Winter Season

Lunch room duty

Week one of Duke’s watch period was uneventful.

Week two was a different story. It was the week of Thanksgiving. Two blessed days off. Oscar couldn’t wait. Esther and Bell were talking and texting two or three times a day to plan dinner. This was the most excited Oscar had ever been about Thanksgiving. He had refused many invitations to go to Chet’s house. In all the years they had been friends, he had been there at Thanksgiving about five times. His way of giving thanks was a glass of pop and laying on the couch.

Each week four different teachers had lunch room duty. These three days just happened to belong to Oscar. Nothing ever happened in the lunch room. It was boring. In all of his years of teaching there had been two fist fights and three food fights during his duty.

When something did happen, it was their job to get the other students out of the lunch room, close it down if need be, and call the cops. The law handled the dirty work. In cases like these, going to the principal’s office, was a thing of the past.

Oscar was watching students enter the cafeteria when he heard Connie blow her whistle. The students scattered to reveal Duke and another student slugging it out. Oscar hadn’t known Duke to be violent. But several of the other teachers were concerned about his outburst.

As the teachers ushered the students from the room, the boy fighting with Duke picked up a tray and hit Duke over the head with it. It broke in half. The force of the break sounded like fabric being torn. Oscar wondered for a brief moment what those things were made of to make that kind of noise. Duke ripped the tray from the other students hands and sent it sailing through the air. The hunk of tray hit Oscar in the side. He took a deep breath as he fell to his knees.

There was a singular gasping sound as the students watched him fall. It pulled Duke’s attention away from the fight causing him to get hit in the jaw. Once he realized what had happened, he ran toward Oscar. “Mr. P,” he panted. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t touch Oscar. “Mr. P. say something. Please!”

Oscar had curled up in a ball on the floor. He couldn’t say anything, he couldn’t breathe. His side burned. “What can I do to help Mr. P.?” Then Duke noticed the blood soaking Oscar shirt.

One student started to throw up as another one yelled, “blood. He’s bleeding.”

Principal Davis pushed her way thru the crowd of students from one side of the cafeteria as Chet, Chaz and two other officers entered from the other side.

The one officer arrested the other student in the fight. Chaz picked Duke up by the shirt collar like he was a rag doll. Duke screamed, “I’m sorry Mr. P. I’m sorry;” as another officer drug him from the room screaming all the way. “I’m sorry Mr. P.”

Chet and Chaz attending to Oscar.

“Esther isn’t going to be happy.” Chaz growled to himself more than anyone as he moved Oscar’s hands to see the gash made by the broken tray. He covered it with a towel Chet retrieved from the kitchen and applied pressure.

Oscar started to gag. Chet tried talking to him, “buddy you’re going to be okay. Paramedics are on the way.”

Esther was at the hospital before the ambulance could get there. She paced the waiting room for hours. When Bell got off work, she waited with Esther.

“Mrs. Patterson.” Esther jumped to her feet when the doctor walked into the room. “You can see your husband now.”

When she got to the room, Oscar was awake. She kissed him on the forehead, “hi honey.”

He was weak when he spoke, “hi.”

She sat down, holding his hand.

“Oscar, you are very lucky. You have a cut approximately two inches long and an inch deep. It’s going to heel nicely but you’re going to be very sore and have one hell of a bruise.”

“Thanks Bob,” he squeezed out.

Esther woke to Chet gently shaking her.

Winter Season