A Warm Afternoon

A Warm Afternoon



It was a warm afternoon. I sat in the row nearest the window, third seat from the front. As the afternoon droned on interminably, the sun's warmth was creating a greenhouse effect in the Catholic school classroom. The close air hung heavy over the unusually attentive eighth grade. The  girls, seated en masse farthest from the nun, wore navy blue jumpers with white blouses, and the boys, under her direct gaze, echoed this color scheme in pants and shirts.  At the front of this checkered square sat, as if on a throne, our teacher, Sister Immaculata.



She sat next to the windows, almost directly in front of me; her desk at an angle to better explore the nooks and crannies of the classroom. She parked herself on the boy's side of the class, no doubt because she knew they needed closer watching than the more docile girls. Nuns of her order wore black robes that formed a cowl for the head, leaving the face framed by a starched white border. No hair could show for a nun ( some of us debated whether they had their heads shaved ), too erotic for these ancient relics. Many of them apparently had emigrated from post war Poland, complete with educational theories dating from the time of Copernicus. Here, in the new world, they were to serve the first generation of Polish Americans by imbuing their children with religion, traditional values, and even some education provided it didn't interfere with the former. Our parents knew nothing of education, only that they didn't have it, and were going to make darn sure their children would have a taste. And, who better to entrust their sons and daughters than these sturdy warriors for whom behavioral theory meant beating the crap out of several students per day. Our parents wanted us to learn, and, in the absence of this possibility, at the very least wanted us to be good, which translated to saying nothing and obeying meekly.



There I sat, under the direct gaze of our ominous warlord, who didn't speak as much as pontificated. We, the captive audience, now feeling the first drops of sweat forming on our brows in the fetid classroom, were sitting in silent attention. It was under these conditions then that a strange event overtook me, and I was powerless to prevent the chain of circumstances to follow. Perhaps it was the closeness of the room coupled with the recent return from lunch, or perhaps it was some edict issued from on high, designed to impress upon one youth some supreme lesson regarding the vicissitudes of life's experience. Alas, it should also be noted that I was no stranger to classroom incidents, and it is from direct experience that I speak of our Sister Immaculata's autocratic and heavy handed methods of discipline. More than once I was "knocked to the canvas" by this thug in angel’s clothing. So it was in this stifling arena that, suddenly and for no apparent reason, I found myself  entering into nausea. As a complication of my "sick to the stomach" feeling, it became impossible to swallow my saliva, now being generated at a rate able to float small fishing dories. Evidently, my viscera was in a state of repressed turmoil; a situation soon to change.



What I probably needed was some fresh air, but that was beyond the realm of possibility. The thought of raising my hand and interrupting our holy leader was simply out of the question. On several occasions I had witnessed such untimely disruptions end in minor tragedy. Indeed, in no sense of the modern word were we students, more like serfs or vassals at the feet of a feudal master. No, I was in it for the duration; something would come up.



Faced as I was with this private, though pressing, personal dilemma, I improvised. As our leader's oration continued, I slipped my clean, white handkerchief from my back pocket. Thanks to my mother, since early childhood and, probably, infancy, I always had a clean handkerchief in my pocket. Issuing a silent prayer of thanks for this minor redeeming factor, I began to raise, slowly and inconspicuously, this handkerchief to my lips. I delivered, in surreptitious fashion, a rather large dollop of saliva, or spit as it was known to me at the time. Momentarily, I was saved.



Unfortunately for me, this problem was not to go away. I continued to feel ill, sweating, and, at the risk of pre-empting the digestive processes, unable to swallow at all. Within an all too short period, my clean white handkerchief was soaked. Under these circumstances, I was not paying much attention to the oration at the front of the class. In the daily occurrences of a young schoolboy, although minor crises seem to spring up with regularity, a full fledged major dilemma brought with it surprise, confusion, and, caught between a rock and a hard place, temporary paralysis of action.



There are times in these situations when fate steps in with a saving change of circumstance. The bell rings, your bus comes, a friend arrives at the last minute and rescues you, and you breath a sight of relief. But for me, at that time, there was only the slow, agonizing, inexorable realization that time was running out, and I had to do something.



The window. My gaze turned toward the window, just a few feet from my desk. Luckily for me it was open, and, as a clincher in this last ditch effort, there was a pencil sharpener attached to the sill in front of the beckoning openness. Should I? I had no choice, I had to try. The plan was simple. The moment arrived. I silently slid out of my seat with a pencil in my hand. If  only I could make it to the window, disgorge the contents of my full mouth, and return to my seat. My plan was to afford me some minutes relief and then hope for the best. A desperate man seeks even a temporary solution. There I went.



As my desk was so near the window I had no trouble reaching the strategic location in a stride. I even got my hand on the pencil sharpener. Then all hell broke loose. It was everything I expected. Sister Immaculata, indignant beyond belief that I should dare to interrupt her profundity for the trivial task of putting a point on a pencil, unleashed her fury. The torrent of abuse continued. "How dare you," she shrilled, the exact phrasing lost to memory, but not the passions contained therein. As I turned to face her, the handwriting on the wall could not have been plainer. Condemned to a cruel destiny, I hastily retreated to my seat where I, and the class, listened to choice invective for five minutes.



In all likelihood, the personal lecture would have continued if not for a previous appointment my constitution had made with my viscera. Yes, it happened. As I sat there, inert, head bowed, with a mouth full ( and I do mean full ) of saliva and nowhere to put it, the ineluctable occurred. The attempt to force down my throat this pint of spit caused the semi-liquefied contents of my stomach to, quite literally erupt, in the classic volcanic sense. The effect upon the class was stunning. This was no ordinary regurgitation. The pent up forces within shot out with a vengeance, falling short of the black nun but, sad to say for my immediate personal relations, adequately covering the intervening three seats and their occupants. I must say that I have always felt a tinge of remorse for their unfortunate positioning in this incident, however I plead "not of sound body."  I must say though, I immediately felt better, albeit of limited solace at that moment. No glib phrase, no words of explanation or expiation sprang to mind.



The class reacted as if they had just been witness to a natural catastrophe. They gasped, they groaned, they let loose with a chorus of "Oh nos." The boys to the front of me were standing now, looking with undisguised horror at their splattered clothing and then at me. One saving grace was that with so many witnesses they wouldn't dare attack me on the spot. With the class benumbed by this strange course of events, they naturally looked for leadership to that source of inspiration at the front of the room. And they were not to be disappointed. After invoking various celestial divinities, no doubt in the hope of enlisting aid in the ensuing onslaught, she launched a verbal assault equivalent in ferocity to the first crusade. Luckily, the swath of vomit surrounding me created a no man's land which even she hesitated to cross. In retrospect, it's difficult to fathom  attaching such blame to an involuntary action. These events swirled around me, inducing a mental paralysis. I could only ride out the storm in silence. Would an, " I'm sorry," have sufficed? I wasn't sure if I was sorry or if there was anything to be sorry for. Wasn't I merely an unwitting participant in some accident of nature? This existential theory would not have been received well at that moment by that audience.



With the words of our dear Sister ricocheting off the walls, " Get out, get out and clean up this mess," I hurriedly exited our classroom, full of fond memories, and proceeded to the janitorial closet to acquire the necessary implements. Being out of the spotlight for a moment allowed me to focus on the events of the last few minutes. I sat down on the staircase to review the flurry of activity. Although I was unable to put my finger exactly on it, I had the feeling that something terrible had just happened, and it happened to me. I stood up and started down, round and round each set of stairs as they spiraled down to the street level. Out the door I breathed deeply; the air did me good. Not knowing where to go, I started out around the corner and down the block. In a few minutes I came parallel to the window where, some ten minutes prior, I looked to for salvation. Now, from ground level as I stared up at it, it looked like an ordinary window. The open window betrayed no trace of the drama that had unfolded before it. Nor did it appear to be an escape route any longer. From the outside it was the way back. It marked a return to a world of order and orders, a stifling existence which admitted no error, gave no quarter, and punished those who questioned. I paused. Where would I go? Down the street to uncertainty, or back up the stairs to the security of an ignominious existence?



I returned to the classroom where Sister had managed to pick up the pieces of her strangely punctuated discourse. As my absence extended for some twenty minutes, I was greeted with a coup de grace of, " Where have you been, what were you doing all this time. How dare you make us wait for you." Though there were answers to these questions lurking within, they would have to wait. There, at the feet of my former friends, I cleaned up the floor and desks with my classmates ostensibly yielding attention to the lecture. But I knew, know to this day, that I had wrested, unwittingly, unknowingly, and unwillingly, the course of the afternoon from its normal path. These things occur. And so it went that warm afternoon.