Crime and Punishment

My elders, I muse, and most of the books I read, tell me that punishment—deserved or undeserved—is inevitable . . . like the time my cousin (in college), after practicing at the Music School, was ticketed at midnight for not stopping on her bike at a deserted intersection by the cemetery. (She had been warned that there was a rapist loose in the area.) Talk about ridiculous punishments. But I return to the present and notice Mr. Toppish intoning the rules and reminding us that we cannot leave for even a bathroom break until noon. I am here at Saturday School detention. I think back to what brought mousy me, bespeckled, bookish, and athletically challenged, to this imperfect justice and I reflect on an event one week ago . . . .

My big brother narrows his eyes and scrutinizes the runway leading to the vault from his starting position. From the stands I see that he is intensely focusing on his goal. Suddenly, as though he has heard invisible gun-shot, he launches forward, legs like pistons, feet pounding the runway creating resounding booms. With a sharp twang he leaps onto the springboard, turning upside down while almost simultaneously splaying his fingers in a handspring on the chalked pommel horse. He flies into the air, twists three times before landing firmly on the mat and Mother, next to me, shouts and whoops. Sean salutes the judges and walks off the mat.

This is so typical of my family—to drag me away from my books to watch Older Brother (with whom I have nothing in common except the gene pool) compete in one of his gymnastic events. I always end up wasting an entire day watching flips, kicks, turns, stick landings and critical judges outline the future of young athletes dressed in chalk covered tights. I find it a colossal waste of time when I could be at home reading and listening to The Beatles. “We need to support Sean,” says Mother.

A tattered but cheerful banner hangs against the wall pleading with us to “Support Our Schools” and all of my civic pride is called forth shortly after reading on the overhead screen Sean’s high scores. I am about to uniquely “support our schools.”

Sean has more than qualified for the team (and I am not looking forward to hearing all the praise and excitement of my family, his friends, and girlfriend). The problem is that he doesn’t have the minimum GPA required for our School Athletic Association standards.

“What do you mean, I don’t qualify,” Sean queries.

“If you don’t hold at least a 2.75 GPA, SSAA won’t accept you, even if you are the best man on the floor,” says Mother.

“But I’m passing all my classes.”

“No you’re not. At conferences last week I learned that you’re barely pulling a “D” on all recent work in Algebra I.”

Silence throughout the car. We stop.

Big Brother’s anxious face glows grimly in the eerie blue and white light streaming from the lamppost while the engine idles as we for the red signal to turn. Sean is spoiled, the doted-upon first male in the now failed marriage. He’s athletically gifted but lazy academically and annoyingly good looking, yet in a crazy kind of way he has been neglected because of the emotional chaos at home for the previous five years. For some reason I feel empathy for his situation and am surprised that I care so much. The awkward quiet persists all the way home.

The back door slams as all four of us trudge into the house. I follow Sean to his room and for the first time in my life connect honestly with him. He is two years older but I am his superior academically.

“Sean, I think I can help,” I offer cautiously.

He listens half heartedly.

I outline a guerilla math plan which might pull his grade out of the basement into high “C” or even low “B” territory and for another first in our lives together under the same roof, I see in him a flash of ambition—and hope—which has always before been masked by his just being so cool and spoiled. He decides to take me up on my offer and I am having fun with a family member for once. I plan. He watches.

An hour later I assemble all of the study materials needed for the Sean Turn-around and Rescue Mission. We meet at the dining table with calculator, pencils, graph paper, lined paper, Algebra I tests (on which I had earned straight A’s two years previous in the eighth grade), and two chocolate bars—milk for him, and dark for me, and also for me, furry slippers. I am always cold.

We are aiming for perfect scores on homework for the next three days and an “A” on the Chapter Five Test on Thursday. He is just past the first term of Semester I and I think this grade is salvageable. We begin in the early evening of Day I and the intensity of the gymnastics meet pales in comparison with the wrestling we do as we head into Slope-Intercept Form, Point-Slope Form, Linear Equations, Parallel and Perpendicular lines. That evening and the days following fly by.

Sunday we log in nine hours. Sean works each problem set as far as he can, stopping only when he’s stuck. He estimates equations for intersections on perpendicular lines. He learns to write the equation of a line passing through two points, he determines Slope-Intercept form from the equation of a line passing through two points, he learns about the vertices of a right triangle with a slope, and even simplifies expressions and divides fractions. We drill through Point-Slope and Standard Form, linear models, rates of change, and perpendicular and parallel lines. What’s more, we laugh at each other and make fun of the school system which has us both marching towards who-knows-what out there somewhere past graduation. Sean even tells his girlfriend when she calls on Monday and Tuesday, wondering where he’s been, that he can’t talk to her because he’s studying math with his sister. More of the same on Wednesday.
Thursday morning we meet in the hall during second period to polish off Chapter Five in the library. We are alone. I open the large Algebra book and settled in for some serious review. Four days in the trenches working on lines may be the turning point of the epic math war we are attempting to win. Sean shows me three nearly perfect homework assignments; our battle plan is working as envisioned.

Still, on Thursday and ten minutes before the next class (and an hour before his test) he stumbles again on a story problem. “You are in a helicopter as shown in the graph below. The shortest flight path to the shoreline is one that is perpendicular to the shoreline. Write the equation for this path.” My pupil’s learning is now a test of my own intellectual abilities and I launch into perpendicular lines and graphical reasoning one more time. We don’t move when the bell ring. I know I am skipping class. The room is hot with green institutional walls barely deflecting late autumn sunlight.

And then we can delay no longer; he must take his test.

Like Antigone, I know that I will face certain punishment for the crime I have committed and, sure enough, retribution is swift. Mr. Humphrey, my European History teacher, writes a referral before the end of the day about my unexcused absence. My mother is called and I am assigned Saturday School and ironically (and typically) Sean not only does well enough on his test to make the team (and is praised by both parent and teacher) but also is given a pass by his P.E. teacher. No detention for him because he was “studying for an important test.” I am unnoticed and merely in trouble.

Justice is a slippery thing. Who says that life has to be fair? I receive “disapprobation,” as Jane Austen would call it, and Sean receives credit. I have knowingly broken one rule in my life and not escaped punishment. Maybe this is a good thing?