Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that\u2026 that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems\u2026 and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don\u2019t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn\u2019t the best. We complained about it. So we\u2019ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we\u2019ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wouldn\u2019t have been so bad except that just a couple of weeks before the thing with the trees, the snakes all died. But I think that the snakes\u200a\u2014\u200awell, the reason that the snakes kicked off was that\u2026 you remember, the boiler was shut off for four days because of the strike, and that was explicable. It was something you could explain to the kids because of the strike. I mean, none of their parents would let them cross the picket line and they knew there was a strike going on and what it meant. So when things got started up again and we found the snakes they weren\u2019t too disturbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the herb gardens it was probably a case of overwatering, and at least now they know not to overwater. The children were very conscientious with the herb gardens and some of them probably\u2026 you know, slipped them a little extra water when we weren\u2019t looking. Or maybe\u2026 well, I don\u2019t like to think about sabotage, although it did occur to us. I mean, it was something that crossed our minds. We were thinking that way probably because before that the gerbils had died, and the white mice had died, and the salamander\u2026 well, now they know not to carry them around in plastic bags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course we expected <\/em>the tropical fish to die, that was no surprise. Those numbers, you look at them crooked and they\u2019re belly-up on the surface. But the lesson plan called for a tropical fish input at that point, there was nothing we could do, it happens every year, you just have to hurry past it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We weren\u2019t even supposed to have a puppy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We weren\u2019t even supposed to have one, it was just a puppy the Murdoch girl found under a Gristede\u2019s truck one day and she was afraid the truck would run over it when the driver had finished making his delivery, so she stuck it in her knapsack and brought it to the school with her. So we had this puppy. As soon as I saw the puppy I thought, Oh Christ, I bet it will live for about two weeks and then\u2026 And that\u2019s what it did. It wasn\u2019t supposed to be in the classroom at all, there\u2019s some kind of regulation about it, but you can\u2019t tell them they can\u2019t have a puppy when the puppy is already there, right in front of them, running around on the floor and yap yap yapping. They named it Edgar\u200a\u2014\u200athat is, they named it after me. They had a lot of fun running after it and yelling, \u201cHere, Edgar! Nice Edgar!\u201d Then they\u2019d laugh like hell. They enjoyed the ambiguity. I enjoyed it myself. I don\u2019t mind being kidded. They made a little house for it in the supply closet and all that. I don\u2019t know what it died of. Distemper, I guess. It probably hadn\u2019t had any shots. I got it out of there before the kids got to school. I checked the supply closet each morning, routinely, because I knew what was going to happen. I gave it to the custodian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then there was this Korean orphan that the class adopted through the Help the Children program, all the kids brought in a quarter a month, that was the idea. It was an unfortunate thing, the kid\u2019s name was Kim and maybe we adopted him too late or something. The cause of death was not stated in the letter we got, they suggested we adopt another child instead and sent us some interesting case histories, but we didn\u2019t have the heart. The class took it pretty hard, they began (I think, nobody ever said anything to me directly) to feel that maybe there was something wrong with the school. But I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything wrong with the school, particularly, I\u2019ve seen better and I\u2019ve seen worse. It was just a run of bad luck. We had an extraordinary number of parents passing away, for instance. There were I think two heart attacks and two suicides, one drowning, and four killed together in a car accident. One stroke. And we had the usual heavy mortality rate among the grandparents, or maybe it was heavier this year, it seemed so. And finally the tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tragedy occurred when Matthew Wein and Tony Mavrogordo were playing over where they\u2019re excavating for the new federal office building. There were all these big wooden beams stacked, you know, at the edge of the excavation. There\u2019s a court case coming out of that, the parents are claiming that the beams were poorly stacked. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s true and what\u2019s not. It\u2019s been a strange year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I forgot to mention Billy Brandt\u2019s father who was knifed fatally when he grappled with a masked intruder in his home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, we had a discussion in class. They asked me, where did they go? The trees, the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar, the poppas and mommas, Matthew and Tony, where did they go? And I said, I don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t know. And they said, who knows? and I said, nobody knows. And they said, is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said no, life is that which gives meaning to life. Then they said, but isn\u2019t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said, yes, maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They said, we don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said, that\u2019s sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They said, it\u2019s a bloody shame!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said, it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They said, will you make love now with Helen (our teaching assistant) so that we can see how it is done? We know you like Helen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do like Helen but I said that I would not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve heard so much about it, they said, but we\u2019ve never seen it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said I would be fired and that it was never, or almost never, done as a demonstration. Helen looked out of the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They said, please, please make love with Helen, we require an assertion of value, we are frightened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said that they shouldn\u2019t be frightened (although I am often frightened) and that there was value everywhere. Helen came and embraced me. I kissed her a few times on the brow. We held each other. The children were excited. Then there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children cheered wildly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The School” by Donald Barthelme Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that\u2026 that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems\u2026 and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5557,63],"tags":[356,62,339,104],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n