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| Chief Blackhawk |
Just one of the differences between teaching in high school and teaching in college, I discovered, was that high school kids kind of "needed" you. College kids didn't; their interest in the professor was, at best, an interest in literature, or getting the credits to graduate.
I found all that adolescent need warm and even inspiring; they were, back then, the only people in the world I really cared about because, quite frankly, they honestly seemed to care about me.
It wasn't at all unusual for me to stay around after school to hear some frantic kid pour out troubles. Such confessionals happened often, too often sometimes, as high schools back then--and maybe yet today--were filled with uber-impressionable kids; you know, "Mr. Schaap, so-and-so won't talk to me." Real tears too.
The back-and-forth that begins "The Whiz" didn't happen; it's fiction. It's made up. But it could have, easily. Scenes like this happened weekly. Mr. Sandoval is somewhat distracted--he's finishing up something for the school newspaper. It takes some doing for Mel to tell him what she came to say, but it takes some doing for Mr. Sandoval to pay attention.
When I started the story I knew what would be it's heart--there was an event, a prototype. What I didn't know was that Mr. Sandoval would give up a secret, a kind of fear he had that female students like Mel were potential lovers. That realization begins to emerge here. As I'm writing the story, I'm conscious of it, but the potential for my having a relationship with Mel ends up looming larger than I'd ever determined when I mapped out the story in my mind. Writing--writing fiction especially--sometimes surprises even the writer. In fact, it probably should.
___________________
It was unlike her to come to talk to me. She was, that day, nervous--agitated, clearly, and I was young. I thought immediately that she was telling me she was pregnant. And it all made sense. In a moment, I had written the entire story: smart girl, lonely, no dates, not bad looking. She picks up some farm kid, maybe an older guy, some guy back from Nam, looking for someone to come live out on that acreage his old man wants to buy. She fools around because she's curious, and besides, like all the rest of us, more than anything she wants to be loved.
I had it all figured out, so I spit it out, half in jest, allowing her the convenience to respond in whatever voice she wanted. "You're pregnant," I said.
"I wish! Miss Goody Two-shoes?" she mocked.
I swung my chair around and stuck the tool away. "Mel," I said, "have you got something you want to tell me, or what?"
I think most students, male or female, would have just spit it out after standing there that long, but Melinda had brains enough to fight off her emotions.
"Can we go outside or something?" she said.
What brings back the memory is the letter I got from her today, the letter and the sound of the football team, whose shouts are now echoing through the already leafless trees across the street, the cadence of grunts from the field several blocks away from our house. I hear every exercise the coach has scribbled on the clipboard, and each rally of the kids' clapping once they've finished. It's such a male sound.
It's the sound I remember echoing across the football field when the two of us, Melinda and I, walked on the crumbling edge of a blacktop road north of the school. That's where Melinda told me about Mr. Crotty, and math.
"I can't be with him again," she said. "I can't go back there tonight. I'm sorry," she told me. "Maybe it sounds like I'm backing out, but I don't care."
Cars passed us slowly as we left the school. "I don't get it," I said. “What’s the big deal?”
“It's all because I got brains, see?" she said. "I can't help it that math comes easy. I really can't. Sometimes I try to block it off, but I just get the stuff right away."
Away from school, she spoke more with her hands than she had at my desk.
"Look," she said, "if I quit, people will say, 'Why in the world isn't Melinda in the math thing?' That's what they'll say. You know they will."
Nine weeks into my first year of teaching. What did I know? "Big deal," I said.
"I shouldn't care about what people think?" she said.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," I told her.
"Easy for you to say," she said.
But I was worried about the two of us out there alone, what some young mother might think, some woman picking up her daughter after school.
"Am I taking up your precious time here or what?" she said.
No student had talked to me like that before. "What's the matter?" I said. "You say you don't want to be in the math contest?-all right, quit. Tell Crotty you're out."
Leaves in the grasp of a northwest wind drifted across the road and blew into the stubbled fields running up the hills to the south. She pushed both her hands into her jacket pockets, and I pulled up my collar.
But that was it for awhile. She didn't say another word as we kept walking east past the football field and out towards the town cemetery. Behind us, I wondered what the guys on the team thought of the two of us.
It was unlike her to come to talk to me. She was, that day, nervous--agitated, clearly, and I was young. I thought immediately that she was telling me she was pregnant. And it all made sense. In a moment, I had written the entire story: smart girl, lonely, no dates, not bad looking. She picks up some farm kid, maybe an older guy, some guy back from Nam, looking for someone to come live out on that acreage his old man wants to buy. She fools around because she's curious, and besides, like all the rest of us, more than anything she wants to be loved.
I had it all figured out, so I spit it out, half in jest, allowing her the convenience to respond in whatever voice she wanted. "You're pregnant," I said.
"I wish! Miss Goody Two-shoes?" she mocked.
I swung my chair around and stuck the tool away. "Mel," I said, "have you got something you want to tell me, or what?"
I think most students, male or female, would have just spit it out after standing there that long, but Melinda had brains enough to fight off her emotions.
"Can we go outside or something?" she said.
What brings back the memory is the letter I got from her today, the letter and the sound of the football team, whose shouts are now echoing through the already leafless trees across the street, the cadence of grunts from the field several blocks away from our house. I hear every exercise the coach has scribbled on the clipboard, and each rally of the kids' clapping once they've finished. It's such a male sound.
It's the sound I remember echoing across the football field when the two of us, Melinda and I, walked on the crumbling edge of a blacktop road north of the school. That's where Melinda told me about Mr. Crotty, and math.
"I can't be with him again," she said. "I can't go back there tonight. I'm sorry," she told me. "Maybe it sounds like I'm backing out, but I don't care."
Cars passed us slowly as we left the school. "I don't get it," I said. “What’s the big deal?”
“It's all because I got brains, see?" she said. "I can't help it that math comes easy. I really can't. Sometimes I try to block it off, but I just get the stuff right away."
Away from school, she spoke more with her hands than she had at my desk.
"Look," she said, "if I quit, people will say, 'Why in the world isn't Melinda in the math thing?' That's what they'll say. You know they will."
Nine weeks into my first year of teaching. What did I know? "Big deal," I said.
"I shouldn't care about what people think?" she said.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," I told her.
"Easy for you to say," she said.
But I was worried about the two of us out there alone, what some young mother might think, some woman picking up her daughter after school.
"Am I taking up your precious time here or what?" she said.
No student had talked to me like that before. "What's the matter?" I said. "You say you don't want to be in the math contest?-all right, quit. Tell Crotty you're out."
Leaves in the grasp of a northwest wind drifted across the road and blew into the stubbled fields running up the hills to the south. She pushed both her hands into her jacket pockets, and I pulled up my collar.
But that was it for awhile. She didn't say another word as we kept walking east past the football field and out towards the town cemetery. Behind us, I wondered what the guys on the team thought of the two of us.
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