Mr. Dubb

Mr. Dubb

         The first thing students saw when they entered the classroom was “Mr. Dubb” written in large, goofy handwriting across the board. That could only mean one thing: a substitute teacher. In high school terms, that meant an hour of holiday. “We have a sub!” floated beneath everyone's breath. Students smiled, quiet at first, scoping out the territory, but Mr. Dubb wasn't present and the chatter grew with every minute.

         “Dubb the sub,” sneered one kid. Laughter floated through the room, and... silence.

         He walked through the doorway. Students flashed each other toothy grins. All eyes open wide. A guy snorted.

         At first glance the students could only see one thing, like watching a terrible accident or a massive wart, Mr. Dubb was suiting a large, light blue fanny pack. Zipped shut. It bounced a little with every step, hanging over his crotch. What's in it? They whispered. Gradually the spell of the fanny pack faded and the teenagers eyes rose up, and up, to... a pocket protector. Shiny plastic, holding his pens in a plaid, button-up, short-sleeved shirt. Eyes rise higher – to a neck that stretches forward like that of a turtle, and above that, a skinny head with a countable number of hairs and an under bite that consumed his upper lip. The class was completely silent. A seven foot tall, scar-hardened man in a suit couldn't have made that class quieter.

         Moments later the final bell rang and Mr. Dubb moved to the front of the class. He looked at the ground while he spoke. “Ah, your teacher isn't here today, so I'm your sub, Mr. Dubb. Yes, I know it rhymes. Some call me Dubb the Sub.” He raised his eyes up to the class as if expecting some kind of harassment. There was none. Just some whispering now. He looked back down. “I know that your teacher left some math work for you, but I usually do things a little differently.”

         “Free period?” Two kids called out. The whispering started to grow louder.

         “No, nonono. No free period. I make myself a substitute teacher because I like to teach high school students things that they would never otherwise learn.” The students in the back stopped talking and tried to push in closer. The ground only carried Dubb's voice so far. “So I'm going to teach you my own lesson.”

         “What? Oh come on, can't we just have a free period?”

         “What's in the fanny pack!” A girl blurted out. It was only a matter of time until that question manifested itself. The class grew silent again, but Mr. Dubb just turned around to the white board and began writing. The word was long, students blurted out guesses while he wrote.

         “Tequila?”

         “Wait, he's not done.”

         “Teleportation!”

         “Telekinesis,” said Dubb, turning around to the class. Two guys burst out laughing and kept it up for the next few minutes.

         “What's that?” said a girl in the front.

         “It means to create physical motion with mental action,” muttered Dubb.

         “I can't hear,” said the girl. Dubb didn't repeat himself. He moved on.

         “I needed a new topic to teach to my sub classes so I started studying telekinesis. Over the past couple of years I came up with a mathematical way to represent the potential energy of a man's thoughts and how it can be focused upon the physical realm.” He looked up from the floor again, then retreated, like a turtle. “It starts with an analysis of the relationship between how long someone stares at an object and how long and clearly that object is represented in the brain.”

         The two laughers in the back quieted down. “Is he for serious man?”

         “Jesus, it's like he's either a super genius or freakin insane.”

         “I want his picture.”

         “Then take it, take it. I'll pull out my phone.”

         “I want a picture of what he wrote on the board.” He said, “Telekinesis” in a deep, mocking voice.

         “Definitiely.”

         Another male student wearing a U of A cap raised his hand.

         It took a moment for Dubb to see him, as Dubb was fascinated with the blue carpeting.

         “Mr. Dubb,” said the student, lowering his hand,  “we were all wondering what you keep in your fanny pack.”

         “Oh, all kinds of useful things. But you interrupted me. Now, we multiply i by n and divide by gravity. Multiply that by 7π and now we must locate the center of mass...”

         Students started talking while he continued teaching to the floor. Most of the conversation was about him, the kids just couldn't resist it. Mr. Dubb was such an easy target, if he ever subbed a second time in that room... heaven forbid. The chatter filled the room like fertile rabbits fill a cage. In a period of five minutes Dubb may as well have not been there at all. And then Dubb raised his head. He cast small watery eyes over the students. Those who saw him went mum. The rest followed suit when he spoke.

         “Does everyone understand?”

         Most just nodded to him. One girl spoke up, “No. I didn't understand any of it.”

         “Oh,” said Dubb, eyes hugging the carpet again, wringing his hands in front of the fanny pack.

         An awkward silence followed. All waited patiently. He was deciding something, figuring, and a sort of suspense grew around the situation.

         “I'll...” Dubb stepped forward, froze, “I'll demonstrate,” and continued forward to a table in the center of the room.

         After he spoke those words – a pause – then an electric charge went through the students like they were made of copper.

         “Oh my God he's gonna do it!”

         “He can't be serious.”

         “Yes!”

         Dubb borrowed a copy of Hamlet from a desk and set it on the table in front of him; flat and still. Dubb lowered onto his knees, his fanny pack bobbing in the process. His head was near level with the table top. His hands rested on his knees.

         He shook his head like an athlete getting pumped.

         Blinked twice.

         Then Dubb tightened up. The lower lip made a white line beneath his nose, the under bite very prevalent. Brow furrowed. Neck arched forward. Eyes set and sincere. He concentrated, and the students waited.



         And waited.



         And then she gasped.

         “What? What?!” Whispers and energy and expectations and...

         “No – No!”

         “Oh my – !” And shrieking and cussing and pushing and pinching. It must be a dream, an illusion, a trick. But with every passing moment the book edged closer and closer towards Dubb's face. The book moved in a jerky fashion, centimeter by centimeter, as if the man couldn't quite keep a constant force on it. His concentration rendered him oblivious to the chaos sprouting around him.

         One girl moved to the side of the room, sat down, and laid her head on the desk. Three male students moved to a table next to the action and muttered to each other like angry politicians in a library. Others hovered over Dubb's table. They stared at the moving Hamlet unblinking. Some wore expressions that said, “If it jumps at me I am OUT!” and others read, “If it starts to float you'll be cleaning my brain out of the carpet.” And to finish the picture the kid in the hat paced back and forth with his hands thrown in the air, “It's some kind of trick. He's doing a magic trick. It's some kind of trick. Has to be a trick.”

         The book reached the edge of the table and Dubb let out a deep, deep breath.  The dazed look in people's eyes changed to shock. Dubb was met with a flourish of applause. He rose to his feet.

         A smile crept into his awkward lips. “You want to learn how to do it?”

         “Yes!” was the reply.

         And Mr. Dubb walked back up to the front of the room, picked up a blue marker, and started writing on the board. It was an equation. Dubb looked down at the floor. “The most important thing to note is that we have no conventional way of measuring the strength of a thought, so we can't assume all people have the same potential...”

         Slowly the students returned to their seats. Silent. They leaned forward to catch what Dubb was saying to the floor, scanning his face for every clue to what exactly he was. For the remainder of the period hardly anyone moved. The classroom was frozen in concentration. As time drew on there was whispering, and later muttering. But the conversation was about what was written on the board, nothing else.

         They watched like the most wonderful and attentive students to ever grace the classroom, but it wasn't all so wonderful. Some kids grew slack-jawed and drooling, half asleep, confused to the point of surrender.

         The bell rang.

         In a wild rush the students were gone and out the room. Dubb stopped talking and looked up to find the classroom as barren as an open cage. He sat down and waited with blank expression as the next batch of teenagers drifted into the room. The next batch of blank slates ready to be punched out by the citizen shaped cookie-cutter that had let him slip. I am the plastic monster in the bag of toy soldiers, he thought.



         Walking in the halls one boy said, “Did you get any of that?”

         “Huh? Oh, no, not a bit – I wonder what was in his fanny pack?”