Barkley cleared his throat, feeling lighter on his feet, but as usual—hungry. Always hungry. Ten pounds lost, pants hanging off hip bones like loose hinges on a double-wide door. Outside the windows, a white mess of blizzard was coming down. Inside, the twenty-nine drooping heads in the class stared at Barkley, the snow, or the smudged tiles on the floor. Barkley tried to focus, but he couldn’t stop eyeballing the cardboard cutouts of elves and Christmas trees and halos that the student council committee had plastered to every spare bulletin board and drywall slab in the school. Maybe he was used to the streamlined, secular attitude of his public school upbringing, but there was almost something force-fed about all the Christmastime propaganda. The merriment was everywhere, suffocating, each holiday emblem stapled roughly and routinely and without even a grazing eye for interior design. Only his desk was untouched—a cedar rectangle of antique compartments and swollen drawers, each space stuffed with more and more essays, unit plans, and off-center, photocopied handouts. Mounted on the desk were a late 1990s Dell computer, two containers of ballpoint pens, and a black stapler, forever out of ammunition.
Barkley waited, pacing as the class completed their three-minute independent reading response.
“Sixty seconds,” he called out.
He gazed down at his feet, clad in black Banana Republic leather loafers—bought after his second Eastwick paycheck. The shoes seemed a little too nice, a little too mainstream, but the real problem was his feet. He’d noticed them three days ago, marveling that he’d never seen it before. They suddenly appeared to be shrunken and tiny, almost offensive to his senses. Bent and precarious, these shriveled, bipedal means of awkward transport confounded him every time he glanced at the floor. Bizarrely, this thought was a new one. He’d woken up in Chicago, seen them peeking out from under his sheets, and thought: just too damn small.
“Finish up whatever you’ve been writing,” Barkley said, glancing at the smooth contours of his desk.
There was truly nothing there. At first, he’d been unsure of how to personalize the desk. Was he really supposed to? And what did personalize mean? To reveal the real Barkley, perhaps. Yet, if he brought in his ceramic hobbit figurine and the pterodactyl paperweight and the Back to the Future hand-painted model DeLorean, it would only cause his students to drop the nerd guillotine upon him. So that left traditional nonsense like miniature Chicago team pennants or a couple of framed photographs of his family, standing among the hair-ruffling winds of Lake Michigan. Boring. But better than nothing? In the end, he couldn’t decide, and simply left his desk clean and bare as a sand trap. But he did keep the pterodactyl paperweight in the second desk drawer from the bottom, just in case he changed his mind.
In front of him, the class gradually began to lay their pens and pencils down—soldiers all too willing to surrender their arms.
“We done? Yes? Good. Let’s get started then. Get right into it. What is Tim O’Brien saying here, guys? I want you to think of this specifically in terms of each person’s individual cargo. Why would their personal belongings matter? Why not talk memories? Or give flashbacks? Why use actual objects?”
Barkley waited two seconds, three, then stood still by the wooden podium for a full, unwinding ten—an eternity. Todd Brennan looked vacant. The radiator underneath the windows popped. Shuman had what appeared to be a dozen paper clips assembled into some kind of hook.
“Put that away, Shuman.”
“But it’s for science class.”
“No, it’s not. Did you read the story?”
Shuman held up the paper clip hook. “For you, Mr. Brunson. The first gift of Christmas.”
The class chuckled, and Barkley fumed, snatching the device and tossing it behind his desk. On the walls, the posters for Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe seemed weather-beaten—the corners coming undone.
“Listen up. Who read The Things They Carried? Anyone?”
The radiator popped three times, metallic clanks making Barkley think of his father, trapped in some kind of full-body CAT scan. Elise, sitting in the back, was texting, half discreetly. Not even worth it, Barkley thought. Forty-eight more hours and they’d all escape. And then, a sharp, deflating memory of his old self, as the bumbling student teacher, struck him in the temple like a barroom dart. He straightened up and raised his voice.
“Who read?” he asked again. “You guys shouldn’t be afraid to admit that you’ve done the work and read a good story. Come on, it’s the Vietnam War. I’m not assigning you bad stories.”
“I read,” Shuman said. “It actually was pretty good.” Gradually, Gilroy, Tolliver, and Jennifer Alston followed suit and raised their hands.
“I did skim,” Elise said. “I mean, I really did look at it.”
“Fine. Now pay attention, class. I know it’s two days before winter break, and I feel it, too, but we’re going to have a discussion here. We’re going to finish strong. Let’s go. Shuman, I’m starting with you. Listening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everyone else in here listening?”
The class mumbled their assent.
“All right. So every character in this story is in grave danger. Their lives can be taken away at any moment. It’s the Vietnam War. It’s the jungle, with sickness, traps, enemy bullets and mortars, little food, little water. Life is cheap. One minute alive, one minute dead. Imagine that, guys. Walking through a dense, humid, green wall of jungle, knowing that at any moment, a bullet could have your name on it. Okay? Got it, Shuman?”
“Got it.”
“Now, why does it matter what these soldiers are carrying? Why does it matter more here, than it would if they were back in America, walking into the Gap or Jamba Juice or Caribou Coffee? When they’re so close to death, why do we need to know what’s in their pockets? Shuman, what have you got?”
“Well, um, I don’t know. Because it’s all they have?”
“Okay,” Barkley said. “I hear you. That’s a start. What do you mean it’s all they have?”
“Um … like, they could die any minute, right?”
“Right.”
“So, if you know you’re going to die any minute, you’re not going to carry, like, money or stupid stuff. You don’t need credit cards. I mean, it’s the jungle.”
Barkley saw the eyes of the class on him now. “Guys, you hear what Shuman is saying? If you know you’re going to die at any minute, certain things don’t matter, do they? You wouldn’t need to carry certain items, like money and credit cards. What else?”
“Eyeliner,” Maggie Tolliver chirped, from the back of the class.
“Good, right, makeup is out the window. Who needs it? Appearance isn’t that important. What else?”
“Car keys?” Todd Brennan said.
“Sure, keys, stuff like that. Typical things you use for everyday civilian life. There’s a lot you wouldn’t need. Now, what does O’Brien say these men are actually carrying? Give me an example from the text.”
“I don’t get this,” Todd Brennan said.
Wolverine raised his hand. “I’ve got this, Mr. B.”
“Go,” Barkley said, feeling the current of the room change.
“So, okay, it’s, like, what you actually care about, or what is a necessity, these dudes are carrying. I forget what page, but like, they say a couple things that the soldier really gets worked up about, like a picture of his girlfriend, and his favorite radio, and then some kind of emotion, like fear. Or something. I don’t know. But in the book it keeps getting listed like that. It’s the important stuff, and then it’s the emotional stuff. Whereas here in Downers Grove, there might be a whole extra layer of random items—iPhones and whatnot that keep us from seeing the real things we’re carrying. And then, Mr. Brunson, beyond those layers is like, life, man … life beyond the layers, the ties which bind. You know, Plato, Aristotle—”
Barkley gave him the thumbs-up. “Okay, I’ll stop you there. But the thing is, you’re right. Before you went overboard you were absolutely right. Think about the contrast of—”
There was a rap at the door. Barkley saw Margaret Carey’s head peering through the window. She waved him forward.
“Okay, class, good work. I’m going to step outside, you all just, um, catch up on your reading, all right?”
“This is still too much symbolism, even if it makes sense,” Elise said, groaning.
“No, this story is pretty decent,” Shuman said. “You guys just aren’t paying attention. Right, Mr. B? See how I just stood up for the story?”
Barkley strode into the hallway and closed the door behind him, facing Margaret Carey, whose presence evoked the smell of mothballs and rubbing alcohol. Her floppy brown hair, thick glasses, yet another maroon dress—she looked the same as always, but with strange shadows under her eyes. Lack of sleep? Hard to tell.
Margaret Carey had been as kind as a cartoon grandmother during the first months of classes, bustling into his classroom to offer help, fussing over the smallest concerns, and relaying gossip about the other English teachers. But as Barkley became more and more confident in the classroom, Carey had smiled at him less and less. And even her gossip became more malicious. It was like a friend who first revealed her pottery collection, before opening the curtains on all the guns. For instance, the story from a week ago, about the recently pregnant Ellen Hennessy, who’d told Carey she could no longer run Yearbook due to her maternity leave. I don’t know, Carey had said to him, she just might be putting herself in a precarious position, if she prefers continued employment. Baby or no baby.
Barkley had walked away from that particular encounter with his thoughts doing lazy shark circles in his brain. Baby or no baby. Each time he convinced himself that Margaret Carey hadn’t just confided the idea of firing a pregnant teacher, another dorsal fin popped up, the bubbles breaking the surface, and he heard the loopy growl of her voice: Baby or no baby.
But he had to be okay. Safe, even. Just last week, another parent had called in to offer positive words—this time Shuman’s mother. She’d dialed Danny Peters and said, I don’t know what Mr. Brunson is doing, but my son is actually reading. We don’t even have to argue with him anymore. Barkley had been filled with pride for days, imbued with that unique glow that came from producing an evolution—however small, however obviously fragile—in another person. Getting Shuman to read. It was an event so tiny, so tenuous, that Barkley felt like he was holding a feeble mockingbird in cupped hands. If he banged into a wall, or oversold a lesson, or pushed for too many pages, the bird would screech and flap away, changing back to what it had been. But so far, he had done it, and Shuman came in every day nodding and discussing, and Barkley gave his sarcasm a pass.
“Barkley,” Carey said, throwing a noose around his reverie. “I’m talking to you.”
Barkley centered himself and nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry. Just thinking about the lesson. Some great short stories we’ve been discussing lately.”
She stared at him. The blue-and-yellow hallways were quiet as tombs.
“So, what can I help you with, Margaret?”
“I still haven’t given you my formal observation report,” Carey said, tartly. “It’s due before break begins.”
“Really? I mean, you’ve been so helpful when you’ve sat in on class, and I thought those counted as—”
“Those were informal observations. I told you that. Of course, you remember that there’s a rubric. And I think you recall my suggestion against using so much PowerPoint. I prefer writing on the board. And at this time, I have to say, I haven’t seen any changes.”
Barkley’s mind swam, and he dove back in with the sharks. He taught with PowerPoint occasionally, mainly because his undergraduate teaching program had constantly stressed the use of technology in the classroom. It was a buzzword during applications and interviews. What are your philosophies of education, Mr. Brunson? And the buzzwords shot out like salvos from a battleship. Differentiating instruction! Using technology! Managing 504 plans correctly! Et cetera. But in the time warp that was the Catholic—Catlick?—school system, modern buzzwords didn’t seem applicable. It was like a medieval community, all bell towers and castle ramparts and well water, witnessing the passing of a UFO. Carey, the most old-school of any teacher he’d met, tended to distrust unidentified futuristic teaching styles more than most.
“I’ve really tried to balance it out,” Barkley said. “It’s difficult. I can write completely on the board, but sometimes it helps to give the kids visual aids.”
Carey glared at him, dark eyes magnified. “Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying, Barkley. I simply asked for a decrease in PowerPoint, and it’s something I haven’t seen.”
Barkley ran a slideshow of past lessons. Short stories—“Crazy Sunday,” “The Killers,” “Cathedral,” “A & P.” Had he actually been using PowerPoint with great frequency? Did it matter? His brow felt damp. No, it didn’t matter; what mattered was agreeing with the woman. He would tear the intestines from the ceiling projector’s belly if it meant Carey wasn’t on his back, hounding him like he was poor Ellen Hennessy.
“Absolutely, Margaret, you’re right. I think you will definitely see progress this time around. I’m sorry about that. It will be fixed.”
“It’s important to put the children first, Barkley.”
Barkley felt himself recoil. And then, the pressing question: why was she having this conversation now, while he had a class going on?
“Yes, yes, I agree completely,” he said, clenching his fists.
“And this still leaves the issue of your missing teaching observation, to be done by me.”
“Well, good thing we caught it! I guess any time in the next two days. We’re discussing The Things They Carried right now. It’s really, really fruitful for classroom discussion, and very timely, and—”
“Do you know why we’re in this position, Barkley? Why we haven’t completed the observation yet?”
At the end of the hallway, Barkley caught the eye of Mike Dobbs, who was carrying a stack of photocopied instructions on frog dissection. Dobbs saw Carey and mock-gagged. Then he put his hand into a makeshift gun, raised it to his temple, and pulled the trigger, exaggerating the headshot. Thank God for Dobbs, Barkley thought.
“Barkley,” Carey hissed.
“Yes, yes, I’m trying to remember the reason. I’m not sure. I thought you sent an e-mail, or maybe spoke with me in person, and said we had to get this done.”
“It was e-mail. And I asked you to give me a date to come in. You never responded. It was crucial that you respond, and this was not accomplished.”
“Wait,” Barkley said. “Wait. I talked to you about this a couple weeks ago, one-on-one. I said you could come in anytime this week or last week. We talked about the short story unit.”
“I don’t remember that,” Carey said softly.
Barkley looked back at the end of the hallway, but Dobbs was gone. Carey adjusted her glasses. Barkley felt his back against the classroom door.
“We spoke about it in your office,” Barkley said.
“I don’t remember that, and in terms of the e-mail, there was no reply. No reply, Barkley, tells me you’re not putting the children first.”
Barkley felt as if the hallway had been doused with freezing winter air. Something was happening. It wasn’t gradual, it wasn’t a slow evolution, it was happening right now and he couldn’t figure out what it was. He remembered back when he’d been getting his teaching degree, his instructor Ted Vera had warned the class to always respond to e-mails. It was crucial. Even if conversation was easier, even if a response didn’t seem necessary, always follow with the electronic response. Cover your bases, Vera had said. And Barkley had always wondered, until now, what exactly he had meant.
“You’re right,” Barkley said, feeling his throat catch. “You’re right. I should have responded. I thought we talked about it in person, but I can see how an e-mail would have made everything clearer.”
Carey peered into his classroom. “You should probably return and get your class in order. They appear discontented.”
Barkley nodded, mumbled, and unclenched his hands so they could go around the doorknob. Then he thought, maybe, it could be smart to—
“One thing, Margaret. Some good news, actually. Danny Peters let me know that the Shuman family called in to say some good things about the class. They said Shuman was actually reading on his own, you know, autonomously, and completing all the assignments without having to be nagged. They seemed really happy. So, I just wanted to relay that—because that seems like good news, right? Something positive. He’s come a long way, and I’m … I’m … um … Margaret?”
Margaret Carey turned and walked away, heels clacking like gunshots.
Barkley blinked. He realized his teeth were biting down on his lower lip. Carey continued down the color-smeared hallway, head down, barreling past the Christmas decorations like an ancient but incensed reindeer. Barkley tasted bile in the back of his throat. He’d had parents calling in to say what a good job he was doing—Mrs. Shuman had been the fourth that he knew of. Dobbs said he was doing great. But none of that explained what had happened. And as Barkley felt yet another awful memory of student teaching hit him in the temple, he realized he didn’t feel deflated—he felt angry. A white-hot rage, a burning egg deep inside his chest, ready to hatch and spew fire.
For the rest of the day, he taught furiously, prodigiously. He wove eloquent, winding monologues about the nature of war and what human beings carry and the thought that maybe, just maybe, there was always a war going on, both before and after the cannons fired. He threw ideas like birdseed upon the class, he was a whirling dervish of feverish, nearly feral ideas. He split the classes into warring factions and made them discuss aggressively, he clamored for an anonymous poll on the abstractions people lug inside them, he had the students plot out graphs and pie charts of their own carried items, measuring importance, size, and frequency. He paced, listened, raged, took notes, and diagrammed on the board as if he were plotting an amphibious landing in Europe. By fifth period, he felt the sweat leaking through the pores of his undershirt, collecting on his neck, armpits, crotch, knee pits. Good. Keep it coming. By eighth, it felt like a Bic razor had been run along the inside of his throat. Each word of encouragement was scratchy and coarse. His feet, his tiny feet, those wobbly excuses for structural support and mobilization, sent pulse beacons of hurt from his heels to his brain. He forgot about them.
He hurled his bag underneath his desk at the end of the day. No, he thought, it wasn’t fair, he always put the children first, what an insult, like being slapped with a glove by your own mother, except Margaret Carey wasn’t his mother, she was an imposter, a wild, senile Doberman who would have been long retired if this were a public school, but somehow, here, she was allowed to run free. And now she was on the loose, setting her lasers on him just like she had with Ellen Hennessy, but guess what, guess what? He wasn’t lying down. He was going to out-teach the entire school. Sure, maybe there were some legends in here, and he wasn’t in this to topple hallowed monuments, but he was going to erect his own, he was going to lesson plan until he was bloody, unplug his PlayStation 3—beer he would allow, yes, beer was fine—but he would decimate all other distractions, he would crush, pulverize, incinerate, and liquefy any prejudices this woman had and in the process get these kids so jacked on reading, so skilled at composition, it was a veritable literary army he would create, storm troopers with the minds of poets, muscle-bound GIs with lethal training in Fitzgerald, Updike, Hemingway, and Carver.
When he caught himself thinking about Faulkner, and his first encounter with Ginny at the bookstore, he allowed himself a grim, teeth-grinding chuckle, staring out at the continuous parade of blinding snow. No, he would not release his anger, his pride, his frustration, he would not laugh, he was going to bottle this feeling—age it in bourbon barrels, lay it down in a dark cellar. Get it strong. Good. He was glad she’d insulted him. It was excellent. He’d been pissed on for too many years by Charlie and his disapproving father and by the faces of girls who, instead of judging or ridiculing, didn’t even register him on their radar. But now he had the girlfriend and he had the teaching job and he was going to drive his stake into the sand. Not only was he not going anywhere, he was going to win. And all of Eastwick would be forced to admit it.
Before he left, Barkley reached into the second drawer from the bottom in his desk and pulled out the pterodactyl paperweight. It was about four pounds, five inches tall, with detail even a paleontologist would love—sharply defined bone and wing structure, waxy yellow skin, beak open to reveal rows of glinting silver teeth. At the bottom, its clawed feet had snagged a wriggling, slippery-scaled, prehistoric fish. Below the fish was the dense metal square that served as the weight. He’d gotten the pterodactyl at a county fair up in coastal Michigan, where his family had vacationed for years. All he remembered of the fair was fluttering county flags and a woman with a graying beehive of hair, watching him as he spotted the dinosaur. As a ten-year-old child, he’d clutched it to his chest, displayed it by his bed like an athletic trophy, and written stories just so the pterodactyl could weigh the pages down. And here, now, his old friend was back. Barkley raised it in the air.
“Cheers, Margaret Carey,” he said, even though it was only him and the paperweight and the snow against the windows. “Cheers,” he repeated, feeling that white-hot rage in his throat, and brought the pterodactyl down like a gavel.