Adam Selzer Read online

  That, however, did not mean I wanted to be suspended. As I took that long walk to the office, I felt for a second like a condemned criminal, which I was starting to feel like more and more often, but then I shook that off and made myself feel as though I was an alleged felon walking into the courtroom to argue my case. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight—whatever I was fighting over. As I reached the office door, I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure which offense they were suspending me for in the first place. Was it illegal to use a CPR doll for something other than its intended purpose? Had they found out that I’d spent the last third of math class in the bathroom on Tuesday? That was probably it.

  When I walked into the office, the principal, Dr. Brown, was sitting at his desk, and Mrs. Smollet, surprise surprise, was sitting next to him.

  “Ah, Mr. Harris,” said Dr. Brown, “nice of you to join us.” Dr. Brown was a friendly sort of guy, but none of us really liked him much because we could always tell that he just didn’t take us that seriously. After all, he didn’t give us enough credit to know that we could tell he was wearing the worst hairpiece in town.

  “What am I in for?” I asked, sitting down on the other side of his desk.

  “Well,” he said, “we have a little complaint from Mrs. Smollet here.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “Do tell.” I was trying my best to act all casual. Had I been braver, I would have said, “Why should today be any different?” But seeing as how I was nervous, I wasn’t in the kind of mental shape you need to be in to come up with anything brilliant on the spot.

  Sitting on a chair much nicer than the one I got, she was looking very stern, like one of those old paintings of Puritan women. She would have made a good Puritan; she and Joe Griffin would probably think that burning witches was fun and educational for the whole family.

  “Well,” said Dr. Brown, “it’s all to do with your video project for advanced studies. She tells me that she warned you not to do anything inappropriate with it.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “And I didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s where we sort of disagree,” he said. “I think you’ve done a very good job on the movie, but it’s clearly inappropriate for a middle school project.”

  “It’s not inappropriate!” I said. “It’s art! Most of the suggestive images come from some of the greatest paintings ever produced.”

  “Well, her problem isn’t really with the nudity,” he said.

  “Actually,” Mrs. Smollet interrupted, “I do have a problem with the nudity. And with this thing you intend to use as narration. This…film”—she acted like saying the word “film” was physically painful to her—“is simply vulgar.”

  “There isn’t any real nudity!” I said. “The only naked things in it are paintings and a CPR dummy.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “Nudity is nudity.”

  “But great paintings aren’t obscene!” I said. “They’re works of art.”

  “It’s still not appropriate,” she said. “If I were a mother, I wouldn’t want my children to see this sort of thing.”

  “Well, there are points that can be made on both sides,” said Dr. Brown, breaking up the argument and trying to be my pal. “But the real problem is with the, uh…the masturbation references. There are several in the text.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. Smollet. “This film goes out of its way to promote masturbation.”

  “It doesn’t promote it, exactly,” I said.

  “We got a complaint about it already,” she said. “One student came to me and told me that you described it as ‘pro-whacking-off propaganda’ and that you’d personally told him that you were using it to encourage students to masturbate. I have it in your handwriting, in fact.” He held up the note he and I had passed back and forth.

  Somewhere, Joe Griffin was sitting with that obnoxious smirk of his on his face, knowing that this was happening. I would have decided then and there to kick his ass, but if I gave him a personal injury, his dad would probably sue me. I guess nothing says “protection” like having your dad advertise on TV that he sues people over minor injuries.

  “I was joking around!” I said.

  “I think it’s obviously promoting the…practice,” she continued. “The scenes of the dummy doing it are absolutely inappropriate.”

  “What?” I asked. “The dummy isn’t doing anything! It doesn’t even have a crotch!” This was true—it was a waist-up dummy. The people who built it probably figured that legs were rarely involved in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  “Well, let’s take a look,” said Dr. Brown. He got up from his desk and walked across the room to the TV that was set up in the corner and put my tape in the machine. He fast-forwarded to a shot of the dummy that showed it only from about the chest down.

  “See?” she said. “It’s clearly…well, you know….”

  I looked closely. The dummy’s hand was indeed right about where the crotch would have been, but it wasn’t moving around or anything.

  “It’s not, either!” I said. “It just happens to have its hand where its crotch ought to be. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that this film promotes masturbation,” said Mrs. Smollet.

  “No, it doesn’t!” I argued. “It just says that it’s normal, which it is. Dummies don’t usually do it, of course, which is why the dummy in the movie isn’t, but it’s pretty normal for people.”

  “Well, be that as it may,” said Dr. Brown, “it’s not an appropriate topic for this grade level. And please try to keep the sarcasm down so we can have an open dialogue here.”

  “I don’t see why it’s not an appropriate topic,” I said.

  “It’s never an appropriate topic,” said Mrs. Smollet. “Morals are morals, and this movie is simply immoral.”

  “That’s absurd!” I said. “How is middle school an inappropriate time to talk about that subject? If anything, it’s the most appropriate time of all! You know how many kids are probably stressed out about that?”

  I sort of wondered what exactly she found immoral about masturbation in the first place. Who did it harm? I’d seen the thing in the Bible about spilling one’s seed instead of using it to get someone pregnant, but that surely didn’t mean that eighth graders in this day and age should be going around getting people pregnant. Maybe back in biblical times it was okay, but not now.

  “Still,” said Dr. Brown. “It’s not the sort of thing that we’re allowed to discuss in schools. Parents will complain. I could lose my job.”

  “Parents like her?” I said, pointing to Mrs. Smollet. “They probably don’t want sex ed in the schools to begin with.”

  “Well, if you ask me,” she said, stepping onto the soapbox I’d set out for her, “it’s just providing a how-to manual. But that’s not the point here.”

  I made no secret of the fact that I was rolling my eyes. “You’re in charge of the gifted pool,” I said. “Do you honestly think kids don’t already know the basics?”

  “Well, there’s a lot of merit in your argument, Mr. Harris,” said Dr. Brown, trying to shut us both up. “But the fact remains that I can’t allow this sort of thing in the school, and since you were warned not to do anything that could be seen as inappropriate, we have no choice but to take action.”

  “Well, there’s not a lot I can do that would be appropriate to Mrs. Smollet!” I said. “She’d probably be upset if I showed someone’s bare ankles!”

  “That’s enough, Leon,” she said. She looked as though she was ready to start breathing fire at any moment.

  I was convinced that whoever had put her in charge of the gifted pool must have been smoking the pot that was growing in the woods behind the school. And I was further convinced that she herself must have been eating Drug Krispies for breakfast to think that something everybody did, and that was totally harmless, was such a terrible thing to talk about.

  Dr. Brown was starting to drop the friendly routine. “Since this is r
eally the first time you’ve been in serious trouble, we’re just going to give you in-school suspension for tomorrow and for the rest of today,” he said. “And don’t worry; it won’t go on your permanent record.”

  As I have said, Dr. Brown really did not take us seriously.

  “Does this mean that the movie won’t get shown to the sixth and seventh graders?” I asked.

  “Well, of course it does,” he said. “Be reasonable, Mr. Harris.” Mrs. Smollet gave me a look that probably would have killed anyone under the age of twelve.

  “I am,” I said. “I’m the only one in here being reasonable.”

  “You already have a day and a half, Mr. Harris,” said Dr. Brown. “Mrs. Smollet suggested much longer. Would you like me to add more time?”

  I sighed. “No,” I said. “I’ll go quietly. But every kid in the school is going to hear about this.”

  “I don’t doubt that they will,” said Dr. Brown.

  He had no idea.

  I’d never been suspended before. I’d had my fair share of detentions over the years, but those were no big deal. Show me a kid who can get through middle school without getting detention once or twice and I’ll show you a kid without enough self-esteem to speak his mind.

  Suspension was a whole other matter, though. People would notice I wasn’t in school, and they’d talk. I fully expected that by the end of the day, Anna, Brian, Edie, Dustin, James, and everyone else would know that I was suspended, and they’d probably know exactly why, too. News travels. And no one would hesitate to guess that Mrs. Smollet was behind it.

  To serve my term, I was led into a small room near the teachers’ lounge that was empty except for a small table with four chairs. Dr. Brown told me to have a seat; then he walked out, shutting the door behind him. There were no bars, but I was officially in prison, and to top it off, in solitary confinement. According to my watch, I would be there for four hours that day and six and a half the next.

  I don’t know if the room was made just for in-school suspension, but I couldn’t imagine what other purpose it served. The walls were covered with stupid motivational posters, the kind where they have a picture of an eagle or the Grand Canyon, then something like MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE—CHOOSE SUCCESS under it. I was quite familiar with them; the previous year, my dad had decided that my schoolwork might improve if he put a bunch of them up in the bathroom, but I’d taken them down myself. The last thing I want to see when I’m in the bathroom is a sign that says COMMIT YOURSELF TO QUALITY IN ALL YOU DO. Having to spend a full day and a half surrounded by them seemed worse than spending a day in an actual prison cell.

  It was a good thing I had my backpack with me, since it was just about time for lunch. I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t packed it but had planned to get the school lunch. Would they have expected me to starve? Probably not; that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. They’d probably have had it brought in for me by some office aide. I’d compliment them on their fine catering service.

  Outside, I imagined Dr. Brown was probably calling my parents, if Mrs. Smollet hadn’t fought him for the honor. Mom and Dad had never found out about the times I’d been in detention, so this would be a new one for them. Their little Leon, the criminal. No, that wasn’t what I was. I was no criminal. I was a supposed pornographer.

  No, that still wasn’t good enough. An alleged smut peddler.

  Smut peddler. That was what Dr. Brown was probably telling my parents. If Smollet was there, she was probably saying I was a no-good, dirty-minded teenage hoodlum who lacked moral fiber and needed his mouth washed out with soap.

  I pulled my lunch out of my backpack and ate it, just tossing the empty plastic bags and wrappers on the floor. Screw ’em. I would serve my time, but they couldn’t make me be neat.

  A lot of people in history, like Gandhi and some of the founding fathers and guys like that, thought it was honorable to serve time in jail for a noble cause. That was what I was doing. I was serving time for a noble cause: the right to make a frank, honest, and artistic sex-ed video. The right to tell kids that what they were going through and doing was completely normal, and that they didn’t need to worry. If that wasn’t a noble cause, I didn’t know what was. A generation of kids who knew that in sixth grade could change the world for the better.

  About an hour and a half went by very, very slowly. I was just starting to think that this was going to be a seriously long couple of days when the door opened, and in walked a thirty-something-year-old jerk with curly blond hair and glasses with Coke-bottle lenses. I could tell just by looking at him that he was a jerk. He was, after all, probably working for the school. That was a solid indication of jerkhood right there.

  “Hi there, young man,” he said. I generally do not trust guys who call me “young man.”

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “My name is Dr. Guff,” he said. “I’m the school psychiatrist.” He gave me a little “I’m here to be your buddy” smile.

  My ears perked up. Pay dirt! The rumors were true—he did exist! I wished I had a camera. Despite James’s and Dustin’s stories about meeting him, I had begun to think he really was just a legend.

  “I’m Leon,” I said, offering my hand. “Can I do the inkblot test?”

  He laughed politely. “We don’t really do that, now that everyone knows about it ahead of time,” he said. “They just have me come in and rap with the kids who, you know, fall into some issues.”

  People who say “young man” usually say “rap” instead of “talk.” It’s a good way to tell when someone’s trying to get you to think he’s cool when he’s actually, as I suspected, a jerk. If he had been taking me seriously, he would have said “they have me talk to the kids who get in trouble to make sure they aren’t planning on killing anyone or anything.” Actually, I think school psychiatrists are the only people left who still say “rap” when they mean “talk.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve fallen into some issues, all right. I’m a martyr for the cause. Like that guy in the Goya painting who’s being shot by the firing squad.” I’d seen that picture in one of the art books I borrowed from Anna. I raised my arms, imitating him.

  “Okay, good,” he said, nodding. “So you feel that you’re a victim in this case?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. My video is informative and artsy. This is censorship.”

  “Well, I guess we can call it that, if that’s what you’re comfortable with,” he said.

  “What else could it be?”

  “Legally speaking,” he said, “it’s not censorship. The school is allowed to determine what’s acceptable and what’s not in this sort of case.”

  “Still,” I said, “this is crazy. Have you seen the movie I’m in trouble over?”

  “Yes”—he nodded—“and I thought it was very creative. You’re a very creative student, Leon.”

  Say it, jerk. I thought. Say the part about the potential.

  “You have so much potential,” he said.

  Yes!

  “I’ve heard,” I said. “People tell me that about every other day.”

  “Well,” he said, “have you ever thought of applying your creativity to your schoolwork?”

  “I did,” I pointed out. “This movie was schoolwork. And I ended up suspended for it.”

  “Maybe what I’m saying,” explained Dr. Guff, still using that annoying, gentle cool-guy tone, “is that you should think about finding more appropriate channels for your creativity. It’s like in Star Wars. Luke has the Force, and he can use it for good or evil. Your creativity is like the Force. You determine your own destiny. Right now, you’re using it to make inappropriate school projects.”

  “I’ve said this before,” I said, “and I’m sure I’ll be saying it again. There was nothing inappropriate about that movie. Saying that you can’t talk about masturbation in middle school is like saying…” I paused to think of a good comparison. “It’s like saying you can’t talk a
bout sand in the desert. Or trees in the forest.”

  If any psychiatrist believed that twelve-year-olds didn’t think about sex, then that psychiatrist sucked at his or her job.

  “That may be so,” said Dr. Guff, “but it’s not my call to make.”

  Aha! He was pulling evasive action! Washing his hands of the whole affair so I couldn’t complain to him.

  “Well,” I said, “maybe, as school psychiatrist, you could explain the facts to them. I don’t think it’s ever occurred to Mrs. Smollet that anyone here ever thinks about sex.”

  “Let’s talk about how all this makes you feel,” he said, changing the subject, pulling further evasive action. “Do you ever feel angry?”

  “Actually, I feel crazy,” I said. “Do you know that just the other night I made a casserole out of applesauce and green beans?”

  He chuckled. “Did you, now?”

  “Sure did. And I ate it, too.”

  “So you think that makes you crazy?”

  “If you can think of a better word for it, I’d like to hear it,” I said. “I’m crazy, Dr. Guff. I’m crazy as a daisy. And now I’m an alleged smut peddler.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he said, writing something in his notebook.

  “And I’d like you to tell Dr. Brown and Mrs. Smollet that this isn’t over. I can promise you that we won’t do anything violent. We won’t go on a rampage or anything, but this fight isn’t over. People will hear about this. And they won’t sit still for it. Can you deliver a message to Mrs. Smollet for me?”