THE LOADED HANDGUN
A handgun lay in the open top drawer of Sister Regina’s desk, its smooth black steel cold to her touch. What was she to do, she prayed to the Lord. “Robert is such a good lad and a good student too. I don’t know why he brought that gun to school. He wouldn’t tell me. Thank God I confiscated it from him before anything happened. Nevertheless, this requires serious consideration. A slap on the open palm with a ruler simply won’t do. My decision could have a lasting impact on his future. I just don’t know if I could live with myself if Sister St. George expels him, or worse makes a police report. But what if something had happened. Imagine the effect on the school, and the whole parish for that matter!” A bell rang, breaking Sister Regina’s dark rumination. She slid the drawer closed, removed the key ring from her sash, locked the drawer, gathered her notebook and social studies textbook, then left the classroom for Room 16 where she would deliver a lesson to the other 8th grade class.
In her prayerful reverie, Sister Regina had not noticed Patrick slouched in his desk at the back of the classroom. Patrick watched as the classroom door closed behind Sister Regina, then rose from his desk and stepped quickly to the front of the classroom. He lay on his back and pushed himself under the desk with bent legs. He found a long, rusted iron bar and with a deft twist, unlocked the drawers, hearing the click he’d heard before when pilfering answer keys for math tests. “Sister Regina is so dumb. She doesn’t know how easy it is to open her desk.” Patrick stood behind the desk and slid the top drawer open. There it lay; the gun he’d seen glint from Robert’s open pocket and then in Sister Regina’s hand. With morbid fascination, he lifted it from the drawer and pointed it at objects in the classroom; a fish tank, a picture of Pastor Kass, the crucifix hanging on the wall, imagining the havoc wreaked if he pulled the trigger! The sound of grating metal froze Patrick in place. He looked at the front classroom door and saw the lever above the door handle move. Acting quickly now, he dropped the handgun on the seat of a front row desk, slammed the top drawer closed, and ran to the back of the classroom. As the front door opened, he stepped out the back door, unnoticed.
Mr. Barth entered Sister Regina’s classroom, math textbook in hand, and glanced around at the vacant desks. After graduating from Loyola Marymount a semester early, he’d responded to an ad for a grammar school teacher needed to finish the school year. He liked this short-term assignment. He liked the authority he wielded over these pubescent teens. He liked the girls on the edge of womanhood, especially the Hispanic girls who seemed to develop early and liked to wear their plaid blue and gray skirts rolled up and their white peter pan collared blouses unbuttoned, above and below the nun lines. It did not go unnoticed by the boys on the sports teams that Mr. Barth had placed the three prettiest Hispanic girls in the front row in front of the teacher’s desk. His prolonged looks and coy smiles in their direction disgusted them. They somehow felt protective. The girls also noticed and resented this unwanted attention from a pervert!
Another bell rang and students began filing into Room 15. Mr. Barth watched anxiously. He smiled at a few girls as they entered giggling with one another and glancing in the direction of boys standing in small groups around the classroom. Bryson, the captain of the football team, entered alone. He met Mr. Barth’s cold stare with an icy stare of his own. It was obvious to everyone that they did not like one another. Mr. Barth addressed the students, “Please take your seats. Class is about to begin,” he said pointing to the clock hanging on the wall. Students slowly moved to their desks and began sitting. Bryson moved to his desk and noticed the handgun just before he sat on it. “This looks like one of those new high-powered cap pistols I’ve heard about. It feels real. I doubt it is loaded,” he thought as he turned the gun over in his hands. “What is that you have in your hand,” Mr. Barth demanded. Bryson showed Mr. Barth the gun. “Give it to me this minute,” Mr. Barth demanded crossly. Bryson raised the gun to chest level and then, without thinking, pointed it in Mr. Barth’s face. “Give me that gun, now!”
Next door in Room 16, Sister Regina, opened her social studies textbook to page 45 and asked the students for their attention. Suddenly, the silence was broken by two loud bangs, in quick succession, that reverberated against the back classroom wall. “Oh my God, what has happened,” she screamed as she jumped from her chair. “Stay in your seats,” she said coolly as she moved quickly toward the back door. After the door closed behind her, students quickly maneuvered for position at the glass windows in the two doors.
When she opened the front door to Room 15, Sister Regina was astonished to see Mr. Barth on the floor, one knee in the center of Bryson’s back, the pistol in his hand pointed at Bryson’s head. Click, click, click. The chamber was empty. “What is going on here,” Sister Regina demanded? This little shit shot this gun in my face,” Mr. Barth sputtered. “Are you hurt.” “No.” “Please give me the gun.”
POSTSCRIPT: What happened later is still a mystery to me. Sister Regina and Mr. Barth met briefly in the teachers’ lounge, then emerged with determined looks on their faces. The high-powered cap pistol was never seen again. Robert and I never met with Sister St. George. Mr. Barth finished the school year, then completed a long and distinguished career in the United States Navy. Sister Regina left the Sisters of Saint Joseph order when a dictate from above abolished the habit she so dearly loved. Patrick was expelled from Mater Dei High School for reasons undisclosed. And I didn’t tell my parents what happened that day, long ago, until many years had passed and I was free of their influence. Of course, my mother was very disappointed in me.
This story was inspired by a real event that occurred at St. Pius V grammar school in 1967.
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