The War Room of J. Allen Pryor

J. Allen Pryor was thirty-six years, four months and two days old; kempt, pressed, filed, combed and modulated; a teacher of five year's experience and the author of a text book dealing with forty-five word paragraphs that had, as yet, to become a best-seller.

He was small of stature--measuring five feet, five inches in his stocking feet, and weighing, dripping wet, perhaps one hundred and ten pounds. Most of that weight was concentrated in his oversized and yet oddly cadaverous head. There was little flesh on the head, mostly just skin stretched across an unusually massive skull. He had tiny, almond-shaped eyes that peered weakly from behind thick spectacles, and a thin-lipped, wide mouth that, when pulled into a smile that more closely resembled a leer, revealed two rows of long, large, coffee-stained teeth. His hair was tinted, cut with a razor, and combed in a rather ludicrous wave over his bulbous brow. He wore polished loafers, a tweedy sports jacket, a striped shirt and a too-wide tie. His slacks were in perfect press, his socks matching his tie.

Thus appeared Mr. Pryor as he faced his class of twelfth-grade students in English class, his two skinny legs in perfect juxtaposition, so thin that light shone between them even with his feet pressed tightly together.

Mr. Pryor observed his class. Sixteen upper middle-class, bright young snobs who were attending this private school for, as he saw it, one failing or another. Mr. Pryor hummed a theme from Schubert, and leered in a ghoulishly friendly way at the assembled swine as he took a seat at the front of the room, not behind his desk but exposed fearlessly in a straight wooden desk chair, sitting back straight, feet together, with a blue book on what passed for his lap. He was taking the measure of the assembled troops.

"I will call the role," he announced. "Please respond with present." His voice was soft, his coffee-breath projecting across the room. He spoke with precise elocution.

"Rebecca Cooper," he called, peering up sideways from his neat little blue class register, his left hand twisted uncomfortably around his fountain pen, and his right hand sensuously stroking the paper of the other pages in the book.

"Here."

A shot across the brow. Mr. Pryor looked up, his mouth compressed, his eyes focusing myopically on a blue-eyed, blonde girl in the front row. She was tall, busty, and had a clear, bright, self-satisfied look in her eyes, a grin on her lips. I, thought J. Allen grimly, have met the enemy.

He permitted her lapse in respect to pass, but not without first impaling her with his renowned glance of forewarning, which he felt sure looked both superior and menacing, but perhaps more closely resembled mild dyspepsia.

J. Allen stood up, after calling roll, to begin his first lesson. He moved with a rather sickening grace, his movements approaching an awkward dance, as if he stepped to a classical aria echoing in his head. He began to write some impressive phrases on the blackboard. His stance was unusual--his side to the board, his head cocked so that he should have been looking out the window that met the blackboard at right angles, and his arm curled up over his head, his hand down next to his face.

He heard a pronounced titter. He whirled. Rather well-executed, he thought. He spied who it was who was laughing. Miss Rebecca Cooper. Aha, thought J. Allen, I was correct. This is the enemy. He grinned hideously, invertedly.

"Very well, students," he said, stepping aside so that they could view what pearls he had cast on the blackboard. "I am J. Allen Pryor."

He pointed, lest they miss the fact that it was PryOr and not Er. They sat in respectful stillness, their young, undisciplined minds drinking in his teaching like dry sponges. Myriad maggots, he thought, liking his turn of phrase, knowing that his mission was not unlike pest eradication.

"This," pointing, "is our prospectus for the month. Each month a prospectus will be given you that you may copy down in your notes. This..." he paused. He looked daringly from face to face. Implied quotation marks hung in the air. "...damn," pause--for effect, "school doesn't offer proper facilities for online delivery of monthly prospectuses. I have seen to it that there shall be, soon." He added that with studied humility, like a nun's.

"Sigh," he said. The class responded with pained smiles. That never fails, thought he, to evoke restrained amusement. "We shall begin," he continued, "with perusal of Joseph Conrad's Victory. For tomorrow, you will write a forty-five word paragraph on any topic you desire. Please specify the topic sentence. I have seen the level of the writing in this class and I instruct you to forget anything you may have been told about writing heretofore and begin again. Questions, comments?" he invited, wiggling the fingers of his upheld hands before the class.

"Only forty-five words, Mr. Pryor?"

He knew the questioner without looking. He didn't really need to examine her any further--she was archetypical of her species: youthful female with rather too much silly wit that passed, in some circles, for intelligence; enough good looks, in a tawdry sort of way, to attract attention; and a fearless way of expressing her opinions, vapid though they may be. This was the girl so highly spoken of by the other teachers? he wondered. Expected to be valedictorian, editor of the school paper, captain of the--oh, horrors--cheerleaders. He needed a worthy foe; this girl was froth.

"I said forty-five, Miss Cooper," he answered, his head moving toward one shoulder and then the other as his eyes focused just beyond her left shoulder.

"But can't it be a few more or less depending on what you have to say, sir?" she insisted, prettily.

"I have nothing to say in your paragraph," he told her, triumphantly. It was good to use superior wit on students who questioned you needlessly. It embarrassed them before their peers, a clear takedown. "You will learn to write within limits, Miss Cooper," he continued, condescendingly. "You will not fill your essays with needless rhetoric."

Miss Cooper smirked. Success, thought J. Allen. Her show of bravado before her classmates.

Rebecca Cooper was thinking, however indelicately, how Mr. Pryor would looked perched on the john. The bell rang. Books flipped closed and feet shuffled.

"Just a moment," said Mr. Pryor, in indignant surprise. "You shall leave when you have been dismissed. When you are dismissed, you will then close your books and rise. Do not forget your paragraphs for tomorrow. You may purchase a copy of Victory at the bookstore. That will be all for today."

The class filed out. Rebecca Cooper snickered on her way out the door. J. Allen poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffee maker he kept in his classroom. He was upset. He tried to plan his classes minute for minute, so that they began with a question, which, over the course of fifty well-orchestrated minutes, would be resolved by the students under his careful guidance, ending with a crescendo of insight that sent the students away in awe of all that J. Allen could impart. He was left in great distress when he was forced to summarize after the cacophonous clangor of the bell, and not before.

J. Allen deemed it necessary to visit the headmaster of the school later that day, to insist that his classroom computer be upgraded. His path led him past a notorious enclosure designed for the seniors of the school, open only to them, in which they, by merit of their advanced age and forthcoming graduation, were allowed to play whenever classes and other activities allowed free time. He overheard voices as he passed, and, discerning his own name, thought it best to be acquainted with what the students had to say about him.

"I think he's a Martian. Did you see his head?"

"Don't speak that way about a member of your peer group!"

"Here he is at the board. At least his tie and socks match. And, God, he polishes his fingernails!"

Riotous laughter. Miss Cooper, reflected J. Allen, knew how to select her barbs. J. Allen, therefore, refused to call on her in class. Providing her with opportunities to speak was not wise, he determined, thus, I shall avoid her speaking at all. Miss Cooper was something of a loudmouth, however, and often, before he could stop her, she had already spoken out.

He passed out their corrected first assignments with glee. Before handing their papers back, he stood before the class as a minister before his disobedient flock, papers held gently in one manicured hand, feet in first position, eyes cast downward.

"These are your first paragraphs. No doubt you will determine by the grades that they are less than even I had expected. I have made comments on the reverse side of the papers. You are free to respond to these comments in writing, and I will consider your comments."

J. Allen had discovered that this was good protection against immediate anger. The students felt that a dialog was opened, rather than an outright bad grade administered, and were therefore less likely to argue. J. Allen returned the papers person by person, carefully concealing the grade from the eyes of the others in the class, noting with quiet satisfaction the dismayed looks as the students discovered their grades.

"Questions, comments?" Fingers wriggling.

"Mr. Pryor, I didn't spell develope wrong."

J. Allen pointed one finger in the air and circled it around and around in an inward spiral until it halted, pointing at the smug face of Rebecca Cooper.

"Pardon me?"

"Develope can be spelled d e v e l o p e. You have it marked off three times and you gave me a D for spelling."

"Allow me to refresh my memory," J. Allen responded. He glided to her desk.

He gazed down at the paper. "Develop, Miss Cooper, is spelled d e v e l o p."

"It may be, but it's also spelled d e v e l o p e."

"I think not," he sighed, looking past her shoulder. "Questions? Comments?"

"Just a minute, Mr. Pryor," said Rebecca, huffily. "I happen to know that that's spelled right."

"Correctly."

"Whatever, so will you please alter my grade?" she assumed his tone of supercilious condescension.

"Please, Miss Cooper," he replied, his face working nervously. His cheeks, incredibly, began to twitch.

"Will you just look it up in the dictionary?" she kept on.

"You may look yourself. Please do not waste class time with this nonsense."

Rebecca went to the bookcase and pulled out a large dictionary - laptops were not permitted in Mr. Pryor's class. Mr. Pryor attempted to continue class, but the group was far too interested in the little drama unfolding before them to be distracted. In a minute Rebecca looked up with a triumphant gleam in her eye.

"Would you like to take a look?" she invited sweetly.

 He looked. His cheeks quivered more violently. He snapped the book from her hand.

"That is the British spelling. This is America."

"It's a second spelling," she corrected, hotly, flouncing back to her seat.

The class was laughing, talking. He sought for control. Rebecca kept up a steady buzz in the background. J. Allen feared he might weep. This fear made him petulantly angry. He finally kicked his desk in anger. The class fell silent, riveted on his untoward display. He stood for a moment, fixing them with his sideslipping gaze, and stormed from the room.

"I think he's going to cry," someone finally whispered.

The class, in a sort of guilty pity, bent to his will for a while. Convinced he had mastered them at last, J. Allen wallowed in his superiority. He conducted his classes like a fine concert, controlling the rise and fall of the discussion, the length of each topic, the depth of consideration, the cooperating minds of his pupils. They moved from Victory to Madame Bovary. He led them through Flaubert like a docent, pacing their progress and directing their attention to the salient points.

"What kind of man is Charles?" he asks.

"Simple," they guess.

"And," he says, his hands waving a "continue" gesture.

"Kind," they try again.

"Starts with a B," he hints, gloating in his superior knowledge. He knew the word he wanted.

"Babyish? Blythe? Bored?"

"Bo..." he continues, waggling his fingers.

"Boorish!" shouts someone, in desperation.

His finger circles in on the individual.

"Sigh," he says. "It is really very simple."

Simple, perhaps, but ultimately unbearable. And one day, taped on the senior room wall, everyone - including J. Allen himself - found a viciously accurate caricature of the little man, one that even he had to admit could be no one but himself. There were the huge forehead, the tiny shoulders, the ubiquitous coffee cup and the self-satisfied smirk, all rendered with cruel attention to detail.

During study hall, with a black magic marker, J. Allen scribbled it over in an orgy of anger and loathing. And even Rebecca Cooper, as she stood silently behind him, watching him violently blacking out her creation, realized that it wasn't she whom he loathed. He's so small, she thought, as she watched him. She hid as he turned to storm away. He just might cry, she thought.

Rebecca's French teacher was walking down the hall as J. Allen departed, his little cheeks twitching furiously, his small eyes tearing with rage.

"Was that Allen?" asked Vera Damon, a middle-aged, forward, nosy and altogether delightful woman.

"Yeah," said Rebecca, eyes down.

"What was wrong with him?"

"He saw a drawing of him someone did," said Rebecca. "There." She pointed.

Vera studied it and laughed, then became serious.

"Allen is a very lonely person," she said. When she spoke seriously, Vera's voice was like music. "He invited Don and me to his apartment for dinner, and we accepted. Do you know when we got there he had made a gourmet dinner? He must have spent hours. Everything was perfect--h'ors oeuvres, candles, wine. He lives by himself. His place is just as...tidy has he is. It's such a lonely little place. He played us Schubert CDs. And directed it," she giggled slightly. "He's a very lonely man."

"Does he have to be so precise?" Rebecca asked, with a little anger and a little shame.

"I think so," Vera said.

Rebecca puzzled, and was uncharacteristically quiet. J. Allen seemed to blossom in her silence and introspection.

Senior speeches, a yearly plague, loomed on the horizon. Everyone suffered--the seniors, who, one by one, had to write and deliver a speech, and, by way of being forced to listen to them, the entire school. J. Allen wasn't fond of public speaking, and lobbied against it, but his haughty whining was no match for a hundred-year-old tradition. He generously permitted the students two weeks of their own time to prepare.

"You may request a special order of presentation if you so desire," J. Allen announced to the class.

"May I be last?" Rebecca asked as the class filed out.

"I see no reason why not," he replied, with great benevolence. Rebecca, encouraged by his civility, extended it.

"Thank you very much, sir," she said, sincerely.

But a few days later, when the order of presentation was posted on the Senior Room bulletin board, there was Rebecca's name, in the very center of the list. An hour's worth of temper tantrum, and two of Rebecca's friends scratched her name off the list and added it to the bottom. Rebecca went home, feeling tired and oddly dis-satisfied.

When Rebecca arrived for class the next morning, J. Allen met her in the hall, coffee cup in hand and cheeks twitching in agitation.

"Did you change the list?" he demanded.

"No," she laughed.

"Don't lie to me!" he quaked. His coffee slopped on the floor, and his little eyes stared her right in the ear. "You had no right to touch that list! I cannot comply with everyone's wishes."

She looked at his sad little wave of hair over his Martian forehead, smelled his coffee-breath, and noted that his perfectly polished loafers were side by side in absolute lockstep.

"Don't," she said, "call me a liar."

Later that day, J. Allen sat at his desk in his empty classroom. Uncapping his fountain pen, he began to enter final grades for the year.

"Veni, vidi, vinci," said J. Allen, as, without hesitation, he marked a D down next to Rebecca Cooper's name.