Construction

Dina Dwyer | Issue 2.2

On the morning of the code red drill, a man hunts me in my dreams once again. I wake up laughing, laughing at his face because it’s all I can do, my only weapon in my state of undress, repose, vulnerability. In those early dark hours, I think he may exist only in my mind.

But I know he struts around in the real world. Probably. I haven’t kept tabs on him for some years, so he may be dead. I have mixed emotions about that, which is one of the reasons why I haven’t kept tabs on him. Some things are better left in the air like balloons, dreams, bullets, etc.

During the drill, we teachers will order our students to construct an enormous tower of their own desks against the classroom door. The door opens outward, which is why we are to make this Obstacle complex, full of metal and fiberglass impediments for ammunition to encounter instead of flesh. When the alarm sounds, as pre-arranged by the administration in cahoots with the police, we are to explode into action, to throw the room into chaos, to erect the Obstacle and also the Shelter. This is a separate barrier, one of upturned desks in the back corner, a shield I think we all know won’t stop an AR-15 round but we must do it anyway. It is ordered. We are ordered. I am powerless in the face of these orders.

My parents had nuclear bomb drills. Theirs had air raids to reckon with. The enemy was long-distance.

In the middle of a group discussion about Nietzsche, an unfamiliar bell sounds over the intercom. My nine footballers, huge linemen and fullbacks, burst up from their desks, slap their hands together and begin bossing each other about. I sigh, roll my eyes, tuck my book under my arm and keep my shoulders relaxed to soothe the less-enthusiastic students. I must pretend this is not terrifying. I retrieve a bag of lollipops from my desk and mentally plot where I can slip in today’s lesson later this week. I must keep this day tagged as an inconvenience and nothing more.

We sit together on the thin carpet, huddled behind the Shelter, and I let them use their phones to talk to their friends in other classrooms. Compare notes. Joke around. Brag about the lollipops. The man from my dreams returns to my mind—one of my students looks like him. I’ve tried not to let that affect how I grade his papers.

Soon the authorities will come. They will throw open the door and inspect our Obstacle and Shelter, tally how many heads and limbs are within the cone of violence, as they call it, the zone where a shooter can stand at the door and complete his task, a task he gave himself. I’ve tried to understand why a boy could assign himself a task like this, under what conditions it becomes the natural conclusion. I have my theories, but I’m no psychologist. No doctor, cop, or parent.

The Obstacle and the Shelter are sound and sturdy. I am proud of my students. I hope they will become engineers and build bridges, convention halls, schools. Beautiful works with inspiring designs. I focus on these images and repeat them in my mind like a prayer.

The door whips open. A police officer screams, imitating carnage and mayhem, but I’m looking at the face of my student who looks like the man from my dreams and then all of the students are looking at me. I am laughing hysterically, and despite more yelling and commands from the door, I can’t stop. I’ll be written up, taken to task at the next all-staff meeting. The district will need to have a word with me. I’ll have to consult my union rep for that. But right now, with broken sunlight crashing in through the Obstacle onto our Shelter, my students stare at me, unsure of the next move. Then someone cracks, and like a geyser erupting we are all laughing, hooting and hollering, tears dripping off faces, lollipops falling out of mouths. It’s all we can do.

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Dina Dwyer lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tupelo Quarterly, The Ocean State Review, and elsewhere. Visit her website here.