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Topic: Teachers (07/12/04)
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TITLE: Teacher in the Dark By Bruce Meyer 07/19/04 |
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“Are you sure it’s the place?” hissed a large shadow from behind two others.
“Look at that tree,” spat a hoarse voice not trying very hard to keep as quiet as the first. It was an old tree, with few leaves only at the top and hard and stripped branches below. The shadow with the hoarse voice reached inside a pocket and removed a brightly lit cellphone. He quickly dialed a number and then snapped it shut again. Soon the window by the old tree opened, and one leg, another, and then a skinny body with dangling legs feeling for a thick branch of the old tree.
“Give me a verse!” cried a woman from the living room below. It was a warm and cozy room with soft blue blinds drawn tightly to seal in the soft glow of bronze lamps. But tonight there was a chilling sound of footsteps crossing the room above, a window opening, and feet scraping against aluminum siding. She walked over to the window, tears streaming down her face, wanting desperately to open the blinds and grab him back into their house.
“Well, let’s see...” The man remained seated on one end of an earthen couch, but a look of grave concern swept his slightly wrinkled face while he ruffled through a thick book. “Ah- here’s one. ‘Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.’”
The skinny, dark figure jumped from the last branch of the old tree to land next to the three other shadows. “Hey, guys-”
“Phil-!”
“Did your folks hear?”
“Nah, they’re probably doing church stuff. It always makes them deaf.”
“Let’s go, we got to scaadooodle!” With that, four shadows raced out of the yard and down the murky alley.
Back in the lower room under the warm glow of the bronze lamps, the man stood tall and straight, and put his arm around his sobbing wife. Then they knelt together next to the long earthen couch.
“Help me over the wall,” bellowed the large shadow to the skinny shadow of Philip directly behind him, so he put out his hands for the other to bolster his oversized shoes. They had come to the destination of their dark escapade, but there was a high barrier between them and their objective. He strained against the weight of the other as he struggled to scramble over the top while two other shadows watched.
“I’m next,” announced the hoarse voice. Once again Philip help out clasped hands to help another over the wall, and another, until only he was left.
“Come on over…” called the hoarse voice from the other side. Being small, Philip was the best of the four at climbing walls, so they left him to scale it by himself. But something had changed. He no longer wanted to follow the others over the wall. He felt conflicting feelings of both compunction and freedom, coupled with a longing for his own bed with his covers pulled up tightly around his neck. He looked up and realized he was no longer bound by those walls. He may have been wrong, but he would return and make everything right.
“I’m not coming over!” he shouted after them.
“What!”
“Don’t be a schmootz!”
“Bye guys!” Philip knew they’d be enraged, but with the wall between them and no one to help them over, what could they do? He was free! He raced back through the alley, up the old tree, and back in through the still open window.
The man and his wife looked up from kneeling in front of the couch when they heard the sound of the window open above them. They looked at each other while he wiped tears from her sunken cheeks, and then they held each other in a long embrace.