The Secret Life of Dr. Bakersfield
By Eric Carlson
Copyright 2012 Eric Carlson
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The Secret Life of Dr. Bakersfield
New England, 1953
I was 14 years old in the year of 1953, young and reckless and full of passion. My parents had just sent me off to boarding school in Massachusetts, away from everything I had ever known. Away from baseball games and county fairs, chewing tobacco and raiding my parents’ liquor cabinet – all the fun things I had ever enjoyed with my friends. Don’t judge me, though; all of our recklessness was in good fun, and we never wanted to hurt anyone. What we wanted to do was spread the joy and humor of life to everyone and everything around us. But apparently those around us didn’t have the same outlook on our pranks, which is part of the reason I ended up spending my next year at boarding school. I happened to be involved with some people that took pranking much too far, and I paid the price for it. But that’s another story altogether.
As a result, I found myself standing in front of the great Coopersmith Academy in Wurlitzer, Massachusetts. A huge, green lawn was spread in front me, at the end of it a humongous tower that loomed over it not unlike the professors at the school: stern, suspicious, and satanic. Okay, maybe not that last one. The building I was looking at was the famous Nielsen clock tower, the 200-year-old symbol of the prestigious academy that inspired fear and respect in all but the bravest of new students. It was made of beautiful red brick draped with large, circular windows, and countless balconies made of green-painted oak. Near the top of the building, gargoyles defended the revered relic, lost in a time of mythology and superstition. All day they sneered down at the students, daring them to even put a toe out of line. I remember many of my classmates laughed at the crumbling relics, but I never did. And on that day I quickly walked out of sight from their gaze, careful to not look back.
I was put into the dorm that housed all the 9th grade students, an ivy-covered brick building that ascended three stories in between beautiful oaks and maples. I was on the third floor, the one notorious for housing the rule-breakers and the delinquents. It had the earliest lights out and the strictest rules, complete with incessant room checks. You couldn’t light a match on that floor without a teacher knowing it.
I moved in on that afternoon with two suitcases and a backpack bursting with books and notepads my parents had bought me for the school year. One of the other boys, a nervous kid who looked about 15, was there showing me my room and helping with my bags. He didn’t say much, and usually jumped when I asked anything about teachers or rules, which I had a lot of questions about. His name was Mark and I felt bad for him. While we were moving in I noticed that my roommate was asleep in the bed. Weird, I thought. But maybe he had a long trip from wherever he was from and was tired. Mark finished helping me move in and left with a meek goodbye. That’s when the sheets flew up and I met Jon, my roommate.
“Gosh, I just wanted to wait until that Mark kid was out of the room! He freaks me out a little. Hi, I’m Jon.” He said after jumping out of bed in full dress. He was an average sized kid; skinny with a mousy face. His clothes were nice but not well-kept, wearing the scars from sliding and falling and general horseplay. As he stared at me I noticed a crazy look on his face. I was a little taken aback.
“James.” I said, reaching out and shaking his extended hand.
After our handshake, he started moving around me, inspecting me up and down, side to side, all without a word. After he tussled my hair around a bit and peered in my left ear for an unusually long time, he stood back in front me.
“You’ll do.”
“Um, what?” I responded, confused at the most recent events.
“You know, don’t worry about it. You’ll be happier that way. What kind of stuff are you into?” He said as he lay back down on his bed.
I sat back on my bed in response. “Well, pretty normal stuff. Football, basketball, fishing, and I used to be into pranks but I guess that’s got to stop here.”
“Pranks! Stop? No way, you just arrived at prank city.” He screamed as a he launched himself into the air. He then moved closer to me. “You know, I’ve been looking for a partner for a long time….”
I tried to steer clear of his wild body movements. “No way I can do pranks here,” I responded. “That’s WHY I’m here. No way I’m getting into that kind of trouble again.”
“James, James, James. I’m not going to force you into it. But sooner or later, in THIS place, you’ll be forced to do them. They will be conscientious acts of nonviolence that you will be obligated to partake in. TRUST ME.”
And at that word Jon raced out the door. I could hear crowing growing fainter in the hallway as I stood there flabbergasted and alone.
The first day of class ended up being a memorable experience without even trying to misbehave. Although I had been trying to learn the rules since my arrival, I had apparently forgotten some of the finer details, such as remembering to always address the teachers as sir or madam. I seemed to forget this many, many times, which resulted in me writing sir and madam one hundred times each on the blackboard after Ms. Jenkins English class. I mean Madam Jenkins, of course. When I told Jon about this later before Geography, he just scoffed at me.
“That’s nothing, James. If I could do that in every class, I’d consider it a good day. No, there is much worse out there.”
“Like what?” I responded.
“Like the time they made poor Jeffrey Adams clean every toilet in the school…with his tongue!”
“Bull. Shit.”
“Yeah? Well, have you heard about Dr. Bakersfield yet?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“He’s the dean, and he’s the worst of them all. I hear that all the other teachers use mean punishments just because they’re scared of him. Here’s my advice: Steer clear of him at ALL costs.”
“Oh, he can’t be that bad.” I said, but I didn’t mean it. I had just remembered where I’d heard the name. It was from all the horror stories I had heard about Coopersmith, and I was starting to tremble at the thought of ever meeting the man.
Suddenly, the class started and the teacher’s eyes beckoned us to pay attention, lest we desired retribution.
“Steer clear,” Jon whispered out of the side of his mouth as he turned towards the front.
And steer clear I did. The problem was that Dr. Bakersfield seemed to be a man that frequented the campus often. Occasionally I would catch a glance of the big man on the other side of the hallway or outside on the grounds. Whenever I did I would put my head down and immediately march the other way. That way the man never got a close up look at me. If he knew my face then there was probably a better chance of being singled out.
Meanwhile, the classes at Coopersmith were getting harder and harder, and the rules were getting stricter and stricter, which made Jon’s offer more compelling every day. At night he would tell me of all the little pranks he would do, from slipping whoopee cushions onto seats to letting loose assortments of animals (who knows where he got them) loose in the buildings. Although some of the pranks were juvenile and childish, Jon was extremely talented and never got caught. I started seriously thinking about joining him in his antics.
Then a day came when I really snapped. I was just sitting in History class minding my own business when I noticed that Dr. Bakersfield had come in to inspect the class. This made me immediately on edge: I sat up straighter, fixed my hair, and made sure I looked like I was paying attention. When I sat up straighter I accidentally knocked over my pencil. No one noticed. At that point the History teacher, Mr. Roberts, decided to make us write down a paragraph about the Civil War. I freaked out. I was without pencil, and Dr. Bakersfield was watching. There was no way I could get up, so I attempted to discreetly whisper to the girl next to me for help.
Mr. Roberts immediately zoned in on my act and erupted like Mt. Vesuvius. He marched towards me, snatched me up from my chair, and violently berated me for current and past actions that may or may not have actually happened. I realized that this is what Jon warned me about – teachers trying to impress Dr. Bakersfield with how strict they could keep the children in line. I was about to made an example of.
“Talking repeatedly in class! Disrespectful, rebellious, attitude! We are taking you straight to the Sun Room.” Mr. Roberts yelled at me with a ferocious look on his face.
I looked over at Dr. Bakersfield during the tirade; he looked placid and stern, watching the exchange like a spectator would watch a mediocre tennis match. He loved this, I thought. He loved this too much.
The “Sun Room”, as I would soon find out, was called such because of the sunburn-like rash one would develop on the buttocks after spending time there. I enjoyed a good two hours in the room and left crawling down the hallway like a wounded dog in Tijuana. I was almost to my room when Jon pulled up alongside me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Payback?” He said calmly.
I just nodded my head in agreement.
The pranks started with ferocity. At first we started small, continuing with Jon’s juvenile jokes. But Before I knew it, I found myself crawling along a vent in between classrooms, depositing cleverly timed stink bombs throughout. Needless to say the rest of the days classes were cancelled in that building. A day later, Jon and I turned a dorm floor into an ice skating rink. Everyone had a really, really fun time getting back into their rooms that day. And on Friday we posted a banner in front of the main building announcing that classes were cancelled for the day. Mayhem ensued.