The English Teacher

My English Teacher took me out when I was 15 and got me drunk. On Teacher's Brand Scotch, believe it or not, and I sat around a table with him, the corner store owner, and his wife, sipping searing hot nips of scotch like - like something out of a movie. Looking back it was borderline abuse, but being there I was more than intoxicated with my English Teacher's mentoring my writing and being a kind of confidante.

It all started when he marked my English papers - and left curled, scrawled notes in green pen with question marks - like "and you think he didn't actually mean it to be read that way?" The comments and notes grew longer and denser and were scribbled in some kind of private frenzy along the white of the margin. Lines and lines of commentary and analysis of what I'd written, as though I was some kind of boy genius.

And I have to admit that I lapped it up. Like any fifteen year old, suddenly swamped with the attention of the head of the English department. He would catch my eye during class so I would answer his question. Like I was saying the obvious. But his rapturous, table-thumping approval intimidated the other boys.

Let's not forget it was an all boys boarding school, where we wore blazers to breakfast and went home once during term. Totally immersed in the gothic architecture, dripping with eroded statues and bronze-green plaques and sepia frames of rugby teams in oversize clothes.

"I know you smoke," He said one time after class. "I'll be down by the rowing sheds after supper."

Intrigued, I duly materialized out of the dark after nine. He was leaning against the shed, smoking already. He handed me one and I awkwardly lit it, making sure the spark light was shielded from the eyes of the dormitory. He said something about what I had written and how he was compiling everything. Keeping it for later.

Weeks later I was in his car, then out into the night and following him in behind the counter of the corner store, to sit at the table with the Teacher's Scotch. I drank it eagerly, (I already knew I was alcoholic, that alcohol was my thing) but with the confidence of knowing I would not get too drunk.

Things were definitely not what I had expected.