Zero Tolerance Paranoia

What a shocking turn of events! The message on our telephone answering machine was from our son Mike and it said he had been expelled from school.

I couldn’t believe it. There had to be some mistake. Mike was a shy, introverted kid who made good grades and never had any disciplinary problems, just the opposite of his younger, wild-spirited sister Tina. He had a part-time job as a stock clerk at a local department store and was saving his money looking forward to going to college. Having a vivid imagination, he was planning to become a novelist. If we didn’t get this straightened out quickly, those dreams would be shattered!

I rushed down to the rambling red-brick school complex and found Mike sitting slumped with his elbows on his knees on a wooden chair in the reception area outside the principal’s office, his straight black hair covering his face as he stared at the floor. Trying to be calm, I asked, “What happened, Son?”

He looked up at me with a dejected look in his eyes and replied, “I don’t know, Mom. You’ve got to believe me!”

After I told the receptionist who I was, she picked up the phone to let the principal know I was there. Pointing to the door, she told me curtly, “You may go in now. He is waiting for you.”

After introducing myself to a heavy-set man with dark, bushy eyebrows and bulldog jowls, I took a seat in front of his polished mahogany desk and asked, “What’s this about Michael being expelled?”

“Your son is in serious trouble, Mrs. McDermott. He was heard making threats against the student body, and we found the plans for carrying out those threats on this.” He pulled a floppy disk out of his desk drawer and waved it at me.

“That’s absurd! Michael wouldn’t hurt a flea. He’s just not that kind of boy.”

“This computer disk contains specific information about weaponry, explosives, hit lists, and so forth. There will be a hearing to determine final disposition. You can present your case there, but in the meantime he will be suspended.”

On the way home, I asked Mike about the disk.

“It’s just a story I’m writing, Mom. There is so much of it in the news these days, I thought it would make a good story.”

“What about the threats you were making?”

“I didn’t make any threats. I don’t know what they are talking about.”

My husband Frank, normally a calm man who takes things in stride, was beside himself when he got home that night and learned about the school’s decision. “You mean to tell me he’s being expelled for writing a story? We’ll see about that!”

Over the next few days, Frank and I were obsessed with preparations for the hearing. There was so much at stake. While we weren’t rich, we did have a comfortable life in a two-story, three-bedroom home and had managed to accumulate some savings to help Mike attain his dream of a college education. With his grades, he also had a good chance of getting some help through scholarship programs. We were frantic that all those hopes were going down the drain because of one man’s arbitrary, knee-jerk reaction to some vague allegation.

In addition, we soon became concerned about Mike’s behavior. Every day he stayed cooped up in his room. One night, I was aroused by some noise in the middle of the night and saw the light on in his room through the crack under the door. I tapped on the door and opened it, saying, “Mike, it’s after 2:00 AM. You should get some rest. What are you doing up so late?”

Sitting hunched over his desk, he looked up with bleary eyes and said, “I’m just working on this project, Mom.”

“Project? What kind of project?”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m not going to blow up the world or kill anyone.”

That mysterious isolation continued for several days while his dad and I grew more frantic about his future, fearing that our son was going to be expelled from school, expelled from opportunity, expelled from a productive life.

Mike finally broke his isolation the day before the school board hearing when came down from his room carrying a large envelope and went out the door.

At the hearing, a young girl named Trudy Nix testified that she had overheard Mike talking with his friend Bobby Moore.

The principal asked, “Do you remember exactly what he said, Trudy?”

Fidgeting with her fingers as she gave Mike a sidelong glance, she replied, “H-he said, ’It’s going to be just like Columbine.’”

After that, the principal presented the files from the floppy disk showing notes about schedules, various kinds of automatic weapons, ammunition, and explosives.

Mike was allowed to present his explanation, but the principal countered with the comment, “It’s not likely that someone would admit to such gruesome intentions given the severity of the punishment.”

We were told a letter advising the board’s determination would be sent in the mail in a couple of weeks.

Frank and I were devastated, but Mike remained strangely calm and returned quietly to the isolation in his room. Fearing he was suffering from depression, we tried to get him to see a doctor, but he insisted he was fine and just wanted to work on his project.

Two weeks later, two letters came in the mail--one from the school board and one for Mike with a return address for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I took Mike’s letter up to him in his room and then sat down on his bed to read the school board’s decision.

With tears in my eyes, I read the school board’s decision to uphold the expulsion with the intimation that further legal action would be forthcoming. Looking up at Mike, I saw a big grin on his face as he handed me the document he had received. It was a contract from the magazine to purchase the rights to publish his story.

With the published story about aborting a school invasion to provide evidence supporting Mike’s position in the legal matter, the District Attorney decided not to prosecute. Mike used the proceeds from the sale of his story for tuition to a private school, from which he graduated with honors. He applied and was accepted to attend Princeton University, where he will study creative writing under Joyce Carol Oates. In the meantime, he still spends a lot of time alone in his room, but we’re not nearly as worried about it as we used to be.

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1101 words
Beginning: I receive troubling message on answering machine.
Setting: Suburban high school, suburban home.
Plot: Parents struggle to salvage Mike’s future.
Ending: Mike looks forward to bright future.