Gabriella Brand

The First Line is a great little literary magazine which asks writers to create a story based on an opening which the editor, David Bounty, supplies four times a year.

Recently the prompt was: Jayce recognized the man right away, but he couldn’t remember his name. My story “Haywire “made the cut.

I just couldn’t resist writing a story about a man named Jayce because I have a special family member named Jayse, with an s, not a c. But in the end, the story took on a life of its own, far removed from any Jayces or Jayses. It’s about a retired school head and his memories of a difficult student. I wonder why.

You can’t read it here because of TFL copyright issues, but you can purchase a PDF of the issue at sales@thefirstline.com

Here’s the story:

Jayce recognized the man right away but he couldn’t remember his name. Luke, John, Mathew, Mark. Something Biblical, he was sure of it, although he didn’t associate the face with anything godly or good. Rather the man’s face reminded him of something unpleasant, almost creepy. He knew the man had been a parent at the Academy. But what of it?

The line at the Department of Motor Vehicles was moving slowly, snaking its way up to the counter, going left, then right, like the letter S. Jayce lowered his head to avoid eye contact with the familiar-looking man. He automatically reached for his phone to hide behind its screen. Then he caught sight of the NO CELL PHONE USE sign and stared at his fingernails instead.

He hoped that “Mr. Biblical” would ignore him too.

First of all, there would be the issue of not remembering the man’s name, of having to mumble or make excuses or bluff. Alumni and former parents always expect old headmasters to remember everyone’s full names, their graduation class, their procured championships, their hefty donations. By now, however, hundreds and hundreds of families had passed through Jayce’s hands, so to speak, and it had become impossible to recall more than a small number of them out of context. In the middle of the DMV, for instance.

Secondly, and more importantly, there was the fact that he associated the man with something unpleasant.

Jayce closed his eyes and allowed the idea of a Mr. Biblical to percolate for a while. Images from his tenure at the prestigious country day school popped up in his head. The green playing fields, the traditional clocktower, the new science lab. But the name of this man eluded him. Nor could he 2recall anything about the man’s children. He decided to pretend he had twenty years worth of school directories in front of him…. Abbot, Clark,Stoner,Taylor, Reilly,Warren…. And, then, out of the blue, he recalled the name of a business, not a person. Miracle Enterprises. He suddenly remembered seeing those words emblazoned on the side of a steel gray Hummer. The car that the man drove every day when he dropped his kids off.

Yes, that was it. Miracle Enterprises. He remembered now that this man had been in the business of health supplements, producing kale-green vitamin shakes and skin creams. He once hawked them, distastefully, at an all-school meeting. The company might have been some kind of pyramid scheme. For a while at least, it had provided the family with enough income to pay the hefty tuition that the Academy charged.

Jayce would be sitting in the Headmaster’s office, occasionally looking out the antique windows at the leafy campus he directed, and, suddenly, that behemoth of a vehicle would come into the traffic circle, a little too fast, a little too insistent. That Hummer called attention to itself, that’s for sure.

The more Jayce thought about Miracle Enterprises, the more images he had at his disposal. He suddenly remembered Mr. Biblical’s kids getting out of that Hummer. They usually left without a backward glance towards their father. So clear, now. Those kids. The boy would be all disheveled, his school uniform looking as if he slept in it. He had a wise-ass grin on his face. He’d be carrying a lacrosse stick with a half- opened backpack slung over his shoulder and a half-eaten donut in his free hand. A donut. While the father peddled kale. The shoemaker’s child has no shoes, Jayce would think to himself. The girl would look drowsy, as if she had sucked Dramamine for breakfast. Her appearance was a little bit slutty, even in her dull navy blue Academy blazer and plaid skirt. He seemed to recall that both kids struggled with their studies, never really fit in.

But neither of their first names were coming back to him. Nor the family name.

He had no recollection whatsoever of ever meeting the mother.

Jayce was almost nearing the second bend in the DMV line when he was startled by a strong medicinal smell mixed with something sweet, like cinnamon gum, and pungent, like tobacco. The line had circled back and Mr. Biblical was now standing right under Jayce’s nose.

“Well, if it isn’t that crook, Dr. Jayce Dover-Carlson,” said Mr. Biblical. “Do you remember me?”

The man snapped his gum so hard that Jayce felt a speck of saliva hit his chin.

Jayce took a step backwards. He kept his eyes low. He felt unbalanced, as if he might totter. He gave no response.

“Cat got your tongue, eminent doctor. Dr. Jayce Dover-Carlson?” said the man.

It was all coming back. Jayce had kept this man’s son, the donut-eating boy, from going on the yearly trip to Paris that the French class always took. The school handbook had spelled out the reasons why students could be denied participation in anything from sports to clubs to off-campus excursions. Jayce was within his rights. The boy had messed up. Something about cutting up the seats in the Grand Hall with a penknife and getting suspended. But Mr. Biblical wasn’t having any of it. 

“My son will go to Paris with his class or there will be hell to pay,” he had threatened.

Jayce wouldn’t back down. Mr. Biblical made noises about getting a lawyer, but never did. He tried to round up other parents to “impeach” the headmaster, but given that, as a purveyor of miracle shakes, he had never really fit in with the other families, nothing came of any of his efforts. The class went off to Paris without Mr. Biblical’s son. Shortly thereafter there had been “incidents”, but nothing could ever be proven. The tires on Jayce’s Volvo had been slashed, An Eye for an Eye was written in magic marker on the windshield. And a little while later, over a weekend, a fifty gallon drum of a green substance (kale juice?) had been applied to the beautiful antique windows of Jayce’s office. The janitorial staff had cleaned it up quickly, before anyone had thought of having it analyzed. Jayce remembered coming to school that day and looking out the slimy glass as if he were looking through murky water.

“You are a disgrace to education, doctor Jayce Dover-Carlson, a damn disgrace,” Mr. Biblical continued saying.

The man had raised his voice now, and a few people in the renewal line started paying attention. An older woman backed away and clutched her handbag. A man who looked like an ex-Marine asked Jayce if there was going to be trouble. A security officer circled the area.

As the line slowly moved towards the counter, the former parent moved along with it, sneering at the former headmaster, and continuing to smack his gum and spit.

Jayce remembered something that he used to tell himself during those times when he’d have an unhappy or irate mother or father sitting in his office, ready to blame him or the history teacher or the Academy itself for their child’s delinquency or rebelliousness or laziness or hormonal antics.
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“When a parent is angry at a school, it is usually because of love gone haywire. Sometimes because of profound disappointment in themselves or their child.”

That’s all this is, he thought now. This father, this Mr. Biblical, is still looking for retribution. Maybe he loves his kid, but he’s disappointed in the child or in himself. Even after all these years. And he needs a scapegoat. And I’m it.

“You are a damn disgrace,” repeated Mr. Biblical.

Suddenly the boy’s first and last name came back to him. Ezekiel Barns. The kids called him Zeke. And the sister’s name was Abigail. They were both yanked out of the Academy shortly after the “kale on the windows” incident. It’s possible the family were in arrears with tuition payments.

Jayce had two choices. Confront the man over his rude defamation, or turn the other cheek.

Jayce’s heart was thumping in his chest.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Barns,” said Jayce, summoning up a level of courtesy that the situation didn’t merit.

He almost added, “and I’m sorry for your pain,” but he decided that was gilding the lily.

He was relieved to realize that, once he called the man Mr. Barns, he was no longer cowering, no longer avoiding eye contact. He was calm, now, able to put the man and the incident into the perspective they deserved. Maybe that calmness came with having tapped into his memory. Maybe being able to put a name to the face helped him to humanize both the man and the man’s problem.

“Humpf, “ said Mr. Barns, his venom somehow neutralized.

He smacked his gum one more time in Jayce’s direction, but it was only a half-hearted smack. He slunk away, shaking his head and muttering, but in a rather subdued fashion.

Jayce proceeded to the ticket window and renewed his license.

He wondered if Mr. Barns still drove that humungous Hummer. He realized he hadn’t seen it around town for a long, long time, nor had he seen any advertisements for Miracle Enterprises. Maybe the company had gone belly-up. Maybe Mr. Barns was out of work. Or maybe Ezekiel or Abigail had both ended up in bad places, undesirable places. Maybe nothing had ever really gone right for that family, although maybe it wasn’t anything that you could put your finger on. Nothing that you could specifically name.