For godsakes, Pruitt, don’t tell me you nip at lunch.”

“You’d be the last man I’d tell.”

“Pruitt, if we ever get to the point of dissension in this school, it’s going to be your fault. You and your Grievance Committee. Now that Stevenson has overruled his own Faculty Handbook none of us know where we’re at. Is that a policy handbook or is it not? We were all led to believe that it was, and now we find the policy broken by the man who made the policy. Where does that leave us, Pruitt, in regard to policy?”

“If you’ll pardon me for a second, Wayne, I have this student here who wants a word with me.”

“Tell her to come back some other time. I’m not finished.”

“I’m sorry,” Miles told Beverly. “See me some other time.”

“I just wanted you to look at this letter I’ve written to Berrington Junior College.” She gave Miles and Wayne a lovely smile.

“You and your committee fancy yourselves such a progressive bunch of schoolpeople,” said Wayne, “but you’re not in the least progressive after all, and I’ll tell you why. You ignore the rules. Ignoring the rules is anarchy, and anarchy is not progress. Someone ought to explain to your committee how progress is really made. First the rules are
formulated and then abided by and then, and only then, is progress possible.”

“It’s only a page,” said Beverly. “Maybe I could just leave it with you and pick it up after school.”

“When all is said and done, I’m more progressive than you are, Pruitt. That may strike you as ironic, but it’s true. Every day that Staggerford High School operates smoothly is a day of progress, and every day that somebody like you comes along and throws a wrench in the ointment is a day of backsliding. I’m perfectly willing to listen to any suggestions anybody might have concerning the betterment of Staggerford High School, but I keep in mind all the while that any changes have to be made within the framework of policy.”

Beverly said, “What I wanted to ask you about was the first paragraph. I must have written the letter ten times, and the first paragraph is still awkward.”

“So actually what it amounts to is that you are an obstacle in the road to progress. Anyone who disregards the Handbook—”

“I’m not optimistic about the future of the Handbook, Wayne.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just not optimistic about it, that’s all.”

“And do I start the letter by saying ‘Dear Sirs,’ or ‘Gentlemen,’ or what?”

Miles took the letter from Beverly.

“You’re never optimistic about anything, Pruitt. That’s your trouble. You’re an obstacle in the road to progress around here.”

The bell rang. Beverly hurried away. Miles locked his classroom and started up the stairway. “I’m late for study hall, Wayne.”

“You’re an obstacle in the road to progress,” Wayne called after him.

At the landing, Miles turned and saw Wayne standing at the bottom of the steps in his most earnest pose, his hands outstretched, palms up, like a beggar. He was painful to look at.

* * *

After school Miles went into the basement lunchroom and burned his tongue on a quick cup of the coffee that had been simmering on the stove all day. It tasted like tinfoil. Then he went to the faculty meeting in Ray Smith’s history classroom.

As Miles entered, Wayne Workman was at the lectern saying, “I would like your input on how we should handle Parents’ Night, and on this new-style report card I am passing around for your inspection. And I would like your input on what can be done about the smoking and the writing on the walls in the rest rooms. The meeting is now open.”

The faculty offered this input:

“What’s wrong with the report card we’ve got?”

“When is Parents’ Night?”

“Why
is Parents’ Night?”

“I thought we should have beat Owl Brook by two touchdowns. We were that much better.”

“Aw, that goddamn Fremling.”

“I’m wondering if there’s anyone besides myself who would like to see the Faculty Handbook burned.”

“Huzzah.”

“This report card would be a lot more work to fill out. Look, it asks for an attitude rating and a behavior rating.”

“Behavior
is
attitude.”

“Does it ask for a grade?”

“I say let them smoke. What’s the harm?”

“It’s only the parents of good students who show up on Parents’ Night anyhow. We never see the parents of the problem students.”

“What would you say to them if they
did
come?”

“If you were the parent of a problem student, would
you
come?”

“They could be doing worse things in there than smoking and writing on the walls.”

“Have you ever considered throwing out the traditional grading system and going to something else?”

“If only we could have scored in the third quarter when we were on their twenty-five.”

“Aw, that goddamn Fremling.”

“We had a hundred and five kids at the door for tricks and treats. My wife counts them.”

“Somebody dumped garbage on my steps.”

“The front of my house is covered with eggs and tomatoes.”

“I got off easy this year—a few soaped windows.”

“You know what I read in the boys’ can downstairs? It’s over the sink. I’ll tell you after the meeting.”

“I’d like to see two grades—pass and fail—instead of five.”

“I must confess that when I’m figuring grades, I always give the benefit of the doubt to the kids of the parents who show up at Parents’ Night. I wish I wouldn’t do that.”

“Do we get to vote on which report card we want?”

“Do you realize how long it would take to make out each card—to mark each student on attitude
and
behavior? Besides times absent and times tardy and the scholastic grade and signing our names?”

“Behavior
is
attitude.”

“Last year we had more. We had a hundred and thirty and we ran out of candy.”

“Well, I for one am going to see the Faculty Handbook abolished.”

“Miles, what’s the matter with you today? You don’t look so hot.”

“I’ve got a bad tooth.”

“Let’s vote. I make a motion that behavior is attitude.”

When Wayne Workman had all the input he wanted, he said, “Next Monday night is Parents’ Night. The Public Relations Committee will handle the arrangements. We’ll need publicity and ushers and coffee and cookies. Who is chairman of Public Relations?”

“Right here,” said Coach Gibbon.

“We want a good turnout of parents, Coach.”

“Right. Now can I go? I’ve got my wrestlers waiting for me in the gym.”

“Well, we’ve got the report card and the rest room walls
yet. And I want to tell you about my new Indian attendance plan.”

“But this is the first night of practice. I’ve got to get down there and get things organized.”

“All right, Coach.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Thanatopsis. “The Faculty Handbook is very specific about who is excused from faculty meetings and who isn’t.”

Coach Gibbon stole out of the room.