Mr. Schupp (Pronounced Shupe)

I don’t believe Mr. Schupp could ever fully know what he did to me.

Geometry. Sophomore year. A freshman class in the afternoon.

“Mary, Mary, Mary,” he always sang. Medium brown hair, medium brown beard. The face, the voice, the mannerisms of Brad Pitt.

“Another quiz!” he would announce. “But I will teach you the last elements.” He would dash to the side of the room, rip a paper from the wall, toss something to a student. “This has to do with the Pythagorean theorem,” he would say, then jot a mess of instructions on the board.

Every class was like this. Running, and jotting, the chalk dust coating his hurried fingers. He’d clap it away, wipe his hand clean on his leg. And then he would run those fingers through that medium brown hair, over that medium brown beard…

Friday afternoon, mid-January, wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He gave his lesson, tossed another quiz on my desk; the stories hilarious, the quiz’s questions over the top. I had just finished the second to last question when Mr. Schupp stood above my desk:

“Mary, Mary, Mary,” he grinned his twenty-four-year-old, bad-for-sixteen-year-old female student smile. “This is for you,” he tossed a tape on my desk.

I touched it, confused.

“Every song has Mary in it,” he announced, a proud authority.

I flipped it over—the label’s songs were marked up in the back as well. “Thanks!” I could barely squeak.

But Mr. Schupp was already halfway across the crowded classroom.

And all I could do was lament over the fact that his girlfriend was probably twenty-four and for all I knew, helped him make the tape.

***

It truly happened. Every wretched song. I listened to the tape, dumbstruck, amazed, by the thought of my teacher making this for me. I’d only just gotten my braces removed that year. Boys didn’t pay attention to me. I knew it wasn’t like that.

And yet. What he did. Oh how it toyed with my little mind.

And once again, more than anything, I yearned to be twenty-four.