(author's note: this is a horrible, horrible chapter that I wrote in about an hour. It will most certainly be rewritten. I apologize for how much it sucks in advance).
Chapter Five: Daniel Jackson Starkey
There are very few people who anger me as much as Ms. Blake. Seriously, she’s in my top five, right up there with Hitler, Rod Blagojevich, and Nick Cage (how on earth do they still cast him in movies? Shouldn’t he be in an insane asylum somewhere?). She may have been pretty hot for an old woman, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that she sucked as a teacher.
Seriously, like how did she even get a job at Goodland Elementary? Because a couple years ago, right after Principal Vachon passed away, I was helping cover the funeral for the Goodland Gazette (even being the only attorney at law in Goodland doesn’t mean you don’t need the extra cash every once in a while, and the Gazette pays its freelancers pretty well). I noticed that all of the teachers were there except Ms. Blake, which was strange because although I never saw them get along that well, there always seemed to be a strange connection between the two of them. So when I asked all the other teachers about Ms. Blake, they all told me that Ms. Blake never got a teaching degree from any university at all. They remember her becoming a teacher on the very same day she moved into town (she apparently was born in California somewhere), and that was it. More importantly, not a single one of them could remember why Ms. Blake had been hired, and Principal Vachon apparently always refused to answer any questions about why she would hire a woman with zero teaching experience or qualifications.
And, consider this: once, Principal Vachon threatened to fire Ms. Blake for teaching outside of the curriculum, but then she mysteriously backed off when Ms. Blake told her she “wouldn’t do that” if she were her. Something’s definitely gotta be up. So, in my opinion, that means she probably had some dirt on Principal Vachon, some sort of information worthy of blackmailing someone into never ever getting fired, even when they deserved it. So, I figured I should do some digging.
But why do I hate Ms. Blake so much? Well, it may sound silly, but on the very last day of class, she said something to me that deeply upset me. See, you have to understand that, at the beginning of the school year, Ms. Blake had us all write down on a sheet of paper what we wanted to be when we grew up. And, because one of my earliest memories was watching the film To Kill A Mockingbird (Some people may disagree, but I always thought Scout was kind of cute in a rough and tumble kind of way), I wanted to be a lawyer with all my heart. Ms. Blake however, thought otherwise. She thought I was too stupid to become a lawyer, just because I wasn’t doing too well at school at the time. But she didn’t just tell me this in private. I might have been ok with her pulling me aside and tell me that I might want to pursue other career options. But no, she had to tell the entire class that I was too dumb to pass the Bar.
I don’t think any words have ever stung so much, even Kathy telling me she wanted to cancel the wedding. I was so humiliated, and I decided right then and there to do whatever it took to prove her wrong. So that one day, I could come back with a law diploma from some place prestigious, like Harvard or Columbia, and shove it in her face.
So I’ve worked my ass off every day since then. Even though I was dyslexic, I made sure to spend all my free time practicing reading and writing, so that I would get faster and more accurate. I took a while for me to start making straight As, but by the time I got to high school, I was on track to being in the top ten of my class.
But then, freshman year of high school, I ran into Ms. Blake at a town hall meeting. I figured, now would be a good a time as any to let her know how wrong she’d been. So I went up to her, and told her that I was making straight As now in all my classes, and that she should be able to discern that I would become a lawyer after all. She looked at me with confusion n her eyes, and said “First of all, i don’t think you understand what discern means, and second of all, who are you?” So I told her that my name was Danny Starkey, and that she had told me that I couldn’t become a lawyer in 5th grade.
Then she laughed, actually laughed in my face and said, “and you think grades are all it takes to get into law school? You clearly aren’t prepared at all.” I asked her what she meant, and she said “Well, do you have a job? Any extra-curriculars? There are going to be thousands of other kids who are smarter and more talented than you, and you think that a couple of As in English somehow makes you special? Danny, i may not have seen you in a while, but so far I’m not impressed. And if I, as no more than a retired old elementary school teacher, am not impressed, then I don’t think any college with a decent law program is going to be. Perhaps you should consider becoming a notary public instead. I hear that’s a degree you can get at the community college.”
Well, you can imagine I got out of there in a hurry. I mean, after all those years, I thought for sure she’d apologize for making such a huge mistake, and instead she just tore me down again! So the next day, I started a mock trial team, joined the debate team, and got a job as an filing assistant at the county court house. It was a lot harder to keep my grades up. I mean, I already spent all my waking hours studying for my exams, since it took me a lot longer to read the assigned chapters than most people. But I figured, if Albert Einstein and Erin Brokovich and freaking George Washington were dyslexic, then I could do whatever I damn well set my mind to. In fact, they all probably had people like Ms. Blake picking on them too, and that really set my mind at ease.
And by the time I graduated high school, I graduated as valedictorian of my class, and I had myself a place at Northwestern (only a two and a half hour drive from home). I was hoping Ms. Blake would be at the graduation ceremony, but I supposed she was too embarrassed to come, seeing as how my success at school had been on the front cover of the Goodland Gazette the day before. I wanted to stop by her house, just to see her face, but I was content to just mail her a graduation program and article clipping, with a note that said, “Keep these for when I’m a famous lawyer one day, and you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
And I continued mailing her things all throughout college. Copies of my report cards, Dean’s List notifications, letters of recommendations from my professors (I told them they were for internships because I figured they wouldn’t be too keen on fueling a decades-old feud I had with an old teacher). And then, when I got into Law School, my obsession with having Ms. Blake admit that she wronged me got even worse. I never left my apartment, I never made any friends. That’s when my fiance, Katharine, told me that she was starting to think that I cared more about Ms. Blake than I did about her. And in a way, she was right! But how could I not care about the one person who always told me I could never make something of myself?
Once I graduated law school, I turned down the offers I got from firms. I know that was a stupid decision to make, considering how much student debt I had to pay off, but I wanted to open my own practice in Goodland right in downtown, so that Ms. Blake could see that I had made something of myself. So, I opened Starkey & Associates, even though I had no associates, and waited. I waited for her to come and see me, because I always figured that she wouldn’t be able to stay away.
A year after I started my practice, Ms. Blake still never showed up. I began to get really frustrated, because everything I did, I did for her, and she was just ignoring me. Honestly, I didn’t want to have to visit her. That would have been weakness on my part, and i wanted her to be the one to grovel, her to be the one to beg my pardon. I started to pray that she would get into some sort of legal trouble; that she would get into a car wreck and need a lawyer, and I’d be the only one around. So she’d come to my office, crying about how she didn’t want to serve jail time, and I’d laugh in her face and tell her, “Sorry, but I suppose I’m not smart enough to represent the likes of you. What do I know, right? I’m just some dumb idiot in a suit. But you know what? I know that there are tons of other lawyers in Indiana, and though their fees will be a lot more expensive, hopefully they’re sympathetic enough to take your measly little, pathetic little case pro bono.
Now, you might be saying that I’m being a little harsh. Maybe you think I should be thankful that Ms. Blake treated me that way in 5h grade. That she knew I had some sort of potential, and she only wanted to get me riled up so that I could live up to it. Well, it’s true that if she hadn’t made some of those remarks, I probably would be a low-level manager of the grocery store my father owns. But the reason why I hate so much isn’t because she told me I couldn’t become a lawyer. It’s because I did become one.
Eventually I got so tired of waiting that I found her address and went to her house. It was a small little thing at the bottom of a hill. I remember that day and the house very clearly, because I remember thinking how strange it was that a woman, who had apparently come into enough money when we were in 5th grade to retire early, was living in a dinky little place like that house. It was completely run down; the stuccoed walls were cracking, and the light yellow paint was starting to turn green from some of the moss. The garden clearly hadn’t been kept up with, since the weeds were threatening to be taller than the bushes lining her driveway. I figured she probably spent it all on alcohol or something. I remember think how ashamed she would probably be when she opened the door; to see that her now incredibly successful student would see her live in such squalor. I was practically giddy with delight.
The doorbell was broken, so I had to use this old knocker that was covered in disgusting cobwebs. She opened the door, and squinted at me, as if she couldn’t remember who I was. I knew she was faking; trying to make it seem as if hadn’t tried to tear me down. I remember peering down at her through my (very distinguished looking) glasses, and saying:
“Ms. Blake, my name is Daniel Starkey, attorney at law.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and then she, surprisingly, smiled. “Danny,” she said. “Yes, of course. Come in, come in.”
The inside was much cleaner, but incredibly threadbare. Nothing more than the bare essentials; no decorations whatsoever. That shame I expected her to show? Nonexistent, which was a shame, because it was one less thing I had to gloat about: my three bedroom, three bathroom house I had built, even though I’m the only one living in it.
We sat down at her kitchen table, and she handed me a glass of long island iced tea. “You’re old enough to drink alcohol now, aren’t you?” she said. “I’m not a child anymore, Ms. Blake,” I said. “Well, then stop calling me Ms. Blake! I’m Mallory.” she said. And then she took a long sip of her tea. “So, what brings you here, Danny? Am I in some sort of trouble or something?”
And that’s when I got really mad. I said, as calmly as I could, “You know why I’m here. I’m here for you to apologize. I’m here for you to tell me that you were wrong.” She smiled and said, “Oh really? And what is it that I was so wrong about, Danny?” And I said, “Don’t play dumb with me! You said that I was too stupid to become a lawyer. And then, in high school, even after I had brought my grades up, you said I was too stupid to get into law school! Well, guess what? I did get into law school! A great one, in fact, and I graduated with honors! And now I’ve started my own practice here in Goodland, and I’m the only lawyer in this entire town, so everyone has to come to me! I succeeded when you said I would fail! I win! So what do you think about that, Mallory Blake, huh?!”
She put down her glass and, I remember this very clearly, she looked me right in the eye, a challenge on her face, and she said, “Well, I guess I have one thing to ask you. Are you happy? Because if you aren’t, then I’m afraid you haven’t won anything. If you aren’t, then I’m afraid, Danny Starkey, that as much as it saddens me to say this: I’m the one who has won.”
I remember sitting there for a good minute or two after that. Just sitting there, staring at her stupid blonde hair and her stupid haunting eyes, and her red fingernails that tapped out a rhythm on the side of her glass. And then I stood up, thanked her for the tea, walked back to my car, and started to cry.
Because thinking back, I realize that I wasn’t happy at all. I was absolutely miserable. She had told us that we should focus on the qualities we want to embody as human beings and the relationships we have. And I forgot about that. I used to be fun. I used to have a wonderful girl named Katharine who loved me. And I threw that all away because I had something to prove. If she hadn’t said those things – if I had really listened to her, maybe my life wouldn’t be as shitty as it is now. Because living alone, and working on petty cases in a lifeless town when I could have been happy somewhere else? With someone else? That’ll always be my biggest regret. That I listened to all the wrong things.
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