"The Whiz," a story -- i

Chief Blackhawk

Just one story emerged from the two years I spent at Blackhawk--a novel, too, that was never published, but just one story whose prototype would likely be remembered by every kid in class that day. They'd all have their own take on what happened; this I guess, is mine, whether I like it or not. 

It's almost totally fiction--that is, created in my imagination. But the scenario at the base is what no one that year will likely forget, even though it happened a half-century ago. 

It's not at all unusual for a writer to rely on personal experience to create fiction, but doing so can be risky inasmuch as you're revealing sometimes intimate stories from the lives of people you know. I'm not altogether sure that "The Whiz" was ever published anywhere--I'd have to look it up. The event that is this story's compelling narrative is memorable maybe becausse it isn't pretty.

This warning may be far worse than what you read. What I remember is that what happened deeply affected my students, made them suddenly adults. Back then, they were my world.

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The Whiz 

Poor Melinda. Her sun-streaked auburn hair was wonderfully wavy, but ironed flatness was still all the rage back then. She was blessed with dark, clear skin, but her thick glasses rather unpleasantly magnified her otherwise beautiful brown eyes and became a symbol of her relative isolation from the other kids. She loved to read, which made her seem an alien. A beautician might have trimmed her eyebrows, but I thought that heavy line drew maturity into her face.

To students, she was bookish and slightly overweight and altogether too smart. To most faculty, including me, she was beautiful.

Poor Melinda. She came to me after school to get out of an essay: "React to Sir Francis Bacon's 'On Marriage and Single Life.'" Odd to think that I ever assigned something like that, but that was years ago.

She couldn't do the assignment, she said, not with the math contest staring her down. Poor Melinda. Valedictorian. Stage manager for my first play. Editor of the newspaper. Did everything in high school except play basketball.

"That's okay," I told her. "Hand it in when you get time. Get yourself ready for math."

"I hate math," she said right away.

"You do not," I told her.

"I do too," she snapped.

"You're our only hope," I said. "Crotty says--"

"I don't want to be the 'only hope,''' she said. "Who wants to be somebody's 'only hope,' Mr. Sandoval?" She turned her face into a sickly smile.

"Okay then," I said, "don’t go."

"Sure," she said, "and do you realize what people would say?"

I was working on a mimeo master, scratching in the last few feathers on the portrait of the Indian warrior we used on the newspaper's masthead. I never even looked up as I remember. "Since when do you care what people think, Mel?" I said.

"Well, thanks," she said.

''I'm pulling your leg," I told her. "Get it in when you can—now go fiddle with a slide rule or something."

I was single, four years older than she was; it was my first year teaching, and a young mature woman like Melinda, even though I don't think I understood it then, made me nervous.

She picked up a piece of chalk from the blackboard gutter and drew a cartoon tree on the board. "You don't want to talk to me," she said.

That's when I looked up. That last line was purely junior high, not typically Melinda, a senior, smartest kid in school.

"What's the deal?” I said.

"I love math," she said suddenly, "I do." She shrugged her shoulders. "You think I'm crazy, don't you? You said in class that you always hated it and you didn't understand how people--"

"Melinda," I said, "I don't think you're crazy for liking math." I picked up the master I was working on and held it up to the light to check my work. "Hey, listen--how about I put a goatee on the warrior?" It wasn't time for a joke.

“’On Marriage and Single Life,’” she said, "--right? That's the assignment? Well, here's my essay, ‘I'm getting married.’ That's my essay. You always say that we should make a commitment to what we write. I'm getting married.”

"Do I know the guy?" I said.

"You never met him."

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Tomorrow: Slowly getting to the bottom of things.