Dogpile
by Simon Underfoot
Copyright 2022, All Rights Reserved
Author's Note:
This is a standalone piece quite different from the science fiction I usually write -- I hope you enjoy. Your votes and comments are much appreciated.
Cheers,
Simon
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I've always thought trauma to be an odd thing. I don't mean the trauma itself -- bad things happen, after all -- but the effects that appear later can be really strange. Sometimes a lot later.
When I was little, really little, my mother walked away. I don't know the reasons or details or excuses, because I've always been too afraid to ask. Not afraid of the question, mind you, but afraid of learning something resembling the truth and what it may imply about me. I don't want to have been the reason so I've always left this particular dog stay asleep.
I do, however, often wonder what it would have been like if it wasn't just my Old Man and me.
He was a good enough father, but not really what you would call a Dad. He did the things necessary to help a baby grow into a toddler and so forth, but not much more. He was there to clean me up when I skinned a knee or an elbow, and he took me to the hospital when I fractured my wrist following a fall from a neighbor's borrowed bike, but there was no closeness and very little affection. An occasional "good job" was the best I ever hoped to hear.
If it hadn't been for a particular elementary teacher that took an interest...
Mrs. Howland wasn't even my teacher at first. She had a third grade class -- the one every kid wanted to be in. For the girls, it was because she was young and pretty, with flowing golden hair and a trim waist -- the accessible equivalent of a fairy tale princess. For the boys, it was her smile: the one you earned when you had done something praiseworthy.
I still remember the first smile I received from her, out at recess on a sunny Fall afternoon. I captured a ball rolling loose and tossed it back to the group of kids playing Four Square without being asked. That's it.
As a seven year old, I think I would have done anything for that smile.
So somewhere along the line Mrs. Howland noticed me, the kid always dressed in jeans and a plain sweatshirt, even in Summer. The one standing by himself every recess. The one who aced every math test, but never said anything aloud.
Trauma, remember?
When third grade rolled around I ended up in her class. In retrospect, I think she may have pulled a string or three, but I couldn't guess why, other than professional interest. Or perhaps sympathy.
Sometime during the first half of that year I said something in class -- I don't remember what it was. The kids around me were stunned, but Mrs. Howland didn't seem surprised at all. It did earn me a another smile, and suddenly I had a reason to talk a little more. By the end of the school year, eight year old Andy was actually interacting with his peers, and while I didn't speak a lot, at least the rest of the kids class what my voice sounded like.
In fourth grade I regressed.
I don't know that it was my teacher's fault, but his yellowed teeth and coffee breath made his smiles less reassuring than those of Mrs. Howland. One morning that winter, as I was preparing to walk to school, my father told me that I was to go to the office at the end of class.
It's easy for me to remember the angst I felt that whole day, unsure of the sudden change in routine. I can't readily explain the relief when Mrs. Howland was there to meet me. It seemed she had been engaged as a tutor for me, not in academics, but in life skills. Once or twice a week she was part therapist, part confident, and part grown-up friend. She was more a parent during those times than my mother or father ever were.
In the Spring of the following year -- fifth grade, if you're keeping track -- she had her first child, a beautiful blonde girl with dark, dark eyes. Mildred. I didn't ever think the name suited her, but I certainly never told that to Mrs. Howland.
After Mildred came along I only ever saw my teacher friend at recess. I would greet her kindly and ask after the baby, trying to effect the informal lessons she had imparted, and more often than not, I would receive a smile for my effort. Positive re-enforcement, it's called.
The last day of school that year is the only time I can remember crying throughout my entire childhood. It was as I walked toward my house, having received a good-bye hug from Mrs. Howland, the first genuine affection that had been shown to me in a physical form up to that point in my life.
I gave my father a hug that night, awkwardly, but he just looked at me curiously, so I didn't try again.
So what?
Now twenty-two, I still think about elementary school once in awhile, and more so recently, because so much of what's happened in the last six months traces back to my early years.
I'm in my last year of studies, working toward a degree with a double major in Math and Computer Science at what I refer to as the College of Sciency Stuff and General Nerdery. COSSGN. Not really, but that might as well be the name given the ridiculous airs that the professors don daily. Seriously, it's a public regional university in Bum Fucking Egypt.
At least the other students know what they're doing. I've learned more outside of class than in, so as long as I graduate and know my stuff at the end, who cares which path I took.
The odd thing is that I don't really have friends here any more than I did in primary school. You'd think that after three full years I'd have experienced most of what college has to offer, but not so much. The best I've managed are friendly acquaintances, group members from various class projects, and the occasional short-lived virtual fling with an online troll like myself. For the record, I always checked to make sure they were female and over eighteen, but you know how things go with internet relationships as well as I do. Whatever. At least I was smart enough never to try to meet up. Or to send money. Or nudz.
Anyway, the situation was comfortable for me after so long, but objectively speaking, pretty bleak, which is why I was surprised to get a DM from someone I hadn't seen or heard from since High School.
Hi Andy This is Michelle Rodriguez from Marsden Remember me?
I was sitting in front of my laptop on a Friday morning before class, wearing only a pair of holey boxers and a secondhand t-shirt. I felt a stirring down below and rolled my eyes, then shrugged. Michelle had been okay to me when I knew her. Not friendly, exactly, but nice enough, especially compared to what I experienced from most girls I tried to talk to back in Marsden. It didn't hurt that she was pretty.
Rather than reply, I spent half an hour looking up pictures of models that she vaguely resembled and rubbed one out before class. I didn't actually respond until just before dinner.
Hi Michelle. How are you?
Great!!! I know this is out of nowhere but somebody told me U R at State right?
I rolled my eyes, this time in earnest. 'Here it comes.'
Yep.
