Read Online Bloodroot by Bill Loehfelm - Free Book Online

wished, not for the first time, that Kelsey and I did have a thing going, not that I’d ever tried, just to piss off Whitestone. I’d heard from her personally that Whitestone had put the moves on her himself. Until Kelsey made it clear that she wouldn’t settle the matter through the usual channels and charges, but that resolution would come in the parking lot, delivered in the form of a Louisville Slugger. I smiled, despite myself. Kelsey Reyes was good people.
    Whitestone, frowning at my smile, lifted the pile of papers, brought it into his lap. Licking his fingertip every time he turned a page, he silently read the complaints. When he was done, he looked up at me. “What happened to you, Kevin?”
    “When?”
    “You’re not the teacher you used to be. Inspired. Dedicated. There has to be a reason.” He tossed the papers on his desk, a few slid off onto the floor. I left them there. Whitestone shook his head. “These are the strangest complaints. They all start out defending you. I love Mr. Curran’s class , they say, his class is awesome, he knows everything about the Revolution . It’s a lovefest, until the inevitable ‘but.’ But I don’t know my grades, but I’m still waiting for three papers .” Whitestone chuckled. “Half of them ask me to help you. Like maybe you need a tutor. As if you’re the struggling student and they’re the frustrated teacher. Strange, don’t you think?”
    “The kids have always loved my class,” I said. “I get more write-in requests than any other teacher, three-to-one.”
    “I guess our quandary is this, then,” Whitestone said, straightening his tie. I noticed his hands were badly scarred. “Why don’t you love your class anymore?”
    I waited to speak, measuring my answer. He’d never gone this far with me. Our meetings had always ended at the insult and reprimand stage. He’d asked a legitimate question. The students’ work often did suck, but hadn’t it always? Why was it so burdensome now? In truth, the tedium had gotten to me. The kids never changed. They always made the same mistakes on their assignments, whined the same complaints when I corrected them. I could tell within the first week of the semester which students would pass and which would fail, who would excel and who would struggle. The whole gig had gotten so easy, so predictable, that it had become nearly unendurable.
    As for me, I’d been teaching the same class the same way for eight years. The past never changed, so why should I? As a student I’d always figured that when a subject got easy it meant I had it mastered. I’d applied the same logic to teaching. But I realized, sitting there, Dean Whitestone waiting patiently for my answers to his quiz, that as a student another subject, another challenge was always coming at me. Now that I was the teacher, my test was to provide my own challenges. And I had failed.
    I taught history but had started, a couple of years ago, living in a perpetual present, where I knew everything that was going to happen next. Like watching a movie for the tenth time, only my movie bored me to tears. I kept watching it because it was the only one I had. I thought of Danny. His return was the first surprise I’d gotten since the birthday phone call three years ago. And his resurfacing certainly put a new actor, one with a gift for improvisation, on my screen.
    Whitestone coughed into his fist. I had to throw him something.
    “I do love the classroom,” I said. “I love seeing the lights come on in their eyes when they see something new, or in a new way.” It was trite, but it was true. “That never gets old.”
    “Ah.” Whitestone leaned back in his chair. “The dropping of the veil. There is nothing like it.”
    “It’s just . . . the past couple of semesters,” I said, though the atrophy had started longer ago, “I can’t find the energy for the other stuff. Am I burned out? Already?”
    “A little singed, maybe,” Whitestone said, “but not