The Didactor Read online

  Table of Contents

  Newport High School, 1970

  Newport, Spring 1932

  Newport, Fall 1935

  Fort Benning, Georgia, 1943

  Fort Dix, New Jersey, 1947

  Fort Dix, New Jersey, 1949

  Newport, 1965

  Ben Troop's classroom, 1968

  Warm Springs, 1967

  Huntington school system, 1962

  Fort Ord, California, 1950

  Newport high school, 1969

  Germany, 1954

  Penn State University, 1963

  About Roy Chandler

  Copyright © 1981 and 2014 by Katherine R. Chandler. All rights reserved.

  Publication History

  ebook: 2014

  Katherine R. Chandler, Publisher

  St. Mary's City, Maryland

  First Printing: 1981

  Bacon and Freeman

  Deer Lake, Pennsylvania

  This is a work of fiction. None of the characters represent any persons living or dead.

  All characters and incidents depicted were created by the author.

  THE DIDACTOR

  "DIDACTIC" = To teach—Dictionaries

  "DIDACTOR" = A teacher—Chandler

  "Violent attacks on teachers increased 57% in one year."

  Time; 16 June 1980

  Newport High School, 1970

  A large modern desk dwarfed the small man seated behind it. From the rear it could be seen that the swivel chair had been spun to its highest position so the occupant could properly rest his arms on the desk top. The adjustment resulted in the man's feet dangling a few inches above the floor. For comfort; he had placed a strongly built soft drink case within the desk well and on this hidden platform he rested his feet.

  His conservatively cut suit coat hung limply over a chair back and his half-sleeved white shirt exposed freckled arms that matched his liberally speckled features. A clout of thinning sandy hair had worked its way unnoticed across his forehead and threatened to obscure his vision by dropping across the lenses of his rimless glasses.

  A manual training class of twenty years past had manufactured the nameplate edging the desk top. It gave his name: Robert Boden. Someone had later added Superintendent in gold block letters.

  Superintendent Boden commanded Newport school system. He led without dispute and with tigerish dedication to his school and his people. Buried in reports demanded by the insatiable Commonwealth, Boden noticed neither his errant lock of hair nor a rising hubbub of voices in the outer offices. Crises involving raised voices were common in the arena of education. Such minuscule tempests were routinely calmed by lesser administrators or the school secretaries.

  Until a sharp rapping of knuckles on his door, immediately followed by his head secretary, Boden entirely missed the rising sounds of excitement. His hand automatically swiped his hair into place as he dragged his mind from the figures and justifications to give full attention to his obviously distressed secretary, Mrs. Grissan spoke in anxious phrases that jerked her eyes about and caused her hands to flutter so distractingly Boden longed to anchor them.

  He gathered there had been a fight, apparently of some magnitude. Usually student fights did little damage and might even clear the air, but before the secretary could organize her excited explanation, a wild-eyed student burst past her.

  "You've got to come quick, Mr. Boden! It was awful! His whole face is smashed in. He might even be dead. He hit him so hard—there's blood all over the classroom—all over it, Mr. Boden! It's out in the halls and all the way to the nurse's room."

  Still unaware of who had hit whom, Boden headed for the door. The girl chattered after him through the suddenly stilled offices and into the school's major corridor.

  "It's Tom Ruby and Mr. Troop, Mr. Boden. Tom hit at Mr. Troop and then Mr. Troop hit Tom and I heard his whole head break! Blood went everywhere!"

  Before he reached the nurse's room he saw the blood, too frequent to be minor bleeding. Seriously concerned, he hurried into the school's small dispensary.

  The nurse's room was designed for first aid treatment and school physicals. Now the small treatment area was jammed. He brushed watchers aside, urging them out the door, until he could see the school nurse working above a figure he did not immediately recognize.

  The girl had not exaggerated. There was blood, not just from the smashed jaw that showed a jagged bone end jutting through torn flesh, but also a steady crimson gout leaking from a nose so thoroughly mashed it might never be restored. How the victim remained conscious in the face of such damage astounded Boden, yet hurt and fear poured from his eyes as strongly as the claret from his nose.

  The students who had half-carried the battered figure into the nurse's office now held his lax body upright while Nurse Lilley mopped rather futilely at his smashed face. Broken jaws, teeth on the floor—things like this didn't happen in school anymore! Boden shooed extra students back to their classes and kept only the two boys supporting the patient.

  Miss Lilley had called the ambulance and the school doctor was standing by in his downtown office. Boden sent for Mr. Hardy to clean up the halls before the period ended and the mess became trampled throughout the school. He wanted desperately to be loose to find out how on earth such a thing had happened. He ached to begin grabbing reins.

  Boden almost resented the slumped figure occupying his attention. Nurse Lilley had staunched most of the blood flow, and heavy pain had not yet replaced the protecting shield of numbness. The patient should be moved immediately. Boden paced restlessly, suspecting undue delay by the volunteer ambulance unit. He slapped his own car keys in an older boy's hand and said, "Charlie, you know my car. Bring it to the front door and take Tom to the doctor in it." The youth scurried away and Boden felt relief in just having done something.

  He waited a few impatient minutes, giving his car time to get into position, then the boys carried Tom Ruby down the hall through the lobby, where secretaries watched through glass walls, and out the main entrance, they stuffed Tom's unresisting body into the back seat and Nurse Lilley slid in beside him. Doors slammed and the car rolled away.

  Boden watched them disappear with relief; out of sight somehow simplified things. Well, actually it did! Now the school could continue normal operation while he determined what in hell had happened.

  He checked his watch. Period change in five minutes. He'd best wait until the period break. Take things as normally as possible, that was the ticket. Lord, what a mess he had on his hands!

  Boden stalked to his office. At the door he waved an exasperated finger at the head secretary but his voice was controlled. "When Mr. Troop gets here, show him straight in."

  His door closed gently and the secretaries exchanged looks, their eyebrows raised and lips pursed, thankful that they were not the objects of Boden's distress.

  +++++

  Tom Ruby hated Mr. Troop. He hated with a passion born of frustration. Nothing went right for him around Troop. His challenges to the teacher were neatly fended aside. His sarcasms fell on barren ground and the heavy-handed posturing that so often intimidated other teachers failed with Troop.

  Although paramount, Troop was not the only hate seething in Tom Ruby's soul. School in general left him cold, very cold. Off hand, Tom Ruby couldn't think of anything about school that he liked. The smell of chalk dust acted as a powerful corrosive on his limited patience; teachers, he judged, were stupids that made people do even more stupid things; classes were pure boredom.

  Except for sports, it was all a waste. Sports were different, he'd admit that. But then Ruby didn't really think of sports as part of school. Without football he wouldn't have been in school at all and this was his last year of eligibility. He didn't figure to last out a whole
year of being picked at by teachers and snickered at by other students.

  Not that anybody laughed to his face—he'd have made them hurt—but he knew they laughed behind his back. He could see amusement in girls' eyes when some teacher made him look dumb. Someday he'd get even. After he was out of school he'd meet them one by one and make them eat dirt just like they'd done to him for about as long as he could remember.

  Tom Ruby luxuriated in planning how he would get each teacher downtown someplace and just how each one would crawl. He especially intended doing something about Troop. Troop was supposed to have been a boxer or something years ago, but that wouldn't matter. Troop was old now. He lovingly reviewed the scene in his mind and he could see every move he would make. He knew how Troop's flesh would feel under his fists and how Troop would sag and slump, held up only by the power of Ruby blows. He could see the blood spurt and skin lay open along split lips. He actually squirmed in his seat thinking about it. Someday! Well, someday he'd do it, that's all.

  Reluctantly, Ruby dragged his thoughts away from the pleasure of destroying Ben Troop and deliberately cleared his throat loudly, slouching even lower behind his desk. Stale old moves, they rarely got attention and they didn't now.

  Ben Troop was standing before his desk—leaning back against it really—and as usual gesturing while he talked. He was a little on the wrong side of middle age. The thinning brown hair, worn a little ragged around the edges, framed a strangely dramatic face. Ben Troop possessed no sharp features. Though his bone structure was good, his face looked as though the sculptor, after completing his work, had lightly rolled out all the sharp angles and planes, there seemed to be a number of long-healed scars about the lips and eyes. Troop's was a face of hard experience yet, unwrinkled except for a skein of laugh lines at the outer edges of the eyes and a trio of furrows running across his forehead; he gave a somehow boyish impression.

  His body was exceptional. One first noticed the musculature of his arms and could then follow upward to still developed shoulders or down through a sturdy waist to the shapely legs of a long-time athlete.

  It was movement, however, that emphasized the best in Ben Troop. He could not be called cat-like, but perhaps flowing in actions. He used his hands a great deal when talking, in some, such gestures could distract; in Ben Troop, they animated. Movement brought him to life.

  Except for Ruby's thrashing and sighing, the class was silent. They, like their teacher, chose to ignore Tom Ruby. They were enjoying Troop's lurid description of life aboard a galley in ancient times. They listened intently as he described a slave existing half-starved in his own filth, chained to his thwart to wield a great oar until death or weakness caused him to be thrown into the sea.

  The voice of the teacher seemed to mesmerize the class. When he tugged powerfully at an imaginary oar, their bodies moved in rhythm. When the slave's beat faltered and the lash fell across his naked, emaciated shoulders, some genuinely cringed. Tom Ruby belched.

  Mr. Troop stopped. He turned slowly to Tom and said, "Knock it off!" in a tone that brooked no discussion. He got one anyway.

  "Gee, I can't help it, Mr. Troop. I'm kind of sick today." Tom waited for chuckles from his classmates and when none came, he found himself embarrassed and alone.

  Troop left his position by the desk and came over to Tom, who allowed his eyes to open wide in what he felt to be confused innocence. The teacher leaned close and spoke so softly that only a few could hear. "If you do that again, I'm going to remove you from this room."

  The few students who heard Troop's words could not see his eyes. Tom Ruby could, and sudden anxiety sliced through him. He said nothing, and as Troop turned away and the fear faded, Ruby found himself detesting the feeling that had claimed him and he despised himself for letting an old man scare him.

  Troop resumed talking and Ruby felt even more excluded. He could have recalled the many times Troop had extended questions to him that he could easily have answered and how each time he had chosen to look blank and say, "I don't know." He had never gotten the hoped-for laughter from his classmates and failed to understand why they chuckled with him in other classes but not in this one.

  He could also have brought to mind the many efforts Troop had made to involve him in small projects, whether with other students or alone. Instead he fed his bitterness until there slowly dawned on him the ultimate act. He wondered why he had not thought of it before, and then wondered if he had the nerve.

  The latter thought convinced him he would do it. He had to wait until the right moment because it was not a thing a person could do just any time he wished.

  +++++

  Tom Ruby, football player, teacher baiter, and inevitable dropout was cool. Bulking unnaturally large and two years older than his classmates, Tom Ruby had always kept the situation well in hand. Teachers no longer bothered to flunk him provided he showed up for class irregularly. Recognizing that none of the Ruby clan ever graduated, the school walked softly around him merely waiting him out. There seemed a sort of mutual agreement, a truce—except with Ben Troop.

  During his first history class, an almost instinctive antagonism blossomed in Tom Ruby's soul. It was a gut reaction, a mindless, grossly emotional rejection. Tom Ruby had found himself entranced by Troop's teaching. For the first time, he experienced the tingling goodness of quickened imagination. He knew his mouth hung open, as did his classmates'. He felt his mind drifting off into strange times and places.

  Tom Ruby was enjoying a class and that pleasure attacked the very fiber of Ruby philosophy. Tom Ruby fought against it with heart and soul. He forced poor grades. He resisted overtures and sneered at proffered counseling. He remained true to his kind, dooming himself to the limited prospects of a high school dropout.

  Ruby had little choice. His environment forced him. Rubys despised school. Old Pap Ruby constantly railed against "Jackasses with fancy papers provin' they're smart. Fools burdenin' a man with taxes to pay for fancy buildings filled with people that couldn't hold a job outside, an' that enjoyed pickin' on kids—especially Ruby kids." Pap Ruby had made it through the fourth grade and liked to claim, "I got throwed out o'there for not shaving."

  Old Pap occasionally allowed a hint of humor when he grumbled about school teachers. Eberson Ruby never did. His hatred of education lay bone deep. He seemed to nourish his grudge with loving care, steeping it within his twisted soul, safely banked until one or more of his ten progeny came in conflict with school authority. Then Eberson raised his hackles, dredged up the black hatred of educators and all they stood for, and descended on the office of the principal, or the superintendent, or the businesses of school directors, or even upon the offending teacher while he was shopping.

  Fault never lay in Ruby children. Eberson had made that clear when a Ruby boy was held in afternoon detention for absenteeism. Eberson claimed persecution because the boy had been home sick. It was pointed out that the youth had attended daily athletic practice. Eberson claimed, "The boy felt better in the afternoon."

  When a Ruby girl used some exceptionally foul language in the classroom, Eberson's stand held that "It might do the teacher some good to hear somethin' that weren't in a school book, an' those words was in the holy bible, if someone wanted to find 'em. So they weren't wrong anyhow."

  It was also recognized that Eberson Ruby could barely read or write. What little he knew of the bible came in rolling, sonorous preaching from the Mission of Holiness church, whose hellfire and damnation approach fueled Ruby souls each Sunday. Outside of school Eberson ruled his family with a heavy hand. If the girl had used such explicitness at home, Eberson himself would have bruised her mouth.

  The Rubys were in many ways a throwback to an earlier time. Fiercely clannish and antagonistically independent, they were not to be taken lightly. Local residents recalled savage battles engaged in by Rubys and a host of diverse adversaries. A Ruby attacked was automatically a Ruby defended.

  Square Ruby was a prime example. No one outside the famil
y recalled Square's real name. He had always hung around Newport Square and Square he became.

  Like all Ruby men, Square was a hard drinker. During an extended drinking bout, two local bachelors had pretty well taken Square apart right in his favorite hangout. When Square managed to reassemble himself sufficiently to reach the family complex, old Pap, Eberson himself, and oldest son Ralph had stormed the enemy's mobile home and inflicted such a severe drubbing to Square's opponents that they were left unconscious on their own shaley lawn.

  Ruby trouble was similar to a dog fight—with big dogs. It was vicious and cruel and best avoided. The town observed the goings on, but did not intercede.

  Ruby genes ran strong. All Rubys looked alike. People said you could tell a Ruby three ways. They had freckles all over, hands like country hams, and most important, they all had strangely prominent foreheads. Ruby temples looked as though they had been pinched above the eyes and the pinched flesh just stayed up there making distinctive points over each eyebrow. Even when Rubys got old and faces sagged, their pointy foreheads stood out for all to recognize. Locally they were sometimes called the bee stung Rubys.

  Recognizable at great distance, Rubys seemed to lope rather than walk. Their hands were big, red, and bony and hung from arms abnormally long. Boy Rubys were natural athletes; the girls were singularly unattractive, being cursed with the same oversized hands and gangly physiques. The girls married cousins and most moved into the Ruby living compound.

  Rubys were not bums, however. They worked. Rubys were rarely on welfare. Their names were not found on the various agency and free clinic rolls. It would have pleased the good people of Perry County if the Rubys had been charity cases. That they were not muddied the picture. To the people of Newport, Rubys were as enjoyable as a good meat and potatoes meal. They cheered the boy athletes, whispered and snickered at Ruby girls' carryings on, sneered (guardedly) at Ruby men, and awaited the next outbreak of Ruby violence. Unfortunately, the meal lacked dessert. If the citizenry could have been martyred on a cross of Ruby welfare, their cups would have runneth over.