Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part
of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of
responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And
the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don't know why they died, they just died. Something
wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn't the best. We
complained about it. So we've got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to
plant and we've got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks,
it was depressing. It wouldn't have been so bad except that just a couple of weeks before the
thing with the trees, the snakes all died. But I think that the snakes – well, the reason that
the snakes kicked off was that ... you remember, the boiler was shut off for four days because of
the strike, and that was explicable. It was something you could explain to the kids because of the
strike. I mean, none of their parents would let them cross the picket line and they knew there was
a strike going on and what it meant. So when things got started up again and we found the snakes
they weren't too disturbed. With the herb gardens it was probably a case of overwatering, and at
least now they know not to overwater. The children were very conscientious with the herb gardens
and some of them probably ... you know, slipped them a little extra water when we weren't looking.
Or maybe ... well, I don't like to think about sabotage, although it did occur to us. I mean, it
was something that crossed our minds. We were thinking that way probably because before that the
gerbils had died, and the white mice had died, and the salamander ... well, now they know not to
carry them around in plastic bags. Of course we expected the tropical fish to die, that was no
surprise. Those numbers, you look at them crooked and they're belly-up on the surface. But the
lesson plan called for a tropical fish input at that point, there was nothing we could do, it
happens every year, you just have to hurry past it. We weren't even supposed to have a puppy. We
weren't even supposed to have one, it was just a puppy the Murdoch girl found under a Gristede's
truck one day and she was afraid the truck would run over it when the driver had finished making
his delivery, so she stuck it in her knapsack and brought it to the school with her. So we had
this puppy. As soon as I saw the puppy I thought, Oh Christ, I bet it will live for about two
weeks and then... And that's what it did. It wasn't supposed to be in the classroom at all,
there's some kind of regulation about it, but you can't tell them they can't have a puppy when
the puppy is already there, right in front of them, running around on the floor and yap yap
yapping. They named it Edgar – that is, they named it after me. They had a lot of fun running
after it and yelling, “Here, Edgar! Nice Edgar!” Then they'd laugh like hell. They enjoyed the
ambiguity. I enjoyed it myself. I don't mind being kidded. They made a little house for it in the
supply closet and all that. I don't know what it died of. Distemper, I guess. It probably hadn't
had any shots. I got it out of there before the kids got to school. I checked the supply closet
each morning, routinely, because I knew what was going to happen. I gave it to the custodian. And
then there was this Korean orphan that the class adopted through the Help the Children program,
all the kids brought in a quarter a month, that was the idea. It was an unfortunate thing, the
kid's name was Kim and maybe we adopted him too late or something. The cause of death was not
stated in the letter we got, they suggested we adopt another child instead and sent us some
interesting case histories, but we didn't have the heart. The class took it pretty hard, they
began (I think, nobody ever said anything to me directly) to feel that maybe there was something
wrong with the school. But I don't think there's anything wrong with the school, particularly,
I've seen better and I've seen worse. It was just a run of bad luck. We had an extraordinary
number of parents passing away, for instance. There were I think two heart attacks and two
suicides, one drowning, and four killed together in a car accident. One stroke. And we had the
usual heavy mortality rate among the grandparents, or maybe it was heavier this year, it seemed
so. And finally the tragedy. The tragedy occurred when Matthew Wein and Tony Mavrogordo were
playing over where they're excavating for the new federal office building. There were all these
big wooden beams stacked, you know, at the edge of the excavation. There's a court case coming out
of that, the parents are claiming that the beams were poorly stacked. I don't know what's true and
what's not. It's been a strange year. I forgot to mention Billy Brandt's father who was knifed
fatally when he grappled with a masked intruder in his home. One day, we had a discussion in
class. They asked me, where did they go? The trees, the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar,
the poppas and mommas, Matthew and Tony, where did they go? And I said, I don't know, I don't
know. And they said, who knows? and I said, nobody knows. And they said, is death that which
gives meaning to life? And I said no, life is that which gives meaning to life. Then they said,
but isn't death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted
mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of – I said, yes, maybe. They said,
we don't like it. I said, that's sound. They said, it's a bloody shame! I said, it is. They said,
will you make love now with Helen (our teaching assistant) so that we can see how it is done? We
know you like Helen. I do like Helen but I said that I would not. We've heard so much about it,
they said, but we've never seen it. I said I would be fired and that it was never, or almost
never, done as a demonstration. Helen looked out the window. They said, please, please make love
with Helen, we require an assertion of value, we are frightened. I said that they shouldn't be
frightened (although I am often frightened) and that there was value everywhere. Helen came and
embraced me. I kissed her a few times on the brow. We held each other. The children were excited.
Then there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children
cheered wildly.