Dave’s Anatomy: My History as a Writer, #121: Writing As Revenge: “The Science Teacher

Illustration from "The Cask of Amontillado"

The nice thing about being a writer is that you can use your stories to take revenge of people who have wronged you in the past. You can write them up as characters. One meme on the internet read, “Don’t get on my bad side or I’ll write you as a character in my next novel.” True. People have done this, the most egregious example being Philip Pullman, who grew up in a religious home, became an atheist, and then gleefully kills God in the His Dark Materials trilogy. I did not set my sights that high, but I did go after a science teacher who did me a bad turn in seventh grade science class. He got turned into a character.

This particular teacher could not teach—like the coach in the Tank McNamara comic strips who cannot teach and does nothing but show films in the class, this particular teacher could not teach and also depended on films; that, reading in class, and his going on and on about taking notes, which you had to turn in once a week. “Taking notes” to him meant copying out of the book. In the story I say, the science teacher is one of those people they used to hire as teachers who were not qualified but got a job in a school because the baby boomer generation was crowding classrooms and anyone with a college degree who knew the basics of a subject could get hired to fill the gaps. This was also the case with my teacher.

I ended up disliking him because he yelled at me in class once for talking to a girl. I always loathed him after that. Thus the story evolved.

Lynda

Gary Parker wants to get revenge on his science teacher for yelling at him in class. The yelling, however, has more serious consequences than it did in my case. Three guys who don’t like Parker because he has long hair and plays in a rock band pick a fight with him over the incident. The parents of his girlfriend, Lynda, who have just been looking for an excuse to order her to break off the dating relationship, pounce. They split, Lynda meets another guy, ends up pregnant, goes to California to have the child, finds herself in an abusive marriage, and eventually commits suicide. Parker will go on to succeed as a popular singer. But he never forgets Lynda and he wants revenge. He remembers things he read in school:  Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” about revenge; and the lines in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Vengeance should know no bounds.” He learns that one of his former musicians, who had to leave the band due to a drug problem, is working for the teacher, helping to pour asphalt on driveways. He formulates a plot.

He gets his old friend, Frankie, stoned. The teacher returns from lunch drunk, as he usually does, and starts shouting at the stoned Frankie to dump the load of asphalt. Impaired by opiated hashish, Frankie pulls the lever too hard and dumps the whole load on the teacher.

Parker’s idea was that the teacher should be splashed with hot asphalt, maybe get some burn scars, and have those as a remembrance. Things turn out worse. He is not killed by the load of hot tar but is partially buried in the onrush of it and loses both of his legs. The danger of the situation catapults Frankie out of his drug-induced lethargy and he rescues the teacher. Frankie performs so capably no one imagines he was stoned; and witnesses who saw it happen testify that the teacher was drunk, yelled “Dump it!” and excoriated Frankie with racial slurs (Frankie is black). No punishment falls on him. Like Montresor in the Poe story, Parker is revenged “with impunity.” Frankie feels badly about what happened. Davis helps him kick drugs, get back in the music world, and he ends up succeeding as a session guitarist and recording artist, marries, and settles down to live comfortably. The science teacher goes back to work teaching. Parker says, at the end of the story, I’m satisfied with that. I like to imagine Lynda is as well. 

The story appeared in Indiana Horror Review, 2013. Order a copy here.

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Ever get even with someone? Tell me about it in a comment.

Happy reading.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History as a Writer #120: Mother Earth as a Loving Mother: “The Gaia Proposition.”

Gaia

The Gaia hypothesis, a theory formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s, theorized that earth was a huge, interlocking matrix of ecosystems, all in balance, all dependent, to some extent, on each other. They scientists named the idea after Gaia, a primordial goddess of the Earth in ancient Greek mythology. Since that time, the idea has been widely accepted, not only by the scientific community, but in popular culture as well. My story, “The Gaia Proposition,” draws upon imagery from this idea but also challenges not so much the hypothesis itself, but the apocalyptic scenarios many people draw from the hypothesis. Gaia is the mythic figure from the which the folk character of Mother Earth derived. What sort of Mother is Mother Earth; or, if Gaia were real, what kind of a mother would she be?

Winona Baker is an ecological activist. She earned a degree in Ecological Engineer, but jobs in the field are hard to come by and she works as a waitress at a bar to sustain herself. She is involved in local conservation efforts; and, every week, she leads a gathering of people who venerate Gaia. Winona insists it is not a worship service but simply a recognition of how important it is to care for the earth and to be aware of ecological issues. Sometimes, though, it looks worship:  The people assembled before a portrait of Gaia. Flowers surrounded it, incense burned in silver urns on either side of the image. The participants sang hymns—mostly popular songs like “Hidden treasure” by the sixties group Traffic and Enya’s “Caribbean Blue.” They also sang songs by composers who praised Gaia and Mother Earth. They did not pray but did, at the beginning, middle, and end of the gathering, observe silence. She herself admits the gathering may look resemble worship, but maintains it is not, she is not a “priestess” of any sort, and the gathering is purely secular and not religious.

A local evangelist, Marshall Stanwell, maintains what she does is worship. The two of them have debated the matter on local news media. Stanwell maintains that the nature of worship to “attribute worth” to something or someone. Since Winona pays tribute to the beauty, intricacy, and power of nature, this constitutes worship in his thinking. She chafes at the idea the what she does is “neo-pagan worship” and that she is a priestess.

Gaia Gathering

Of late, Winona has been active in opposing development near to a protected wilderness area outside of the city called Monteef Hills. She is frustrated and seems to be losing the debate, mainly because the development will not be within the protected area, but around it. She gives a passionate speech that seems to be well-received. Stanwell ridicules on a local radio talk show. It seems a lost cause and that the area around Monteef Hills will be developed. The development will adversely affect the location’s ecosystem.

 Winona gives an impassioned speech, but feels her cause is doomed. In bed that night, she does something she had said she did not, and would not do. She prays to Gaia:  “Lady Gaia, hear my prayer. I pray the Monteef Wood and the area around be kept safe.” She had thought to stop here, this being the thing she sought as a blessing from Gaia, but she went on. “I pray you will show the people of this community, and of the world, your power and your nature. May they know you are a goddess to be reckoned with. May they see you are a goddess who must be obeyed.”

woolly rhinoceros

The next day, her cell phone is overloaded with messages, as is her email file. She finds out why. Researchers have discovered, in Monteef hills, what appears to be a long-extinct woolly rhinoceros. The identification is confirmed—furthermore, scientists discover not just one rhino, but a herd of them. Soon, other reports come in. Passenger pigeons have appeared in Ohio; European lions are spotted in several countries; moa, a twelve-foot high, long-extent bird, are appearing in large numbers in New Zeeland; Caspian tigers, dodo birds, Tasmanian devils, and a herd of aurochs are observed.

Gaia, Mother of the Earth

The press rushes to Winona and asks for a statement. She replies that Gaia is not a wrathful deity but a loving mother. The dystopian visions of many ecologists, she says, do not reflect the nature of Gaia, Mother Earth. She is a kind, loving, nurturing mother. She has chosen an unusual and beautiful way to make humans aware of what has been lost through poor ecological practices. Now the people of earth have a second opportunity to restore things. Needless to say, Monteef Hills will not be developed.

Mystic Nebula is listed as a “defunct” publication by Duotrope, an online site that monitors publications, so I can’t give a link to the story. This is another tale that perhaps needs to be resubmitted.

For links to my books, see my Writer's Page.

My latest novella, The Court of the Sovereign King is available for purchase.

Thank you for reading about and thinking about one of my stories. More to come.