My students wait quietly, in rank and file, on the stone terraces beneath them. There are around sixty of them. By this point, it has become clear which ones are friends. Which ones are dating. Who thinks he’s smarter than the others. The retirees are the most diligent. For many of them, this class is the characterization of their entire lives. Their frustration. Their underground madness. Like me, most of these have been conditioned against neurological imbalance since childhood—standing in line outside the school nurse’s office, waiting for their vaccinations and their turns with the adhesive pads that warmed their brains against madness. This is as close as they can come to being disturbed. Doing things that agitate their better sense. This or a pair of chimping goggles. “Benjamin Cade?” one of the officers says. The other stares at the students, at the traffic in the surrounding thoroughfares. Anything. “Yes.” He looks about my age. He is armed with a sidearm, a taser, a telescopic billy club, and several canisters of chemical irritant.
