Juncture 1.4

I barreled through the door adjoining the inner and outer offices and slammed it shut behind me, causing Barbara to drop the phone in surprise. I mentally apologized – she hadn’t done anything deserving of this, but there was nothing to do about it, I couldn’t change what was playing out.

I exited the outer office and slammed that door too. A few more people had entered the hallway since I had been in the office, and they were milling about, heading to their classes. Against my better wishes, I headed toward my next class.

English class. I hated it, and not just because the teacher was kind of a prick. My dyslexia prevented me from making any real progress in the reading we were assigned, and it made writing essays nigh impossible. Occasionally we would have a class focusing on debate; those were the enjoyable ones. I may not have been able to write, but I could definitely argue. Today wasn’t going to be one of those days though. I remembered from before – after the whole fiasco with the principal, the rest of the day stayed at the same level of awfulness.

The walk to English class wasn’t far from the principal’s office, but then again the school wasn’t that large. The furthest you could have from any point to another was maybe a seven minute walk. This one was about three, and I was walking fast, apparently blowing off steam from the encounter.

I’m not pissed, but I’m definitely acting like it. It was as if my body was producing the endorphins that it would be if I was emotionally involved in the shouting match in the principal’s office. Although, now that I thought about it, it made sense that I was stressed; after all I was going crazy, or a close equivalent.

I was so engrossed in my inner dialogue that I nearly missed the door to the English classroom. I backtracked a couple of steps and walked in. The small room was packed with around twenty desks, which left almost no room to maneuver. Even worse was the fact that almost all of the seats were filled, except directly in front. I liked to sit in the back during English, since there was a much smaller chance of being called on by Mr. Hodgkins. I sat in the closest available seat, and waited for him to show up.

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Several minutes passed, with the people around me engaged in casual conversation. I heard the muted bell through the door, and the room got quieter. Mr. Hodgkins was usually very timely, but today, as I remembered, he would be several minutes late.

“Hello again students, please open your books to page fifty one. I am assuming you all did the reading, so we have no need to go over it.” I heard, in Mr. Hodgkins’ reedy, dry voice.

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The door opened. A short man I didn’t recognize entered the room. He was wearing a dark navy suit, with a hat keeping most of his face from view. He was carrying a leather briefcase in his left hand, and he closed the door with a soft click with his empty hand.

“Marc, what are you doing?” I heard someone say next to me. It was Josie. She could be considered one of the closest acquaintances I actually had in school. I didn’t consider us friends, because we never actually hung out outside of class, but I felt fairly comfortable being around her during school.

At her words, I realized that I was leaning forward, slack-jawed and gripping the edge of my desk. I coughed and unclenched my hands, leaning backward at the same time.

This didn’t happen last time. This isn’t supposed to be happening.

I opened my mouth to talk, fully expecting the same insane compulsion to take effect again, but the words flowed out of my mouth with no more resistance than usual: “I think I’m going crazy.”

I shouldn’t have been able to do that.

“Yeah you’re going crazy, we have a substitute! It’s a free period!” She exclaimed excitedly.

“Uh… yeah. Have we ever had this sub before? I don’t remember him at all.”

We didn’t have a substitute today. Mr. Hodgkins was here, and we got into a huge argument. I got kicked out again. Then… detention. Then the car in the rain.

“No, I think he’s new,” Josie said, “But he looks like he’ll put up with whatever we want to do.”

I looked back at the man. At this point he had taken off his hat and was in the process of taking several books out of his briefcase. He looked up and scanned the room, and I got a look at his face. I would describe it as tired, fatigued. The face of a man who had lived enough to fill several lifetimes. His eyes were heavy lidded, his cheeks hung low on his weathered face.

He sat down in the desk, pulling one of the books closer to himself and opening it. He flipped through several pages, and stopped once he had found what he was looking for. He started calling out names he was reading from the page. I knew from experience that this class had several last names that began with ‘A’, so I wouldn’t be first, like I was in some others.

“Abraham, Kirsten?”

A smallish girl with overly-large glasses who sat close to the front piped up with a soft “Here.”

The substitute nodded, and wrote a check next to her name.

“Allan, Lars?”

Lars, a seventeen-year-old with a professional football player’s physique spoke in a rumbling voice, “Present.”

The substitute put a check next to his name. He opened his mouth and paused suddenly. His forehead creased as he looked at the name. He studied it for several more seconds with a perplexed look on his face. After several second have passed, he continued to speak:



“Marc Antony?”