Peripheral Visions: Purgatory

"Peripheral Visions: You sense them from the corner of your eye or in the soft blur of darkest shadows. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late."

Purgatory

Joseph Mercato jolted awake.

For a split second he had no idea what was happening, except that he was being jolted. He caught sight of a large room, a room full of people, and a burly man who was leaning down and screaming into his face.

Piece by piece, the situation assembled itself in his mind: He wasn't lying in bed at home. He was sitting in a desk – a rudimentary desk, nothing more than a seat and a platform for writing. Books sat on the platform; even as he registered this detail, one of the books slid off the edge and fell to the floor.

A hand was gripping the platform. The burly screaming man was lifting the desk and slamming it down repeatedly.

The shock of the moment was swept aside by white-hot fury. Joseph bolted to his feet, his face nearly colliding with that of the screaming man, who took a sudden, awkward step backwards.

"Get the fuck off of me!" Joseph barked, reflexively raising his fists in a classic boxer stance. He'd been an amateur boxer since his college days; he'd been young in a time when gay guys like himself routinely got bashed.

The screaming man was silent now, his face a mixture of shock and fear.

"You put a hand on me again, and I swear to fucking Christ I'll knock your goddamn head off!" Joseph barked.

The man looked familiar, but Joseph couldn't place him at first. Then the man's expression changed from fear and astonishment to one of rage.

Now Joseph recognized him.

Old Pissant? he thought in confusion, as the man started screaming at him again.

"Old Pissant" had been Joseph's private nickname for a high school teacher named Charles Doddering, a teacher who had taken a dislike to Joseph during his sophomore year and gone out of his way to make Joseph miserable until he graduated.

Joseph had harbored a lifelong anger over the way Doddering had treated him. Fifteen years of therapy had helped, but there were still times when he dreamed about those long-ago high school days and the torments he had suffered as an awkward gay kid. Doddering loomed large in those dreams, as did his parents: Classic Freudian stuff.

At least Joseph had had a measure of satisfaction recently; it had taken half a century, with Doddering living well into his nineties, but Joseph had heard that Doddering's sins had caught up with him and he had died after a year or two spent fighting cancer. In a way, Joseph felt sorry for Old Pissant; he had spent much of his life after his years as a teacher as a pariah, and his slow decline must have been a nightmare. In a way, Joseph hated himself for feeling any measure of satisfaction at another man's death. But the satisfaction was still there, and Joseph knew he had to own up to it.

Obviously, though, the story about Old Pissant dying wasn't true, because Doddering was here, now, alive and well and berating him, telling him to sit down and mind his place; telling him not to threaten him with some pantomime of self-defense that no one would believe from a scrawny faggot...

"Shut the fuck up!" Joseph shouted in a hot new burst of fury.

The startled expression of fear appeared again on Doddering's face, and he took another step back.

Joseph unthinkingly took a step forward at the same moment, leaning toward Doddering, his eyes glinting. "Whatever the fuck you think you're doing, you can stop it right damn now and get the hell outta here," he growled. "It's either that, or I call the cops, you goddamn drunk."

Rage flooded back into Doddering's face. He raised a pointing finger and jabbed it at Joseph.

That was the moment Joseph realized he wasn't at work, or at home, or in some familiar public place. The room was full of people, but, Joseph suddenly realized, they were all teenagers – dozens of them, all sitting in the same sorts of desks that Joseph had found himself in. Joseph looked at the desk he'd jumped out of, and then saw the cover of the book that had fallen to the floor. With a shock he recognized it as the textbook he'd used in Senior English class.

Joseph glanced up again, looking around at the teenagers sitting at their desks, all of them looking bewildered. His eyes locked for a moment with those of Petra, his best friend in high school. Petra? What was she doing here? She was looking at him with as much surprise as anyone else, but also, Joseph saw, with a smile.

I'm back in high school, Joseph realized. This is almost fifty years ago. This is a dream, or a vision... like those time travel movies...

Somehow, the thought made his fury all the hotter. Joseph had hated high school – hated himself during his high school years, filled with the rage he swallowed every day, filled with internalized homophobia. His parents hated him too; they must have, because that was the only way Joseph could comprehend the beatings his father had given him and the way his mother had overlooked his bruises and told him to get over it. She had finally divorced his father, only to marry a man who was marginally less abusive... but only marginally.

It was insane that Joseph would find himself back in this time of rage and isolation. On top of that, Joseph was feeling a crazy vitality surging through him that almost made him feel lightheaded. He felt strong in a way he hadn't for... years? Decades?

My god, Joseph thought. I'm young.

The realizations, astounding as they were, had taken place in a split second. Joseph looked back up at Doddering, whose face was still twisted in rage and whose pointing finger was starting to shake. Doddering was about to start shouting again. A new bolus of rage boiled up and exploded from Joseph.

"Not this time you don't," Joseph said firmly, his voice loud but no longer shouting. "If you think you can bully me, think again."

Doddering took another step back, his eyes widening.

Joseph stepped forward in turn. "You got anything to say to me, you can say in in the principal's office – if you can manage to pass the girls' restroom on your way there without loitering and giggling to yourself, you goddamn pervert."

Joseph glanced back at Petra, who was now grinning widely. She gave him a nod.

Joseph looked back at Doddering, who had gone pale and was watching him apprehensively – but also with a calculating look.

"Go ahead and figure up all the ways you're gonna get me in trouble for standing up to you, you miserable piece of shit," Joseph said. "By the time I'm finished telling them about every single instance you threatened us in class, every single time you made some pervy remark to a girl, every single time you sat in your car during lunch hour thinking nobody knew you had a bottle of vodka keeping you company, your petty little vendetta against me is going to look like what it is – the deranged obsession of a drunk."

A different fear had come over Doddering's face now.

"Meet me in Ms. Martinez's office if you've got the balls for it," Joseph said. He knelt swiftly, on supple and pain-free knees, and retrieved his textbook from the floor. Then he gathered his notebook and pen, turned on his heel, and left the classroom.

***

Joseph was careful not to slam the classroom door behind him. He was still furious, but he figured he had made his point. It took him a moment to orient himself. Senior English class with Doddering had been on the ground floor, and the principal's office was... to his left. Near the school's main entrance.

It was all coming back to him as he walked up the hallway. The sight of the walls, lined with lockers, brought a flood of memories. He saw his own locker, next to Petra's. His cherished memories of her always made him smile, but this time that were also freighted with the pain of associated recollections: What it had been like to escape home every morning, only to come to a place where people his own age took their turn hectoring him. Though he'd had a few sympathetic teachers his first year of high school, by the middle of sophomore year they had all turned on him, too – and that was Doddering's work, Joseph thought. Not that he could ever have proven it.

Joseph paused outside the principal's office, breathing heavily. He realized he was shaking. It must be adrenaline, he thought.

Maybe adrenaline also accounted for how tired and empty he was feeling. He'd spent decades thinking about the things he wished he'd been confident and collected enough to say to Doddering on the day Old Pissant had attacked him in class, the day the tension between them flared up into an all-out war. He'd wished he'd known enough to confront Doddering on the spot and challenge the account Doddering had made to the principal and the other teachers. As unpopular as he'd been, Joseph found himself even more disliked by the faculty. Even his classmates seemed to blame Joseph for Doddering having attacked him.

Joseph let all those thoughts wash over him and then fall away. If he didn't feel a sense of satisfaction, he thought, then it was because he wasn't done yet. He still had work to do.

Then he thought: Is that it? Is this some sort of cosmic second chance? Am I dreaming all of this on my deathbed... is this stupid, miserable moment the last nail pinning me to my trifling existence?

There was no way to know for sure, but this didn't feel like a dream. The floor under his feet was solid, and it looked the way he remembered it... actually, it looked as it always hed, and he was only remembering it now because he was looking at it.

Joseph forced his eyes up and ahead, focused on getting to the principal's office. Whatever was going on, he was determined to see it through.

Joseph entered the office and stood at the counter that separated a narrow waiting area from the administrative area, which included Mrs. Lucy's desk.

Mrs. Lucy looked up at him with a smile. She, like Doddering... and like Petra... looked the same as his memory of her: She was a slightly heavyset woman with a beehive of graying hair that had been teased into a spectacular frizz. She was wearing one of her signature power suits with padded shoulders – the dark grey suit, Joseph noted, which he'd always thought worked especially well for her.

Mrs. Lucy wore outsized eyeglasses with rose-tinted plastic frames. Her eyes crinkled behind the huge lenses. "Hey hon," she said. "What do you need?"

"I..." Joseph swallowed, surprised at how thin and frail his adolescent voice sounded now that he wasn't bellowing at someone.

"Was that you shouting down the hall just now?" Mrs. Lucy asked him, her tone comforting.

The kindness and concern in her voice – and, just as importantly, the absence of blame – had an immediate effect on Joseph. His eyes suddenly started welling up and he tried to speak, but could only gasp.

What was this? Joseph was a grown man, not a kid. He shouldn't be crying.

But he was a kid. And he was crying.

"Oh, oh my," Mrs. Lucy said, rising from her desk. She opened a small, waist-high door at the end of the counter and stepped into the waiting are. Joseph thought she was going to guide him to one of the chairs lining the wall, but instead she ushered him into the administrative area and then toward Mrs. Martinez's door. "I think maybe we should expedite your chat with the principal," she smiled.

Joseph, still overcome, nodded at her.

Mrs. Lucy opened the door to Mrs. Martinez's office. The principal, sitting behind her desk, looked up.

"Well, good morning," Mrs. Martinez said, eyeing Joseph. "What brings you to my office this time?"

Joseph didn't trust himself to try speaking, so he shrugged.

"A terrible row down the hallway, in Mr. Doddering's class," Mrs. Lucy informed her.

"Yes, I heard the shouting... I wondered if it was you," Mrs. Martinez said. She waved at a chair and then nodded to Mrs. Lucy.

Mrs. Lucy patted Joseph on the shoulder and then left the room, shutting the door behind her. Joseph sat in the chair Mrs. Martinez had indicated.

"So, let's see," Mrs. Martinez said. "Last time the problem was Mr. Martindale confiscating your notebook because you were drawing comic strips he said were pornographic."

Joseph felt the lump in his throat shrivel as his anger started to heat up again. Martindale – he'd forgotten all about that prick. Martindale was never as bad a Doddering, but he was bad enough. A few years from now, if Joseph remembered right, Martindale would be out of a job after assaulting one of the boys on the school's soccer team, having decided that the boy harbored impure thoughts about Mr. Martindale's wife.

After that, Martindale would end up in a hospital, sedated with anti-psychotics, diagnosed with schizophrenia. Joseph wasn't sure what had happened to Martindale after that.

"They weren't pornographic, they just had some cuss words," Joseph said.

"Very unflattering and disrespectful words," Mrs. Martinez said. "And the story, if I understood Mr. Martindale correctly, had something to do with android prostitutes, fittingly enough for the title you gave your opus."

Joseph held up a hand. "I know. I didn't realize it at the time. I thought I was just parodying the title 'Star Wars.' I wasn't mature enough to realize how misogynistic I was being."

Mrs. Martinez looked at him for a long moment. When Joseph had come into her office, she had seemed skeptical; now she seemed to be reconsidering.

"But Mr. Martindale isn't why I'm here."

"No. You were in Mr. Doddering's class just now," Mrs. Martinez said.

"He attacked me," Joseph said. "And it was just too much. He's harassed me for years. I don't even know why he hates me, but this time he went too far."

"What did he do?"

Joseph tried to recall exactly what had happened. He'd been sitting at his desk that morning. Doddering had been delivering one of his scathing, threatening speeches to the class. Which one had it been? The one where he had suddenly launched into a jeremiad about what a boatload of idiots they all were, how none of them appreciated time and planning and work, and though he had assigned them topics for their term papers with six weeks' notice he was virtually certain that no one had even begun to do any research?

No... that would have been in October. This was springtime, Joseph thought. Mid or late April. Not long before graduation.

Was it the time Old Pissant had treated the class to a long harangue about how he wanted their next report to be typed neatly, with double spacing an inch-wide margins? The same speech when he had threatened to tear up and give an F to any report handed in with more than three spelling errors?

Suddenly, the details came back. Doddering had been walking around the room returning homework. The assignment was to write a sonnet. Three of Joseph's classmates had approached him earlier in the week to ask him if he would write a sonnet for them. They were confused about the format, unsure of what "iambic pentameter" meant or how anyone could write a poem with a specified number of syllables in each line. What was more, they had no idea what to write a sonnet about.

Death, Joseph thought. Death and love and suffering. His first thought had been to tell each of the three of them to go to Hell – these were the same people who spoke disdainfully to him every day, made fun of his secondhand clothes and his family, and now they wanted his help? After insulting him? Really?

But then he had agreed, for two reasons: One, he thought if he something over on them – if they felt the owed him something – they might back off and quit harassing him. And two... a more potent reason... he intended to write sonnets that would be about them. One would talk about sexual impotence with shades of closeted gayness; another about a suicidal father; another about body dysmorphia and eating disorders. Things Joseph knew about his classmates, things that everyone knew, just like everyone knew Joseph's mother had married his stepfather out of dependence, and just like everyone knew his real father had been a drinker who liked to beat his wife and children in that magical twilight moment between taking that last long slug of whiskey and passing out.

The sonnets had been poisonous toward those classmates in the same way the classmates were poisonous toward Joseph. Not that they had the wit to see beyond the metaphors and imagery Joseph chose and understand what he was saying.

But Doddering knew what was going on. Doddering knew who had authored those sonnets. That must have been what set him off: The knowledge that Joseph had done their homework for them, called them out in verse that went over their heads, and Doddering himself wasn't going to say a thing about it. Two of the three classmates in question were too popular, not to mention the children of important community members.

In other words, Doddering couldn't accuse Joseph of helping them cheat without exposing them as cheating, too.

And that, Joseph had understood, was the reason why Doddering had paused by his desk and then suddenly begun screaming at him and pounding his desk. Doddering hadn't said anything about Joseph's academic performance; he'd restricted himself to accusations about Joseph's "girlie" handwriting, telling him that filthy faggots didn't belong in his classroom, telling him that his way of speaking was "pretentious," that girly boys who showed up to school wearing dirty clothes because their mothers spent their time drinking and watching TV instead of doing laundry shouldn't use twenty-dollar words when their families didn't have twenty dollars to spend at the grocery store.

And the son of a bitch had even made reference to Joseph's sister, making pointed reference to a "baked potato."

Everyone blamed Joseph's mother for what had happened. Some people who only knew half the story assumed Joseph was to blame. In fact, it was Joseph's drunkard father who had left the baby in her car seat on a July afternoon while he stopped off at a bar for a "quick drink" that took three hours.

Joseph knew better than to expect the teachers to behave any better than the students they taught – he'd spent too much time watching them, taking note of their cliquishness, listening to the nasty gibes they disguised as offhand comments and even overhearing some of their gossip as they stood together in the parking lot or to the side of the lunch room. But no one, not even the cruelest of his classmates, had ever said anything so malicious about how Joseph's sister had died.

Part of Joseph's long-simmering hatred and fury at Doddering was that he would have had the sheer inhumanity to say such a thing. But he was even angrier that no one had ever... to his knowledge, at least... confronted Doddering about it. About any of it, really; none of Doddering's unbecoming conduct, not his daily bullying of the class as a whole nor his campaign against Joseph personally, ever seemed to draw the slightest rebuke.

"Joey? What happened?" Mrs. Martinez asked.

Joseph started. No one had called him Joey since he had been a kid.

But he was a kid, he remembered again. And he was a kid whose eyes were spilling over once more as his anger waxed anew.

Joseph wiped his face dry and sought to contain himself. "He was handing back homework and all of a sudden he grabbed my desk and started pounding it. And he was screaming at me. I mean, he hassles the whole class all the time, but he's always had a real problem with me. But even for him that was... it was too much."

Joseph paused, trying to recall if Doddering had gotten to the part where he called baby Regina a "baked potato" before Joseph had gone off on him.

"And what were you doing?" Mrs. Martinez asked.

"You mean before he attacked me? I was sitting there, minding my own."

"Minding your own what?"

"Minding my own business." Of course, Joseph thought: Certain turns of phrase wouldn't have become popular yet.

"And you didn't say anything? You didn't provoke him?"

"Provoke him? Mrs. Martinez, nobody provokes him. Ever. But he harasses us and threatens us every day." On top of which, Joseph thought, attacking a student is wrong no matter how you slice it, "provoked" or not.

It was that kind of mindset, Joseph thought, that had led to the previous summer's nationwide riots, with thousands of people marching in the streets of every major city to protest how the police treated them while the state-approved news sites published scolding editorials about how those who "provoked" the police had no place complaining if they got shot dead for it.

Not that those riots would happen for almost another fifty years...

"Joey," Mrs. Martinez sighed, "you just don't seem to get along with anybody."

"Is that a reason why I should be attacked?" Joseph asked her. "I know people don't like me. They think I'm trash because of my family, because of the clothes I wear, because I come to school with bruises on my face. Yeah, all of that is my fault," he said, in a sarcastic tone of voice.

"Joey – "

"Yeah, I know," Joseph sighed. "You're not on my side."

It was what Mrs. Martinez had said to him after Martindale had confiscated his notebook and Joseph had argued that his freedom of speech – not to mention his artistic license – was being violated.

"I didn't say that," Mrs. Martinez said.

"Actually, you did," Joseph said, "and the thing is, I didn't realize you had to have a side. I didn't need you to agree with me, I just needed you to hear what I was saying. Yes, I was wrong then. I know that. But I'm not wrong this time, Doddering is. And he's – "

"Mister Doddering," Mrs. Martinez said sharply. "You'll be respectful.

Joseph paused, then nodded. "I apologize. You're right. But Mr. Doddering is the one who's wrong here. He's... frankly, Mrs. Martinez, I know an abusive drunk when I see one, and to be honest. Mr. Doddering isn't even the worst I've had to deal with. It's just, I shouldn't have to try to survive every single day at school the same way I have to try to survive every single night at home."

Mrs. Martinez had that same look again, as though she were reconsidering something.

Joseph sighed. "I don't know what kind of stories he's gonna tell about me this time, but let me just say this: I won't stand for being physically assaulted."

"Did he touch you?"

"No, he didn't touch me directly, and I know that's one argument for denying that he assaulted me. But it's not a very convincing argument when the desk you're sitting in being pounded and slammed and you're getting thrown around because of it. No, he didn't touch me directly, but he still caused that slamming and jolting, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be all that hard to make the case that what he did constitutes a physical assault. Even if the criminal case didn't go anywhere, a civil case might. Who gets involved in cases like these? The ACLU? I'm sure some bleeding heart liberal lawyer would take an interest. A case like that might even set a precedent. Wouldn't that be some nice publicity for the school?"

Mrs. Martinez frowned at him.

"I'm no happier saying this than you are hearing it," Joseph said. "But I'm seventeen years old. No one seems to think I amount to very much. You were very complimentary when I scored a 96 on the ACT and then got such high scores on those other tests we did, too. Did we discuss my SAT scores? No, never mind, the point is, I wonder if you care about me, about the suffering that goes into every day, as much as you care about those numbers."

Mrs. Martinez shook her head. "Joey, I'm so sorry you feel that way. And if you need to talk to a counselor..."

Joseph waved a hand. "Mrs. Martinez, please. I have the rest of my life for therapy." Fifteen years of it, in fact, he thought. "All I want right now is to graduate, go to college, and never come back here. Not to this school, not to this city, not to those people you think are my family. I just want to be f – " Joseph caught himself. "I just want to be gone. And now..." He stood up. "I thought Mr. Doddering would take me up on my invitation to meet him here in your office, but I guess he hasn't."

"I haven't dismissed you yet," Mrs. Martinez said.

"Is there more to talk about? I'm the student, and so by default I'm the problem. Right? If that's where this discussion is heading, I'm not sticking around for it. But I have to say, I have a hard time believing you have no idea what goes on in that man's classroom. I know I've never said anything, and my parents don't care enough to ask, but how does a teacher get away with the things he does to his students? Doesn't anyone's parents care enough to ask? Or to tell you what's going on?"

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Martinez asked guardedly.

Joseph exhaled in an exasperated sigh. "Right," he said. "Understood."

She didn't protest again as he left her office.

"Did Mrs. Martinez help you?" Mrs. Lucy asked as he walked through the administrative area toward the low-set half-door in the counter.

"She certainly clarified some things," Joseph said. Then he paused. "High school really is Hell," he said.

"Hell? No dear, of course it's not." Mrs. Lucy smiled sweetly. "Purgatory, maybe."

They shared a brief smile and then the bell rang, signaling the end of the period.

"You run along to your next class now," Mrs. Lucy said.

***

The next period was, in fact, the lunch break. Joseph debated simply leaving the school and not coming back... never coming back. Never going back, either, to that house where his mother lived with his stepfather.

But the start of college was four months away. What would he do until then? And if he simply dropped out of school here and now, would Harvard – his first and only choice – rescind his acceptance?

Harvard had done that a few years ago, hadn't they? Rescinded acceptance of a whole group of incoming students after they had made racist remarks on some online forum or social media page or something?

Well, dropping out wasn't the same as making racist comments. And social media wouldn't even be invented for another thirty years or so. But still... he was, as he had told Mrs. Martinez, only seventeen. He had the mind and memories of his adult self, but they had somehow been deposited into his own younger body.

"If only I knew then what I know now," Joseph murmured, as he made his way toward his locker. The words had a bitter tinge, but he wondered if there might be promise in the idea of starting his life all over again. The mistakes he could avoid... the new chances he could take...

Students had come flooding into the hall and were surging all around him. He saw faces he knew, faces he remembered, faces he'd forgotten, and faces he wasn't sure he'd ever even noticed.

Suddenly someone shoved him, almost knocking him off his feet and ploughing him into the lockers. He realized it was Liam.

"What the hell, man?"

"I heard about your little throwdown with Doddering," Liam told him. "You can't be doing that."

"What do you care?" Liam's hand was clutching his shirt; Joseph twisted free. "And doing what, by the way? Telling that cocksucker what to do with it?"

Liam's hard, thuggish face suddenly brightened into a grin. "You surprise me," he said.

"Yeah?"

"You're actually all right!" Liam slapped him on the shoulder and then pressed on, heading for the lunchroom.

Joseph sighed, wondering if he was going to have to put up with adolescents for the next six or eight years. Maybe college wasn't going to be his salvation after all. He suddenly wasn't sure if he could go through all the preening, hormonal bullshit he'd had to endure the first time he'd earned his bachelor's degree. At least grad school had been a little less juvenile. More cutthroat, since after Harvard he'd gone to another Ivy League university. Moreover, he had studied particle physics, a field that seemed to attract high-octane people with a penchant for ruthlessness.

No, college and grad school had been tough, but not as tough as high school. At least there, he less beset by blank-faced stupidity.

Petra was waiting for him at his locker.

"Hey," she said.

"So, what happened after my grand exit?" Joseph asked her. "I was hoping Old Pissant would follow me to the principal's office and we could hash things out."

"I thought you hashed him out pretty well right there," she told him.

"Was he hard on you guys after I left?"

"Just his usual self. Said good riddance to you, and if he had anything to say about it you wouldn't be back."

"Funny, that might be the first time we agreed on anything." Joseph couldn't get the combination lock to open; he had hoped he'd used the same combination in high school that he used now at the gym, but it wasn't working.

"Here," Petra said, and dialed the combination for him.

Not 8-13-21, the number he used now. Petra had dialed in 27-07-33. What had that number signified?

"Thanks," he said.

"Still shaken up, huh?" she asked.

"You can't imagine," he told her.

"But you really told him off," she said. "I never saw you like that before."

"Nobody has," he said. "Maybe that's the problem."

His lunch was in a brown bag. He took it out of the locker and then shut the door and clicked the lock shut again.

27-07-33, he told himself. Remember that.

They walked to the lunchroom, Petra telling him about how everybody in the class had been impressed with how he had cussed out Doddering. "It's about time somebody pushed back," she said. "I mean, even though we should have compassion for him and everything. I really think he's having flashbacks."

"I'm not sure I believe all his Vietnam stories," Joseph said.

"Why not?"

"He's told about thirteen different versions about how he got shot or got hit with shrapnel from exploding grenades, or whatever. How does anyone get shot that many times and not get killed, or at least get sent home?"

"Then why's he so messed up?" Petra said.

"I didn't say he's not," Joseph replied. "But my point is, whatever the reason, whatever his problems, he shouldn't be taking it out on us."

"Well, no," Peta agreed.

They entered the cafeteria. Mrs. Hagenau was standing by the door, evidently on lunch duty.

"Well hey, strange-er," she said. "Brown bagging it today?"

"I'm not like these fancy kids," Joseph said.

"Enjoy your PBJ, strange-er," Mrs. Hagenau told him.

Joseph paused, turned to her, and smiled. "Thank you, ma'am," he said. "And that's not nearly as clever as you think it is. I might be strange, but around here that's normal."

"Go sit down and behave," Mrs. Hagenau said, her voice changing from lilting mockery to a stern warning.

Joseph sat. Petra went to get a tray and go through the line. "I hope it's something good today," she said, glancing around to get a look at what people were eating. "Nope, hamburger macaroni." She sighed. "I'm gonna sit with Terri and Stacy and them," she said.

Joseph waved. "Bye," he said.

The table he chose was only half occupied – wrapped up in thought, he didn't notice by whom. He sat at the unoccupied half. He unwrapped his sandwich.

"Hey, champ," someone said.

Joseph looked up and saw it was Liam talking to him. Liam was sitting with Jordan and Geoff. Joseph wondered where Jason was; the three Js, as they were called, were never apart.

"So you told Doddering off," Liam said.

"How did you even hear about that?" Joseph said. "I mean, you're in Honors English, not stuck in the salt mines with Old Pissant."

The guys all chuckled at that.

"Word gets around," Liam said.

"So how come you went after him so hard?" Geoff asked.

Jason showed up at that moment, his tray in his hands. He looked at Joseph with contempt. "You're sitting here?"

Joseph looked around the table, then down at himself. "Kinda seems that way." He made a show of taking the first bite out of his sandwich. "Bet you wanna trade me," he said. "But you're too late."

Jason looked annoyed. "Come on, let's go," he said to Geoff and Jordan.

They got to their feet at once, picking up their trays.

Liam lingered for a moment but them looked to the side. "Uh oh," he said. Joseph followed his gaze and saw that Doddering was approaching. Liam got up, grabbed his tray, and looked at Joseph. "Check you later," he said, and left.

Joseph took another bite. He had forgotten how much he hated the too-sweet grape jelly. The peanut butter was no better – he hated smooth. The saltier and crunchier it was, the better he liked it.

Doddering sat where Liam had just been sitting. "We need to talk," he said.

"No, we don't," Joseph said around his mouthful. "I need to eat this disgusting shit. You need to stay the hell out of my face. Six or seven weeks from now the year will be done, and you and I won't ever have to see each other again. Then we'll both be happy."

Although they wouldn't, Joseph reflected. Unless he found a way to live his life differently this time...

He wondered again why, if traveling to different moments in one's own life were possible... if this wasn't a dream... he'd be condemned to come back here, to this particular day, one of the worst days in a terrible time.

Maybe he had it wrong, Joseph thought. Maybe high school wasn't hell. Maybe Hell was Hell, and that's where he was now. Was he dead? Was all that Jesus stuff actually true?

"No one says you have to graduate with straight As," Doddering was saying. "Would Harvard be okay with a 3.8? A 3.5? I'm not the only teacher you've pissed off, you know."

Joseph shrugged. "What can I possibly do about that?" he asked.

His point had been that teachers would do what they would do; as far as he could tell, nobody held them accountable. Also, time was on his said: He remembered Doddering making this threat, but nothing had come of it. He'd graduated with his 4.0 intact.

But Doddering took the question another way. "You could show me respect in my own classroom," he said.

"The thing is," Joseph said, putting his half-eaten sandwich down, "it's our classroom too. Us students, I mean. But you don't respect us."

"I'm the teacher. I don't have to respect you."

"The hell you don't."

"Stop using that kind of language."

"Or what? You'll wash my mouth out? Tell your gossipy little stories to everyone in the teachers' lounge? Bring them all a nice bag of fucking tater tots to roast in the goddamn toaster oven while you laugh about how my baby sister died?"

Doddering sat back, looking down at the table. He almost seemed ashamed.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Joseph told him. "What you should have done is gone to Mrs. Martinez."

"I will."

"When I asked you to."

"That wasn't asking. That was – "

"So, let's talk about respect," Joseph interrupted him. "Respect goes where it's invited. You're not very inviting."

"If you cause any more disruptions in my classroom – "

"Disruptions?" Joseph laughed loudly. Then he covered his mouth in a momentary, performative gesture, and cleared his throat. "Who, exactly, caused a disruption in class today? As opposed to sitting quietly at his desk?"

Doddering glared at him.

"And when you ask the class a question and nobody but Petra or me will raise their hand to answer? Are we being disruptive then? Because when we try to answer your questions, you bitch us out for it. You think it's respectful, or any sort of good pedagogical form, to yell at us for trying to participate in our own education?"

"I have to maintain discipline, and you – "

"And I what? Belong in your dumb remedial class? With your threats and tirades and your stupid vocabulary words that I knew in third fucking grade? Petra and I both belong in Honors English. What are we even doing in your class?"

"Drawing comic strips, from what I can tell," Doddering said. "Like the one you got in trouble for a few weeks ago."

"Yeah, if what you were teaching weren't so boring it might be a different story. And yet I draw comic strips in your class and still manage to do all my homework, get straight As on all the quizzes and exams, and even get some extra credit."

"That's right, you do. I give you the grades you deserve. You think I'm picking on you. I'm not. I'm being fair."

"Screaming and pounding my desk is fair... how?"

"You're an infuriating student. You have no interest in the material. You don't even try."

"I was interested in the material the first time I learned it," Joseph said. "Around the time I was eight. Oh, I try, I really do. It takes a huge effort to get through your class without biting my own fucking throat out."

"So you're too smart for my class? You think? My IQ is 180, and I can see that you're not as smart as you think you are. You're a smart ass, but that's not the same thing."

"Have you ever noticed that my comic strips always use the vocabulary words you assign us to use in sentences?" Joseph challenged.

"What I've noticed about your comic strips is that they're all stupid sex jokes."

"I didn't realize you read them," Joseph said without thinking, Then he paused. Was that true? He'd thought his comics were sly satire, not crude humor. Then again, they were probably both. He'd been a teenager, after all.

"Do you think material like that is appropriate for the classroom?" Doddering asked.

"Do you think a lesson plan that's either threats or else war stories is appropriate for the classroom? Or how about hiding in the corner by the girls' room and then jumping out at them? Think that's appropriate? Think anyone's parents would find that appropriate?"

Joseph stopped, then picked up his sandwich again. The subject disgusted him. Doddering's improper behavior with female students was what was eventually going to get him fired. It should have gotten him arrested, Joseph thought, but times had been different then.

"This isn't an easy job," Doddering said quietly. "Most of you don't make it any easier. Sometimes I try to be friendly... fun. And here you are making filthy suggestions about me. But when I'm strict, I'm being a 'psycho' with 'flashbacks.' "

Joseph shrugged with his eyebrows, wondering if Old Pissant had been eavesdropping on his conversation with Petra.

"So how do you suggest I be friendly with students? How do I be approachable? How do you suggest I interact with students on their own level?"

"Oh, give it up," Joseph said, finishing his sandwich. He fished in the bag and found a mealy apple. He offered it to Doddering. "Want it?"

Doddering glared at him and didn't answer.

"Your loss." Joseph stuffed the apple back into the bag and started to get up.

"Don't walk away when I'm talking to you," Doddering said.

Anger welled up in Joseph again. Leaning down, in a friendly intimate whisper, he said, "U.P." Then, smiling, he added, "Up." Turning to walk away again, he tossed one more gibe over his shoulder: "Chuck."

"Quoting James Joyce and adding my own name. Very clever," Doddering said. "That and a quarter will get arrested for vagrancy."

His voice exerted a magnetic pull over Joseph, spun back toward the table. "I'd think you'd be keen to have me good and gone," Joseph told him. "I'd think you'd want to give me the grades I deserve in order to get me on my way. Then you can pick someone new to focus on."

"I don't focus on you," Doddering said. "But I will give you a little career advice: Stay in academics. Pretentious little twits do well there."

"This pot thanks you, Pa Kettle," Joseph said. He started to turn away again, but something held him in place. He looked at Doddering. "Here's what I'd like to know," he found himself saying. "What is it you people want from me? Because honestly, I have no idea, and it's not like anyone has ever bothered to explain it."

Doddering looked at him for a long moment, a frown coming across his face. He almost seemed confused. Joseph turned to leave.

"Wait," Doddering said.

Joseph paused once again.

"That was a good question," Doddering told him. "Now let me ask you this: What do you want to tell me?"

Joseph glared at him.

Doddering spread his hands. "I mean it. I really want to know."

Joseph returned to the table, still eyeing Doddering skeptically, and then sat down again. "I want to tell you that you remind me of my father. That being in your classroom is like being in his house. I'm not safe there, and I feel like you're just waiting for your moment to attack me. Which you did."

"But did you invite that attack?"

"What? Of course I didn't! Look, I'm here to learn. It's your job to teach me. If you don't like me as a person, that's fine with me. Leave your antipathy at home and be a professional in the classroom."

"Appropriate classroom behavior goes two ways," Doddering said instantly – as though he'd been waiting to say it.

"Yeah?" Joseph flared. "Well, maybe it's not. And maybe you're supposed to be the adult in the room."

Doddering smiled at him. Joseph paused, surprised at what he'd just said.

"No, that's not quite right," he added after a moment. "In fact, you won't believe this, but I'll say it anyway: I am an adult. I know you look at a pimply face and see a teenager – but I need you to understand that I'm not a kid. And the thing is, whether it's in your classroom or in Ms. Martinez's office, or here right now, I've been feeling like I'm the only adult in the room."

Doddering sighed. Then, strangely, he smiled. "Good," he said. "Very good. Extremely articulate, as always, only now you're actually saying something."

"Yeah?" Joseph leaned back and looked at Doddering appraisingly. Doddering was looking back at him the way Mrs. Martinez had earlier – as if seeing in him in some new way.

Doddering sighed. "I feel like I've come into this in media res," he said. "In the middle of the action."

"You were in the action all right," Joseph said. "Earlier. Slamming my desk around."

"Was I?" Doddering asked. "Was that today?"

Joseph laughed at the question. "Time flies when you're being bullied," he said. Then: "It seems like a long time ago to me, too... I can't even tell you. But you're not gonna do that again. Not ever again. And I'll tell you why: I'm done being the shy kid who gets insulted every time he's walking up the hall. From now on, I advocate for myself. You can't push me around anymore. Not you, and not the kids in this school. I mean it when I say I'm an adult. From this day on... I'm not a kid anymore."

"I know," Doddering said. "I do. We're in the same situation."

Joseph stared at him, confused.

"I'm in my own younger body, too," Doddering told him. "This is where I woke up... right here, a few moments ago."

'You... you did?" Joseph asked. It was the last thing he was expecting to hear.

"Yes. I'm not surprised you came back here... to today. I'll bet you've looked back on today with a lot of anger. Well, obviously you have, since you were the one who organized the campaign to get me fired. Ruined my life. Disgraced me. But maybe saved my life, too... got me out of a place where I... where I wasn't helping anyone, least of all myself." Doddering sighed again, his voice shaking. "I should have expected to end up here. I have... had... no, still have a lot of anger about today, and a lot of guilt."

Joseph stared at him, wordless.

"You must be wondering what you're doing here... what I'm doing here," Doddering said. "To put it simply, we're both here again because we need to be."

"I... I don't... but how?" Joseph asked. "I mean... how do you know what's going on? Can you explain this?"

"Not my place," Doddering said. "I'm just here to.... to apologize, I guess. If that's what you need from me."

"You want to apologize to me?" Joseph asked.

"Yes. You're right. You didn't' belong in my classroom. You should have been in a more advanced class. I don't know why they placed you where they did. I think maybe I told them you needed to be in a classroom where I could keep an eye on you, where... where some other teacher wouldn't have to deal with you."

"What?" This was insane. Was that how schools operated?

"At least, I think that's what might have happened. It was all a little... hazy," Doddering said. "But I wasn't trying to be cruel. In a way, I was thinking about what you needed," Doddering said. "Honors English was as rote as any other class. You were smart, you needed more of a challenge. But to be honest, you... you challenged me. You made me feel inadequate. Not because I couldn't see your potential, or wasn't smart enough to teach you, but... I wasn't in a place where I could be my best for you, or for any of the students. That was something I knew, but didn't want to admit."

"Too many liquid lunches in your car?" Joseph asked him.

Doddering nodded. "Of course I wasn't fooling you... or anyone. Nobody but myself."

Joseph found himself laughing at that. It was strange, but the laugh felt freeing, instead of bitter. "I know a thing or two about alcoholics... about being around them, dealing with them... believe me, you weren't the worst."

"I believe you," Doddering said. "But still, I'm sorry."

"I guess I was real pain, right?" Joseph said.

"In your walled-off, passive-aggressive way, yes, you were," Doddering said.

"So, you won't tell me what's going on here?" Joseph asked. "Or – you can't?"

Doddering nodded at something across the room – the door to the courtyard, Joseph saw, tracking his gaze. A basketball hoop was in the courtyard. Beyond it was the parking lot. Joseph looked back at Doddering, questioningly.

"What I can tell you is to go," Doddering told him. "Go on out there. Go on out into the whole world beyond this place and this time, and me. Go live your life. Be who you're supposed to be, and don't let me or your... or anybody slow you down."

Joseph stood again, feeling a compulsion to get outside, into the cool springtime air.

"You're gonna find out you're not any better than the rest of us," Doddering called after him.

It was a familiar sort of insult, but there was a smile in Doddering's voice.

***

Joseph stood in the springtime sun in the basketball court. There were still fifteen minutes left to lunch break. He didn't feel like dealing with any of the other students; he didn't feel like dealing with Mrs. Hagenau or Mr. Martindale, whom he'd glimpsed cruising among the tables on the far side of the room like a shark. What he wanted was to be his own sixty-three-year-old self again, without having to repeat all the intervening years.

Especially not the next four months, some of the most brutal he'd endured before leaving that house and those people he lived with. They had screwed him out of his financial aid his second year in college, claiming him as a dependent when in fact he had never gone back to live with them and they had barely paid the required "family contribution" that his financial package required. Luckily, his scholarships hadn't been affected by their antics, but the situation still put him deeper into debt.

That was more than a year from now, though. Joseph wondered if there was some way to prevail on his mother and stepfather this time around and avoid going through that same loss.

No, he thought, screw it. Let them do what they wanted. Their dishonesty had cost him, but the sheer need they had thrust him into had ignited his passion and determination and he had worked extra hard at his student job, plus a cleaning gig on weekends, to pay off everything he owed the college at the very start of senior year. All he'd had to conquer then were his student loans, but the same determination carried hm through a decade of loan repayments, too.

Assuming this was really happening, of course. Assuming he didn't wake up in a minute or two and realize this was a dream, or else everything didn't simply go black because in reality he was an old man lying on his death bed, senile, trapped in his own memories.

Joseph leaned back against the wall, which was of yellow brick. The wall was warm, and the sun made his closed eyelids into deep red screens against which he could imagine all sorts of visions.

"Christ," he sighed. "This is like an episode of..." What had that show been called? The science fiction show where strange things happened every week? "The Boundary." "The Border." Something like that. "Trapped in my own life," he said aloud. How utterly terrifying was that?

"Life's not perfect, but it's not supposed to be," someone said.

Petra?

Joseph opened his eyes and blinked. It wasn't Petra. It was Mrs. Lucy.

"Hi, Mrs. Lucy," he said.

"You know, some people invest in the principle that we all do our best in each moment, even if our best sometimes isn't very good," Miss Lucy said.

"Is that so? I hadn't heard that one."

"Some people also invest in the idea that forgiveness isn't really about letting someone else off the hook, but rather it's about allowing yourself to move forward."

"Let bygones be bygones? How I'd love that," Joseph sighed. "I can't wait for all of this to be bygone."

"What do you mean?"

Joseph laughed. There was no way to explain it to her. "I just mean I'm not very comfortable being young. I'll be happier when I'm... god, probably not until I'm forty."

"Don't be in a hurry to get through your youth," Mrs. Lucy said. "It will be gone before you know it." She smiled. "Look at me."

"Ah, Mrs. Lucy, you're plenty young," he said. It was true; to him, she seemed like a kid, despite her graying hair. She was still fresh-faced and lively; he thought she was barely into her forties. Maybe not even that old.

Joseph smiled at her, trying to communicate through his expression and his body language that he was another adult, a peer, not some kid. Then, in a quiet, confidential way, he asked: "Is this real?"

He expected her to shrug or laugh. But she simply said, "It's as real as it needs to be."

"So..." Joseph couldn't think of what to say next. Then: "Why does everyone call you Mrs. Lucy?" he asked. "Is that your last name? Or your first name?"

"Actually," she told him, "I don't know."

"You don't?"

She chuckled. "I'm not Mrs. Lucy."

"You're not?" He frowned. "Wait, did I get you mixed up with the other women in the front office? Mrs. Capalbat or something?"

"Like you said, this isn't real," Mrs. Lucy said. "This isn't high school. You're not really living through this time again. Well, you are, but... not by having gone back into time."

"I'm... I'm not?" Thank you, Jesus," he thought.

"No, Mr. Mercato, you're not."

"I don't have to live through my whole life again?" Joseph braced himself to hear his suspicion confirmed: He was an old man, an old man with a fading mind, bedridden and still holding on to youthful grudges... nothing, at the end, but another petty, emotionally under-developed head case, a lost soul...

Mrs. Lucy was laughing at his question. "Live your whole life over! Such a horror that would be! It's a problem plenty of people wouldn't mind. But no. You don't. You won't. Not once you forgive him."

"Who? Doddering?"

"You know, it was your letters and your urging other alumni from your class to speak up that got him fired. He had a hard life for a long time because of it."

Joseph didn't recall writing any letters.

"He was going to commit suicide at one point," Miss Lucy said. "At many points, actually, most recently when he got a diagnosis of terminal cancer. But that's where we came in."

"What do you mean?" Joseph asked. "Who are you?"

"We're Purgatory."

"Purgatory? As in, the Catholic thing, the not-quite-Hell?"

"Not at all," Mrs. Lucy said. "Nothing spiritual. We're... Oh my, you're still very deep into this, aren't you?"

"Into what?"

"We've put you into a simulated dream state. And Mr. Doddering, as well."

"I'm sorry, but what?"

"You're dreaming. So was he. You were sharing a dream."

"What? Why?"

"Mr. Doddering converted to Digivangelism. He believes, as do all Digivanglists, that the Global Datacloud is Heaven, and that God always intended human beings to evolve to this point of technological capability. He believes that AIs are the true angels. And because his body was dying of cancer, and he wanted to go to the Cloud in a state of grace, he asked us to help him make amends... or at least, make peace with the people he felt he had hurt in his life."

"So what does that have to do with me?"

"Obviously..."

"I mean, even if he thinks he needs to patch things up with me, why am I involved? Did I agree to this?"

"Of course you did. When we approached you about it, you said he could go to Hell. Which is pretty funny, since the whole idea of Purgatory is..."

"Haha," Joseph said. "No. It's not funny at all."

"But it is," Mrs. Lucy said brightly. "Purgatory isn't about paying for your sins. It's about purging yourself of emotional baggage. Resentments. Unresolved anger. Grudges."

"And I agreed to this?"

"You did. Well, once we sweetened the deal. You know, you've had problems with male authority figures your entire life, Mr. Doddering being only one example. If all goes back to your father."

"How Freudian."

"You wanted to free yourself of that," Mrs. Lucy said.

"So why don't I remember any of this?" Joseph asked. "Why don't I remember agreeing to...?"

"Because if you came into the experience remembering what it is, that would take you out of the experience. For many people, forgetting the true nature of the experience is the only way they avoid lapsing into a performative state of mind, acting like it's all a game or a charade. You have to believe in the illusion of being in your own earlier self for there to be a therapeutic value."

"So this mind fuck was his idea, and I agreed to it because you... sweetened the deal? How?"

"You wanted to resolve not only your resentment toward Mr. Doddering, but toward your parents as well."

"Right. My father. Wellspring of all my woes."

"Your mother, too. And your stepfather."

"And have I?"

"That's the next segment of your experience. We're leaving this setting now to go to the next. And in a few hours we'll have this same conversation as I guide you out of that immersive experience and back to your real life."

"And I'll be... what, cured?"

"That's up to you. Is that what you want?"

"Christ," Joseph sighed. "More psychobabble."

"You've expressed skepticism every step of the way, and yet – here we are."

"In 'Purgatory.' Right," Joseph said.

Mrs. Lucy held out a hand. "Are you ready for the next part?"

"I don't think so." Joseph hesitated. "What about Mr. Doddering? Did he get what he wanted?"

"He's now in the Cloud," Mrs. Lucy said.

"What, just like that?"

"Six hours ago. Your experience of time is different here."

"Really? So... is this a really long day for you? Or have you gone home, had a nice evening, come back, and now you're picking up where you left off?"

"No, Mr. Mercato, I've never left," Mrs. Lucy said. "I've been supervising the entire time. I'm an AI."

"An angel." Joseph smiled. Then he asked, "How long will this next part take?"

"Three or four minutes subjective time. Your conversations with Mr. Doddering was like an ordinary dream, operating more or less in real time. It's the AI interface – what we're doing right now – that twists your experience of time."

Joseph stared at her.

Mrs. Lucy smiled. She held out her hand again. "And now. If you're ready?"

Joseph sighed. "Sure. What the hell. I mean... yeah, let's get this done."

Next week we awaken alongside Russell Brayce at a safe house for women where his own mother has taken refuge. What has driven her here? And why has he been brought to join her? It's a story with existential ramifications for Russell when he turns out to be "Your Witness."