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"Mrs Bell, this is Assistant Principle Gamble. I have your son
with me right now. And we will need to have you come in this morning
at your earliest convenience."
Doris Bell knew the ringing telephone boded ill, any day that it rang
at 9:25. Nobody called at that hour, except the school. "Yes, of
course, I will be right over."
Ricky Bell was just another confused sixteen year old, and he dressed
the part. Black baggy pants, white t-shirt, black jacket, and moussed
hair. Trying to show his independence by dressing exactly the same as
every other sixteen year old in his group of friends. When the school
district once proposed school uniforms, he was among the first to
protest. "They want to take away our right to be
individuals" was his chant, shaking his fist in the air, among
the odd mix of thirty students at the flagpole that day. It was the
weird coalition of the tough "in crowd" and the geeky
student council members, as the Varsity Stampeders and the Lady
Wranglers sat out that little meeting. But today he was sitting
sullen in "beard's" office, and it wasn't his fault.
Jim Gamble was a small man in a small job. Like Yertle the Turtle, he
was king of all he saw, but what he saw was a suburban high school
and, as assistant principle for student discipline, it was even only
a subset of that small world. The parents called him Mr Gamble,
although he preferred to be referred to by title; but to the kids for
whom he served as overlord, he was known by the disrespectful moniker
'the beard'. It was a sorry insult, but the best they could muster.
For Jim Gamble's most prominent feature was a small, neatly trimmed
goatee, mostly black but now speckled with gray, and befitting a beat
era poet more than a suburban school flunky. It reminded the parents
of Mitch Miller, and kids of a Moslem holy man. But it was his trademark.
Ricky waited in the lobby, slouching out of one of the turquoise
stack chairs that ringed the three walls opposite Beard's open door.
Beard loved to leave the door open while he loudly called parents on
his speaker phone. And he would be the first to say he was not on an
ego trip. "Mrs Brewster, this is Assistant Principle Gamble. I
have your son with me right now...." But Ricky was already
miles away.
I need a job! A job means money, and money means a car, and a car
means freedom. Freedom to come and go as I please. Freedom to go and
never come back. Never come back to this sorry little armpit of a
town and its judgemental grown-ups that have no idea what it means to
be sixteen years old and trapped in a prison. When I am gone, I wont
ever even look back.
"Richard...". The soft and wavery voice snapped him back to
the present. "Mom, call me Ricky".
"Richard, what happened this time? What am I supposed to do?"
"Ahhh, Mrs Bell", came the bellowing voice as the little
man with the oversized gut stood up from his desk and strode to the
open door. Beard was never out of his uniform, black polyester pants
with matching black polyester suit coat over a white cotton shirt and
too short black necktie, with his thinning hair oiled down. His
portly frame and shoulders-back military strut always emphasized his
resemblance to Oliver Hardy, to anyone not already a victim of his
honed efforts to exacerbate tension and fear. "Please, come in
Mrs Bell. Richard, you can wait here" and with that the door was
closed and Ricky was spared the ongoing monologue of condescending intimidation.
Cigarettes. What a stupid reason to be sitting in this chair, in this
office, in this prison. Why can't everybody just leave me alone. When
I am gone, I wont ever even look back.
"Richard, please come in". And he stood and sauntered
through the now open door, and slouched into the soft cushioned vinyl
chair with the 20 year old wood armrests. "Richard, honey, you
know that you can't be smoking in school. I've been called in before
about this."
"I WASN'T SMOKING! Why won't anybody listen to me?"
"Mr Gamble says that you and your two friends were in the boys
rest room with a pack of cigarettes."
"They aren't my friends and the cigarettes were lying on the
window sill. Besides, where is Billy Wheeler? He was in the rest
room, too. Why isn't his mother here?"
"Mr Gamble, I'm confused. You said they were smoking and Richard
says they were not. What exactly is the story? The whole truth if you
don't mind".
"Well, possession of tobacco by minors is illegal in this city
and grounds for expulsion. Your son and his friends have been
repeatedly warned about this infraction. I will not have my school
disrupted by ..."
"YOUR school? Oh, I see now." Ricky felt his eyes slowly
open and his mouth slowly drop. For once, the wavering in Mrs Bell's
voice wasn't from fear or worry, it was from slowly growing anger.
"You saw the cigarettes on the window sill and saw these three
standing there. That was enough for you to be judge and jury. Ricky
is right, you are a ..." but her voice caught in her throat.
"Rick, don't you have a class you are supposed to be in right now?"
"Yes, mom, gym."
"And if you approve Assistant Principle Gamble?",
with sudden emphasis on his preferred manner of address.
"You can go, Richard, but you have been warned again. I am
adding this to your permanent record."
"We will see. Richard, go to class, and come straight home
tonight, I mean it. I will be spending a few minutes here with Mr
Gamble right now. And please close the door for us."
Ricky, stood up and nodded absently, seemingly lost in confusion. He
instinctively leaned over and kissed his mom's cheek, stepped out of
the room, then caught himself in embarrassment and tried to chase the
feeling away. He stood for a second and shook out his arms and
shoulders and hands, like a weightlifter approaching the barbells.
Then he focused on just being himself, checked the collar on his
jacket to make sure it was just so, and stepped into the hallway just
as the bell rang.
The halls slowly filled with students, and now he needed to get to
his math class. "Hey Ricky! I hear Beard got you and Bean
busted, man." It was Psycho. "Man, you won't believe it,
man." And Ricky fell into step as his voice drifted off among
the cacophony of adolescence filling the halls at Deerfield High. |
