One Week of Detention

A high school student doesn't deserve detention. Or at least he doesn't think so.

Monday: 11:30 AM

Tom and Benny shoved me against the lockers and dropped me to the floor for the third time that day. Nobody treated me particularly well, but they were overachievers. If you’d believe it, they were both top ten students in the class.

“Did that hurt, fatty? Get the fuck up,” Tom said. He decided to go after my weight today. For the record, I’m not overweight at all—in fact, he’s much bigger than I am. The confusion bothers me but the physical pain is worse.

I was back on one knee and starting to stand when Benny kicked the weight-bearing leg out from under me and I crumpled back to the floor.

“Old man needs a cane, I guess,” mocked Benny. He typically went for an “old man” routine for me. I did have graying hair; early to be graying for a ninth-grader, but here we are. At first, I thought the prospect of looking older would give me some clout, but that has never held true for me.

Note to self: try keeping a cigarette on hand. Maybe that would make the hair seem natural. It won’t work but it’s worth a shot.

I was sprawled on my back when I heard someone yell, “Hey! You kids stop that!” The middle school vice-principal walked (not hurrying) toward the scene. I didn’t even know what a vice-principal was when I first moved to this school a few weeks ago.

Tom and Benny straightened their backs and backed away from me. Vice-Principal Nelson had his hands on his hips well ahead of arriving at our location. He always wore a blue, too small jacket over a short sleeve buttoned shirt. He was a gym teacher up until this year and was promoted after the history teacher turned down the position. He still wore a whistle around his neck.

He blew the aforementioned whistle and shouted, “you leave this elderly child alone.”

Was that supposed to make me feel better? I appreciated the leaving me alone part, but was he making fun of me too? This seemed worse than the shoving and kicking.

“Yes, Principal Nelson,” both Tom and Benny said in unison.

“That’s Vice-Principal Nelson, to you. Now get to class.” Tom and Benny ran off while Nelson walked over to me, grabbed me by my elbows, and aggressively lifted me to my feet.

“Tell me what was going on here. Why were they messing with you?” Vice-Principal Nelson asked.

“From what I can tell, Vice-Principal Nelson,” I said while brushing dust off my sleeves, “I’m not very popular here.” That was an understatement.

“Yes, that much is clear. I’m sure coming to a new school has its challenges. No time to dwell on this now, though. Here is your ticket, so get to class.” He handed me an orange card that had a watermark of the school name.

“A ticket?” I asked. I had no idea what a ticket would be for.

“Yes, you’re in the hall—without a hall pass—ten minutes after you should have arrived at class. This ticket is a warning. Receive another and you’ll have detention.”

“Detention?” I asked a little louder than expected, “what did I do?” I couldn’t believe it; I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I believe I just explained this to you,” Nelson said as he checked his watch, “you’re now more than ten minutes late to class and we don’t tolerate this level of tardiness.”

“You didn’t give Tom or Benny detention for attacking me or being late!” I could not believe I was the one in trouble.

Vice-Principal Nelson now spoke in a commanding tone, “I think ‘attacking’ is an exaggeration of what I saw. Now, I believe I told you to return to class.”

“Are you serious? I didn’t do anything wrong,” I snapped, now yelling. “You let Tom and Benny go off even though they were just as late as me. I shouldn’t be the one getting in trouble. It’s not even about it being fair or not, it just doesn’t make any sense!”

“Young man,” Nelson said firmly as he took a step toward me, “get back to your class or you’ll have detention for the rest of the week.”

He started walking back toward his office where he first appeared. For three-to-four seconds, I held my head in shame and considered accepting my fate and returning to class. I turned to see Nelson glaring at me from the corner of his eye as he was walking.

I felt rage build and heard myself yell, “You know what—“

I’ll cut off the conversation here. I was given detention for the rest of the week.

Detention: Day 1

I arrived at my first day of detention in room 317 and looked, in horror, at the available seats and the people I would be sitting beside. I didn’t deserve this but I’m betting that every one of these kids murdered someone to get detention.

I sat down at the leftmost desk next to a kid in jeans and a denim jacket. He was hunched over the desk and held a cigarette in his left hand that looked stained from the grease in his hair.

He remained hunched over and looked at me. In a tone that matched his hair, he said, “what are you in for?”

Confused, I responded, “In for? Where the hell do you think we are?”

“Look, man, we all end up here in rough places,” he said. He inhaled from his unlit cigarette. “Things don’t always work out for people like us. You should stick around me. You’ll get by easier.”

“Fuck,” I responded in disbelief. What is wrong with this place? “Look, dude, I’m just gonna sit here this week, do homework, and go home at the end of the day.”

The kid took another puff from his—and I should emphasize this—unlit cigarette and looked out the window. “I respect that, man. Do your time and get out. I get out of this joint in,” he looked at his school planner, “today. I get out today. I’m so close I can taste the freedom. I’ve had dreams about getting out of school at a normal time. I think about all the hours of life I’ve wasted here.” He silently stared out the window for the next hour until we were dismissed.

I thought the first day would be the worst.

Detention: Day 2

I walked into the detention room hoping to have a better second day than what had happened the day before. The bar was not high.

I sat next to Molly, a girl from my algebra class, whom was doing homework. I thought that if I could find the people doing work, then I would have an easier time getting through detention.

The second I sat down, Molly glanced over at me and closed her notebook. She fixed her belongings into a tidy stack and shifted herself toward me. “Have you ever seen The Breakfast Club?” she asked, “I love The Breakfast Club. It’s my favorite movie. Don’t you think this is just like The Breakfast Club? I mean, it’s not Saturday, but we’re all in detention together because of Principal Nelson. I love that movie.”

With a short sigh, I responded, “yeah, I’ve seen The Breakfast Club. And sure, I guess you could say this is sort of like that.” I was hoping that a short appeasement would end the conversation and let me get back to my work.

“Oh, my god. You’ve seen it?” Molly asked giddily. “It’s my favorite movie. Who do you think you are in The Breakfast Club? I think I’m ‘The Basket Case’ but everyone always tells me I’m wrong and that I’m ‘The Princess’. Isn’t that hilarious?”

Never mind the red flag of someone thinking they’re “The Basket Case” while also trying to convince me that her friends think she’s hot.

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to find a way out of this, “I don’t think I could neatly fit into any of the characters. Isn’t that the point? The principal thinks that they’re all just troublemaking character types instead of actual people who have flaws and values.”

How did I end up responding with more than “I don’t know”? Maybe I like this movie more than I thought.

“Wow,” Molly practically yipped, “that’s exactly what I think too!” She shifted her entire desk toward me.

That’s how I ruined Day 2. We talked about the movie for the next hour. In the process, I convinced myself that I should ask her out. I was still deliberating when detention ended. We walked into the hallway where she found and kissed the greasy-haired guy from the day before. I should have figured.

Detention: Day 3

I’ll skip talking about the third day. Greasy Hair was back and he stared out the window the whole time. Before I left, I asked him if he’d seen The Breakfast Club. He’d never heard of it.

Detention: Day 4

On the fourth day, I was the first to arrive at detention. I sat in the center of the first row knowing that fate was out of my hands this time.

I was doing algebra homework when I heard a familiar insult.

“Hey, fatty,” Tom said as he and Benny sat on either side of me.

“Hey, Tom,” I said. I guessed I should have given up on doing homework this week. “Can you at least tell me why you call me fat when I’m half your size?”

“Old man’s confused,” laughed Benny.

“Okay, fine.” I was over this week. “What did you both do to get detention?” I asked, hoping that giving in would make this go by faster.

“Nothing,” Tom responded. I was pretty sure he was lying. “Some seventh-grader told Principal Nelson that we locked him in the janitor’s closet.”

“Vice-Principal,” I corrected him.

“The point is,” Benny picked up Tom’s story, “it couldn’t have been us. We skipped school yesterday. We told Nelson that and he agreed that it didn’t seem like we deserved detention. But Actual Principal Santiago disagreed and she gave us detention for today and tomorrow.”

“Wow,” I said while putting my forehead in my hands. “I was ten minutes late to class and got a week of detention.”

“You got a week of detention,” Tom started in an undeserved disapproving voice, “because you yelled at Nelson. He was gonna let you go to class with a warning and you chose to get into a fight with him.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, “You both left by that time.”

“We overheard because we went to the bathroom to smoke,” Tom said as he pulled an issue of The New York Times from his backpack.

“Unbelievable,” I said, staring out the window. I never expected to be chastised by Tom and Benny.

Detention: Day 5

I sat between Tom and Benny again, glad that this was the last day of my detention.

Vice-Principal Nelson walked in the door and announced, “hello, students. I’ll be filling in for detention today. I expect y’all to do your homework in silence. I don’t want there to be any conversations or disruptions. Thank you.”

Thank god, I thought. The whole week, all I wanted was a quiet time to do my homework. Over the next hour, I finished my homework for the entire weekend. At four, we were dismissed and I gathered my stuff into my backpack and walked for the door.

“Just a second, mister,” Nelson called to me. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know my name. “Were you anywhere near room 315 on Wednesday afternoon?”

“Well, I’ve been in room 317,” I specified while looking at the number on the door, “all week during detention. That’s this room.”

“Right.” Nelson was looking at some sort of incident report. “Well, we have a student who was locked in a janitor’s closet down the hall. All of the students we have interviewed have alibis that have checked out. You are one of the few troublemaking students that were in the area during the incident.”

“Do you think I had anything to do with it?” I asked, probably too loud and with a tone that I should have avoided. Also, am I a troublemaking student? I guess I did just serve a week of detention, but it seems like a reach to me.

“Calm down, ol—I mean, young man.”

Was he about to call me old again? Seriously?

“Oh, fuck off,” I said. I’m not proud of that. “Just check the cameras, for the love of god,” I demanded and walked out of the room.

That last quip gave me another week of detention for insubordination while Greasy Hair got three days of staring out the window for locking a seventh-grader in the janitor’s closet.