The Standard

by Adam Breier
© 1999

Sam ate a few more french-fries and took the hamburger out of its foil wrapper; a dried brown rubbery patty set between the folds of a warm seedless bun. He pushed the lunch tray aside after two bites of the burger and placed the newspaper in front of him. In that room he found peace from students and that was what he wanted. He wanted peace, and that was all.

Sam was in the midst of reading a commentary on the OP-ED page about educational standards when a woman sat in the chair across from him. Her rank breath and generally poor odor preceded every word. It was always this way with her.

“Hi,” she said.

“Yeah, hi,” Sam said, looked up for a brief moment only to immediately look back down at his paper hoping she would understand.

“So…waddaya readin’?” she asked, not understanding.

“Just an article,” he replied without looking up.

She got up out of her seat and walked around the table. She stood directly behind Sam and hung her head over his shoulder, pressing up against his back.

“OOOOOhhhhhhh!! Staaaaaanduuuuhds!!!! Yuh readin’ about standuhds? Well, let me tell you what I think about standuhds. I think we don’t have any at awl!” With each word came the exhalation, a dispersal of breath that didn’t seem to travel forward, but instead went out as far as the air would allow, then fell slowly down onto Sam’s head, over his eyes, and up into his nose.

“Hey, Phil, get over here,” Sam bellowed to a friend who had just entered the room. Ms. Mills sat back down across from Sam and cocked her head around to look at Phil.

She turned back around to face Sam and said, “Do ya’ wanna know whadeye think about standuhds?”

“Didn’t you just tell me?” Sam replied. Phil stood just behind Ms. Mills when he heard their words to each other. He gave a smile to Sam, waved his hand, and backed away from the table. Sam understood and smiled back, indicating with his eyebrows that he would get Phil back one day for not having saved him.

Sam looked back down at the newspaper, sighed, and said, “OK, tell me what you think about standuhds.”

“Well, I think they’re the lowest uhthuh low. They’re nothin’ like when I was a kid.”

Sam said, “Really,” and continued to look at the newspaper. He was not able to ignore the raspy, low, groggling voice of the woman and read while nodding to her at what might be appropriate moments, feigning recognition, which was then, all that he wanted to do.

“Hey, Mary,” Ms. Mills yelled and startled Sam with her ferocious call. He looked up and saw another teacher walk over to the table with a reticent stroll, staring at Sam while Sam raised his eyebrows to her in a plea for solidarity.

“So, Mary, we’re talkin’ ‘bout standuhds…Mr.…HEY, wait a second here…I don’ even know who you are,” she said as she turned her gaze back toward Sam. “Who are you?”

“I’m Mr. Beinshin,” Sam replied and with much disappointment realized that this would be a conversation devoid of the letter “R” whenever it should occur at the end of a word. They might as well, he thought, be in “Bensonhoist” or even “Statin Eye-Lin.”

“Oh, come on now, weah all friends heah, right?” she said and swiveled her head around toward Mary. Sam caught a glimpse of the mole on Ms. Mills’ neck with its three pubic like hairs that jutted in every screaming direction. “Well…Mistuh Beinshin…what’s yuh first name?”

“Sam, my name’s Sam.”

“NOW!” Ms. Mills screamed and slammed her palm against the table, against Sam’s newspaper, “that’s more like it!” When she lifted her hand up it became obvious that the newspaper had become stuck to her damp palm. She continued to lift her hand, not realizing that she had melded the paper and ink to her skin. Her hand came up quickly and the free sections of paper glided across the table. Some pieces floated to the ground, others hit Mary, and a few hit Sam. None happened by Ms. Mills.

Sam brushed the paper off of his head and shirt. “Oh yeah,” Sam agreed, “much more like it.”

“D’you wanna know my name or what?” Ms. Mills asked.

“Of course I do, go ahead, tell me,” Sam said as he looked up and stared at Mary who shrugged her shoulders and smiled once more.

“My name is Hope.”

“OK Hope, what else do you think about ‘standuhds’?” Sam asked.

“Mary, wouldn’ you like to hear from the new teacher? You’re workin’ here only a few weeks, right Sam? Just graduated from college? I wanna know what you have to say about standuhds…don’t you Mary? Don’t you wanna know what they’re teachin’ in college about standuhds these days Mary? Don’t you?” Ms. Mills waited but got no response. “Well Mary!?!” Mrs. Mills demanded an answer from Mary while she tapped her fingers on the table.

“Oh…yeah…OK Sam, let us have it,” Mary said with a sorrowful, empathetic gaze in her eyes.

Sam folded his newspaper while he thought and said, “Well,” and placed the newspaper in his briefcase. “For one thing,” he continued, “I think the Board should stop hiring every idiot who wants a job just because they get summer vacations.”

Hope’s face welled with swelling and redness. “Excuse me? Mary, did you hear that? Excuse me? You little punk…who d’you think you are?”

He didn’t answer.

“Well,” she said, still flustered, “who in the hell d’you think you are?”

“Ms. Mills,” Sam said, holding himself back and trying to remain calm, “are you suggesting that it’s OK for the Board to continue to hire people who aren’t qualified in the least bit to be teachers? Who are not qualified to be teachers to the kids of the city who need the most help?”

“We work hard here, I work hard here!!!”

“Who said you didn’t?” Sam replied.

“Well…I work very hard and I can’t believe you just said that! OK, smart guy, go ahead. Hey Mary, the new kid thinks he knows how to change the world, what d’you think about that?"

Mary giggled, eliciting a smile from Sam.

“What in the hell is so damn funny?” Hope demanded. “Go ahead ‘Mistuh Education,’ tell us some more, tell me more…Mary? Don’t you want to here more too?”

“Oh…yeah…sure…go ahead ‘Sam Education’…tell us more.” Mary placed a hand over her mouth to hide the laughter from Hope.

Sam looked around the cafeteria for a moment. “Okay,” he began, “let’s talk about clothes.”

“Go ahead ‘big boy,’talk!”

“OK, I think some of the teachers in this school are slobs. I think teachers should have a dress code. Ya’ know, shirts and ties, dresses, that sorta thing, so we can set an ex-“

“How DARE you!?!” Hope interjected. “Ya’ know…we fought hard against people like you!”

“What? You fought against people like me?” Sam asked.

“Yes, tryin’ta keep a woman down…we fought hard so we could wear pants! Now you want to take that away from us!?!”

“I’m sure you fought as hard as possible,” Sam curtly replied.

“Well, we did, you little shit! We marched, I marched, so I could wear pants whenever I wanted to!” She wore a pleated black polyester skirt, in relatively good condition considering it had been out of style for probably more than fifteen years. It was covered with what must have been many months worth of a chalky film that dulled the skirt to a grayish-black purgatorial sight.

“Anyway, did I say that women had to wear dresses?” Sam asked.

“Yes, and how DARE you!”

“Oh, please, give it a rest, first of all, I didn’t say that, and secondly, I also said pants, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, for men only though…what are you? A misogynist or something?”

“Well, it certainly isn’t too late to become one, is it?”

“I knew it!” Hope declared.

“So did I,” Sam replied, “…so there!”

“Well…now that it’s all out in the open, tell us…Mary, I’m sure you’ll want to hear this,” Ms. Mills turned toward Mary to see that she was in the process of getting out of her chair, still with a hand on her mouth and said, “No, don’t get up!” Mary sat back down, afraid to defy Hope. “So,” Ms. Mills began again, “why is it that men are allowed to wear pants? HUH?”

“Men can wear dresses for all I fuckin’ care!”

“Well, for a misogynist, you certainly like the word ‘fuck,’ don’tchoo!”

He got up out of his seat.

“Wellllll, aren’t we touchy. OOOOOOOOHH, now I SEEEEEE,” she crooned.

He threw the cold, wet french-fries and half-eaten hamburger into the garbage.

With much drama, she let one of her hands fall limp in front of her chest. “Maybe I should invite over a certain other few teachers that I know of so you can get to know them better. They’re guys…ya’ know what I mean? Just like you.”

“Do whatever the fuck you want and you might as well go and…oh, just forget it!” Sam blew her a kiss, threw his head back to finish his can of soda, threw the empty can into the garbage and exited the cafeteria.

He stopped just at the foot of the stairs that led out of the basement. “What did I do?” Sam asked. He looked back at the door to the teachers’ cafeteria, turned his head and looked up into the dimly lit stairwell and began to walk up into the darkness of the school. “What have I done?”
 

e walked up the stairs, one step at a time, slowly, through the doors to the second floor, and entered the school library. He hadn’t yet been in the library. The kids from the chess club met in the library during their lunch period to practice and Sam wanted to watch them. Mr. Eichofsky, the man who had formed the chess club a year earlier and who had carefully laid out sessions during which he taught inner-city kids the intricacies of chess, had left the school and moved to another city. The person who had taken over the reins of the chess club was the man who had applied for the job who had the most seniority. The new chess club coordinator was standing at the window, looking at the bikini topped women who walked their dogs in McCarren Park.

Sam walked over to the kids who were playing chess and noticed one sitting at a table with a chessboard and no partner. Sam felt like talking.

“Were you in the chess club last year too?”

“Nah, I wasn’ in no club last yeah.”

“Well, those guys over there are playing chess. Have you asked them to show you how to play?”

“Nah, why don’t you play a match wit me?”

“Okay,” Sam said as he sat down and began to set up his side of the board; however, he also watched the kid sitting across from him and the way in which he set up his side of the board.

“No, that’s not the way to do it,” Sam said. “Here, let me show you how.” Sam took all of the kid’s pieces and began to set them up properly.

“Nah, yo! What you doin’?”

“Setting up the pieces.”

“Nah, you doin’ it all wrong,” the kid said. “It’s like this.” The kid took all the pieces and placed them on the table next to the board. He began to place them back on the board, beginning on his left, placing one figure, regardless of its rank, on one square, then skipping a square, and placing another piece down on a square.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked. “That’s not chess.”

“Yeah, man, I know what it is.”

“Well, aren’t you in the chess club?”

“I guess so…yeah.”

“Okay, then don’t you want me to show you how to play?”

“Nah, man…let’s just play.”

“Don’t you want to learn?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why don’t you want me to show you?”

“What’s the difference, yo? Let’s jus’ play the damn game.”

The bell rang. Sam felt relieved to be walking out of the library. He walked down the hall to his freshman class. This was his “class from Hell.” Most teachers with whom he spoke explained to him that it was normal to have one “class from Hell.” This confused Sam as he believed all of his classes were either from hell or at the very least, one of Hell’s outer boroughs. Sam, of course, didn’t voice this as he did not want his colleagues to lose confidence in him. However, if Sam was ever called on to abide by the generally accepted one “class from Hell” rule, than he certainly would have agreed that this class was it, and mainly because of one student.
 

am entered the room and wrote the assignment on the chalkboard. He wanted to be facing the room if Rob were to be in class that day. Once Sam was able to turn around, he prepared for the late bell to ring so he could take attendance. All went well and only ten students were cutting class, not bad, he thought. And Rob wasn’t there.

Rob had done things to destroy every single class in which he was registered. The administration of the school wanted him to be transferred out of the building, however, simply cursing at a teacher, it appeared, didn’t constitute grounds for dismissal. No, Rob had to physically attack someone.

Nearly twenty minutes into the lesson Rob arrived in class and commenced with the hand slappings and “Yo’s” he would dispense to all his friends. Sam, mistakenly or not, stopped the lesson so that at least he was the one who had decidedly stopped it instead of trying to battle with Rob for the attention of the class; a battle Sam had learned the hard way that Rob was sure to win. Once Rob sat down he said to Sam, “You may continue.”

“Oh,” Sam replied, “thank you very much.” Sam put on a smile, attempting to seem genuine in his enjoyment of Rob’s display, hoping that he would not become the object of Rob’s scorn that day. After all, Sam thought, I have actually gotten these kids to read today.

“Hey, Mr. B. You gotta pen I can hold?” Rob asked.

“Sure, here.”

“Hey, Mr. B. You got extra paper?”

Oh My God! “Yes.” He handed Rob a few sheets of paper.

“Hey, Mr. B. Wadda we doin’?”

“Rob, if you’ll just be quiet for a moment and take out the short story book.“

“Mr. B., I gotta say, I don’ have it today, d’ya gotta extra copy for me?”

Sam replied “No.” It was the truth.

“Then I ain’ doin’ no readin’!”

“Rob, look on with the person next to you.”

“I ain’ sharin’ wit no one.”

“You’re not?” Sam asked.

“Dat’s right, yo!”

“Fine, just be quiet then so the rest of us can read. Listen.”

“Who the fuck are you to be tellin’ me to be quiet?”

“I’m your teacher, right?”

“Fuck dat. You ain’ my teachuh.”

“Huh?” Sam grunted.

“You heard me you chalky-ass muthuh fuckuh…you ain’ my teachuh.”

“Well then, if I’m not your teacher then you must not be my student. Is that right Rob?”

“You gotit.”

“Then, Rob, what are you doing here?”

“I have no clue.”

You can say that again. “Rob, if that’s the case, then you might want to leave.”

Rob got out of his seat and walked around the room, circling. He walked down the aisle towards the back of the room at which he stopped to look out the window of the back door. He then opened the door enough so that he could slide his head through and call out to a nameless, possibly nonexistent, fellow student. “Hey yo…I’m comin’ out, hold up a sec.”

He shut the door and walked along the back wall of the room and turned up the aisle that was bordered by both students in their desks and windows. As he walked towards the front if the room, Sam recalled the explanation as to how the school could actually be able to get rid of Rob; a physical attack. Sam stood with his back against the chalkboard and stepped up so that he pressed up against his desk to give Rob an opportunity.

Rob took it. Sam had known that Rob would. As Rob walked between Sam and the chalkboard, he punched Sam in the small of his back. Sam’s middle was forced out and he called out in pain. Some students thought it was quite funny and laughed while others appeared as mortified as Sam.

With a hand on the spot on his back which had taken the punch, Sam asked a student to go and get a security guard, which he was glad to do because this didn’t really involve him in any way for which Rob would want to retaliate. And he wanted to leave the room.

The guard was close by, so Rob had a guard watching him only a few moments after the incident had occurred. The guard stood with Rob at the door while Sam filled out a referral form. Rob was giggling and shrugging his shoulders.

Sam ignored Rob while he attempted to complete writing the referral form. Rob had the class laughing with his feigned innocence. Sam wanted Rob away as soon as possible so that he could bring the class back to the lesson. Rob walked over to Sam and watched over Sam’s shoulder as he wrote.

“What?” Rob yelled. “Stop lyin’ Mr. B.”

“Excuse me?” Sam asked.

“Yo man, stop lyin’. If I’duh punched you, you wouldn’t be able to be writin’ me up,” Rob said. “Why you out to git me?”

Sam continued to write. Once he was done, Sam handed the referral to the guard who then took Rob out of the room. Sam hadn’t yet realized the futility of the entire event until he heard the proof. On his was out of the doorway, being pulled by the guard but still able to hold onto the frame of the door Rob called into the room. “Hey? Who saw this bullshit anyway? I wanna know NOW who saw this bullshit?”

Rob was finally pried away by the guard.

Sam walked to the doorway to look at the two men, the guard and Rob, to make sure that they were in fact leaving. Rob turned around, smiled, and winked at Sam.

Sam looked at his watch and noticed that there was less than one minute remaining to the class. He looked at the class and they all looked at him, wanting to hear how he would handle the situation.

Sam said, “By the way, I know that none of you saw anything, so don’t worry.” The bell rang and the class left.

Sam knew that it was his duty to go directly to the deans’ office to follow through on the matter, however, he needed first to go to the bathroom so that nobody would see the tears in his eyes.
 

am washed his face and walked to the deans’ office, but on the way the principal stopped him. “Hey, Sam, don’t go in there unless you have the name of a witness.”

“No, there weren’t any witnesses,” Sam replied.

“OK, we figured, but that’s OK. You did a good job.”

“Are you sure?  I don’t know, I kind of gave him the opportunity to hit me,” Sam said and then whispered, “intentionally.”

“Sam, shut up! You did no such thing…listen,” the principal said and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You don’t even have to tell me what happened,” he continued. “Just answer yes or no. Did he disrupt your lesson?”

“Yes.”

“Did he disrupt the learning of the other students?”

“Yes.”

“You graduated from college only four months ago, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you became a teacher so you could teach students?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good, now shut up. He stopped you from doing your job and in doing that he deprived an entire class of their opportunity to learn.” He whispered even lower and said, “You did what you had to do…you did the right thing…now, we’ll take care of the rest, just stay away from that office, OK?”

“OK, if you say so, then OK.”

“I arranged to have your next class covered by another teacher. Go somewhere and cool off, OK?”

“OK,” Sam replied. They walked away from each other. Then the principal called Sam’s name and jogged back to him. “But whatever you do, don’t use this time to fill out a resignation form.”

“OK, whatever you say.”

The principal laughed, patted Sam on the back and walked forward toward the deans’ office.

As Sam walked off he heard a load of noise from the hall on the second floor. He ran up the stairs to see what had happened. One of the shop classes had an accident and the smell of gasoline flooded the area. Security guards ran through the hall ordering kids to leave the floor and Sam stood there in the doorway watching the kids crowd around the door of the shop room where the accident had occurred.

Sam walked over to help the guards. The kids just stood there laughing, not leaving, as if there had been a horrific fight with blood and organs strewn on the wall for all to see.

Sam attempted to convince kids to leave, to explain to them that they were jeopardizing their health by remaining there, that they were being ordered to do something, “And dammit, just fuckin’ get outta here already…”

Due to the mayhem, all the deans except for one left the office to assist in the situation on the second floor. With only one dean left in the room and five students who needed supervision, Rob was able to slip out of the opened door undetected.

He ran up the stairwell and popped his head through the space between the door and the wall. Rob saw Sam standing in the middle of the crowd; Rob then stepped slowly into the hall.

It was easy for Rob to mix into the crowd; there were many deans present but they were too occupied to notice him there. Rob’s confidence grew and he pushed and squeezed his way through the crowd until he stood directly behind Sam’s back.

Rob curled his fingers into a fist, pulled his arm back, and threw his arm forward fist first, until it made contact with Sam’s back in the exact spot where he had punched him earlier.

Sam fell to the floor with his left arm curled around his waist and his hand on the spot where he had been punched. Almost as soon as it happened all the students stepped back and formed a circle, all except Rob. Sam had not yet turned his head around and didn’t know who it was who had punched him.

Rob was grabbed by a dean while another dean yelled, “I know one of you saw this, so get to the fuckin’ deans’ office now!” It was at this point that all of the students who stood in the direction from where a person could have seen who had punched Sam ran away, none to the deans’ office.

“Hey Sam, did you see who did it?” a dean asked.

Sam turned around.  “It must have been him,” Sam said and pointed at Rob.

“Dammit Sam, was it him or not?”

“Yo man,” Rob said, “he already told you.  He ain’t sure who did it.  He don’ know.”

“It was you Rob,” the dean chimed in, “so shut up.”

“It coulda’ been anyone, so go fuck yuhself.”

The dean grabbed Rob fiercely and took him back to the deans’ office.

Some of the students who had run away came back to see what had come of the event. When they arrived, they saw Sam kneeling with his shirt pulled up out of his pants, being held up to his eyes to dry the tears.

One student turned around and yelled to his friend over the noise of the other kids, “Hey, look at Mr. Beinshin. What’s wit duh shirt?”

“What are you, a pussy?” The kids laughed. They looked at each other and into Sam’s eyes and laughed.

“This is killin’ me,” Sam said, loud enough for people to hear, but he wasn’t telling them anything. “This is killin’ me.”

Sam got up off the floor and walked away from the mayhem and into the corner stairwell. He tucked his shirt back into his pants and walked down the stairs that let out on the first floor two doors away from the deans’ office. He stopped in the stairwell at the window and stood there looking out at the park. Sam didn’t know where to go. He had studied to be a teacher and he was one, but he didn’t know where to go. Sam decided to continue down all the stairs and go to the deans’ office. He wanted to really know if he had done the right thing.

The door opened as the principal saw him entering the room. Sam was whisked into the hall out of sight of the window in the door.

“Sam, I told you not to come here.”

“I know. I just need to know if I did the right thing. I just can’t see.”

“Sam, listen, we got his mother on the phone and convinced both him and his mother that it would be best if he transfer to another school.”

“How did you do that?”

“We brought in the school police officer and made him believe that he could be arrested for what he did to you.”

“Even though there weren’t any witnesses?”

“Yes, well, no, he can’t really be arrested, not at least without witnesses that is, but we convinced him otherwise…that it would be much better for Rob’s future and for his education if he were to start over in a new school.”

“Interesting,” Sam replied.

“Interesting? Sam, we’ve been trying to get rid of him for a long time now. Sam, this is great.”

“So then I did do the right thing?”

“Of course you did. Sam, don’t worry, this kind of thing is standard.”

“This is standard? He’s hardly a model student, but I think all this happened because of me.”

“Hold on there Sam, I think you know what I mean.”

“Wow,” Sam replied.

In a whisper, the principal said, “Just don’t tell anybody what you did.”

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “I won’t, as long as it was the right thing I won’t tell anyone.”