Wednesday – Vice Principal, or Principal of Vice?

[ninanevermore]

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Sandy went in the house and came back out carrying 4 year books and a rolled up tube of paper that turned out to be a wide-angle photo of our entire senior class (at least those who didn't skip school that day). She put them down on the picnic table in her front yard and we all gathered around them to look for people we knew, as well as ourselves and each other.

Kelly, the chain-smoking hospital nurse, seems to be the expert on what happened to people, especially if it was bad.

"He's dead," she said, pointing to someone in the group photo, "and she died in a car accident. He died a year after we graduated. Walked into his appartment and dropped dead of heart attack."

"At 19?"

"Yeah. Doesn't that suck?"

"Not sure what happened to him, no one does. He just disappeared. And this one…it's a shame…he was so cute…"

"What happened to him?"

"Nothing. He's just gay."

She scowled at the picture and then pointed to the front row, where the facility were seated while the class of 1987 stood on bleachers behind them. "And that son-of-a-bitch is in prison."

"Which one? Him?"

"No, not him," I said, looking at the smiling face of my favorite school counselor. "He was too nice."

"No, him. That son-of-a-bitch right there," Kelly said, putting her finger right on the chest of the son-of-a-bitch: a dark-haired, barrel-chested scowling man in a suit and tie. I searched my memory for his name.

"Vice Principle Sherman? Todd Sherman's dad? He's in jail?"

"Not jail. He's in prison."

"For what?"

"He was involved in drugs, and then he murdered someone. I can't believe you didn't hear about it. It was all over the news when it happened."

"Really? Todd Sherman's Dad?"

Todd Sherman was one of a handful of kids that I met on the first day of Kindergarten and also saw cross the podium with me 13 years later when we graduated high school. In my junior year of high school, his dad gave me and my boyfriend a week of detention each when he busted us for kissing each other for kissing before David got on the school bus to go home, forcing me to confess to kissing a boy to my father when I had to get him to sign the detention slip.

"I always hated him," I said, "I knew he was no good."

Mr. Sherman in prison, huh? Serves him right for giving me those d-halls 24 years ago. It no doubt sucked for whoever he killed, as well, but I have no idea who that was or of the exact circumstances that surrounded it. I confess that mostly I'm bitter about the detention and having to tell my dad I kissed a boy at the bus stop, and I take some guilty pleasure in the fact that the man who smirked when he confiscated my school ID that afternoon and showed no mercy (even though he had the power to let us off with a warning) was later shown no mercy by a jury of his peers. I'm glad the jerk got what he had coming to him.


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To be continued

Comments

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- real pain is the stuff that happens to us, right?

[simplecity2htwn.livejournal.com]

It's good to see that you're the kind of person who doesn't hold a grudge. LOL

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I confess it was more a pain than actual pain for me, but it was the only time I ever really got in trouble for anything in high school. He was a hard-nosed jerk who rarely smiled and who seemed to regard the kids in his charge as all being guilty of something, and that it was his job to determine just what that something was.

We tend to assume that other people are like us, so no wonder this drug-dealing future murderer thought we were all up to no good and needed to be punished: he certainly was up to no good himself.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Who, me?

[simplecity2htwn.livejournal.com]

Or is this the part where you tell me about the ability of Nordic women to hold onto a grudge like it was trapped in a block of ice, buried in the frozen waters off Iceland?

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Hey!
I can DO that!!!!

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

Wow...that's crazy. Both that you got a WEEK detention for kissing a boy and that he's in prison for drugs and murder...and he was in so many kids' lives! o.O

[sarcasmoqueen.livejournal.com]

You get detention for KISSING? Isn't making out what our high school years are supposed to be all about? (I went to an all girls' school, so never got to do that, but that's what all the kids on tv seemed to do...)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It takes a lot to tick me off, but once I'm there I stay there for life. No frozen about it.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I don't think he liked kids very much; he chose a career where he could boss lots of other, younger people around and it made him happy. I guess the pay left something to be desired, however, and he had to seek out other avenues.

I need to do some research and find out who he killed.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I dated that boy for over a year, and got caught kissing him more than a few times (even by the principal herself, who was this guy's boss). They always told us to knock it off and threatened us with detention, but this guy is the only one who ever threw the book at us for it.

I have a theory about what he didn't like about us, but that would be a whole different post.

[jenandbronze.livejournal.com]

WOW! That is crazy he went and did that stuff. HUGS... at least you turned out alright now eh?

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

The man really didn't like kids too much, so the only time he dealt with the student body was when he was punishing people. Fortunately, this means he had little corrupting influence on any of us. :)