Want to guess which one? Handwritten instructions scribbled on a yellow sticky note told them to “take notes and furnish the nursery, minus the crib.” The buyer paid them double to speed manufacturing and delivery, so the guys in the shop spent their lunch breaks watching the movie clip and then arguing over the drawings for Maggs's chair and cradle.
Maggie wanted to thank Bryce without embarrassing him, so she cooked him a roast, smothered it in gravy, carrots, and potatoes, and bought him a key lime pie to satisfy his sweet tooth. She wrote a note, left the dinner at his front door, and spent the next two days swaying in that chair and nudging the cradle with her big toe.
On the third night I waited until she fell asleep, then picked her up and laid her down beside me. When I woke the next morning, she was still there, but somewhere during the night she had carried that chair and cradle in from the nursery and slid them over next to the bed.
D
ESPITE THE HEAT
, I
ROLLED DOWN MY SLEEVES,
walked into my second-story classroom, opened the windows, straightened the desks into rows, and cleaned the chalkboard. Soon kids shuffled in, eyed the available seats, and chose ones that suited them. The room was hot, and proximity to airflow was prime real estate.
The second bell rang, and I cleared my throat. “Good morning.”
Faces looked back at me blankly. The silence was heavy, but the nonverbals were raucous. The silence said, “Look, man, we ain't no happier about being here than you are, so let's get this over with.”
I let a few more minutes pass, thinking eager stragglers might rush in, but they didn't. Clearing my voice again, I picked up my roll book and eyed the first name. “Alan Scruggs?”
“Here.”
In my first year of teaching, I established the habit of identifying students by their places in the classroom until I got to know their work and personalities. When Alan said “Here,” my mental note sounded something like,
Second row from the window. Center of room. Reading a book.
“Wait, you skipped me.”
I looked up. “Who are you?”
“Marvin Johnson!” The speaker leaned back in his chair. “See,
J
come befo'
S
.”
It doesn't take the class clown long to identify himself.
“I don't usually start with the
A
's.”
“Oh, tha's cool.” He looked around at the other students. “I's jus' lettin' you know. Thought you mighta forgot.” My new friend smiled, showing a mouthful of white teeth.
I returned to the roll. “Russell Dixon Jr.?”
“Yeah.”
A deep voice came from my left.
Against the window, front row. Big, broad shoulders. Sitting sideways. Looking out the window. Never looked at me.
“Eugene Banks?”
“Uh-huh.”
Left side next to the window. Two back from Deep Voice. Looking out the window. Also never looked at me.
“That was enthusiastic. Marvin Johnson?”
“Yo.” It was my alphabetically conscientious friend.
Front-and- center and liking it. Smiling. Big ears. Sweatpants. Tall and athletic. Shoes in a tangle.
The contrast between my non-air-conditioned room and his sweatpants room struck me. “You look like you just rolled out of bed. Aren't you hot?”
“Who, me? Naw.” He waved his hand. “See, dis' what I wear.” The kid was a walking attitude, an uncrackable nutâor so he hoped.
“Amanda Lovett?”
“Yes, sir. Both of us.” A sweet, gentle voice rose from next to the window.
Front left, against the window, in between Uh-Huh and Deep Voice, and . . .
“Both?”
She patted her stomach gently. “Joshua David.”
I admit it, I'm not proud of my second reactionâthe one that questioned her morals. I thought it before I had time to wish I hadn't thought it, but it didn't last very long.
“Joshua David?”
“Yes, sir,” she said again, holding her hand on top of her stomach.
“Well,” I said, recovering, “you make sure that young man makes it to class on time.”
She broke into an even larger smile that poked two dimples into the sides of her cheeks. “Yes, sir.”
Laughter rippled through the room. Somebody against the window said, “Yes, sir” in that mocking tone that kids are so good at. I looked up and waited for him to finish.
“Kaitlin Jones?”
“Koy,” a voice from the right rear of the class said quietly.
I looked up at a young woman whose face was nearly covered by a combination of sunglasses and long hair.
“Koy?”
“K-o-y.”
“I could see you better without those sunglasses.”
She half smiled. “Probably.” She didn't move a finger.
Uh-Huh, Deep Voice, and Front-and-Center laughed, but I didn't push it. The first day was not the time to draw lines. I finished the roll, noted the changes and preferred nicknames, and leaned back against the desk. There I was again, in the front of a classroom. Roped in by Maggs and Amos.
“My name is Dylan Styles.”
Marvin interrupted. “Professuh, is you a doctuh?”
“I am.”
“So, we should call you Doctuh?”
I checked my seating chart, although I already knew his name. “Marvin, my students have called me Mr. Styles, Professor Styles, Professor, or Dr. Styles. Do you have a preference?”
My question surprised him. When he saw that I was serious, he said matter-of-factly, “Professuh.”
“Fair enough.” I paused. “My wife . . .” Bad way to start. “. . . calls . . . me Dylan, but school administrators don't usually like students and teachers operating on a first-name basis. So the rest of you can pick from the list. This is English 202: Research and Writing. If you're not supposed to be here, you may leave now, or if you don't want to embarrass yourself, just don't come back after class is over. I suppose if you don't want to be here, you can leave too.”
A voice from the back, next to the window, interrupted me. Its owner wore dreadlocks down to his shoulders, and when he had passed my desk on the way in, I was hit by a strong smell of cigarettes and something else. Maybe cloves. Whatever it was, he had been in a lot of it. His eyes were glassy and looked like roadmaps. “Professuh, ain't none us want to be here. Why don't we all leave?”
A wave of laughter spread across the room. Yo high-fived Uh-Huh and then slapped Deep Voice on the knee. I checked my seating chart and started again.
“B.B., I understand. But the fact is that ânot wanting to be here' is what landed each of you in this particular class a second time. Do you really want to make that mistake again?” Scanning the room, I said, “Anyone?”
Quiet replaced the laughter. Watching their faces straighten, I thought,
Maybe that was too much, too soon.
From the far right middle I heard somebody say, “Uh-umm. That's right too.” I checked my seating chart. Charlene Grey.
From the middle of the room someone asked, “Professuh, was yo' granddaddy that farmer that everybody used to talk to in the hardware store? The one that raised all the steeples? I think they called him Papa Styles.”
“Well, a lot of farmers fit that description, but yes, I called my grandfather Papa, he made a lot of friends in the feed and seed section, and he had a thing for steeples.”
Marvin sat back in his chair, tossed his head up, and pointed
in the air. “Yo, Dylan, answer me something. Why they send the grandson of a steeple-raising farmer to teach us how to write? I mean”âhe looked over each shoulder, garnering support, and then pointed at meâ“you don't look like much of a professor. What makes you think you can teach us anything?”
The class got real quiet, as though someone had pressed an invisible pause button. Three minutes in, and we had reached a silent impasse.
What struck me was not that he asked the question. Except for the gold-rim glasses I wear when I'm reading, I look more as though I should be riding or selling a tractor than teaching an English classâcropped blond hair, oxford shirt, Wranglers, and cowboy boots. No, it was a fair question. He could have phrased it differently, but it was fair. Actually, I had already asked it of myself. What surprised me was that Marvin had the guts to express it.
“I don't know. Availability, I suppose. Mr. Winter's probably got an answer.” I was losing ground. “Okay, English 20â”
Marvin interrupted again. “But I don't want Mr. Winter's answer. I asked you, Professuh.”
Sneers and quiet laughter spread through the room. Marvin sat low in his chair, in control, on stage and loving it.
I walked to the front of his desk and put my toes next to his. To be honest, I was too scattered to have said it the way I should. My body may have been in that classroom, but my heart was lying next to Maggie.
I took a deep breath. “Marvin, if you want the title of Class Clown, I really don't care.” I waved my hand across the class.
“I don't think you'll get much of a challenge. What I do care about is whether or not you can pass my class. Your ability to make everybody laugh is secondary to your ability to think well and learn to write even better. Do we understand each other?” I leaned over, laid my hands on his desk, and put my eyes about two feet from his.
Marvin half nodded and looked away. I had called his bluff, and everybody knew it. I had also embarrassed him, which I wouldn't recommend. For the first time that hour, no papers were ruffling, nobody was trying to outtalk me, and nobody was looking out the window.
I let it go.
I backed up, walked to my desk, and leaned against it because I needed to. I then made a few procedural announcements and mentioned the syllabus. Everyone followed along. Point made.
That's probably enough for one day.
My introduction had taken, at most, four minutes. Once finished, I said, “It's too hot to think in here.” I gathered my papers and began packing up. “See you Tuesday. Check your syllabus, and read whatever is printed there. I have no idea because I didn't write it.”
My class beelined for the door, shooting glances at one another and whispering as they left.
Funny. What had taken ten minutes before class now took less than thirty seconds. Maybe it was something I said.
The only student to stop at my desk was Amanda Lovett. She rested her hand on the top of her tummy. “Professor, are you the one who's been at the hospital the last week, sitting next to the coma patient on the third floor? The pretty woman, um . . . Miss Maggie?”
When I first learned to drive, I always wondered what it would be like to throw the gear shift into reverse while driving down the highway at seventy miles an hour.
“Yes, I am.”
Amanda chose her words carefully. Her eyes never left mine. “I work the night shift at Community as a CNA. I . . . I was working the day you twoâI mean threeâcame in.” She fumbled with the zipper on her backpack. “I'm real sorry, Professor. I help to look after your wife. Change her bed linens, bathe her, stuff like that.” Amanda paused. “I hope you don't mind, but when you're not there, I talk to her. I figure, I would want someone to talk to me, if . . . if I was lying there.”
I now knew how the emperor felt with no clothes.
“Professor?” Amanda asked, looking up through her glasses, her face just two feet from mine. I noticed the skin right below her eyes. It was soft, not wrinkled, and covered with small droplets of sweat. It startled me. I saw beauty there. “I'm real sorry about your son . . . and your wife.” She swung her backpack over her shoulder and left.
I stood there. Naked. The only comfort I found was that she didn't even realize she had done it. Her eyes had told me that.
Going out the door, she stopped, turned around, and said, “Professor, if you want, I won't talk to her any more. I should've asked. I just thought . . . ”
“No,” I interrupted, rummaging through my papers. “You talk to her . . . anytime. Please.”
Amanda nodded. As she walked away, I noticed that the shirt she was wearing was one Maggie had tried on in the maternity store. I sat down at my desk, stared out the window, and felt absolutely nothing.
F
EW FOLKS KNOW THIS, BUT
B
RYCE
M
AC
G
REGOR IS
probably the richest man in Digger. His dad invented a gadget, something to do with how railroad cars hook together, that made his whole family a bunch of money. I know that doesn't sound like a gold mine, but Bryce said that every train that's been produced in the last fifty years uses this contraption. I guess that would add up. Bryce gets a royalty check about once a week. Sometimes more than one.
Three years ago I was in his trailer and saw a bunch of envelopes scattered about. One of them had been opened, and its contents lay on the floor. It was a check for twenty-seven thousand dollars. Bryce saw me looking at it and said,
“Take it. You can have it. Most of 'em are like that. Some are more. Some less.” A few minutes later, Bryce passed out. One beer too many.
I couldn't find a pillow, so I wadded up a couple sweatshirts and propped up Bryce's head. He was snoring pretty good and could have really used a bath, so I opened a few windows and didn't bother to shut the door behind me. Nobody ever went up there anyway. The breeze would do him more good than harm.
I don't think Bryce ever remembered that night, but I did. There was more than a quarter of a million dollars on the floor in checks made out to him. I left that check, and all the other checks, right there on the floor. I didn't want Bryce's money, and the secret of his trust fund was safe with me. But I didn't want him taken advantage of, either. And there are enough money-grubbers in Digger, small town or not, to rob Bryce blind.
So a few weeks after that, I got to thinking about Bryce while harrowing a section of pasture. What was a half-naked drunk, probably the richest man in South Carolina, doing, living in a trailer next to a drive-in movie theater that had been closed since the early seventies? I said to myself, “This is just not right. This could turn out real bad if someone doesn't start taking care of Bryce.” So I went up to the Silver Screen and gathered up all those envelopes. Bryce showered once a week, and I made sure that once a week was that day. Once Bryce was smelling sociable, we loaded up my truck and the three of usâBryce, Blue, and Iâdrove to Charleston to talk to the man who Bryce said handled his trust fund.