The pain beneath Lee’s breastbone and in his back and arm twisted like a hot coil in soft tissue, so he grimaced and clutched his chest. When Bruin noticed the principal gritting his teeth, looking pained, he grew concerned. Bruin, listening to Lee describe the symptoms, said what ailed him did not sound like heartburn or indigestion, and advised him to see a doctor.
Meanwhile, Bruin said that reminded him: the school needed to invite a flight paramedic from the air ambulance service to speak at the career day open house. He got the idea after he assigned a theme on a life changing event to his class. He read Amy’s essay indicating she wanted to become a flight paramedic, and her composition left him impressed with its passion and conviction.
Lee massaged his chest and arm with a pained expression and told Bruin he did not want to be like his predecessor. In the morning, at the start of classes, he did not want to stand in the main doors to the high school before the opening bell, holding his wristwatch in his hand, watching the secondhand tick, seeking students and teachers wandering the hallways a minute or two after the opening bell rang. He did not want to spend the school days locked away in the principal’s office, fretting over classroom schedules, avoiding telephone calls from parents, obsessing over office supplies, organizing his desk, worrying about missing pens and markers, rearranging supplies of paper and toner in the photocopy room. He did not want to lecture the student body in the gymnasium during their orientation, preaching about everything they should not do, emphasizing they were not to exhibit overt signs of affection anywhere in high school. He did not want to hand out detentions and suspensions; he wanted to give encouragement and inspiration. He wanted to have a positive impact on the careers and educations of his students. Lee wanted his students to succeed throughout high school and contribute to the betterment of their lives and society and, yes, the community, which continued to see tough times after the radar base had been decommissioned and the sawmill shuttered forever.
Lee hired Bruin believing he was one of the more unlikely, successful students to have graduated from their high school. Bruin had certainly taken a rocky route in life recently, and his path towards becoming a teacher had been unusual. But Lee ignored the advice of another teacher and the hiring committee, which was merely a school board trustee and the vice-principal. Lee went ahead and hired his former geography and history student.
Amy told Bruin that she had a reading and public speaking phobia. That was the reason that she could not perform the dramatic recital. Amy told him quietly at his desk after he walked the aisles of the classroom of grade nine students, asking them which Shakespearean speech or monologue they wanted to read and recite. He went around the English classroom wearing his suit and tie, stained with coffee, his scuffed shoes, and his cologne. This was the first course in Shakespeare that he taught; this was the first year that he worked as a schoolteacher. Likewise, this was only Lee’s second year as principal; previously, he taught history and geography.
Bruin had been a financial advisor, a stockbroker, and a derivatives trader, but then his firm was caught in a massive insider trading scandal. He was also personally fined tens of thousands of dollars as a result, which also wiped out any equity and savings he had built over the years. He also discovered that he was tainted, damaged goods in the securities industry, and he could not get hired by any other firms afterwards.
So, he decided to pursue his original goal of becoming a high school teacher, even though he now believed that aspiration was something of a cop out. He admitted during his job interview with Lee that if you were not of a certain personality and character, high school teaching could be personally demanding work. Now in his first year of teaching, he faced a student with a problem similar to his own when he struggled in high school.
Bruin asked to see Amy after school, a time more suitable to discuss the issue. He sat at his desk grading papers, drinking coffee, which he should have avoided, because the caffeine caused him jitters and anxiety. He thought about what he would say to her, the best way to approach this problem.
Amy arrived for the appointment with a frosty can of cola from the vending machine in the cafeteria. She sat in the bare minimalist student’s desk at the front row across from Bruin at his large wooden desk, with the hardwood podium dividing them. Amy arrived in her jean jacket, baseball cap, coveralls, and with her backpack, filled with books and school assignments. Her backpack emanated the smell of fish. Bruin guessed the reason for that bit of fish odor was because she worked, filleting and gutting fish, for her father, who owned and operated a commercial fishing operation. Amy filleted and gutted walleye, whitefish, and red sucker in her father’s fish processing plant on the shores of the long mysterious lake and reservoir of Lac Seul near Sioux Lookout. Amy also occasionally worked on the fishing boat, handling gill nets, piloting the trawler.
Bruin mentioned offhand he and her father, high school classmates years ago, had briefly discussed the issue at their last parent-teacher interview. They had merely touched upon the issue; but her father wanted him, or them, to try to first work through the issue personally and individually, or with the help of her teachers only. Her father did not want to seek professional help because he had lost faith and confidence in the medical and social work professions; he believed that the professionals, psychologists, and psychiatrists had only made Amy’s mother’s condition worse. He believed the doctors and psychiatrists had gotten her addicted to prescription drugs until she met her untimely demise. He refused to accept the doctor and coroner’s conclusion she committed suicide.
Now Bruin wondered, having never known the circumstances surrounding her death. Bruin wondered if Amy’s phobia had some origin in her mother’s demise. But Bruin also realized that speculation about causation was of no help to him currently. And her father merely wanted them to deal with the issue themselves.
Amy told him that she could not do the reading.
“Ok. So, you’ve chosen Mark Antony’s eulogy, his funeral oration, for Julius Caesar. How did you know this is one of my favorite passages from Shakespeare?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Are you sure your father did not choose it? It just seems like a passage your father might like.”
“No. I chose it because I like the speech. My father never does my homework.”
“That is wonderful. So why don’t you just read the passage now.”
Amy read the passage perfectly, resonantly, with the enunciation and diction of a Shakespearean actor, albeit one her age. Bruin felt most impressed, and he applauded. He told Amy she was a skilled performer, who possessed talent. “And, you see, that was not a problem. You did not seem self-conscious, or self-aware. You just did it. So why don’t you just try it on Monday, like the rest of the students.”
“Because I can’t face the class and read it. I’ll choke, I’ll stumble, I’ll stutter and stammer. I might even get physically sick.”
Bruin confessed, when he was her age, he had the same problem. The phobia plagued him all through high school, so that he skipped class and missed classroom discussions, lectures, and assignments. His grades suffered, but he never disclosed the true reasons to his teachers, so they thought he had become a truant and a juvenile delinquent. He even dropped out of high school, and later went to community college, where he eventually overcame the problem, possibly because the atmosphere in the college seminars was usually relaxed, informal, collegial. Bruin explained he did not want her to face similar challenges.
“Do you understand?”
Amy nodded.
Did she want to know how he thought it started for him personally?
Amy shrugged and averted her face as she rolled her eyes backwards. She felt distracted and glanced through the open door into the hallway, where lockers crashed shut amidst loud laughter and chatter. Bruin said when he was a student in Catholic grade school, the spring before graduation, the students had undergone intensive personal and religious training to receive the Catholic sacrament of confirmation. The event dominated the spring schedule for the confirmands—proved as big as the graduation from Catholic school itself. The grade seven and eight students preparing for the sacrament and ceremony were feted by their parents, guardians, and the sponsors, and parishioners at a Saturday night mass. A parent active in the church who volunteered in helping behind the scenes made a last-minute request to the adolescent Bruin to thank the selfless priest for helping them prepare for confirmation.
When he went up to deliver that speech, he realized he was unprepared. Then he noticed the hundreds of people in the church. He stumbled and stammered over his words, which he perceived as virtually incoherent and nonsensical. He thought he made a complete fool and ass out of himself, especially after the priest joked, saying he thought Bruin was going to ask for permission to go to the washroom. The entire church, suddenly in a mood of hilarity, broke into laughter. Bruin never felt so humiliated and embarrassed in his life.
“Does that make sense to you?” Bruin asked.
“Yes.”
“Can we just give it a try Monday? Can’t we just take the bull by the horns, as your father would say, and try to work through the problem ourselves? As I mentioned, I spoke with your father.”
Amy became upset Bruin said he had spoken with her father, and she winced and looked taken aback.
“I think he agreed we should give it a try.”
“Can I go now?” Amy asked. “I need to be at work.”
“Can we give this a try on Monday?”
“I don’t see what choice I have.”
On Monday when Bruin arrived for class, with his mug of fresh coffee, he realized she was the most photogenic student in his class. He never noticed previously because he usually paid no attention to her or any other student’s looks. Now it was difficult for him not to notice her grooming and dress. The steel buttons of her perfectly fitting denim shirt were unbuttoned low down her chest. She wore cowboy boots, a cropped denim jacket, a short denim skirt, and a tight shirt, which fit perfectly and which she left open. He had never seen her wear a dress before. She allowed her long brushed hair to flow over her shoulders, and she wore makeup and lipstick. He thought she looked as handsome as any Hollywood teen celebrity.
Bruin had scheduled three students for this Monday, and her reading was scheduled to be the last. Towards the end of class, he called upon Amy to make her dramatic recital.
Bruin asked her if she would be more comfortable if she sat down at her desk, but she might perform better if she stood. He could barely hear her say, yes. With adrenaline pumping throughout her system, she felt warm and flushed. As soon as she stood everyone saw her limbs trembling. Her face turned crimson, and she broke into a profuse sweat, yet the room was cool, after Mr. Bruin cleared his throat and opened the windows at the rear. Amy was breathless, and her voice broke and cracked.
Amy stammered and her voice continued to pause and quaver. She read three lines, and Bruin was ready to thank her for her spirited performance and say she could sit down, after he realized his error. But she threw down her English textbook, property of Queen Elizabeth District High School, the complete volume of Shakespeare, the plays, comedies, tragedies, histories, and the sonnets, on her desk and her loose note paper and pens and pencils scattered.
“I hate you!” Amy shouted in a very loud, clear, and resonant voice. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! You’re a horrible man, just terrible. I told you I couldn’t do it, but you made me, and I couldn’t, and now look. I just fucking hate you.”
Amy burst from the front door of the classroom sobbing and crying. Later, Bruin thought if she was one of the more popular students in the class or one of the school princesses, some of the girls would have chased after her for moral support. Instead, the whole class sat in stunned silence, as half the students stared at him, and the other half glanced at her, fleeing the classroom through the back door, into the empty corridor. Through the row of classroom windows, her classmates could see her fleeing from the school outside the doors and across the lawn to the walkway. Then they stared and glared at Bruin, who froze where he stood in front of the classroom of expectant students. Then Bruin realized he could not face the class. Bruin feared he had irreparably traumatized her. Grade eight confirmation at Sacred Heart School decades ago recurred all over again for them both.
Now again Bruin was full of humility, embarrassment, and fear, and he could not face the class. The students looked at him with such deadly serious expressions, seeking leadership and guidance through the crisis, and he could not step up and provide. He felt frozen, afraid to face his classroom of students, and he feared he could not face them again. This, this classroom, in his hometown high school, was not the place for him. Feeling defeated, he grabbed his mug, as if he needed a refill of coffee, slipped out of the classroom. Then, outside, after rushing through the foyer and the bank of doors, he tossed his favorite coffee mug in the wastebasket. He strode with a sense of defeat to his car in the parking lot beside the football field and the athletic track.
Bruin drove home, even though he lived only a short distance away, in the house he had inherited in his hometown from his mother; he had been planning to go walleye fishing at Frog Rapids bridge after school. He drove home from the high school he had walked to each day when he himself was a high school student. He drove away from the only high school that would hire him after he returned to university, for his degree in education, as a mature student.
After an insider trading scandal overwhelmed Bruin’s career, he departed the securities industry, and Lee hired him. Now Bruin sent his resignation, formal, brief, curt, business-like, like President Nixon’s resignation letter, the student of history mused. Then Bruin blocked his former employer’s telephone number, email, and social media. Bruin decided he was finished with whatever career he may have had in education. Yes, he decided he had finished his tenure as a high school educator. He did not want to hear from his hometown high school anymore; it was enough for one lifetime.
Later, Bruin told Lee had just enough money, savings, to last for a few years if that turned out to be how long he needed to figure out what to do with the remainder of his life. The school sent Lee to visit him, after the teachers lobbied him in the staff room during another teacher’s birthday party. During that celebration he suffered more chest pains and shortness of breath, which caused some teachers to be concerned, including one who kept feeding him brand name antacids from a roll wrapped in foil.
Lee spoke to Bruin briefly at the screen door since Lee was not invited inside his house. Bruin thanked Lee for believing in him, for hiring him to the position of teacher and apologized his hire did not work out. Motivated more by curiosity than suspicion, Lee asked if Bruin had been drinking. Saying he usually did not consume alcoholic beverages, Bruin wondered aloud if Lee had noticed the recycle bin outside, in the backyard, filled with empty coffee containers and sugar free soft drink cans. He did not invite the principal who had hired him inside for a coffee.
Bruin expressed concern for his former student, saying he hoped Amy was well, not suffering any adverse consequences. Having learned his life lesson, Bruin said he did not expect to teach any longer; his work as an educator was complete. Bruin said he now felt more concerned with the fate of his former pupil. Lee advised him there should be no worries; Bruin was officially on paid leave, until the issue was resolved, and they had a substitute teacher to cover for him.
The school had a psychologist, who visited from Kenora, where the head office of the school board was located, and a guidance counsellor, and a social worker who might be able to help, Lee reminded Bruin. In fact, a counsellor later came to Bruin’s door to talk to him, but Bruin assured him he was fine, even though he lost weight, remained unshaven, grew a beard, and gave off a strong body odor. Bruin looked haunted and shell shocked, with a thousand-yard stare. Bruin felt inclined to inquire about his former student and how she fared, but he did not think it was appropriate, since she was a former pupil, and he was no longer in a position of authority.
After a few months, the school board sent police for a wellness check on him. The pair of police officers shouted through the door they needed to talk. Bruin reassured them he was fine; they did not need to break down the door. He had plenty of food, electricity, water, groceries, flush toilets. They could go away, and he would feel better. After he found his housecoat, he opened the door for the police officers, but by the time he answered they were gone. The officers left their business cards and the business cards of a social worker on the steps of the concrete stairwell.
Amy arrived at his door with a gift of fresh fish, walleye, she herself had filleted. Bruin told her she could leave the wrapped fresh fish, packaged in translucent plastic freezer bags, in the garden shed. Through the screen door he said he loved fish, but he didn’t mention he preferred canned fish, because cooking left him annoyed and flustered. To neighbors he even gave the fish he caught in the lakes and rivers that surrounded and divided the town.
Amy’s father also visited him at his house. Bruin drank the beer and whiskey her father brought along, even though he normally did not consume alcoholic beverages, but he felt he owed it to the man. They talked about their own high school years and shared interests, hunting, fishing, although Bruin had to admit he had not been hunting or fishing for decades, since he was a teenager.
It would work out, Amy’s father said, as he drank his fourth can of beer. Bruin tried to reassure him everything would work out all right and well in the end, especially for Amy and her future. Amy’s father promised him he and his daughter both would take him hunting and fishing someday soon.
A few weeks later, Lee received the letter from the director of education and superintendent indicating the school board reviewed his contract, which was temporary, a short-term agreement for the year that followed his probationary period. Lee originally expected the school board to renew his contract for the principal’s position and for them to offer him the office on a permanent basis. With this letter from the top executives and officials, he nurtured fresh doubts and fears. After he made a phone call to a few school trustees and the superintendent, he realized the school board was unlikely to keep him as a hire and a new candidate would assume his position as principal. The superintendent, with whom he was friends, said a few trustees questioned Lee’s judgement in hiring Bruin, whose qualifications for the position, they felt, were weak and questionable. That seemed like the worst of excuses, Lee thought.
The chest pains had been aggravating Lee even before he received the letter. When he received the foreboding news, the aggravation started to worsen and overpower him, so he could not move from his comfortable swiveling, reclining chair in the principal’s office. By the end of the lunch hour and the start of afternoon classes, Lee was struggling to breathe, his face contorted in pain, as he experienced a crushing pain beneath his breastbone that radiated to his arm and the center of his back. He buzzed for the secretary and, when she did not respond, he shouted for the vice-principal.
The vice-principal called the emergency telephone number and summoned an ambulance. The paramedics gave Bruin oxygen and nitroglycerin tablets for him to place beneath his tongue and diagnosed him as likely undergoing a myocardial infarction. Within an hour, doctors and nurses examined him, assessed him, and treated him in the emergency department of the rural hospital. The healthcare team agreed he needed specialized treatment and a cardiologist. The head doctor made the telephone calls to medivac him to the hospital in Thunder Bay for emergency treatment and cardiac surgery.
As Amy walked to school for her afternoon class, she saw the air ambulance take off from the airport nearby, ascending into the clear skies beyond the high school football field. Amy wondered who might be aboard the air ambulance. She remembered the air ambulance flight she took to Thunder Bay, after the family physician asked her to function as patient escort for her mother, who lay comatose after an overdose. The air ambulance impressed her with its sense of urgency and professionalism, and its life support equipment, a critical care unit in a light aircraft.
During the air ambulance flight of the Pilatus aircraft, the sunset she saw settle beneath the horizon of the rugged rock formations and vast waterways and forests of the Canadian Shield landscape was the most beautiful and moving she saw in her life. She crouched alongside her mother on the gurney and clutched her limp hand. Her mother lay in critical condition, her kidneys failing, her vital organs shutting down, a few days away from her ultimate end. Oddly enough, she looked more tranquil and serene than Amy had ever seen her in her life.
Aboard that air ambulance flight with her ailing unconscious mother, as she struggled to find hope, Amy first nurtured her aspiration of becoming a flight paramedic. She decided she would continue to pursue that dream. The career, she hoped, would take her far from her hometown, surrounded by epic, endless rocks, forests, and lakes, and all its unhappy and bittersweet memories.
Born and raised in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, John Tavares is the son of Portuguese immigrants from Sao Miguel, Azores. Having graduated from arts and science at Humber College and journalism at Centennial College, he more recently earned a Specialized Honors BA in English Literature from York University. His short fiction has been featured in community newspapers and radio and published in a variety of print and online journals, magazines, and anthologies, in the US, Canada, and internationally. His many passions include journalism, literature, economics, photography, writing, and coffee, and he enjoys hiking and cycling.
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