LAMENTATION Chapters 1 - 3

LAMENTATION

CHAPTER ONE

“Thanks for calling me in.” Jake Boyd took a seat on the other side of the desk. “Sorry my application was late.”

The high school principal’s name was William Ricks—Billy, he insisted.  With his height and stocky stature, Jake thought he looked like a young Don Williams.

Billy waved off the apology.

“You’re from out of state. It’s fine. You’ve actually got some experience….” He leaned into his desk and pretended to study Jake’s application. “And you’re sure as hell the only one who’s written a book. That’s kind of interesting.”

Jake felt himself redden.

“Ghosts of the San Juan Range, right?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re from Colorado?”

“I grew up here in Kansas and moved to Colorado after teaching in Wichita.”

“Why did you quit teaching?”

“The mountains.”

Billy inched forward in his chair. “We’re a very small, poor school. We lost a good teacher last year.  She decided she wanted to sell her soul.” He coughed into his fist. “She decided she wanted to go to law school. So if we hire you, Jake, I hope you’ll stick around. Small, poor school like this, it’s hard to keep folks here in Shelley. You understand, I’m sure.”

Jake nodded.

Billy continued: “We average about thirty kids per graduating class, so you’ll likely have two classes of tenth graders with about fifteen or so per group. We’ll also probably give you a group of eighth or ninth graders, and then you’ll have other assigned duties, which will differ every year. You’ll get some of these poor kids, and you’ll think, This is hopeless. They go home to nothing, and that’s what you get out of’em. And you gotta do something about it.” He leaned back in his chair. “So what do you do?”

“If you can read a novel, even a short one, and comprehend and analyze it, then you can handle the test.”

“You’re advocating reading novels in the classroom.”

“Yes.”

“Some folks out there would say that’s unfortunately just not a practical use of their time nowadays, novels and short stories. What about the kids who can’t read novels?”

“Start by reading aloud to them.”

“Look at this.”  Billy reached under his desk, retrieved a manila folder, opened it, and slid its contents—two sheets of paper—over to Jake. One was a letter, the other a list of five names.

The letter was very brief, and Jake read it in less than a minute.

It was from the superintendent of Trepid Schools, a nearby district. Regrettably, she was informing Louis Matheson, the Shelley superintendent, that Trepid would no longer be running an alternative learning environment. In other words, keep your troublemakers, Shelley.  We don’t want them anymore.

“And I assume these are the kids?” Jake tapped the list of names.

“That’s right.”

“And they’ll be my responsibility.”

“Only for a couple of hours a day. You understand, we have to share our responsibilities around here.  This is the first year since I’ve been here that Trepid won’t be taking these kids off our hands. We don’t even have a place to put them. Other than this old heap we’re in now, we have one other permanent high school building. It’s got the computer lab and library, and four classrooms. That’s it. If we’d had more notice, maybe things would be different, but as is, we’ve got no place for these kids, and we have nobody to sit with them all day, either.”

“So the plan...?”

“For now, the plan is to put them upstairs. No one else will be up there, so they can’t distract anybody, and all of them can climb stairs. There’s a room up there, very end of the hallway, that’s reasonably clean. We used to have a study hall in it before everybody started worrying about getting sued because of the lack of handicap access. It won’t take much work to turn it into a classroom again. You’ll probably only be up there a couple of hours a day, Jake. The way the schedule looks right now….” 

He nodded to his right, at a corkboard hanging by the window. 

Dozens of paper scraps bearing various course names were tacked to it. 

“Way it’s looking now, second period, you’d attempt to teach the troublemakers some English. I suspect you’d be reading aloud a lot. Then you come back after lunch and watch them nap, if you’re lucky.  We’ll call it their study hall. You object?”

“No sir.”

“Other teachers will have similar duties. Gotta get some math, history, and science into’em somehow.  And if we’re lucky, a little Spanish.”

Billy stuffed the letter and the list of names back in the folder and shoved it aside. He then flashed a subtle smile, and with a calm, deep, Don Williams-like voice said: “Want a quick tour of the campus while we finish this up?”

The high school side of the parking lot consisted of the Rohs Building (pronounced rose, according to Billy) and the “new” building. Connected to the new building by a covered walkway were the administration offices. To the south of the Rohs Building was the gymnasium, and across the parking lot were the cafeteria and elementary school.

It was the Rohs Building that most fascinated Jake.

The structure predated World War II. The origin of its name was its principal architect, Winston Rohs.  The building had at one time flaunted considerable character. It was two stories but looked much taller.  Its gray bricks had once been white. The arched glass over the front entrance had not always been boarded over, and the decorative stonework above and below the windows had not always resembled rotting teeth.

The Rohs’s interior had aged equally as poorly.  The baseboard and crown molding were all original and rotted. The walls hadn’t seen fresh paint since 1974, and the foul green was peeling in many areas and covered in graffiti in others. Most of the bathroom fixtures were original. And the only access to the second floor was the stone staircase across from Billy’s office.

“Superintendent’s name is Louis Matheson,” Billy said as he led Jake across the courtyard between the Rohs and the new building. “Strange old man, but we all love him. But when we talk to him, do me a favor and don’t mention the Rohs Building. I don’t want to hear it.”

CHAPTER TWO

Shelley, Kansas was six blocks wide, three on each side of Route 4, and about seven blocks long, if you counted the Conoco station on the west end of town as part of the community proper.  Downtown Shelley contained an antique shop, hair salon, cafe, and a few boarded-over store fronts. The school campus, which contained both the elementary and high schools (the poor middle-grade kids were simply distributed between the two), was on the eastern edge of town, just north of the highway.

Jake’s rental house was several blocks west of the school, on Shelley’s northernmost edge.  From its back deck, he could sit and listen to the radio and watch the prairie, and though the prairie wasn’t nearly as appealing to him as the mountains, he conceded that, in a way, it demanded more of his imagination.  It did not pull him in, it simply invited him to wonder. 

He was sitting on the deck now, listening to a Royals game that did not interest him.

He thought about the job, which was apparently his, barring a scoffing by the school board. And that wouldn’t happen.

He was thirty-three, still young enough to be naïve about a thing or two, and he hadn’t taught in five years, so of course he could confidently tell Billy Ricks that he would love to teach again.

He shifted in the seat to ease a slight twinge in his back, almost certainly a leftover from his spill in the mountains. 

He was healthy now, though. If he wanted to, he could go back. 

But he didn’t want to.

The six-month period in which he’d researched and written Ghosts of the San Juan Range had been one of the most feverishly compulsive, bizarre periods of his life.  He traveled all over the southwest corner of Colorado, drinking too much, talking to strangers, and working late nights in hotel rooms.  He collected and wrote a dozen different ghost stories—including his own—from various communities throughout the area.

Why?

He didn’t want to say. Certainly, he hadn’t told Billy.

His phone rang.

He killed the baseball game and scraped his phone off the deck.

“Hope you haven’t made dinner plans yet,” Billy Ricks said, “because my wife told me when I got home this afternoon to get the grill going, and that’s what I did, and Lord knows I’ve got more veggies and sirloin on this thing than we can eat.”

“Uncanny timing.”

“I’ve been known for that. Just ask the kids.  You coming?”

“I won’t be a burden?”

“Hell no.  Julie likes to meet all the new hires.”

Steak and vegetables sounded a lot better than the sodium overload he was about to nuke in the microwave.  So he etched Billy and Julie’s address into his memory and told them he’d be there shortly.

The Ricks lived east of town, just off Route 4 on a turnoff called Cloudy Knoll Road. 

Their front yard was expansive and lush, and the back yard was more of the same, all the way back to the wire fence that marked the property line.

Billy led him up on the patio and introduced him to a plump redheaded woman of about fifty.  She said repeatedly that she was very pleased to meet him and told him to make himself comfortable.

“Come over here and take a look at this grill,” Billy said.  “Damn thing’s a Cadillac, isn’t it?”

The Cadillac accommodated gas and charcoal and had a smoker attached to one end.

“I tried to tell Julie that it wasn’t necessary, but she reminded me of all those times I cooked for the whole darn staff. Cooler’s over there.”  He nodded to the right.  “Coke, water, beer, if that’s your thing.”

Jake collected drinks, Billy filled their plates, and they sat down at a table centered beneath a partial cover.

They ate and drank. They talked about the weather, how August was usually much hotter than this.  But then, the weather had been strange for much of the summer.

Billy went to the cooler and replaced his Coke with a Miller.

“I noticed you settled for a soda, too,” Billy said.  “Don’t be shy.  Swap it out.”

Jake did so and took a considerable first drink. 

“Where are you living?” Julie asked.

“Renting a house on Prairie View.”

“Does Macentire still own it?”

“I mail my payment to his address in Salina.”

“He never comes around. You could probably burn the place down and he’d never know it.”

“She fantasizes about burning down half of this town,” Billy said. 

Julie waved him off.  “He exaggerates everything.”

Jake grinned, took another drink of his beer, and Julie asked about the alternative school.

Billy eased back in his chair and burped.  “Trepid washed their hands and put new sheets on the bed.  They told us we can keep our heathens.”

“Can you blame them?”

“I’d have done it years ago.  Poor Jake here is one of the heroes who gets to deal with it.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“Since I didn’t get a lick of advice from Louis or anybody else, I had to make up my own mind.”

“And?”

“And I’m putting’em upstairs, down where the study hall used to be.”

Julie had put a bite of steak in her mouth.  She stopped chewing for a second, then started again, but much slower.  When the bite was out of the way, she said: “Have you asked Louis about this?”

“He won’t care.”

“I bet you’re wrong.”

“Then he won’t stop me.”

Julie glanced at Jake. “Louis plans to have that dreadful old Rohs Building demolished.  He wants a brand new high school.”

“It’ll take a miracle,” Billy said.  “Won’t happen.”

“Billy’s a pessimist, Jake.  Remember that.”

Billy continued: “And since that building isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and since all of those troublemakers are capable of climbing stairs, they can sit up there.  It’s perfect for them.  It’ll be impossible for them to disturb anybody, especially if that upstairs bathroom still works, and I think it does.”

“But you know how Louis feels about that building, Billy.  Particularly the second floor.”

“It’s my call to make.”

“He’s the superintendent.”

“He didn’t make a decision.”

“I assume Louis would be concerned about their safety?” Jake said.

Billy shrugged.  “Among other things.”

CHAPTER THREE

Jake remembered it from his first teaching gig:

No matter how many times you’ve seen your room, no matter how much you do to prepare it, a classroom will always look one hundred percent different, and one hundred percent more intimidating, on the first morning of the school year.

Jake stood by his door and watched the kids enter.

He’d spent most of the spring and summer getting himself back into shape, assuming he knew what he was doing; it was all coming back to him, the nature of the beast, the rules of the game….

But he felt like he’d never done any of this. 

Jake checked for stragglers, entered the room, and shut the door behind him.

The kids looked up.

He retrieved the tentative roster from his back pocket and began to count heads.

After the roll call, he went to the front podium, every eye in the room locked on him.

He took his sports coat off and threw it over an empty desk.

And leaned into the podium.

“I’m Jake Boyd.  I’m going to be your English teacher this year. I taught English in Wichita before I started climbing in the Rockies for a living. We’re going to read and write a lot, and there’s no reason we can’t have fun and get something out of it.”

A hand went up, that of a girl in the middle of the class.

“Remind me your name,” Jake said.

“Becky.”

“Yes, Becky?”

“Why did you move here?”

“I like it here.”

Another hand, that of a young man named Connor.

“Did you ever do anything like hang off a mountain cliff, with your rope about to break?”

Jake thought for a moment. “I fell off a ridge once and hurt my back.”

He scanned the room, inviting more questions or comments. There were only blank faces.

“So here’s the deal.”  He emerged from behind the podium.  “Be respectful.  This goes for all your privileges, from sharpening your pencils to going to the bathroom.”

Nods.  From almost all of them.

There would be those, of course, who’d need further guidance, who would, by God, no matter what, ask to go to the toilet every day, and not just go, but go for half the class.

“If you’re one of those who abuses the bathroom policy, I’ll sniff you out.  See what I did there?”

Giggles.  Laughs.

“Questions?  Comments?”

There were none.

First period ended.  He waited till all seventeen kids had filed out, then collected his things, exited the campus’s newest building, and crossed the courtyard to the Rohs Building. 

The Spanish teacher, a sixty-something man whom Jake had met during one of the school’s workshop days, was waiting for him just outside the second floor’s western-most room.

“Don’t let Billy’s drama get to you, Jake. They’re not so bad.  Good kids, just need help.”

“It’s dark up here.”

“I would say they’ll fix the lights, but that would be foolishness.”  He extended a hand.  “My name is Edgar Hughes.  And you’re….  Jake Boyd?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I’ll leave it with you, Jake.  If they like you, they’ll cooperate, and maybe you can enjoy this time up here in the dark.”

Hughes started for the stairs. Jake entered the classroom.

He set his materials on the teacher’s desk and took a moment to study the scene.

There were two domed light fixtures butted into the ceiling.  Both worked, but they were no match for the gloom; it was as much a part of this cramped cavern as the wood paneling, vinyl floor, and dust.

There were no windows. 

At the very back of the room was a bookcase that contained a dozen or so cobwebs, but no books.

Before him were five students in teetering old desks, arranged in a slight concave crescent.

Three of the kids had their backs to him and their heads down.  Two were facing him, their chins resting on their palms. 

Jake sat down on the desk and retrieved his roll sheet.

“I’m Jake Boyd,” he said.  “Given the student-teacher relationship here, I’d prefer you call me Mr. Boyd.  Let’s all turn around and greet one another, okay?”

No movement.

“Turn around.”

He gave them a few seconds, no movement.

“Turn around!”

Now they began to stir.

Three new faces were eventually before him, all wearing the same What the hell do you want? expression.

“I know you heard me the first two times,” Jake said.

Nobody spoke.  There were a couple of shrugs.

Jake pointed to the student to his left, the class’s only female.  “Let’s start here and go around.  Tell me your name and a couple of things about yourself.”

The girl’s untrusting eyes, he noticed, seemed to always squint.  Her cheeks were high and red.  Her blond hair was tied back.  There was very little weight on her frame.

“I’m Marcy Opalvo.  I’m from here, I’m sixteen, I hate school, and my throat is really sore, but I went to the office about it when I got here and they told me I didn’t have a fever.”

Next was a stocky young man with deep eyes, short hair, and mocha-colored skin.

“Dillon.  Eighteen.  From Kentucky.  I like to sleep.”

Colton Smith was next, a scrawny little sophomore who told him about all the guns he’d fired.  Then Logan Gable, who said his uncle had once run for governor.  Last was a young man who was dressed in tattered jeans and a black Pantera shirt. 

“My name’s Buck Sky,” he said.  “I’ll kill anybody who gives you trouble.”

Jake raised an eyebrow.

“Just kidding.” 


Lamentation is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and a Kindle ebook.