Mr. Bridge was a no-bullshit kind of teacher, the kind who offers zero extra credit, and no make-up exams without a doctor’s note, but who everyone respected as being fair. He was a “straight-shooter” as my grandma used to say. Kids talked about him behind his back, and I felt a connection to that. Maybe the way he kept to himself, the distance he always kept from everyone. It took discipline to be that remote and I envied the kind of solitude he maintained amidst the daily avalanche of kids and teachers.
I mimicked what the lesson played next, but botched the pronunciation. I looked up to see if he’d caught my mistake, but I could tell by his eye-line, and his busy fingers at the control board that he’d moved on to monitor someone else. I could only hear the lesson and my own silence as
