King of the Mild Frontier by Chris Crutcher Page B

to be spared was the three-foot, ten-hole hardwood paddle with the beveled edges hanging in the principal’s office, and he’d bring it in contact with your butt cheeks at the slightest provocation. In a classroom discussion about our home lives one day, Gene Hamlin said his mother spanked him and his brother every morning because she knew they didn’t have it in them to go through the day performing a deserving deed, and Tarter said, “Your mother is an astute woman, Mr. Hamlin. I suggest you ask her to join the P.T.A. and spread the word to some other mothers in this town who may be a little lax, judging from their children’s behavior.” He paused and scanned the room. “You know who you are.”
    If you were to commit the misdemeanor of speaking out of turn in Tarter’s class, he would likely as not order you to stand in front of the class, arms at a ninety-degree angle to your body, palms up (kind of a crucifixion position, minus the cross) until he said you could put them down. If you complained or if the original crime was closer to a felony, say passing a note or chewing gum or sneaking a SweeTARTfrom your front pocket to your mouth just as you pretended to cough, he would place a book in each of those outstretched arms. If you complained further, he added books. (No wonder I didn’t like books.)
    What I liked about Tarter was his capacity to reduce us all to bawlbabies, making me decidedly more comfortable with my peers. He is the example I use to this day when pointing out the constitutional wisdom of separation of church and state. Up until the day before Easter break, my punishments in the crucifixion position had always been with other kids, so the humiliation factor was diminished by numbers. But on that day I committed some solo crime and was asked (read, “commanded”) to stand before my classmates at the front of the room alone, arms extended.
    In the fully developed emotionally healthy human being, the concept “There but for the grace of God” is one that invites compassion: observing that person caught doing what you didn’t get caught doing and offering silent support. In the fully developed eleven- or twelve-year-old, who is at best a forty-percent-developed human being, that concept is translated into “There but for the grace of God…Ha! Ha! Ha!” A titter ran through the classroom, stifled when Tarter shot his you-want-to-be-next? look across the room. Patsy Cantrell and Bonnie Heavrin, ranch girls who were knownto bet on anything, passed a note back and forth which, I was sure contained their estimates of how long I would last, plus the amount of the wager. Neither was Paula Whitson to me, but Bonnie was beginning to develop breasts, transforming her automatically into someone you didn’t want laughing at you.
    I decided my class was about to witness ruggedness in the form of tenacity heretofore unimagined. I fixed my eyes on a spot above their heads, extended my arms as if I were suffering the children to come unto me, and dug in. I sang the lyrics to “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley” in my head, called up what I could remember of Horton Hatches the Egg. I tried to recite the alphabet backward, getting all the way to X. Rivulets of perspiration followed one another down the cottage cheese of my torso, slowing at the love handles, then speeding up again to soak into the elastic of my undershorts. Darkness moved in from the sides. I stared directly into Bonnie Heavrin’s eyes, taunting myself with the threat of humiliation. I stared at her chest. She made a fist and I closed my eyes.
    A traumatic ordeal that seemed to last a lifetime was actually over in a little more than seventy seconds. My hands weighed my arms down like anvils. “Get them up!” Tarter demanded. I pushed with all my might, but myshoulders burned and gave out as my hands sank involuntarily to my sides. Bonnie looked at her watch and passed