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Morgasma PAGE
TWO: My mother told me years later that Mr. Burns had had to leave town under the cover of night after being found under the covers with a male student. I couldn't help but feel a twinge of delight at the karmic retribution. After all, his stringent interpretation of the tardy bell had set in motion the bitch squad that was about to swarm and attack and throw my bad ass into survival overdrive just to be able to complete the school year. "To the office," he repeated. "But I'm here. The bell hadn't even stopped ringing. I was over the threshold before -- " He just shook his pedophiliac head. The class stared. Nobody spoke. They all knew I was about to be suspended which could wreck my G.P.A. and my beautiful college plans. Or I'd have to opt for the humiliating alternative: to work it off in manual labor for two weeks after school. I stared at the chalkboard. The carved-up geometric sentence that would re-define my future came into focus. Subject: Cynthia. Verb: is about to get. Object: the social ass kicking. Prepositional phrase: of her seventeen-year-old life. I stared at him, my belly starting to burn, heart revving up. Knowing I had been late so many times but that I really wasn't technically late on this day. And feeling so silly in my short-short skirt holding my tower of books. I looked back at the diagrammed sentence on the board. It said something about Mrs. Jones delivering fresh-baked bread to her invalid aunt. Robot-like, his fat little head kept rocking back and forth. This was where I needed a break. Dream style. His bad guy English teacher boss needed to distract him just long enough for me to diagram the next sentence so perfectly that he'd be stunned and forget I had been late at all. I waited. No voice over the intercom. No fire drill. No fight in the hall. His square Barney Rubble head just wagged back and forth, and now he was pointing toward the office. I turned. I walked out . . . and hooked a left back out the exit. I heaved the tower of books into my cool car and flew home to devise my way out of this real-life mess. When I called to tell the school secretary I wasn't feeling well that morning and would be in later to conduct the tea, I got transferred to the ex-Marine who was our principal. The woman who transferred me happened to be the mother of a bona fide mid-level Mean Girl, Marcia Hayden. A sergeant of the bitch squad, not a high-ranking officer. Not a leader. (No one looks up to the baton twirlers, and she was good. Competitive good. Flame throwing, sequin good.) She had run from Mr. Burns' class to the office to turn me in. I negotiated my hard labor penalty, came back to school, handled the tea, cleaned up with a couple of other cheerleaders, then ducked into Mr. Conner's third period History class. It didn't matter that I was late here. Mr. Conner knew that the tea was my job. He wasn't smart like Mr. Burns. But a good man. With an outstanding Grecian Formula-blue-black toupee. The class was watching a film. The room was dark. I ducked under the beam of light, and as I sat down, I noticed that no one was in their seats around mine. The projector was humming, and the film was loud. Something about the acquisition of Hawaii. I saw that everybody had moved to the perimeter of the dark room. Everybody but Marcia Hayden, the Judas of my tardiness. "Who the hell do you think you are!?" Marcia shouted, competing with the narrator who had segued to something about Queen Liliuokalani's being incarcerated for her supporters' having stashed a weapons cache in her garden after she had resumed her throne. They never revolted. She had never even known about the weapons. "You think you're so much better than everybody else! You think you're hot shit!" Marcia was screaming now. Foamy spit flew from her mouth. I remember feeling it spray my face as hers contorted as she lambasted me for thinking something I'd never even considered. That I was better than everybody else? I felt like maybe I worked harder than everybody else. But, like, hello, how else was I supposed to veil the rampant insecurities etched into the bedrock of my psyche by my critical father? Thing is, I never thought I was better. And was that a reason to unleash this attack dog of a torch tosser -- for her going for my throat? And for none of the people who pretended to be my friends for my entire life to come to my defense? What had I done to them? Marcia was only the henchman. Who took her job to heart. The schemers were other "it girls." My best friends. How long had they been scheming to circle their chairs and watch their chosen gladiator take me down? It was a very public persona I was sporting. Granted in the smallest of young fish bowls. Still, that was my world. The verbal flogging continued for what felt like an hour while crimson-faced Mr. Conner shouted for her to "Shut up!" He slammed the lights on. I'd never seen him emit any emotion higher on the intensity scale than snippy. Here he lost it. Meanwhile, I did nothing. For the first time in my life, I didn't fight back. Marcia had blindsided me. This was a new kind of verbal thrashing, and I was unprepared. I'm embarrassed now to confess for how long after this event I dreamed of pummeling her into a puddle of smoldering sequins.
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"To
the office," he said.
