Authors: Barry James Hickey
“Beautiful view, isn’t it?” said the wife, striking up a conversation.
“Yes,” John said.
“Twenty rock formations and eight miles of trails down there,” the husband said. He set the bowl down for his Labrador Retriever. “You like dogs?”
“Love dogs.”
His mind flashed to a distant memory of the three dogs he had in his youth. They were all mutts but each loved him unconditionally.
The old man stared at the southern landscape. “Plenty of trails along those ridges and canyons. A man can get lost real easy.”
“I imagine so.”
“You don’t want to be on ‘em in the rain. They’re muddy and slippery as hell then. Especially Cheyenne Canyon. We got stuck up there in the afternoon yesterday. Shower only lasted ten minutes, but I near killed myself coming down the trail on that wet red clay.”
“Like glazed potter’s clay,” said the wife.
“A regular slip and slide.”
Battle looked at the time on his watch and adjusted the collar of the blue sport coat Mrs. Powell had given him. He studied himself in the window of the vehicle and decided to take off the loud tie he was wearing.
“Thanks, Mrs. Powell, but the tie doesn’t cut it.”
“You say something young man?” asked the eager wife.
“Just talking to myself.”
“I do it all the time,” the old man said. “Been married forty-five years and she don’t hear a word I say.”
John gave the old couple a friendly smile. If Kathy were still alive, he’d be married twenty-two years.
Katherine.
He thought about her every day even though she died over fifteen years ago.
“You folks have a great day. And many more years together.”
“Why, thank you kind sir,” the old man nodded.
“We have many mountains to climb,” the wife reminded her husband.
“Avoid the wet clay,” John said.
He climbed back in his vehicle and drove along curving Mesa Road back towards the heart of town. There were occasional views of Colorado Springs spread before him from hilly vantage points. Mrs. Powell had given him a brief history of the area over a hearty lunch of green pea soup with ham hocks and fresh-baked bread the other day.
Located on an arid plateau, Colorado Springs had been established in 1872. With a population of twelve hundred and three hundred houses it was almost completely devoid of trees back then.
Without irrigation, only cactus, yucca, and native grasses survived in the thin, parched topsoil.
As the city began growing, so did the trees. But trees needed the resource of precious water. Within a month of the town’s founding, water flowed through an open canal from a dammed creek a few miles west.
With water available, city founder General Palmer shipped in six hundred cottonwood trees to line downtown and residential streets and parkways. The city hired a man to plant the trees and paid him ten cents a hole.
Besides street trees and new residential lawns and gardens, the water fed four small city lakes, irrigated parks, the courthouse lawn, the first cemetery, orchards and parkways. It was a great idea for a new city. The trees kept the air cleaner and made a stunning visual difference.
In its first annual city government meeting, twelve hundred trees, mostly elder and cottonwood, were counted. Today, there were over a hundred thousand trees and thirty different species, especially Norway and silver maple, American elm, green ash, and American linden.
Mrs. Powell had been very thorough in her history of the city.
Battle drove the last mile along a tree-lined boulevard and arrived at the old high school. Dozens of teenagers were dancing down the steps of the school when he pulled to the curb by the main entrance. It was the end of their school day. He slid out from behind the driver’s seat, locked the car and entered the building. A tired teacher in her late thirties was roaming the main hall, barking orders to departing kids.
“Let’s remember to wash our school shirt, Keith!” she said to a nervous skinny boy in a wrinkled shirt. “Shelby, let’s leave the flip-flops at home tomorrow! James,
do not
under any circumstance,
do not
bring your snapping turtle to science class tomorrow!”
Battle pulled a handwritten note from his pocket and approached. “I’m looking for Mrs. Weed.”
“Our mighty principal?” the woman asked without taking her eyes off antsy students wriggling past her for the exits. “Last office on the right.”
John thanked her and went to the office. The door was open. Inside, at a large gray metal desk sat Mrs. Weed, a savvy political survivor of school bureaucracies. She was buried in paperwork. John guessed her to be in her fifties. He knocked on the doorjamb and she looked up.
“Mr. Battle?” she presumed.
“Mrs. Weed?”
“Please, come in.” She offered him a seat facing her desk.
They small-talked about the weather and as Hogan predicted, his past successes as a teacher before he handed her his resume. Suddenly, the interview turned into a cat and mouse game. He sat and waited, controlling his urge to flee as Mrs. Weed read his teaching resume. Fortunately for him, Battle did a practice interview with Mrs. Powell prior to coming. The fake teaching credentials Hogan had given him seemed to be working. But then Mrs. Weed suddenly picked up a red felt-tipped marker and made several bold check marks on the resume. Battle prepared himself to assume the worst and flee the building before police arrived. He remembered his own days as a student in elementary, high school, and college. Eighteen years of education mashed together in a brief flash. When she finished reading and editing, Mrs. Weed locked her hands together and cracked her knuckles. Then she spread her hands on the desk and leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Okay. The pay stinks. There’s no insurance and you get lousy hours. The kids are environmentally and socially challenged. You won’t get any support from my tired staff or even me, for that matter. I’m a tired old hag waiting to go on my next cruise. Still want the job?”
Mr. Battle.”
“That was easy,” he said.
“I’m desperate. If you can make it work, then Godspeed.
By the way, I circled the typos on your resume. There are no middle schools in Chicago. Sullivan Elementary burned down in 1992, not 1994. I grew up in Chicago, too.”
The Principal’s face broke into a grin. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen sloppier resumes.”
Mr. Wirtz appeared in the doorway. “The classrooms are empty and the little ones have scattered for the weekend,” he said with sarcasm.
“Ah! Mr. Wirtz! I’d like you to meet Mr. Battle. He’ll be our new teacher for the After School Program”
“We met,” John smiled at the Principal.
John offered to shake hands, but Mr. Wirtz seemed preoccupied as he brushed past him to a filing cabinet in the corner.
“I don’t recall,” Wirtz said.
“You gave me the job posting.”
“Did I?”
Mrs. Weed spoke with a pasted grin. “Mr. Wirtz is our Assistant Principal and Disciplinarian. And in a pinch, he can run any class we offer.”
Wirtz shrugged. “He’ll need a classroom and keys, I suppose. Has he been fingerprinted with the city yet?”
Battle tensed.
The savvy principal noticed his reaction. “That won't be necessary. He’s part-time.”
Wirtz let out a long, gassy sigh of exasperation. “For the record, I must protest this whole After School thing.” He addressed Battle directly. “Nothing against you. I haven’t seen your resume, but these five teenagers? They’re unteachable. It's a major waste of yours or anybody else's time, not to mention the added expense on our budget.”
“Been teaching too long?” Battle asked.
“Long enough to admit failure when I see it.”
Mrs. Weed stood up, intervening. “Now, now gentlemen. The ink isn’t even dry on our arrangement with Mr. Battle. Mr. Wirtz, if it isn’t too much trouble, perhaps you can fill our new volunteer in on his future students?”
“Students? Hardly the word I‘d choose,” he said with disdain. “Mr.… What is your name again?”
“Battle. John Battle.”
“I’m not much for names,” Wirtz said without apology. “I have to chase a few stragglers off the premises before they spray paint the building. Meet me in Room 107 in ten minutes.”
“I’ll be there,” Battle said.
Mr. Wirtz flew out of the room in a hurry, leaving the principal and new teacher alone.
“You’ll have to excuse his behavior,” Mrs. Weed said. “But between us? He really does care about the kids here. That’s why the Tadpoles frustrate him so. He used to get along with all the students but lately… Twenty-five years of teaching wears anybody down.”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” Battle said.
“Oh?” The principal asked. “Do tell.”
“I think Mr. Wirtz is a manipulator. He play-acts for sympathy, attention, and empathy.”
The principal laughed. “Ah! That is refreshing to hear. Mr. Wirtz can be overtly smug sometimes.”
“He reminds me of a character out of Charles Dickens,” John said.
“Let me guess,” said Mrs. Weed. “Mr. Scrooge?”
“Mr. Scrooge.”
“Bah, humbug for him!”
Battle arrived at Mr. Wirtz’s office ten minutes later. Wirtz was already there, a short stack of files on his desk. He seemed prepared for a fight.
“It’s late,” Wirtz said. “So I’ll make this short and direct.” He picked up his first folder. “Julio Ramirez. Nineteen years old. An only child. His mother died from a drug overdose six months ago. He lives with his alcoholic father. Hobbies include cold-cocking unsuspecting kids in the hallway. He has a reputation for cheating on every test. My guess is that Julio has an addiction to alcohol. He should have graduated a year ago, but still needs twelve credits.”
He handed Battle the folder. John recognized the picture stapled inside. It was one of the kids in the photographs Hogan supplied.
“Nice picture of him with a black eye, eh?” Wirtz said. “Julio thinks fighting is a gym assignment.” Wirtz attacked the next file. “Tobias Chambers.
Toby
. Nearly eighteen. His parents are deaf. If you listen to Toby, he’ll tell you that he has every ailment known to adolescence. ADD, ADHD, bipolar… We haven’t had the chance to test him because he skips so much school, but my prognosis is that he’s probably dyslexic. The boy is athletic, but won’t involve himself in any group activities. At least not here. I suspect he is bright in all of his subjects, but he flat out refuses to lift a finger to accomplish anything. Toby is only at a sophomore ability level.”
“Deaf parents, you say?”
“Yes.” Wirtz handed Battle the folder. “It’s a big secret with him. Next… Matthew Golden. He’s born-to-the-manor trailer trash. His stepfather is a Neo-Nazi biker with diabetes. Mum is a self-taught tattoo artist. Like Toby and Julio, Matt could be out of high school, but he never finishes anything he starts.
Not ever.
His parents make him baby-sit their three other love children
a lot
. Kid has promise, but the parents are screwing it up for him.”
“Maybe he thinks that by finishing school, he’ll be forced to grow up and move on, but since he’s been tagged as a surrogate parent already, he feels guilty about abandoning the family to achieve his own goals.”
“Interesting observation,” Wirtz said. “It may also be why he’s a Tadpole.”
“Tadpole?” John asked.
“These kids are all connected at the hip. Best friends. They hang together along a creek in the neighborhood. Call themselves
the Tadpoles
. Very immature for their ages, if you ask me.” He passed John the Matt Golden file and picked up another. “Now we have our little Lolita. Marie Fuentes. She acts like she’s a quiet and demure twelve-year-old but she’s really an Hispanic vixen with razor-edged nails. She filed three improper conduct cases against former teachers at previous schools. All unfounded. She'll be looking to add you to that list if history serves itself. The young lady is as slow as slow can get when it comes to schoolwork and motivation. She lives with her grandparents, who are both in denial, by the way. Good luck getting her to show up.”
“Why does she live with her grandparents?”
“We can’t keep track of everyone, Mr. Battle.”
A small headache erupted in Battle’s temple. He rubbed it, trying to catch the pain.
“You seem ill, sir.”
“I’m fine. Just a migraine.”
Wirtz sniffed, then continued. “Last on the list is Amber Beulah. Our foster care expert. She’s been in six of them. Now she’s in her fourth group home in the past three years. Amber is sixteen going on sixty. Five different high schools, almost no credits anywhere. But if you have a conversation with her, there’s a learned intelligence. Let's see... Comments from teachers and caregivers:
‘Amber is at the center of a very strange universe.’ ‘Anyone over eighteen is an authority figure and therefore a threat.’
‘Do not fall asleep around this girl with sharp objects nearby...’
‘Anger management should be offered on the hour...’ ‘Strikes out when cornered... Probably hates men. ‘Masochistic acts always followed by extreme depression.’
‘Abandonment issues.’”
Wirtz laid her folder on top of the rest. “There you have it, Mr. Battle. Behold the five faces of evil. Five little pearls waiting for you to polish them up.”
“Just a bunch of kids to me,” Battle said.
“Mark my words. This bunch will wear you out.”
Wirtz stood and pulled a set of keys from his vest pocket, locking his desk and the filing cabinets in the room.
“I’m allowed to take these files?” Battle asked.
“You can borrow them, read them, burn them if you like.”
“Why the sarcasm, Mr. Wirtz?”
“You’re their last stop on the education train, Mr. Battle. An outsider. A nobody to them. If you fail, they all fall down.”
“Why do you teach, Mr. Wirtz?”
“I’m two years from retirement.”
“In the early days, why did you want to become a teacher?”
“It wasn’t for economic gain, I can assure you. Anything else, Mr. Battle?”
“Not at the moment.”
“You start on Monday, five to seven every evening, Monday through Friday.” Wirtz slid a set of keys to Battle. “Your lab is in the basement. Room B1. The kids all say it’s haunted. Come in an hour early, and I’ll show you how to operate the pass codes for various rooms, the alarm system, lights and copy machine. For security reasons, I can’t give you a key for the library or computer lab.”
“I’ll adjust.”
“Just doing my job.” Wirtz slipped on an overcoat. “I wish I could sound enthusiastic, but you see, I’ve met almost as many teachers as students over the years and quite frankly, I’ve only been impressed by a handful. What kind of teacher are you going to be, Mr. Battle?”
“Ask me in a month.”
“I hope you’re not an idealist. Shall I walk you out?”
Mr. Wirtz picked up a bag stuffed with student papers, turned out the lights, and escorted Battle towards the exit.