"DECEMBER BOYS" PART FOURTEEN: "AMETHYST"

AMETHYST

     The day the entire Ethics class had been dreading finally arrived. No matter how much the students prepared themselves or simultaneously attempted to mentally halt its arrival, the day of Professor Scarfe’s mandated speech assignments was the one class requirement most feared and loathed. It was more than enough to be called upon while seated and face the professor’s scrutiny. Now, each class member would have to rise, face their peers and deliver a speech detailing why they did or did not agree with the Philosopher of their choosing. Professor Scarfe liked to think of this exercise as being sort of one person’s dialogue or debate with a philosopher and that is indeed how it was first presented to his students. In addition, Scarfe wanted to give the class some practice with developing a life skill. “At some point in your lives, you will have to stand and deliver a speech to a room full of people, more of than not, a room full of strangers,” he explained, to which it would not have been unrealistic to have heard mental variations of “You’re out of your fucking mind!” if one happened to be privy to everyone’s thoughts. It was an experience that even Rhett Brazelton was not looking forward to as he naturally preferred to hold a certain anonymity in classes and not call attention to himself. Yes, by now, Rhett had spoken more in his Ethics class than any other from his past, but that was by command. This speech, in comparison, felt to be a task to be presented under duress!

     Regardless, Rhett prepared himself as if he were training for an athletic competition. Discovering that he held a certain affinity for Plato, his specific Philosopher firmly selected, Rhett set about the business of constructing the full content and delivery of his presentation. The writing went surprisingly quickly as Rhett knew exactly what he wanted to say. The hard part was whipping the presentation into shape, where the duration of the speech was not to exceed 5 minutes yet could not be 2 minutes or less. Thankfully, nothing was required to be memorized (so, Scarfe did have a heart). Rhett practiced over and again while facing the bathroom mirror to check his facial expressions and to make sure that he was indeed looking upwards and around the room to his imaginary audience. He set his watch, which rested upon the bathroom sink, to a stopwatch mode to time himself. To allow himself a bit of privacy from his Uncle Denny, who was spending a rare early evening at home, Rhett played, rewound and re-played Jefferson Starship’s “Lightning Rose” for the entire time he rehearsed, ultimately learning the song nearly as well as his material.

     Reaching the point where the timing was perfect (if not the actual delivery, for Rhett was not a polished public speaker by any means), and feeling that he possessed no more energy to give, Rhett called it a night. He was either ready or he wasn’t.

     Amethyst Lessing, however, was petrified.

    

     In some ways, the history of Amethyst Lessing’s life in school was just the same as anyone else’s. There were classes, teachers and school years that she loved—like her year in 5^th grade with her teacher, Mr. Baxter, incidentally the first male instructor in her life, whose top floor classroom functioned as a stimulating learning environment/clubhouse, complete with Knock Hockey boards, student skits (which she enjoyed watching rather than serving as a participant) and a functioning record player on which she and her friend Lacey danced over and again to Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You.”

     There were classes, teachers and school years that she hated—like her Sophomore year of high school when she endured the classroom of Ms. Abernathy, her Geometry teacher who could never fully explain the material she professed to be teaching, including the exams she wrote herself. Yet, she phoned Amethyst’s beyond busy attorney parents to repeatedly inform them of their daughter’s poor performance in her class, announcements that would inspire marathon tag team lectures, after which Amethyst felt worthless and hopeless through no fault of her own.

     Amethyst Lessing’s relationship with her schooling always seemed to depend upon the surrounding circumstances of each specific school year as the process of going to school never felt natural to her. She never felt that she ever fit within the categories of being either a “good” or “bad” student, because all of the parameters of classes, teachers, assignments, expectations and the, further compounded by the social structure of her classmates, were always so unpredictable, therefore making her school experiences typically fraught with pressure and anxiety.

     The longer Amethyst ventured into her schooling, the stronger she felt that how much better off she would be if the academic pressure was taken completely out of the equation. “Just take a moment and really think about it,” she wished to announce from her imaginary pulpit, as her fellow students, instructors and parents would stand, listening in rapt attention. “Just imagine how much actual and valid learning would occur if people could attend classes with the intent and desire to learn instead of worrying about test scores and GPAs. What if school really was an environment where the exchange of ideas and knowledge was the true currency and not the regurgitation of facts, figures and at times, complete falsities, like the lie of Christopher Columbus for example? Why spend time taking a standardized exam, which is designed to not allow you to show what you know or waste time writing term papers that don’t reflect your own personal viewpoints but only what the Professor wants to have tossed back at themselves? What does any of that have to do with learning? Do any of you remember your P.S.A.T. scores? Your A.C.T. or S.A.T. scores? I didn’t think so. And if pressed, I would have the utmost confidence to believe that you wouldn’t, couldn’t and frankly, refuse to even be bothered with the attempt. So…was any of that stress even worth it?”

     Compelling, yes but ultimately pointless as not one person would pay these sentiments any credence, no matter how passionately delivered and felt, especially as the state of education is not bound to change anytime soon—most certainly not for a 19 year old young woman with a severe aversion to the often arduous demands of academic life.

     Throughout her schooling, once homework and grades entered the picture, Amethyst Lessing felt completely out of step with her classmates. It was as if everyone else had been the recipient of some mythical, mystical instruction manual detailing all of the rules concerning the rituals and rhythms of academic life and how to navigate this specific arena, for that is what she felt school had transformed itself into without warning or sympathy. Where school at first felt to be a safe place where she and her classmates existed on some equal footing, school eventually became the place where competition and unfair comparisons (based upon what?) seemed to be blindly accepted by everyone but herself. Amethyst, however, resisted with each passing year to increased stress, emotional strain and futility.

     It wasn’t that she was adverse to the concept of homework and exams in and of themselves, as being avenues to demonstrate what was learned and how well one understood the material. What unnerved Amethyst were the letters and numbers that arrived after the work was presented and how the weight of those letters and numbers carried such a heavy finality that it never felt to be an assessment of the work, but a call of judgement about her overall level of competence, intelligence and her overall character. So, if that’s what school was all about, then Amethyst Lessing wanted nothing to do with it.

     But, of course, not attending school was never a realistic option and if her parents fully had their way, Amethyst would not only obtain her four year Bachelor’s degree, she would attend Graduate School and Law School as well and then, join the ranks of attorney sin the family. All Amethyst wanted to do was to make it through each year, as painlessly as possible, one day at a time.

     She couldn’t pinpoint precisely when her anxiety began to mount. Possibly in the earliest stages of Middle School, but definitely by High School when every exam, regardless of subject matter, brought on waves of nausea. Term papers were a little easier but there was always the waiting game to be played, the period during which her teachers would read, grade and judge.  Waiting for grade reports to be sent home was agony. If the grades arrived in the mail while school was in session, Amethyst obsessed about what would be waiting for her, and most importantly, her parents, once the family returned home for the evening. If her grades were scheduled to arrive while school was on a break, Amethyst would obsessively look out of either the living room or kitchen windows for the mailman’s car, awaiting the envelope like a letterbomb. Should the grades not arrive, Amethyst’s entire body would uncoil and unwind, allowing her to finally relax during the night, only to completely tense up all over again the next morning and throughout the day. If they did arrive, then Lord help her. It was an awful cycle to live through. The only thing worse was when the grades inevitably arrived and as Amethyst was an average student at best, her perfectionist parents would always find something offensive in her marks and react as if their daughter had tarnished the family name in the streets. And with that, the cycle of seeking approval and suffering disappointments consumed her, where even the relative independence of college did nothing to assuage her stress.

     Was it like this for other kids? Everyone else? For so much of her life, Amethyst regarded her classmates with a mixture of amazement and envy because it seemed that school and all of its commitments and pressures did nothing to derail the act of just getting down to the business of student life as well as living life.  Because of this quandary, Amethyst Lessing denied herself the pleasure and therefore, the security found with in having a circle of friends for fear that they would all prove to be a distraction. While this approach proved itself to being counterproductive, she had closed herself off and kept everyone at a distance for so long now that it almost felt natural—even though she was more than aware of how unnatural it was. Amethyst never really thought of herself as “lonely,” but not having friends, being unsure of how to obtain them plus being academically stressed constantly was no way to live.

      By the time Amethyst was nearly eight weeks into her Fundamentals In Ethics course, she was convinced that she had committed her gravest mistake by signing up for the class at all (although this decision was really due to her parents’ instructions as they felt it would be beneficial for her inevitable law degree). It was precisely the type of course that she never would have chosen for herself if she possessed her druthers. The subject matter was not to her approval whatsoever and perhaps even more than her classmates, she felt that drowning sensation all of the time. She knew very well how over-zealous and misguided her highly vocal challenge to Professor Scarfe on that first day of class sounded. She was certain that she came off as a bitch, something she never considered herself, but due to her self-admitted aloofness, she honestly could not be surprised if that was indeed the impression she gave out. As for the Professor, how could he had ever had known that he’d touched an especially tender nerve with one of her own personal political passions? She just reacted.  Badly. And she had her ass handed back to her as a scolding decorated as a “teachable moment.” She was mortified with herself, she felt humiliated and ever since, Amethyst felt that she was pathetically attempting to climb a mountain yet without any of the tools and equipment needed for survival.

     And now, the worst had come.

     Amethyst Lessing had been dreading the day of the speeches from the moment Professor Scarfe informed the class about the assignment. As if the class as it existed wasn’t enough. For reasons that she could no longer remember, Jacques Derida was the philosopher she chose to defend or debate, and honestly, even after writing her speech and practicing for her timing, she really wasn’t fully certain onto which side of this particular philosophical coin she stood. And there she sat, all by herself, without any friends to commiserate with. Certainly, she could have risen from her spot and quietly professed her anxiety to her classmates, who were all engaged in frantic fits of worry tinged with a hearty gallows humor. Even as she stared at her classmates, no one returned her intense gaze. Not even Rhett Brazelton looked her way. Not. Even. Once. But how could she have ever expected him to do so after she had admonished him weeks earlier? Not that he didn’t deserve it because it was more than a little annoying (plus a tad creepy) to constantly spot him making cow eyes at her. Yet, on the flipside, he did seem to be harmless enough, he obviously had made friends and whenever he spoke in class, he sounded completely competent and knowledgeable. If he felt like she did—like someone dangling from the edge of a mammoth cliff, losing one finger grip after another—he never seemed to let it show. Maybe she didn’t react in the best fashion. But shit, in a classroom where even the smallest distraction could potentially derail her, forcing her to face her parent’s unbearable disappointment and the inevitable, endlessly ponderous and soul sucking lectures that would follow from the both of them, Rhett Brazelton’s stares were mere pebbles that still had to be kicked clear from her path. And so, Amethyst turned away from everyone, sadly and nauseously awaiting her fate once class began.

     Forty five minutes in the session, nine of Amethyst’s classmates—including Rhett—walked to the front of the class to stand at Professor Scarfe’s podium (while the good Professor sat at a nearby desk), and addressed their peers with their respective presentations as Scarfe jotted occasional notes to himself for later grading purposes. While her silent wish not to be picked first had been graciously granted, her additional hopes that by perhaps watching her classmates’ performances ahead of her would help to assuage her fears were unfortunately daunted. In fact, Amethyst Lessing descended into an internal panic, which she realized was beginning to physically manifest itself through her increasing heart rate and the sweat that had begun to emerge at her temples, her palms and her back.

     “Ms. Lessing…” announced Professor Scarfe, instructing without any misunderstanding, that it was now Amethyst’s turn to approach the podium. The fullness of inevitability folded itself upon all of Amethyst’s nerves, threatening to snap through all of them as easily as scissors pierce threads. Taking her damp hands and wiping them on her skirt, which she smoothed, she rose from her seat, gathered her note cards and walked to the front of the classroom not once making eye contact with anyone. Unable to delay any longer, Amethyst brushed a curl away from her glasses, sighed quietly while stifling an involuntary sob and finally turned to face the class and her professor.
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