Model Text: “All Quiet”

All Quiet^[1]

“We can have you kicked out, you know.” Miss Nick (as everyone addressed her) began digging her fists into her hips. She towered over me at six-foot-something, gravity pulling her wire-framed glasses to the end of her nose.

I recounted the empty threats my mom would make.

“Ay nako nanlan! Putang ina! I’ll pull you out of that school! You want to go to Taft? Reseda?” Local public schools.

“Do it, you’ll save a ton of money,” I’d say.

“The only thing Catholic school is good for is producing my favorite unstable artists and writers,” I’d joke with my friends. They had been in the Catholic school system far longer than I had—fourteen years. I was jaded, though it was only my fourth year.

All-girls’ school was supposed to turn me around. But did my mother really expect the Northeastern elitism she hammered into me to fare well in Los Angeles? Especially surrounded by the daughters of television, radio and film legacies who lived in their hilly pseudo-ranches populated with their troupes of horses dancing around in golden Agouran fields? Homogenized whole milk.

Lodged right against the Santa Monica mountains was Louisville High School. The school was founded by the French sisters of Saint Louis, a French order founded by Abbé Louis Eugene Marie Bautain—whoever the hell that was. At the top of the rolling hills that were about as blonde as those who lived in them, was a small room that erupted with incense and the chatter of young women. These quarters belonged to this supposed gentle giant who chanted Mary Oliver poems ad nauseam. By her side was a new hire: an aspiring Christian songstress, also the daughter of an actor who had been typecast as a hundred high school bullies in the eighties. They, collectively, made up the “campus ministry.”

“Why didn’t you come to us first?” Miss Nick continued. “Why did you have to go straight online?” She had me there. I suppose it just ate at me. Maybe some sense of urgency. Maybe I was just playing their own game.

“Are you gonna cry?” The songstress almost demanded it. Her piercing blue gaze could only be summed up with lunacy. This was the first time I’d actually had any conversation with the religion department outside of class.

“No.”

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles demands Catholic schools regularly hold these retreats in some picturesque Californian mountain range or seaside. A select number of student lectors were elected to tell their stories drawn from their own struggles. It was supposed to be a time of reflection about your faith or something, but it never felt wholly about that. It was a period where you got to know your teachers and your peers, and empathize with each other. For a lot of the closeted non-religious and agnostics, this was the only time they could identify with their school and community.

Once, during lunch at a retreat, I hailed down one of the most respected instructors of our school. As a seven-foot bleeding wood crucifix looked on, we sipped the punch prepared by the sisters.

“Hey Mr. Clark, what was the name of that cult leader in sixties?” I asked. Amber punched me. We all giggled.

“You mean Jonestown?” He paused. His voice grew stern. “Now ladies—behave.”

Mr. Clark taught history and social sciences. He was the oldest member of the faculty and the most outspoken atheist of all. I’d spend hours in his room for detention, and we would have elusive conversations about Freud, Hunter S. Thompson, and his time in Boulder. The only way to enter campus ministry was through Mr. Clark’s room.

A week prior Olivia had applied to be a student leader for a retreat. Olivia kept to herself for the most part, and though we differed a lot, I always found something to discuss with her. Her last name came right before mine, so we often worked together on a number of assignments and projects. Mostly, we’d just critique our religion classes which emphasized chastity and accused select girls of being hussies. Olivia was a model student with perfect attendance. She was an artist, a writer, and more importantly, my friend.

Olivia’s application was readily denied in favor for the wealthy Catholic sweethearts and a select few who never disclosed certain information.

“I’d put on there that I was an atheist,” she shrugged. I knew for a fact the retreat leadership was ridden with heathens. There, on the sunny knoll, I flipped through the handbook and showed her a clause that prohibited the act of denying anyone for their race, religion or creed. And I knew save for everything, Olivia was overwhelmingly more qualified than anyone to lead a retreat. She was articulate, an active contributor to all things art and writing, and had come from years of struggle. She’d been living with Type I Diabetes her entire life, and her parents had just divorced. Her brother frequently got in trouble with the law, and she had managed to maintain perfect grades and demeanor for the past year. She actively contributed her art and writing in various forms, and was loved and championed by many teachers. If there’s anyone who deserves this position, it’s her, I thought.

I went home late after serving another detention. I opened my computer, lazed around, wondered for a moment. It’s our last year of high school. Fuck it.

I typed in the search bar, “Petitions.”

I spent a couple hours, which could have easily been spent completing all my assignments, formatting and outlining my 95 theses. I typed and typed with the fury and angst that coincided with the suffix of my age. I clicked submit and shared the URL for my peers to see—namely, my closest friend at the school, Amber, another artist who had recently painted a depiction of a dark-skinned Jesus. Amber naturally became fired up.

The next day, parades of teachers, parents, and students voiced their opinion to me.

“What you’re doing is wonderful,” uttered my art teacher. “I hope she gets the position.” So far, the whole idea was met with so much positivity. Olivia would get her voice.

“Can I speak to you for a moment?” The math and earth science teacher stopped me in my tracks between classes. She, an advocate for the environment and reason, would surely shower the petition with nothing but affirmations.

“I’d put an end to this before it escalates. This is a Catholic school. This is a private school.” I was blindsided. It was not until then I realized what I was doing could be considered wrong.

Endlessly, I cited the handbook. It was their constitution—their code of conduct. Often, I just nodded in confusion. I did not know what to reply. More and more teachers looked at me with disdain and discouraged me from continuing forth. No one would listen to the citation. Why couldn’t anyone just admit that this clause was being broken? Opponents would only say that the campus ministry could conduct business as they wanted. It was their school.

Amber, vehement and by my side, became my spokesperson. She was the recipient of the arts scholarship. That, coupled with the death of her father years ago, granted her the honor of being selected as a senior lector. Students could not apply for this position—rather, they had to be nominated by a member of faculty. The thing was, Amber was a fervent atheist—more so than Olivia.

“She’s a cunt,” Amber protested, “she’s a fucking cunt.” I envied her absoluteness. It came so naturally to her. But I couldn’t say the same.

From across the knolly pasture I saw my religion teacher, someone I found solace in. He had gone through seminary. He lapsed, and married a former student of our school. He found himself in some sweat lodge deep in New Mexico, where his Catholic faith had been lingering all along. Here, an adult teacher, admitted his agnosticism and his doubt. I admired it so. He had a liberal nature similar to my own: he talked of rogue Catholic sisters who were pro-choice and advocated for birth control.

“I understand your intention,” he told me, “but I don’t think you’re seeing it in the right light. It’s a perceived injustice. I’m not sure it really is one.” My heart dropped.

I finally piped up after an hour-and-a-half into the harangue.

“So, you would have let her speak if she lied about her beliefs? That’s all she had to do?” I could feel my voice rupturing.

“Yes.” Miss Nick replied. I silently stood up.

“Thank you.” I left.

I took down the petition at the instruction of the principal.

“It was very brave what you did,” she smirked, “but we can’t have that on our record, you know how it is.” She gave me a wink. I did not know what to make of that.

Amber was also subject to their lectures. She was told she had to forfeit her position as a student leader for being a “convicted atheist”—more specifically, that she had no business leading because of her system of beliefs. She argued that she was nominated by faculty, and that Mr. Clark was also an atheist embraced by the staff. To no avail.

Olivia thanked me. She said it was the best thing anyone had ever done for her. As an act of compromise, the campus ministry let her say a prayer over the intercom system. People were moved. Silence reigned. Our art teacher, Mrs. Dupuy, cried.

In a city of millions and a country of hundreds of millions, one girl in a small Catholic high school was viewed as threatening to the point of disrupting the entire framework. How could something so miniscule pose such a threat to our adult overseers? I never attacked their religion, but they were so adamant in attacking anyone’s lack thereof. They preach “universality,” but where? They lost all credibility with me.

After that, I became passive, stopped participating, and kept to myself. I often found myself cheek first against my desk in religion classes while Miss Nick ignited a pro-life/pro-choice debate that swept across the room. The songstress rallied for nigh fundamentalist practices that I’d never seen within a Catholic church. In the yearbook’s senior superlatives, there’s a picture of me under “Class Rebel,” but it didn’t mean anything. An embarrassment. No one seemed sincere after that. Self-interest ruled everyone around me: the lenses I had on determined that everyone was doing and saying anything to further their personal convictions, regardless of how uninformed they were, or anyone who defied them.

Including myself. Especially myself.

So, I shut up. Everyone is self-serving, I’d remind myself. I became cynical of everyone’s intentions. I longed for authentic empathy. No, unachievable. I muted myself behind layers upon layers of verbal irony. No one could attack me if I followed my lines with nervous laugh, and I don’t know! Just kidding! I prescribed myself large doses of Charlie Kaufman films, acid, and absurdist texts. At least Beckett and Camus see the gray.

“Now ladies,” Mr. Clark said. “I know you don’t agree with her, but she’s had a rough life. Please try to understand where she came from.”

I don’t think anyone there would have done the same.

Teacher Takeaways “This author’s use of dialogue is especially striking to me. Because the individual characters (and the way they speak) are each so vivid, I am more invested in the way the narrative plays out. I also appreciate this author’s reflection; it’s a good reminder that reflective writing doesn’t haven’t to sound like a self-help book or motivational speaker. On a global level, I would love to see this author apply their skill with dialogue to tell this story from multiple perspectives. What if Olivia was a first-person narrator in one section? What if we saw Miss Nick in her office alone after the confrontation?”– Professor Dawson