You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [1]
A steel desk sits at the front of the room. It is, like everything else here, worn and broken. Heavy gray curtains hang from an ancient and long-defunct pulley line. Fluorescent lights, thin brown carpet. All of it in the style of seventies-era American public schools—generic and shabby.
There are two identical floors—long corridors lined with metal lockers and classrooms. A high black steel security gate surrounds the school. Once you’re inside you might as well be in Phoenix.
With the breeze moving through, my classroom is cool. In a few hours the buildings will be drained of students and with them will go all their noise and theater. Everything is finished, essays graded, final reports written.
The last day of school. We return final exams. We say goodbye. They clear out their things, buses arrive, and the broken building falls into silence.
* * *
I’m waiting for my first-period sophomores. There are classes like these—students possessed of grace and kindness and intelligence, all thrown together for the year. They arrive and you know. You become a family. It is a kind of love affair.
At the far end of the school they’re streaming out of the auditorium from assembly. Mr. Spencer has already wished them a good summer. He’s read them something—a quotation, a poem he finds inspirational. Mr. Goring scratches the back of his head as he reviews the day’s schedule. He reminds them that all lockers must be empty. There will be trash cans in the halls. Please use them. Respect your school, students. Do not run. Please, no running.
Released, they come up the hallway, some wave as they pass my room.
“What up, Mr. S?”
“Have a good summer, Mr. S, try not to party too hard.”
Julia comes in pulling her blond curly hair back into a ponytail.
She’s the first.
“Last day of school,” I say.
“Oh really? Is it?” She rolls her eyes.
“That’s what I’ve heard. Pretty sad.”
She nods.
I sit on my desk and sort through a stack of exams until I find hers.
“So,” I say.
“So, listen Mr. S., I’m going to miss you this summer and I want you to know that I really loved your class and that I think you’re a great teacher.” She blushes. “So, thank you for everything. You kind of changed my life this year.”
“Thank you, Julia. I’ve loved having you as my student.”
She looks at the floor.
Steven Connor struts into the classroom, short and bluff and pushing his chest out.
“Mr. S.!” He says, extending his hand, a little businessman. “How you doing, Mr. S.? You know I’m going to miss this class, dude. Why don’t you teach juniors? You suck. What the hell am I going to do next year?”
He cocks his head to the side and looks me in the eye. We shake hands. Then he notices Julia.
“Wait, am I like, interrupting something?”
Julia giggles. “No, Steve.”
Mazin, a thin, grinning Jordanian, runs into the room and throws his arms around me.
“Dude, Mr. S. Dude. Are we going to hang this summer? Because I’m so going to miss this class, man. But it’s cool, you’re coming to my party right? You got the invitation?”
“I’m coming. I’ll be there. Sunday night. I’m there.”
The classroom slowly fills.
I sit on the edge of my desk as I always do. I look around the room and face them. They expect something from me, some conclusion, some official end to the year.
I push myself from the desk and stand.
“Last day of school. A few minutes left in our year together. I have your exams and I’ll give them to you before you leave but I want to tell you a few things first. I want you to know that it isn’t often that I have a class like yours. I was very lucky this year. You’re exceptional. You’ve been honest, kind, funny, adventurous, open and generous. You’ve been passionate and interested and you have come here day after day after day always willing to consider the things I’ve said to you. My dream as a teacher has always been to walk into my classroom, sit down and participate in an intelligent, exciting discussion of literature and philosophy. We are smart people sitting in a room talking about beautiful things, ugly and difficult