School for Scandal

Chapter 1
When he saw it, he told me that his first thought was a question.  "Why would someone leave a bundle of rags here?"  Then we saw the blood on the door.

He and I had come to school an hour early that Monday morning in December to catch up on his grading. Two sets of compositions were in the right-hand desk drawer where he always kept homework assignments before they were marked. With compositions it was always twenty points possible--ten for organization and originality and ten for grammar. I'd never done better than fourteen. I didn't have the patience to look up words in those days

He was a fanatic when it came to getting his student's work back within a day or two. It seemed like he was always grading papers before and after school. I guess that's because he never took his work home and there were a hundred and ninety-two of us. He assigned a composition a week.



He pulled his wheelchair out from behind the seat, unfolded it, and made sure the wheels were locked before he leaned out of the Volvo, grabbed the arms of the chair, and dragged himself out of the car. He locked his door after he made sure that my side of the car was locked, and I had the keys in my hand. He let me push him that morning.

B4 was his classroom. It is in the middle of the last row of the "temporary" buildings that had been classrooms since the school was built in '62. That's the English wing. We usually parked behind "C" building when we got there early, and the shortest way to his classroom is down the backside of "B" wing and through the opening between B3 and B4. Since everything is asphalt and oak trees at that end of the school, except for a narrow strip of grass in front of "B" wing, the pushing is easy even when it's dark. When I got around to the front of the building, I turned him around, leaned him back, and pulled him up to the cement walk way. It was foggy, and we were both a little sleepy. I guess that's why when we turned around we both saw the pile of rags before the blood.

I was walking in it before I smelled it, and I smelled it before I could stop pushing and make sense of the smudged handprints about a foot above the doorknob of the storage room and the wide smear down the door. The blood was purple in the security lights, and there was a lot of it splashed around on the cement around the door and lots more between the door and the pile of rags. About that time James noticed that the rag pile had legs sticking out of it, and the chair was no longer in my hands.

The body was lying in front of the door to his classroom about ten feet away. I thought I heard someone running. I can remember thinking that my new Addidas were probably ruined. I had to get the blood off my shoes.

I don't know how long I'd been scuffing my shoes in the grass before I heard James call me. "Pete, come here. I need your help." It was all too much like before, and I wanted to run. But he knew how to talk to me. I went over to him. I didn't look down. "Pete, it's Gary Cox. I think his heart stopped when I was feeling for a pulse. I think his throat's been cut. Can you turn him over? Maybe there's something we can do."

Gary Cox was a big fat guy--six feet, two hundred twenty pounds anyway--and he was lying on his stomach. I was five six, one hundred two pounds. I tried, but the walkway was slippery with blood, and Gary had messed his pants, and the next thing I knew I was back on the grass vomiting my guts out.

I knew James was beside me when I felt a cold hand on my forehead. He didn't say anything until the heaving stopped. "There was nothing anyone could have done for Gary. Rinse out your mouth. Go across the street to Bill's and call the police."

I remember the cold water from the fountain outside B3 and running across the deserted street on rubbery legs. Bill was one of James' best friends of the faculty and "Killer Hampton" to us students. He was the vice-principal. He must have been eating breakfast when I pounded on his front door because he was wiping his mouth with a napkin when he opened the door. I thought I said something like, "Mr. Hampton, Gary Cox has been killed, and he's lying outside James’s door. Call the police!" Mr. Hampton claimed later that I was shaking so bad and talking so fast that all he understood was "Call the police." He took me by the shoulders and told me to say it again. I guess I did a better job the second time because he got on the phone right away. The sirens started when Mr. Hampton and I were running back across the street.