A Narrow Escape
John Schnick, editor of the Canyon Courier, 1968 —photo by John Coate
The spiffed-up Canyon Courier came out on time. Stacks of the six-paged tabloid were quickly depleted from the library, cafeteria, and office. The other high schoolers seemed to like the new format; we got some letters to the editor, and students began to greet me by name.
Two students seemed to resent me, however. A tall guy with buck teeth and a short dude with a perpetual smirk began to show up whenever I visited my locker. They would close in and start to call me names like “wimp”, “hippie”, or “faggot”.
I had no idea why these two had it in for me, nor what their names were. They did know who I was. When I tried to ask their names, they laughed, and the tall one said, “Fuck you, Schnick.”
I thought of them as “Mutt and Jeff”, two comic page idiots who blundered through life.
I didn’t know how to handle these goons, so I tried to avoid them. Most of my best friends at the school, like Nina and Doris, had graduated the year before, and Arthur had moved to San Francisco, where he attended Washington High.
One time when when I entered the boy’s room, I stepped up to the urinal to pee. Before I got my pants unbuttoned, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I spun around and saw Mutt and Jeff leaning against the white-tiled wall behind me. They dropped their cigarettes to the floor and went for me.
Before either could grab me, I was out the restroom door and into the covered breezeway, which was full of students walking to their next classes. I walked across the open quad to the boy’s gym, where there was always a coach in the glassed-in office. For the rest of the school year, I used the toilets there.
A few days later, in home room, I received a summons to the office of Mr. Pratt, the Dean of Students. I knew who he was but had never spoken to him. When I arrived at his office, he barked, “Sit down.”
I sat. He came around his desk and leaned against it, his beefy frame and bald head looming over me.
“I want you to tell me what happened yesterday afternoon.”
“Uh, I proofread the galleys for the school paper,” I said, “sir.”
“Don’t give me that. You know what I’m talking about. Don’t lie to me.”
I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing.
“I happen to know,” he said, leaning in close, “that you were seen crawling around the Senior Patio on all fours and barking like a dog.” I could smell the cigarettes on his breath.
I suppressed a laugh.
“No sir,” I said. “That didn’t happen. Who told you that?”
“I can’t tell you, but it was a very reliable source.”
“I think someone’s pulling your leg, sir.”
Dean Pratt scowled and went back behind his desk, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Since you insist on denying it,” he said in a low, constrained voice, “here’s what’s going to happen. The next time I hear of any of this bizarre behavior, I’m taking you down to the Sheriff’s Department so fast it will make your head spin.” He leered grotesquely. “They will test your blood for LSD and you will be expelled from this school. Now get out of my office.”
I got up and went out the door. As I walked to my next class, I puzzled over what was really going on. Why was Pratt making empty threats? I knew, and he should have known, that there was no blood test for LSD intoxication. The minute amount of drug was gone before any of the effects were apparent, and I never dropped acid at school anyway.
Suddenly I realized who put the dean up to this. It had to be Mutt and Jeff. No one else at the school had ever expressed any ill will towards me.
The next Friday, after my last class, I was in the boys’ locker room, packing my gym suit to take home and wash. As I was putting my sneakers in my bag, I saw a shadow appear on the floor. I glanced up, and there they were, big as life: Mutt and Jeff.
I was trapped. The two said nothing but smiled as they slowly closed in. Their arms hung at their sides, fists clenched. As the tall one leaned over me, he drew back his arm, and the short one chuckled.
I was holding a sneaker in my right hand. I bolted to my feet and swatted the sole of the shoe into his face as hard as I could. Mutt screamed, threw his hands over his face, and stepped back. Jeff turned away from me to check on his pal. I shoved him aside and ran past the two of them, out of the locker room, through the gymnasium, and into the empty quad.
I had hold of the gym bag in my left hand and a sneaker in my right as I reached the parking lot. I was apprehensive that the two goons might still come after me, until I saw my friend Dennis, with the bonnet up on his Triumph. I helped him push-start the car; we both hopped in, and he gave me a ride home.
The dean’s two informants never bothered me again. They avoided me, and I seldom saw them the rest of my time at Canyon. Dean Pratt, however, wasn’t quite through with me.
There are plenty more high school high jinks in Lightbulb Coffee.
Available in paperback and Kindle. Click below for more information.
