Schooling Mr. Brennan

The lunchroom routine progressed normally. About half way through the period most of the students had eaten and either thrown their leftovers away or at someone else, and settled into their after-lunch exercise program. This usually consisted of varieties of running games, such as “tag”, “hide and go shriek”, “kick the can”, the garbage can that is, and the like. Mike Stewart decided to walk over to my section to chat a little over the noise. Right in the middle of a conversation on local nightspots, I noticed a disturbing change in the expression on his face. I didn’t know what to think at first, but I soon realized that he was looking past me toward the opposite end of the cafeteria. I turned to see what he was gaping at and almost caught a flying notebook in the forehead. The accustomed noise level in the room suddenly rose to a point that would’ve made Helen Keller wince. The rear doors to the cafeteria had burst open and a veritable tsunami of bodies was cascading across the cafeteria. The mob was screaming, pushing and shoving anyone and anything that was in its way. Chairs began to fall then the tables went over. I turned briefly to see if Mike was still there but he was gone. I glimpsed him racing through the exit doors at the other end of the cafeteria. I turned back to see Linda dive into the kitchen just before the wave of bodies swept past. I considered standing my ground for a second and then thought better of it. Even a low-grade moron could see there was no way to stop a mob like that. I was about to follow Mike’s example and hastily retreat when I looked over at Donna. She actually looked as though she were going to attempt to “turn the herd” and stop the stampede. Without further conscious thought, I sprinted to her section, grabbed her arm and pulled her into the teacher’s cafeteria. The churning mass was hot on our heels. There were a dozen or so teachers in the room. Some had gotten up and were heading for the door. Brian was in the lead. “What’s going on out there?” he yelled. “God, I don’t know. A bunch of kids just ran in through the back doors. They’re tearing the place apart,” I shouted, releasing Donna’s arm. Even in the midst of a crisis I was aware that holding her arm was probably not a good idea. “Oh no, just like last year,” someone shouted. I was about to suggest that we do something when the door burst open and three rough-looking black kids skidded in. They eyeballed us for a moment and apparently decided the odds were in our favor. They tossed a couple of “motherfuckers” at us and took off back through the door to join their comrades. We could hear the commotion sweeping out into the front corridor and down toward the office. The male faculty members, though momentarily stunned, decided to react. About eight of us left the room and followed the crowd toward the main office. The students we encountered along the way were all Earhart kids. They were obviously scared. Some were crying. It looked like none of our students were involved and Brian shouted something about “kids from Hoover”, the high school down the street. It had a reputation for being the dumping ground for the dregs of the school system. Two or three other faculty members joined us on our way to the office area and we could see the crowd buzzing around the office doors. Fortunately, Carol had been able to lock them. The intruders saw us coming and split into two groups. One group, comprising the majority of the raiding party, shot out the main doors at the front of the building. The rest of them, about sixteen in all, headed down the corridor away from us. Too late they realized they were hemmed in at a dead end. The only way out was past us. Both the teachers and the intruders stopped and faced each other. It was unnaturally quiet for a few seconds. We just stood there looking at each other, neither group wanting to do the obvious. After about five seconds a shout went up from the boys and they charged us. Brian and another teacher were in the front and went down with the first wave, but in doing so, they felled the front line of the enemy troops. The ensuing skirmish netted six kids. The other ten or so made it through the gauntlet and out the main doors. One of them had come straight at me. His forward momentum bowled me over but I managed to hang on to his sweatshirt. As we went down his head hit me square in the nose. As I wrestled with him I realized that my nose was bleeding, the blood smearing onto my shirtsleeve. For the first time in years, I lost my temper. Up to that moment, I was the adult, in control to some degree, at least of my emotions. I was reacting in a rational way to an irrational situation. The sight of my own blood, through eyes watering from the blow to my nose, flipped the mental switch. Jack Brennan was gone. In his place, an uncontrollable monster. “Get up you little bastard,” I screamed, yanking the boy to his feet. “Who the Hell do you think you are?” I raged, bouncing him off the wall. There was enough adrenaline pulsing through my veins to qualify me for the Olympic weight lifting team. It wasn’t until Brian grabbed my shoulder that I realized what I was doing. I had the boy pinned to the wall by the neck. His feet were just dangling there. He was choking and the distinct odor of urine, told me that one of us had wet our pants. I suppose it could have been me, but it wasn’t. Reason seeped slowly back into my brain and I lowered him to the floor. The whole incident had only lasted about five minutes and I heard sirens out front. I still had the kid by the neck, and when he noticed his five restrained companions looking at him, he suddenly found his nerve again. “Git off me fucker!” he growled, struggling against my grip. “You ain’ got no right to touch me.” By this time the office’s call to the police had been answered. The cops had made their way past the main office and in our direction. The lead officer strode up to me and grabbed the boy by the back of his sweatshirt. “We’ll get off you all right, you little punk!” he roared, dragging him toward the main office. I was too numb to say anything. Brian was asking if I was all right. I waived him off and turned around to find the men’s room. I needed to tend to my nose. As I rinsed my face with cold water, the reality of what had just happened, washed over me. The truth was hard for me to accept. It wasn’t just the student invasion and the total lack of respect for the civilized world they displayed. It was also the white-hot rage that had flared within me. My own loss of sense and rationality frightened me deeply. At some level I was no better than the hoodlums that had rampaged through our school. Jack Brennan had just been reintroduced to his own personal “Mr. Hyde”.