"Good day, gentlemen!"
Rarely does she greet her class with such mawkish enthusiasm. Usually she snaps terse commands ("You will now turn to page 237 of your text!"), this has always been her way, and the more diligent students, the handful of overachievers, the ones with the instinct to sense trouble, hide behind their books as if for protection. A few ogle her with smoldering lust, their bodies steamy fumaroles oozing musk and sweat. They dream of a torrid love affair that ends in madness and death. Most of the boys, however, are crass and guileless and take no interest in her at all. They sit with their arms folded, their chins drooping, their eyes puffy and crusted over with sleep. Among the latter is the culprit, the plagiarist. He slouches low in his chair, yawns, sighs, snorts with disdain. His boredom she can accept. It's his lack of respect that she finds so irritating.
"I finished reading your essays last night, gentlemen. The majority were adequate. Others were quite disappointing…to say the least."
She shoves the paper at the culprit and searches his eyes for that defiant glimmer of the psychotic, a quick flash of boiling, seething fury, a glimpse of the wild animal that thrashes around inside his skull and yearns to feast on her bones. They call him the Minotaur and for good reason. His shoulders are enormous, monstrous really. Too much time pumping iron at the gym, not enough time studying at his desk. A child with no priorities and overactive genitals. She has watched him from the bleachers, has seen the carnage he leaves behind on the football field, has heard the screams of agony from his opponents as they are trampled under his powerful legs. Now she waits for him to grab her by the throat, strangle her, toss her body beneath the floorboards, brick her up inside a wall. No, he isn't so imaginative as that. When it comes to death, Americans prefer their guns. Guns are simple. A quick bullet to the head, and it's all over. No one has a sense of the romantic anymore, a flair for the exquisite details of murder.
After handing back the essays she begins her usual routine, pacing up and down the rows of desks, reciting a passage from a composition textbook in a deliberate monotone. Though it has taken many months, she has finally learned to accept the dreariness of this new curriculum. The administration, after much "soul searching", decided that because the majority of her students are primarily, and often exclusively, destined for the worlds of business and law (or, with god's grace, the priesthood), there is no need for a course that analyzes the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. "Our students require a practical writing class," the Jesuits explain with their ingratiating smiles. "A refresher course on grammar and mechanics. You understand."
Yes, she understands. Remediation is what they need. Instead of teaching the great books, she finds herself analyzing the hastily written essays and editorials of partisan hacks. It makes no difference. She lost her passion for teaching long ago and isn't naïve enough to think she can cure these prep school boys of their indolence by injecting them with a douse of intellectual curiosity. They are immune to learning. Regardless of the topic, most students pay no attention to what she has to say. Their intellects have shriveled and turned to dust like old turds baking on the pavement under a blinding white sun. Their interest in academics extends no further than seeking new ways to cheat on exams.
As the hour comes to an end, the students pack up their books and scramble into the hallway, relieved to survive the tribulations of yet another excruciating hour with Batya Pinter. But she won't allow the culprit to leave, no, not before she lustily chastises him.
"Mr. McSweeney!"
The Minotaur sighs. He turns around and swaggers toward her desk. He smiles and lifts his hands, feigning innocence.
"I trust you read my comments on your essay?"
He nods.
"I'll give you until six o'clock to submit a new paper."
He guffaws. "I can't have it done by six o'clock."
"Then I suggest you enroll in this class again next semester. At this point you cannot possibly pass."
"Give me until Monday, okay?"
"No, that won't do."
"But you don't understand. The big game is tomorrow night—"
She crosses her arms. "Mr. McSweeney when I was in high school, we had a thing called standards. My teachers weren't so accommodating, especially with students caught cheating on their term papers. No, I had to submit my own work, and in a timely fashion, or face harsh disciplinary action. Plagiarism is the worst kind of crime. Expulsion is not out of the question."
Why is she boring him with this? She's starting to sound like some confused spinster, rattling off a string of clichés. There was a time, and not so long ago either, when just by sitting at the corner of her desk, crossing her legs, adjusting the hem of her skirt, lowering her voice, batting her eyes in a certain way she could manipulate a boy like McSweeney, make him do her bidding.
"But I can't lose my scholarship…" Suddenly his voice betrays his desperation and cracks a little bit.
"Then do as I say and bring your essay to my office. Tonight. After school. You have until six o'clock. No later. I have a life outside of this classroom, you know."
"But I have to study the playbook and—"
"That's my final offer, Mr. McSweeney. Take it or leave it. Well?"
As he leaves the room and walks through the long tunnel of blue light, he seems to shudder. This boy doesn't see deeply enough into life to understand that she is still a force to be reckoned with. To him, aging is a myth, beauty eternal. He will never grow old, never wear on his handsome face a hardened scowl of defeat and resignation. For the young there is no future, just as there is no past. How easily they shed their memories, like snakes shedding their skins. But life soon leaves an awful and indelible mark. And experience is the most uncompromising teacher of all.
