Ms. Chisholm
James Whorton Jr.
Ms. Chisholm gave students the impression that she was constructed mostly of elbows, ankles, floating bangs, and printed muslin. Her mouth stayed chapped all winter, and her knuckles were red. She carried raisins in her purse and wore black canvas slip-on shoes—“People’s Revolutionary Shoes,” her wiseacre former boyfriend had called them—and she drove a Ford Escort with boxes of papers in the back. The tires didn’t match. She taught English at the community college for $1200 a course.
A full-time position was advertised, and she applied in a spirit of despair. She didn’t dare hope. But a month into spring semester, Dr. Bud Stripe, the humanities division chair, waved her down in the parking lot to say they wanted to schedule an interview. It was February, and the freezing air was blowing her bangs around. Dr. Stripe showed her his yellow teeth in a smile, and Ms. Chisholm gasped and felt that she might cry.
She strode into class a minute and a half late and swung her large purse and her large tote bag onto the table. She shed her knee-length, off-white quilted nylon coat but kept the knit hat on her head. The night before, alone and pretty well drunk in the kitchen of her rented house, she had made up her mind to quit teaching. Then she had dyed her hair red.
She dug an erasable marker out of her purse and turned her back to the class, trying to hold her hips still as she wrote on the board. Someone snickered, but there were many things a student might be snickering about.
Ms. Chisholm taught four classes, all composition. Each class had 24 students, and each student wrote five essays. That made 480 freshman essays to mark up and grade in the months between January and May.
It’s not bad work. Each four-page essay tugs, taps, or scratches at the heart to some degree. A person could fall in love 480 times a semester, if her heart were kept available.
The full-timers were a jaded, sorry, mostly unavailable bunch. Dr. Stripe, the chair, was kindly but seemed often on the verge of tears. Kandy Raddich taught poetry and business communications and had fourteen Dilbert cartoons taped to her office door. Judith Klam was on crutches since her fall. Tim Wilkey wore a pony tail and a fanny pack. They made good money and had health insurance and retirement plans.
The thought of it made Ms. Chisholm grind her teeth.
Mel Bonnyman, another part-timer, had been interviewed twice. “They will read you a list of questions,” he said. “Number one, your philosophy of teaching. Number two, the mission of the community college. Number three, what you do with your student evaluations. Hint: you read them.”
“Of course I read them,” Ms. Chisholm said. “Don’t you?”
They shared an evil laugh.
“Finally they will ask you what you are reading. Are you reading something?”
She ducked her head to indicate the desktop covered with four-page essays in double-spaced Times New Roman. It resembled the floor of a recycling bin.
“Be ready for the What Are You Reading question. Say something intelligent.”
“Maybe they’ll change the questions this time.”
“They will not. Sharon Sturdivant was reduced to tears by the What Are You Reading question. She told them Misty of Chincoteague! How’s Alistair?”
“Fine,” she said. In fact she’d heard nothing from her wiseacre former boyfriend since moving out just after Christmas. Her new address and number were unlisted.
Behind Mel Bonnyman, a boy coughed. Mel Bonnyman frowned at his watch. He and Ms. Chisholm shared the desk on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The desk was hers for another twenty minutes. He backed out the office door, and the boy stepped in. He offered Ms. Chisholm an essay.
“That was due in class,” she said.
“I was vomiting.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The boy wore scuffed zipper-boots that were surely too big for his feet. He had skin like 2% milk and was not very tall, but his brown plaid sport coat was still too short in the sleeves. His blue jeans had a yellowish tinge. He sat down.
“Did you bring a doctor’s excuse?”
“I didn’t go to the doctor,” he said.
She glared at him, trying to communicate something he ought to have learned a long time ago. She plucked the essay from his fingers and scanned the top page with her trained eye. “No comma here,” she said, and she circled the superfluous comma with her pen. The trained hand slid down the page. “Or here, or here, or here, or here, or here.” The essay went sailing back.
He put his face close to study the marks Ms. Chisholm had made on the page. “Really?”
“You want me to show you the rule?” She reached behind her head and pulled a handbook from the shelf.
The two human beings locked eyes until the boy’s gaze fluttered and he gave in. Then he did something that surprised Ms. Chisholm. He asked whether she had some Wite-Out.
“Yes.”
“May I borrow it?”
She gave him the bottle from the top desk drawer. He shook it then screwed the cap off, and using childish care, hunched at the other side of her desk, he dabbed the black comma out of each magenta circle and then went back and dabbed out the circles. His hand trembled. When he was done he screwed the cap back on and blew on the page. The only bits of magenta left were the ones that had crossed the letters at the ends of some words.
A tiny chip flew off Ms. Chisholm’s heart as though it had been struck with force by something small, like a rock thrown from a car.