 |
| 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.
For more titles, see my Writer's Page.
Ever get even with someone? Tell me about it in a comment.
Happy reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment