Charlie

Whereas the learning was slow with engine repair, and the absurdly high number of students who struggled with education in general, in steering and suspension we ground to a halt. The thin rope Brad had woven between education and experience was fraying and then unraveling before his eyes and he became dejected and removed. The addition of a teenage girl to the class wiped clean a whole week of learning as Brad's lessons were constantly interrupted either by petty remarks of the young men surrounding this girl and trying desperately to impress her, or by her own attempts to draw attention to herself by emphatically raising her hand and asking the most inane questions. She dressed provocatively and could at any moment be scanning the class for potential boyfriends while Brad's feeble lecture continued.

Her expulsion from the class a week after it began, and its ultimate affect on the class, paled in comparison to the addition of Charlie. Invited to join class despite some serious mental disability he had, the derision he received from some of the younger members of the group was immediate and ruthless. He, too, would raise his hand often to ask Brad obtuse questions, but lacking the endowments of our former Miss Teen USA, his interrogations were met with abject disdain from the pot-smoking contingent of our class. At first those around him would snicker and talk under their breath, but as the class wore on, his emboldened torturers would begin to shout for him to "shut up" and "get the f*&% out of here" and call him "retard".

Brad, for whatever reason, failed to put a stop to the mayhem. He may have been addressing the issues behind closed doors, but it was an option which was bearing no fruit. Charlie did get adopted into David's group, which helped put a protective barrier between himself and his detractors, but whenever he strayed from his pack the wolves would attack.

One afternoon in the garage I was aware of a high-pitched altercation in the garage adjascent to the the thin-walled lunch area. Rounding the corner I found Charlie surrounded by the ganja gangsters. They were shouting something at him and as he would back away from his abuser, another would approach from behind and push him back into the square formed around him like a boxing ring. Charlie was not a small dude. Even hunched he appeared to be around six-foot three and underneath the baggy clothes he wore it was hard to determine what strengths lay hidden. He donned a scraggly beard and his eyes were intense even while obscured under the brim of the ball-cap he wore daily. He was becoming observably agitated and the crimson color rising in his cheeks foretold of an explosion. None of us knowing Charlie's history, it was hard to say what would happen when the limit was reached and the reactor went into the red. The episode was making me nervous and I approached the group to say something, but as quickly as it had begun, it ended. The foursome who needled at Charlie dispersed into the blackened depths of the garage and Charlie was left breathing heavily and with a faraway feeling about him. I noticed Brad and a group of students entering the garage and though they had not noticed what had happened, they had influenced the premature departure of the evil-doers.

"Are you okay?" I asked Charlie. He did not look at me, but kept his eyes pinned to the shadowy recesses of the bays where the wolves awaited him.

"They better leave me alone or..."

"Or what?" I asked after a time.

"They better just leave me alone," he spurted and then darted off himself. But, they didn't and things just seemed grow more intense with each passing day.