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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 8, 1999)
LA8<«X3 Taxpayers, children and mal formed dogs alike were in fervent support of the school’s new plan to keep out the student-led crimes that were rampaging across America. The school’s head man, Principal Principle, wasn’t about to let his stu dents incur wrath upon those who had had wrath incurred upon them who had had wrath ... Ten million is all it ran. A divine model from the folks who gave you the U.S. Mexico border ... minus the beat ings, of course. And the Mexicans. Now it started with the perimeter fence. More than a biddle thick, a few more than that u I rail, me ience gleamed out to tnose who’d dare scale it. Nay, it shouted: “I am more than a biddle thick! And a few more than that tall!” Since it was a perimeter fence, it had to cover the school grounds, fields and park trails included. A mileage of a biddle thick (and a few more than that tall) fence that gleamed, nay, shouted. For good measure, if anyone dared scale it, guards were placed at friction points of the perimeter fence, so at all times, friction could be applied to the perimeter points that had been designated to be points of friction. Policeman Paul headed up these men, as he always has in such cases. He had his boxcar, along with his three other mates who set forth for friction points about the perimeter. There, students would pass through mighty gates in the perimeter fence and into the grounds of the school, always wary of the general biddle ness of the fence. Each student, as part of the secu rity plan, was given a coin, which needed to be kept on them at all times and changed with each year as the student passed through grade lev els. The coins were imprinted with writing, though no one could quite tell what was imprinted. The coin went through a scanner 20 feet before the school doors. Green light, stop. Red light, go ahead. Coins back in the pocket. Out came the card. The card was scanned at the school door itself and then put through a roller machine, which rolled, to check for tampering. Red light, stop. Green light, go ahead 12 feet. Card in the pocket. Out came the coin again. The coin would be scanned after the card. Then, the student would be searched for plastic. Then wire. Then metal. Finally, aluminum. Coin in the pocket. Out came the card again. And on the shirt it went. Right breast for everyone. Clipped on with a special clip, made of die same material that made the coin. Passing time was exactly three minutes. Guard Gary and his crew observed the cul ture inside. It was Guard Gary’s job to man the interior for any potential problems in the mornings, search lockers in the afternoon. At night, Nightwatchman Nick and his crew would watch Janitor Jake and his crew clean up Hemingway High, in case one of those maintenance crew members was fiendish and tried to hide a shiv under a urinal. Cameras scanned the entire school grounds, inside, outside. There was a cam era that shot straight up into the sky, as to watch for paratrooping marauders. Several more were inside the school, obscured from view. Several more after that were hid 1 den. None was in plain view, though the students were absolutely sure they existed. Cameraman Cameron watched all of these cameras from a hidden room, bent'off a brand-new hidden comaor in a hidden-away part of the school. Near him was the finest security measure of them all: a but ton encased in glass, the glass to be broken and the button to be pushed in only the most dire of emer gencies. The button closed the school doors, all of them, as they were mag netic and could be closed as such. If an intruder were reported on the perimeter fence, a particularly dan gerous intruder, Cameraman Cameron would break the glass, push the button and the doors would close for 30 minutes. Lock down. No way in for the intruder. Trouble kept out. The fire marshal wasn’t so sure, but he wasn’t about to rub citizens the wrong way. Ingenious. And only $10 million. *** One day, Hemingway High stu dent James James headed out to the street and waited for the truck. Not the bus. The truck. He had a bag of blue, a shirt of green, shoes of white, pants of tan. James James saw the truck at the top of the hill. He paused for a moment, then sprinted toward it, his arms flailing in the air, face frantically contorted into crazy shapes. I_jj Garbageman Greg and Trashman Trent had to stop and look at this thing. James James caught up to the truck. “You guys going to the school?” James James asked. *** When they put in the perimeter fence, there was a predicament. The garbage. All the garbage was in bins right outside the school, inside the fence. But they weren’t abou to take those bins a mile out so they could be outside the fence. For one thing, it’d stink, and the folks who lived back there behind the school would n’t stand for it. “Think I’m gonna wake up with my coffee every morning and smell i pile of rotten bananas?” Rita Residential said. For another, nobody really want ed to haul the trash out there. It was too much work. So they kept the bins near the school. When the truck came, a guard checked them and opened the gate. After awhile, the guard got tired of waiting. “Their schedule’s always differ ent,” the guard told Policeman Paul. “Can’t I just leave the gate open? Whaddya think they’re gonna do in there? Christ, they re garbage men.” Policeman Paul had a hard time arguing with that. So they just left the gate open. *** James James watched as the truck drove right through the gate ol the perimeter fence. This was not or of the friction points. “You know, I’ll bet that fence is a biddle thick,” Garbageman Greg said. “And a few more than that tall,” James James said. There were no scanners at the back entrance. No detec tors. Just a loading dock for food and garbage. Couldn’t scan those folks in at all. James James got out of the truck. He thanked Garbageman Greg and Trashman Trent. He went inside the school. *** The problem with the cameras was that they were always a little hid den. So you could n’t see everything. Just some things. Cameron Cameraman didn’t see James James open fire on his classmates, but not because he could n’t see him. He could have, if he hadn’t been in the can. And even then, he was half in the bag from the night before. And even after that, the cam eras weren’t even on. Morning paper first, Cameron t would always say, then job. Of course, he could have heard James James, if he hadn’t been hidden away, obscured from the noise. Guard Gary didn’t see James James open fire on his classmates because, he, too, was in the can. He aia near it, though. But guards didn’t really get guns. Not at Hemingway High, for fear that someone it. He had a walkie talkie, though. Guard Gary s crew was pretty much in the same boat as Gary. Not the can part. The walkie-talkie part. Policeman Paul never saw James James at all that day. Or heard him. As James James was opening fire on his classmates, Policeman Paul was in the porta-can. His walkie-talkie was outside, in the weeds, e Guard Gary didn’t know Cameraman Cameron existed. Thing was, Cameraman Cameron was sup posed to spy on Guard Gary too, just in case. So Guard Gary couldn’t know. Guard Gary walkie-talkied Policeman Paul, who was still in the porta-can. But he got out of the porta-can as soon as he heard the alert message. “There is a clandestine operation going down!” Guard Gary bellowed. “A clandestine operation!” He didn’t elaborate. Policeman Paul fumbled around in the weeds for a moment. Immediately, he walkie-talkied Cameraman Cameron. Cameron received the same message and, finally, turned on the cameras. But since most of them had an obscured view, and even more of them were just downright hidden, Cameraman Cameron didn’t see a thing. He fig ured James James was still on th$ outside. All the cameras were kind of frizzy, anyway. After all, Cameraman Cameron was still half in the bag. So Cameraman Cameron turned to the glass bubble. He tried to break it with the special hammer designed specially to break the glass. It didn’t work. But the hammer did break the glass of the fire extin guisher compart ment, so he used the fire extinguish er to break the glass of the lockdown • button. Cameraman Cameron pushed the button. And all the school doors closed. All the perime ter fences, closed. All the check points, they, too, all closed. The plan was to isolate the perpetrator in the yard between fence and school. Instead, it locked all the students in, and James James killed all he could until he ran out of bullets. In effect, Hemingway High committed suicide, a fact not lost on the literary analysts in the days following the tragedy. *** Somewhefyfsidden inside the blackened remains of Hemingway High, is the camera room. Only one camera has yet to be disassembled, the one atop the school, the one that searches for the marauding para troopers which have not yet descend ed. All is calm within the camera’s eye. Nothing but blue skies ahead. text by Sam McKewon art by Matt Haney
