An Absence of Principal Read Free

despicable jerk he was. Cheater. Internet gambling addict. Neglectful father. Selfish. Self-centered. He could normally sit and think of scores of words that ate into his self-respect when he sank this low. How far the mighty had fallen.
    Angela made him feel so worthy. Actually the feeling he had was more relief than anything now that he knew that she wasn’t wise to his cheating and his gambling yet. As quickly as the feeling of depression was there, it was gone again, replaced by a feeling of self-worth which was always provided by his understanding wife. He used that fleeting feeling to congratulate himself, and so he logged on to Jackadiamonds.com and placed a simple bet. One hand of Black Jack. Just one, he tried to convince himself. He had 18 showing and was on his fifth card.
     
    Dealer: Stay or play?
    Ben41: Play.
    Ten of hearts. You bust.
     
    Wha, wha, wha.
    The muted trumpet sound effect imitated a crying baby, and Ben was getting really tired of hearing it. It’s why he preferred BookemDano — no stupid loser music when you bust. And you will bust. Often. If Ben heard it again, it would be all he needed to send him over the edge. Two-thousand dollars lost in less than sixty seconds! He was now a good twelve-thousand in debt. What he had lost in online gambling could have easily paid for a semester at college for the twins and the cruise with Angela. He would never know how to tell her that her dream of a lifetime had been squandered away.
    The hole he was digging for himself and his family was growing deeper by the hour. He couldn’t turn away from it. He’d been giving his situation some thought in his insomniac hours late at night and soon realized there was only one way out of his mess. One unfortunate way.
    When the school bell rang to signal an end to Monday, Doggett stood in the hallway and waved goodbye to Timothy Turner, Margaret Camby and the couple of hundred other rug rats that would have, under any other circumstances, sometime in his pre-gambling Ben days, brightened his afternoon. In that other life, he would have lived up to the kind of person the kids thought he was. The way Doggett felt these days, though, all he wanted was to get as far away from the screaming munchkins as possible. If the school board found out what kind of man he really was becoming, they should show no mercy on his soul. Ben Doggett knew that.

Doggett picked up the phone. It was a call he had hoped to not have to make. When he made it he promised himself that what he was about to do, what he had to do for the sake of his family, he would do only long enough to get himself out of debt and the family finances back on track. He would come clean about his problem and he would settle things with his wife and he would promise to turn away from the advances of his secretary every time, as soon as this little unfortunate kink in his life was ironed out.
    He hung up the phone and began to cry over the thought of what he had just arranged. Timothy Turner, an eight-year-old habitual forgetter, had left his homework and his English book in his desk and had decided to run back to school to fetch it before his mom got home from work. He walked by Mr. Doggett’s office in time to see him in his anguish.
    “You OK, Mr. Doggett?” Timothy asked as he stood at the principal’s door.
    Doggett looked up and brushed away the tears. He made something up and assured the kid he would be fine, even though he knew he wouldn’t be fine. He scooted Timothy down the hall and thanked him for his concern. He picked up the phone again, called Angela and told her he was sorry, something unexpected had come up and he would be late, but would still be home by seven. A teacher, he said, had called and was having some car trouble out on the interstate. As soon as he helped her he’d be home. It would be the first of many times he failed to follow through on a promise he made to her.

    The referee’s whistle cut through Ben Doggett’s searing