‘That was it. I had a breakdown. No screaming meemies or crouching in the corner. I just couldn’t go back. When I got near Trades, my chest would tighten up. I couldn’t breathe right, I got cold sweat -’
‘That happens to me, too,’ Fenton said amiably.
‘I went into analysis. A community therapy deal. I couldn’t afford a psychiatrist. It did me good. Sally and I are married. She has a slight limp and a scar, but otherwise, good as new.’ He looked at them squarely. ‘I guess you could say the same for me.’
Fenton said, ‘You actually finished your practice teaching requirement at Cortez High School, I believe.’
‘That’s no bed of roses, either,’ Simmons said.
‘I wanted a hard school,’ Jim said. ‘I swapped with another guy to get Cortez.’
‘A’s from your supervisor and critic teacher,’ Fenton commented.
‘Yes.’
‘And a four-year average of 3.88. Damn close to straight A’s.’
‘I enjoyed my college work.’
Fenton and Simmons glanced at each other, then stood up. Jim got up.
‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Norman,’ Fenton said. ‘We do have a few more applicants to interview -‘Yes, of course.’
‘- but speaking for myself, I’m impressed by your academic records and personal candour.’
‘It’s nice of you to say so.’
‘Sim, perhaps Mr Norman would like a coffee before he goes.’
They shook hands.
In the hall, Simmons said, ‘I think you’ve got the job if you want it. That’s off the record, of course.’
Jim nodded. He had left a lot off the record himself.
Davis High was a forbidding rockpile that housed a remarkably modern plant – the science wing alone had been funded at 1.5 million in last year’s budget. The classrooms, which still held the ghosts of the WPA workers who had built them and the postwar kids who had first used them, were furnished with modern desks and soft-glare blackboards. The students were clean, well dressed, vivacious, affluent. Six out of ten seniors owned their own cars. All in all a good school.
A fine school to teach in during the Sickie Seventies. It made Center Street Vocational Trades look like darkest Africa.
But after the kids were gone, something old and brooding seemed to settle over the halls and whisper in the empty rooms. Some black, noxious beast, never quite in view. Sometimes, as he walked down the Wing 4 corridor towards the parking lot with his new briefcase in one hand, Jim Norman thought he could almost hear it breathing.
He had the dream again near the end of October, and that time he did scream. He clawed his way into waking reality to find Sally sitting up in bed beside him, holding his shoulder. His heart was thudding heavily.
‘God,’ he said, and scrubbed a hand across his face. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Sure. I yelled, didn’t I?’
‘Boy, did you. Nightmare?’
‘Yes.’
‘Something from when those boys broke that fellow’s guitar?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Much older than that. Sometimes it comes back, that’s all. No sweat.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want a glass of milk?’ Her eyes were dark with concern.
He kissed her shoulder. ‘No. Go to sleep.’
She turned off the light and he lay there, looking into the darkness.
He had a good schedule for the new teacher on the staff. Period one was free.
Two and three were freshman comp, one group dull, one kind of fun. Period four was his best class: American Lit with college-bound seniors who got a kick out of bashing the ole masters around for a period each day. Period five was a ‘consultation period,’ when he was supposed to see students with personal or academic problems. There were very few who seemed to have either (or who wanted to discuss them with him), and he spent most of those periods with a good novel.
Period six was a grammar course, dry as chalkdust.
Period seven was his only cross. The class was called Living with Literature, and it was held in a small box of a classroom on the third floor. The room was hot in the early fall and cold as the winter approached. The class itself was an elective for what school catalogues coyly call ‘the slow learner’.