The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies (26 page)

     “Mr. Davis, you are certainly a dedicated, caring educator.” Jim Fontaine, one of the oldest teachers at Roosevelt, was fond of telling Glen.  The comment initially seemed to carry more than a hint of sarcasm.  However, as time went on and the two got to know each other better, Glen thought he detected not simply sarcasm but perhaps some remorse over lost purpose.  Glen was not sure whether this observation was valid or just a product of a desire to win the approval of his colleague.

     The two usually ate lunch in Fontaine’s classroom.  The time gave each of them a chance to take a breather from the focus on students and lesson plans and exams and newly-composed teaching objectives and the all-important Yearly Academic Progress used to evaluate teachers and schools.  Sitting at a long table at the back of the classroom surrounded by atlases, maps, a faux-ceramic bust of Abraham Lincoln, and numerous volumes of the class history texts, the two shared lunch and stories of lives outside the school walls.

     Jim Fontaine had been widowed many years before and never remarried.  He had served two tours of duty in Vietnam.  As is the case with someone who has never fought in a war, Glen had a certain curiosity regarding life as a soldier.  Even after some forty years, Fontaine’s memories were clear even if he was still hesitant to resurrect them by speaking of the experience.  On days when something brought the war back to the history teacher, Glen listened intently and watched the change in his friend’s face.  From behind the bushy gray eyebrows badly in need of a trim, frantic anger shot out as he told of having to drag fellow soldiers from exploded landmines.  The well-worn lines of his face and neck momentarily vanished as he described shooting wildly at sounds in the dark.

     For his part, Glen had also done a bit of traveling beyond the United States.  However, his experience had been quite a bit different than that of his friend.  A few years out of college, he had taken a series of jobs teaching English abroad.  The first job in another country was in Taegu, South Korea.  The completely unfamiliar setting intrigued Glen, and he spent many hours simply wandering around the market area with the strange smells and even stranger sea creatures which resembled something from another world.  The racket of the market always seemed to ring in his ears long after Glen had left the market.  The foreign language simply sounded like chatter to his ears and the only thing familiar was the occasional “Okay?” which jumped from the stream of noise. And he usually just smiled and nodded until it seemed acceptable to move on.  This life as an expatriate was appealing and led to teaching positions in Australia, Kuwait, and Japan.  Living as a foreigner in these countries, Glen got used to being on display as the foreigner.  It was like living in an aquarium as the single exotic fish.

     After about 8 years, Glen took another teaching job in South Korea.  This time the position was in the city of Pusan.  He met Christine in the halls of the university where he was teaching English conversation to engineering students.  As it happened, his future wife was taking an English conversation course in the classroom next to Glen’s office.   The at-first-by-chance meeting at the canned ice coffee vending machine in the lounge became a daily routine. The two spent a great deal of time talking initially as a means of helping to improve her English and later as friends.  As many of the students did, Christine had adopted an English name for her language classes.  Her real name was Jin-Young.  After dating for nearly a year, the two had married and come to the United States.  After meeting Christine, Glen realized that the excitement that comes from being an outsider was gone.  The couple had settled in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa, and Glen took a job teaching at Theodore Roosevelt High School.

     While teaching hadn’t been a joy to him every day, he did have moments of satisfaction from the job.  Although it sounded a bit cliché, there were still times when Glen thought he saw a light of genuine comprehension come on in a student’s eyes, and it was satisfying to know that his efforts had helped make that possible.  Of course, it was all the other moments that sometimes frustrated him and made teaching seem a ridiculous, waste of time.  In particular, Glen found himself struggling lately with discipline or as the newer materials renamed it in typically sensitive, politically correct, and completely unclear fashion
classroom management
.  While he knew that this need to boost the discipline in his classroom could spring from a failure on his part to spend enough time establishing the rules in his class, Glen also knew the comment he had gotten from Fontaine might be more at the heart of the problem.

     One day as Glen was describing a particularly difficult day, the older teacher had simply observed, “You want them to like you too much.”�

     “Of course, I want them to like me!  I mean I don’t want to come to class everyday thinking no one wants me there.” Glen had responded with the first thing that popped into his mind.

     Fontaine had chuckled and said something about how his view would change after a few more years of experience.  But Glen didn’t accept that his relative inexperience was the sole cause of the difficulties.  He believed that today’s students came to class with something of a chip on their shoulders.  There was none of the respect or perhaps fear that he remembered from his school days.  Glen was constantly amazed at some of the things he heard students say.  In his day, he could not imagine saying “shit” or “fuck” if there was even the possibility of a teacher within hearing distance.

     Now students said those things to his face.  And the threat of calling parents seemed to carry little if any weight.   In the past, telling a student that his or her parents would be called typically brought a sober look to the face of the student and served to at least temporarily correct behavior problems.  The last time that Glen had informed a student that his parents would be called, the
management strategy
  had motivated the student in question to respond “Do whatever the fuck you want” as he quickly exited the classroom to the laughter of his classmates.  To punctuate the student’s response, when Glen had followed through with a phone call that evening, the mother of the student cut him off with “Isn’t that your job?  Why are you calling me?”�It is certainly difficult to argue with parental wisdom like that.

     Fourth period, the class from 11:20 to 12:15, was the primary source of Glen’s difficulties.  Until this year, Junior English had been his favorite level, but this group of students had certainly changed that.  In the past, he had discovered juniors to be typically docile like a middle child in a family.  Most of the attention and accolades for students was targeted to those behind and ahead of the juniors.  They had yet to enjoy the excitement that comes from being a senior and nearing graduation.  Juniors were also beyond the energy that comes from being a freshman and entering a new school environment.  Sophomores, on the other hand, kept some of the enthusiasm of freshmen and had yet to slide into the junior phase of apparent weariness with everything around them.

     This was exactly the type of student for whom Glen had become a teacher.  The idea that he could be the teacher who managed to ignite the spark of curiosity and understanding in a previously apathetic student was a big part of why he had become a teacher.  Glen liked to think that he had indeed been that teacher to many of his students.  However, since the beginning of this year, fourth period junior English had provided no such experiences. Instead, the students in this class had provided frustration and conflict.

     It may have been a bit unfair to place all of the thirty-two students in fourth period junior English under the umbrella of difficult cases.  However, classes are similar to people.  Each has a distinct personality of its own.  Glen was constantly amazed at how a lesson that had gone so well and engaged students in one class could be met with indifference or outright rejection in another class.  The difference lies in personality. A variety of factors shape a class’s personality such as time of day, location on school grounds, as well as arrangement, colors and decoration of the classroom.  But the two most influential factors in class personality seemed to be dominant personality types of students and the personality of the teacher.

     As usual, this school year has begun a hopeful note.  Glen always found himself optimistically looking forward to facing fresh classes.  The initial staff meeting on Monday morning prior to the first week of school had gone as expected.  Glen and Jim Fontaine sat together at the end of one table in the school auditorium and offered smiles and greetings to fellow teachers.  While everyone appeared cheerful and positive, it appeared to Glen that a number of them were simply going through the motions with no other goal than to put in their time until retirement.  The pair also quietly commented on the probable longevity of several new teachers.

     They had agreed on the potential longevity of all the rookie teachers save one, Linda Gleeson.  She was a thirty-ish, energetic, and personable woman who had returned to college to earn a computer science teaching credential after leaving a position with a well-known computer company.  Glen thought that she would not survive the shock of discovering that the classroom did not offer the same quiet logical calm that came from working with technology in a lab.

     “Miss Gleeson will be a Christmas casualty,”� Glen had commented meaning that she would not return for the second semester following the winter break.

     “You are wrong, my friend,”�Fontaine responded. “I see some hint of intestinal fortitude in that one.  I think you are being too hard on her. She appears to have a genuine desire to help others.”�

     “And you are a dirty old man!  Is
intestinal fortitude
code for nice legs?”

     Principal Barbara Wells smiled with little warmth as she entered the auditorium.  She had been in the principal of the Roosevelt for three years, and her job had not always been secure.  Wells had gotten some attention with her appointment to the position as not only one of the few female principals in the district but as the youngest.  Of course, this attention was not always of the positive sort, and Wells seemed to be on constant guard against criticism whether warranted or otherwise.  This perceived need to be forever vigilant against possible improprieties had clearly taken a toll on the principal.  Her face carried the lines left from hours of scowling, and her thoughts were dominated by tactics for defeating those who sought to undermine her.

     The meeting got started with the usual pep talk about having a good year and helping students acquire the tools needed for future success.  Glen had heard the same speech or a very similar version a number of times before, but never had it struck him as less inspirational and more perfunctory than at this meeting.

     Glen’s impression that the speech might as well have been a reading of the phone book was confirmed by a look around the auditorium at teachers balancing checkbooks, reading newspapers, doing crossword puzzles, or simply staring blankly ahead.  As Fontaine had noted long ago, teachers make the worst audiences.  The lack of attention and disrespect which they bemoan in their classes is on display tenfold in every staff meeting.

     Following the less-than-engaging words from Principal Wells, the heads of the various departments were introduced.  Terry Larson, the Ichabod Crane lookalike, had returned to his role as head of the English department.  It was a duty that Larson appeared to take very seriously and to his mind gave him an elevated place of importance among the school faculty.  Next on the agenda was the introduction of a new secretary and three new teachers.  Glen chuckled as he saw Fontaine make a show of sitting up quickly and straightening his tie at the mention of Linda Gleeson.  Glen had to admit she was attractive even if he believed she would not long survive the classroom experience.  By 10:30, the teachers were dismissed to go their classrooms and begin the process of getting organized for the upcoming school year.

     On his way out of the auditorium, Glen found himself standing next to Terry Larson as they waited for the doorway to clear of others.  While the two had never had a direct conflict, Glen had always felt some tension between the two.  This may have been his imagination or possibly a result of Glen’s failure to display what Larson felt was the proper level of respect due to him.  Glen smiled to himself at the awkwardness of the moment and then turned to greet Larson.

     “Ready for another year in the trenches, Terry?”�

“Oh, Mr. Davis, hello,”�  Larson responded with clearly contrived surprise.  “I am sure that we have all been preparing over the summer for a great year!  In fact, I have some ideas I want to share with the teachers as soon as possible.  I will be scheduling a meeting in the next few days. Please check your box for the memo.”

              “Sounds great.”�  Glen managed to say in such a way that Larson was unsure whether it was meant sincerely or sarcastically.

Glen headed into the school courtyard that served as a hub to the spokes of buildings housing the classrooms. The building directly across from the auditorium contained Room 46, his classroom.  He made his way down the quiet hallway toward his room noticing the strong smell of cleanser and nicely polished floors.

At the end of the hall in the same faded green coveralls that he seemed to have been wearing since Glen had met him over six years ago was Tim Peck, the school’s janitor.  Peck was mopping the already clean floor for the second time that day.

“The place looks great, Tim.”� 

Glen’s voice seemed to startle the janitor who was lost in concentration.  “Oh, thanks, Mr. Davis.  Welcome back.”�  No matter how many times Glen asked him to call him by his first name, Tim continued to address him as Mr. Davis.  It always seemed strange to Glen to have someone who was clearly older address him as
mister.

He was happy to see that his compliment about the school’s appearance obviously pleased the janitor.  There appeared to be a straightening of the tall black man who often seemed to be stooping.  Davis noticed Tim watching closely as he unlocked the classroom door.

As he entered, the janitor shifted his position so that he could see the teacher’s expression.  Glen was very surprised by what he saw.  Rather than the scarred, unsteady, wooden box of a desk that had served him for six years, Glen found a beautiful dark mahogany roll top desk placed in the front corner of the room so that he could work at the desk while at the same time monitoring students.

Glen was startled and momentarily speechless. Finally, he turned to face the grinning janitor.  “How…where did you get this?”�

“It’s been gatherin’ dust in the back of the workshop for longer’n I been here.  Nobody usin’ it so I figgered you might wanna have it, Mr. Davis.”�

“Tim, it’s great.  I don’t know what to say.”�

The janitor just shook his head.  “You don’t need to say nothin’.” Tim smiled as he walked slowly out of the room.

Glen very slowly approached the desk with almost a sense of awe.  It really was a beautiful piece of furniture.  The dark shiny wood was almost black but with a hint of red and reflected his image as he stood gazing at the desk with a wide grin which made his youthful face look even younger.  The wood was cool to Glen’s touch.  After he noticed that he had left a smudge on the surface of the roll top’s hood, Glen buffed it out with the sleeve of his shirt.  He reached down to open it with the two shiny brass handles at the lip between roll top and the top of the desk.  With almost no effort at all, the desk opened.

A strong musky smell of oil and dust and mothballs and something else sprang from inside into Glen’s face.  The odor made him gag.  As he fought to regain his breath, he staggered back from the desk a few steps.  Glen waved his hand as a fan to disburse the odor for a moment before realizing that the smell was already gone.

     There were various little shelves, drawers, and cubbyholes built into the desk under the hood.  Glen instantly pictured his own papers and grade book stored neatly in the area.  The remainder of the surface was an open, smooth, flat, shiny plateau of wood perfect for work.  Without thinking, the teacher began rubbing his hand over the top of the desk enjoying the sensation.

     He was interrupted by a sound behind him and turned to see Linda Gleeson trying to open the door to the classroom across the hall.  Her attempt was made more difficult by the stack of math textbooks she was cradling in her arms.  Glen turned and started toward her to help.  However, before he reached the door, the new teacher had dropped all but one of the textbooks.

     Gleeson’s back was to Glen and before she realized he was approaching, she responded to the textbooks scattered on the floor, “You motherfuckers!”�

     Glen stopped dead in his tracks.  “The new computer teacher might have a chance after all,” he thought.

     Linda Gleeson heard the squeak of Glen’s tennis shoes on the tile and turned to face him. “Oh, I didn’t realize that anyone else was here.”�

     “I guess not!”� Glen’s wide grin was again stretched across his face.  “My ears are still burning.  I didn’t realize in addition to working at a computer company you had spent time as a merchant marine! I want to welcome you to the school.  However, just so you know, here at Theodore Roosevelt High School, we don’t go in for that kind of salty language.”�

     Gleeson looked at Glen with no evident emotion.  He felt his face getting a little hot and realized that once again his mouth had made him look like a complete jerk.  Linda Gleeson continued the stone-faced gaze long enough to make Glen feel like a worm to be dissected in a laboratory.  No, he realized.  He didn’t feel like anything more than a student who had gotten silently and efficiently smacked down by a teacher.

     “Hello, I’m Linda Gleeson.  I’m going to be teaching computer science.”� She held her hand out to Glen and flashed a very professional if not very friendly smile.

     Glen shook her hand lightly. “Glen Davis, sophomore and junior English teacher and on occasion amateur comedian.”�

     “Well, keep your day job,” Gleeson muttered as she turned to unlock the door of her classroom.  Glen had the distinct feeling that he had been, as his students said,
seriously
dissed
.    

     He began gathering up the fallen textbooks. Glen felt like a scolded child and avoided meeting the teacherâ
€™s eyes.  He carried the pile of books into the classroom and put them on the front table.  Glen had not been in this classroom for several years and was surprised to see the nice arrangement of updated computer keyboards and monitors in six rows of six desks.

     “Thank you, Mr. Davis.”� Linda Gleeson’s voice communicated more dismissal than gratitude.

     “Anytime, Miss Gleeson.”�  Glen tried to pack some extra cheer into the reply. If his fellow teacher noticed the effort, she did not show it.

     Glen returned to his classroom and began unpacking his supplies of writing paper, journals, folders, pencils, pens, whiteboard markers and erasers.  After about an hour, he headed over to the book room to pick up class sets of this year’s books.  On his way out, he could not resist a glance into the classroom across the hall.  Miss Gleeson was searching through a large white box at the front of the room.  Glen moved on quickly for fear of being discovered spying on the new teacher.

     As he entered the building housing the book room, Davis saw Terry Larson in line at the half door at the entrance to the bookroom.  Larson was lecturing Tracy Bridges about something, which was probably unimportant in everyone’s mind except his own.  Bridges, the mid-twenties, tall, thin, blond, second-year English teacher was listening dutifully to the ramblings of the department head.  Having seen enough to change his plans, Glen spun on his heels and went back out of the building without having been noticed.   He walked across the courtyard to the main office and once inside to the left down a short dark hallway to the teachers’ mailroom. Inside, it took just a moment for Glen’s eyes to make the adjustment from an unlit dark hallway to a room brightly lit with overhead fluorescent tubes.

     “Welcome back, Glen!”� Even without being able to see the face, Glen knew the voice belonged to Larry Barnes, a chemistry teacher.  While the two were not particularly close, he and Glen had both started teaching at Roosevelt the same year and this fact meant that they shared at least a frail bond.  Glen liked Larry but other than their place of employment he saw very little in the way of common interests.

     “How are you doing, Larry?” Glen asked.

     “Oh, you know, ready for another year of shaping young minds.” The chemistry teacher laughed loudly for too long.  Glen instantly remembered why he and Larry were not closer.

     Glen found a collection of memos and envelopes stuffed into the 6 by 8 inch slot, which served as his mailbox.  He scooped them out quickly, said goodbye to Larry, and headed back to his classroom.

     Upon entering his classroom, Glen’s attention was immediately seized by the commanding figure of his newly acquired desk.   The dark presence was imposing enough that it seemed to eclipse the remainder of the room’s contents.  Rather than replace the contents of the black wire book carousels at the corners in the back of the classroom, Glen found himself sitting at the desk staring blankly ahead.  Meanwhile, the tall empty carousels stood silently looking on like a pair of skeletal sentries.

     The stillness of the room was broken by the sound of knocking on the classroom door.  It took Glen a moment to react to the sound.  He turned to see Jim Fontaine looking curiously through the small glass square in the door.  Glen jumped up and moved to open the door.

     “Sorry, I didn’t realize it was locked,”� Glen said as Fontaine came into the room.

     “I see the reason for the added security,”� he replied as he saw the new addition to the classroom.  “That is certainly a lovely piece of furniture!” As Fontaine approached the desk, Glen suddenly felt somewhat possessive and stepped between the two.

     “I needed a new desk, and Tim found one in storage,”� he exclaimed quickly trying to distract attention from the subject.

     Fontaine looked at his friend a little surprised by the fervor of his statement.  He then took in the lack of progress in arranging the rest of the classroom.  “Good idea to pace yourself.  You don’t want to finish prepping in one day.”�

     Glen was a puzzled by the comment until he looked at the clock and saw the time.  It was 3:25.  He had been sitting at the desk for over five hours with no idea where the time went.  But the loss of time didn’t bother Glen as much as the throbbing pain in his head.  Instinctively, he began rubbing his temples.

     “Are you feeling all right?”�  Fontaine’s concern was genuine.

     “Yes.  I guess I just lost track of time.  Spent most of the afternoon daydreaming.  Don’t tell anyone, okay?”�  Glen made the request in seeming jest, but there was a slight touch of sincerity.

     “Your secret is safe with me.  Besides, truth be known, I have spent many of my days engaged in very similar activity.”�  The concern of the older teacher had not been completely dispelled.

     Glen avoided making eye contact and instead started toward the door.  With Fontaine standing between Glen and the exit, he found himself somewhat caught up in the movement and swept out the door.  Glen turned off the lights and locked the door in almost a single motion.

     “See you tomorrow.”�  The words seemed to be all that was left in the place where the English teacher had stood just seconds before.  Before Fontaine could voice a reply, Glen was out of earshot.  In previous days, Glen and Fontaine could typically be seen walking together toward the parking lot and perhaps standing next to their cars continuing their conversation.  Instead, the older teacher watched as his friend hurried to his car.

     Glen felt his breathe coming hard as he sat in the dark green ‘67 Mustang.  Across the nearly empty parking lot, he could see Fontaine slowly loading his bag into his car all the while looking at Glen.  The look of puzzlement mixed with a dash of concern and perhaps a touch of hurt on his face was visible to Glen even from the fifty-foot distance.  The pain in Glen's head pushed Fontaine out of his mind.

     He looked at himself in the mirror, and the face he saw appeared tired with dark circles under bloodshot eyes.  He wondered at this exhaustion since he could not recall any particularly tiring activity during his day.  Of course, there was a four-hour gap of time of which he had no recollection.  This fact made him uneasy.  However, losing a few hours was not the main source of Glen's unease.  The primary thing troubling the teacher was his new desk.  He pictured the deep, dark wood with his refection trapped inside. The hood of the roll top creeps slowly open.  In his mind, Glen walks slowly toward the desk.  He gets closer and hears some creaking sounds from the wood.  Another step and he is reaching out to close the hood.   His fingers near the brass handle.  A few more inches and-- the hood slams shut with a bang.

     The sound shook Glen from his vision.  It took him a few seconds to realize that he was sitting in his car, another few seconds to realize his car was parked in the middle of an empty parking lot, and another few seconds to realize that the parking lot belonged to Roosevelt High School.   Adding to the surprise was that the place was dark.  This should have been no surprise since it was 11:14 p.m.  Glen looked at his watch in disbelief.  It seemed to be working fine.  But if it was correct, it would mean that he had been sitting in his car for nearly eight hours.