Discovering Despair

I don't know what Mr. Cherry had against Leo or Leo against Cherry.

Cherry was my ninth grade algebra teacher. He seemed like a pretty good guy. On our first day of class, he went over his grading policies and made it clear that he expected regular completion of homework.

We've all heard that before but since this was the first day of my private school career, Cherry's emphasis seemed somehow frightening. We knew from the get go that  1/3 of us wouldn't be around for graduation. Our school had very high standards. I took him at his word and did my homework. I got interested in algebra.

Leo was a tall kid with bad hair and bad teeth. Aside from that he was allright. Like most of us, he smoked and he was usually good for a lend if anybody ran out. He was quiet and didn't cause any disturbances.

Cherry had a method regarding homework. He called on three random students every day.

"Homework?, he would ask.

The student called upon would have to stand, answer yes or no and if yes bring the homework to the front of the class and give it to Cherry. 

Then he would call on the next rando and the procedure would be repeated.

We never knew who would be called upon so we all did our homework. Every so often, a student would answer "no" when asked about the homework. Cherry would respond with his next question.

"Excuse?"

Cherry had a decent sense of humor and appreciated a good excuse and generally accepted anything less outlandish than "the dog ate it".

For the first few weeks, Leo was never called upon. 

Finally the fateful day came.

Cherry called upon Leo.

"Homework?"

"No", responded Leo.

"Excuse?"

"No"

Cherry would make a mark in his fearsome Bardeen's and would move on to the neext student.

The following day; once again.

"Leo, homework?"

We all felt that Leo had learned a lesson.

Leo responded "no"

Cherry asked, "excuse?"

Leo said "no".

This became a daily ritual. 

No homework, no excuse, no further comment from teacher or student just a flourish of Bardeen indicating another zero next to Leo's name.

This went on for another week or so.

The tension was beginning to rise.

Then one day after the usual exercise, Cherry began to explain.

"Gentleman what you are seeing here is a case of despair. Leo has already flunked this marking period. He knows that he has flunked and doesn't care. If he continues putting theses zeros in my book, he will bury himself for the year. He will be going to summer school just to go on to his sophomore year whcih he won't be continuing at our school because he will be kicked out. It's not quite too late but in the meantime, I want y'all to take notice of his behavior. Today, you just saw despair."

Neither one of them would let up which led to lectures about stubborness, willfullness, self-destruction, futility, absurdity, pointlessness, consequence, rebellion, arrogance etc all lectures delivered while Leo just stood there without a response of any kind while serving as an object lesson and perfect example of every word that Cherry was using to describe his lack of effort.

Then one day, Leo was gone.

We didn't know if he had quit or had been expelled or got on a slow boat to Shanghai.

I never saw him again.

Cherry never mentioned him again.

He continued his homework routine for the remainder of the year.

Everybody always did their homework.

I did much better in algebra than I did in geometry.

My geometry teacher never checked homework.

I didn't know what he was talking about when he called on me.

For the first time in my life, I felt dumb.

I experienced despair.

I flunked.

I went to summer school, re-took geometry and passed. 

I avoided geting expelled by the skin of my ass.