TROUBLEMAKER, by
J. K. Batson & B. K. Eakman
The Scuffle
Across the street, the children were just getting out of school. I glanced at my watch. Three o'clock. Kids getting out of school, just like always.
Cars began pulling up to the school. Parents picking up kids. I thought about my father. He never did that. He barely spoke to me. He didn't like troublemakers.
My attention was abruptly diverted by two kids approaching a smaller boy some distance away. The little fellow looked scared. The first of the two bigger kids pushed the little one, and the second laughed and went in for his licks. But the little guy faked 'em out. He smacked the larger of the two bullies on the nose, then butted him in the belly. As the bigger kid fell into the tree trunk, the plucky youngster jerked his head up and caught the other bully under the chin, sending him sprawling. Two down in less than a minute. The first hooligan ran away. The other one was down for the count. The little guy had been victorious.
"Get 'em!" I said under my breath. Despite the political incorrectness, I couldn't help cheering for the little guy, who bolted to a nearby car, got in and found a hug from mom. I sighed deeply as I walked away. Well, well, a hug from mom! A supportive parent, there was justice in the world, after all.
Robert Taylor, Attorney at Law, walked out of the courthouse triumphant. He crossed to the bench where I was waiting.
"Mr. Eliot," he called out as he walked over to where I sat nervously. I was pleased that he addressed me as an adult. I was18.
"It's done," he said. "The verdict is in. That man will never work in his field again, even after he gets out - in twelve years. The judge granted our motion to revoke his license. Let's go celebrate. It's on me."
I relaxed and smiled. It had been a long road; in fact, it had been eleven years.
High Noon
Jason, Hunter, Warren, Billy and Hank had been the bullies at my elementary school. They cornered smaller kids and roughed them up for their lunch money or their jackets, or "just because." They routinely lied to the teachers about what actually happened and covered for each other, then laugh behind the teachers' backs. The other kids sometimes wondered why these people were teachers when they didn't know anything. Couldn't they see through this bunch of bad actors and figure out what was going on? Were these people stupid, or did they just not care?
Jason, Hunter, Warren, Billy and Hank were masters at using the teachers against other kids. When little Hugh came to school showing off his Silver Dollar, given to him by his uncle, Jason, the more arrogant of the five ruffians, went boldly up to the teacher and complained, "Hugh took my Silver Dollar."
"That's right." "Yeah, it's true, I saw him," chimed the rest of the gang.
So the teacher went to Hugh, snapped up his Silver Dollar and sent him to the office for punishment. Jason got the coin. No one ever called Hugh's uncle or his parents to confirm his side of the story.
Three times parents called and came to school complaining about 'those five heathens' as one mother called them. But Mr. Ned Saunders, the school principal, called them 'troubled youths, a little over-exuberant perhaps.' He pointed out that hanging around together promoted team spirit. He implied that if other boys couldn't hold their own, maybe they were jealous or just making up lies themselves.
Dr. Forrest Maldry, the school psychiatrist, backed up this view. Dr. Maldry was a relatively new fixture in the school district at the time. He told concerned parents that he was working with the five boys to try to understand why there was so much sentiment against them. He had come to the conclusion it wasn't 'the five heathens' at all, but rather a self-esteem problem on the part of the complaining children. He said he'd done some preliminary psychological evaluations, and it looked to him like a chemical imbalance in some of the children that was making them paranoid about the boys, thinking they were being picked on all the time. He advised there were some new medications available that in some cases were partially subsidized by the state if any of the parents wanted to see their children less anxious and more confident. Meanwhile, he would initiate a program called "conflict resolution" to improve matters in the schoolyard.
You see? It was all a misunderstanding, not bad kids versus good kids. All children needed were self-confidence and appropriate techniques for resolving their disagreements.
Yeah, right!
So, it must have been my lack of proper negotiating strategies that caused Jason to approach me out-of-the-blue one Friday afternoon wanting to know why I was 'such a dork.' Jason said it was time to teach me a lesson - for what, I couldn't imagine. Hunter and Warren materialized from behind me, grabbed my arms and held them while Billy and Hank stood back laughing. They hit their fists into their hands, eager to get their turn to punch me. The other children ran away; this was no place to be.
A couple of weeks before, they had cornered another boy in similar fashion, and he still couldn't see out of one eye. He lost a couple of permanent teeth and his arm was broken. 'The five heathens' said he fell. None of the other kids said anything. They wanted to keep their eyes, teeth and arms.
Realizing I was up for the same fate and that none of the teachers would do anything, another part of me took over. As Jason drew his fist, I rocked back onto Hunter and Warren and kicked out hard. Somehow I landed a right foot on Jason's jaw and he went down like a sack of potatoes.
Surprised, Warren let go of my arm and fell on the ground. Hunter still held my other arm but my weight rolled us both backward. I wound up with my shoulder in his chest. Hunter uttered a loud "Oufff!" Then Warren came at me, grabbed my coat but lost his balance. He fell into the brick retaining wall. He went down, blood streaming from his head. He wasn't moving. The other two bullies, Billy and Hank, ran screaming.
Dr. Maldry came out of the school doorway like a bullet. He snatched me up by one arm and called to another teacher. "This boy has started a fight and injured several others. Call the police."
"Should I call an ambulance?" the other teacher said, with some surprise.
"Yes," said Dr. Maldry. "That too. And you, young man, are in a lot of trouble."
"They started it." I managed to get out.
"We'll see about that," said Maldry, dragging me away.
So there I sat, in the detention room all alone. Dr. Maldry talked to two policemen outside - one tall, one short. They had been here before. I remembered seeing them in the school medical office a couple of times.
I started thinking very hard about exactly what happened, the sequence of events, because I knew that was what they would ask me. But they didn't. To my surprise, they took me in handcuffs down to the police station.
The taller cop jerked me by my shirt. "Boys who start fights and injure other boys are criminals and belong in jail. In the morning we'll see the judge and he'll probably send you to prison."
Then the short one chimed in, "I guess you don't ever want to see your mother and father again, 'cuz if you did you wouldn't make trouble."
And with that, they went away, leaving me alone in the cell.
It was a long night, and cold. There was no dinner. I cried most of the night. Sometimes I drifted off to sleep. But the cold woke me up. The bench was hard. There was no water. The toilet had no paper and no seat. I held it as long as I could, afraid the men would come in and see me peeing. After a while, I took a chance, stood there and relieved myself. It was the only good thing that happened to me all night.
In the morning, I was still tired, sore from the bench, exhausted from crying and hungry. The tall cop came for me.
"Time to go before the Judge," he smirked. "Now you're gonna get it."
We went down the hall a short distance, outside and into another building by the back way. The two policemen kept a tight hand on me the whole time, like they expected me to run for it. We stopped in front of two big double doors.
"We're here to see Judge Peters," they told the officer at the door.
"Peters was in a car accident. He has a broken leg. He's under medication. Judge Marsh is taking his cases. Go right in."
My Day in Court
The officers did a double-take and didn't go right in. They pulled me off to one side and started whispering. I caught the words "we can't" and "he's gonna" but the rest was too muffled. The tall one said, "We have no choice!" Just then the doors swung open, and the uniformed guard waved us in. We sat at the table up front. There was no jury box or large bench, just a long table with a man in a suit sitting behind it.
"So, what do we have here?"
"Uh," the tall cop began, "Judge Peters was supposed to be hearing this one today, Your Honor. Perhaps we could request a continuance until he returns?"
"Judge Peters has a broken leg and won't be back for some time, and looks like we have a juvenile here who won't last that long. What's the complaint?"
"We had already worked it out with Judge Peters, Your Honor. This is sort of a special case."
"Yes, I heard you. So for the third time, what's this about?"
Short cop was stuttering now. "It's, it's, it's a schoolyard fight, Your Honor. We... We thought we'd t-teach the boy a lesson."
"Says here he's six years old."
"Well, he's nearly seven..."
"Oh, nearly seven." the judge's eyes narrowed. "Well that does change things, doesn't it. Come up here, boy," the judge said to me. "Sit here on my right."
My legs were so shaky I could hardly walk. My eyes were puffy and sore, my mouth was dry and I had a pain in my neck. I was also exhausted. It must have taken me a full minute just to get into the chair.
"Would you like some water?" the judge asked me. I nodded. He poured some water into a glass and gave it to me. I chugged it.
"Thank you," came my scratchy and meek response.
"Now then. Michael. Do your friends call you Mike?" He smiled a broad smile. I shook my head. The smile disappeared. He seemed disappointed at his first attempt at getting on my side being shot down.
"All right, Michael. Do you know what a lie is?" I nodded. "So you won't lie to me, will you." I shook my head. "So, tell me, have you had anything to eat this morning." Another negative shake of the head. "Did you sleep at all?" Shake. "Do you live with your parents?" An affirmative nod. "And were they called?" My shoulders went up, and I looked up at the judge for the first time. I hadn't thought of that, actually.
The judge sat back, looked at the report and turned to me, "Michael, why are you here this morning?"
"I was fighting in the schoolyard."
"Yes, you were fighting in the schoolyard. It says here there were three boys..."
"Five."
"Uh, what's that?"
"Five." My voice was so tired from crying that it was barely a squeak. "Two ran away. Billy and Hank ran away."
"Ah, Billy and Hank, the two boys who were interviewed as witnesses." He looked at the two policemen over his glasses. "And the other three boys were older than you?"
"Yessir."
"And yet, you kicked one in the chin. How did you do that?"
"I dunno." That was true, it was a mystery to me.
"Well, now, think for a moment. Where were you when that happened?"
"In the schoolyard. Hunter had hold of one arm, Warren had the other and Jason was about to hit me when I kicked him in the face."
"I see. And the boy with the concussion. Er, that is, you ran one boy into a brick wall?"
"Well, he sorta did that by himself, sir. That was Warren."
"And the other, you knocked the wind out of him."
"Yessir. We fell over backward and my shoulder went into his chest. Then, Hank and Billy ran away, and Dr. Maldry held me until these policemen came to take me away."
"I see. Michael, is this the first time you had a fight with these boys?"
"No," I said weakly. Then, with a conviction I didn't know I had, I blurted, "But it's the first time I hit back."
"I see. Thank you, Michael." He waved at a uniformed woman in the corner. "Now I want you to go with Officer Sawyer here and she is going to get you something to eat and call your parents."
As I got up to go with Officer Sawyer, I could hear Tall cop explaining: "We were just trying to put a scare into him, Your Honor, to put a stop to his fighting."
The judge interrupted him. "It looks to me like you had it all worked out, except you have the wrong boys. Now I wonder how that happened." As we got near the door his tone changed. "You brought a six year old boy in here, locked him up all night without calling his parents, starved him and kept him up, now you bring him before a judge for charges? Why aren't the other boys here?"
"They're in the hospital..."
"Not all of them, it seems. Where are their charges?"
"Well, we didn't ..."
By now, Officer Sawyer and I had turned to stare at the ongoing discussion.
"No, you didn't. You terrorized a six year old for no good reason...."
Mrs. Sawyer opened the door and we were out in the hall. The judge's voice trailed off. The policemen were being yelled at. I knew what that felt like.
Officer Sawyer was nice. She got me some soup and called my parents. I was hoping mom would show up, but it was my father instead. The cops met him in the hall before he could get to me.
"Mr. Eliot, your son was fighting and making trouble. The judge is not of a mind to punish him and there might be some talk of grounds for a suit. My advice to you is to ignore such talk." The policeman's eyes narrowed. "Trying to sue a policeman could land you in a world of trouble. Remember, 'The Policeman is Your Friend' You want to keep it that way."
"Oh, we're not goin' t' sue or nothin'." squeaked my father. Standing up to anyone was not in him. He grabbed me by the collar. "Now see what you've done? You've gotten me in trouble with the police. What am I going to do with you?"
The two policemen smiled at each other. Officer Sawyer looked at both of them disapprovingly, then at me. She sighed and went back into the courtroom.
At home, my father wouldn't even speak to me. He told mother, "He was fighting in school, making trouble. And he's got me in trouble with the cops." He slammed the door to the den.
After a bath, mom had food waiting. Then I went to bed. I slept for a very long time. I didn't want to get up ever again.
Nine Years Later
"Looks like you need to be taught a lesson." Geez! Someone was always trying to teach me a lesson. Didn't we have enough dang teachers in this place without every tough guy getting into the act? High school was a bitch!
"Look, Pete, I just..."
"Mister Larssen to you, dipstick."
Peter Larssen was captain of the football team but not exactly the most creative speaker. He was, however, half a foot taller, 40 pounds heavier and loved to fight. He also loved to win. "Down on you knees, say you're sorry. Lick my shoes." Behind him was his band of crones, cackling like hens. His girlfriend, Tammy, stood by, smiling. She loved to see Pete tear someone up just for her.
Earlier in the day, she had stopped at my locker. "Like my dress, Michael?"
"Yeah, Tam, it's great."
"What do you like about it?"
"Look, I gotta go..."
"So, you don't like my dress?"
Here it came, 'the corner'. I knew about 'the corner:' 'damned if you do and damned if you don't.'
"It's not that... Yeah, sure, it's a nice dress. Pretty. Mind if I go now?"
"What's up here?" suddenly Pete was behind Tammy, looking over her shoulder.
"Michael was just telling me how much he liked my dress. Weren't you, Michael?"
"You comin' on to my Tammy?"
And the disaster was on.
Now Pete had me off the ground and was about to 'teach me a lesson.' I wondered what that could possibly be besides 'leave town forever.'
"That's enough of that," a lower voice boomed through the halls. Mr. Tilden, my math teacher, was stepping in between Pete and me. "Don't you have somewhere else to go, Pete?"
"This ain't over, numb-nuts." Pete and his crew withdrew from the field of dishonor to fight another day.
"You want to go see Dr. Blevins?" Mr. Tilden asked me.
Mr. Tilden meant well. He really did. But the last place I wanted to go was the school shrink.
"No, he'll just want to do some therapy stuff, and I really don't want to."
The truth was, I'd seen how the process worked. The school psychologist would do an "evaluation" - a "workup" they called it - and without fail find some reason to get the kid referred to a child psychiatrist. The kid would wind up back in school a week or so later sick as a dog. They all would see the school nurse a couple times a day to get pills of some kind. A few were so sick they were throwing up in class.
Interrupting my thoughts on the matter, I heard Mr. Wiszchnowski, the coach, suddenly shout in my direction: "Leave my running back the hell alone!"
Apparently, Pete had told him how I was badgering him. He'd even called poor Mr. Tilden to task.
"Peter Larssen is lying to you and you believe him," I retorted. "I never bothered Pete. He's the bully, not me."
"Oh, I'm supposed to believe you, huh? One more word and you're on suspension."
Mr. Wiszchnowski - he insisted everyone pronounce it properly every time, and no nicknames - was counting on Pete to win the big game coming up, as well as the championship that came with it. He had a place for the trophy already set up.
"Ask the other kids," I challenged, learning to stick up for myself. "He's always trying to act the Big Shot and throwing his weight around. Pete's lying to you."
"That's it. You're on report. Go to the office."
Off I went, down the halls to the head office. Through the windows of the classroom doors, I saw familiar faces look, then turn and whisper.
"You again? What is it with you?" Mr. Thatcher asked me.
"I won't lie down and die like everyone else. I'm tired of being picked on, and I won't put up with it."
Mr. Thatcher, a.k.a. "the Catcher," looked at me, hands on hips, shook his head. "Go home and cool off. Come back when you can get along with the other students."
Thatcher "the Catcher" got his nickname because he could catch any of the students doing anything they were not supposed to be doing on the grounds. Smoking, making out, the usual stuff. He had like radar. Anything, except bullying. He had a blind spot there.
At least he didn't send me to see Dr. Blevins. Blevins had been aching to get to me. He'd sidled up to me on more than one occasion, suggesting I get "a workup." Sometimes I would look at him and could almost see Dr. Maldry standing there instead. It was eerie!
I went off the grounds, but didn't go home. Instead, I looped around. There was a wood nearby where I had played as a little kid. I'd gotten some royal cases of poison ivy there.
Inspiration hit me; instead of smoldering, I knew exactly how to handle the situation.
I stopped by the 24-hour market for a box of sandwich bags and headed toward the place that has served as my 'briar patch.' After so many years, I knew the place and could cope with it; the woods were my 'comfort zone'.
With a plastic bag on each hand for a glove, I collected a few choice leaves and put them into another of the bags. I discarded my makeshift gloves in the trash can at the rear of the market as I passed it again on my way home.
On Friday, just as the clock came on 2:00, I ran out and headed to the gym. The students were just wrapping up when I got there. Mr. Wiszchnowski was in his office going over the game plans. I looked around and smiled. The locker room was mine.
In the one marked 'Larssen' was a roll of white tape, typically used for wrapping wrists and ankles. Producing a glass tube, I turned it over and emptied the contents onto the roll of tape, making sure it seeped inside the roll as much as possible. Then I slipped out of the locker room, went the long way around and in the front door, into the office.
"Any chance I can see the game?"
"You want to see the game?" Thatcher 'The Catcher' was amazed at my sudden surge of school spirit.
"I still go to school here, don't I?"
"Well, yes, certainly. I mean, if you want to. And you get here on Monday. I want to see you with this much enthusiasm for your classes."
He had a point. There was more to do and learn out in the big world than in the tight and narrow confines of the classroom, that's for sure. But the business at hand was our big game against Western, our quintessential rival.
There Goes the ol' Ball Game: Friday
It was seven-zip by the third quarter and the fans were somewhat lackluster in their enthusiasm. Then one of our guys intercepted the ball.
Out came our offense. Peter Larssen positioned himself on the left end. The ball was snapped, Pete took off like a freight train. The quarterback fired the ball down the field; Pete reached up, then stopped, stumbled, folded, fumbled, rocked on the ground and got up mad, just in time to see the Western jersey cross our goal line with the intercepted ball.
We lost the game and the cup; lost it to Western. Red and white flags waved and the Western song rang out as our students, dragging green and white pennants and scarves, slunk out of the stadium. How could Larssen screw up like that? It was a mystery.
Pete was out of school for a while with a severe case of poison ivy.
Paying the Piper
The interesting thing to come out of the fiasco that erupted following Pete Larssen's mysterious bout with poison ivy was that his name never appeared on a list of students who'd been in therapy with Dr. Blevins or given any sort of medication. Yet, he was consistently listed with students whose names were filed in Blevins' other reports involving fighting. Indeed, Larssen was usually on the victim end of the trouble, according to Blevins' reports. Some smaller and less physically able pupil would be accused of lying through his teeth, and all of Larssen's friends would swear that Pete was telling the truth.
Blevins' reports made for fascinating reading.
Security police were frequently called in response to altercations. Eventually, it was brought out that they were being receiving additional monies from the school district, but no one could figure out who authorized the expenditures. Could it be that the security guys, and even a few policemen, were coming down light on tough guys like Larssen and harder on wimpier folks - like the chess club president; on brainier types, like the winner of the science fair; and on creative types, like the first violinist of the school orchestra? How had these 'bad boys' been singled out for such rough treatment?
Not only that, but the same boys who were kept in a constant state of agitation by Pete Larssen and his band of brats also were on top of Dr. Blevins' and the nurse's meds list.
A committee of parents was formed and the poo-poo began to hit the fan. There was something rather familiar about it all, so on a hunch I started doing a little research. Finally, I pulled together my notes and went to see the head of the committee, Mr. Dakin, the father of a Billy Dakin, a friend of mine. With me went Robert Taylor, my attorney.
Mr. Taylor had been my attorney since a harassment suit was lodged against a long-time school friend for his personal investigations into Dr. Maldry's practice. I had been asked to serve as a character witness for my friend and to comment on my impressions of Dr. Maldry, such as they had been at such a young age. In the process, Mr. Taylor had taken a liking to me. He thought I was more interesting than most witnesses he worked with. He liked a good fight, and I was about to give him plenty.
The information I had collected about Drs. Blevins and Maldry turned out to be of great interest to Mr. Dakin, the head of the Parents' Committee. It seems Dr. Maldry had been getting kickbacks from the pharmaceutical company. Child psychiatrists to whom he referred patients were prescribing these drugs for the students' various "mental illnesses." The school district also was getting a stipend for each student classified with a "mental disorder" and medicated while at the school.
With this new information about psychiatric referral of children in the school district, further investigations into Dr. Blevins' activities were launched. He had been doing the same thing.
Dr. Blevins had actually been paying off a few police and the security guards to keep certain students safer than others. These favored students were the ones who kept the others constantly edge, tormenting and threatening them. Those agitated students, in turn, would be seen to "need" medication - ostensibly to calm them down. Dr. Blevins, the security guards and certain corrupt police all made money on the deal.
The second thing was that the operation being run from the psychiatrist's office at our school was not isolated. It was only one of a number of schools under the same system, run by a place called The Center for Research into Higher Education. The head of that center and creator of the program that kept so many of my classmates drugged throughout their educational lives, was none other than Dr. Marcus Maldry. He was interested in making a name for himself in clinical research. Maldry didn't want to use sick kids, because that would skew his results; he wanted to use healthy ones to get a better idea of the effects of certain drugs.
I didn't feel so bad about losing the big game. I had just won a bigger contest.
Epilogue
Dr. Blevins got twelve years and his license to practice revoked.
Dr. Maldry took a plane to Mexico and his trail went cold there. He disappeared completely. His bank account with $576 in it was untouched. It was assumed he had another place where money was hidden. His certificates to practice were revoked permanently and warrants were issued for his arrest. He would have to stay hidden.
Coach Wiszchnowski was replaced the following year. He went on to coach a junior high school team in the Midwest.
Pete Larssen went to the prep school his father had attended rather than the State University that had been dangling a football scholarship in front of him. Somehow their interest had waned after the big game.
I went on to college, studying journalism. Some might say I studied to become a professional troublemaker; the pen was mightier than the sword, after all. Though perhaps not half so mighty as a vile of poison ivy extract.
Jennifer says:
Good premise - but no story! You wrote about fist-fights without including a single descriptive sentence. You wrote about feelings without telling us how those feelings manifested in your characters' bodies. You told us about the action without letting us experience any of it. Look in the table of contents in any book on writing and find the section called "show, don't tell". Read it and take it to heart. You've got the ideas and the ability, but you have to take your story to the next level.
Plot - 15
Characters - 15
Mechanics - 17
Enjoyment - 15
TOTAL - 62
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