“So give me a stage
Where this bull here can rage
And though I could fight
I'd much rather recite
...that's entertainment.” – Jake LaMotta, Raging Bull
He looked sick, venal, diseased, and wherever he walked he infected all that was around him. Students who were laughing or enjoying life would immediately cease in his presence, and everyone had enough curiosity to stare. Here was a man who stood up against all of them, against the populars and the preps and the teachers and the nerds, here was a man who stood up.
He wasn’t standing so high anymore. He looked so empty, lost, so out of place. He appeared to have stumbled into the school from a place where it is always cold and bleak, a foggy city where the dwellers rarely interact. The head rotates, the appearance adjusts, but the eyes stay still, transfixed, piercing empty space.
He glanced back at his shadow and he knew, as sure as the earth moved toward the sun, that it was taller than his soul. That was the worst type of loneliness, when he wasn’t even comfortable with himself. And he was God’s lonely man.
All the king’s men cannot put me back together again.
Spike, donned in completely black attire, arrived a few minutes early for class that day. It was the first time all year he had been early, barring the times he hadn’t shown up at all. It was also the first time he hadn’t made some dramatic entrance, and if things continued to work this way, it was sure to be a slew of firsts for Spike.
To say that Mr. Davis was amazed to see Spike not only at class early, but also looking so vulnerable and out of it, would be the understatement of the century.
“I got your fax and did all the assignments,” Spike said dully, placing a packet of work on Mr. Davis’ desk.
Mr. Davis cycled through all the pages to see that it was all there. “Good,” he said, pausing melodramatically before prompting his next question. “How have you been, Spike?”
Spike sighed slightly, trying to act normal. “Oh, you know how it is. I bowl. I download porn. The occasional acid flashback.”
His attempt to lighten the mood seemed to work, as Mr. Davis chuckled. Spike still had a rather arduous time asking his next question, afraid of the answer. “How’s Buffy been doing?”
Mr. Davis colored himself perplexed. “She’s fine... why would you ask?”
Was this man serious? Did he not know? By this point in time, the whole school probably soddin’ knew about her horrible life and were probably judging her as a charity case, which was the one thing that she truly didn’t want, and it was all because of him. “She’s not treated—”
“What? You think she would be treated differently because you’re not here to bust her chops every day?” Mr. Davis almost laughed before sobering up. “Spike, what’s wrong?”
The air stood still as the day turned tender. A handful of heartbeats passed before Spike responded. “Everyone has their faults... mine’s the size of California’s...”
Mr. Davis blinked. “We really felt your absence here. It’s like something’s been missing since you left—”
“Being the bad guy and the bully will do that,” Spike interrupted. He rubbed his eyes slightly, skin feeling like orange peel.
Mr. Davis could admire Spike’s bluntness. “Yes, well, your absence has seemed to inspire the students... everyone is doing all their assignments now, I think just to spite you. I don’t know the last time I read anything less than C material from this class.”
Was this some stupid half-cocked ploy to make Spike feel like he was wanted? From here to eternity, Spike knew how everyone in class felt about him. They hated him.
His curiosity was satisfactorily piqued, though. “Even Riley and Cordelia?”
Mr. Davis nodded. “Now I’ve consulted with previous English teachers, and they’ve all said that you guys were a lost cause up until now.”
Could this be true? Spike only knew the world in black and white, or rather only black, and he knew that the stereotypes were all true and that everyone should be judged by them and that, well, if he was wrong about that, he was wrong about a lot of stuff.
The bell rang. For whom did the bell toll, anyway?
Spike roamed to the back of the class. His eyes quickly fell when he saw his desk in the exact same place, still with his name etched in dark capital letters, the metal legs of the chair still slightly welded in. The tomfoolery and shenanigans from the first day of school seemed so distant now, like it happened a millennium ago. Things were so much easier back then, everything was so black and white and clear cut.
He sat and decided it best to put his head down, not really wanting to see the shocked expressions of the students as they dispersed themselves into the classroom.
Or the expression of one female student in particular, whom her emotions he couldn’t even begin to describe.
But when she entered... he felt it.
He felt her presence. Even after all this time and all this heartache, just like always before he felt her when she entered the room. He did not know what had caused him to raise his head to take a glance at her, maybe it was the curiosity that had killed the cat or the misery that he must have desired, but he did.
Spike looked up and caught her staring at him.
Her expression he couldn’t really describe. It looked, or really it felt, somewhere between hurtful and angry. She quickly turned her gaze away from him and sat down, not giving him another look.
Next to Riley, of course, who possessively put an arm around her. The act didn’t look like it made her feel safe at all, like it was suppose to make her feel. On the contrary, from the way Buffy noticeably stiffened ramrod straight, it probably made her feel like an object and not a human being.
Nevertheless, Spike was glad to see that Buffy seemed unaffected by his grand betrayal via Faith. It was possible that his threat to the psycho brunette was enough to hopefully keep Buffy’s reputation intact. Everything could, with a little luck, go back to its right place. Him an outcast and she dating football players, like it was always meant to be.
Spike still couldn’t shake his self-loathing, though. His actions, all of them, were still morally reprehensible, even if the outcome had not been what either of them expected. And Spike knew that the deepest rung of hell was reserved for people like him. Dante would have placed him as the eternally-tortured ice block right next to the devil at the end of that dumb divine book, The Inferno.
Thinking about the book only made him think about its most prevalent theme, that of symbolic retribution, and with the correlation to his abominable acts in mind, he decided that he would never think about the book ever again.
Purgatory, not paradise, is officially lost.
Still, seeing Buffy with Riley cut him like a knife, and even though he completely deserved it, he just felt like everything was so wrong in its right place. Maybe out of place was the right place sometimes, he didn’t know.
Riley took a menacing look back at Spike, to try to taunt him or show him that he’d “won,” but when Spike seemed unaffected, he gave up and went back to inappropriately touching Buffy against her will.
Even Riley, his mortal enemy, knew that Spike was beyond gone.
Do not disturb the deranged.
And then Spike noticed that no one was looking at him. For a second he felt like he wasn’t the center of attention, like he didn’t have to live up to some requirement or expectation or syllabus, but then he realized the obvious: everyone was trying their hardest to not look at him. It’s like Spike was The Elephant Man. He wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, “I am not an animal! I am a human being!” but he knew that was far from the truth. He had no deformities, at least no physical deformities. But he was sure he was full of imperfections and flaws when turned inside out.
The second bell rang, signaling it was time for class to start.
Mr. Davis was perched on his desk, in a position much akin to Spike’s when he taught the class all those days ago. “I see we all know Spike is back.” The small gesture to the back of the class, and everyone got their stare in at Spike. “Please get out your essays on 1984 and pass them up to the front while I take roll.”
Everyone, including Spike, shuffled with papers as the teacher took attendance. Mr. Davis was becoming an even better teacher to the students; it looked like he knew everyone’s name by heart now. No more were they being treated like little kids.
After putting the attendance sheet near the door, Mr. Davis skimmed through the essays. “Looks like most of you wrote on the dangers of totalitarianism, which was one of Orwell’s main messages.”
“Two plus two equals five,” Cordelia chirped, referencing the end of the book.
Mr. Davis nodded approvingly. “That’s very good, Cordelia.”
Did Spike just see this with his own two eyes? Normally Cordelia would mask any intelligence she had, to keep up with the status quo, but she seemed to be fine with actually acting competent and coherent. And normally one of the jocks would poke fun at her right now, ramble on about college and ambition and life goals and how fucking lame all that was, but they seemed mute. This was all very different to Spike.
Mr. Davis continued talking. “So, does anyone here think that Winston and Julia loved each other?”
It was such a loaded question that no one really wanted to tackle it. Obviously, Mr. Davis was referring to the two main protagonists of the novel, both of whom engaged in a secret relationship together.
“I don’t think so,” Buffy said lightly, breaking the silence of the room.
Mr. Davis cocked his head. “And why is that?”
Buffy let out a long breath before her tirade. “I think they were just using each other to get away from the bad society they lived in. To them, their relationship was defying all law, and they wanted more than anything to be rebellious. They were like teenagers that way. They were extremely secretive about their relationship and it was always sexual; they never had one meaningful conversation with one another.”
Wow. That had to be the most worked up he’d ever seen Buffy in class. He knew that she was making a little game out of this class discussion. She was relating the book, and rather skillfully at that, to her former relationship with him. If she wanted to make him feel guilty or hurt, she didn’t really know Spike’s feelings, or even lack of feeling, right now.
Buffy stepped off her soapbox. “So no. I don’t think they loved each other.”
Apparently she had become a pessimist and a cynic, too. She was really sticking it to him here...
“Anyone to debate Miss Summers?” Mr. Davis asked the class.
As silence swept the air, Spike felt like he was required to respond to what she said. He wasn’t trying to make her angry or justify his actions or anything like that, he just wanted to get across his opinions on the book. To him, her attack was justifiable, to say the least.
Spike rose his hand eagerly. Mr. Davis nodded to him, signaling that he was free to speak.
“I think that they loved each other,” Spike asserted in an odd optimistic tone, probably to the astonishment of the class. “It’s the first thing she bleedin’ writes to him, after all, in that letter. And it’s awfully bleak to think they didn’t love each other.”
“Ergo, my point.” Buffy’s response was immediate and steadfast. “It’s a bleak book. Orwell wouldn’t put something non-bleak in there.”
Spike shifted in his seat, shaken slightly. He still wasn’t making eye contact with her, even though she must have been looking dead at him, with those eyes and that face. “I just don’t agree. They shared something together, something intimate, even if it was only sexual, secretive... even if it was shunned by society... they shared something together.”
They were speaking in code now, in a language only they knew. All the class could do was try to keep up.
Spike could feel Buffy’s seething eyes on him as she spoke vehemently. “They used each other and that’s that. He was obsessed with her. He fantasized about her. And all she wanted was to get away from her horrible oppressed life. It was nothing more than that. They were just missing the perennial ‘I don’t love you’ scene to put the last nail in the coffin.”
Was she talking about the book still? At all?
“Buffy...” Spike closed his eyes, having trouble even saying her name. If he had trouble with that, he would sure as hell have trouble making her understand his viewpoints on the book. He decided questions were his best ally. “What’s the one thing that breaks Winston’s spirit? In the end of the book, when he’s being tortured and he doesn’t give in?”
Buffy thought hard about that for a few seconds before epiphany set in her eyes. She breathed the words out softly. “Her... Julia.”
Spike nodded. “Julia.”
A pause. “But he gives her up. Tells them that he’d rather have her tortured than him.”
Spike shrugged. “Still, she was his... he wanted her the most out of anything. It is only after Big Brother breaks him down to the point where he gives her up that he finally goes off the deep end. And it is only after he gives her up that Big Brother knows for certain they can brainwash him, that all his hope is lost. She was the last thing he held onto in his mind, the last thing he lost, and the thing he cherished the most.”
A long pause ensued as the class tried to interpret Spike’s words. That is, the meaning behind Spike’s words, because it was the meaning that mattered. Of course, Spike would probably say now, in true Spike fashion, that the words had no meaning, they were just words, if only to philosophically spite everyone.
“I think it’s time to move on...”
The class redirected their gaze to the long since forgotten teacher. Mr. Davis loved that his classroom was filled with debate, because to him that was the only way students could learn: through discussion, through experience, through talking about stuff with peers. A long book or a boring lecture just did not compare.
Mr. Davis stroked his chin, lost in thought, forgetting what he wanted to accomplish today in class. “Oh, I know where I wanted to go now: poetry. Spike has a poem to read for us, just like the rest of you did a week ago...”
After the obligatory class moan at the memory of the oral report, everyone looked back at Spike again. He didn’t feel shy, his cheeks didn’t redden, he didn’t nervously gulp. To be quite honest, he didn’t give much of a damn about anyone staring at him besides Buffy.
He went through some papers and got his poem out. He quickly went over the lines, wondering if it was too personal to share with the class.
Screw it he thought.
He got up and moved to the front of the class, all eyes following his languid motions. He must have looked deathly sick to all of them, skinny as a skeleton. At the helm of the class, he started reading:
“Life it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free
Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can't be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel
Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now He's gone
No one but me can save myself, but it's too late
Now I can't think, think why I should even try
Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye”
By the end of the poem, Spike wasn’t even looking at the page anymore, but looking up, staring intensely not at anyone in particular, just staring intensely. He wasn’t reciting some hollow poem on a page, he was telling everyone the way he felt. He didn’t need no stinkin’ paper or cue card or music stand for that.
The class was very silent when the poem ended, like nighttime must have been on the dark side of the moon. It was like wherever Spike went a great silence followed him.
Spike etched back to his chair, head hung low.
Mr. Davis got up from his desk, Spike’s poem in hand. He addressed the class directly. “So, what makes Spike’s poem so effective?”
A pause occurred before an unsuspecting person answered.
“It’s like... it’s like a suicide note,” Cordelia exclaimed the obvious.
Mr. Davis nodded. “There is great emotion in his writing. We feel what the narrator feels so intensely and strongly... the loss of will to be, the emptiness, the agony...”
“And when he said that he didn’t even want to try...” Cordelia trailed before she clarified herself. “That just hit home. When you’re a kid you’re parents tell you to try your hardest always... and he just can’t anymore. It’s so sad.”
Clearly, Spike had underestimated Cordelia completely. Sometimes simplicity was the best and most poignant way to say something.
Putrid air once again tainted the class. “Anything else?” Mr. Davis asked.
“The structure,” Buffy said softly, trying to focus on the plain things and not the profound things, like the overwhelming sorrow and guilt that the poem displayed or the way that it seemed like the narrator would commit suicide over whatever problems had arisen in his life.
“What about the structure?” Mr. Davis proposed, trying to liven the discussion.
“It’s... it’s perfect,” Buffy glanced up at Mr. Davis blankly. “Seven syllables each line, very rhythmic. It’s like you could chant it. But the last verse completely screws it all up.”
Mr. Davis glanced to the back of the class at Spike. “You have anything to say about that?”
Spike stood straight in his chair. “It was done purposely, the last verse being like that... if it was the same as the other verses, I think the entire meaning of the poem would be lost... everything would be the same, it would just be a soddin’ speaking exercise. Shakespeare did something similar in his sonnets; he ended with couplets.”
Buffy hadn’t glanced back at him when he said these words, probably hadn’t thought he was worthy of a glance and for that harrowing conceit, he had to agree. But he knew she heard him.
Cordelia jumped in her chair. “Ooo! He also uses personification, right? I mean, death can’t literally greet people, right?”
Everyone in the class chuckled at that.
“Yes,” Mr. Davis said, clutching the poem in his hands. “He does use personification. And Spike also capitalizes ‘he’ in the line ‘I was me, but now He’s gone.’ What is the double meaning?”
Scott spoke up. Who knew he could catch the religious reference? “It’s biblical,” he said.
“Like the narrator thinks God is gone, like God has forsaken him...” Buffy trailed before she repaired her thoughts. “So far gone, he thinks that God left him. The poem also hints that the narrator had a superiority complex.”
That last little bit? Totally directed at Spike.
And she was completely right, he knew.
Mr. Davis shifted gears. “Okay class, next we’ll be reading the Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet. Get out your notes so I can lecture some preliminary information on the story.”
Spike got out a piece of paper and a pen, but he didn’t really need it. No one better than him knew that revenge led to destruction.
I promise next chapter ends with concrete B/S plot. It should come as a relief that Spike didn’t totally destroy Buffy’s life with his betrayal to Faith; she seems to be treated exactly the same way as before all of this started. The discussion about 1984 could be misconstrued in several ways; I’m not trying to make Spike look like an ass here.
If you would like to receive an email when I update, please tell me via review box or email (TestaALT@aol.com). I’m definitely not above sending them out, since I know I tend to update rather infrequently. I’m hoping, though, that I’ll start to pick it up here soon.
Reviews are greatly appreciated.