Gravity
The window was only slightly rolled down, but the January air filled the car in a hurry. Mitch lit up a Marlboro Red and turned the heat off. Bobby used to hate it when Mitch would roll the window down and turn the heat off when they were smoking. Mitch argued it was the best way to have a cigarette, in the coldest of air you could really feel it. Bobby, well, he just didn’t want to be cold.
Mitch thought about those arguments as he traveled down an unfamiliar road. While waiting for a green light, he held his cigarette idle and watched smoke trickle up and out the window. He felt tears form in his eyes and let them slowly move down his cheeks.
He found a spot toward the back of the parking lot and sat in his car for a minute, stalling. He put on his knit cap, left his car, and slowly walked up the church stairs and into the vestibule. The wake had already begun. The pews were nearly all filled up. He found an empty one on the left-hand side and sat down. He wondered how many of these people had even known Bobby.
He took off his coat to reveal a collared white dress shirt with a poorly tied black tie and black slacks. Each shoulder of the shirt had a tiny puff where the weight of the shirt had previously rested on the hanger. A few of the people had turned around and noticed Mitch’s entrance. An old woman whispered something to the woman sitting next to her.
The priest was trying his best to lead the mourners in prayer, but he couldn’t seem to maintain their focus. It wasn’t Mitch’s late entrance that was causing the distraction but a series of sweeping wails bellowed without meter by a man in the right front most pew. Mitch knew the man but had not seen him for a couple of years. It was Bobby’s father, Mr. Adams, his former high school principal.
The whole service went on this way with Mr. Adams resting his elbows on his knees, hands clutching his head faced downward. Mrs. Adams sitting by his side with her arms wrapped around him, at times desperately trying to keep the weight of his large frame up. Bobby resting at the front of the church in an open casket.
After the service, Bobby’s family formed a line in succession to the casket. Mitch debated internally whether it’d be best if he just left and didn’t approach the casket at all. He was never good with social graces. But he needed to say goodbye to his good friend one last time. He took his place in line and crossed his arms as he moved up the aisle at a fluctuating pace.
Mitch watched as people offered condolences to all the family members with furrowed brows and clasping hugs. The grief was contagious with many spontaneously erupting into tears. Mr. Adams stood at the end of the line, but Mitch thought he did not look like himself. He was always so powerful, so strong. Like he could walk through concrete school walls if he wanted to. Today, he was lost in himself, his mind a million miles away. A body that could go down at any minute in collapse.
With his head and neck slouched downward, Mitch expressed his regret to the more extended family members he did not know. He then met Bobby’s intimidating older sister Kathy in the line. The last time he had seen Kathy she was dropping off a 30-pack of Busch Light she had bought for Mitch and Bobby. She triple charged them for it. He told her how sorry he was for her loss and thought about how she had lost her only sibling.
Bobby’s mom’s face was heavy with exhaustion, the result of several days of intermittent tears. When Mitch’s face met hers, it pointed up. She had always been unsure of Mitch since Bobby met him in high school during their freshman year. She accepted Mitch’s condolences but did so reluctantly. Bobby always said nobody could make him laugh more after all. She knew it couldn’t have been easy for him to be here today.
As soon as Mitch entered Mr. Adams’ peripheral vision, Mr. Adams began to sharpen up. He fully stretched his fingers down and felt an intense anger overcome him. A worry flashed in Mr. Adams’ mind warning him his anger could become severe. Mitch could sense it while speaking with Bobby’s mom. All of a sudden Mitch thought he’d made a big mistake coming here today at all.
Mitch moved two paces to the side and sheepishly said, “Mr. Adams — I’m so sor…”
Mr. Adams shot Mitch an intense look, paused, then shouted, “My office – Saturday 9 A.M. sharp!”
The shout caused Mrs. Mattsy, the church organist, to nearly jump up off her pew. She was always startled by loud noises in church not coming from her. Mitch was embarrassed and knew that was the end of their communication. He gathered himself and quickly slid over to Bobby’s casket. He took a hurried moment with Bobby, mouthed the words goodbye friend, then quickly walked out of the church, down the steps, into his car to light up a smoke.
The school looked about the same as Mitch remembered it. All the lockers were now painted green. On the way to Mr. Adams’ office, he passed his old locker. He couldn’t remember the combination. He remembered when he and his friends would break into lockers they’d take one of those real heavy textbooks and come down with swift, brute force on the handle and that would almost always break the lock.
All the hallways were cool and shadowy today, and Mitch found it to be quite pleasant, almost soothing. He badly didn’t want to come. He’d been a nervous wreck all week and had only managed to get through it with extra help. Some of the same extra help that had started all this in the first place. He didn’t know why he was here to be honest, just that he’d felt the pull to do some things differently since Bobby had passed on.
He knocked on the door to Mr. Adams’ office and didn’t hear a response. He entered the room and looked up at the clock. He was five minutes early–for once. He sat down in the chair facing Mr. Adams’ giant desk. He never thought in a million years he’d be sitting here again.
He gripped the chair’s arms in his hands and remembered how powerfully glib he’d always felt in that chair. He had a flashback to a time when Mr. Adams, sitting behind his giant desk, questioned him, “Why can’t you seem to get your head out of your ass?” To which Mitch replied in his mind, “Why can’t you stop getting worked up over petty bullshit?”
Mr. Adams entered the office at 9 A.M. sharp. He was wearing tennis shoes, thick gym sweatpants, and a gray sweatshirt with a giant apple on the chest. Mitch did not turn around to see his entrance.
Mr. Adams took a seat at his high back leather chair. He opened a desk drawer, found a picture, and pushed it over to Mitch.
“That’s the first class I ever taught–junior high science.” Mitch picked up the picture and looked it over.
“When I first came out of college, I had all these images in my head of what it meant to be a teacher. I pictured a classroom full of adoring students, eager to soak up knowledge. Sure – there’s probably a few kids in that photo, where if for instance you were to stop them on the street and ask them, ‘Say, what is gravity?’ They’d probably be able to tell you. But I suspect there are many in that photo who could not. What ends up happening is very different. Because you’re not teaching to figments of your imagination but actual human beings.”
“As educators, it is our job to get through to students. To get them to take interest in the meaningful things of this world. But the truth is, there’s a lot of kids, we don’t…maybe I don’t… know how to get through to. I just hope that somehow, someway they figure it out after they walk out those doors the final time. Even if they have to learn from something as serious as death.”
Mr. Adams then leaned forward in his chair and his voice got quieter. “Knock it off with the drugs and do something with your life. Understand?”
Mitch looked directly into Mr. Adams’ eyes and nodded his head in agreement. Mr. Adams said, “You may go.”
Mitch exited the school out the right-side double door, got into his car, and drove away keeping his window rolled up the whole way home.
Special thanks to Corey for his encouragement and my mom for help with editing