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Former Things Forgotten

By Thomas Michael Trezise

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Mountain View Elementary
Marietta, GA
September 2019

The Beast was loose. Tessa knew it by the screams.

She had turned away to write on her whiteboard for only a moment.
Sometimes that was all it took. The Beast could strike fast. She
should have known.

Tessa whirled to confront the monster. “Billy Burden, I’m fixin’
to cloud up and rain all over your parade! I swear, boy, you could
make a preacher cuss! You give Anna her backpack right this second
and sit yourself down until your bus comes.”

Billy stood beside his desk and glared at her, chin pointed upward
and the corners of his mouth down. He crossed his arms and stamped
his foot. “No! You can’t make me.” Billy easily measured eighteen inches
taller and forty pounds heavier than the next largest child in her
third-grade class. He was big, not fat. Somewhere, an SEC football coach
probably fantasized about what he might be in ten more years.

Billy used his size to intimidate and torment the other children.
He did not hurt them physically. He just had a new way to push them
around nearly every day. Mostly, he was plain mean. Billy presented a
bigger problem for Tessa because he also tried to intimidate her. Even
he could see that on the continuum of human adults, Tessa’s growth
stopped around elfin. Despite the difference in ages between eight
and twenty-eight, their heights and weights nearly matched.

They reenacted this scene almost daily. Tessa knew the end, but
the path to it had worn her down. She crossed to Billy and put her
finger almost on his nose. “You are going to give Anna her backpack
and sit down, or I will write a note to your mother describing your
behavior. I will take it down the hall and give it to Ms. Chandler.
She will call your mother to come to school, where Ms. Chandler
will hand her the note, and she will take you home. You will not
ride your bus. You want that?” Other teachers had coached Tessa that
threatening Billy with his mother was the ultimate weapon.

Billy returned the backpack to Anna and slid into his seat,
placing his head on the desk. His arm covered his face except for his
right eye; that stared out at Tessa. She moved past him toward her
desk to avoid his stare. He moved his head and shifted to his left eye.
The beast inside Billy tracked her.

She reserved the desk to her left for Billy. Tessa wanted her eyes
on him as much as possible. She had Anna Turner in the center row
next to Billy. Anna was a wonderful child and served as a firebreak for
Billy’s behavior. Becky Davis, another problem child, occupied the
first desk in the row to Tessa’s right. Becky, however, reached nowhere
near Billy’s league.

The Beast was Tessa’s private name for Billy, one she shared with
no one, not even her husband or close friends. He often caused her
to go what she called “full-tilt-crazy-hillbilly” as he did today. Billy
could easily get her goose and unhinge her tongue. Her feelings about
the eight-year-old child embarrassed her, yet she could not stop the
thought and did not try. It helped her manage.

Tessa was thankful she was not on bus duty. Once the Beast
and the rest of the children had filed out of her classroom, she went
straight to her desk and collapsed in her chair. “I can’t believe we are
only four weeks into the new year. I don’t think I can last another
month, let alone until the end of the year.”

Tessa stared blankly at the map on the far wall above the coat
racks and cubbies for the children. Melancholy swallowed her. Only a
few weeks ago, she’d been enthusiastic about the upcoming season of
teaching. The change to teaching third grade the prior year reignited
her fire for teaching. She thrived on helping children learn and found
joy in opening their life opportunities through reading.

But in four short weeks, Billy Burden converted Tessa into
the clock-watcher she had never been. She hated teaching now and
blamed it all on him. Yes, he probably had many problems at home.
She didn’t care. If she was honest, she hated the child.

Tessa had positioned her desk diagonally across the room from the
door to enable her to survey the entire classroom and anyone coming
or going. Over the summer, the school had installed a double-walled
steel door, which locked or unlocked electronically by a remote, to
make it difficult for intruders and prevent the possibility of shootings.
Her school was a test site. Tessa hung the remote about her neck with
her other keys and badges. A series of small panes formed five long,
narrow, vertical windows. The panes sat close enough to each other to
form a larger window and disclose anyone at the door. Bullet-resistant
glass added security. Even if a pane shattered, the size rendered nearly
impossible the insertion of an arm beyond a hand or a gun beyond
the muzzle. An attacker could shoot only directly to the front.


Before classes started, the school administration trained Tessa
how to use the door and remote to protect her students—in her eyes,
a ridiculous waste of time and money needed elsewhere. Marietta
experienced virtually no violent crime. She wanted to teach, not be a
policewoman. Instead, she felt like the one jailed … with depression
her cellmate, thanks to Billy.

The window wall on her right faced out toward the grass assembly
area surrounding the school’s flagpole opposite the main entrance.
Students met their buses in the roadway that circled the lawn and
flag. Anyone entering the school could make only two short lefts and
find her room. The Beast caught her eye out there now, pushing aside
a smaller child to be first on the bus. A sigh wrenched from Tessa’s
heart.

Her gaze rose to Kennesaw Mountain in the distance, as often
occurred, leading her to daydream of being at the top. Even a
daydream visit could renew her like a cool cup of water on a hot day.
Tranquility occasionally demanded a trip there in person.

A tear dribbled from her left eye and then another from her right.
Many more joined the march, mourning her loss of joy in teaching.
The tears soon stopped, leaving behind anguish.

“These kids have tapped me dry as a bone. I have to get out of
here. I can’t take another moment.” Tomorrow’s lesson would have to
wait. Gathering her purse and satchel, Tessa rushed to her car. As she
reached the car door she hesitated when she opened it. “How have I
come to this?”

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