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“Dr. Werle, members of the faculty, parents, no wait a minute. Dr.
Werle, parents, members ......oh damn!” She kept going over her opening lines. Her mouth was moving but nothing came out.
Peggy was walking in perfect step with the seven other people who got to sit up front as they single filed onto the long school auditorium stage. Her dark green, 100% polyester gown made swishing sounds as she moved. The band blared out the graduation theme as they walked. She was most likely the only person in the room who could hear all eight swishing sounds. They stopped in front of the chairs, turned as one, smiled broadly and the band stopped. The end of the applause was the signal to sit.
The school board president was first.
“Welcome to the Justin High School graduation ceremonies of the class of 1996!”
The seniors all whooped and hollered. It did not sound like much, but all eighteen of them were very enthusiastic.
“Tonight is a big night in the lives of these young people. We gather here...”
Peggy shifted her weight on the hard wooden folding chair. Just like everything else in this town the chairs were old, stained, and destined to stand until they fell. She raised the corner of her lip when the thought crossed her mind of her English teachers’ words of wisdom about making a speech before a big crowd. This lady had never said anything new so there was nothing to be expected now. She told Peggy that it would help her nerves if she just imagined that everyone in the audience was naked. Peggy’s crooked lip gave way to a silent, “Gross!”
To her right sat Doctor Andrew Werle. He looked thin, tanned, athletic, and about half of his sixty-seven years of age. He had come here from Houston where he was the superintendent of schools for twenty-two years. He had experienced all of the successes of life. He had raised three kids who had gone on to be doctors and lawyers. He had made a fortune in wise investments. His wife of fifty-five still had the appearance of a woman much younger than her years. She was his love, his lover, and his friend. He was really a very happy man. He just junked the big city life and moved to Weston three years before. Now he was in charge of three schools. There was only seven hundred, twenty-three student’s total, and he doubled as the principal of the high school. No stress here.
Dr. Werle was sophisticated, intelligent, prim, proper, and Peggy would most likely be the only one who would notice the small flaw in his person on this celebrated evening. In his haste to zip up his fly, the good doctor had trapped about one inch of his white shirttail in the zipper. It stuck out like a little finger just below his Calvin Cline belt buckle. As he rose to speak, he buttoned the middle button of the jacket of his three-piece suit thus covering the reason for Peggy’s Mona Lisa-like grin.
Seated to Peggy’s left was the salutatorian Karen Lucas. As luck would have it, Karen was Peggy’s best friend. They had done all the best-friend things since they were born. Karen was articulate, refined, highly intelligent, athletic, well read, and the total opposite of her parents both in intelligence and social standing. Peggy secretly just thought of Karen’s parents as “mud people.” That was a term she used to describe all those traits that she and most of the civilized world considered disgusting. From a distance, Julie and Harold looked exactly alike. Both weighed in excess of three hundred pounds, were short, and had not put water anywhere on their bodies in the last few days. There were always food stains on both of them somewhere between their belts and their chins. Karen was challenged to better herself. She may have gone a bit overboard.
Karen was introduced and began her speech. Peggy looked nervously at her note cards and tried not to look concerned. She was fighting a strange urge to escape. Her body was experiencing a warm flush. Her leg muscles were twitching under her gown. Her eyes began to flick from one corner of the room to the other. This was almost it. Her hereditary past began to flood her mind. The image of her mother tied to a bed slammed into her consciousness. Her green eyes darted past the green robed students all seated stiffly in the front row of chairs. She moved her line of sight from one person to the next on the second row. Aunt Mary dabbing her eye with a silk hanky. Julie Lucas filling almost two chairs and fighting to hold on to her three-year old boy. Harold was sitting on the edge of his chair with one leg stretched out in the aisle. His suit coat was two sizes too small and the pants were the same color only faded. The pants he wore a lot. The coat he never put on. His clip-on tie was snapped onto the collar button, which could not be fastened or seen under the roll of neck fat.
“...and good luck graduates.” Karen was just finishing her allotted ten minutes. “May you all use the corporate jet to attend our first class reunion!”
Old big Harold actually stood up while he was applauding which was a rather comical feat without using his hands to assist. Julie would clap, wipe a tear, grab the kid, clap some more and then repeat the process.
Peggy was silently hoping the applause would go on forever but it soon got very quiet. Dr. Werle spent a very short telling the audience about Peggy’s perfect attendance, grade point average, athletic prowess and suddenly,
“...Miss Peggy Jacobs.”
Peggy rose to the podium, shuffled her note cards, smiled once, cleared her throat three times and began.
“It is a great honor to be able to speak to you, the Justin High School graduating class of 1996. It is an honor, because I think a lot of people, just once, would like the opportunity to tell this many people what they think.”
She paused, not to get her breath, but to make a quick decision.
“While I am being recognized for academic success, I think that all of you in this senior class have something for which you can be proud of, and for which you too should be recognized. This recognition is what I hope to give you tonight.”
He was sitting in one of the uncomfortable wooden folding chairs in the corner of the very back row. Their gazes met. He smiled. Those teeth shone brightly. The tassel on her hat swung daintily. She cocked her head again. Her chest swelled.
“Think for a moment,” and she did, “of all the activities that you as students, have been involved in, that you have made your mark in. There are those of you who, like me, have committed yourselves to academics and have had success. For this, you are to be congratulated.”
James Leon sat in the second row grinning like he was on something. Peggy knew that he had a little flat plastic flask under his gown containing wildcat whisky. Alcohol content and “proof” meant nothing to that clear liquid. It was sold from the back of pick up trucks in some wooded areas on the outskirts of town. You could get a pint Mason jar for six bucks. It did not mix well with anything. It had to be sipped slowly with many minutes between snorts. That was to wait for the burning throat and swollen tongue to subside. It did dangerous things to the strongest of minds. Only the most vivid imagination could guess what it was doing to James Leon. He pointed up, tilted his head, and lowered his hat. In white shoe polish letters it said, “PEG PUS!” She glared at him as if to say, “That’s it! You asked for it.” She turned her attention back to Lester and continued.
“It is too late for regrets. Whatever you have done in these past four years, you have done for a good reason. You should be proud of those years and for the decisions you have made. It has now come the time for you to take a stand for the world.”
She paused for effect, took a deep breath and continued.
“Stop the overpopulation of the world. Support the pro-choice movement. Make pollution the worst crime in the books. Establish environmental prisons for those who pollute and kill the animals and plants of our natural world. Join with others in both animal activists groups and the Greenpeace organization who will take a militant stand against the destruction of our environment!”
The members of the audience who actually understood what was being said just looked at each other with astonishment. Dr. Werle moved the edge of his chair as if to get to the starting blocks to halt anything that might take place. Harold just grunted.
“Next fall, many of you will be going to college, or to work, be encouraged, for you will have a clean slate to work with. Don’t be afraid to try something new, and more of all, don’t forget to follow your heart. Good luck senior class!”
The applause was weak and there were still people looking embarrassed. It all passed when Dr. Werle knocked the microphone stand over and the speakers let out a loud screech. All three board members made a dash for the fallen microphone. It looked a lot like a Three Stooges episode. Lester was still clapping and was about half standing in his place. He loved the speech.
It took only twenty minutes to complete the awarding of diplomas to the graduates. Roberta Minifield led the group in a pre-written prayer where she sounded like someone who had just won an Oscar by thanking everybody including Stan the school custodian. The piano started up and the group filed out the double doors into the hall. There was then a lot of handshaking and backslapping. There would be an all night party. Lester saw Peggy in a group of girls and he moved quickly in their direction. He paused when a tall, lanky, rather goofy looking boy walked up behind Peggy and whispered in her ear. At first Peggy jumped back and made a face. Then, as Lester watched, he noticed a total change of expression. Peggy smiled and leaned to whisper something in the boy’s ear. He got the weirdest looking grin on his face. He then turned and walked away. It was more like glided away. He seemed to suddenly be in another world.
Karen was babbling incoherently about the first thing she would do is to move out of her house. She had saved money from her odd jobs and savings for enough to get her into ATM and her scholarship would pay for most things. Kari Ferguson stood nearby and when Karen would take a breath she would chime in. Her plans were a lot simpler. She would marry Gus Harrison. He had a steady job with the City of Clarendon, which was just next door to Weston, as a water meter reader. He already had an apartment. That was good because everyone in the little standing, babbling group knew that Kari had a loaf in the oven. They were all pretty sure it was Gus’s.
Peggy wasn’t listening. She was scanning the area for Lester. She could feel his presence and wondered why he had not contacted her by now.
Suddenly her head froze in place. Her nostrils flared. She could actually smell him approaching. In less than a few seconds more she could feel the ground vibrations as he came up behind her. Her spine tingled and her muscles twitched as James Paul leaned toward the back of her head.
“One time tonight and I will never bother you again!”
His breath was a cornucopia of offensive odors.
Tonight might be more ‘never again’ than you know!
Lester leaned against a tree and just stared. He wanted so much to just walk right up and invite her out for something. Just anything. He felt in his heart that this had to be her night with her friends. He harbored a guarded fear that her life was already in a pattern with a man in mind. He could not forget that while in the brief conversation he had with her at the horse stables she seemed to have made it a point to let him know that she would have to work the Saturday afternoon after graduation at the cafe because the construction crew from the new highway would be more than likely to show up for lunch. There might be more people than Jeanette and Gracie could handle. In his mind that was a date!
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