The Underworld - Part 6

I was sure the police had us. Who else would train their 1000 watt spotlights on us, waiting for us to emerge? Time to get cuffed and booked, a shameful trip to the station wearing the chrome bracelets. But no one grabbed my wrist, there were no accusatory shouts of officerial glee. There were voices though, and I paused with the trapdoor cracked up only an inch.

"And what do you guys think Steinbeck would have us think about this final scene? Why would he close the Grapes of Wrath in such a fashion?"

Mr. Paulus? I know his voice, no question. I glanced at my watch on my left wrist – 2:45. must be 2:45pm? We were down there for over 12 hours. Shit. Well, time to make an executive decision. A little more forethought, a little more discussion would have probably have been prudent. But I felt like a bedraggled rat, and it was time to get out of the sewer.

"No one has any thoughts? This is Thursday afternoon, not Friday yet." I slid the door up and over, out of the way. "I want some conversation here, I want some – " My head and torso were above ground, and I heaved upwards to pull the rest of my body up. Aware that Mr. Paulus had stopped talking, aware now that heads were turning. I still couldn’t really see in the blindness whiteness of the spring afternoon, and I stood blinking as Rachel’s head emerged. I tried nonchalantly "dusting off" the thick layer of grime and soot caked to my arms. Shielding my overwhelmed orbits, I tried to get my bearings and focus on a face, but it was difficult. Next, two skateboards and a duffel bag popped up, followed with slightly greater difficulty by Eddie. Chad brought up the end of the line, and my eyes had adjusted a little by this point, enough anyway to have a sense of what a filthy and motley group we were.

"Well, gentlemen, and madam?" Mr. Paulus had finally broken the silence. Incredulous and smiling faces surrounded, many mouths hanging agape. "To what do we owe this pleasure?" It was difficult to read any expression or inflection in his words.

Chad cleared his throat. "Well, Mr. Paulus. We were so sorry to have missed your class today due to a prior engagement. We couldn’t wait until tomorrow to apologize, and thought we’d pop up and deliver our regrets personally."

"I see. It’s really good of you to hold etiquette in such high regard. Now I guess I see why Stan seemed so jumpy when I asked him about your absence last hour. Kept his mouth shut though, he did. How long exactly were all of you burrowing around down there?"

Eddie fielded this one. "It’s tough to say, Mr. Paulus. Kind of lost track of time. There’s not much sunlight down there."

"No I can’t imagine that there is, Eddie. But what exactly was the point of all this?" He gestured at all of us with his hands.

Mr. Paulus was definitely one of our favorite teachers, and he hadn’t laid into us immediately and hadn’t sent us immediately to the assistant principal to schedule our detentions and maybe worse. It was fortunate that we had surfaced in his classroom of all places. But he seemed baffled by our presence, and was trying hard to understand.

"Mr. Paulus," I answered. "I think we were working on our legacy."

He paused, considering. A long sigh was slowly released from between pursed lips. "OK, lady and gentlemen. I’d probably get home and hit the showers as quickly as possible. Let’s not make this a habit, eh? What once might be clever, twice could be puerile and deserving of stiff punishment. I guess I had better move a bookcase over that door, just to be on the safe side, though."

"Thanks, Mr. Paulus," I replied. Quickly Chad replaced the trapdoor and our group shuffled toward the door.

I felt a tug at my arm, the blackened fingertips beating a hasty retreat. I hesitated - it was a girl from our class I barely knew.

"But what did you guys find down there? Were there any dead bodies?"

"I don’t know – could’ve been, but we didn’t see any." I paused, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. "I guess maybe we found a little love and adventure down there. Mostly I think we were looking for ourselves, and we found out a little more about who we are and who we want to be. That’s probably something worth digging for."