High school graduation is one of those times when a school celebrates itself. It's the culminating activity of thirteen years of work and play for the graduates, but it's also a bringing together of parents, families, friends, and community members to send the graduates into the world. For me, it's always bitter sweet. I've been involved with high schools and high school students for twenty-seven years, first as an English teacher and then as an administrator. A lot of people think adolescents should be warehoused somewhere when they turn thirteen and released to the world when they turn twenty-one. Those people have probably never known the joy and the love of kids. They've never experienced the excitement of watching a kid succeed in a sports contest or on a stage or in a band or chorus concert. They haven't sat in classrooms where kids were fully engaged in learning, challenging their teacher with questions, demanding support and proof for a theory or argument, arguing a point passionately, getting a complicated problem right at the chalkboard. Those are people who have never hugged a boy or girl through an emotional crisis, from something as seemingly insignificant as not getting a starting position on the basketball team to something as life altering as an unwanted pregnancy. They don't know about the courage of a gay kid coming out to teammates and friends or about the generosity of kids working all weekend to raise money for homeless people or about the sorrow of kids losing one of their own in a suicide. They haven't seen the determination of the scrawny freshman who spends endless hours in the weight room hoping to add to his bulk, or the pride on his face when the new measurements show he's accomplishing what he set out to do. In other words, they don't know kids. I think about that kind of thing every year at graduation. It makes me proud to know we've done our job, with most of the ones who come our way, at least, but it also makes me sad to think about saying goodbye to the men and women (for that's indeed what they are by the time they graduate) that I have gotten to know and love for four years. Every graduating class has a unique personality, a unique character that evolves through the years. Sometimes an event, like winning a state championship or the World Trade Center tragedy, shapes the character of a class. More often, though, it's a handful of students who exert such force through their individual personalities and characters that the rest of the class begins to reflect their values. This year, the personality and character of the senior class was shaped by Kyle Goodson, and by Philip Andrews, to a lesser extent. The Goodson and Andrews families have been prominent in Emerald Beach as long as there has been an Emerald Beach, probably. The boys' great-great-grandparents were among the original settlers of the area. Kyle's family were originally fishermen, as so many of the early settlers were, and it was his great-grandfather's idea to buy huge tracks of beach property at $2.50 an acre. Local legend has it that he was mocked and ridiculed by other businessmen for buying useless land. The theory back then was that if a plot of land couldn't grow a crop, it was useless. Over the years, the Goodsons had parlayed Great-Grandfather Goodson's foolishness into an empire. The wonder was that Kyle didn't have a bunch of cousins to share it all with. But he didn't. He was the sole heir to the whole thing. I didn't know quite as much about the Andrews family as I did about the Goodsons, but they had been successful real estate brokers and developers for a very long time. They didn't have as much money as the Goodsons because virtually nobody did, but they had a lot. Philip and Kyle were best friends and had been since they were little boys, which is not all that amazing, given their family histories. They had been avid Boy Scouts, hunters, fishermen, and sports enthusiasts, especially for the sport of surfing. Neither boy had played on any sports teams after their sophomore year, but they were generally classified as jocks, nevertheless. The most interesting thing about those two, though, was that they were both gay. They each had a boyfriend. Kyle's boyfriend was Tim Murphy, who will probably be next year's valedictorian, and Philip's boyfriend was Ryan Pettis, another senior, also from a well-known family. Those four boys formed the core of a very visible, but by no means activist, group of gays and lesbians in the student body. All four were completely out, and all four seemed to have the respect and affection of the vast majority of the kids and teachers. I was sitting in my office the day of graduation, working on my remarks for that evening and thinking about those ideas, when an email noticed popped on the screen of my computer. I had thought about turning off the "notify" function many times because I found it annoying, but that day I was glad I hadn't done that. The email was from the Florida Department of Education, and the subject line was "School Grades." I opened it immediately. The email was only a link to a Web site where the actual communication was displayed. I clicked on the link in an instant, and I waited while my computer opened Acrobat Reader so I could see the memo. The memo said that school grades for the current school year had been posted to yet another Web site, and it gave the link to the site. My, God, I thought. They really make you dig to get information. I went to the link for our district and held my breath. I clicked on it and waited impatiently for the site to open. When it did, my eyes focused immediately on Beachside High School. We had gotten our A! "Thank you, Jesus," I whispered. My heart was pounding in my chest. I immediately felt relief, vindication, and a sense of triumph. The kids and teachers of Beachside High School had done it! They had put us in the most exclusive club for high schools in the state of Florida. My first impulse was to run to the PA system and tell the school. "No, I'll announce it tonight at graduation," I said aloud. "God, I hope the media don't get this first. What if they do? Surely they will. That's what happened last year. Everybody knew it before I did." Before I could decide what I was going to do, the phone rang. The blinking light told me it was on my private line. "Beachside High School, Sally Ortega, speaking." "Mrs. Ortega, please hold for the Superintendent," the voice said. "Sally. It's Bill Levi. Congratulations!" he said. "Hi, Bill. Thank you, sir," I said in reply. "You said you were going to do it, and, by God, you did. Next year every high school and middle school in the district will be using your mentoring program. That was a brilliant idea, Sally, and it paid off," he said. "I wish I could take credit for the idea, but it actually came from my SGA president, Kyle Goodson," I said. "Goodson? Why does that name sound familiar?" he asked. Dr. Levi had only been in the district a couple of years, so he probably wasn't as up on the local notables as I was. "His family is very prominent in the community. His father is president of the Foundation Board of Directors at the college. Maybe you met him in connection with something related to that," I said. "Yes. George? Gene? something like that, right?" "It's Gene. Gene Goodson." "I want you to introduce me to young Goodson tonight at graduation. I take it he's a good boy," Dr. Levi said. "One of the best. By the way, I noticed two other high schools made B's this year, and all the rest stayed at C," I said. "Yes. I'm pleased. We have two D's, though, this year. Two elementary schools. One had been a C last year but a D for a couple of years before that. The other one had been teetering between C and D since they started this school grading. No F's, thank God. Well, I need to run. I called you first, but I want to call the principals of the other A's. You don't happen to know how many A high schools there were in the state, do you?" he asked. "No. I want to find that out, though, before I announce it to the school. I'm sure it's on the Web site somewhere. Anyway, thanks for calling, Bill. I'll see you tonight at graduation." I did some exploring, and I found the place where they gave the number of schools that got each grade. Altogether, there were only seventeen high schools in the state that got A's, and most of them were in central and south Florida. We were the only one in the Panhandle, from Jacksonville to Pensacola. I waited until the end of the period to make the announcement. When I told the school what our grade was, the kids cheered like we had just won the state championship in football. It was truly an impressive sound. I wasn't back in my office more than five minutes when there was a knock on my door. "Come in," I said. It was Kyle Goodson, grinning so hard I thought his cheeks would split open. He came toward me, grabbed me in a huge hug, lifted me off the floor, and twirled me around. He and I were both laughing hard. "We did it," he said. "News travels fast," I said. "Tim called me on my cell phone. I was on my way to the grocery store," he said. As a senior, Kyle had been out of school all that week. He hadn't heard me make the announcement, but it was obviously one he was very interested in. "We need to get tee shirts made for tonight. SGA can sell them at graduation. We'll make a damn fortune," he said. I ignored the "damn," as I often did with kids when they were as excited about something as he was. "How can you get tee shirts made that fast?" I asked. "Don't worry about that. It can happen. It's only ten o'clock. We've got all day. What do you think? Marlin blue with white letters? I think silver would look better, but that would take longer and be more expensive to make. We can sell 'em for fifteen bucks apiece. Every kid in school will want one, starting tomorrow, but I can probably only get about 500 for tonight," he said. "You're amazing," I said. "Naw. I just know the right people," he said. "Well, you better get going," I said. "Do you need any help?" "We're going to need somebody to handle the actual sales tonight. Probably several people." Before I knew what was happening, he had his phone out and was dialing a number. "Joey, this is Kyle. Come up to the office right now," he said. "Did you just talk to Joey Constanza?" I asked. "Yes, ma'am. He needs to be in on this. I ain't president anymore. He is," Kyle said. "He has a cell phone in class with him right now?" I asked. "Yeah, but it's on vibrate. It's not on ring. I didn't disturb the class, and he didn't say a word." I decided to pretend that little episode hadn't occurred. Joey was in the office in a couple of minutes on a restroom pass. I was learning quite a bit about how things really worked around my school. Kyle told Joey about the tee shirts, and Joey thought it was a great idea. "Can the other officers and I check out to help Kyle?" Joey asked. "What about class?" I asked. "They're just reviewing for exams, and I'm exempt in all but the class I have first period," Joey said. "Everybody else is fully exempt, I think." "Let's make it just you and the two vice presidents. Not the rest of them," I said. "Call your parents to make sure it's okay for you to check out." "They need school leave, not check out," Kyle said. "If they check out, they'll lose their exemptions." "Okay, I'll give them school leave, but I want their parents to give their okay," I said. As much as I love you, Kyle, I'm still the principal. Not you, I thought. The four kids, three boys and a girl, went off in search of tee shirts.
Getting the news of that school grade on graduation day was about the best thing that could have happened, especially since we got us an A. We were the first high school in the history of the county to get an A, and I felt really good it happened when I was a senior. The grade was based on some tests the freshmen and sophomores took in March, but I felt like the juniors and seniors had contributed, too, since we had been the mentors of those younger kids. "Philip, it's Kyle. What are you doing?" I asked when I called him. "Ryan's got my dick in his mouth right now, and I'm fixing to come," he said. "What the hell do you want?" "For real?" Philip tried to muffle the phone, but I heard him and Ryan laughing their asses off. That wasn't really what they were doing. "Okay, you got me last, asshole. Here's the deal," I said, and I told him about the grade and about getting the shirts ready. I told him to meet us at the Goodson Enterprises warehouse, double time. Every one of our gift shops had tee shirt machines that could custom print a tee shirt for a tourist while they waited. It took about five minutes per shirt, once the design was set up. What we were going to do is get the shirts from the warehouse and take them to the various gift shops to have them printed. I didn't know how many "Marlin blue" shirts they had there, but I figured we could use plain white ones with blue letters, if we had to. I called Rick to check it out to make sure it was all right for us to do that. He gave me his usual shit about me thinking he was at my beck and call and so on, but I knew he was just teasing me. That's what he did. If he ever stopped teasing me, I would know I was in trouble. They bought tee shirts by the gross, which was a dozen dozen, or 144. They had three gross in a color that was pretty close to "Marlin blue," and I took every one of them. That was 432 tee shirts. "What are they going to say?" Marlene, the new second vice president asked. "I don't know? What do you think? It shouldn't be too much," I said. "What about just 'Beachside' on one line and a big 'A+' under that?" Joey said. "That works for me," I said. "What about y'all?" The rest of them thought that was good. It was more the thought that mattered, anyway. That wouldn't cost all that much to do, either, and we'd make more profit. The SGA was going to have to pay Rick for the shirts and for the printing, but that wouldn't be more than about five dollars per shirt at the wholesale price. If we sold them for fifteen, we'd make a cool ten bucks on every shirt. Everybody except Philip and Ryan was in their own car, so we divided up the shirts five ways to take them to the gift shops. "Drop 'em off and then go on to the next shop," I said. "If anybody doesn't believe you or has a problem with the deal, tell them to call Rick Mashburn at company headquarters. And make sure they spell Beachside right. Some of the people working in these gift shops ain't all that smart." I went to the first shop I was supposed to go to, and I waited for the lady to make a shirt. I took off the shirt I was wearing right there in the store and put the new one on. It really felt good. I waited for her to make a few more so I could give them to Tim, Brian, Ron, and Denny at lunch, and then I took off to my next stop. When I got to the Starfish, most of the rest of them were already there. I had told Tim I was probably going to come for lunch but not to wait on me, in case something came up. When I walked in wearing that tee shirt, they all started clapping. I gave the shirts I had brought to my brothers, and they all changed into them right there. Some of the other people in the place were staring at four boys taking their shirts off right there at the dinner table, but I figured it was their problem, not ours. In a minute, Philip, Ryan, Joey, Marlene, and David showed up, and they were all sporting new tee shirts, too. It was like we had all had the very same idea. The Sullivans had put on a big feast the Friday before because that was the last day of school for the seniors. They had another big one set out that day, too, because it was the last full day of school for the rest. They had exams on Thursday and Friday, but those were half days. A good many of the people who ate there regularly were exempt from exams anyway, so that was really the last day for school lunch for that school year. "Hi, everybody," Mom Sullivan said when she came to the table. "Why the shirts?" We told her about the school grade. "Oh, my! That's really something to be proud of, isn't it?" "Yes, ma'am. Only seventeen in the state, and we're the only one in the Panhandle," I said. "Well, make sure you eat plenty of dessert to celebrate," she said. The food was wonderful, as usual, and after lunch the tee shirt patrol went back out to collect up the goods. The second place I went the man told me he needed money. "We're going to pay for all of them at one time with a purchase order," I said. "I'm sorry, but I've got to see some money before I can let you have these shirts," he said. "Sir, this is a school project for Beachside High School, and we're going to take care of it with a single purchase order from the school. Actually, from the Student Government Association," I said. "Sorry, but that's the way it's going to be. We've done stuff like that before, but we've always had the PO before we release the merchandise," he said. "Would you mind calling Rick to talk to him about this?" I asked. I was ever so careful to be polite and calm about it, but he was starting to tick me off. "Rick who?" he asked. "Sorry. Rick Mashburn," I said. "Never heard of him," the guy said. You never heard of Rick fucking Mashburn? I thought. Who do you think you work for? "You know what Goodson Enterprises is, right?" I said. "I should. They give me a paycheck every two weeks," he said. Not for long, I thought. "Okay. Rick Mashburn is the Executive Vice President of Goodson Enterprises who is in charge of the gift shops. He okayed this project, and he's the one who can tell you it's all right to give me the shirts," I said. "How do I get in touch with him?" he asked. Use your damn jungle drums, I thought. "Just give him a phone call. Here, you can use my phone," I said. I hit the speed dial button for Rick's number, and I handed the man my phone. He got through to Rick and told him what I wanted. Then he listened. "He said not to give you those shirts under any circumstances unless you pay for them," the man said. "What!? Let me see that phone, please," I said. I had never in my life had indigestion, but that was going to be the day, I thought. "Rick, this is Kyle," I said. "Kyle who?" Oh, shit! I thought. He had me on speaker, and there was no telling who was in that fucking office with him. "Rick, let's don't play games, okay? Please tell the man it's okay to give me the shirts and that we'll pay for it with a purchase order from school," I said. "I don't know what you're talking about," Rick said. I heard what I thought was my daddy's voice in the background laughing his ass off. "You're wasting my valuable time. Either pay for the shirts or get out of there. I'm hanging up now," he said, and he hung up the damn phone. "There's a big misunderstanding here, so I'll just pay for the shirts so I can get on my way," I told the man. I knew I'd never see that money again. We were breaking about ten rules as it was by not having a PO ahead of time, and I knew that they would never in a hundred years reimburse me for paying for them. I handed the man my American Express card, and he went behind the counter to run it through. In a second, he handed it back to me. "I'm sorry, but it says this card is no good," he said. "How can that be? I just used it to pay for lunch," I said. "I don't know, but it won't take it. Do you have another card?" "Yes, sir. Just a second," I said. I dug my wallet out of my pocket and gave him my Visa card. He ran that one through the machine, too. "I'm afraid you're out of luck on this one, as well," he said. I knew that was wrong. "I think you must have a problem with your machine," I said. "It worked fine all morning," he said. "Do you have cash?" "Sure," I said. I pulled my wallet out again to get cash. I had forty-three dollars. "How much is it?" I asked. "How much have you got?" he asked in return. "All I have is forty-three," I said. "It's fifty-three," he said. "Then I don't have quite enough, do I?" I said. "I'm ten dollars short." "Well, let me see if I can help you out," he said. He took out his own wallet. I couldn't believe he was going to give me ten bucks. He didn't take out any money, though. Instead, he took out a folded up piece of paper and handed it to me. I opened the paper up, and it said, "GOT YOU LAST!" When I looked back at the man, he had the biggest damn grin on his face that I had ever seen. "Rick called here right after you dropped off the shirts, and we set this up, Kyle," he said. I was too stunned to react. Then I hit Rick's number on my phone. "You prick! You asshole!" I screamed when he answered the phone. I knew he had me on the speaker phone, and I heard what sounded like a roomful of people laughing hard. "Say it," Rick said. That's when it finally hit me how funny it was, and I laughed. "All right. You got me last big time," I said. They all laughed again. "Son, you're going to have quite a bit to remember about this day," my dad said. "Yes, sir, I will," I said. "Were you and Kevin in on this from the start?" "Absolutely," he said. "Well, it was a good one, Daddy, that's for sure," I said. "You're a good sport, Kyle. Never lose that quality, son. That will serve you well in life," he said. "Yes, sir," I said. "Daddy, I need to go. I'm a little behind as it is. I'll see you tonight. I love you." "I love you, too, son," he said, and then we hung up. "You're a damn good actor, man," I said to the store guy. "Thanks. So are you. I saw Grease," he said. We shook hands, and I went on about my business. * * * It took the better part of the afternoon for me to get those shirts organized. When I got home, every one of them was there waiting for me. I wasn't going to say anything about what they had done to me. "That's a real nice shirt, Kyle," Kevin said when I had sat down. "Thank you," I said. "Were you able to get all of them done?" Rick asked. "Yes, I was," I said. I looked around the room, and they all had grins the size of the Grand Canyon on their faces. They knew. "Do you have people in charge of selling them tonight?" Kevin asked. "Yes, I do," I said. "Is there any coffee made?" "We haven't made any," Tim said. "I'll make a pot," I said. When I went into the kitchen, I heard them all screaming their heads off laughing. I was not going to give in, though. I made the coffee, and I dug around in the refrigerator to see what there was to eat. I didn't find anything in there that I wanted, but I found some doughnuts in a box on the counter. I ate three or four of those while I waited for the coffee to brew. I poured myself a cup when it was ready, fixed it how I liked it, and went back to the den. When I got back in there, they were all dead quiet. I looked from face to face, and I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. And they all started laughing, too. "I don't think anybody will ever be able to top that one," I said. "Who's idea was it?" "Who do you think?" Rick asked. "It was yours. It had to be," I said. He laughed. "A lot of people have had a lot of fun with this today," Rick said. "Thanks, Kyle." "Don't mention it, ASSHOLE!" I said, and everybody screamed with laughter like I knew they would. * * * The graduation started at seven o'clock, but we had to be there at 5:30 so we could practice lining up and marching in one time. It was in the stadium on campus, and they had a stage set up in front of the north goal post. They put it there so it would be out of the sun when it was setting. There was a special seating section for the faculty, and they had chairs set up on the field for the graduates. I was going to be seated on stage, along with the dignitaries from the district headquarters, the valedictorian and salutatorian, a couple of people who were going to sing, and the kids who were going to be helping with the diplomas. Tim was helping. The band was there in their summer uniforms, which were just blue shorts and white tee shirts with the school logo on them. Joey and his bunch had tables set up to sell shirts, and I noticed they were going like hotcakes. People started putting them on over their gowns, and I went ahead and bought myself one so I could do that, too. I figured they might make us take them off, but I wanted one just in case they didn't. The senior class sponsor was in charge of graduation, and she had it very well organized. She told us what was going to happen, and she explained how we were supposed to line up. We each had an index card with our name typed on it. We had to hand that to the teacher who would be calling out names just before we walked across the stage to get our diplomas from the Superintendent and Miss Sally. We practiced it once, and it went like clockwork. "Are you nervous?" Philip asked me. "A little bit. Are you?" "I'm more excited than I am nervous," he said. "They love the shirts, man. That was a great idea." "Yeah, they seem to. Thanks," I said. "I'm going to go catch a smoke before this thing starts. You want one?" he asked. "Naw, that's all right," I said. "Good luck with your speech, buddy," he said, and then he walked off to where some other people were smoking. What are they going to do, kick them out now? I thought. I went over my speech in my mind for a little while, and I was satisfied I would do okay. Then they gave the signal for us to line up, and pretty soon we were marching in. They let us keep the tee shirts on over our gowns, and, even though I was hot, I was damn proud to be wearing it. The speeches were all very short, and that was a good thing. Miss Sally spoke a little longer than the rest of them, and hers was all about how wonderful our class was and about how proud of us she was and about how bad everybody was going to miss us. That kind of thing. Then she said, "For those of you who haven't yet heard, the Department of Education released the school grades today for the whole state. It is with great pride and satisfaction that I tell you that Beachside High School received the grade of A!" When she said that, the crowd went crazy. The band started into the school fight song, and everybody there was on their feet, clapping, cheering, and singing along. People on the stage were shaking hands and slapping backs and carrying on. I couldn't help myself. I got big ole happy tears in my eyes. I thought back to the summer before and to how charged up I was about academic achievement. Well, we had done it, and I was mighty happy. After the crowd had settled down, they started in on the diplomas. They did the Top Ten academic graduates first, and they stayed on stage as a group to take a bow. Then they called out the Hall of Fame people, and I was part of that group. We did the same thing with bowing and all, and then they called the rest of them up one by one. I timed it with my watch, and it took about eight seconds from the time somebody handed the teacher a card until that person was off the stage with a diploma cover in hand. You didn't get your real diploma on stage because they were afraid of a mix up. Instead, you got it after the ceremony in homeroom. The whole thing lasted an hour and twenty minutes. We threw our caps into the air at the end, when the Superintendent, "by the power invested in me by the Constitution of the State of Florida," pronounced us official graduates of Beachside High School. That was it. We didn't march out or anything. Instead, people came down onto the field from the bleachers, and we all milled around, taking pictures, saying goodbye and good luck to one another, hugging and crying. I picked up my diploma from my homeroom teacher and put it in the cover. I checked to make sure my name was spelled right, and it was. Everybody was driving over to our new house in Destin for a celebration, and Tim and I were staying there that night. I waited until everybody in my homeroom had picked up their diplomas. I told my homeroom teacher good night, and I thanked her for looking out for us for four years. "I'm going to miss you all so much, Kyle," she said. "I can't believe I have to start all over again with freshmen next year. Look at me. I'm a mess." Tears were streaming down her face, running that makeup. She hugged me tight, and then she kissed my cheek. "Good night and good luck. Don't be long here, okay?" "Yes, ma'am. Good night," I said. I walked out into the hallway, and it was empty. I walked down to where my old locker was, and it was empty, too. I looked around at all the familiar signs and pictures on the walls that I had seen every day for four years, and it was like I was seeing them for the first time. I stopped at the water cooler I had drunk out of a million times, and I got me one last taste of Beachside. And then I cried. I sobbed. I bawled. I just broke down. I must have stood there a good five minutes, just heaving. Tim came in looking for me. "Kyle, are you okay?" he asked. "I don't know, Babe. Why am I crying like this? I never even liked school," I said. "Why am I being so damn emotional?" "It's normal, Babe," he said. "Come on. Let's go. They're waiting for you to start life." The End
|