RE: Trailer Trash, 63 pt 6

    “This girl seems to have done nothing but create problem after problem for our school, and from where I’m standing, the administration doesn’t seem to have done much of anything about it but let the girl rampage wherever she damn well pleases!” Mrs. Gallagher ranted. 

    “Mrs. Gallagher—”

    “She’s caught fooling around with her math teacher, and she barely gets a slap on the wrist for it?!” Mrs. Gallagher was aghast. “Well, back in my day that would have been an instant expulsion! Let alone what—”

    “Mrs. Gallagher she was not caught doing anything of any sort—”

    “Let alone what else I’ve heard!” Mrs. Gallagher’s voice was rising in pitch towards a terrible crescendo. “Apparently this harlot ran out on her parents and is shacked up with some other man across town—living with this man—who might I add is not her legal guardian! Yeah, no fucking kidding. I don’t know what kind of school you’re trying to run here or if you’re with all of that politically correct nonsense where you’re too scared to call a spade a spade, but back in my day we had words for that kind of girl! No matter what age she is!”

    “Mrs. Gallagher, please—”

    “And, now this little whore wants to be a cheerleader, huh?!” Mrs. Gallagher exploded. “But, the honest, God-fearing young women who’re already on the Springton High Cheer Team put their foot down and said enough is enough! These girls worked damned hard to be able to—”

    “Mrs. Gallagher, good morning,” Coach Baylor greeted the woman as soon as she limped into the room, also affording Principal Edwards a nod. “Excuse me, I was held up—I had to ask the other coach to cover my morning class. What’s all this about?”

    “Well, apparently some dirty little whore of a freshman is trying to disband the entire cheerleading team just because she couldn’t make the cut!” Mrs. Gallagher all but screamed. “After all the blood, sweat, and tears that my—”

    “Mrs. Gallagher please, mind your language,” Principal Edwards warned. “This is a school.”

    “The cheerleading team is not being disbanded,” Coach Baylor explained. “That was never—”

    “Well then, finally at least someone is doing something about all this!” Mrs. Gallagher roared, throwing a sneer at Principal Edwards. “Thank you. I’m glad at least I can count on—”

    “That was never the case—the team was never being disbanded,” Coach Baylor clarified. “Mrs. Gallagher, Faith and Desiree are both suspended from Cheer because of their inappropriate conduct. I’ll not have any of my girls acting in the way that they did, and I’m extremely disappointed in both of them.”

    “My daughter didn’t do anything wrong!” Mrs. Gallagher snapped. “Her and Faith being punished, and for what? For being the only ones willing to stand up to some nasty girl like this Tabitha whore—”

    “Mrs. Gallagher,” Principal Edward warned again.

    “Mrs. Gallagher, I’ll thank you not to call any of the young girls here whores,” Coach Baylor said in an icy tone. “Whatever your daughter has told you about—”

    “Oh, well she’s told me enough!” Mrs. Gallagher laughed. “It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable what you’ve been letting that one get away with! And, then the second someone finally stands up and tries to put a stop to it—”

    “Whatever you think Tabitha Moore is guilty of, I assure you that—” Coach Baylor began.

    “Oh, PLEASE,” Mrs. Gallagher scoffed. “Everyone around town already knows it! She got caught with a teacher already, for Christ’s sake! Now, she’s shacking up with some older man! If for one second you think that—”

    “No, she was not, and no, she is not,” Coach Baylor corrected. “The incident with the math teacher was investigated, and—”

    “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire!” Mrs. Gallagher sneered again. “If you expect me to believe for one second that—”

    “The ‘smoke’ was investigated, and the one ‘starting fires’ turned out to be a very unwell young woman amongst the sophomores spreading false rumors about Tabitha Moore,” Coach Baylor explained. “This sophomore later physically assaulted poor Tabitha in front of a crowd of witnesses. She has since been diagnosed with a mental illness and has been transferred to Kentucky’s Department of Juvenile Justice. The friends of hers that were bullying Tabitha with made up nonsense served suspensions already, and I had hoped we had put all of this mess behind us—you can’t believe how personally disappointed I was that Desiree and Faith treating Tabitha the way they did.”

    “What a bunch of baloney,” Mrs. Gallagher shook her head in disbelief. “My daughter didn’t do a single fucking thing wrong, and I’m proud of her for being able to stand up for herself when apparently no one else will! Not even the school! Not even her own fucking cheerleading coach! Who I thought I could trust with my daughter’s safety and well being. Un-fucking-believable! Just—”

    “You’re proud of your daughter?” Coach Baylor asked. “For stealing some other girl’s towel from the locker room. They’re not even in the same class! All because of a rumor that this girl and her friend might be trying out for cheer later in the year. Your daughter’s not even—”

    “What a bunch of bullshit!” Mrs. Gallagher scoffed. “You know that’s not what really happened. If something like that happened, where it’s just some accident and Desiree just needed a towel—”

    “Then, when I asked her and Faith to apologize?” Coach Baylor continued. “They both then instead antagonize the poor girl—”

    “Well, maybe that little whore shouldn’t have started all this in the FIRST place!” Mrs. Gallagher retorted, giving both of them looks of disbelief before turning and storming out of the room.

    The angry click of her heels down the short back hall was apparent, and then there was a gasp of disbelief from Nancy and the sound of scattering paper as Mrs. Gallagher shoved a stack of sheets off the administration counter in passing—then the door to the Springton High main office rattled as the woman tried to slam it behind her.

    “All of this over a towel,” Principal Edwards let out a long sigh. “A towel. This wasn’t anything we should have been raising any kind of fuss over in the first place—you didn’t have to pull girls from the team for this. A write-up and a warning would have sufficed, no?”

    “No, Mrs. Cribb was very clear about us keeping an eye out for bullying incidents related to Tabitha Moore,” Coach Baylor insisted. “Mrs. Gallagher wants to cause trouble? Direct her towards the school board.”

    “No, what I’m saying is—this shouldn’t have even been an incident in the first place!” Principal Edwards grumbled. “It’s a towel—who cares? This isn’t something anyone should be kicking the whole hornet’s nest over. She took my towel! He looked at me funny! She was flicking boogers! He touched my shoulder! Jesus Christ, they’re kids, it’s always going to be something or other with them. How about we just keep a spare towel or two in one of the empty lockers there, for whenever this kind of thing happens? Then, all of this aggravation could have been avoided.”

    “Oh, I’m sorry—were you not aware that Tabitha, specifically, has been targeted by these other girls here before?” Coach Baylor raised her eyebrows at the man. “Was there or was there not a previous incident where other students singled out her belongings specifically for theft?”

    “I’m just saying—maybe we can all give it a rest?” Principal Edwards shook his head. “Don’t just jump to conclusions right away. Some girl grabbing the wrong towel in the showers there probably happens all the time throughout the year, and nobody bats an eye. This doesn’t have to be some big premeditated scheme! People grab the wrong coats or umbrellas or what have you all the time. Simple, honest mistakes happen. A warning and a write-up would have been fine. I feel that suspending girls from the team over this very minor little thing is an overreaction, and now look—we have parents like Mrs. Gallagher beating down our door. She won’t be the last, I hope you know.”

    “Students came to me to report this because it was not an accident,” Coach Baylor said, fighting to remain calm. “Faith and Desiree were apparently quite pleased with themselves for nicking Tabitha’s towel and gloating about it. Tabitha was targeted specifically. When I confronted them, they spun all kinds of stories that didn’t match up, and when I told them to go apologize to Tabitha, apparently they were rude and mocked her. If they want to act that way, they’re not going to be on my Cheer team.”

    “If we escalated every little slight against each other to suspensions, seventy percent of the student body would be suspended!” Principal Edwards explained. “They’re teenagers, for crying out loud—every couple of weeks we have boys throwing some sort of juvenile scuffle in the weight room, or on the football field, or over at the basketball court. Just—what was it, last week? Some kid got a tooth chipped rough-housing around with some other boy, and even that didn’t turn into the big ordeal this stupid towel thing is shaping up to be. They get warnings and write-ups first. When they’re repeat offenses, then we hit them with suspensions. Not before. I don’t want to see this blown out of proportion, please.”

    “I’m doing what the school board told us to do,” Coach Baylor shook her head. “We were told to keep an eye on this—I’m keeping an eye on this. If any of this escalates and something happens to Tabitha again, hell anything,—calling up the student body to the auditorium and giving them another lecture on the dangers of peer pressure and bullying isn’t going to cut it. Lawsuits are going to fly, and anyone and everyone who could have prevented this will be clearing out their desk.”

    “Overreacting on this doesn’t help us, either,” Principal Edwards argued. “It was a towel— not a shoving match, or a catfight between girls, or one girl slapping another one or that kind of hissyfit. Those we see all the time throughout the course of the year, and those get warnings, or three-day suspensions if they’re more serious. I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep a close eye on Tabitha, and I’m very glad to see everyone’s been so diligent about that considering all of those circumstances. But, pulling cheerleaders off the team indefinitely for something so minor—you need to think very carefully about how you’re handling this. This is making a mountain of a molehill and turning into the exact kind of escalation we’re trying to avoid between these girls. A warning and a write up, the girls will learn to be more considerate going forward. Pulling them off the team completely—now we have a whole bunch of girls fuming with anger and this turns into a serious grudge match. This isn’t helping the girls get along better, if anything it’s throwing more fuel on the fire.”

    “Okay, fine,” Coach Baylor shrugged. “Sure. They’re already off the team now, but next time we run try-outs? I’ll give Faith and Desiree their fair shake at rejoining. I’ve made it clear how my Cheer Team needs to conduct itself, and the high standard I’m holding them to. Next practice I’ll clarify that to everyone—parents too, if that’s necessary. We wouldn’t want any more Mrs. Gallagahers showing up to ruin your mornings, would we?”

    “Fine, fine,” Principal Edwards sighed.

    “She pushed all my print-outs all over the floor,” Nancy called from around the corner. “Who does that?”

    “I do hope you’re keeping Mrs. Cribb and the rest of the school board in the loop on this,” Coach Baylor continued, shooting Principal Edwards a look. “If this here has been any indication, all the nasty rumors flying around about Tabitha are only getting worse and worse.”

( Previous, 63 pt 5 | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, To be Continued... )

/// Sorry for the delay getting these sections out. I'd make better excuses, but honestly... I just didn't want to write them.

It's easy to know which story beats I want to hit, but then actually going through and putting research into parent-teacher crashouts and people flipping out on each other and trying to give it an authentic feel in writing is... yeah, just exhausting. The thing is, I don't think I even can put this kind of thing properly into writing, because in all of the real world instances I find, 'conversation' is completely unintelligible as both parties are interrupting too fast / talking over each other and completely not even having the same conversation or an actual dialogue with each other. Translating that accurately into writing just becomes an incoherent mess.

In this case I'll be satisfied if it's at least pretty clear that parent, principal, and coach are all operating on very different narratives of what's going on and not really communicating. No one ever being on the same page is the most realistic portrayal, but it's often a lot harder to read/write.

By modern standards, the principal is in the wrong for not adopting a no-tolerance stance on bullying. But, this doesn't take place today, it takes place in the late nineties. He's also in a position where problems that seem drastic to everyone else are commonplace to him, he's jaded because this shit is landing on his desk every other day.

Coach Baylor is in the wrong for pulling cheerleaders from the team, because that WILL only escalate tensions between those girls and Tabitha. The thing is, there is no RIGHT path for her, because a light punishment for the cheerleaders would have been just as wrong.

Mrs. Gallagher is in the wrong, sure, but she's obviously been fed exaggerated versions of rumors that were already malicious in nature. Well, and also she doesn't care because her daughter can do no wrong, and if she does it's still not her fault!

Intervention by level-headed parents or school counselors in this situation between cheerleaders and Tabitha is possible but pretty damn improbable—there are few things quite so stubborn and fearsome as the ego of teenage girls who've been treated like the princess fish of their small town ponds until now. I wanted it to be clear that the conflict of this arc isn't something that can fundamentally be resolved by 'the adults,' and that in most cases everything they try to do makes things worse.

Because, at its core, isn't that the real teenage mindset most of us felt back then?

When you were a child, adults had all the answers and could fix anything. The teenage years is when that line of thinking gets turned completely on its head and everything gets impossibly complicated.