To Mr. K. 6th Grade, Christ The King School

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Source: http://www.fameimages.com/gary-sandy

In 6th grade, Noelle and I had it in for Mr. K.. As an adult, I don’t know why, but as a 6th grader, it was perfectly clear: he walked around like Andy on WKRP and seemed like an adult who wanted to be “cool,” which is the worst way to be cool. Kids can smell that. 

 

We would imitate him, comb our hands through our hair the way he would, flipping his feathered layers with a small tick of his neck. He wore jeans with a jacket and tie. And cowboy boots. He tried to teach us math, but the second he would turn towards the blackboard to write a problem, we’d laugh, so that he would have to turn back around quickly, “WHAT is so funny?!?”

After lunch, the teachers would all be watching the kids on the playground and we would sneak off to the pay phone by the community building. We looked up his address in the phonebook--D. Kerlick. We would call 1-800 numbers and COD order him Ronco’s Mr. Microphone and K-Tel’s “Disco Fire” collection. Ginsu knives and every TimeLife series they had. We got him good, we thought.

We imagined day after day, the packages arriving at his tiny apartment. He would yell at the mail carrier, “But I didn’t order these!!” We thought he would be chest deep in Buttoneers and Record Vacuums, pacing across the sculptured carpet, flipping his hair. “Damn kids!” All the while, we knew he would never trace it back to us. And finally, his apartment would be so stuffed and he would hate us so much, he would not come back to school.

But he kept showing up. He came back the day after we put glue all over his chair. After he caught us mocking him in the gym. He showed up every day.

At the end of the year, he quit. We thought we did the world a public service. In our magical thinking, we made adults weep and quit their jobs. We thought teachers better watch themselves.

Maybe.

Maybe he hated us enough to never come back. Maybe we were so bad that he gave up teaching altogether.

At 12, decisions seemed to rest on one thing at a time, but there was a math he couldn’t teach us, problems too complicated to explain. We thought he was stupid, and what could he do but shake his head? Damn kids.