“I’m not saying you need to wear a suit and tie. But you have to remember you are still on the job and you are a role model, Woodland. You are a senior teacher. Where’s your self-respect, man? You want to be a good teacher, then work at it. You’re getting paid, aren’t you?”

As he walked down the ramp from Woodland’s portable, he turned back and saw Woodland flip him the “bird.” Jesus, look at them wrong and an American could get a hair up his ass and lose it. This Woodland had murder in his heart. There was less free-floating hostility at the prison back in Canada, which was tame by comparison. Hammermeister locked eyes with Woodland, but before violence was done, he abruptly turned and stalked back to the main building with his pulse pounding. He could feel the surge of it in his neck and temples. He already had a Tylenol #4 headache over that one, but you had to give them a little jab, to let them know who was running the show. He had given Woodland a jab, and the man had showed him as much disrespect as that custodian, Duffy—well, these people would be excised. Duffy sooner and Woodland later, when the time was right…in a bloodless Machiavellian style. For some short-term revenge, Harold managed to “lose” a work order Woodland had recently put in to have his air conditioner fixed. He balled it up and slam dunked it into his wastebasket. The next thing he did was write a note reminding himself to call Woodland into his office, on Harold’s turf, where he could reverse any notions the teacher had about blowing him off. He would feign consideration, all the better to ultimately crush Woodland to dust. Hah!

W. E. B. Du Bois was far from an ideal school, and the more he got to know it and was dragged down by the inertia of it, the more Hammermeister was inclined to jab these slackers or to outright get in their faces. But he had to watch himself and keep it under control, at least for this first crucial year. He really belonged in the district office, and he would be there when he whipped this place into shape. He had done well at the detention facility in Canada; he would do well here. Working in a low-morale school where so many of his colleagues were just going through the motions made Hammermeister shine like a red, white, and blue comet streaking through a night sky of blackest India ink—so, in a way, it was all to the good. Blackboard Jungle 1999 was coming along, and in the meantime, the dervish continued to whirl.