“I'm not gonna teach your goddamn class unless there's a real chalkboard,” he'd said. “None of this dry-erase shit.”

So some janitor had dug through storage to find the last chalkboard in existence. It was the kind on wheels that could be flipped over to the other side so thoughts bigger than 6' by 4' could be continued without interruption for erasure. The phrase Have a nice Summer! still lingered in ghostly script. Glancing around the classroom Rommel decided which student would have to clean the erasers at the end of the day. That little bastard over there.

A boy in the front row was struggling with a paper airplane. Rommel strode over and helped him with the creases and the angle of the wings. The boy threw it. It's still flying.

Rommel walked to the back of the class, instantly in his element. Four boys and one girl leaned their heads against the long bulletin board hung on the back wall. It displayed various craft projects. Glitter powdered the floor beneath it like cocaine on the mirror of a millionaire's son in state college. Rommel squinted, nodded approvingly at the works to his left. He had an international reputation as a connoisseur of macaroni art, frequently consulting for the Louvre.

“If I can tell you're not paying attention,” he said to the back of the class, “you're not doing it right.”

The quintet nodded knowingly, long since initiated into the dark society of slackerdom.

The bell rang. It wasn't actually a bell. Such primitive technology had long ago been replaced by a soulless electronic beep piped through the intercom, but the beep proved so uninspiring that in the end it had to adopt the name of its predecessor despite any confusion that might cause in the annals of history. The beep was more efficient, they said. But Rommel was quick to point out that a real bell indirectly satisfied the desire to hit things. The beep promoted violence. Rommel punched out a window to calm everybody down.

The poor janitor who'd had to find the chalkboard went to get a broom.

Rommel addressed the class, “At least two of you will grow up to be gay. The rest of you will be ostracized for various failings of personality. Maybe one of you will carve out a niche in the world close enough to contentment that I'm disinclined to just kill off the lot of you now as a service to your generation.”

The girl sitting front and center took vigorous notes, her pencil scratching like a poisoned rat at a water pipe.

JR jumped out of the holster, and shot from the hip, bullet splintering the pencil, passing between four or five stunned children to finally shatter another window. Hell, the janitor was already on his way back with the broom.

“Don't take notes when I'm berating you.”

“You're not supposed to have a gun in school,” said another girl between smacks of bubble gum.

“What kind of gum is that?” asked Rommel.

“Grape Bubblicious.”

“Awesome. Gimme a piece.”

She handed him the little rectangular prism of artificially flavored synthetic rubber byproduct, and he opened it deliberately in front of the class.

“There're all these rules,” he said, “that if you follow you'll never get anywhere at all. One rule leads you to another leads you back to the first.”

He blew an immaculate bubble the size of a beachball, and then deftly sucked it back in without getting any on his face. The students let out a collective gasp at the splendor of it.

“Feel free to take notes on that,” Rommel said.

But no words could describe it.

He continued, “You can spend all day in the classroom, and not learn a goddamn thing.”

“You're not supposed to cuss, either,” said a frail looking boy in the third row.

“Didn't you hear anything I just said? You're not allowed to talk anymore.”

“But I want to talk!”

Rommel smiled. “Good job, you just broke your first rule.”

The boy's eyes grew wide as the freedom consumed him. His heart beat excitedly in his throat for a few seconds until the adrenaline subsided, and a calm settled over him.

“Do the rest of you get it?” asked Rommel.

The other students nodded tentatively.

“Good, then get the hell out of here. Class dismissed.”

“But we can't leave until the bell,” said the prototypical redheaded stepson, second row right.

“First off, it's not actually a bell…” Rommel shook his head quickly, “but forget that. The lesson is over, and I'm not going to sully my teaching method with busy work. We're done.”

Slowly, the students gathered their things. Then more quickly. Soon, they were dropping textbooks and trapper keepers and running to the door, Lady Liberty at their heels smiling broadly at her lost children, now found.

They went from classroom to classroom spreading the euphoria until the whole school flowed out the front doors, across the playground, into the eager arms of the city beyond. The students studying French scribbled viva la revolution in crayon across the lockers, and the kids from P.E. bounced big rubber kickballs down the hallways like they'd always wanted to. Boing-boing-boing.

It isn't truancy when everybody's doing it. It's a holiday.

In the abandoned hallway, quiet like a sanctuary, littered with discarded books and unfinished homework, Rommel chatted with Death, who had been teaching sex ed. in the adjacent classroom.

Rommel asked, “How was your class?”

“This shit really isn't worth the money.”

Rommel never even had any chalk.

-----

Next: Rocky IV