On a sunny, bright blue June morning—likely the last day of his nine-month-long teaching career—Randy Shep slouched on a hot metal folding chair next to his soon-to-be-ex-fellow teachers, facing the crowd of students and parents, and sweating through his shirt. The queasy and anxious thoughts about his future that had clouded Randy’s mind over the past week had now congealed into sour and grudging resignation about his present circumstance: if he wanted to get his last full paycheck and to leave this job on a good-enough note, he would have to make it through today’s Celebration of Excellence! and somehow pretend to give a shit.
The 1980 sixth-grade graduating class of Camino Alto Elementary School sat on the new lunch benches—under a canopy that the district had somehow found money for—nice and comfortable. Their parents were behind them, fumbling with Polaroids and flowers wrapped in crackling cellophane, talking away. One dad, taping the whole graduation ceremony on a giant Betamax camera with a furry microphone, kept standing up to pan back and forth.
Behind the audience, late-model family cars filled the teacher’s parking area. Mercedes coupes, Volvo station wagons, black BMW sedans, and more than one new Porsche were crammed into the lot. A burgundy Alfa Romeo convertible was parked on an angle in Randy’s usual spot, blocking half of the next space. Randy had been forced to park his rusty Datsun half a mile away.
Proposition 13 had paid for a lot of those new cars. Two years ago, most Californians had listened to Howard Jarvis and passed his Prop 13, cutting property taxes for themselves, and the state government made up the deficit by gutting school budgets. So, while these parents drank rosé and ate quiche on their decks with beach access, Randy and his wife Joanie had rented a house they could afford at the edge of town. They watched the ground near their home for rattlers, and coyotes hunting through the sagebrush at dusk.
The other sixth-grade teachers hissed and glared or snapped their fingers and pointed when one of their students stopped paying attention or started to pull a stunt. Randy half-heartedly tried to quiet his bunch, who were in the first row twenty feet in front of him. The Miller twins were at one end, bickering in matching checkered dresses. Bobby Corn was next to them, picking at a big scab on his knee, and the other Bobby, Bobby Flake, was flossing his teeth with a strand of his own hair. Mikey, Todd, Tom, David, Josh, Patrick, and Scott were taking turns punching each other in the arm or sticking their wet index fingers in each other’s ears. Stephanie, Christine, Michelle, and Samantha alternated between whispering and scowling at the boys horsing around next to them. Mary was being ignored by the four of them, and Zoë, wearing her older sister’s Circle Jerks tee shirt again, was drawing the anarchy “A” symbol on her leg with a purple Sanford felt pen. Next to her, Jonathan, big dopey grin, hummed “Another One Bites the Dust.”
In the middle of the chaos sat Donnie, who tried very hard to blend into the middle of elementary school. Bowl-cut white-blonde hair, blue eyes, spray of freckles across his nose, wearing the typical all-weather Southern California boy uniform: Ocean Pacific short sleeve shirt, matching two-tone corduroy shorts, checkered slip-on Vans. He did his homework—and his test scores were high—but you could see he didn’t like the days he was pulled out of regular class for gifted program activities. He volunteered to clean up after art projects or to pass out milk cartons at lunch, but not too much or too often. Sometimes, he played with Jonathan when no one else would, or helped Zoë trace a picture of Siouxsie Sioux, or said hello to Mary, but never so much for anyone to notice or remember. If pressed, Stephanie, Christine, Michelle and Samantha would think about it for a minute and then say he was “sweet,” and he wasn’t the first or last pick when Mikey and the boys played football. He was decent to the gross Bobbies but kept his distance and, unlike Randy, could tell which Miller twin was which, but rarely sat near them at lunch. He never fought or mouthed off or pranked anyone, and if he knew what nonsense his classmates were up to behind the snack shack, he stayed clear of any trouble, and never snitched.
Right now, though, Donnie sat stiffly, his eyes radiating discomfort, darting left at the kids talking too loudly, then right at the kids about to throw real punches, then up at the teachers, then locking onto the principal walking up to the podium. Randy’s lineup of pre-teen troublemakers was causing a scene, and there wasn’t anywhere for Donnie to hide. Donnie’s expression froze.
Now that the student names had been read, the principal spoke, loud and sharp enough to startle Randy’s class and shut them up for a minute. “While we are here to celebrate the graduating sixth grade class of 1980, we are also saying farewell to someone from our Camino Alto family.”
Here we go. Randy stopped staring at Donnie, sat up straight, and adjusted the black armband he had made last night from one of Joanie’s old Polyester scarves. He twisted around a bit to show it off. Betamax dad noticed, stood up and adjusted the zoom. Randy looked right at the lens and smiled.
“One of our beloved—” said the principal. He turned and glanced at Randy’s black armband. “—teachers will not be returning to our school next year.” The principal paused again, maybe debating whether this was a good idea, then turned to the parents. “I’d like for Mr. Shep to stand up. Let’s show our appreciation for all his hard work and dedication to your sons and daughters.”
Randy stood up. He smiled and slowly waved, making sure everyone got a good look at his black armband. A handful of parents applauded; the few handclaps sounded tinny as they bounced off the stucco walls of the courtyard. Betamax stopped filming and changed a tape. Randy kept standing and turned to look at the principal. Randy waited another moment, watching the principal about to say something. Randy sat down.
The principal exhaled and turned back to the audience. “A fun day ahead. Three-legged races. Then our famous cakewalk. Teacher-Student softball game starts at two PM.”
The parents gave a hearty round of applause.
Randy looked over at Donnie. Donnie sat there, relieved. Donnie smiled at the principal. The principal winked at Donnie.
The same principal who had pulled Randy into his little triangular office last week and, as the last bell rang, started talking about budget cuts, used the word “redundancy” twice, said that certain contracts could not be renewed, and ended by telling Randy he was laid off.
The same principal who happened to be Donnie’s dad.
The ceremony ended. Randy ducked out.
#
While Randy walked to his—well, what used to be his—classroom to grab the rest of his stuff, he replayed the parent’s halfhearted clapping in his head. The silence as he stood up with his armband. The principal winking at Donnie. As he turned the corner of the building, Randy felt a hot electrical pulse of resentment ripple through his body.
A neighborhood dog—the big brown mutt, the one that wandered into the schoolyard daily and looked like the bear on the California state flag—was dropping the last of a giant dump outside Randy’s classroom door. The dog looked at Randy as it straightened its back and padded away.
Randy stepped over the soft mountain of crap and slammed the door behind him. He crossed the classroom, sat down at his desk, opened a drawer, lit a Kool, and ejected a plume of blue cigarette smoke over the rows of empty tables. The swirl of particles floated in the streams of light from the high windows. The clock above the chalkboard ticked forward, paused, ticked backwards, then ticked forward again. Randy seethed, waiting for the nicotine to kick in.
Randy had spent his first—and maybe only—school year as a teacher in this classroom. The kids had cleaned it out earlier in the week. They had taken down their California history posters, math concept diagrams, illustrated short stories, and rubbed tinfoil artwork, leaving behind an assortment of thumbtacks stuck into the mustard yellow fabric wall. On the low shelf where they’d displayed their reforestation dioramas, bits of dried-up clay and green pipe cleaner lay next to an empty tape dispenser. Plastic olive-green chairs were stored upside down, chrome legs sticking up in the air. One chewed-up pencil lay on the linoleum floor next to a rubber band and a Now and Later candy wrapper.
A paper airplane, which until now had been stuck by the tip of its nose between two ceiling tiles, suddenly dropped down, made a loop, and shot straight towards Randy’s face, hitting him square in the forehead. Randy crumpled the plane and tossed it across the room.
Randy dragged a moving box across his desk, tipped it back, and looked inside: his high school baseball glove that he would need for this afternoon; the roller skates he’d used to show Newton’s first law of physics by rolling across the playground, letting the kids whip cherry balls at him to try and knock him down with an “unbalanced force;” the videotapes he used to record PBS for rained-out afternoon recesses. Randy spent weeks dialing that antenna controller back and forth to get a good TV signal on his old Zenith to catch the full season of Connections. James Burke—professorial Irish brogue, leisure suits, thick glasses—laid out centuries of consequences. Like how the dukes of Burgundy were the first to use credit to buy armor, which ended up creating larger armies. Those bigger armies needed food that didn’t spoil, which led to bottled food. Those bottles led to the idea of refrigeration, which, in turn, led to Sir James Dewar creating a thermos that could keep liquids hot or cold—and, next thing you know, the Germans use that idea to send V2 rockets across the channel and smash into London. Some of the kids paid attention—Donnie did, now that Randy thought about it—and only acted up when Randy forgot one episode had topless Medieval women running around a bath house.
Randy pushed the box back and sniffed. The room had the same overpowering odor it had the whole year: Formula 409, Ditto ink, a splash of sour milk. Even Randy’s fresh cigarette smoke was undetectable, swallowed into the air. Randy’s stomach knotted. He felt his resolve to be pragmatic today transform into something denser, heavier, and sharper.
Randy picked up his box and walked toward the door, stopping where Donnie sat all year. Randy set his box down and stubbed out his cigarette in the pencil groove of Donnie’s table. Randy lit another, grabbed his box, and walked out, stepping over the dogshit.
#
Randy made way across the blacktop playground to the baseball field. He reached the shuttered snack shack next to third base and placed his box on the dented metal counter. He leaned against the wall and flicked his cigarette butt into the dirt.
Soon the parents would be walking over to the bleachers for the big game. Randy pulled out the joint he’d brought for the occasion, stuck it in his mouth, and headed to the rear of the snack shack, flipping his lighter open. Randy heard voices.
“Dude. Awesome,” said someone, voice breaking on “awesome.”
“Do it do it do it,” said someone else, followed by peals of snotty laughter.
Mikey, Todd, Tom, David, Josh, Patrick, and Scott turned to Randy, and their mouths dropped open. Scott’s grip on a plastic garbage bag slipped, and a dozen water balloons rolled out on to the gravel. One popped and splashed over Scott’s navy blue Keds sneakers.
Randy recognized the giant slingshot-like contraption that Mikey, Todd, and Tom were about to use. The Funnelator—six feet of surgical tubing with a duct taped plastic paint funnel in the middle serving as a pouch for a wide variety of projectiles—was a formidable and economical weapon, favored equally by thrifty delinquents and fun-loving idiots all over Southern California.
Todd and Tom, standing almost eight feet apart, strained to hold on to the taught silicone stretched out between them. Mikey, crouched on the ground between Todd and Tom and leaning back hard, had pulled the duct-taped paint funnel at the center back nearly ten feet. He was about to launch the first water balloon round over the snack shack, right into the crowd of parents watching the end of the cakewalk a football field away.
“Uh-oh,” grunted David.
For a moment, Randy regretted interrupting them. Seeing a parent take one to the head might’ve lightened his mood. There was a pause. Randy could hear the tubing squeak as Mikey struggled to hold on.
Mikey tilted his head quizzically. “What’s that in your mouth?”
Randy remembered the joint hanging off his lower lip. He pulled it out and stuffed it back into his shirt pocket.
“Drop it,” said Randy, pointing at the Funnelator.
Randy held out his hand as Mikey, Todd, and Tom shuffled closer together, releasing the tension. Mikey hung the Funnelator from Randy’s outstretched palm and stepped back. Randy looked at Scott and the half empty bag of water balloons and pointed to the oil drum trash can next to the back wall of the snack shack. Scott shuffled over and dumped the bag, followed by Josh and Patrick carrying the balloons that had rolled out on the ground. Six of the boys had worried expressions. Mikey—who, Randy was pretty sure, had at least two stoner brothers in high school—looked less worried and started to open his mouth.
“Get out of here,” said Randy.
All seven looked at each other, then bolted back across the field. Randy leaned against the snack shack wall, dropped the Funnelator, pulled out his joint again, and popped it back into his mouth. He looked down at the Funnelator lying in the dirt. Can’t leave it here. Too easy. Can’t tell the principal. Mikey knew what he’d seen. Bury it in lost and found, that was the answer: someone, probably looking for their retainer, would pull the Funnelator from the mountain of forgotten surfer ponchos and unleash a new reign of terror. Randy would be long gone. Not his problem.
Randy lit the joint, and took one nice, long, deep hit. He licked his index finger and dabbed spit onto the cherry. He picked up the Funnelator, stuffed it into his box, and took off across the field towards the school office.
As Randy walked, he looked at the bleachers now filling up with parents. To the right of home plate, Betamax had claimed a prime part of the row in front. Some kids were running around on the infield, haphazardly tossing the ball back and forth, missing grounders, overreacting, and slamming their mitts into the dust. The teachers were gossiping, leaning against the low chain-link fence lining the visitor’s dugout.
Donnie was in the outfield. His mitt looked expensive, and he was wearing a new Padres cap. Randy looked straight ahead and quickened his pace. Opposite the field, near the library, the principal was chatting it up with the district superintendent. The superintendent stopped talking, leaned to her right, and glanced at Randy over the principal’s shoulder. The principal turned to look at Randy, turned back to the superintendent, said something to her, and then both laughed. Randy felt nauseated. The weight inside him lurched. Heat bloomed behind his eyes.
Randy reached the empty front office, stood outside the open door, and set down his box on the concrete. Across from the interior entrance to the principal’s office was the school secretary’s desk. Behind it was the bulging cardboard lost and found box. Randy whipped the Funnelator across the room. It slapped the back wall and fell onto the top of the jacket pile.
Randy picked up his box and took the long way back to the field, avoiding the principal and superintendent. Randy stopped behind a corner to look at two of them. The superintendent shrugged at the principal, headed to the parking lot, and drove off. The principal walked into the office and shut the door.
Randy made it to the teacher’s dugout, flopped down at the end, tucked his box under the bench, and leaned back into the chain link fence.
Gail, who had just hit her two-year mark and made tenure, sat down next to him. “Randy, it’s going to be ok."
“No, it isn’t.” said Randy.
#
By the bottom of the last inning, teachers were up by two, the kids were at bat with bases loaded, and Randy stood out in left field.
Donnie walked out of the dugout, popped a too-large batting helmet over his Padres cap, and took a few practice swings over home plate. Gail—who had been playing catcher—waved at Randy, who pretended not to see her. Each of the teachers had taken turns at the mound, tossing three easy pitches to make it a fair game, and, so far, Randy had avoided his turn. Gail waved again, and then pointed at the pitcher’s mound. Randy ignored her. Gail stood up from her crouch behind home plate. Donnie broke his batting stance and stepped back as Gail marched across the infield, right up to Randy.
“Your turn,” said Gail. “You need to pitch.”
“Get someone else.”
“Randy,” said Gail. “I’m sorry you got laid off. We all are. But they’re kids and their parents are right there in the stands. It’s not their fault and they are kids and it’s their graduation day.” Gail held out her hand with the ball. “These are the good times.”
Randy looked over at Donnie. He looked at Gail. He grabbed the ball out of her hand.
Gail started to say something more, but Randy took off towards the mound. She ran ahead and returned to her crouch behind home plate. Donnie stepped back into his stance. Donnie drew in his breath and focused, looking expectant, confident as he twirled the tip of his bat.
Randy had seen this Donnie once before. A month ago, Randy had promised the class that the lift and drag diagrams he had drawn on the noisy overhead projector would pay off with something fun. He had opened a ream of crisp white letter-sized paper and passed out stapled packets with instructions for a dozen different paper airplanes. “Or make your own,” said Randy. “It’s a contest.”
While the rest of the kids folded one or two planes and started whipping them at each other, Donnie had taken a quarter inch pile of paper. He sat at his desk, ignoring the planes zipping over his head, creasing subtle changes into his designs, and carefully stacking each version into a shoebox.
The next day, Randy took his class on a field trip down into the state park bordering the school. They wound their way through the sunny and hot chapparal, taking a far switchback trail up to the top of a large canyon that opened out to the beach. The slow ocean breeze—a little humid, with a hint of drying kelp even this far from the water—drafted up the canyon, gently buffeted the sage brush, and whistled in the few pine trees lining the flat ridge where Randy and his class stood in a semicircle.
Randy’s class pulled out their creations. They were supposed to go one at a time, but within seconds, the air was filled with planes making clumsy arcs, smacking into tree trunks, flopping down into the dirt, or tearing into backwards loops and nearly scoring headshots on the kids who threw the planes in the first place.
Donnie waited until the air was clear. Randy saw that Donnie’s plane was different than the others. Crisp winglets, carefully angled flaps, and what looked like a thicker, heavier set of folds at the nose. Donnie pinched the plane between his thumb and index finger and cocked his arm. He took a breath, focused, brought his arm forward, and lightly snapped his wrist, sending his plane curving upwards into the wind.
Randy kept watching Donnie’s face as the plane caught a thermal. The kids around him started yelping as it soared higher. Donnie ignored them and watched his plane sweep and glide in the air. For the first time Randy could think of, Donnie looked like he didn’t care who was watching or what was happening around him.
Now, as Randy stood on the pitcher’s mound remembering that moment, something inside him started to give way. His thoughts tumbled loose. He could feel them smash together, their sharp edges punching holes in each other, the whole jagged mess tearing through his body, falling into his stomach, and imploding. He remembered the paper plane rising and floating. He remembered how he had felt happy for Donnie. He remembered that Donnie’s dad put him out of a job. He remembered those parents and their cars and their houses, and that Gail and the principal and all the other teachers would be back next year. He remembered people around him would have money and careers and lives and everyone except himself would be just fine.
Randy threw the ball as hard as he had ever thrown a ball in his life. The slap against Gail’s mitt caused everyone in the stands to look at her, and then Randy. Betamax swung the camera away from some kids making faces and towards Randy.
Gail stood up and glared as she tossed the ball back to Randy. He caught it and shrugged. Donnie hadn’t even been able to swing.
Randy rifled it again. “What’s he doing?” murmured someone in the bleachers. Gail threw the ball at Randy hard, mouthing, “Stop.”
Slap. Again. That was it. Randy was breathing hard. His skin tingled. His peripheral vision shimmered.
Donnie tossed the bat. It landed with a dull aluminum thud. He walked towards the dugout, looking down.
“Dogshit,” he said, just loud enough for Randy to hear.
“What?” Randy heard himself saying, feeling himself leave the pitcher’s mound and walking right up to Donnie.
Donnie stopped and looked up. Tears rimmed his eyes. He balled his fists and turned to face Randy.
“What did you say?” asked Randy.
Donnie’s cheeks were pink. His mouth trembled. Tears jetted down. His breathing hitched. He looked back at the stands, then the dugout, the school, the front office.
“I asked you a question,” said Randy.
“DOGSHIT,” yelped Donnie, startling the crowd. “I SAID THAT WAS DOGSHIT.”
“Your poor sportsmanship,” said Randy, shaking his head, “sets a bad example.”
Donnie shook, breathing hard. He started to say something but stopped and gritted his teeth.
“I will see you,” said Randy, “in your father’s office.” Randy pointed. “Go.”
Donnie’s eyes darkened. He turned and walked past the dugout and out across the field. His team stifled giggles as he passed. Jonathan reprised “Another One Bites the Dust.”
Randy walked back to the pitcher’s mound, taking in the silence of the crowd. Betamax lowered his camera. Gail, her jaw clenched, tossed the ball back. Randy pitched one last, nice, slow ball to Mikey, who sent it flying over center field and past the chain link fence. The stands were quiet until the ball hit the grass. Mikey’s dad stood up and let out a guttural yell, followed by the rest of the crowd clapping for the grand slam.
The game ended and the kids cheered “2-4-6-8. Who do we appreciate? Teachers!”
Randy grabbed his box from under the dugout bench and walked away from the crowd towards the school office.
#
The door to the front office was open, but the lights were off. Randy stepped inside. His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he saw Donnie sitting at the school secretary’s desk, slowly swiveling in the chair in front of the big lost and found box. He was cradling an open backpack in his lap. There was can of Sunkist orange soda in front of him.
“Randy,” said the principal, leaning out of the doorway to his office. “A word?”
Randy followed him into the cramped triangular room. A bookcase holding thick three-ring binders with neatly hand-lettered labels loomed behind his desk. Framed class and staff pictures formed a grid on the wall. A baseball glove from the 1930s lay on his desk, next to an open package of lemon cookies. The principal shut the door.
“Randy,” the principal started, holding up a finger before Randy could speak. “I’m sorry you lost your job. Those decisions come from the district.” He pointed to Randy’s black armband. “I get it. You’re angry. But taking it out on a kid? My kid?”
“Poor sportsmanship—” said Randy.
“You humiliated him in front of his friends. His friend’s parents. Teachers.” the principal said. “This is what’s going to happen. We’re going to walk out this door, my son will apologize, you’ll accept it, you’ll drive away, and that will be it.”
The principal opened the door, gesturing for Randy to walk out.
Donnie zipped up his backpack. “I’m sorry I said dogshit,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. He picked up the can of Sunkist, took a sip, and walked out.
“Goodbye Randy,” said the principal, stepping back into his office and closing the door. Randy stood and listened to the clock tick.
#
On the drive home, Randy stopped by the 7-Eleven. While he paid for two six-packs of Olympia, three Camino Alto kids at the new Asteroids machine shot looks at him and whispered. Randy got back in his Datsun, pulled out his joint, lit it, and swerved out of the parking lot, cutting off a white station wagon as he made the left turn heading out to the back country.
East of town, and past the new freeway, the housing developments stopped. Where the street’s four freshly paved lanes switched to cracked concrete, he pulled off and headed down the uneven road into the canyon.
Randy and Joanie’s rental—a peach colored ranch with a chipped orange tile roof—sat next to a dusty trailhead and faced a steep cliff. Randy pulled up to the front of the house, grabbed his beer, and walked across the lawn.
“I’ve done the math,” said Joanie, arms folded, leaning against her yellow Nova in the driveway. “Rent, utilities, gas, food, student loans. The numbers are in the kitchen.” She shook her head. “I’ll tell you one number right now. Twelve. You, Randy Shep, are twelve years older than that little boy.”
Joanie flicked her cigarette at Randy and got into her car. Randy caught a bit of ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down” from the radio as she accelerated up the street. Gail must have called her. Randy would be on his own tonight.
Randy opened the garage door, turned on the radio, unfolded a beach chair, and sat down in the middle of the driveway. He opened a beer and closed his eyes.
#
Randy was drunk by sunset. The streetlight flickered on as the sky darkened to deep blue. The large pine tree that sat at the top of the cliff across the street became silhouetted, it’s Y-split trunk framing the last light of day.
KFRQ’s “Friday Night Freaque-Out” thumped. Randy was a six-pack in, and Average White Band was feeling better than average. The aluminum frame of the beach chair scraped against the concrete driveway as he shimmied in his seat and tapped his foot. “Pick Up the Pieces” segued into “You Should Be Dancing”, and Randy squeaked out his best Barry Gibb. Randy tried to stand up, slipped, rolled onto his knees, then bounced up to the bass kicking in on “I’m Coming Out.” He kicked the beach chair across the driveway onto the lawn and stumbled into the garage. Where was his box?
Bingo. Randy yanked out his roller skates, spun the wheels and loosened the laces from the top eyelets. Back against the wall, he slid down to the ground, kicked off his shoes, and pulled on the skates. Chic came on and Randy was up and carving loops around the driveway to “Good Times”, grooving like it was senior year back at Skate King.
Randy spun in place and stopped, hands on his hips, lit by the sodium glow of the streetlight. He breathed in the smoggy night air. The dark mass inside of him was now a black hole. He could feel himself being pulled down and crushed, but there was a rush of euphoria, too. Everything was fucked, he thought, so fuck everything. Fuck these rich people, fuck their cars, fuck their houses, fuck their property tax breaks. Fuck that school, fuck that principal, and fuck Donnie.
Before it hit him in the face, Randy sensed something flying at him, fast. A warm, wet mass slapped the bridge of his nose and spread explosively from ear to ear, chin to hairline. The stench filled his nostrils, and realizing it was in his mouth too, he jerked backwards and gagged, throwing himself off balance. His legs flew out from under him, and for a moment Randy was parallel to the concrete, roller skate wheels spinning violently in the air. He hit the pavement and smacked the back of his head. The buh buh buh ah rumbumbumbumbabump of “Another One Bites the Dust” rumbled out of the radio.
After a moment, Randy sat up and checked for blood at the back of his head. He pressed gently into the swelling bump and looked at his fingers. Nothing. He crawled over to the beach chair on the lawn and dragged himself up to sit, his legs splayed out in front of him.
He untied the black armband he had been wearing all day and used it to wipe the dogshit off his face.
#
Joanie found Randy at dawn. Still sitting in the lawn chair, he woke up as she pulled off the roller skates. He winced as he got up. She folded the beach chair and bagged up the empty Olympia cans that had rolled onto the lawn. She left the black armband alone.
Randy touched his face. Traces of dogshit had dried into crusty streaks. He pulled off a shred of flimsy plastic grocery store vegetable bag stuck to his forehead.
He looked across the street and up at the pine tree on the cliff, glowing brightly in the sharp sunrise light. Something was new. Tied between the Y of the tree trunk was the Funnelator. A pair of yellow kitchen gloves hung neatly from the surgical tubing. Randy thought of Donnie zipping up his backpack, casually walking out of the school office.
Joanie handed Randy a damp rag. “Clean up.”
Randy pointed to the tree. “Look! Fucking Donnie. The Funnelator. Fuck! It had to be. He shot me with dogshit! In a bag! He stuffed dogshit in a plastic bag and shot me in the face!”
“Toss your armband before you come indoors,” said Joanie as she walked inside the house.
#
Randy showered and dressed. The bump on the back of his head throbbed. He walked from the back bedroom to the kitchen, pushed through the swinging doors, and stifled a gasp. The principal was sitting at the breakfast table with Joanie. A half-empty coffee pot sat between them.
“Randy,” said the principal. He stood up. “The district is desperate for people to teach this summer. The superintendent found enough contingent staff budget to cover it. She called last night to tell me and to ask me to take care of getting the teaching positions filled. Personally.”
Joanie sipped her coffee.
“I’ve been told to bring you back.”
The principal turned to Joanie and thanked her. He turned back to Randy.
“Donnie liked you. He would come home and talk about the projects you had them do. How you’d roller skate around for a physics experiment. Those Connections episodes you had them watch. Even after yesterday, he mentioned the paper airplanes. I asked him: what did you learn from all of that? ‘One thing leads to another,’ he said.”
The principal showed himself out.
#
Randy kept his mouth shut about what had happened that night. Eventually he was hired back full-time and spent his career at different schools in the district. Within a few years, even whispers of graduation day 1980 faded, and Betamax’s video—trapped on an obsolete format—never surfaced. Randy’s students graduated from solid universities and had nice families and did good things. Sometimes one would be visiting home and remember Randy at the supermarket.
Randy and Joanie saved up enough to buy their rented house. The land around them was developed into some of the most coveted real estate in the area. Prop 13 kept their property taxes low, and Randy ditched his Datsun for an Escort, and, eventually, a series of Taurus sedans.
The principal retired, and twenty years after that—just after the principal passed away—Randy and Joanie sat under cool canopied benches at the recently rebuilt Camino Alto Academy campus, listening to the dedication ceremony for the school’s new engineering laboratory and workshop complex named in the principal’s honor.
A tall man in an expensive suit approached the podium. Donnie—well, it was Donnell now—adjusted the microphone. Darker hair cropped short. Same blue eyes behind stainless-steel eyeglass frames. Tanned, with faded freckles across the bridge of his nose. Donnell had made billions from his stealth defense startup. His company created “advanced machine learning algorithms” and “autonomous flight guidance and precision targeting” for their “economical nano-drone hardware.” Applied Ballistics Corporation became the country’s premier supplier of “smart projectiles” made from sustainable materials. Green, cheap, and easy to assemble in the field.
Donnell spoke about his father, the school, the teachers, and the community in a measured and warm tone. He announced a donation to the school that made the audience gasp. He stepped back. As others spoke, Donnell slowly scanned the audience. For a second, Randy thought Donnell looked directly at him, but Donnell’s gaze passed right by.
After the ceremony, Randy waited for Joanie at the entrance to the teacher’s parking lot. He searched for Donnell’s company on his phone and tapped on a video. The first scene showed soldiers folding small laser cut sheets of stiff transparent paper into shapes that looked like razor-sharp miniature paper airplanes. The video graphics pointed out the fire control and navigation circuitry printed on the wings, the recycled battery, the miniaturized high torque motor, the bamboo rotor blades at the rear, and the glaze of explosive material coating everything. Racks of completed planes leaned against a sandbagged wall.
In the next scene, three soldiers were behind a concrete building. Two of them stood several feet apart and held onto thick elastic bands. Between them, the third soldier crouched, leaned back, let go, and slingshotted dozens of the nearly invisible planes into the dusty air. Each one quietly whirred to life and whispered away in multiple directions. The soldiers started laughing as explosions cracked and screams echoed in the distance. Someone had dubbed “Another One Bites the Dust” over the footage.
Randy looked up from his phone and saw a big clump of people headed straight for him, fast. Donnell was in the middle, shaking hands, comfortable in the crowd. Randy couldn’t get out of the way in time. The mass of people pushed him to the side, forcing him off balance.
Comments