PETSKI

A Short Story by Joseph Smigelski Petski's headache started as just a tiny twinge about halfway through the English 100 class that he taught at El Pintado Community College. An insufferable student named Jack Cade had once again started an argument. This time, the point of contention was whether anyone cared about comma splices. "Tell me, Mr. Petski," Jack Cade said, "tell me truly that there are people in the world, people actually living and breathing, who actually give a rat's ass if someone separates two independent clauses with only a comma." Petski had a problem here. He knew that in the real -- or actual -- world hardly anyone did. In fact, that morning he had been reading The Dean's December, and clearly Saul Bellow didn't give a rat's ass about it. So how was he to answer the intractable Mr. Cade? On a whimsically philosophical level, Petski couldn't really blame Jack Cade for his rebellious nature. Being a student of Shakespeare's history plays, Petski was well acquainted with the seditious activities of another Jack Cade, this one a Kentish rabble-rouser who wanted to "kill all the lawyers" back in the 15th century. With a name like Jack Cade, how could the kid help being a natural bane to such an easily targeted authority figure as his English 100 instructor? "Actually, Mr. Cade," Petski being unable to resist emphasizing the kid's favorite word, "there are people who give a rat's ass about it -- people who find pleasure in the details of life, in the little fine things, things obviously lost on you." Right then Petski knew that he had crossed the line. He shouldn't have said that. It was too much of a rebuke to aim at even an obnoxious kid. Besides, if Jack Cade was a roguish boor for not caring about commas splices, what did that imply about, say, Saul Bellow? Here's where the headache started getting noticeable. The twinge had become a steady throb. Petski reflexively rummaged through the pockets of his sports jacket. God-damn-it (he almost said it aloud), he had left his trusty bottle of Excedrin Extra Strength on the counter next to the clock radio. The class had twenty minutes yet to go. "I agree with Mr. Petski, Jack," said Nancy Cole, Jack Cade's girlfriend, who was also taking the class. Everyone, including Petski, knew she said this not out of sincere agreement but only to tease Jack, but Petski appreciated the escape hatch. "Thank you for your input, Ms. Cole," he said. "Does anyone else have anything to say?" "When is our next paper due?" asked Dave Ronk from the back row. Petski could not repress a chuckle. He had said at least five times during the class that the next paper was due a week from next Thursday. He had even written the date on the blackboard, although he subsequently erased it to make room for a list of common subordinators. "Can anyone inform Mr. Ronk?" Petski asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. No one responded. All of a sudden there was dead silence in the room. Even the always chatty girls in the far corner were at a loss. Petski did not want to cave and tell Dave Ronk when the next paper was due, but his headache had just increased a notch, and he couldn't keep up the fight. He sighed, and his voice registered total resignation, complete surrender, when he said, "A week from next Thursday, Mr. Ronk." At that point, Petski knew that nothing more could possibly be accomplished, so he dismissed the class. His headache was causing his vision to dim, but he couldn't help noticing the smirk on Jack Cade's face as the kid sauntered out of the classroom. A vagrant thought filtered through the layers of Petski's Excedrin strength pain, bringing with it an acute pang of sadness: Jack Cade would most likely go through his entire life never knowing -- or caring (that was the sad part) -- that he shared a name with a Shakespearean bad guy. Petski topped that off with another thought, this one perversely ungrammatical: I sure ain't gonna tell him. ---------- "Fuck," Petski said and immediately regretted it. He felt like an asshole. It wasn't the minimum-wage-earning cashier's fault that the college bookstore was clean out of Excedrin Extra Strength headache tablets. But he felt an apology would only compound his embarrassment, so he ducked his head and made a quick and quiet exit. Thank God that Jack Cade wasn't around. As he walked toward the parking lot (he had to get off campus because that was where the Excedrin was), he ran into the last person he wanted to see. Devon McCallister was working on a book about Richard III, and he was constantly bugging Petski to read it. The problem was that the manuscript was long: 1,327 pages to be exact. Besides, Petski had been teaching Shakespeare's Richard III four years running in his Lit class and was finally getting sick of the last Plantagenet king. He had decided three weeks previously to never talk about Richard again, and the very next day McCallister had surprised him with the news of a first draft of "a new take on our man" that had been five years in the writing. How McCallister had been able to keep the book quiet for five years Petski didn't know. That degree of reticence was completely alien and, truth be told, frightening to Petski. He imagined McCallister in some dreary basement room, a halogen lamp pouring bright white light on a large wooden table overflowing with books of all shapes and sizes, doctoral theses received in the mail from God-knows-where, and half-empty pizza boxes. It was an unhealthy way to live. Petski spoke first, before the book could be mentioned. "McCallister, you got any Excedrin on you?" "What? Oh, ... uh, no, I don't. Uh, why don't you try the bookstore?" It was all Petski could do to keep from striking him, and he tried to calm down. "Look," he said, placing a palm on his throbbing forehead. "I'm dying here with this headache, and I can't even think." "You know what Richard did when he had a headache?" McCallister asked rhetorically. "Cut somebody else's head off." The man broke out laughing, each guffaw a battle-ax to Petski's brain. Unconcerned with being rude, his feet working before his thoughts, Petski was already five steps closer to his car. ---------- While driving toward the nearby 7-11, Petski decided to blow off the afternoon staff meeting (after all, McCallister would be there) and go all the way home. He kept his mind's eye on the prize -- the bottle of Excedrin next to the clock radio. He could see it more clearly than he could the other cars on the freeway. It was then that he realized he had to get off at the next exit. His head was about to explode. There was a Rite Aid next to a Barnes & Noble on Brenton Avenue. Angry at the world, he didn't signal before taking the ramp. His headache was not soothed by the white light careening off the white shelves and the white walls in the Rite Aid. He ran for the Excedrin, kept his mouth shut for once on the short line at the express checkout lane, paid cash, and left without his change. He sprinted into the Barnes and Noble and ordered a cup of the day's featured brew. The moment he got it, he chewed up four Excedrin tablets and washed them down with the black coffee, not wanting to waste the precious seconds it would have taken to add cream. He thought of Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy and paraphrased under his breath, "Oh, Christ, I gotta sit down." He walked over to one of the small round tables near the magazines, eased himself into a rickety chair, and started to wait for the Excedrin to work its magic. "Hi, Mr. Petski." It was a familiar voice, too familiar. But the headache banished all thought. He looked up and saw Jack Cade standing there. The insufferable student was carrying something, something large, something that was 1,327 pages long. The boy's hands became birds -- storks, in fact -- delivering this newborn tome. The headache was getting really bad. (Post Excedrin, they always got worse before they got better.) Petski blinked the birds away and asked the kid to sit down. What else could Petski do? He couldn't think straight, saw no options available. Jack Cade put the six-inch-thick manuscript down on the little table and pulled up a chair. Even considering reading that thing would give me a stroke right now, Petski thought. But why did he think that? He wasn't asked. "You don't look too good," said Jack Cade. "I'll look better when these kick in," Petski said, holding up the Excedrin bottle. "Drug of choice, eh, Mr. Petski?" "You bet," Petski said, thinking what a sarcastic little bastard the kid was. He put his left elbow on the table and rubbed his forehead. "Do you want something, Mr. Cade? Because if you don't, I'd prefer to be left alone right now." "Well, sir ... " Sir! That was unexpected. "Uh, that is, sir, uh ... I need some advice, and since I bumped into you here just by chance -- " Petski interrupted him. ""Excuse me for a minute; I'll be right back." There was a bathroom in sight, and Petski trudged in its direction. He splashed some cold water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He felt strangely disassociated. Was Jack Cade really out there with McCallister's book? He honestly couldn't be sure. Hell, he couldn't even remember walking into this bathroom. He glanced around and, seeing that no one else was in the room, decided to take a leak. Why waste a trip to the john? After peeing, he still wasn't sure about the kid. What was happening to him? Fifty was too young for this kind of thing, wasn't it? He again looked into the mirror. Yes, his hair was still gray in places. He opened the bathroom door very slowly and peaked out at his table. Jack Cade was really sitting there, and the massive pile of paper was there too. He went back to one of the sinks and again splashed his face with cold water. The headache was easing up; the Excedrins had finally started working. Now was the time to think about something to get the mind off the headache. He looked in the mirror and said to himself, "Okay, let's hear what the damn kid has to say." ---------- Petski was not sure that he understood what he had just heard. Jack Cade was circling the matter rather than stating it plainly. "Do you mean to tell me that McCallister is blackmailing you into reading this?" "That's right," Jack Cade said. "But why?" Jack Cade laughed, then quickly resumed his serious demeanor. "Because he can't get anybody else to read it. He told me that even his wife wouldn't look at it." Petski grinned. This was sweet. His headache was so gone, forgotten like last week's freshman papers. "That's a lot of punishment," he said, laying his hand on top of the pile. "What does he have on you?" Jack Cade hesitated. "If I told you, sir, you'd know too." Petski thought for a minute. How could he stop the circling? "You haven't killed anybody, have you?" Jack Cade flinched. "Of course not. No, it's nothing like that!" "Nothing criminal?" "Not jail criminal." Petski nodded his head. "Okay then, if you tell me what's going on, I promise to keep quiet." Jack Cade took a deep breath and said, "He said he caught me plagiarizing and threatened to get me expelled." "When did this happen?" "Just a little while ago." "After my class?" "Yes, right after. I ran into Mr. McCallister in the men's room next door." Petski must have lost time; otherwise, things didn't make sense. Before going to his car, had he stopped off somewhere at the college and couldn't remember? He shook all that away -- no time for that kind of thinking now. "In the men's room?" "Yes," said Jack Cade. "And he had the manuscript with him -- in the bathroom?" "Yeah. Pretty weird, huh?" "Look," Petski said. "Is this some kind of a joke?" "What?" That "what?" was pure sincerity. If Petski had learned anything in twenty-two years of teaching, it was how to judge the initial reaction of a student. Blind-side the kid with a question fast, and the next two seconds reveal all. "Never mind," Petski said. "In what did you use plagiarized material?" "A short story that I submitted to the El Pintado Miracle." Petski always smiled when he heard or read the name of the college literary magazine. Even though he knew it wasn't fair, the same thought always presented itself: It was a miracle if any student could write something publishable. "Whom did you plagiarize?" "Saul Bellow." That made Petski sit up straight. "You like Saul Bellow?" "Well," Jack Cade admitted with a blush that shocked Petski, "the book was on one of my dad's shelves, and I just sort of picked it at random." Petski smiled. "So that explains the tirade about comma splices." Jack Cade seemed surprised, as if he hadn't been aware of the connection. "Yeah, I guess so, sir, now that you mention it. You read Bellow too?" "He's very good," said Petski. Then there was an awkward silence. The kid sat there stone-faced: no smirk now. Petski leaned back in his chair. How should he proceed? Were he and the kid buddy-buddy now or still just teacher and student? Was Petski willing to become involved in a plagiarism-blackmail racket by devising some kind of daring reverse play to get the kid out of a jam? The kid did something stupid, no doubt; what McCallister did was sleazy, outrageous, downright injurious. A teacher should know better. How petty! Read my pile of shit manuscript or get expelled. He again imagined McCallister down in that dreary basement room, the man typing away for five years about a long-dead king. Work like that, totally without support, could very well do evil things to a person's mind. Petski looked at Jack Cade. "Did Mr. McCallister by any chance say anything to you such as 'Be careful with this manuscript because it's my only copy'?" "Yeah," Jack Cade said, bright-eyed with recognition. "That's exactly what he said." Petski gave Jack Cade a devilish look that clearly unnerved the boy. "Let's burn it," Petski said. Jack Cade turned white. "Oh, no, Mr. Petski, that would be ... that would be ... oh, I don't know, just horrible. Mr. McCallister worked so hard -- " That's what Petski wanted to hear. He raised a hand to stop the kid's passionate protest. "I was just kidding." Several lines of tension left Jack Cade's face as if they had been wiped away with a cloth. A questioning look took their place. "Okay, Jack," Petski said. "I know what we can do. But first, let me tell you about another Jack Cade." The End Joseph Smigelski jsmigelski@yahoo.com