THE HUNCHBACK WHO SERVED my coffee this morning put a hex on me. Either that, or I'm getting clumsy in my old age. There is a Tim Hortons dark roast stain on my crotch and Boston Cream filling is burrowing its way into the fibers of my herringbone vest like a mole. Stained, I drive to Staff Orientation.`
Saint Ignatius College Prep Academy is more than a century old. Last year, it graduated its first girls’ class in school history. Progressive. Vines climb the sides of the oldest gymnasium in the state of Michigan like snakes, tormenting Eve with Catholic guilt and the illusion of equality. Girls, I’m told, are forbidden from the Prep Building. Tradition, they tell me. If only Eden had been partitioned like Germany, or Punjab.
According to campus lore, Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman gave a speech in that very building several years after laying waste to the South and, allegedly, hound-dogging his way through the midwest.
I listen to screamo from my youth on the way in. I am not your average Catholic school history teacher, I want to say. Please don’t confuse me for one. It’s just, no other school gave me an interview. I promise, my youthful rage has been replaced by melancholy and an unanticipated level of tolerance for idiots.
After an abbreviated private mass with our staff of thirty-some teachers, where I go through the motions and habits of my childhood catechism, we are herded to the cafeteria for presentations.
Our barrel-chested headmaster, a former Literature teacher and basketball coach, begins. ‘You will NOT text, DM, chat, or otherwise talk to students outside of professional educational communication through your school email address.’ His lower lip protrudes from a reddened, roast beef face. ‘You will NOT swear in front of our students. Not a shit, a damn, or certainly a fuck.’ Titters from the audience of repressed adults. ‘You will not utter a single word about the upcoming election outside of a government class. Nor will you say, post, re-Tweet, or ‘like’ anything that contradicts the teachings of the Catholic church.’ ‘Understood?’ Murmurs of obedience. He leads us in prayer. ‘Heavenly Father, please help and support the staff and students of this school…’
Next, a note on security. Four former police officers, rocking push-broom mustaches and handgun holsters, inform us of the upgrades to campus security: a service dog named Macy, two new ex-police hires, two tactical golf carts, and a cabinet of AR-15-style long guns. ‘We WILL engage in the event of an active shooter,’ a bald retiree with a chest too broad for his head tells us. ‘This is not Uvalde.’ I look around hoping to make sympathetic eye contact with someone who recognizes how disturbing this is, but I see only the eyes of stoic lambs.
We are dismissed. Outside, I mull around the teachers and administrators hoping to get a word on my classroom’s location. Crawling ivy and pristine lawns hint at value in traditional education, but a dozen Trump 2024 bumper stickers on pickup trucks undermine any notion of an enlightened workforce. Beauty gone rotten.
Eventually, a doughboy of an assistant principal points me to the building with my classroom. It’s a long, three-story building on the outskirts of campus. The Dorms are seventy years old and house just two teachers, myself and the Accounting teacher who is an alumnus with the vibes of an Applebee’s porterhouse.
I climb the old stairs, avoiding the rickety elevator. On the third floor, I locate the placard for 305 behind a pile of mattresses and bed frames. Preparation for move in day. Full ride scholarships and boarding for young men who can help bring home a State Championship. I clear a path and enter.
The desks are the same ones from my childhood. Formica. Several have deep carvings. FVCK reads one. JMJ reads another. The carpet smells original to the building. The scent of segregation. Rifling through the top drawer of the teacher’s tanker desk, I find a three-inch foldable knife among a few hundred dollars worth of Legos. I pocket the knife and clean up the trash left by the previous teacher and try to envision what it will take to make the cold room feel like a place of higher learning. Lamps. Art. Books. Scented Candles.
As I affix a large ‘upside down’ World Map to the wall, I look out my third-floor window to the large patch of grass between my building and the old gymnasium. On the immaculate lawn, police retirees duck behind a tricked-out ‘tactical’ golf cart, pointing mop handles at my classroom window. They're red-faced, and one looks like he threw out his back doing a tuck-and-roll. Cherubs playing Rambo.
A former detective with a high-and-tight haircut tilts his ‘gun’ toward my window. A shot rings out. The window shatters. I feel my right lung collapse. My body folds. The pocket knife presses into my right leg as I collapse into the wall. My hand finds a warm spot on my chest. It's sticky and gooey. It's custard, and I think I'm dying.
— KYLE JOSEPH KENNEDY
Kyle Joseph Kennedy is a writer from Metro Detroit, Michigan. In a previous life, he performed sadsack midwest anti-folk to half-filled cafes, basements, and bars. Now he sings silly songs to two little monsters and writes during lunch breaks to ward off the demons of suburban Millennial ennui. He is six feet deep in the querying slush piles, seeking a home for a novel about a fascist takeover of a small midwest school.