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Memories & Messes by Stef Aden

Chapter 1

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The legs are the first to go. I was proof of it, though it took a bizarre chase to convince me.

I had retreated to my office after a less than satisfying meeting with my boss and school’s principal. I needed to decompress. But only three or four minutes after I settled into my desk chair, a sound pierced through the second-floor hallway of the school.

BE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-P!

Normally, my office door kept the hallway noise at bay, but this time it failed its purpose. I, along with the other English/Language Arts teachers on the second floor, jolted into motion.

"What was that?" Amy Kinpal asked.

Sean Ackerman shrugged his shoulders. "Sounded like it came from the stage and band area."

The high-pitched noise lasted only six seconds, but it was shrill enough to extract Ginger Kendrick from her classroom. She burst open the door so vigorously the sleeve of her kaftan hooked on the handle and yanked her out into the corridor. “What’s happening?” The pull-down shades and construction paper taped over her door’s window, a privacy shield Superman would have trouble seeing through, flapped in the gust of air she created. "My students said it might be coming from one of the science rooms,” she said. “Or maybe the music hall.”

"I'll check," I said.

Playing scout on a search-and-discover mission was not covered in the teaching methods courses I took in the late 1980s. Almost thirty years later, it was not on my bucket list, either. Following any of the countless mass shootings at schools in the country in the last years, students interviewed afterwards, those lucky to have survived, credited their teachers for their willingness to put themselves in danger to help their students. During a safety-in-the-schools seminar two years ago, a sergeant from our local SWAT team told the teachers at my school that we don't truly know how we’ll act until we’re in the situation. Would I ever have that level of courage to throw myself between a gunman with an AR-15 and my students? Through over twenty-seven years of teaching, I had no need to. Would I be brave enough to face potential threats to protect my students? Would I go hard or go home? I hoped I’d never get those questions answered.

The beep was earsplitting, or maybe eardrum-penetrating, and since I was the only one of us on the strip who didn’t have a class, I set out to investigate.

I headed around the first corner. To add to the suspense, mostly mine, on this dark, rainy day, the hallway lights were out. The district electrician, the one man who kept eleven school buildings and three office buildings, as well as football and baseball fields, basketball courts, and swimming pools powered up, had been delayed in checking out the problem at BS High, a loving reference adopted by our students and staff to Bantamville South High School. The lighting in the Superintendent’s office, according to the Super, was extremely bright and needed adjusting, a priority item request the electrician had to respond to first. I guessed we were farther down on the to-do list. The electrician was expected to arrive to check our hallway lighting problem today, the fourth day of our blackout.

I don’t want to complain or exaggerate the darkness of the hallways. But students were taking their cellphones out to light their way through them during passing minutes. Since the second day, the sound of Billy Joel’s Miami 2017 from their phones—evidently someone had a parent who was a fan and shared the download—echoed off lockers as the kids moved through the halls. As I made my way in the dark, the lyrics some creative students sang in their updated-for-BS-High final stanza played in my brain.

You know those lights were bright on B Hall-

That was so many years ago...

Before we all had class in darkness-

'Fore Parks took on the BS show

There are not many who remember-

They say a handful still survive...

To tell the world about...

The way the lights went out,

Keep B Hall memory alive...

As I sang the last two lines—in my head, of course—I heard rhythmic slapping thuds coming from the next hallway.  I rounded the corner and was two steps in when I was bowled over by a long-limbed body rushing at me from the other direction. The force of the collision threw me against the wall of lockers. Green metal rushed toward my face—or was my face rushing toward it—and my lights almost went out as my head hit a locker instead of the cinderblock wall.

“Stop him, Stanton!”

I recognized Guy Santonio’s voice, but my blurred vision could not make out the vice-principal’s face.

“Which way did he go?” Santonio asked me.

“Wha-a-a-?” My eyes couldn’t focus, and neither could my brain after the impact with the locker.

“Jimmy Benson. You saw him, didn’t you?”

“I saw a face an inch from mine before I flew backwards. What happened?”

“I can’t talk to you right now, Kassi. I need to get after Benson. Lucky you didn’t hit the cinderblock.”

“Right. I’ll be fine, Guy.” I touched the lump emerging on my forehead. “Don’t worry about me,” I said to the back of his body as it turned into the stairwell. “And, oh. Tell the world about me.”

After a minute or two, my vision cleared, and I was stable enough to stand up. I took inventory of the damage. The lump bulged to twice its size a minute ago, but I had no other injuries. I decided it was best to check in with Vera Grimm, the school nurse, for a cold pack before the lump grew goiter-like. Luckily, I hadn’t been wearing my reading glasses, and they still dangled unharmed from the lanyard around my neck.

But I was too slow. I took two steps towards the stairwell and saw Jimmy Benson’s bleached blonde buzz-cut rising towards me. The teacher-is-the-authority side of me kicked in, and I decided I should act authority-like. Santonio had to be close behind him. If I could slow Jimmy, it would give Santonio a better chance to exert his much-more-powerful-and-effective vice principal authority and end the chase. Big mistake.

“Jimmy!” I yelled. “Stop running. Right here!”

“No!” he shouted.

“Stop!” I yelled again. “Now!”

“Out of my way!” He took the last three steps in one lunge. His leap should have bowled me over again, but either from my yoga stretching or my Zumba practice, I managed to sidestep his lanky, six feet tall body and stay balanced and upright.

I would have given up the chase, but Jimmy woke the bear in me. Or perhaps it was the bard.

In his sprint, he stopped long enough to catch his breath and do an informal literary critique. “BTW, Mrs. S., Shakespeare sucks,” he said. “Specifically, Romeo and Juliet. A story told by an old, rich, white man from England about two young people in love from Italy. Too wordy. And his plays have been done to death. Why are we still reading him 400 years later? Surely someone has written better stuff since.”

I froze for a few seconds. Not because I was afraid of getting pushed again. Or, not only because of that. I froze because of Jimmy’s comment on William Shakespeare. Eloquent, but still offensive. How dare he criticize the bard! “What?” I couldn’t let it go. “He’s a classic writer with stories from 400 years ago, and they still hold up to—" Before I could finish, Jimmy was on his way again. He put half the hallway between us.  “No way, Jimmy,” I said and took off after him.

The darkened hallway must have slowed him a bit, though, because the distance between us was shortening. I took five seconds to catch my breath. In that pause, I looked over my shoulder, squinted, and hoped I’d glimpse Santonio at the top of the stairs ready to be my backup. He wasn’t. I listened for footsteps of his approach. There were none. 

Jimmy, however, both saw and heard me and stopped once more. “Don’t come after me, Mrs. S. For real.”

I stopped when he spoke.

“I don’t want to hurt you, even though you gave me an F last year. Back off!”

“I didn’t give you an F, Jimmy,” I said. “You earned it.” Yes, I was trying to take advantage of the teachable moment.

“True. But irrelevant right now,” he said. “Seriously, Mrs. S. Don’t chase me.” He turned and resumed his dash.

I followed him through another hallway and down another stairwell. When I landed on the bottom step, I saw him pause at the cafeteria doors. He was far enough ahead of me to look back in my direction and wave. I raised my hand and returned the surfing shaka sign. Resuming his runner’s pace, he turned into the cafeteria, so I ran, too. I knew—and he did, too, I’m sure—I couldn’t keep up with him, which is why what he did next was unnecessary.

On his trip through the cafeteria, he turned tables over as he passed them and tossed chairs into the aisles behind him. Only a hurdler could navigate the path leading to the exit that Jimmy blocked so effectively. I was sure I was not one, but I gave it a try. My one year of helping coach the track team in my early teaching years paid off—sort of. I knew what I had to do.

Sweats would have made me nimbler. But my Lee flex-motion trousers had given me the flexibility to climb the ladder to get books on the top shelves in the E/LA bookroom when I had to. So, I had confidence they were up to this next task.

I wasn’t sure my body was.

I jumped the first overturned chair at a quick pace, though if video of it were available it might be identified as the slo-mo version. I managed to raise my lead leg much higher than I needed. The chair was on its side and adrenaline was pumping, so my trail leg made it without hitting it. The second chair offered the same low level of competition, so I vaulted it clearly. But the third proved the rule of threes, at least in comedy. The first two chairs built the tension. Would I make it over? The third chair released it all.

As I leaped to hurdle it, the adrenaline pump slowed, and my lead leg was leaden. The one-and-a-half-inch heel of my Corral ankle boot snagged the leg of the chair. I tumbled to the floor. The falling practice my husband forced me to do two times a week since I turned forty-nine—to get a jump on fifty, which was right around the corner—kicked in. I automatically tucked my chin, lowered my head, and brought my arms up to protect it. As I fell, I turned on my side. Once I hit, I rolled, kept my arms and legs bent, and relaxed. When I came to a stop, I let out a “Phew!” As I sat up, I had a view of a rainy, chilly December afternoon and of Jimmy loping comfortably through the parking lot, out past the city bus stop, onto Sunset Boulevard, and away from BS High. Lesson learned. The legs are the first to go. Reluctantly, but gratefully, too, as Jimmy’s figure looked smaller and smaller, I gave up the chase.

But Guy Santonio did not.

Seconds after Jimmy turned onto Sunset, I saw Santonio bolt through another exit and jog through the raindrops and across the parking lot in Jimmy’s direction. When he came to the edge of the lot, he stopped. Clearly, he knew he couldn’t keep up with Jimmy, either.

Timing can change the game. The 11:45 a.m. local pulled up to the bus stop. With only a moment’s hesitation, Santonio boarded the bus. I guessed he either paid his fare or flashed his school ID, insisted the bus driver forego the cost —Santonio’s reputation for walking through the halls after passing time and looking for pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters was legend—and rode off in pursuit of his quarry.

I’m not sure what Santonio could do if or when he caught up with Jimmy. Did a high school administrator have jurisdiction in local coffee shops or on Bantamville streets? Could he make a citizen’s arrest? More concerning, was there a bus he could catch back to BS High in time to be administrator-on-duty for sixth-period lunch?

Out of a sense of duty, I pulled myself together, dusted myself off, thanked the fashion gods that my pants passed the test and didn’t have as much as a split seam, and made my way to the main office to tell the other administrators what became of Santonio. After my third attempt at telling the story, the secretaries finally stopped laughing, and one summoned the only VP available, Rob Portman, who came from his upstairs office to hear the narrative in person.

“What happened again?” he asked Lilith Chiarello, the lead secretary, as he came into the main office.

“Maybe Kassi should tell you,” Lilith said.

I saw Portman cringe when he heard my name, but he recovered before he turned to me.

“Oh. Kassi. Hello.”

The air turned cool, and it wasn’t only because of the December day and Portman’s ice-blue polar bear print tie. He and I had a history I didn’t want repeated. Earlier in the year, he sexually harassed a new teacher, I stepped in to defend the teacher, and my principal, Rikki Parks, stepped in to defend Portman. My intervention didn’t result in Portman being charged, but it did ensure he would not attempt to harass anyone again—at least at BS High. It also ensured that the temperature when Portman and I were in the same room was frigid.

“Hi, Rob.”

“So, what happened?” he asked.

“Guy boarded a bus to chase Jimmy Benson.” I worked backwards, and eventually filled him in on the beginning beep.

“Oh, that,” he said. “So, it must have been Benson who did it.”

“Did what?” I asked.

“Someone broke into the band room and created the beep. Used the computer, probably with a premade download, connected to an amp and speaker. Turned up to super high level, it pulsed through the building.”

“That’s it? That’s why Guy was chasing him?”

“No. Money was taken from the director’s office in the band room. Money from the kids’ candy fundraiser. The director said more than eight hundred dollars was taken.”

“Isn’t Jimmy in the band?”

“I’m not sure. But if he is, he would have known where the money was kept. And the schedule—today was the final day for the kids to turn in their money. There’d be a good haul.”

“Crazy,” I said. “So, Guy is somewhere out there. And I have a class to get to.”

“Thank you, Kassi. I’ll ask Officer Madden to follow up. You should go to your class.”

And he dismissed me.

I made my way back to the E/LA strip. Before the bell sounded, I stopped and filled each teacher in on what happened.

“Sweet,” Sean Ackerman said. “It is never dull or boring in this place.”

I agreed. “Never, Sean. Like the real world, there’s always a touch of crazy.”

I would soon find out how heavy that touch could be.

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