"Mr. Calloway," Spizer began, still furiously raking a pen across a pad on his desk. Kyle could almost hear it scream. "I have a proposition for you."
Eric Spizer was a lot of things, but a generous soul, he was not. In his younger days, he was an oddball—shy, chubby, maybe a little slow—constantly the butt of jokes and outright rejection from society as a whole.
Even then, for the longest time, the man retained his dignity and empathy. But just as good fruit goes bad with enough time as corruptions fester, he withdrew bodily and mentally from the world, growing meaner and souring with each passing year. Men like Eric didn't have friends, so there were no parties, dates, or other pointless socializing; life was too important to waste on formalities. And so, perceived wounds festered, missed opportunities rankled, and age robbed him steadily of any remaining chance to start over. He became the sole devotee to the Church of Spizer—the ultimate loner squelched by a banal world.
It was enough to drive anyone mad. Before he quit caring, he yearned for human companionship, understanding, and a connection with at least one other person. That quest sizzled and scorched his emotions until they blackened and fell to ash. It transformed him, and in a twisted manner of speaking, freed him to fully embrace his destiny; being alone would be his calling in life. At the ripe age of 54, Eric Spizer was a bitter old man, and he liked it that way.
Even so, despicable and forgotten, he retained one redeeming quality: a sense of duty. First and foremost, Mr. Spizer was a History teacher. He had a job to do, and by God, he'd not allow Kyle's shenanigans to upset responsibility. This little brat is going to pay attention.
"Kyle, I'm going to tell you a story, to illustrate to you, something you should know by now. Pay attention or your father will hear from me!"
Kyle's eyes widened and an involuntary jolt surged through him, inviting fear he quickly dismissed. Mr. Spizer couldn't know invoking the fury of Frank was a losing battle, but like most children and teenagers, threats to involve parents inspired chills of dread. Kyle almost retorted with a snide remark about his Father, but looked into Mr. Spizer's eyes and immediately abandoned that idea. The man was incensed, dangerously yet subtly livid.
"Last spring, there was a beautiful thunderstorm that pounded this town like Enlil's wrath," Spizer said, closing his eyes to scan for some remembered passage. "'The storm ordered by Enlil in hate, the storm which wears away the Land, covered Urim like a garment, was spread out over it like linen.' It was like that, Kyle. Sheets of rain like an opaque blanket obscured everything worse than the thickest fog. Thunder raged and tore across the sky, rending it asunder to unleash more of the deluge." He closed his eyes, serene and content while describing such calamity, like an old friend, or as a man describes a lover. Kyle felt sick.
The gruff teacher sobered eventually and continued his tale. "When it was over, and people were cleaning up damage to their homes, sawing off broken tree branches, and scrambling to bail out their basements. I went for a walk. Why not? The air was clean, the air smelt fresh, and my home is made of brick. And do you know what I found? Along a sidewalk toward the edge of town, I passed the one tree the storm managed to fell. It was a sad sight! Torn up almost by the roots, snapped raggedly along the trunk, the true corruption within was exposed. I saw grubs, long, white, and fat, living in a greyish honeycomb—a home they made of the tree's succulent heartwood.
"And it spoke to me, that scene. It told me that tiny ash suffered an unfortunate history of neglect, until it was rotten to the core; suffused with burrowing insects and verging on collapse, though it appeared healthy. I learned everything I needed to know about that tree, simply by observing its death and extrapolating its life. People are no different. It's history, boy, that shows who we are, and properly utilized, can stave off or prevent diseases physical and metaphorical.
"So you have a choice. Since you disrupted my class, I want to make sure you learn something from the experience."
Kyle gulped; here it comes.
"First, you may write a five page paper detailing how rabbits are tied to fertility, and by this, I mean a certain Germanic goddess. You see, I like rabbits, and few people realize how integrated into history they truly are." He paused, allowing Kyle to consider.
Five pages! About rabbits? Why was it always rabbits? What's going on with this town? Suggesting Tammond Dale was obsessed with all things bunny, almost felt like saying pizza was obsessed with being delicious. More and more, Kyle wondered if everyone here had a wild hare somewhere in their lineage.
"Or," he continued, "go to Adriana's house, and help her study. The girl is doing terribly in this class, and even though you present a capable façade of incompetence, you can't fool me. I don't care which you choose, but if you don't turn in that paper by Friday, the final grade Adriana gets in this class will be yours as well. Are we clear?"
Kyle nodded, almost imperceptibly, and then it was over. Mr. Spizer waved a hand dismissively and returned to further harass his notebook, never giving Kyle another look. Implicitly, he'd been dismissed like a thoroughly chewed piece of gristle, void of sustenance or relevance. Spizer projected an aura that, in no uncertain terms, said get out. So Kyle gat, beating a hasty escape before Dr. Angry changed his mind.