Edited version published in 2024:
With a sigh, Walker said, “Because I said so.”
The abrasive teenager briefly scowled at his teacher before controlling himself. Apparently, this was one of those days where he’d have to have a teachable moment. Looking at the clock, he figured it wasn't too much of an issue as he could just shuffle the body paragraph breakdown to make time.
The boy continued, “I’m just saying, that doesn’t make sense Mr. Reed. Essays aren’t emails, and emails aren’t essays. They’re two completely different things.” He looked at his friends near him for support. Seeing one give him a thumbs up, Raul shifted a little higher than his usual slouched posture and gestured at the class. “This whole place is worthless. The majority of what I need to know is in auto. I’m gonna be a mechanic anyways, not some college shit who thinks they’re better than everyone else.”
Walker paused for a moment to get a handle on himself, wondering if the college remark was a dig at him. Pulling an empty desk forward, one of the few in his thirty-student class, he flipped it around to sit facing the class. “It’s pretty simple, Raul. Do you want to be a basic mechanic all your life?”
“Of course not.”
“So what, supervisor.?”
Raul thought it over for a minute before saying, “Nah, man, I’m gonna start my own business”.
Walker threw a finger in the air, “Aha! You wanna be a business owner and maybe even a manager. That means you have to learn how to manage employees, including writing up reports on them and giving feedback. You’ve also gotta deal with suppliers, expansion opportunities, and loads of stuff. It all ties back to essays. They’re critical thinking outlets.”
A new voice spoke up, “That’s too much work, man.”
Walker looked at the speaker. The kid was always on his phone and didn’t do anything in class. Anytime one of his colleagues had tried to speak with his parents, they’d either hang up the phone or bitch them out for being a “shitty teacher.” Honestly, he didn’t know why he stayed in this job.
Oh, that’s right, he needed money.
“Nicholas…”
“Nick” he cut him off. “You don’t even fucking know what I like to be called.”
Walker instantly replied by rote, “Language please.”
“Fuck language. Raul’s right, this is bullshit. You’re just an overly paid babysitter.” He looked over at Raul for backup but instead found his potential supporter had already slouched back into his seat and was staring at the paper in front of him.
Smart kid, Walker thought to himself. He needed to get back in control before things spiraled.
“Nick, I’m sorry I didn’t say your name the way you prefer it.”
“Fuck your sorry bitch.”
Walker did a mental check. Rather than blow up, which he really wanted to do at that moment, maybe even taking Nicholas with him, he calmly stood up and walked over to his phone.
A voice quickly answered, “Hello, Mr. Reed. How can I help you?”
“Yes, I need an administrator here please, non-emergency.”
“We’ll send one in a few minutes,” the distant voice promised before abruptly hanging up.
The tall man walked back over and stood near the desk he’d previously sat at. Smiling at the class, Walker let them know he was going to wait a few minutes and for them to think about what they wanted to say in their emails. It’s a basic assignment for an English class. Write the teacher a professional email with a beginning, middle, and end that asks questions about a job they want to do in the future. Simple stuff that goes with his particular brand of teaching….practicality. If it’s not useful, do your best to not teach it. Thus, the current kerfluffle.
He didn’t fully disagree with Raul and Nicholas. A lot of what he was forced to teach was outdated and stupid. They, being his supervisors and the thirty other bosses he reported to, had a strict curriculum. The student body of Walker's school was eighty percent Latino, but he was still forced to teach novels written by people who didn’t look, think, or write like them. The students couldn't relate to their brand of culture, and no matter how well-written the material was, it just didn’t connect in the way it needed to. Thank god he doesn’t have to teach Moby Dick anymore. American classic though it was, good lord did it drag.
It was only 10:14 in the morning. Moments like this would happen throughout the day, and while he normally wouldn’t call an administrator for this, it was a recurring problem with Nicholas.
And Walker was done.
A light knock at the locked door informed him one of the principals had arrived. Through a small window set into a rusted door frame, he could see the tight hair bob and pasty countenance of Mrs. Wilson…which, if history tells the tale, meant Nicholas would get a pass and just sit in her office for the rest of the period. He’d see him again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. Requests for transferring students to other classes were ignored more often than not. One student had assaulted a teacher and walked back into that same teacher’s classroom three days later.
A second sigh came out of Walker as he opened the door and stepped out, leaving it cracked so he wouldn’t have to unlock it again.
“What do you need, Mr. Reed,” Mrs. Wilson asked in her best fake-cheery voice.
“I need Nicholas back there spoken to by an administrator. I’ve asked a few times for him to be transferred to another class or credit recovery, but nothing’s changed."
Mrs. Wilson appeared to think it over for a moment before saying, “Did you go to that professional development last weekend on dealing with difficult children? It was enlightening.”
“No,” he replied. “I was busy with moving.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she stated in a sympathetic voice, her facial muscles bringing a false smile to her face. “You did say you couldn’t make it because of a personal issue.”
A personal issue like the love of his life leaving him and a drunken evening in the dark.
Walker got back on topic. “Do you mind pulling him out for at least the rest of the period? This is an important part of my lesson plan.”
She nodded slowly, “Sure, but you’ll have to think over how you want to manage him tomorrow.”
Walker couldn't stop his teeth from grinding.
They walked in together, and that’s when they noticed the papers all over the ground, torn into tiny pieces. Unlike a lot of newer teachers, Walker preferred to handwrite all of his lessons, a forgotten reason always lingering in the back of his mind. He still kept them grouped into one thick notebook full of neon-colored Post-it notes. He’d built that notebook over the past year and hadn’t thought to make a copy or digitize it, as he was always real careful about making sure it was in the drawer just below the desk. That way he knew right where it was at all times.
But there was a problem, as it appeared Nicholas wasn’t always staring at his phone after all. The culprit stood just behind Walker’s black desk without fear of retribution.
“Hard to fucking teach without your instructions, ain’t it bitch” he said with a heavy grin leaning off of his face.
Mrs. Wilson looked at the papers, not understanding their significance. “This’ll clean right up,” she said with aplomb before asking Nicholas to follow her. She didn’t notice Walker staring at his hard work slashed into pieces on the floor. The combination of neon colors, the plain white paper he preferred to work off of, and dried ink snapped something in his mind.
“What the fuck did you do,” his quiet voice said, drifting over the crowded classroom. Walker lifted his eyes from the floor and zeroed in on Nicholas.
“Mr. Reed!” Mrs. Wilson said in a sharp voice, “You can’t speak that-”
“No,” Walker said as he interrupted her, his vacant eyes looking back at the papers again.
Mrs. Wilson suddenly developed a sixth sense, knowing this was an important moment. Finally doing her job, she gently tugged on Walker’s arm, leading him from the classroom and over to the teacher’s lounge. He never lifted his eyes from the ground as she began to harangue him about his language in front of the students.
But Walker wasn’t listening. He was done listening. He was done with helicopter parents screaming at him for barely earned Bs. He was done with apathetic teenagers staring at girls’ asses instead of listening. They always knew to ignore his lessons right when he taught them the things they most needed to know. Things they had to know before entering the working world.
Not like those same girls were any better.
He was done with low pay, twelve-hour days, and bullshit professional development sessions taught by people who hadn’t been in a classroom for years. Walker Reed was ready for a change.
His eyes finally traveled up and found the lounge’s walls. Mrs. Wilson was talking about him apologizing to Nicholas and the class, and that he would figure it out. But he knew he wasn’t going to do that. There was only so much pushing and prodding a man could take.
His eyes landed on one of the posters covering the wall. It was something every school he’d been to had. “Motivational” posters that were anything but. The basic “hang in there, baby” post of the cat that had been around since long ago. A meme someone had printed out about how editing wasn’t like proofreading. The kind of humor only an English teacher would enjoy. But the last one his eyes found was the one that finally pushed him over the edge.
“Teaching is a calling.” He said in a quiet voice.
“What was that, Mr. Reed?” Mrs. Wilson said, “Are you ready to apologize to the class now?”
“Do you know what a calling is, Mrs. Wilson? No?” Walker stepped up to the poster. It held a smiling young woman, perfectly dressed, as a group of students raised their hands in front of her. “This is not reality. This is fucking bullshit.” He tore it from the wall, watching the now cornerless paper drift as it fell, its motion synonymous with his life right now.
“A calling is something you’re meant to do, meant to be. I thought that’s what it was for me,” He gave a bitter laugh, “Something that I connected with, deep down. But that’s not here, is it? That’s not THESE kids.”
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“Mr. Reed,” Mrs. Wilson replied as she changed tactics, “If you had attended the training this last weekend-”
“I couldn’t fucking do that, Mrs. Wilson…Kathy!” He snarled her name out, his emotions getting the better of him. “Because of my,” Walker made air quotes, “Personal Issue. But you don’t give a shit about that. Neither does Nicholas or anyone else here. You care about results. Test scores.” Another air quote, “Attendance.” Unknown to him, his voice raised in volume, “That’s what’s wrong with this goddamn education system. You all care about your ratings. How the state views you, and not the kids.”
Mrs. Wilson put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down, but it was too late. She was talking, but Walker couldn’t hear her anymore.
“Parents don’t parent anymore, so kids no longer feel the need to be kids. No, they’re going to talk down to me,” Up another register, “they’re going to fuck around in class,” all of the classrooms around the lounge had gone quiet, and a few teachers started to stick their heads out to listen in, “and they don’t give a flying fuck about English or any other skills that will make them look and act like adults growing up. No, it’s all done. Everything is absolutely FUCKED.”
He turned around, looking at the other posters on the wall. With more than a bit of mania, Walker Reed started to tear every poster off of the wall and throw them to the ground. He didn’t do it with joy, or happiness. He didn’t even do it with anger. Walker Reed did it because he couldn’t stand to look at the false images they represented. Of a “calling.” Of kids giving a shit or admins doing their job.
While he was doing this, Mrs. Wilson had called the school resource officers to the building. They arrived just as the last paper drifted to the ground. To their eyes, a large man in a nice purple suit stood in the center of a recently fallen paper tornado, his shoulders heaving not from exhaustion but from barely controlled rage.
One of them spoke into a radio on their shoulder while the other was speaking with Mrs. Wilson. Walker turned around and found both men with their arms crossed, “Fucking great.”
“Mr. Reed, it’s time to go.” Said the man on the left. He was the same one who smiled at Walker daily as he parked what felt like a mile away and walked into the school. He wasn’t smiling now.
“We can’t have you cursing around the kids.”
“Like you’ve never heard them curse before, Sean.”
The officer shook his head, “Can’t have you do this, Walker. It’s time to go.”
When it didn’t look like he was going to move, they stepped forward and tried to gently grab his arms, but Walker was 6’3 and around 250 pounds. He’d move when he wanted to move. Initially, he pulled back on them, causing them to put more muscle into the action. But eventually, he just went limp, his rage spent on the sad pieces of paper littering the ground rather than the kids in the school.
Security gets him through the door and all the classes throughout the building have stopped. It’s hard to teach when someone is screaming obscenities fifty feet away. Mrs. Wilson is speaking quietly into her radio as they pull him away. The exit is not far form his classroom.
Looking in, he spies Nicholas, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face as security gives him a light nudge to keep moving. But Walker isn’t through. He slips out of security's arms and runs to the doorway, only to stop and smile in Nicholas’s direction one more time before saying, “It’s all fuck the teachers right. The ones who work hard to make sure you have a safe place where you can be informed. Where you can learn what the future has entailed for you.” Walker gave a feral smile in return, “Ask yourself this Nicholas. Why am I smiling as I look at your future? Why does what you become make me happy?”
He turns to security and tells them he’s ready to go.
In the end, he didn’t make them put him on administrative leave as is the usual line. He looked at the principal, informed her of his immediate resignation, and walked out to his crappy, rust-blue Dodge Durango. The highway is empty, and things are looking up.
It’s now 10:35 a.m.
Original version published in 2023:
With a sigh, Walker said, “Because I said so.”
The abrasive teenager grimaced at his teacher’s response. Apparently, this was one of those days where he’d have to have a teachable moment. Looking at the clock, he figured it wasn't too much of an issue as he could just shuffle the body paragraph breakdown to make time.
The boy continued, “I’m just saying, that doesn’t make sense Mr. Reed. Essays aren’t emails and emails aren’t essays. They’re two completely different things.” He looked at his friends near him for support. Seeing one give him a thumbs up, Raul shifted a little higher than his usual slouched posture and gestured at the class. “This whole place is worthless. The majority of what I need to know is in auto. I’m gonna be a mechanic anyways, not some college shit who thinks they’re better than everyone else.”
Walker paused for a moment to get a handle on himself, wondering if the college remark was a dig at him. Pulling an empty desk forward, one of the few in his thirty-student class, he flipped it around to sit facing the class. “It’s pretty simple, Raul. Do you want to be a basic mechanic all your life?”
“Of course not.”
“So what, supervisor.?”
Raul thought it over for a minute before saying, “Nah man, I’m gonna start my own business”.
Walker threw a finger in the air, “Aha! You wanna be a business owner and maybe even a manager. That means you have to learn how to manage employees, including writing up reports on them and giving feedback. You’ve also gotta deal with suppliers, expansion opportunities, and loads of stuff. It all ties back to essays. They’re critical thinking outlets.”
A new voice spoke up, “That’s too much work man.”
Walker looked at the speaker. The kid was always on his phone and didn’t do anything in class. Anytime one of his colleagues had tried to speak with his parents, they’d either hang up the phone or bitch them out for being a “shitty teacher.” Honestly, he didn’t know why he stayed in this job.
Oh that’s right, he needed money.
“Nicholas…”
“Nick” he cut him off. “You don’t even fucking know what I like to be called.”
Walker instantly replied by rote, “Language please.”
“Fuck language. Raul’s right, this is bullshit. You’re just an overly paid babysitter” he said, looking at Raul for backup. But his potential backer had already slouched back into his seat and was staring at the paper in front of him.
Smart kid, Walker thought to himself. He needed to get back in control before things spiraled.
“Nick, I’m sorry I didn’t say your name the way you prefer it.”
“Fuck your sorry bitch.”
Rather than blow up, which he really wanted to do at that moment, maybe taking Nicholas with him, he calmly stood up and walked over to his phone.
A voice quickly answered, “Hello Mr. Reed, how can I help you?”
“Yes, I need an administrator here please, non-emergency.”
“We’ll send one in a few minutes” the distant voice promised before abruptly hanging up.
The tall man walked back over and stood near the desk he’d previously sat at. Smiling at the class, Walker let them know he’s going to wait a few minutes and for them to think about what they wanted to say in their emails. It’s a basic assignment for an English class. Write the teacher a professional email with a beginning, middle, and end, that asks questions about a job they want to do in the future. Simple stuff that goes with his particular brand of teaching….practicality. If it’s not useful, do your best to not teach it. Thus the current kerfluffle.
He didn’t fully disagree with Raul and Nicholas. A lot of what he was forced to teach was outdated and stupid. They, being his supervisors and the thirty other bosses he reported to, had a strict curriculum. The student body of Walker's school is eighty percent Latino, but he was still forced to teach novels written by dead white people from two centuries ago. The students couldn't relate to their brand of culture, and no matter how well-written the material was, it just didn’t connect in the way it needed to. Thank god he doesn’t have to teach Moby Dick anymore. American classic though it is, good lord did it drag.
It was only 10:14 a.m. in the morning. Moments like this would happen throughout the day, and while he normally wouldn’t call an administrator for this, it was a recurring problem with Nicholas.
And Walker was done.
A light knock at the locked door informed him one of the principals had arrived. Through a small window set into a rusted door frame, he could see the tight hair bob and pasty countenance of Mrs. Wilson…which if history tells the tale, meant Nicholas would get a pass and just sit in her office for the rest of the period. He’d see him again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. Requests for transferring students to other classes were ignored more often than not. One student had assaulted a teacher and walked back into that same teacher’s classroom three days later.
A second sigh came out of Walker as he opened the door and stepped out, leaving it cracked so he wouldn’t have to unlock it again.
“What do you need Mr. Reed,” Mrs. Wilson asked in her best fake-cheery voice.
“I need Nicholas back there spoken to by an administrator. I’ve asked a few times for him to be transferred to another class or credit recovery, but nothing’s changed."
Mrs. Wilson appeared to think it over for a moment before saying, “Did you go to that professional development last weekend on dealing with difficult children? It was enlightening.”
“No” he replied. “I was busy with moving.”
“Oh that’s right” she stated in a sympathetic voice, her facial muscles not twitching with a false smile stamped on her face. “You did say you couldn’t make it because of a personal issue.”
A personal issue like the love of his life leaving him.
Walker got back on topic. “Do you mind pulling him out for at least the rest of the period, this is an important part of my lesson plan.”
She nodded slowly, “Sure, but you’ll have to think over how you want to manage him tomorrow.”
Walker couldn't stop his teeth from grinding.
They walked in together, and that’s when they noticed the papers all over the ground, torn into tiny pieces. Unlike a lot of newer teachers, Walker prefers to handwrite all of his lessons, a forgotten reason always lingering in the back of his mind, and had them all grouped into one thick notebook full of neon-colored post-it notes. He’d built that notebook over the past year and hadn’t thought to make a copy or digitize it. He was always real careful about making sure it was in the drawer just below the desk, so he knew right where it was at all times. It appeared Nicholas wasn’t always staring at his phone after all. The culprit stood just behind Walker’s black desk with no fear of retribution.
“Hard to fucking teach without your instructions, ain’t it bitch”, he said with a heavy grin leaning off of his face.
Mrs. Wilson looked at the papers, not understanding their significance. “This’ll clean right up” she said with aplomb, before asking Nicholas to follow her. She didn’t notice Walker staring at his hard work slashed into pieces on the floor. The combination of neon colors, the plain white paper he preferred to work off of, and dried ink, snapped something in his mind.
“What the fuck did you do” his quiet voice said, drifting over the crowded classroom. Walker lifted his eyes from the floor and zeroed in on Nicholas.
“Mr. Reed!” Mrs. Wilson said in a sharp voice.
But Walker wasn’t listening. He was done listening. He was done with helicopter parents screaming at him for barely earned Bs. He was done with apathetic teenagers staring at girls’ asses instead of listening when he taught the things they most needed to know before entering the working world. Not like those same girls were any better. He was done with low pay, twelve-hour days, and bullshit professional development sessions taught by people who hadn’t been in a classroom for years. Walker Reed was ready for a change.
He squared up his shoulders and let loose.
“Listen here you little fuck. I worked on that for over a year, just so you could maybe, potentially, survive this world. This world that’s gonna eat you alive if you don’t at least have a diploma. You know how Raul wants to be a mechanic, they require diplomas at mechanic schools. Wanna go to college? Diploma. Hell, the local beautician school requires a diploma. You’re looking at a life of ditch-digging and dick-sucking to make it. This is California motherfucker. Rent for the closest apartment is twice what you’ll have a chance to make, not to mention budget. But you don’t know what that is. The only thing you know is your mommy bought you a sweet phone and she’d never kick you out. The goddamn school won’t kick you out. Everyone is willing to carry your heavy-ass load because you’re a teenager. But here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to break down exactly who you’re going to be by the time you’re my age. Aren’t I nice?”
Mrs. Wilson put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down, but it was too late. She was talking, but Walker couldn’t hear her anymore.
Nicholas’s grin was gone and the room became as quiet as a funeral. Unbeknownst to Walker, the classrooms around his own had gone quiet as well, and a few recognizable teachers were sticking their heads out to listen in.
“Maybe you had a tough life, but who hasn’t? Maybe you’re special, but who isn’t? Like a bullshit psychic, I can see your future. You’ll drop out of high school after they try to hold you back because they need the money from your, quote, “attendance”. They’ll even push to get you to graduate, but on the weekend when you’re supposed to make up hours for credits, you’ll be hotboxing in some shit Prius behind a gas station where you swear to your buddies that there are no cameras. Cops will hit you up, you’ll get a stain on your already tarnished record, but your life will go on and your mother will keep making excuses for you.”
Mrs. Wilson had called the school resource officers halfway into his tirade and they were urgently whispering to him to leave the area and calm down. But what they weren’t doing was stopping him, and Nicholas looked like he was rooted into place, lips pressed and eyes wide.
“Eventually you’re in your early twenties and being a gas station attendant just isn’t the primo-lifestyle your entitled existence requires. So you find a cheap gun, because America, and rob someone. That’s a big leap up in life as you sold their credit cards and kept the cash, maybe even traded in some stolen identity for kicks. Then you do it again. On the third time, someone catches you on a camera and now there’s an APB out for you, that’s an all-points bulletin for the uninformed motherfuckers.”
The resource officers start to grab his arms and pull, but Walker is 6’3 and around 250 pounds. He’ll move when he wants to move.
“But you don’t know that, because you’re a dumbshit who is smoking his life away with fake friends who you know, deep down inside, will leave as soon as the ride is over.”
The officers start pulling harder so Walker has to strain a little to stay, still looking into Nicholas’s eyes. It only causes his voice to grow louder and rageful.
“You’ve got a girlfriend who likely has chlamydia and loves your money, so she does what you want and gets pregnant as soon as she can. Now you’ve got a kid on the way, congrats Dad. You rob another person, only this one won’t take your shit, and you accidentally pop off and hit him in the leg. The cops show up, you get chased overnight, piss your pants, and get caught in a dumpster in the morning.”
He has to grab onto the frame of the door to keep from being removed now.
“But don’t worry Nicholas, because now you get to see what real trouble looks like. His name is Mike and his swastika tattoo is just a fuckin decoration. He thinks you’re pretty cute and he can’t wait to meet you. I’m sure you’ll have a great time with Mike and your ten years in prison. When you get out you can meet your son who got to experience the same thing you did, a father in prison throughout your formative years. Isn’t that great?”
Security gets him through the door and all the classes throughout the building have stopped. It’s hard to teach when someone is screaming obscenities fifty feet away. Mrs. Wilson is speaking quietly into her radio as they pull him away, even placing a hand on the now sobbing Nicholas’s arm. But Walker isn’t through. He slips out of security's arms and runs to the middle of the hallway, only to stop and smile in Nicholas’s direction one more time before saying, “But it’s all fuck the teachers right. The ones who work hard to make sure you have a safe place where you can be informed. Where you can learn what the future has entailed for you. How’s that future looking for you shitbag? Can’t you wait to meet it?”
He turns to security and tells them he’s ready to go.
In the end, he didn’t make them put him on administrative leave as is the usual line. He looked at the principal, informed her of his immediate resignation, and walked out to his crappy, rust-blue Dodge Durango. The highway is empty and things are looking up.
It’s now 10:35 a.m.