The Clown

The wood and cloth box mounted above the chalkboard crackled to life, “Miss White, would you send John Witmer to my office.” It was Mr. Satters, the principal, and as I made my way from music class down the long hallway, my life, or at least the last few months of it, flashed before my eyes.

Seven weeks early, I began my career as the sixth-grade class clown when I discovered that, over the summer, I had developed a talent. With very little effort, I could get my fellow students to laugh, out loud, in the middle of class, at totally inappropriate times. A wisecrack here, a funny voice there, an occasional goofy face and I could have them in stitches. It was intoxicating and I was addicted. I couldn’t get enough!

Mr. Meyer sat in front of the class, looking like a cross between Dragnet’s Joe Friday and Mayberry’s Deputy Barney Fife. He wore a gray sport coat, dark slacks, white shirt and a bow tie. He wore this everyday. He was regimented and he liked order and decorum. The fixed rhythm of the elementary-school schedule fit him well. But there I was, messing up his world, destined to be a thorn in his side for the balance of the school year.

I was a low-level irritant. My antics had never quite risen to the level of drawing any serious punishment because I was smart enough to back off if Mr. Meyer’s patience began to wear thin. And I saved some of my acting out for Mr. Morgan, the other, cooler sixth-grade teacher. The sixth-grade population of Brooklyn Elementary School was so large that it was split into two classes. Besides teaching history to both groups, Mr. Morgan was the football, basketball and baseball coach. Since Mr. Morgan was not my “real” teacher, I goofed around a little more in History class.

At eleven, you begin to think you’re smarter than some of the adults around you. I thought I had Mr. Meyer’s figured out. I thought I had him under control. But at eleven, you tend to overlook important things, like the fact that reports cards come out every six weeks. My grades were tolerable, not good, but not bad, B’s and C’s mostly. It was the “Checkmarks” that did me in. The report card read, “A checkmark indicates that the student needs to improve.” Under that statement was a list of behaviors:

-Respects his Teacher – Checkmark.
-Displays appropriate behavior in class – Checkmark.
-Demonstrates self-control – Checkmark.
-Completes assignments on-time – Checkmark.

…the list went on. The only box that wasn’t checked was the one that said, “Plays well with others.”

Now I was shuffling past the Gym, on my way to the office, recalling how this nightmare began. The day before, I was given my report card. After taking in the checkmark section I was in shock. I knew I was going to get an Indiana-lickin when I got home, there were no two ways about it. Hiding the report card was out of the question. All reports cards had to be returned to the school with a parent’s signature.

There was nothing to do but face the music. Mom was so stunned she handed the matter over to Dad and he was in a particularly foul mood when he inspected my report card. He took me upstairs, took off his belt and, on my bare legs, gave me one stripe for every checkmark on my report card. He sent me to bed crying and I was still smarting when I woke up the next morning. Dad had put the fear of God in me and I was determined to avoid any future run-ins with the belt. I planned to stay out of trouble. But my resolution was short-lived.

I was supposed to have completed a worksheet for my homework assignment, but seeing that being beaten, within and inch of my life, had taken up most the evening, I came to school with a blank worksheet. It was really a minor issue. Mr. Meyer assigned stacks of worksheets and each one was only a small part of the grade in any given subject. That’s how I managed to get decent grades while still receiving a checkmark for “Completes Assignments on-time.” But with Dad’s thrashing fresh in my mind, I was bound and determined I would not start the next grade period on the wrong foot.

Mr. Meyer had a practice of letting us self-grade our worksheets. He would call out the answers and we would score ourselves. He would, then, ask for our score, in roll-call order, and record it in the grade book. We rarely handed in our papers. If it was an important quiz, he would have us swap papers with our “neighbor,” and then, after grading, we handed the paper’s forward. For seven weeks, that was the drill. It never varied, at least not until that fateful day in October of 1968.

My plan was simple. I would pretend to correct my unfinished paper, and thereby avoid getting docked for another incomplete assignment, eliminating the possibility of any future report-card-related lickins. As usual, we graded our own homework assignments and, as usual, Mr. Meyer called for our grades. Then he did something, he had never done before, he told us to hand in our papers. It was time to go to Music class and he wanted us to put the papers on his desk as we left the room!

This doesn’t make sense! He has the score! He doesn’t need the paper! Has he gone mad! Why is he asking for the papers? Think, John, THINK! There has to be a way out of this. I know! I can casually drop my pencil and paper on the floor and then, when I lean over to pick them up, write the answers with Superman-like speed! …Yes!...that’s it. But I have to remember to answer one question incorrectly so it matchs the score I gave Mr. Meyer.

From the front of the room I heard, “John, what are you doing?”

“I dropped my pencil.” I said, still down on the floor behind my desk.

Write like the wind, you can do this!

“John, you need to go to Music class.” Mr. Meyer was closing in.

This isn’t working…I need a new strategy…maybe he won’t notice if I don’t hand in my paper. Maybe he’ll forget to check the papers. He’s already got the scores…Maybe he won’t check them…get rid of the evidence!

I quickly crumpled the paper into a little ball and stuffed it in my desk. When I came back from Music class, I planned to destroy the evidence when no one was looking. As I walked down the hall, I tried to relax and once I got to my seat I almost succeeded in forgetting about the whole, ugly mess, that is, until the intercom crackled to life.

As I rounded the corner and went into the office I could see Mr. Satters. Seated across from him was Mr. Meyer and in his hand was a paper, my paper, a paper that had obviously been, at one point in time, a crumpled ball.

I cannot remember the opening exchange. The utter fear of hearing the door to the Principal’s office close behind me caused me to blank out. It’s possible they said nothing before I tearfully shrieked, “Oh please, please, don’t call my parents! My father will BEAT ME!”

They seemed stunned. I tried to explain that my bad report card had caused Clarence to come down like the wrath of God and that now I feared for my life. They seemed to struggle with how to proceed, in light of these revelations. In the end, Mr. Meyer gave me a short warning against any future tomfoolery and he closed with a statement that would have seemed just as fitting come out of the mouth of his look-alike, Joe Friday, “…and if we have any more trouble with you, young man, we will call your father, and that’s not a threat, it’s a promise!”

I left the office with both the joy and exhaustion of one who has narrowly escaped death. I turned over a new leaf that day. I gave up the Class-Clown mantle, ceding it to Charlie Wilson, whose father wasn’t around to deal out the consequences of a bad report card. My next report card was checkmark-free. Although my behavior had improved, I will always wondered if the checkmark-free report card was the result of me shaping up, or the result of my Oscar-winning performance, in the principals office that October day in 1968.