Day of Wrath Read Free Page B

and gave him a toothy grin, a reminder that the big expense to come this year would be braces.
    “Love you, Dad,” she offered and then was off, running to the side of one of her friends. Wendy began showing a text message on her phone, which she’d have to shut down once inside the building and both of them giggled. He sighed.
    Once she was out of sight he opened the compartment between the seats. Something about the news today… No, not just today, the news every day of late, had forced a decision that only Kathy knew about. He pulled out a Ruger .380 from the glove compartment and slipped it into his pants pocket.
    Even though he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, he was now in felony violation of both Federal law and the laws of the State of Maine. If discovered, he would lose his teaching license and face up to five years in prison.
    If found out? If found out by someone simply seeing the pistol, if it slipped out of his pocket as he squatted down to pick something up, if the pants he was wearing were a bit too tight and some sharp-eyed coworker got suspicious and ran to tell the principal… The principal would summon him while calling the police, who would then come and pat him down, handcuff him and take him to jail. If found out, he would be in prison, license to teach revoked for a lifetime, and pay fines. The national media would show a viral video of him being led out in handcuffs. The only crime more reprehensible in a school: to sexually stalk or use a student, which he felt did indeed deserve capital punishment rather than prison with rehabilitation therapy and a sentence that was likely shorter than the one he would face.
    Caught by a student wandering into his classroom after-hours to find him having an affair with another teacher? Embarrassed dismissal. Embezzling? Perhaps a fine and quiet termination.  
    Incompetence in the classroom, which he also felt was a crime worthy of punishment? As long as the incompetent teacher’s students jumped through the hoops of testing, no big deal. When he did complain once about another faculty member who, as he said, “could not figure out his I.Q. unless he looked at the bottom of his shoe,” the response was, “Mr. Iverson retires in six more years, so just let it go for now. Besides, the union would kick up a fuss.” Being a teacher, Bob was at least able to force the issue with his own daughter by insisting on a transfer to another teacher, but for the other hundred kids stuck in Iverson’s class day after day? Well, at least in six more years he would be gone.
    The gun? Why the gun?
    He did not buy the years of administrative instructions, coming from "experts" in the main office, while day after day he looked into the eyes of his students and inwardly asked, “What do I do?” if the nightmare came to Chamberlain Middle School. He did not buy the counterintuitive logic that if there were a gunman in the building, to lock the door, lie on the floor, and pray. Well, not actually pray, for after all this was a public school, but he could at least insist upon a moment of silence as they waited to get shot.  
    In whispered conversations with only a few other teachers and Kathy, the conclusion returned again and again to the same point. Up until 9/11 all were drilled that if on a hijacked plane, sit back, relax, take a Xanax, listen to those in charge, and all would be well. (Unless you were Jewish and the hijacker a Muslim. If so, ditch your passport and say your name is Smith.)
    And then there was United flight #93: the fourth hijacking on that black day of days. The cell phone calls informing the passengers on that doomed flight that it was time to fight back. They fought and died, and in so doing likely saved thousands on the ground.  
    After that day, he believed that it wasn’t just the billions spent on security that had resulted in not a single hijacking in American airspace since 9/11. It was the fundamental realization that if anyone tried