Dan Simmons - Death Of The Centaur

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The Death of the Centaur

by Dan Simmons

Introduction

I was a teacher for eighteen years. Not a college professor ... not even a high school

English teacher ... "just" an elementary teacher. Over the years I taught third grade,

fourth grade, and sixth grade, spent a year as a "resource teacher," (sort of a

lifeguard for kids in dan-ger of going under because of learning problems) and ended

my career in education by spending four years creating, coordinating, and teaching

very advanced pro-grams for "gifted and talented" (i.e., smart and able) stu-dents in

a district with seven thousand elementary-aged children.

I mention all this as background to the next story.

Teaching is a profession which is not quite a profes-sion. As recently as twenty-five

years ago, teachers bal-anced their low pay with whatever satisfaction they could

find in the job—and there is plenty for a good teacher—and by enjoying a certain

indefinable sense of status in the eyes of the community.

Some years ago when I was a sixth grade teacher, I stepped outside one winter

evening to see the Colorado skies ablaze with a disturbing light. It was the aurora

borealis, of course, in what may well be the most dramatic display I'll ever see from

these latitudes.

As I stood watching this incredible light show, a young student of mine and her

mother came down the street and asked what was going on. I explained about the

aurora.

"Oh," said the mother. "I thought maybe it was the end of the world like it predicts

in Revelation, but Jesse said you'd know if it was something else."

I think of that moment occasionally.

It used to be that teachers were—if not exactly the sages of society—at least

respected as minor but necessary intellectual components in the community. Now,

when parents go in to a parent/teacher conference, the odds are great that the parents

are better educated than the teacher. Even if they're not, they almost certainly make

signifi-cantly more money than the teacher.

Of course it's not just the low pay that is driving good people out of teaching; it's

not even the combination of low pay, contempt from the community, contempt from

school and district administrators who see master teach-ers as a liability (they would

rather have beginning teach-ers whose tabulas are perfectly rasa and ready to be

programmed with whatever new district fads the admin-istration is pushing), and the

fact that many children to-day are not pleasant to be around. Perhaps it's all this plus

the reality that teaching is no longer a place for peo-ple with imagination. Creative

people need not apply. Most don't.

The point of all this is that just at the time when we most desperately need quality

teachers, just when our in-tellectual survival now demands men and women in the

classroom who teach so well and make our children think so well that we'll have no

choice but to pay that teacher the ultimate teacher's compliment—condemnation to

death by hemlock or crucifixion; just at the time now when families and all the other

traditional institutions are abdicating their responsibilities in everything from teach-ing

ethics to basic hygiene, abandoning the effort it takes to turn young savages into

citizens; surrendering and handing these duties to schools ... that happens to be the

time when the schools lack the small but critical mass of brilliant, creative, and

dedicated people who've always made the system work.

To compensate, teachers hang signs in their faculty lounges. The signs say things

like—"A teacher's influence touches eternity."

It may. It may. But take it from somebody who was in there pitching for eighteen

years—good teachers are invaluable, more precious than platinum or presidents, but

a bad teacher's influence touches the same eternity.

* * *

The teacher and the boy climbed the steep arc of lawn that overlooked the

southernmost curve of the Missouri River. Occasionally they glanced up at the

stately brick mansion that held the high ground. Its tiers of tall win-dows and wide

French doors reflected the broken patterns of bare branches against a gray sky. Both

the boy and the young man knew the big house was most likely empty—its owner

spent only a few weeks a year in town—but ap-proaching so close afforded them

the pleasurable tension of trespass as well as an outstanding view.

A hundred feet from the mansion they stopped climb-ing and sat down, backs

against a tree which shielded them from the slight breeze and protected them from

the casual notice of anyone in the house. The sun was very warm, a false spring

warmth which would almost surely be driven off by at least one more snowstorm

before re-turning in earnest. The wide expanse of lawn, dropping down to the

railroad tracks and the river two hundred yards below, had the faint, green

splotchiness of thawing earth. The air smelled like Saturday.

The teacher took up a short blade of grass, rolled it in his fingers, and began to chew

on it thoughtfully. The boy pulled a piece, squinted at it for a long second, and did

likewise.

"Mr. Kennan, d'you think the river's gonna rise again this year and flood everythin'

like it done before?" asked the boy.

"I don't know, Terry," said the young man. He did not turn to look at the boy, but

raised his face to the sun and closed his eyes.

The boy looked sideways at his teacher and noticed how the red hairs in the man's

beard glinted in the sun-light. Terry put his head back against the rough bark of the

old elm but was too animated to shut his eyes for more than a few seconds.

"Do you figure it'll flood Main if it does?"

"I doubt it, Terry. That kind of flood only comes along every few years."

Neither participant in the conversation found it strange that the teacher was

commenting on events which he had never experienced first hand. Kennan had been

in the small Missouri town just under seven months, having ar-rived on an incredibly

hot Labor Day just before school began. By then the flood had been old news for

four months. Terry Bester, although only ten years old, had seen three such floods in

his life and he remembered the cursing and thumping in the morning darkness the

previ-ous April when the volunteer firemen had called his father down to work on the

levee.

A train whistle came to them from the north, the Dopplered noise sounding delicate

in the warm air. The teacher opened his eyes to await the coming of the eleven a.m.

freight to St. Louis. Both counted the cars as the long train roared below them,

diesel throbbing, whistle rising in pitch and then dropping as the last cars

disappeared toward town around the bend in the track where they had just walked.

"Whew, good thing we wasn't down there," said Terry loudly.

"Weren't," said Mr. Kennan.

"Huh?" said Terry and looked at the man.

"We weren't down there," repeated the bearded young man with a hint of irritation in

his voice.

"Yeah," said Terry and there was a silence. Mr. Kennan closed his eyes and rested

his head against the tree trunk once again. Terry stood to throw imaginary stones at

the mansion. Sensing his teacher's disapproval, he stopped the pantomine and stood

facing the tree, resting his chin against the bark and squinting up at the high

branches. Far overhead a squirrel leaped.

"Twenty-six," said Terry.

"What's that?"

"Cars on that train. I counted twenty-six."

"Mmmmm. I counted twenty-four."

"Yeah. Me too. That's what I meant to say. Twenty-four, I meant."

Kennan sat forward and rolled the blade of grass in his hands. His thoughts were

elsewhere. Terry rode an invisi-ble horse around in tight circles while making

galloping sounds deep in his throat. He added the phlegmy noise of a rifle shot,

grabbed at his chest, and tumbled off the horse. The boy rolled bonelessly down the

hill and came to a contorted, grass-covered stop not three feet from his teacher.

Kennan glanced at him and then looked out at the river. The Missouri moved by,

coffee brown, complicated by never repeating patterns of swirls and eddies.

"Terry, did you know that this is the southernmost bend of the Missouri River?

Right here?"

"Uh-uh," said the boy.

"It is," said the teacher and looked across at the far shore.

"Hey, Mr. Kennan?"

"Yes?"

"What's gonna happen on Monday?"

"What do you mean?" asked Kennan, knowing what he meant.

"You know, in the Story."

The young man laughed and tossed away the blade of grass. For a brief second

Terry thought that his teacher threw like a girl, but he immediately banished that from

his mind.

"You know I can't tell you ahead of the others, Terry. That wouldn't be fair, would

it?"

"Awww," said the boy but it was a perfunctory whine, and something in the tone

suggested that he was pleased with the response. The two stood up. Kennan

brushed off the seat of his pants, and then pulled bits of grass from the child's

tangled hair. Together they walked back down the hill in the direction of the rail line

and town.

The centaur, the neo-cat, and the sorcerer-ape moved across the endless Sea of

Grass. Gernisavien was too short to see above the high grass and had to ride on

Raul's back. The centaur did not mind—he did not even notice her weight—and he

enjoyed talking to her as he breasted the rippling waves of lemon-colored grass.

Behind them came Dobby, ambling along in his comical, anthropoid stride and

humming snatches of unintelligible tunes.

For nine days they waded the Sea of Grass. Far behind were the Haunted Ruins and

the threat of the ratspiders. Far ahead—not yet in sight—was their immediate goal of

the Mountains of Mist. At night Dobby would unsling his massive shoulder pack and

retrieve the great silken um-brella of their tent. Intricate orange markings decorated

the blue dome. Gernisavien loved the sound created as the evening wind came up

and stirred a thousand miles of grass while rustling the silken canopy above them.

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Dan Simmons - Death Of The Centaur

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