Antrim, Donald - Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World

“Don’t make me drag you out of there.”

“Pete!”

“Okay, okay. Relax. I was only kidding.” And then, to Hope, this warning: “If you get behind in your lessons you’ll have take-home makeup assignments.”

On the way downstairs I made sure to shut the basement door, locking the bolt securely from the inside, to prevent any more intrusions.

The kids, all nine, were sitting quietly on their trunks. All except Tim, who was still in his brother’s lap, rocking, whimpering.

As I came down the creaking steps David raised his hand. “Mr. Robinson?”

“Yes?”

“I need to change him.”

“Can it wait?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

How very tiresome. “All right, go ahead.” David hoisted his brother and headed for the stairs, but I blocked his path. He said, “It’s best if I do this in a bathroom.”

“I don’t mind if you do it here. You can rest Tim on top of the furnace. The rest of us will continue with class, and you can listen in.”

David didn’t look enthusiastic about changing his little brother on the furnace, but I insisted it was okay, he didn’t have to be squeamish, it wouldn’t distract the rest of us in the least. Finally he gave in and retired to the back of the basement, where, in dim, forty-watt light, he unsnapped Tim’s jumper. I took my place behind the podium. I kept the plumber’s snake by my side. Susy and Brad sat at attention in the first row, ready to jot notes. Matt and Larry hunched forward like hoodlums in their seats. Steven and Sarah, sharing the trunk behind the Harrises’, made a sweet couple. Next came Jane. Near her feet the bison mascot rested on its sunk-in drain grating. I exclaimed, in my best oratorial style, “Everybody, repeat after me. Diversity! Tolerance!”

“Diversity. Tolerance,” said Susy Jordan.

“All of you. Diversity! Tolerance!”

“Diversity. Tolerance.”

“That doesn’t sound very convincing. Louder now. Diversity! Tolerance!”

“Diversity. Tolerance.”

“Much better. Again with feeling. I want to hear you. You too, David. Raise the rafters. Together now. Diversity! Tolerance!”

“Diversity! Tolerance!” the youths chorused.

“Excellent. That’s your class motto. Learn it and don’t forget it.”

It was also, I’d decided, a perfect centerpiece slogan for the mayoral campaign. Listening to those kids chant gave me such a high.

“How’s it going, David?” I called to the boy performing childcare at the back of the room.

“Almost finished, Mr. Robinson,” waving a soiled disposable diaper in the air. Its sweet, rotted-fruit smell filled the room. The Harris twins, having gotten a whiff, held their noses and trembled with church giggles. Getting Matt and Larry to hush was easy — all I had to do was make a reproachful face and subtly caress the copper tail of the plumber’s snake dangling like a live thing over the leather edge of the upended trunk/podium. Meanwhile David was searching in vain for a place to dispose of brother Tim’s used diaper. Missing from the basement was a garbage can. The one available cardboard box was in use as toy storage. I told David to please fold the diaper neatly and slide it beneath the furnace.

“Mr. Robinson?”

“Yes, Susy?”

“What are those spots on your arms?”

She was right. The cuts and scratches, formerly reddish, light abrasions, had, over the course of the night and the early morning, blossomed into purplish volcanic flowering splotches. Had the thorns responsible for these welts contained some malevolent toxin? The pain, now that I paused to think about it, to consider it, was acute. I grimaced, told Susy not to worry, it was nothing, an allergic reaction perhaps; and she said, “There’s a big one on your neck.” Then suddenly Tim was crying again, unintelligible sputtering howls that charged the basement air with anxious chaos. I shouted at David, “Would you mind keeping him quiet?” David stuffed a pacifier in Tim’s face. Sarah, who’d been watching, over her shoulder, the entire changing operation, reprimanded David for his lack of gentleness.

“Mind your own business,” he told her.

Sarah turned to me for support. She was an ace flirt for a toddler; she had those enormous eyes, that moist, father-seducing grin. I think it is fair to say that the feelings she aroused in her teacher are best left, in the interests of seemliness, undiscussed. I said to her, “Generally, methods of child rearing are considered to be discretionary. Who can tell us what ‘discretionary’ means? Anyone? Yes, Susy?”

“Private?”

“Close enough.”

Sarah pouted. Under her breath, yet loud enough to be heard, she growled, “ Monster .”

The whole class tensed. You could feel it. The silence was immaculate, breathless, complete. Even Tim quit his yowling. It broke my heart to have to exercise discipline on a cutie like Sarah. I had no choice. I addressed the class in a sonorous voice, “It is my sad burden to advise you all of the consequences of calumny and slander in the classroom.”

They looked nervous. This at least was gratifying. I waited awhile in order to let the kids worry sufficiently (a tried-and-true discipline technique — abject silence), before continuing, “Sarah, please rise and come forward.”

She got to her feet. Attempted unsteady progress toward the head of the class. She was, obviously, unnerved. I encouraged her to please get herself moving, and I asked her, “What do you think we ought to do with you?”

She gazed floorward. Her shoulders were trembling. Sarah’s soft lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Class, what should we do with Sarah?”

It was only a matter of time before a hand went up. Then another. And another.

“Steven?”

“I think Sarah should apologize.”

“Thank you, Steven. David?”

“Let her stay late after school and write a hundred times or something?”

“Make her do blackboard-washing duty,” offered Jane, though there were no blackboards to wash.

Leave it to Susy. “Expel her.”

After that I didn’t hazard calling on the Harris twins for their suggestions. There’s a limit. I pointed to a musty unlit corner of the basement, where fungus carpeted the floor and web-enshrouded water pipes plunged down through holes in the ceiling. The straight-backed chair, the one from the living room, sat facing a wall.

“Go over there and sit down, young lady. When you’ve decided you feel ready to behave, maybe you can come back and try to be a member of this class.”

Sarah walked to that chair like she thought it was electric. Her auburn-curled head bobbed low; her arms hung at her sides as if drained of life. I couldn’t help noticing how the basement’s lamplight cast Sarah’s shadow onto the dark far wall: as Sarah walked away from the light, so did her shadow — diminishing, rapidly, in height — walk away from us; it was as if a phantom Sarah were speeding away on a long journey. It was heartbreaking. It was too much for Jane, alone at the back of the class, to bear; she broke down sobbing. Tim spit out his pacifier and joined in. The noise became gruesome. I shouted, “Hey! Hey!” as the wailing swelled to higher and higher intensity. Sure enough, the knob of the basement door at the crest of the stairs began rattling, and Meredith’s muffled voice tumbled down from on high. “What’s all that crying? Pete! Why is this door locked?”

“It’s okay, honey. No problem. No need to worry. Everything’s under control,” I called, merrily.

And, to the kids: “Let’s all settle down. All right?”

Then, loudly: “Listen up and I’ll tell you about a time before democracy was born. A time when affliction and suffering were the bread and water of daily life. Ignorance and rampaging diseases governed men’s lives. Diversity in all its forms was punishable by death or imprisonment, and you were guilty until proven innocent.”