Detrimental Derivation

Eric lifted his eyes from the massive book and noticed principal Davis in the distance strolling along the covered walkway. He didn't like Mr. Davis, he carried himself as if he was more sophisticated and important than everyone else he dealt with daily. Perhaps he was, but acting the part seemed to spit in the face of modesty.

"What an idiot. I wonder if he realizes it's summer," Eric said softly, taking note of the thick hair, white shirt, red tie, tan vest, heavy tan jacket and black slacks decorating the overtly overdressed administrator. "Just keep on walking. Right on by. Nothing over here."

Suddenly, Mr. Davis noticed Eric and altered his seemingly unimportant course.

"Oh, you bastard," Eric said through closed teeth as he looked back down into "A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons In History." He started to prepare himself for the inevitable interrogation. What am I doing here? Isn't it obvious? I'm devising a modern utopian political philosophy.

Mr. Davis stopped a few feet in front of the bench. "Good afternoon," he said in a practiced voice.

"Hey."

"So what's up? What are you doing out here?" he asked in a friendly manner.

"Not much, reading" Eric replied, lifting the book up a few inches.

The principal noticed the green shirt with white type that read "Think twice before you kill your parents." "Don't you have a class fifth period?"

"Normally, yes. This specific period, not really. I kinda finished early."

"Who's your teacher?"

"Mrs. Hensley."

"Did she send you out of class?"

"Yup."

"Why aren't you in study hall?"

"I wasn't sent to study hall."

"So why did she send you out?" Mr. Davis inquired in a confused voice.

"Well, somebody brought up the fact that a kid in their first period class got in trouble for not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance, and she said that she would expect everyone to stand because to do otherwise would be disrespectful to everyone who ever fought for our freedom. I started to debate this with her and she got frustrated and said we were finished discussing the matter. Then I pointed out that the sort of blind nationalism that she professes to advocate has been responsible for some of the most repulsive tragedies ever witnessed including, but not limited to the Crusades, government sponsored mass extermination of Native Americans, genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany and the invasion of Vietnam. She got mad at my truthful statements and told me to get out of her classroom."

Mr. Davis stood for a moment, contemplating how to handle the situation. "Tell you what, how about you go wait up by my office and I'll go have a talk with Mrs. Hensley and see if we can't remedy this situation."

"Alright," Eric apathetically stated.

Mr. Davis turned around and started walking towards Mrs. Hensley's room. Eric closed the book and put it in the black backpack sitting beside him. Stretching his arms, he looked into the clear blue sky and stood up. He swung the backpack onto his right shoulder and slid his left arm through the remaining strap. He set a blue and white Addidas lowtop onto the bench, untied it, tightened the laces and retied them, then repeated the ceremony with the left shoe. On his way to the office, Eric stopped to read every notice posted on the student bulletin board.

Miss Stolz looked up from her computer screen as the short skinny boy took a seat in one of the three chairs outside Mr. Davis' office. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"No, I'm fine," Eric replied.

"Do you have an appointment with Mr. Davis?"

"I suppose you could call it an appointment."

The secretary turned her head back to the computer screen, undaunted by the intentional ambiguity.

Eric sat waiting. He noticed that all five office secretaries he saw were female. What a terrible job, he thought, being someone's message taker. It seemed that the clock never changed more than ten seconds between time checks. When initially glancing at the clock, the seconds speed by, but after a few ticks, they slowed to a trudge. After about fifteen minutes, principal Davis entered the office.

"Mr. Tanner, come on into my office," he said cheerfully as he passed the three chairs and opened the office door.

Eric got up, threw the backpack over his shoulder, entered Mr. Davis' office, dropped the backpack from his shoulder and sat down in one of the two wooden chairs with blue seat and back covers. Mr. Davis sat down in his black leather office chair, picked up a pen, leaned back and crossed his legs. "Mrs. Hensley tells me that this isn't the first run in you've had with her."

Eric sat silent watching the principal's awaiting face.

"Is there a reason why you can't get along with her?"

"Yes. She's a hypocrite. First she'll say that censorship is terrible, then the next day she'll argue that we should have a flag burning amendment. And she has no logical reasons behind her arguments."

"It's a sophomore English class, not a political debate." Mr. Davis started to click the pen repeatedly.

"Somehow these things get brought up. Besides, you practice English while debating."

The pen stopped clicking. Mr. Davis paused. "Well, after consulting with Mrs. Hensley, I think you should spend the next two days in study hall. Not just as punishment, but to allow her time to cool off. You angered her quite a bit in there."

"Wait, you're going to send me to study hall so Mrs. Hensley can cool off? Because she's hot headed, I get punished?" Eric asked with increased volume.

"You are being punished for your actions. Besides, I've had Mrs. Hensley excuse you from the daily assignments. When you go back to that class on Monday, I hope that you can treat her with the respect she deserves as an English teacher, not with the disrespect you've given her because you disagree with her political views."

"How can I disregard the fact that she's a hypocritical moron? This is a bunch of crap, I'm getting study hall because she can't control her anger" Eric said maintaining the high volume.

"Mr. Tanner, I'm not going to discuss your punishment with you anymore. I've been more than fair. I suggest you leave now before you get yourself into more trouble."

Eric started to stand. "This is so stupid. How's it feel to be a fascist?" he asked, walking towards the door.

"Mr. Tanner, I will not tolerate" was all Mr. Davis could finish before Eric stormed out of the office.

After sixth period, Eric ventured to his locker. Thirty-one, three, thirty-seven he thought to himself as the dial spun in his hand. With a click, the locker opened, and with a large hand slamming the door, the locker closed. Michael Jones towered over Eric and the white T-shirt and blue jeans accentuated the muscles that often injured him. "Haha, you're not very smart," Michael laughed.

"Actually, I just figured that the entertainment value in slamming my locker door shut every day would wither with time, but obviously third-grade mentality would dictate otherwise."

"Wow, have you been reading the dictionary? Such big words for a little man," Michael sarcastically stated.

Eric started spinning the combination lock again. "Occasionally I use a dictionary. I suppose you only use them for weight training though."

Suddenly, Michael shoved Eric onto the ground. "Why are you such a smart ass? You're just gonna get the crap knocked out of you."

"Oh, I'm sure your violence is rooted in my words. I'm on quite the masochistic journey" Eric said lifting himself from the floor.

"Just shut the hell up for once," the Goliath of a bully shouted, wondering what masochistic meant.

Eric brushed off his pants and rubbed his right elbow which had born much of the impact. He decided to take Michael's advice and started spinning the locker combination once again.

At 6:30, an aged sun shone upon Eric while sitting in his backyard. Technically, it wasn't his backyard, it belonged to the owner of the apartment complex. It was his to use though, all one hundred feet of the square section of green grass beyond the short cement patio and before the chain link fence marking the edge of the apartment property. A tall privacy fence stood on either side of the cement slab of patio so as to block the residents from intruding on any barbecue the neighbors might be having. The sliding glass door slid open. His mother stuck her head out. "Eric, come in here a minute" she said.

Eric stood up, all the while reading his book. He walked into the kitchen and his mother shut the sliding glass door. The slightly yellow kitchen light made the slightly yellow kitchen floor seem more yellow than it truly was.

"Can you put the book down?" she asked.

"But I'm in the middle of Mohammed," Eric replied, looking at his mother and bringing the book to his side.

"I got a call from your principal. He said that you were causing problems in class today."

"If you consider standing up for what is right causing problems, then yes."

"You need to start treating people with the respect they deserve."

"You sound like my principal."

"Speaking of your principal, why did you call him a fascist?" she asked angrily.

"Because he is a fascist."

"You can't just insult everyone you don't agree with. There's a time when your comments are best left to yourself."

"And what time would that be, when I'm getting thrown in study hall because my teacher can't control her anger after someone points out that she's a hypocrite?"

"You didn't need to insult her," she said loudly.

"I didn't insult her, I merely pointed out the truth."

"You insulted her," his mother reiterated.

"Um, no. I definitely did not. How long are we going to go back and forth with this?"

"Knock that off! I'm serious, you'd better start treating people with a little more respect, especially me."

"How can I treat people with more respect when my actual respect for them is on the decline? That's a stupid philosophy."

"Okay, I've had enough of this, you're grounded for a week."

"Oh no, there goes my social life. What will all my friends say when I miss the big dance on Friday?" he asked rhetorically.

"You want to keep smartin' off? You'll be grounded for two weeks. By that time you might start to care about peoples' feelings."

"Come off it subgenius, I care about lots of peoples' feelings."

"Well you certainly don't act like it!"

"Oh ya, I'm the epitome of nihilism."

"You just got yourself two weeks," his mother stated matter of factly.

"Hey, do you think you could make it three? I'd really love that!"

"I can do more than that, you just got four. Now go to your room."

"What? You mean four's the limit? Can't I get a few more?"

"Go to your room!"

Eric walked into the small living room adjacent to the kitchen. As he entered the hall destined for his bedroom, he added, "maybe we could negotiate for a couple weekends here or there."

The cafeteria was quiet when Eric walked in, fifteen minutes after fifth period started. The smell of spaghetti and undercooked pizza hung in the air. Three students sat at different tables and a dark-haired woman in blue jeans and a red long-sleeved shirt sat at a desk in the front of the room. "Sign your name on the paper and have a seat."

Eric scribbled his name with the pen provided and sat down at an empty table next to Allen, a freshman he knew from Spanish class. Allen always seemed to have somewhat dirty clothes and his short pudgy body and scraggly brown hair didn't detract from that. He sat with his head on a blank sheet of paper next to a Spanish book and a short pencil in his hand. Eric could hear him quietly snoring. He pulled out his book and began to read.

Thirty minutes later, Allen woke up, wiped his lip on his sleeve and wiped the drool off his paper. "What are you here for?" he whispered.

"Mrs. Hensley's psychotic."

Allen chuckled. "You didn't do the Spanish by chance, did you?"

The dark-haired woman looked up at the conversing boys. "No talking!" she said sternly.

Eric looked at her in disgust. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that one of the punishments for my heinous crime was the revocation of my right to speech."

"There's no talking in study hall."

"Then stop talking," he replied.

The woman stared at Eric and he stared at her. Finally, satisfied with the silence, she looked down. Allen was snickering. Eric turned to him and whispered, "I didn't actually do it, but I got most the answers off Pedro's paper." He opened his bag and pulled out a binder.

"If you talk one more time, you'll be in Saturday work," shouted the woman.

Annoyed, Eric turned towards her. "Do you really take your job that seriously? All that power must have gone to your head."

The woman looked at the sign-in sheet. "Mr. Tanner, I have no qualms about giving you Saturday work."

"I bet you don't. You must be great at punishing children. You seem to derive so much joy from it. Let me ask you this, have you ever just stopped to think about how pointless and pitiful your job is? I mean, look at you, you're sitting in a high school cafeteria yelling at kids to shut up and threatening them with Saturday work."

She pulled a slip of paper from her binder. "You see this? It's a Saturday work slip and it's got your name on it." She started filling out the form.

"Crack that whip, warden. I can't believe how uptight everyone is." The woman kept on writing. Eric looked to Allen who was covering his head and laughing. "This lady is crazy! Did she forget her medication or what?"

"Mr. Tanner, I hope you're satisfied with Saturday work. If you keep on talking, I will send you to Mr. Davis' office and recommend you be suspended."

"You do realize that I'm a political prisoner and you are my oppressor, don't you?" Eric smiled. "I'd go on a hunger strike if you hadn't already prohibited the consumption of food."

"Just keep pushing your limits, see where it lands you."

Eric looked at the clock. Fifteen seconds left. He grabbed the Spanish paper from his binder, closed it and put it in his backpack. He put his book away and zipped up the bag. The bell rang and he handed the paper to Allen, stood up and looked at the anonymous woman while putting his backpack on. She was staring at him. "Well," Eric said, "see you tomorrow."

Thirty-one, three, thirty-seven. Click. Eric quickly set his right foot in the locker. He looked to his right and left, noticing the plethora of students crowding the hall, then back into his locker. He rested the backpack against the front of his left leg. An excruciating pain ran through his right leg as Michael's knee slammed into his thigh. The backpack dropped and he fell forward against the locker. All weight quickly transferred to his left leg as he shouted in pain.

"Dead leg!" Michael laughed. He started spinning his locker dial.

"What the hell was that for?" Eric yelled, holding his leg.

Michael reached over and flicked Eric in the ear. "I knew you'd start popping off when I came over, so I thought I'd spare myself the wait."

Eric picked the backpack up. "You're so damned cool."

"Ya, I know. It's hard sometimes, but I manage." He pointed at Eric's shirt. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you some Marilyn Manson Satan worshipping freak?"

Eric looked down at the blue shirt with "Your God sucks." written on one line in white. "Actually, I'm Agnostic. The shirt is a reflection on Christianity, whose members paint a frighteningly unthinkable picture of a cruel monstrous God."

Michael leaned over and flicked Eric's ear. "Ya right, you just want to marry your gay lover."

"No, I'm not gay, you simple-minded ass" Eric quickly replied, denying one of the most demeaning insults in a student's arsenal. He set a heavy book in his already heavy backpack.

Michael's locker opened. "Why you getting so mad? Don't deny the truth gay boy." He leaned over and flicked Eric in the ear once again.

"Knock it off!" Eric screamed. Without thinking, he swung the backpack in a wide arc and hit Michael in the right side of the head as he turned to spew a degrading remark. Michael's face slammed against the locker with a loud crash. He fell to the ground and grabbed his head with both arms. Eric threw his locker shut and started running. He slipped the backpack over his shoulders while speeding down the hall.

Panting, the thin boy ran out the front doors of the school and through the parking lot. He glanced to his left and didn't stop as he crossed Mayfield Avenue, running through an ever growing line of cars waiting for a green light. Weighted down by the heavy backpack, he turned right on Pine and kept running, looking back for a break in traffic as beads of sweat ran down his face and neck. The suburban dwellings a blur, he bolted across the street, nearly touching the back bumper of a passing car. He turned down Sawyer Street, ran fifty feet and slowed down. The houses were older and less suburban, set far apart from each other and the street. He walked slowly, coughing and spitting and wondering why he was so out of shape. He turned right on a signless street and noticed the lack of developed property. Hundreds of feet stood between houses and the road, connected together by gravel driveways with grass-covered middles. A few minutes later, a car turned down the street and Eric stepped onto the long grass on the side of the road. The car's engine revved and brakes screeched as it reached him. It skidded onto the side of the road, twenty feet in front of Eric. The passenger door opened and Michael jumped out, followed by Joe Myers and Craig Mackey, both in blue jeans and white shirts looking rather large. The driver's door opened and out came Mark Elwood, yet another large friend.

"Where the hell you think you're going? Think you're pretty tough when people aren't looking, don't ya?" He moved quickly towards Eric, followed by his cohorts. "How about now, huh? Why don't you try to start something now?"

Eric tried to think of an escape route. He could run to a house, but Michael would catch him in a matter of seconds. He could . . . he could . . . damn, he couldn't think of anything. "I don't want to fight you, we both know you'll kick my ass." He looked around for a weapon, perhaps a rock. Gravel on the side of the road wouldn't work. He imagined a Bic pen from his backpack sticking out of Michael's eye, but quickly abandoned it for fear of having to actually stick a Bic pen from his backpack in Michael's eye.

Michael stood in front of Eric, his five foot, ten inch frame towering over the five foot, two inch body of his opponent. "You don't have a choice, I'm gonna kick your ass whether you fight back or not. I'm just giving you a chance to get a hit in."

Eric really didn't want to get hit. He hated violence, especially when directed toward his body. "Look, I'm sorry I hit you. It was an accident. You just pissed me off." Perhaps he could talk his way out of the currently inevitable beating.

"Shut up you moron. It was an accident. Oh ya, I accidentally hit you in the face with a bag full of books."

"If you would just leave me alone. I don't do anything to you."

"You call this bruise nothing?" Michael pointed to the side of his head bearing a locker-inflicted bruise. "You gonna take a swing or what?"

"No, I told you, I'm not gonna fight you."

A second after Eric finished, Michael's clinched fist struck his cheek just below the left eye. Eric fell to the ground, landing on his hands and knees. Tears welled in his eyes and he brought his left hand to the injured cheek. He'd never experienced such pain and malice. He turned his head in time to see Michael's leg speed toward his stomach. Falling on his side, he kept holding the bruising cheek. After all air had been coughed out of his lungs, he tried to breath in, but to no avail. He started rolling on the ground in hopes of knocking some misplaced internal organ back into place. Suddenly, he let out a loud gasping noise as the air finally flooded his body. Craig started in with a kick to the back of the head, giving the go ahead for all to join in.

For what seemed like hours to Eric and minutes to his attackers, the scene went on. The first few hits brought exponentially increasing pain, but the pain died down after those initial poundings. They still hurt a great deal, but his body seemed to numb after each assault. He laid on the ground, rolled into a ball, covering his face. A kick to the head, much pain. Back of the leg, not bad. The backpack kicks were appreciated. Another kick to the head, those hurt. Crap, there goes a tooth. Stop it with the head. He wished the people living in the few houses on the street could just stroll by their window and come out and save him. Why can't they call the police? Ow, the nose, ow! Aren't they getting bored? Sharp pain in the gut, not good. Damn, go away. Cover the face. Shins hurt, can't be covered though. Cover the face, the stomach too.

Michael and company continued their quest, kicking and stomping, occasionally reaching down for a punch to the head. Cuts opened, bruises blackened, feet flew, cries were muffled by grunts. As if nothing had happened, Michael said, "come on, let's go." They stopped the beating and started walking towards the car. One last kick to the head by Joe. Craig turned around, stricken with a brilliant idea. He jogged back to the body and forced the backpack off. He unzipped the main zipper, then the smaller pouch. With a turn, he heaved the bag into the street. Books and papers scattered, pens and pencils rolled, a calculator smashed.

The car started and skidded off in a matter of seconds. It was quiet. Eric cried, coughed and gasped. His left eye seemed blinded, but it was only a massive bruise. He could see his bloody hands through his right eye. Longer breaths brought sharp pain in his stomach, but not very often, because coughing curbed all long breaths. He was sure he had swallowed a tooth. His left leg didn't want to move. Maybe it's just psychological, he thought. They didn't kick me in the leg that often. He lay on the grass staring at a sideways world. The sky was a beautiful cloudless blue and the sun shone bright on the college ruled paper as it blew down the street in the cool breeze.