Soul Mates (5 page)

Tyler’s anxiety was dwindling still, as he lay awake staring at the DC Comics poster across from his bed. 

“It’s done Superman. I didn’t want to, but what’s done is done,” he justified to the empty room, well, actually to a two-dimensional Superman. Of course, Superman didn’t answer him. But he didn’t have to, did he? He was familiar enough with the Man of Steel to know his position. You made your bed, little buddy; now you have to lie in it. And that’s what he was doing, quite literally. He was starting to find it easier and easier to drift off to sleep, but there was an unrelenting nagging in his head. It was akin to that scratch at the roof of your mouth that doesn’t heal or that piece of apple skin caught between your teeth that you can’t stop trying to jar loose with your tongue. It was Lilith. 

He couldn’t get her out of his mind since the kiss, and lying quietly in bed where many people on this planet do a lot of their thinking, a lot of their 
deep
 thinking, why, she was front and center in Tyler’s mind’s-eye, demanding his attention before sleep finally took him. This would be something he would need to get used to.      

Chapter 7

It was Tuesday, which also meant that it was test-day in Mr. Colabza’s seventh grade social studies class. Tyler typically looked forward to this class because he thought that Mr. Colabza was a great teacher. He supposed that anyone could simply read from a textbook and spew out the information in front of a class full of brats, but a 
teache
r
–
a 
good
 teache
r–
will make the material relatable to the students and even get them motivated to receive the material. Tyler wasn’t exactly a history buff. That is to say he liked it as much as the average student, which was not that much, but he had always done well in Mr. Colabza’s class because it was fun and interesting.

Jim Colabza played college basketball and was Alan B. Shepard’s School District’s best basketball coach, and in these contemporary times the fact that he was a homosexual, if anything, helped him more than hurt him. It was almost the hallmark of celebrity, believe it or not.

He was scouted when he played in high school, but he hurt his knee during a game and it had never been the same since. All of his friends and family thought that despite the fact that such an opportunity had been taken away from the man in the prime of his life, or just about his prime, that he had a wonderful attitude that he applied to daily living. He had always expressed to his family that if basketball didn’t work out for him, that teaching would become his plan “B”, albeit a much less glamorous plan “B.”  

When that momentous day finally 
did
 arrive, and Jim Colabza quit playing basketball competitively because of his knee, he was already in college working prudently towards his certification in History and Secondary Education. Some argue that by giving yourself an ou
t,
in Jim Colabza’s case teaching was his ou
t,
just in case you fall just shy of achieving your dream, that you’re doing yourself a disservice when it came to how much effort you put forth. The thought being, if it’s not all or nothing, then you hold back some effort. That was not the case with Jim, and it was a good thing that he backed up his future. 

During his final game, a teammate, vying for the same lay-up, came down hard on Jim’s leg and grossly hyperextended it for him. People that were there swore that you could hear his knee explode from across the gym.

For the previous two decades, Jim Colabza was the name you’d hear recommended by older students who told their younger sibling in whose class they better hope to be. The tradition of the student creating his or her Teacher Wish List during their summer vacation would carry on well after the man retired, and his name would be perched right at the top looking down at the rest until that day finally came. He certainly was placed at the top of Tyler’s Teacher Wish List, not that he had any siblings to tell him about Mr. Colabza, but his cousin Marty had him two years prior and sang his praises unconstrained. Now, Tyler was happy to be part of his class. He was absolutely 
buzzing
 when he found out, as the kids say. Yes, Tyler thought that the 2014 school year was going to be a good one, and it was, for a while. 

This particular Tuesday, however, on the school bus, he was deep in thought about his new woman, Lilith, (when was the last time he wasn’t thinking about her?) and forgot to use his school bus ride to look over some notes for his social studies test; but that was ok, wasn’t it? Tyler required little studying for classes that he enjoyed attending. The enjoyment he would get from his fun classes and the material he learned were not mutually exclusive. This made his lessons fond recollections rather than tedious lectures; hence, they stuck with him. Think of it like watching a movie: A typical person can watch a movie and tell you what it was about even a week after they watched it. It was the same principle with classes that Tyler found exciting. Ray and Cindy Swanson were shocked on more than one occasion when Tyler would fire a correct answer out while his parents partook in their nightly 7pm JEOPARDY ritual. So, Mr. Colabza was very surprised when he observed Tyler from his desk staring off into space while the test was being administered. It was as if Tyler didn’t even have a clue that the test was in front of him. 

Forty minutes came and went, and when Mr. Colabza told everyone to put their pencils down and to pass the ScanTron answer sheets to the front of each row, Tyler looked down saw that his answer sheet was empty, save for his name and the date. It was blank and he 
saw
 that it was blank, but it didn’t really phase him…not now. He was too preoccupied with thoughts of how Lilith’s warm moist, almost cakey (as odd as that sounds) lips felt pressed against his and wondered what else there was to it. What else was he was missing out on?

The resounding peal of the class-bell erupted and students were getting up from their desks and exiting the classroom. As Tyler was gathering his books and knapsack, Mr. Colabza approached him with a slight limp, which he would have for the rest of his stay on Mother Earth, and a look of genuine concern on his face. 

“Hey, Ty; do you have a couple of minutes?” Mr. Colabza asked.

“Um, I don’t know, Mr. Colabza, if I’m late for my next class, Mrs. Westerfield won’t let me into the classroom and I’ll have to go to the office,” Tyler explained.

His teacher didn’t say anything, he just turned and casually limp-walked over to his desk, opened the top drawer and brought out a pad of pink late passes and held it up in plain view as if he were an attorney presenting evidence for the big trial.

“Late pass,” Mr. Colabza said with a smile.

“Touche`” is what Tyler
wanted
 to say, but he wasn’t 100 percent sure if he would be using it correctly, so, what came out instead was, “Oh, ok; sure.”

“Great,” Mr. Colabza said as he tore a late pass from its pad, picked up the pile of ScanTron answer sheets and gingerly walked back over to Tyler’s desk, leaning on other desks for support as he came. 

“So, Ty, I was watching you during the test today,” he started. Tyler looked down with shame.

“I know, I know. I jus
t–
” Tyler began.

“What happened, Ty? Is everything ok?”

“Here or home?” Tyler asked, but he didn’t really know why.

“Either. It doesn’t matter. If you’re having a problem, I want to help you, and I want you to know that I am someone you can come to,” his teacher comforted. Tyler wanted to cry at the compassion his teacher was showing.

“No, no; nothing like that. I’m fine, really. Just that today, I don’t know, I-I just couldn’t focus.”

“I know, Ty, but there are a couple of things that concern me here: First, you didn’t answer 
any
 of the questions on the test. I mean, I could understand not knowing some of the harder questions like “what date did World War II end? O
r–
”

“September 2nd, 1945,” Tyler interrupted…he couldn’t help it.

“See!?” Jim Colabza smacked the top of the desk, “you’re one of my best students, if not THE best student in the class. You know answers to hard questions like that, but today you wrote absolutely 
nothing
 on your answer key? That trips some alarms with me, Ty. It concerns me and I understand that everyone has a bad day, I get that, but you didn’t get any questions correct on the pop quiz I gave last Friday either, and I 
know
 you knew about that stuff. You brought in some amazing medals your grandfather had given you from World War II and told us all about his battle regiment.”

“Yeah,” Tyler said lethargically. 

“You’re obviously familiar with the subject matter. So why didn’t you answer those questions either?” Mr. Colabza asked, hands to his sides now that he was done gesticulating.

Tyler didn’t like this line of questioning. He liked the playful and funny Mr. Colabza much better, but even in his juvenile yet, mature mind, he understood it was coming from a place of sincere concern and he appreciated that very much. Even though he appreciated the concern, he longed for the button that he could push that would instantly turn 
this
 Mr. Colabza into the Mr. Colabza that chauvinistically joked with the females in the class, but never got a single complaint about it from the students themselves or their parents. A classic example of this, which actually happened the previous week, would be when he compared the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox to the allied and axis powers in World War II. After he began his oration, he would stop mid-sentence and address the females, saying, “Now, girls, just so that you’re aware, the Yankees and the Red Sox are major league baseball teams,” with what students would describe as a “shit-eating grin” on his face when they told their friends later that day. This was a line that wouldn’t only get a big laugh from the boys in the room, but from the girls as well. They knew where it was coming from; a harmless place. It was also a line that would’ve gotten 99 percent of the other teachers into hot water in our modern age. The contemporary United States is inhabited by a collection of finger-pointers and tattle-tails just waiting to catch their fellow man in another folly, regardless of how minor, so that they can call for his or her head on a pike. 

“I know, Mr. Colabza. Nothing’s wrong though; I promise. I just kinda have a girl on my mind. That’s all,” Tyler confided while looking 
anywhere
 but at his teacher.

Mr. Colabza sat on the desk and folded his arms directly in front of Tyler with the satisfied look of a detective who finally cracked his suspect after hours of interrogation and finally got his confession. Book ‘em Dan-o!

“Ah, I
 knew
 it was something important,” Mr. Colabza smiled free of sarcasm. Tyler smiled back, but it was an uncomfortable smile. It was the type of smile that a child would wear while hiding behind their mother’s leg after being told that they were “just the cutest thing” by a complete stranger in a grocery store.

“Anyone I might know?” Mr. Colabza gossiped.

“Well, she’s a couple of years older. She goes to the high school.”

Now, the high school and the middle school were essentially the same building at the Alan B. Shepard School District, but they were in completely separate wings, and those wings were separated by a lon
g 
hallway which was always patrolled by an ardent hall monitor, Mrs. Darling, who was anything but. No one listened to her at home (especially her husband), so, by God, they damn well better liste
n 
to her here!

“If I guess correctly, will you tell me?” Mr. Colabza asked. Tyler just shrugged his shoulders, but the message was clear: take your best shot, Teach.

“Is it that ninth-grader, Lilith?” he asked, not without a shred of apprehension in his voice. Not much, mind you, but it was there for the trained ear to hone in on. Tyler was not surprised that his teacher had guessed correctly because Tyler would spend every minute he was allowed (when the high school and middle school students intertwined as the buses dropped the kids off at school and when they lined up to take them home) with Lilith. He had assumed that some people would have taken notice, he supposed. Not that he was hiding it. As a matter of fact, he 
wanted
 people to see. 
Tyler Swanson, just hanging out with older ladies…no big deal, boys. Let me show you how it’s done
. Even though Tyler had all of this going on in his head, and knew who he had his eyes on was painfully obvious to any onlooker, that didn’t strip him completely of his astonishment at his teacher’s guess.