CHAPTER FIVE
PRINCIPAL HARDEN
Nothing better reveals the shallow, hedonistic nature of Cocoa Beach than the utter silence that envelopes John Kennedy High School at three-forty on a Friday afternoon; you could fire broadsides down the hallways and not harm a fly, you could sit naked on top of the flagpole and not be seen by a soul. School lets out at three-thirty and those students and staff who haven't skulked or snuck out by then stampede for the door so as not to miss one second of their precious, fun loving weekend.
I was pondering this as I looked out my office window at the desolate parking lot, imagining tumbleweeds, like the ones I had known as a child, skittering and bounding by. There were only two cars in the parking lot, my Rambler and my secretary, Miss Daily's Mustang. The school was set on a hill in the middle of a cookie cutter suburb; it could just as easily have been on the moon.
I smiled and shook my head, so much the better to conduct activities best done without witnesses, activities that might easily be misunderstood. There were only three people in the school now, myself, my simple minded but devoted secretary, and Winston Smith, my most challenging student. I swiveled my chair back around to face the room.
"Back again, Mr Smith," I said, it was a statement not a question.
"Yes ma'am," the boy replied unfailingly polite as always, the little devil.
I had a well-appointed office; the prosperous people of Cocoa Beach lavished money on bricks and mortar; on people, not so much. He had been sent in directly from gym class which was his last subject of the day, and so he stood before me in the wide legged, short trunks that the children favored these days, a white t-shirt, white socks and runners. There were blood and grass stains on his usually immaculate shirt and grass in his vast tangled mop of blonde hair. He had very nice hair, but I questioned his mother's wisdom in letting it get so long. But he wasn't here about that, or the blood for that matter; a mere schoolyard fight wouldn't merit my attention even if it did involve an unrepentant troublemaker like young Winston.
I lounged in my chair behind my desk, he stood in front of it, loosely at ease, and Stella stood a little behind him fidgeting nervously. The eighteen-year-old looked down at me, straight into my eyes for a moment, and then returned his gaze to some fixed point in the distance like a trained soldier would do. His eye movement was deliberate, not hasty, and just a tad this side of insolent; all students, and even most teachers in this school would have been quaking in their boots had I fixed them with my stony, haughty stare. It was an effective stare. I know, having practiced it in the mirror for hours, yet it seemed to have no effect on this lad at all. It wasn't that he was stupid; on the contrary, he was the smartest kid in the school, which was what made him such an interesting challenge.
Having let the silence play out, I put on my glasses for effect and looked down at the file neatly centered on my spotless, nearly empty desk. I didn't have to read it, if I read anything once it remained lodged in my memory. "It seems, Mr Smith that this week you have managed to upset, appall, disorient, outrage and infuriate every one of your teachers in the humanities; tell me, what do you have against math?" I asked sarcastically.
"Math problems are boring, there's only one answer, ma'am," he replied looking me in the eye again.
I nodded; I might have said the same thing myself at a younger age. I stood up and moved around my desk; I wanted to get close to him again, to judge his reactions better.
"You have repeatedly disrupted lessons, embarrassed and discredited your teachers in front of other students, and refused to accept the received wisdom of this school, this state and this nation," I said as I slowly circled around behind him. In two-inch heels I was almost eye-to-eye with him; I got inside his personal space. "Although some discussion is encouraged, your remarks have been deemed to be blasphemous, obscene and even unpatriotic."
"I have always kept a respectful tone ma'am," he replied evenly although I caught him shivering a bit when he felt my breath on the back of his neck.
"Oh yes, always a respectful tone while you spout subversion and unproven theories," I snapped back at him. As I came around his other side I brushed my ample breasts against his arm, then I pressed in firmly. He held his ground. I took his chin in my hand and pulled his face around so that he could look into my domineering eyes. "You are not half as clever as you think you are, young man," I said.
He couldn't speak the way I had his mouth squished up in my hand so I nodded his head for him; "Yes ma'am," I said for him. With my free hand I gave his bum a hard swat. He didn't flinch, didn't try to speak, his expression didn't change a bit. I did it again, harder this time, and then looked down at his crotch to see if I was getting the desired reaction.
I have a lifetime's worth of experience with corporal punishment; I have been spanked, whupped, paddled, switched, canned, and any other word you care to use, and I have dished it out as well. For a very long time I had been a firm proponent of this kind of discipline, and even now I believe it has it's uses, however, one must move with the times, and obey the law, at least in the public sphere.
