Push-Ups

The door of our classrom, for some reason, leads right out to the street. My third-year high school religion teacher, Mr. Ines, walked through this door today, right into our engineering class. He looks a lot like Bob Dylan on the cover of Highway 61 Revisited. Above anything else, it was his resemblance to Dylan that made me respect him. But today he was acting funny.

I thought it a bit strange to give a bunch of engineering seniors a religion class, but I figured that since this was Mr. Ines giving it, it was going to be interesting. He began his lecture without much ado, asking us to name things that caused people to lose electricity and writing our answers on the board. Clearly he was somehow going to relate all this talk about losing power to Christ, so we were in for one of his unorthodoxed but fascinating classes.

Someone cited a reason for power loss I didn't hear, something to do with power plant failures. I had been distracted because Jeneva had spilled water in my area, some of which got in my bag, and I had to wipe the mess up. When I got back to my seat, I saw that what Mr. Ines had written down on the board had nothing to do with power plant failures. He had written down one word, just one long word, one I'd never seen before, a word I've already forgotten. All I remember about this word is that it begins with an A.

I turned and asked Jon, who was seated behind and to the left of me, "What did he just write?"

Jon replied, "I don't know, what is that?"

Mr. Ines was clearly not pleased with our talking. He let his last sentence trail off and added, "...because Jon isn't listening."

At this, Mr. Ines angrily stepped out of the classroom and crossed the street. It was dark out now. He took a poster that was laying on the grass on the sidewalk across the street. I couldn't see the poster very well, but it was black and, judging by red-and-yellow lettering on it, it was an ad for either an old Curtis Mayfield album or the new one by Go-Kart Mozart. He ripped the poster up, letting the shreds fall where they might. He then walked over to the middle of the street where he started to do push-ups furiously, his face contorting with the effort and his rage.

And then suddenly, my alarm went off and I awoke to the closing strains of the Pumpkins' "Today."