The One With the Teacher?
Some historical events are so big in scope and significance that most people who lived through it remember where they were when it happened. I remember where I was during 9/11, of course. I also remember where I was the first time I experienced an earthquake, the day I learned that Jerry Garcia had died, and the day the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in mid-air.
The Challenger flight is the only one of those that happened during my active alcoholism.
I have no idea why I was home from college on a Tuesday in January. Perhaps it was a long weekend that I’d lengthened into a longer weekend, but I know I was in that tiny twin bed in the Pitcairn Hotel when it happened.
I know because I was busily sleeping through it when Larry and Danny burst through the door and woke me up.
“Wake up, Baby!” Larry said urgently, shaking me with one hand and reaching for the television with the other. The roar of static filled the room immediately.
“Turn it off!” I groaned, rolling over to face the wall while Larry played with the rabbit ears.
“Get your ass outta bed!” Danny said. “It’s fuckin’ noon!”
“Fuck you,” I said.
“C’mon, Baby, you gotta see this!” Larry said again, sitting down on the bottom of the bed, still messing with the rabbit ears. The white noise had calmed into the staticky voice of a news anchor.
“See what?” I said, my head throbbing and the tiny light from the tiny TV agonizing me.
“It blew up!” Larry said.
Danny echoed, “It fuckin’ blew up!” Now Danny was sitting on the bed, too.
“What fucking blew up?” I said. I was not an avid follower of space exploration.
“The Challenger!” Danny said. “The fuckin’ Challenger blew up!”
I squinted at the TV between the backs of Danny and Larry. “What’s a Challenger?” I asked, now a little curious.
“The fuckin’ space shuttle!” they said simultaneously.
I had very, very little knowledge of current events; I only watched the news if it came on at the bar and someone asked to have the volume turned up. Then I usually tuned it out immediately. I didn’t follow sports. I didn’t follow politics or international happenings. The news was not something I cared about at all. I didn’t even follow the weather. If it wasn’t MTV, I wasn’t interested.
But someone must have asked to have the volume turned up in a bar at some point because I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew something about a space shuttle.
“The one with the teacher?” I croaked quietly.
“The one with the fuckin’ teacher,” Larry confirmed. He turned up the staticky announcer and tried to see the nauseatingly repeating video on a black-and-white television with virtually no picture.
I closed my eyes. In my heart, that teacher was every teacher I’d ever loved: my beloved fourth grade teacher who told me I could write; my beloved sixth grade social studies teacher who taught me to keep an open mind; my seventh grade English teacher who taught me how to do research; my college creative writing professor who showed me how to connect with myself.
I didn’t want to watch the Challenger blow up over and over again. I wanted to pretend it never happened.
“Turn it off,” I said, knowing they would watch the explosion, fascinated, for at least another hour, which is exactly what they did.
I had nowhere to hide. I lit a cigarette and stared with them at the tiny screen, trying to stay numb.