Howard Banning
The tortured teacher
CHAPTER ONE
Linda White pulled down her skirt so it would reach her knees as she began walking toward the administration building at Marley High School in Marley, California. If you didn't, she reminded herself, all the boys would be staring at your legs all day long.
Linda hurried into the building, saying, "Hello," to the few students she recognized from the first week of class. She wanted to keep making a good impression on the administrators, since it was her first job and she was years away rom getting tenure.
Besides, she and her husband Steve had sunk everything into this move into Southern California, leaving Ohio just a few weeks before. He'd gotten a job with a micro computing firm and after weeks of frantic phone calling around the Los Angeles area, she'd found this job of teaching world history to high school students.
It had been a change, a big one. The kids amazed Linda. Most of them, except for a few hippies and a sprinkling of blacks bussed into the school from downtown, tried to act and look like movie stars. They all had sun tans and blonde hair and expensive clothes that were usually worn as tight as humanly possible.
Well… it was a job that paid well and she and Steve needed every last penny to help pay for their house's mortgage. Besides, the staff at the school was pretty nice. They'd already been able to make some friends with a few of the younger teachers at the school.
She strolled into the faculty room and breathed a sigh of relief. At least in here you didn't feel like you were constantly on stage. Everyone was more or less equal and you didn't have the constant creeping fear that some kids might freak out on something.
"Hi, Linda!" five or six different voices chorused. "Hello, everyone," she said and flashed a big smile. People always told her it was her biggest physical asset, that smile. She was cute, they'd say, never pretty. Perhaps it was the smile that detracted from people noticing a nearly perfect body that was always clad in very sensible clothes. Like today, where she was wearing a white ruffled blouse and a plaid skirt. The one problem she'd worried about when she accepted the job at the high school was that there would be lots of big strong boys making eyes at her. It was silly, of course, but sometimes she'd feel oddly unprotected, maybe because her husband Steve was only her size about five-foot-five and not particularly muscular.
But everything had worked out fine so far she had no complaints, although it was clear to her that she was boring the daylights out of the kids in her class by talking about the Ancient Greeks and Romans. She'd always considered Alexander the Great one of the most fascinating figures in history. But the kids in her class, save just a few of them, would fall asleep if they had the chance. Since they had to sit, they'd pass notes instead. But Linda had been advised that as long as no one actually disrupted her lecture severely, there wasn't really too much to worry about.
"Let me tell you," Dan Jencks, who taught geography, said at the "Welcome Back Faculty" party a few days after school had started in early September. "As long as no one tried to hold you up with a gun, be grateful. Just keep on talking, make it as interesting as you possibly can and perhaps some of it will eventually seep into their thin little heads. You could do so much worse than this. Guys who I went to school with and are now teaching in the tough parts of town now tell me that they carry a gun with them at all times. Believe me, this is a school."
She couldn't really figure out why this man, who looked to be in his early 30's, was confiding in her. So she said, "Well, Dan, I appreciate your telling me that, but I'm not really sure why you brought it up, if you don't mind my asking you."
"Of course I don't mind," he said quietly, almost conspiratorially. "Look, you seem like a nice person. I just want to warn you that occasionally things go bad at this school. I can't really explain why except to say that Jack O'Neill just isn't cut out to be a principal. He won't crack down sometimes and none of us can figure out why. Also, he occasionally picks on some new member of the faculty if he doesn't think that they're obeying him to a T and really drives them crazy. The best way to avoid a hassle with him is to just be subservient as hell, if he says 'Jump!' then you be damn sure to ask him, 'How high?'"
She had only met Jack O'Neill twice and he seemed to be fairly harmless. A middle-aged man with graying hair and someone who could probably use some time running a few laps around the track she had concluded. Probably drinks too much and probably thinks he's really hot stuff for running this high school.
She hadn't even thought of him for a couple of days prior to that morning when he walked into the faculty room and tapped her on the shoulder. "Excuse me, Mrs. White," he softly said, "if I'm not wrong, you've got second period free. Could you come by my office then for a conference? It's nothing urgent, but I'd like to discuss a few things with you, if you don't mind."
"Sure no problem, Mr. O'Neill," she said. And she thought nothing of it, as he walked out of the room until she noticed that the constant chatter in the faculty room had almost ceased. Everyone was not really looking at her, yet not looking away, either.
She walked over to Dan Jencks and Raymond Powell, a math teacher, aware that everyone seemed to be sort of looking out of the corners of their eyes at her. I'd better just talk about normal stuff for a while, she thought, this is truly strange. "Hi Dan," she said brightly as she slid into a chair. "Hi, Ray. How's it going?"
"Fine, Linda. Just fine. How are you? You're looking good today," came the replies.
"Just fine. So what's new?"
Dan took a breath and said, "Just watch yourself, Linda. O'Neill is just one weird cookie. Did he ask to see you this morning?"
"Yeah."
"Well, just don't do anything crazy," he said somberly. Then he laughed. "I'm sorry. You're smart. I know you won't do anything silly."
"Sure Dan, don't worry about me," she said as first period bell rang. All over the room, final gulps of coffee were thrown down throats and final puffs of cigarette smoke were inhaled.
"Lets go get 'em, team," said Bella Rogers, who taught girls Physical Education. This always brought a laugh forth even though she said it every morning. "Let's nail those little bastards good."
Well, that was normal, Linda thought, but Dan and Ray had certainly been acting oddly. "Whooaoh-oh, listen to the music," chorused the Doobie Brothers over the loudspeaker system as everyone rushed, to get to their first class. "Whooa-oh-oh, listen to the music, all the time."
It was a good song, she thought, and it made her forget any weirdness. God damn, but it was great to be out in California instead of freezing out in Ohio. It was about 80 degrees right now, and it would be 90 before the day was out. She could not remember anything like the Doobie Brothers or the Beach Boys being played over school loudspeakers or people at a high school feeling like they wanted to be there. How bad could Jack O'Neill be if he didn't mind letting a little music into people's lives to start the day?
It wasn't that being at school was the be-all and end-all of her life. If she could have, she would have rather just stayed cuddled in Steve's arms in bed. It was marvelous just to lie there and feel in love. "We take a walk, the sun is shining down, burns my feet as they touch the ground," sang the Beatles over the loudspeaker. "Good day, sunshine, good day, sunshine, good day sunshine…"
Steve was so nice. He'd read poetry to her, he'd play the guitar. They'd go to the beach together almost every free day. She was proud to show off in her tiny string bikini, keeping her arms wrapped around Steve's waist to emphasize that although anyone could look as much as they wanted, that had better be the limit of any approach to her. She loved it, getting a tan and feeling the anticipation of that night in bed building all afternoon as they sat on the beach, just sort of dozing in each other's arms.