In the Fall They Come Back

By Robert Bausch

A brilliantly observed prep school novel about fraught teacher-student relationships--and about coming into adulthood.

Ben Jameson begins his teaching career in a small private school in Northern Virginia. He is idealistic, happy to have his first job after graduate school, and hoping some day to figure out what he really wants out of life. And in his two years teaching English at Glenn Acres Preparatory School, he comes to believe this really is his life's work, his calling. He wants to change lives.

But his desire to "save" his students leads him into complicated territory, as he becomes more and more deeply involved with three students in particular: an abused boy, a mute and damaged girl, and a dangerous eighteen-year-old who has come back to school for one more chance to graduate.

In the Fall They Come Back is a book about human relationships, as played out in that most fraught of settings, a school. But it is not only a book about teaching. It is about the limits and complexities of even our most benevolent urges--what we can give to others and how we lose ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Release date: Dec 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781632864024

Robert Bausch

Robert Bausch is the author of seven novels and one collection of short stories. They include Almighty Me (optioned for film and eventually adapted as Bruce Almighty), A Hole in the Earth (a New York Times Notable and Washington Post Favourite Book of the Year) and Out of Season (also a Washington Post Favourite). He was born in Georgia and is Professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College. In 2005, he won the Fellowship of Southern Writers' Hillsdale Award for Fiction for his body of work. In 2009, he was awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, also for sustained achievement. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Virginia. www.robertbausch.org

Book preview

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1

A High Old Time

In the fall of 1985, shortly after I got out of graduate school, I had the good fortune to land a teaching job at a small private school in Virginia called Glenn Acres. I went around telling everyone I was going to begin my professional life as an English teacher, although teaching was not, as the Catholics like to say about young men destined for the priesthood, my vocation. It was an emergency job—something I fell into so I would have some income and I could save up for bigger and better things. My plan was to work for two or three years and then go to law school. I scored a 160 out of a possible 180 on the LSAT, so I knew I would get in almost anywhere I could afford to go.

And I was right about that. As I write this, I am in my twentieth year of practicing law for the Federal Government—in their antitrust division. My two years as a teacher seem long ago and far away now.

What happened to me in those two short years may have been a consequence of some fault in the understanding between teacher and student, but it changed the world for me in ways I’m still contemplating. This is not a story about teaching. Nor is it about education, or school, although most of what happened started in a school. This is a story about caring a little too much; or maybe about not caring enough. I really don’t know which. The only thing I know for certain is that I wish a lot of it did not happen.

My girlfriend Annie believed all the trouble began with Leslie Warren in the fall term, during my last year. Leslie lodged a complaint against me early that year, and Annie thought the complaint, however untrue, got me so bound up with the injustice of it that my Christ complex emerged and I spent the entire year trying to right all the injustices in the world. I admit Leslie’s complaint hurt me; it was so deeply disturbing on so many levels that I lost the ability to comprehend loveliness for a while. But I worked with her—with the most beautiful young woman I will probably ever know—and when I think now, even now, how much Leslie came to mean to me—I can scarcely get my breath. What happened to her—what became of us, really—is the one thing I can’t get myself to accept. Even after all this time.

When I first saw Leslie she was strolling across the school parking lot, carrying her books against her breast, her fine hair, almost the color of corn silk, swaying in the fall breezes. A perfect September day, at the beginning of things, and she looked like autumn—like the blossoming harvest of gold and amber, in sunlight.

I hoped she was a teacher, but I soon found out she was a junior, hoping to finally get the credits she needed to graduate from high school. She was everybody’s worst nightmare, I heard—she was not in my class that first year, so I counted myself fortunate, in a way. But in other ways, I longed for just the opportunity to catch sight of her. I am not talking about lust either—just a kind of aesthetic pleasure. You can’t help but admire something so perfectly structured. She had high cheekbones, a sleek but soft jaw that curved exactly right around dark red lips. Her eyes were light blue under naturally dark brown, exquisitely arched brows, and dark, curled eyelashes. I had never looked upon such a face. You didn’t notice her body—although it was lithe, and shaped well enough. I know the way I’m talking about her only furthers the notion that I was in love with her, but in truth, I wasn’t. Or at least, I wasn’t in love with her in the way you might be thinking. She was only seventeen when I first saw her and it was hard not to discount all the rumors about everybody’s nightmare. She was so perfect I wondered how she could be so completely wild and cross, full of such bitter trouble that nobody wanted anything to do with her. Not having her in any of my classes that first year did not keep me from getting to know her anyway; maybe I even understood her a little bit.

The truth is I don’t think my trouble started in the second year, or with Leslie’s eventual complaint about me. I think it may have started with little George Meeker, in my first year, before I’d ever spoken with Leslie Warren. If I had not been drawn so completely into George’s predicament, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so deeply involved in the events of that second year—the last year as it turned out.

I said I wished a lot of it did not happen, but I think mostly I did what my accidental profession called me to. I know that sounds noble, and as if I’m really going to end up talking about my work as a teacher after all, but really I’m not. To say this story is about teaching is exactly the same as saying The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about the Mississippi River.

After a few months of teaching, I wondered how anybody could be a teacher for his whole life. It turned out to be really hard work. I had to deal with as many as twenty to twenty-five students per class, five classes a day, five days a week. That could be as many as one hundred and twenty-five different personalities every day. I had to teach them how to write—how to think on the page, express themselves honestly and correctly, day in and day out. Do you have any idea how many pages and pages of student writing you’d have to read and evaluate just to teach one simple idea? If each student is hard-working enough to produce only two pages of writing per day, that’s 1,250 pages a week. Of student writing. And they all had to write about something that mattered, not just to them but to the rest of the world. (How could one escape the burden of teaching values?)

You’re teaching them writing, so what else do you do with them? You can have them read, but then they have to write about what they’ve read, so you have to read that too. And what do you have them read? Every choice is a step into the moral arena. Every assignment you make gives you the feeling that you’re standing at the base of Hoover Dam, and you’re about to pull the plug that will unleash a deluge. But you have to do it because that’s your job. I did it for two whole years. I think I was actually getting pretty good at it until all the real trouble started. I don’t want to bore you with details, but I developed ways to get around the various writing requirements that gave me time to actually do some good work with individuals—with the students who cared about what they were learning.

When I first saw Glenn Acres I thought I was in the wrong place. It was a big ranch house—one level that sprawled over most of a quarter of an acre at the top of a long, sloping hill that ran all the way down to a four-lane highway. (I learned later that in fact it was a converted ranch house, with several extensions built on. Just after the Korean War the owner sold it to Mrs. Creighton, the headmistress, and her husband, and they remodeled the inside with rooms and bulletin boards and blackboards, bookshelves, a drinking fountain, and just about everything you need in a school except a gymnasium.) When I first saw it, I was sure it was somebody’s house. I was almost afraid to knock on the back door. I had to knock several times, each time more and more loudly. Mrs. Creighton, a red-haired, middle-aged woman with a mop in her hand, finally opened the door. I was immediately aware of a palpable odor in the room. It was an odd mixture of Mr. Clean, lemons, and dog shit.

Yes, she said.

I thought she was a housewife and I’d interrupted her morning routine. I’m sorry, I said. I must have made a wrong turn or something.

You here for the interview?

Well, I stammered. I came from … I’m Ben Jameson. Is this Glenn Acres Preparatory School?

Come on in, she said. I’m Mrs. Creighton. She was not tall. Her hair was piled into a great bun on the back of her head. She had a long face, at one time certainly beautiful. She wore bay leaf-shaped glasses on the tip of her nose, and a gold chain ran down each side of her face and then back up over her shoulder. She was wearing high-heeled shoes and gray slacks; a red blouse that hung too loosely down the front and back. She used the mop in her hand to push a bucket full of the offending cleaning fluids in front of her to make room for me. My goodness you’re tall. Don’t bump your head.

I leaned down and stepped into the room, but I’m not that tall; only a quarter inch over six feet.

I’ve been cleaning up after North, she said. Then she gave a short laugh. The dog. He messed again.

In the corner, ravenously renewing his supply of bulk for the next day’s deposit, was a great oversized lounge chair sort of brown-and-white dog, his tail wagging in sweeping approval. Next to him, watching almost jealously was another dog that looked exactly the same, except he was wheezing from the effort and taking a break from his bowl.

That’s North Carolina eating over there, Mrs. Creighton said. And the older one there watching him is South Carolina. She stared at them smiling, proud of their names. Then she looked at me and said, Of course the kids all call them ‘North and South,’ or just ‘Blue’ and ‘Gray.’ The civil war, you know. She was smiling as she said this, so I gave a short laugh, but then she stopped smiling.

Blue and gray, I said. That’s funny.

Just come around here to my office.

I followed her, my eyes burning and watering, and my nerves at just the right pitch, so that the slightest suggestion of anything untoward would throw me into a panic. I am the type of fellow whose hands don’t shake, whose voice does not tremble in moments of crisis. What happens to me is I sometimes begin to sweat profusely. I have made small rooms more humid all by myself.

It was a relief to get out of the close, warm, caustic air where the dogs sprawled on the gray stones. (It was, I later learned, the Math room.) Mrs. Creighton led me past a great, long picture window, through a door at the back of the room and out into a small hallway. She turned and smiled and I noticed that her teeth were shaped in such a way that from the wrong angle, or with just a quick look, one might think her two front teeth were missing. But they were there, hanging back a little from the others, tending a little toward the bridge of her nose, and very definitely healthy and white. The glasses balanced on the tip of her nose, and she gestured for me to follow her. Just back here is my office. She said this with pride, and I felt compelled to remark that the wallpaper was very pleasant to look at, and I liked the pictures on the wall.

Oh, those, she said. They came with the house. I never took them down. So did the wallpaper.

Nice desk, I said.

She pointed to a chair next to the desk. Sit down.

The room was dimly lit. Only one window, shaded by the oak tree outside, let in any natural light, and she had a desk lamp that focused a weak neon beam on the blotter under it. The window was half open, but the air was still humid, too warm, and inert. One of the panes in the window was cracked from one corner to the next.

Mrs. Creighton struggled to get seated, and when she was settled in her chair—a high-backed, dark brown leather thing with wheels and puffy squares stitched into the leather—she wheeled it up to the desk and began studying some papers piled in front of her.

Well, she said. You’re mister … she paused, looking at me.

Jameson, I said. We spoke on the phone.

Mr. Jameson. She sounded so pleased to see me, as if she’d been waiting a very long time for this exact moment. I liked her face. She reminded me of my mother a little—honest, directly open and without guile. In spite of the odd shape of her teeth, she was not afraid to smile. Yes, Misssterrr, Jameson. Her eyes fell to the surface of the desk, scanning the piles of paper again.

I waited, sweat gathering on my brow and running down the side of my face. She shifted a few of the papers, then found what she was looking for. Ah, here it is. She adjusted her glasses and studied my application for a while. Her hands were gnarled and ravaged by arthritis, but she still painted her nails. She glanced up from the form and said, You’ve graduated just this year?

Yes ma’am.

Uh, huh. She went back to the form. I felt my stomach move, then heard it growl. It sounded like one of the dogs.

You like young people?

Yes ma’am.

Well you should. You’re a young person yourself.

I look younger than I am.

How old, she went back to the form, looking for it.

I told her I was twenty-five.

She laughed. You’re a very young man indeed.

Yes ma’am.

Just say yes, she said, looking into my eyes again. She had to frown a bit to keep her glasses in the right place on her nose.

I wasn’t sure I heard her right. What?

And don’t say ‘what.’ Say ‘pardon.’ That’s so much more … she paused, looking now out the window. She turned back to me, Proper. That’s not the word I want is it?

Polite?

No. So much more—well. I like it better. She smiled and the glasses slid a bit down her nose. She pushed them back with her index finger.

I wasn’t sure what to say next. It was quiet for a moment.

"What were we talking about. She put her hand up to her chin, frowned again—really scowling this time. I thought I would not like to be in the scope of that look for having disappointed her. I watched her as politely as I could with sweat trickling down the sides of my face. Let’s see, she said, smiling again. She looked closely at the form once more, holding onto the frames of her glasses. It didn’t appear that she was actually reading anything on it. You’ve never taught before."

No ma’am.

She did not glance up at me, but it stopped her. You don’t have to call me ma’am.

Sorry.

You got your BA in history?

Yes.

And your MA in English?

Yes.

Now she looked at me. Why?

I don’t know. I could see she didn’t like that answer. Well no. I do know, it’s just that I’m not sure why.

She tilted her head back, looking at me through the thick lenses, so that it looked as if she was actually looking down her nose at me. She waited for me to finish.

I was thinking I might go to law school later.

Really.

It’s an idea I was tossing around. But not right away. Maybe five years down the road or so.

You think you can teach writing?

I think so.

What makes you think so.

I learned how to do it in school. If I can learn it anybody can. I figured modesty might impress her a bit.

She said, Being a good learner doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be a good teacher.

I know. Of course.

I’ve known a lot of very bad teachers.

I guess I’ve been lucky, I said. I’ve only had one or two.

What didn’t you like about them?

I thought about this for a minute. I could see what she was after and I wanted to say just the right thing. I don’t think they cared about their students.

It was quiet for a while. Now she seemed to be reading my application very carefully, still a slight frown on her face. Mrs. Gallant, our usual English teacher, had to leave us. Her husband is in the military. She put my application down. But that’s not why she had to leave. She was a very good teacher and the students loved her, but she was not prepared to do the one thing I absolutely require.

This didn’t seem to call for an answer. I met her gaze though, and realized she was watching me closely.

We’ve had to be very vigilant with our students the last few years, she said. Drugs and alcohol you know.

I nodded as though I did know, but again said nothing. I’d smoked a lot of dope and knew I might very soon have to lie.

Our students must keep journals in English class. Do you mind having them do that?

No.

And they must be told that if they fold a page over in their journals, no one will read what they’ve written there.

Certainly.

But you must read everything they write on those folded pages. You think you can do that?

Well … I guess if …

Mrs. Gallant couldn’t do it. She refused, she said, on moral grounds.

I could do it, I said. It’s not a question of morals, really. I would have said anything just then. I knew I was very close to getting the job. I did not know or consider the consequences of such a breach of faith. My main worry was that she would not believe me. I see nothing wrong with being vigilant, I said.

Children in school have no rights we need worry about. I want to get that issue settled right away. There are drugs, and very bad things in schools these days and we can’t afford not to pay attention to everything. That is the first thing I want you to agree to.

Oh, I agree. Yes. I think I smiled. Inside I was fairly singing, I got the job. I got the job.

You also will have a bus route to follow in the morning.

Bus route?

If you teach here, you will also be assigned a bus route. You will drive one of the school buses to pick up students in the morning and take them home in the afternoon. The school day begins at eight sharp, and your bus route has to start at 6:15. You would have to take over Mrs. Gallant’s route—which looks like the perfect match for you, since it begins only a few blocks from where you live.

I tried to smile, to cover the shock that must have blanched my face.

Don’t worry, she said. The buses are all automatic transmission and very manageable. You’ll drive one to and from work. Keep it at home.

I’ve never driven a bus. I didn’t want to think about where I’d park one.

It’s not hard. She hummed a little to herself, then she said, Well, there’s a text you can use if you want. It’s a few years old. She pushed her chair back and leaned over to a bookcase behind her. She came up with a book called Adventures in Literature. It was old, with threadbare binding and a torn spine. The ones in the English room are in much better shape than this, she said, almost to herself, looking at the book in her hands as if she just discovered its condition. She put the book down on the desk and looked at me. Well I just love literature so much, don’t you?

Yes.

It’s just grand to teach it, isn’t it?

Yes ma … I caught myself. Yes it is.

Well, she waved her hand toward the big room we’d just passed through. That’s the English room. There’s lots of books in there so you’ll have others to decide about—if you don’t want to use this one. Just pick one that you know there’ll be enough of them for your classes.

We fell quiet for a while again. I was afraid to ask about it, but I wondered what my salary would be. As if she could read my thoughts, Mrs. Creighton said, We are a private school, Mr. Jameson. So you know we can’t pay you what the county …

Oh, I understand.

… would pay. She looked at me. The starting salary is $15,500 for the nine months. The gas for your bus will be paid too, of course.

That’s fine. I had been making less than $10,000 driving a cab part-time, so I was very happy about the salary.

She invited me to a faculty meeting that afternoon. I think we’re going to get along just fine, she said. Yes, we are going to have a high old time.

That’s exactly what she said: A high old time. I get tears in my eyes now just remembering it.

2

The Best Possible Education

Mrs. Creighton was married to an accomplished, unsuccessful guitarist. He sold furniture on the side in one of the more prominent discount furniture houses—a place called Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. He was a man who tended to the heavy side, balding down the middle of his head, but with enough hair still in front to comb it straight back so that the top of his head looked as though it was lined for sheet music. He was slightly round-faced, with prominent jowls, and a very thin, almost invisible black mustache that he kept clipped at just the exact width of his mouth. He always wore dark suits, a white shirt, and a tie. He did not ever look like a guitarist, but he could do things up and down the neck of one of those things other musicians only dreamed of doing. He could play any kind of guitar—electric, flat box, twelve-string, bass. He had a collection of them in his basement—something I would learn later that year.

Mr. Creighton was also the recruiter for the school. It was he who got people to sign all the papers and who worked to keep enrollments healthy and growing. In other words—and this is how he looked at it—he was the salesman. Outside and inside. He attended juvenile court almost every morning, and that’s where he got a lot of his recruits, but he also knocked on doors, and called people on the phone to ask if their children were happy in school. In the afternoons, he was working at Maxwell’s selling furniture, but he often asked his clients in that venue if they were interested in providing the best possible education for their young teens. Mr. Creighton believed in the school, and in his wife, but he didn’t know a thing about education and he was not very well educated. Gradually I came to notice that Mrs. Creighton frequently made allowances for him in polite conversation, but he was talented, and funny and charming and anyone could see that she loved him totally and without reservation.

Each day before school, the two of them pulled into the parking lot before dawn. Mr. Creighton drove a dark burgundy Cadillac, with a tan leather top. A beautiful car, to people nearing their fifties—or, truth be known in Mr. Creighton’s case—their sixties. Sometimes Mrs. Creighton would drive her big, silver Oldsmobile, which was not a bad looking car either. When they rode together, Mrs. Creighton would emerge from the car and step jauntily to the back door of the school. Mr. Creighton always lurked a bit by the car—as if he were waiting for someone else to emerge. Mrs. Creighton would open the door and say, Oh my. Or Whew! in a high-pitched but routine sort of exclamation that let her husband know he should linger by the car a little longer. On warm days he’d go down the walk and retrieve the Washington Post, then stand at the back of his Cadillac reading the front page and the sports section, while Mrs. Creighton cleaned up after North. When she was done, he’d go inside with her and they’d sit in her office and have coffee together, chatting about the school, the day’s business, prospective students, or the Washington Redskins. At around two, just before the first buses started filling up to take everybody home, Mr. Creighton would get back in his car and drive to Maxwell’s.

On my first day I was a little late, maybe five minutes. Not enough for me to worry about it much, I thought. The air was humid and hotly damp—the kind of day that promised unreasonable heat in the early morning, and dangerous pollution levels by noon. It was not yet full sunrise and the sky had a pale luster to it—as though it were lit by kerosene somewhere beyond the horizon. Tree frogs and crickets began their pianissimo finale and millions of stars, little by little, dissolved into the blue. The sky was darkening in the west, and cold-looking, but it was already eighty degrees.

Mrs. Creighton waited for me at the door. On this morning, her husband had taken my bus and gone to pick up my little gang of students.

Looks like it’s going to rain, I said.

You’re late. She was not smiling. It was almost as if she were announcing something awful about the way I looked—she might have said I was bleeding out of my ears in the same tone of voice.

I’m sorry, I said. Traffic.

You have a responsibility to drive your bus and you were to be here at 6:00 A.M. sharp. She told me what Mr. Creighton was doing and I was of course properly horrified. Now he’ll miss his morning coffee, because he’s taking care of your business.

He didn’t have to do that, I said. I’m only a few minutes late.

You must be on time. We’ve got children standing on street corners at specific times, and you can’t make them wait.

I’m sorry. I felt awful.

She handed me a map that showed my route. I should have given this to you yesterday.

I sat down on a picnic bench just outside the door and began studying my bus route. Students began arriving around seven fifteen; most of them gathered under the great oak on the other side of the building—just outside the English room—smoking cigarettes, talking and laughing. The sound of their youthful clamor, the freewheeling uncluttered voices, frightened me a little. Mr. Creighton arrived with my crew around 7:30. He let them all pile out, then drove the bus around to the back of the school. I waved to him as he passed and he smiled, but I don’t think he was pleased. Apparently, he didn’t like traffic any more than I did.

It started raining just before classes began. I stood behind my desk in front of the room, my books arranged neatly, a notepad resting prominently and at just the right angle on a lectern that was situated just to the right of my desk. Outside, rain poured softly down; a steady enduring shower. I had made some class notes about what I would say. I held the roster in my hand. I could hear the noise outside my room, but I waited patiently for my students to wander in. What came first was North. The great, sad-faced animal came loping in, slowly, from the hallway and stopped in back of the room with a puzzled look—as though he wasn’t sure where he was supposed to invade next. His purple tongue lolled to the side of the black lips, and his nose was angled slightly upward, as though he were in a car and had stuck his head out the window to get air.

He was not used to me. I thought he might start growling.

Hello, I said. You’re not going to leave another deposit in here are you? I chuckled at myself, still slightly amazed at how nervous I was. I’d worn a gray sports jacket and black loafers with gray socks and black trousers. My shirt was light blue, button-down collar. My girlfriend had sent me out with an admiring smile and a black umbrella. You look very much like a professor, she said.

I’m not a professor, Annie. I’m just a high school teacher.

Just? Isn’t a high school teacher just as good as a professor?

Well they certainly work harder.

Have a beautiful day, sweetheart. She smiled, as if she knew something I didn’t, and closed the door.

Now, I looked in the eyes of North. I saw a shadow come into view, back beyond the door—a lithe figure that paused and seemed to listen for me. I couldn’t make out a face, but I noticed she had her hands up around her chin or her neck, and she seemed to be paralyzed there momentarily, as if my presence in front of the room must have been a shock to her too.

Hello? I said.

She stood there for a moment, then moved to her left, stopped, whirled around, and went back out of sight to her right. All I noticed was that she had long, stringy hair that hung in front of her like a bright red waterfall, and she never took her eyes off the floor in front of her. She was bent over at the waist and stayed that way.

The dog walked begrudgingly and warily toward the hallway to his left—the one that led to the Math room. Good, I said. Go in there and haunt those folks. Students began filing into the door beyond the Math room and dispersing to the other rooms, dripping water everywhere. My group and a good many sophomores and seniors came barging through the door to my right—what was probably, at one time, the front door of the building. Smoke, and the smell of cigarettes and the warm rain, came in with them. They clamored through to the Math and the History rooms. My students stopped and found seats in front of me.

Even at twenty-five I already knew that really young people—early teens who have just begun to discover their bodies, sex, and the fabulous other of their friends—are as self-conscious as human beings ever get. They are not only excruciatingly aware of themselves—of every single smallest flaw in their physical appearance, their voice, their eyes, their carriage and the way they walk, sit, stand, or lean on the wall—they are also certain that no one fails to notice these flaws. They are sure that all people are as conscious of them as they are of themselves, and usually they are so worried about what others may see that they do not notice very much about each other. This is one of the most generous and equitable of all ironies: one has to point out the flaw in somebody before they all latch onto it and begin the torture process of the poor devil whose defect has been singled out.

On my very first day, to prove this point about how little they noticed about each other—and I hoped perhaps to mitigate the potential for viciousness in my first class (the juniors)—immediately after I called the roll, I sent one student (his name was Timothy Bell, but everybody called him Happy) to Mrs. Creighton’s office. Then I told everyone to get out a sheet of paper and write down what Happy was wearing this morning. Almost all of them had difficulty doing that. They did not know. Most of them guessed and of course they guessed wrong. Then I went and got Happy out of the office and told him to have a seat. The entire class was amazed when they saw what he was wearing. See? I said. We don’t really observe as we think we are being observed. I have to admit that I got a sense of power to see them looking at me with such awe. I had actually taught them something. I admit it was thrilling to realize the influence I might have. Influence is a kind of power, I suppose; but I was not, nor have I ever been, particularly enthralled by it. I was always proud of the fact that my students learned something valuable beyond participles and prepositions from me. From the beginning I liked how that felt; these young kids sitting in rows, fidgeting and talking in front of me, had so much to learn. Can it be characterized as power if one is totally unconscious of it? And can a person be accused of abusing his power if he is totally unconscious of it? I mean if you don’t really know, if you can’t really know that you’re exerting any sort of influence, how can you be accused of abusing it?

I’ve always liked how my students gradually became people to me, even if I couldn’t memorize all their names. This was something I was aware of from the beginning, but it always surprised me how normal most people, even very young people, turned out to be once you got to know them a little. I’ve told people that those two years of teaching were a kind of blur, but that is not entirely true. My memory of it kind of merges and extends—it was a lot of people and a lot of classes and a lot of days and papers and meetings and just going on with my job but it was memorable.

When I had the classroom settled again that first day, and the noise began to subside, I wrote my name on the board. I want you to call me Ben, I said. That’s who I am. And I’ll call you by your name. We are going to get to know each other.

They sat quietly, waiting for me to say something else.

So, I will only use this class roll until I know you.

Mrs. Creighton came around the corner. Don’t forget to call the roll, Professor Jameson.

Yes, I said.

She addressed the class, moving in between two rows and toward the exit to the Math room. Class, this is your new English Professor. Mr. Jameson. He’s a recent graduate of George Mason University.

Some of them nodded. I wasn’t much older than they were and I was embarrassed to be so new, standing in front of them. I realized I was afraid somebody would notice a flaw in me and point it out to the others and then I would be at their mercy. I did not like the way they looked at Mrs. Creighton. They had this expression of fright, and impatience. As if they knew something bad was going to happen and they just wished it would be now so they could be done with it. One of them, a black student named Daphne, raised

Reviews for In the Fall They Come Back

[randymetcalfe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ben Jameson decides to take an English teaching position after finishing his undergraduate but before embarking on graduate school, or possibly law school. He’s never taught young people before, and there is every reason to think that he might not be especially good at it. Only the flexibility afforded a private school and the recent loss of its English teacher could make plausible his hiring. But, despite some early ups and downs, it begins to look like a smart move. Good for Ben, good for his students, and good for the school.That it doesn’t necessarily end up there is, after all, what makes this an interesting read. Also a bit unsettling. Ben is both strangely naive and unappreciative of the consequences of his own actions or those of others. Indeed you might begin to suspect that something very curious might happen. Or that everything you are reading might turn out to be double-edged. That it doesn’t and isn’t is somewhat of a disappointment. Not that what we have here is weak at all. It’s just that it might have been so much more.The writing, at least in the first half, might have you thinking along the lines of Nabokov. But mostly that is because the character of Ben is so peculiar. Alas his peculiarity is never mined for anything profound. And so we get the ins and outs of two years of teaching by an inexperienced but fitfully enthusiastic amateur who inappropriately meddles in the personal lives of his students, though sometimes with fortuitous effect. Maybe that’s enough.