~ August, 1976 ~
“This has got to be the hottest summer on record,” Steve said, wiping his brow with his sweat-soaked t-shirt.
“No kidding,” I replied. “Even the heat bugs are begging for mercy.”
“So, this is it. Our senior year at McDonald High School. It’s make it or break it time,” Steve said as we lounged under the shade of one of the Oak trees in the back-fields.
Steve Nelson was my best and oldest friend. We lived two houses apart in Wellington and met when we were five years-old. We shared the same interests and enjoyed getting into the same mischief. Every day was an adventure, especially in the summer.
But the shenanigans that we got a kick out of at ten and eleven years-old, weren’t so entertaining anymore. And anyway, we were both focused on successfully completing our last year of high school.
“Ten months to go and then what? We graduate and go to University? Get a job? You and I both know that we have to change our ways this year,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.
“You know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean. We can’t skip classes this year. No library breaks, no pretending we were excused from a class. Nothing.”
“You’re right. Last year was a nightmare,” Steve laughed.
So on a hot August afternoon in 1976 with a chorus of cicadas singing in the background, Steve Nelson and I vowed to not skip one class in this, our senior year.
That promise lasted until the third week of September.
McDonald High School was built in 1972 and constructed entirely of grey slab-concrete. From the exterior it looked like a prison. The only thing missing were rings of barbed-wire around the perimeter. Most of the classrooms were situated in the interior of the building, which meant no outside windows or natural light at all. Every classroom was in the shape of an octagon and outfitted with cheap, bright orange plastic chairs that could be tipped over backwards with the slightest nudge of a prankster’s foot. The school was confusing to navigate and difficult to access its amenities. It was also a great place to hide in locations where a person could go unnoticed.
And so on the third Friday in September of our senior year, Steve and I decided to take off early. “My mom isn’t home, today. She’s working at the library until four,” I said. “And your mom is away at the cottage.”
Steve and I typically began our school-skipping routine early in the year. Our departures were well-orchestrated and we never walked out of the building together. I would head out the athletic door under the guise of looking for a coach or teacher to ask some lame question to, and Steve would slip out the door leading to the smoking pit, even though he didn’t smoke. If questioned by a teacher, Steve would say he was looking for a friend who had some school-work to pass on to him. If questioned further, I wouldn’t see Steve for the rest of the day. He was not at all convincing and often got confused with his stories.
Steve and I made our way home at 1:30 that afternoon. Rounding the final corner to my house, my mother was in the front yard cutting the grass. We both stopped dead in our tracks, looking at each other for some clever idea that never came.
“What is your mother doing home? And what’s she doing cutting the grass? That’s your job,” Steve said.
“Don’t you think I know that,” I said, looking at my mother from ten houses away. It was too late to turn around or cut between houses. We were spotted.
“Chris, why aren’t you in school?” my mom asked.
“What are you doing home, mom?” I replied, ignoring her question as we approached her.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, we had a documentary to watch but we realized that we saw it last year and, so, we didn’t have to stay to see it again,” I lied.
As the untruths flowed effortlessly out of my mouth I knew this was a huge tactical error. My mom always talked with Steve’s mom about everything, almost every day.
If one or both of our parents happened to be at home in the early afternoon, part of the discipline of skipping school was being armed with a variety of plausible reasons that couldn’t be traced; “I finished my report early and was allowed to leave,” or “because I’m ahead in that particular section I was allowed to leave,” or “I forgot that you had to sign a release form for me to go on this afternoon’s field trip and so I couldn’t go. That’s why I’m home.”
My favourite excuse was to mumble, without making eye contact, some obscure reason about doing research. Of course this had to be validated from an even more obscure and hard-to-track-down teacher.
And the most obscure teacher I knew at MHS was my History teacher, Mr. Malloy. Malloy was a chain-smoking, mostly high, wool cardigan and sandal-wearing throwback from the hippy free-love days of the 1960s. He attended the legendary Woodstock music festival in upstate New York in 1969 and would regale us with stories of him being almost naked except for a too-small tie-dye shirt, sliding down mud-saturated hills and sleeping in the back of strangers’ VW “love vans.” Occasionally, he said, he would listen to some of the bands. This was, to Mr. Malloy, about as deep into history as he got with us students.
If I ever needed a reason to have my parents call the school to verify my stories I could always rely on Mr. Malloy. He would begin by saying to my tightly-wound father, “hey, what’s going on, man” then refer to my parents by their first names, and completely forget what he told me and my classmates just 24 hours earlier. He was perfect.
~ November, 1976 ~
The century-old Maple and Oak trees groaned as a bitter November wind swept Steve and I down our street and toward his house. A storm was brewing – in more ways than one. Looking at the clouds, these weren’t the usual dark Fall grey formations. No, these were lighter and higher. Snow clouds, in November.
This was also the final day of school before two weeks of exams in December followed by a well-deserved Christmas break. I asked Steve what his plans were for the break, but I already knew; the minute school was out, his parents would pick him up at the front door of the school and dash off to their cottage until school returned the second week of January. I was surprised when Steve told me they weren’t going away this year.
“My dad has to hang around to finish an engineering project. So my mom said that I’ll be shopping with her for school clothes. That means you and I get to hang around for the entire break,” Steve said.
“She does know that you’re in your senior year, right? Have fun with that,” I laughed.
Steve was always impeccably dressed and his mom felt that I wasn’t the most positive influence for her son. According to “Steven,” she talked about me frequently, usually while slopping out lumpy, undercooked mashed potatoes at their supper table.
Steve could imitate his mother perfectly. “You know, we like Chris and all, and he’s welcome here any time, but look at how he dresses and the language he uses around you, Steven. And the ideas he has sometimes. Honestly, we think he’s a bad influence on you.” Steve’s mom clearly had no idea how her ‘Steven’ behaved when he was not in her presence.
The pre-snow wind bit at our ears when Steve muttered, “this isn’t gonna be good. I don’t know what to do.”
“You worry too much,” I told him. “The worst thing is to just stand there like an idiot. And besides, she isn’t even going to notice. If she does what she always does, she’ll toss it in a drawer and you’re good. Plus, I’ll be there with you if things get out of hand.”
“Ya, well with my luck this is the one time my mother actually opens my report card and asks me about what all the numbers mean. And if she does that, I’m totally screwed,” Steve said.
“No you’re not. If your mom does that… Ok, first of all, take a deep breath. She’s never done that – but if she does, she’ll breeze over it and throw it in the drawer. She won’t know what any of it means. No parent anywhere knows how to read a report card. That’s why you tell them what they want to hear. But you don’t freak out while you’re telling them. You act like it’s normal. In your case, about your ’44,’ I mean.”
As we rounded the corner to his house, Steve thought he was going to be sick all over his clothes and the sidewalk. “I can’t do it. I can’t show her my report card,” he whined and sat down on the curb.
“You have no choice, man. I told you she won’t look at it. Just have her sign the letter saying that you brought it home, and you take the report card and toss it in the bottom of the kitchen drawer. It’s all good,” I reassured him.
As we wound our way down the path at the side of his house and out into their sprawling backyard, Mrs Nelson was in the far corner raking the remnants of the Fall season.
“Hello Steven. Hi Chris,” she said.
“Hello Mrs Nelson,” I replied.
“Anything new at school today?” Steve’s mom asked, not really paying attention to us.
“No, just the usual,” Steve answered. “Oh, just one thing, and it’s nothing, really; we got our report card today. Here, you just have to sign this note saying that I brought it home. I’ll put it in the kitchen drawer,” Steve said.
I looked at Steve and he was weaving and bobbing back and forth on both feet like he had to take a leak. He wasn’t looking at his mom when he was speaking to her. This was a slow-motion catastrophe happening before my eyes, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
“Not so fast, mister,” Steve’s mom said, joking. “I’d like to take a look at your report card. I feel bad that I never do and I always just put them aside,” she explained.
Steve laughed but it got caught in his throat as he stuttered, “Oh, no, don’t worry about that, mom. It’s the same old boring report card. Nothing new. Besides, it’s really confusing to figure out.”
“Well, that’s why I have you here, my smart, well-dressed and handsome son,” she answered, tousling his hair. “To help me understand it.”
I saw my opportunity to bolt back to my house but Steve’s mom stopped me from leaving, “I hooked up Pong to the television. I thought you boys could go inside and warm up for a bit.”
She opened the large envelope containing the report card. “Wow, you weren’t kidding, Steven. I can’t make heads or tails out of this. Math, Science, English, Phys-Ed, History. Years ago on your elementary report cards, the teachers would make comments beside each subject. They don’t do that at high school?”
She was now looking directly at Steve who was looking down and kicking the leaves with his foot.
“What? Oh, they stopped doing that because of the time it took to write comments for every student. Now, if you want to discuss it you have to call the teacher and make an appointment,” Steve mumbled, inspecting his fingernails.
“Oh alright then. Well, I don’t really see the need to call the school. I trust you, Steven,” she said.
Mrs. Nelson was about to sign the note confirming that Steve brought the report card home when something in the upper right-hand corner of the report card caught her eye; ’44.’
“Steven, what is this number ’44,’ here?” Mrs Nelson asked, pointing to the report card.
Steve knew exactly what the ’44’ represented but pretended that he didn’t. “Let me see that, mom. What 44, where?” he muttered, not at all convincingly.
“Steven William Nelson,” she said, her voice now clearly agitated. “Here. Right here,” she demanded, tapping on the card. “Right. Here,” she said again. “I want to know why this 44 is in a box that says ‘Absences.’ Am I missing something?”
Steve looked. He looked some more. He cleared his throat, once, twice. He even took the report card from her hand, for dramatic effect, and pretended to study it. I was witnessing my oldest and best friend going down in flames before my eyes. Being that I was already deemed a bad influence on ‘Steven,’ I was certainly in no position to calm the waters. And besides, my number in that same box was 59.
“Oh…, the ’44,’ THAT 44. That means the number of times I was absent from class. It’s an averaging system they use. But it’s nothing,” Steve said, weakly.
“Say that again?” Mrs Nelson choked back her anger.
Steve, like a man beaten, repeated himself.
“Ok, so that I understand it, the 44 is what… like they average it out over all your classes through the year, until next June?” Mrs Nelson inquired.
“Umm, no, mom. In this case this is the number of actual classes I’ve been absent from since September,” Steve tried to explain.
“THIS September?” shouted Mrs Nelson. “Are you telling me, Steven William, that you have been absent from 44 classes in under three months of school? Is that what I’m hearing?”
Without waiting for an answer, Steven’s mother placed the rake gently against the side of the shed and walked silently through a pile of leaves, on up to the house.
Before going inside Mrs Nelson turned toward us, “Chris, I’m going to ask you to go home now, please and thank you. Steven and I are going inside to discuss his report card and all of his other report cards that, apparently, I should have reviewed at the time he brought them home.”
I didn’t see or hear from Steve again until the second week of January.
CHRIS VOLLUM WRITING 