Gahenna, Texas

Gahenna, Texas Section 3

3
Lance softly ran his hand over Erica’s side as he lay in the darkness next to her listening to her breath.  He slowly came back to the present and felt the rough towels beneath his skin.  He shifted a little, then he completely flipped over and looked at the red glowing lights on the alarm clock that sat on the nightstand beside the bed; 2:45 AM it read.
It was early.  Lance hadn’t gone to be until eleven that night and here he was, wide awake and reminiscing about how he and Erica got to where they are.  He knew all too well that he wasn’t going to be going back to sleep any time soon and that he would probably get tired right at six in the morning, just as his alarm sounded the beginning of another day.
Lance had completed his master’s degree a few years after he and Erica married and he was now an 11th grade English teacher at J.R. Blunt High School.  He had been doing that type of work for a long time now and he knew just how hazardous it could be to doze off in a room full of teenagers.  That was the last thing that he wanted, so he reached for the half empty pack of cigarettes and the “fountain pen” lighter that Erica and his daughter Shauna had gotten him for this past Father’s Day.  He never really liked it, in fact, he found it to be a little odd, but he used it so that they could enjoy seeing him use their gift; at least that is what he told himself.  He actually used it so that he wouldn’t have to tell them that he hated the damn thing and had flung it out the car window on his way to work.
Lance laid back and smoked his cigarette, enjoying the relaxing sensation that he got from the nicotine as it left his lungs and coursed through his body.  He starred at the ceiling and prayed that his eyes would grow heavy again before he finished his smoke.  He snuffed out the smoldering butt and pulled the covers up over his shoulders.  It was almost four in the morning before he finally drifted back off to sleep.
Lance jumped as the shrieking alarm shattered the early morning air.  It was six o’clock on the nose and it was time for him to drag his tired butt out of bed and get the day going.  With a groan, equal to that of a rusty ship’s hold as it settled in the water, he rubbed his eyes, threw off the covers, and stumbled clumsily into the bathroom to take a shower.
His feet set down on the white ceramic tile of the bathroom floor and he took a sharp breath as the cold penetrated the callused soles of his feet, causing them to throb as he stepped.  This was a daily shock to his system and it woke him up quickly and forced him to trot over to the bath mat just outside of the bathtub.  In one masterful move he spun the handle in the shower, yanked back the shower curtain, and jumped in under the flowing water.  He let out a loud yell as the icy water pelted his skin, but he was soon relieved as it turned from cold daggers to waves of steam and warmth as the cold water cleared the pipes and the hot water from the heater flowed freely down his back.  He felt the fibers of the , muscles in his neck and back relax as the heat worked its way deep into his upper torso, but before he was able to get too comfortable he was once again assaulted by icy daggers as the hot water dissipated and forced him out of the steam filled shower.
         He pulled a large blue towel off of the towel rack hanging above the toilet and dried off and then he slipped his underwear back on and walked over to the sink to shave.  He leaned forward, allowing his hands to rest on either side of the shell shaped basin and hung his head.  He really didn’t want to go to school.  This thought made him laugh a little as he pondered the phrase, after all, how many adults can honestly say that they don’t want to go to school and mean just as deeply as they did when they still lived at home and tried to play sick.  He turned the handle marked with an “H” and hoped that there would be enough hot water left for him to shave.  The water ran for a second, and then he saw the waves of steam start to float upwards.  He quickly lathered his face with shaving cream and whittled away his whiskers as fast as possible.  Finally, Lance rinsed and wiped his face clean and returned to the bedroom to get dressed.
         He felt as though he had only been in the bathroom for about five, maybe ten minutes, but when he glanced over at the clock he saw that it had taken him almost an hour.  He snatched his shirt and pants off of their hangars in the closet and yanked them on.  He slipped his feet into his beat up dress shoes, tied them, and rushed down stairs to the kitchen. 
The aroma from the freshly brewed coffee filled his nostrils as he neared the kitchen.  He walked in and found Erica sitting at the breakfast table, just he she was every morning, with a steaming cup of coffee sitting in front of her.  She looked up at him as he walked in and smiled.
“Did you fall asleep in the shower again?” 
“No.  I just didn’t want to get out, but it really didn’t seem like that long.”
“Well you were in there for some time.”
Lance just grunted and smiled a little as he made his own cup of coffee.  He watched as the stem swirled around inside of the mug as he filled it, then he poured in the cream and sugar and stirred.
“So, what was going on with you last night?  I have never seen you toss and turn that much.”  Erica asked.
“I just had a nightmare.  No big deal.”  He took a sip of his coffee and looked at her as he leaned back against the counter.
Lance was amazed by her.  For a thirty-seven year old woman she looked amazing.  Her medium blonde hair framed her face perfectly, and though she had just crawled out of bed it seemed to be in place.  Her eyes were a brilliant sky blue and they still held that flash of fire in them that you find in certain people.  She possessed that life spark that can’t be described but only seen and experienced.  The slinky pink satin strap of her nightgown had slipped off of her shoulder, leaving her neck, shoulder, and the upper most reaches of her chest and breast exposed, taking Lance to a world that had absolutely nothing to do with school.  Her skin was firm and because she spent a good bit of her time outside she had maintained a perfect caramel tan that made her glow.  Lance couldn’t help but be more attracted to her now than he was when they were younger and he felt a little foolish when he thought about her like this because he didn’t think that she looked at him in that manner.  Erica would also never tell, but he was wrong.
As he gazed at her she was also gazing at him.  This was something that she did regularly when he wasn’t looking and wouldn’t notice.  She liked his thick black moustache that adorned his upper lip.  She allowed her eyes to roam across his body, wondering how exactly he had been able to maintain that surfer boy physique that he had when she first met him.  He hadn’t been out in the water for as long as she could remember and he definitely hadn’t darkened the door of a gym, but he was still very toned.  His hazel eyes always seemed to be thoughtful, dark, and mysterious.  They were almost impossible to read, except for when he was mad, but they were different, unlike any other eyes she had ever looked in to.  She was still learning about him every day and that was something that she loved.  She had never once grown bored in their long relationship and she considered herself very lucky for that.  She knew that the mysteriousness that she saw in him was all in her head, he was just a man after all and not an overly sensitive one, but that is what kept her on her toes.  She felt like she was living a fantasy a lot of the time when she was with him and her heart would flutter like a teenager with a secret crush.
She shook this out of her head and scoffed quietly as she watched Lance finish his coffee and place the empty mug in the sink.  He then grabbed a car mug and filled it up, added the cream and sugar, stirred it and then leaned down for his briefcase.  While he did this Erica had gotten up from the table and walked up behind him.  This had become their morning ritual.  He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her gently, then he grabbed his keys off of the hook on the wall by the door and went out through the garage.
The air was humid and muggy already and Lance knew that it was going to be another scorcher of a day.  When he was younger he loved this type of weather, but he had now begun to think of Corpus Christi summers as living on the surface of the sun.  He tossed his briefcase into the backseat of his car, climbed in, and started the engine.  The roar of the engine was accompanied by a soft clacking noise as the pistons circulated oil and warmed themselves.  Lance let the car idol for a minute as he adjusted the radio, then he backed out of the driveway and headed off to school.
The entire way into the school Lance raved and ranted about the traffic in front of him.  Every day it was the same thing; if he was in a rush the traffic seemed to crawl but when he was just cruising around every car on the road seemed to fly by him like he was standing still.  He detested the way other people drove and was convinced that they should have their licenses taken away.  All in all his drive wasn’t that bad.  He didn’t catch every red light along the way, there weren’t any wrecks, and he pulled into the faculty parking lot at a few minutes past seven, which was plenty early. 
He sat in the car for minute and looked out at the school and the droves of students wandering up to it.  Lance had been teaching English in this same high school for sixteen years now.  He had enjoyed it at first, he thought that he was molding the young minds of America, training them to function in the world as adults, but the monotony of doing the same thing day in and day out combined with the decline of respect and drive among the students over the years had worn him down to the point that he didn’t know if he could take it much longer.  As he thought about all of this he was very aware of just how badly he wanted to turn the car around an go home. 
He had come to hate his job and the field that he was in.  He had always wanted to be a teacher, ever since he was just a boy, but he had gone to college to become a Philosophy teacher.  He graduated number three in his class with a major in Philosophy and a minor in English, but when it came time to find a job he was cornered into the English field.  It seemed that no school taught Philosophy at the high school level and he didn’t want nor could he afford to return to school for an advanced degree that would permit him to become a college professor.
Lance turned and grabbed his briefcase from the backseat, got out of the car, and strode briskly across the expanse of the parking lot and into the school’s main office.  As he neared the front desk, Janice Evans, the school’s lead secretary, looked up at him.
“Mornin’ Lance.  How you doin’ today?”  She had a strong southern accent and was annoyingly chipper in the early mornings.
“Fine, you?”  Lance responded, being as polite as he could.
“I’m good.  Had a tough time getting the old car goin’ this mornin’, but things are lookin’ up now that I’m here.”
“Good, good.  Well, I hate to rush off, but the natives will revolt if I don’t get to class before they do.”  Lance chuckled, and then he trotted off down the hall fiddling with the mail that he had taken out of his box.
When he got to his class room in the last wing of the school some of his students were already sitting outside and he knew that the rest would be along shortly.  He pulled his keys from his pocket and fumbled through them until he got to the one for the classroom door.  He opened the door and reached in to turn on the lights, and then he stepped back and held the door open as the few waiting students walked in.  After the last of them past him he walked over to his desk an set his briefcase on the floor, and then he sat in his chair and began unpacking the piles of papers that he had graded over the past week.  While he stacked the papers on his desk he allowed his mind to wander.  He began daydreaming about leaving his position here at J.R. Robertson High School, but he knew that his wife and daughter would have him strung up if he did.
Come on Lance!  You are at work, just live with what you’ve got and stopped thinking like this!  His subconscious mind screamed at him.
All day long he kept beating himself up as these thoughts kept creeping into his head.  He drifted off again and again, only to be snapped back to reality by the metallic clanging of the bell, signaling the end of first period.
One down, six to go.  He said to himself.
Lance spent the entire day between classes, and occasionally during class, trying to figure out a way to escape his misery, but there was only one clear cut solution.  He was going to have to change his field from English to Philosophy and he knew that at the very least it would require a change in schools.  This in and of itself created further problems for him.  Erica and Shauna absolutely loved Corpus Christi and though there were five other high schools within driving distance he knew for a fact that none of them had a Philosophy Department.  This meant that they would have to leave the area for him to find what he was looking for, if any school had this area of study available that was.  They wouldn’t take the news that he was even looking lightly, but he knew that if he didn’t make a change soon he would go stark raving mad.
By the end of the day he had made up his mind.  He was going to find a school that he could be happy at and he wasn’t going to tell Erica or Shauna of his decision.  There was a distinct possibility that no high school offered Philosophy so there was no good reason to get those two ladies all in a tiff about nothing.  He would simply look around quietly and if he found something, then and only then would he let them in on his decision.  It was the only safe route for him to take.
Lance sat in his classroom and graded papers for about an hour after his last class let out, then, at around five that evening, he signed out in the office and began his short drive home.  He pulled out of the parking lot and smirked as the traffic stayed true to form.  He was trying to take his time getting home, but everyone was blowing by him like he was standing still.  By the time Lance pulled into the driveway of his home he was more knotted up than a macramé lamp from having the doors blown off his car by hormone crazed teenagers that thought they could drive.  He turned off the motor and sat for a moment, and then he collected his things and went inside.
Lance opened the door to the house and found Erica sitting at the table with a pile of mail, bills no doubt, and one of her magazines.
“Hi dear, how was your day.”  She said without looking up.
“It was.  It just was.”  He answered sharply as he strode by her.
Erica had spent entirely too many years with him to ask what was wrong.  She knew first hand that when Lance came home in a mood like that it was best to leave him alone; when he was ready to talk he would.  His tone caused her to raise her eyes from the mail and she looked at him with partially concerned but more annoyed look.  His tone grated on her nerves and her gut reaction was to turn and snap back at him.  She didn’t but she watched him walk out of the kitchen and towards his office, then she returned to her reading.
Lance closed the door to his office and plopped down into his oversized, overly worn brown leather chair.  The comfort that this chair offered him came from years and years of use.  He had always sat in this chair when he was stressed, ever since his freshman year of college.  He felt as though it was an old friend welcoming him home after a long journey.
He opened his briefcase and looked at the stack of papers that he still had to grade.  He glared at them as if they were an enemy out for blood, and then he shut his briefcase and turned to his computer.  He opened up his resume and began updating it, he wasn’t going to be satisfied with daydreaming about leaving his current job, he had to actually get his name back out there and find what he was looking for. 


Collin K. McKnight
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