Chapter Three: Assorted Thoughts on Discipline vis-à-vis Bullying

"Personally, I do not believe in menstruation," Principal Blackwell said, steepling her hands over her desk. "I find it to be a rather filthy and degenerate habit."

Behind her was the whiteboard on wheels she'd had us drag into her office. On it, she'd drawn a blue vertical line separating two columns. A bulleted list ran down the length of each, both written in her cramped cursive scrawl.

In the WANT column: 'Stability', 'Status Quo', 'Funding', 'Community Support', 'Bonuses'.

In the DO NOT WANT column: 'Shutdown', 'Parental Complaints', 'Media Circus'. 'Lawsuit' was circled in red and underlined twice.

Blackwell reached into her drawer and pulled out a sealed baggie, which she dropped onto her desk where we could all see. Inside was a bullet-shaped tube mostly soaked and encrusted with a necrotic blackish-brown substance that was beginning to slough off in crystalline flakes. One end still had some exposed white cotton and a string trailing from it.

Sort of like if you bought one of those stuffed white prayer bunnies from the church thrift store, snipped the thread joining its clasped paws, then snipped its whole arm off, sewed up the hole but unravelled one of the threads so it stuck out, left the arm inside your mom for a couple of months, retrieved it, toasted it over an open flame and scraped at the blackened resin that formed with your bitten fingernails.

That's the level of vaguely Satanic energy that was emanating from this thing. If you say 'heavy flow' three times in the mirror at midnight, it'll lodge in your throat when you're sleeping and absorb your last breath.

"What's that?" Quinlan said, standing up and peering at it. He was practically salivating. He'd skipped breakfast again, I knew it. "An éclair?"

Knott's face contorted. "Have you ever seen an éclair in your life, Quinlan? That's a used tampon. Probably weeks old."

"Oh." He sat down, discomfited. "Are we sharing?"

She didn't deign to respond.

"Filthy," Blackwell repeated, "in all senses of the term. Absolutely rancid. If girls are going to concoct this sort of uterine sewage on a monthly basis, the least they can do is keep it in their wombs."

Knott furrowed her brow, opened her mouth, looked around the room at us guys, and finally met Blackwell's severe gaze. "Ms. Blackwell," she said, hesitantly. "You menstruate."

"No, I most certainly do not. I came to my senses and ceased engaging in such depravity years ago. I'd thank you to not assume these vile proclivities of me, Judith." Blackwell curled her lip into a moue of distaste, and her eyes flashed with naked hostility as she flicked them up and down Knott's seated form. "God knows I've never judged you for your brazen... endometrial… indiscretions."

Knott started to say something else, but changed her mind.

Blackwell sighed and settled back into her faux-leather swivel chair, turning her gaze to the ceiling. "Be that as it may, we cannot police students' private lives."

"Why not?" Adams asked.

"Because," Blackwell said, reaching for her mouse. Her computer screen glowed to life. "If we cracked down on every little act of turpitude committed at Winslow, we would have to discontinue—"

She cleared her throat and began to scroll.

...

"...the distillery, the poker den—and you know how the janitors get, they unionise—the printing operation in the boiler room, the faculty prostitution ring..."

"Counterfeiting isn't a vice, it's a livelihood," I interjected.

"Good thing too," Adams said. "I couldn't handle another salary cut. Still got the installments on my new car to deal with."

Quinlan shot up, betrayed. "Wait, you all get paid!?"

"In conclusion," Blackwell said, raising her voice to speak over him, "we will not be disciplining the serial bleeders. It's a slippery slope from there on out, perhaps even literally. I won't have my school devolve into some Orwellian nightmare."

Knott bit her lip. "Ms. Blackwell, we're not punishing anyone for having their periods."

"Thank you for echoing me, Judith, but it's not necessary."

"No, I mean, that is not what this meeting is about. Or should be about, anyway."

"I called this meeting, so I think I might have a better grasp of what it is about than you," Blackwell said. "The chief of police spoke to me personally, as did several doctors, as did Mr. Hebert. I have been lectured enough on the correlation between sepsis and the microbiome of soiled feminine products to conduct my own seminar on the subject." She squinted off into the distance and tapped her fingers together. "I would title it Managing the Modern Woman: Menarche and the Moral Wasteland. Two credits."

"Yeah… no one would go to that," Adams said.

"I would," I said, raising my hand. Maybe it would teach me stuff about my girlfriend. "I'd take notes."

Quinlan grunted. "Sounds like an HR class."

I lowered my hand.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Knott said, before Blackwell could snap at us, "but we are here to discuss Lockergate, aren't we? Address the bullying problem?"

Blackwell's eyes narrowed to gimlets at the mention of that-which-must-not-be-named. I'm telling you, that locker was like the King in Yellow at one point.

"The police searched the area thoroughly," she said, crisp. "There is no bullying problem at this school."

"They did not search the area," Knott insisted. "What would they even have searchedfor?"

"Evidence of bullying, of which they found none. We know this because they left."

"They left after you bribed a student to parade in front of their cars wearing a sandwich board that said 'Bully-Free Since '83'."

"What happened in the seven years before that?" Adams wondered.

"One teeny, tiny impaling incident." Blackwell made a circle the size of a coin with her hand and pressed it against her gut, then flicked her fingers to dismiss the memory. "Inconsequential, as I will not atone for the failures of my predecessors. Down that road lies minor inconvenience to myself. I can only do my best in the here and now."

"What would be best," Knott said, "is if we present a united front against the social ill that led to that poor girl being treated like that in the first place. Show that we don't tolerate such behaviour, enforce disciplinary measures, educate would-be perpetrators. An anti-bullying campaign."

Silence fell as we mulled over her words.

"Or," Adams said, slowly, raising a finger, "or, and I'm just spitballing here… we install a bar in the staff lounge."

"YES!" Quinlan whooped and pumped both fists. "Fucking lord, yes!"

"Oh, I like that." Blackwell leaned forward to key in a note on her computer.

"Actually not a bad idea," I admitted. "That would solve all our problems. You're not as stupid as you look."

Blackwell leaned back, pursing her lips in contemplation. "I'm thinking a pale wood for that rustic, yet classy aesthetic. We're down-to-earth, we drink and grade like everyone else..."

"Nah," I said, "don't get me wrong, I love a good wooden bar, but rolled zinc is trendy right now. After a couple of years you also get that awesome patina from all the spills and finger oils. Shows we roll with the times."

"Trendy," Blackwell mused. "It would match the carpet more."

"If we move the couches around a little, we can get a curved one," Adam added.

"Who cares what it looks like," Quinlan said. "Whiskey Wednesdays, everybody! I'm tending!"

"Whiskey?" Blackwell shook her head. "Fine spirits are wasted on the lot of you."

"You know," Knott said, "I would really appreciate it if we went back to discussing how to prevent young girls from getting trapped in their own lockers by their peers."

"Knott," Quinlan said, and she turned to him. "Knott. Knott. You're a fine teacher, an unfathomable beast, a goddamn inspiration to educators everywhere. I think you're a strong woman in so many ways. Maybe the strongest I know, and I know my ex-wife. So don't take this the wrong way, but you suck."

Adams and I didn't speak or even nod but we radiated resounding agreement. Knott folded her arms and looked off at the wall.

"I'm inclined to agree," Blackwell said. "But I suppose we should do something about it, if we can't resolve the menstrual situation. Do any of you feel the same way?"

Adams shrugged. "Bullying builds character, and I don't think it's possible to teach kids empathy at that age. Their brains just aren't developed enough. I'll go along, but only so I can say 'I told you so' at the end of it."

"I'm down for anything," I said, to be contrary.

Quinlan opened the tampon baggie and gave the contents a thoughtful sniff. "I don't really care," he said, "but I'd be a lot more comfortable knowing we covered our asses in case the cops come snooping around again. Or parents."

Blackwell glanced at the DO NOT WANT column, and you could see the shiver race down her spine as the grim spectre of litigation unveiled its face. "Fine," she said, grudgingly. "We will attempt this 'anti-bullying campaign'. Adams, inform the other staff. Judith—"

"I'll print posters," Knott said.

"Print? Oh no, no, no, we need that ink for counterfeiting. We'll have the children make their own. They can bring paper from home, or better yet, reuse the recruitment flyers those Empire miscreants keep sticking to the bulletin boards. Gladly."

I saluted.

"I'm putting you in charge of the anti-bullying task force. See something, say something." She paused. "Well, run it by me before you say something. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. In fact, perhaps don't say anything if you can help it. Don't ask, don't tell. Yes, that's a much better slogan. Quinlan, fetch me liquor catalogues. Quinlan!"

"Mmf," Quinlan mumbled and nodded, chewing vigorously. "Interesting mouthfeel."

And thus began the great anti-bullying campaign of 2011. It lasted a month, charitably speaking.

Well, the posters did, anyway.

I like Agnes Blackwell, I really do. You can always trust her to do what needs to be done, be it talking parents into donating despite the gang presence or any other form of institutional mendicancy. But I quickly began to wish I'd gotten poster duty. Being a glorified hall monitor was doubleplus uncool.

This is how ninety-nine percent of the conversations went:

Mr. G: Hey, is this bullying I see going on here?

Student: No, this is loitering/negging/hazing/gang violence.

Mr. G: Oh okay carry on.

What was I supposed to tell them? To not socialise? Newsflash: not socialising is how you get unpopular enough that people want to bully you. I need to stress this so you understand where I'm coming from—I have literally never been bullied in my life. I just don't get singled out because, well, have you seen these moves? There was one period in preschool when some jerkwad followed me around with his droogs chanting 'Gladly, Gladly, Smells-So-bad-ly', but I go by Mr. G now, so it clearly hasn't impacted me in any significant way.

The other one percent of the time, I spent trying to explain to teens why they shouldn't pick on their fellow, physically and socially inferior teens. I have to agree with Adams here, kids that age are made of knives and spiders.

I was getting kind of antsy about my lack of success patrolling the hallways, because I knew why Blackwell assigned me this position: She needed a scapegoat for if and when something similar to or worse than that incident occurred. When the firing squad came, I'd be the first against the wall.

In the end I decided, why do a bunch of small, invisible things to improve the community when I could do something big and flashy? I didn't come up with this, by the way. It's a classic politician move. Three weeks into the campaign, I ended a class twenty minutes early so we could have a heart-to-heart about bullying.

"So, uh, that's the homework, but as always it's not mandatory," I said, sitting on my desk. "Hey, do you guys remember the thing that happened? The thing with the locker? The girl in the locker?"

A few titters.

"No, don't laugh. It's not funny."

They continued to giggle.

"Now, I know that you're all thinking," I said, shrugging it off. "'Wow, that girl must be such a total creepy loser for everyone to dislike her so much'. I'm here to tell you that just because people are losers doesn't mean you have to stuff them in a locker full of gross… bathroom stuff. Be the cooler person, y'know? But I know it's hard, so we're going to practise."

I had them all leave the classroom and go out into the vacant corridor. We were on the first floor, at this T-junction that afforded us plenty of space to gather. I showed them the locker I had prepared for this exercise.

Before leaving the house that morning, I'd borrowed a twenty-pack of Tampax from my girlfriend. There was a time she wouldn't have been caught dead in possession of even a cardboard applicator. My mother-in-law raised my girlfriend to only ever use pads. Tampons were straight-up banned in that household, like there were actual monthly cavity searches for contraband cotton products. Real Arstotzkan hours up in that place. Not because of the risk of toxic shock syndrome, which I hear is a thing, but because she was supposed to save her hymen for marriage or she would—I quote—'die a lonely lesbian whore eaten by her own cats'. As the proverb goes: If it penetrates, it don't get dates.

Now that she's with me, she uses tampons all the time. She also has panic attacks when her cycle starts, but that's unrelated.

For variety and ease of sticking, I'd also snuck into the girls' bathroom to buy a handful of other personal care products from the dispenser. Three bucks worth, because money was as tight as my girlfriend. Thank you sanitary pads? I'd then smeared various red fluids over them—nail polish, raspberry jelly from the cafeteria, and some other stuff I found lying around. Promised a janitor I'd show up for poker night with beer and a loaded wallet, and I got access to one of the lockers.

Now, in lieu of the books that'd been there that morning, its interior was plastered with gooey pads, tampons and pantyliners. Not quite as disgusting as the contents of the original locker, but similar enough to capture the mood. The tenor. The atmosphere.

Classic biohazardous locker simulation. Never let it be said that I'm unwilling to go the extra mile to discourage bullying among teens.

I told my class that I was going to pair each of them up with someone who wasn't their friend. Then, one of them was to stand in front of the locker, and the other would try to not lock them inside while the rest of the class egged them on. The objective was to get to a point where you would be able to resist the temptation of inflicting long-lasting trauma on someone outside your circle of friends.

I was about to grab one of the popular kids—they were the least likely to have experienced bullying in their lives—when I noticed a girl trying to sneak away. I can always sense when people are trying to hide from me. I'd call it teacher's intuition, but I've been able to do it long before I was teaching.

I homed in on this bespectacled kid. She had a raincloud for a face—gloomy, actively being smothered in masses of black curls. And she was tall and skinny, like if a broomstick mated with a beanpole and the former had to have a C-section because natural delivery risked irreparably damaging its internal organs. Finding someone who wasn't friends with her would be a snap.

"Hey, uh…" I snapped my fingers a few times, trying to remember her name. It wasn't coming. "...you. You can go first. Pair up with Julia over there."

"Mr. G, can I be the bully?" Julia asked politely, stepping forward.

I thought about it. "Yeah, but you have to switch after, if we have time."

"Thanks, Mr. G," she chirped, approaching the locker.

We all looked at the black-haired girl in expectation. She shrank into her oversized hoodie, mute and unmoving, her eyes fixed straight ahead but apparently seeing nothing. After a moment of heavy breathing, she shook her head.

"Come on," I said, widening my grin. I gestured at the interior, swinging the door invitingly. "This is a safe space. Nothing to fear."

Her lips parted. No sound came out. Someone giggled.

Then she turned around and walked away briskly, disappearing into the bathroom down the hall.

We stared after her.

"...okay. So, that happened." I spun around and clapped my hands. "I guess I'll just have to demonstrate. Everyone gather round. Wait, actually, everyone form a line."

It was a productive afternoon.

...

"GLADLY!"

I startled at the shrill cry, accidentally slamming the door shut. A great deal of clanging and banging ensued as I turned my head to see Blackwell storming over.

"Why are you shoving Madison Clements into a waste-filled locker!?"

Behind her, Adams emerged from around the corner.

"I told you so,"he hissed, and drew back into the shadows.