Hallway Monitor ((Washington High School, 1965)(a short story))

(Washington High School, St. Paul, Minnesota (1965…)
Hallway Monitor




Hatless, his youthful face clutched upon the noon atmosphere of the High School, or perhaps it was something in his daydreaming he was trying to figure out, leaning against the wall, a hallway monitor for Washington High School, during lunch periods, insuring there was no trouble—a senor (1965). Gayle Johnson saw him first. “My Gosh,” she said smiling at him, “isn’t he handsome,” she told her two schoolmates (often told her school mates, she had a crush on him).
And one could imagine young Chick Evens looking like that.
Also, one could imagine Gayle getting that look back from Chick, and, helping that uppermost purpose which two people—being both of them fine-looking in similar calm and ease—likened to Greek gods, as only youth could define, to both entering their dreams, was like a consecration.
After a moment, both their gazes returned to earth, and he acknowledged effortlessly to her greeting, “Hello,” she said. Her speech was tender, her eyes were large and very Midwestern, slumberous—absorbing, near paralyzing, deep blue with a soft white haze, around its oval shape, long eyelashes, peaceful mouth, and he had a compulsion to swallow her up right then and there, and he most likely had, after she left through those cafeteria doors down several steps and on into the lunchroom, leaving him to drift back into his day-dreaming. These were eternal moments, of the school itself.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked her once at a High School dance.
“I suppose,” she said, looking around, as if to let her girlfriends know, look here.
He liked her very much, but there was nothing of a beggar in him. In his calm way, and belief that if it was meant to be, it would be. Perhaps just those smiles, served his appointed ends—that’s to say... how would it be with them two? He had probably never thought of it past those High School doors. He probably figured what she probably figured: it would all take care of its own. But it never did.

No: 639 (6-23-2010)
Dedicated to: Gayle Johnson