Learning Target
The thick liquid heat of the first week of August drew forth drops of salt laden sweat that stung Drew’s one open eye. The left was clamped tight as he sighted down his Ruger .380 at the paper target fifty yards away. Eventually, he would work his way up to one hundred yards, so if necessary he could address an assailant at the other end of a football field. It had been a few months since Drew had been to the range. He had some practical training at the academy and a well deserved vacation hiking to the middle of nowhere and reading his book in a hammock strung between two trees overlooking a valley or river or perhaps a sandy shore, but wherever it was he had been sure to make sure there were very few, if any other people around.
He squeezed the trigger. Don’t pull. Isn’t that what all the military movies say? Leon, the professional, told Natalie Portman to, “breathe easy.” “Take a deep breath. Hold it.” The report was still startling loud despite the ear protection provided. He squinted at the target and it appeared that he may have nicked it leaving a semicircle on the left hand side.
“Hmmmyado?”
Eric, a coworker for the past ten years, was trying to get Drew’s attention. The noise canceling headphone muffled sound and his chronic tinnitus made it nearly impossible to make any sense of Eric’s words.
Drew slid the headphones down around his neck and leaned toward Eric. “What?” he screamed.
“You don’t have to scream. I’m right here. I was asking how you did.”
“I just nicked it. I’m a little rusty.”
“You only have a week to get back in shape before we are back in the trenches.”
Drew hated it when people used war metaphors to describe his job. It isn’t war. He had started this job twenty-something years ago because he wanted to make a difference. He wanted to help the kids that had fallen through the cracks. Even back then his co-workers were talking about the trenches and front-lines.
“This training is a waste of time,” Drew said.
“Old man, you never know when you might need to use your piece.”
“Piece? Really? It’s a gun Eric. Why don’t you just call it a burner, gat, heater, or strap. We are professionals.”
“You’re right, but there is nothing wrong with having a little fun.”
Fun was exactly what this wasn’t. A few years ago a company came in to teach them how to field dress a gunshot wound. They had tried to make it a trauma center relay with people playing both victims and paramedics. All this while one of their employees play-acted as an active shooter. How can we turn these tragedies into a game?
They claimed that it made the learning stick. Like they are experts in learning.
“Sorry, Eric, didn’t mean to kill the vibe.”
“C’mon Drew. You know I didn’t mean anything by it. Whether you like it or not, the state requires us to do this training.”
“I know, but some of us veterans should be given a pass. We need time to get our classrooms ready for the students when they arrive next week. I was just in there and the chairs and desks are still out in the hall. All of the books are locked up in the closet. I want to spend some time prepping the lessons and at least make my room a welcoming place since the rest of the school is a hard target with bullet proof doors and windows and the students are scanned when they enter like they are already criminals.”
“Jesus Drew, we can’t teach them if they are dead.”
Ignoring him, Drew places the headphones back over his and points the gun down range. He couldn’t help but think of the 1964 photo “Bullet through Apple” by Howard Edgerton. Now considered art, it started as illustration for an electrical engineering lecture at MIT facetiously titled “How to make Applesauce.”
No student had ever literally given Drew an apple. But his shelves were cluttered with mugs and his laptop plastered in apple-themed stickers—gifts, mostly, from grateful kids. The administration would award the “golden apple” to a teacher who had gone above and beyond in a particular month. Pre-K students are welcomed to their first learning experience with a worm popping out of an apple wearing a mortar board. All that apple symbolism gets buried three or four times a year—every time Drew turns on CNN and sees another school shooting. Another bullet through another apple.
The sweat has managed to impair his vision in both eyes now. At least, he thinks it’s sweat
The dust from the rampart at the end of range had settled on his face in a fine layer of grit and was being eroded by the tears and sweat as Drew tried to finish his professional development for the day, but the apples were no longer apples and the that was not applesauce on the walls after an innocent food fight.
Drew longed for the days when training week meant bitter coffee, dry pastries, and a seat in the school library. Back then, they learned how to configure their boards to “optimize student outcomes.” He would gladly talk about rigorous assignments and whether the students had grit rather than wiping the grit from his brow as he trained to take down a shooter who might have been a student just thirty minutes earlier.
“Drew, you haven’t taken a shot. Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
Drew looks down the barrel lining up the sights with his aging eyes and produces another sem-circle at the bottom of the target.
Later that day when he hung the target on the board, as required by district policy, that little half circle reminded him of a bite taken out of an apple like the one on the back of his laptop. Though that one was covered with a sticker that he had bought at the gift shop in Acadia National Park after he had packed up his hammock and book and began heading home. Only one hundred and seventy-seven days to go.