Drill Town -------------------------------------------------- A Life Lesson By Ned Sane

Keeping track of all the children had become routine for Miss Beal. Even after all these years, her students were still a joy. They were also a pain in the rumpus.

She giggled to herself.

They were mostly wonderful. In her heart she loved them dearly. And she reminded herself of this fact each day as she watched them bubbling around on the school playground like fresh little kittens.

Miss Beal liked to stand inside the two-room cottage, near the east window, where the sun spread its morning heat like fingers generously massaging her time-weathered face and body. She would watch her precious young children romping gleefully outside.
Unlike most of the kids raised in that midwestern oil town where she taught the third grade, Miss Beal was certain that this year's bunch was destined to shun the blue-collar rut of the nearby oil fields.

Honey Beal had never married.

Instead, these were her children. Romping around the playground, laughing, shrieking and soaking in the goodness of young life in a peaceful town.
Years would pass, and the same sort of destiny had seemed to meet her former students. Hardly any of them would have the courage or desire to forego the big dollars paid for rigging, just to pursue other, less-known and seemingly unfriendly worldly careers.

More noble pursuits.

Time was running out. However, Miss Beal still felt positive that this class was different than the rest. It had to be.

She gazed through the window on that sunny morning. They were all so special. Why, just look at little Tad out there on the playground, she thought, silently gazing onto the bright morning's play session. He just can't keep himself away from those other kids. Tad was so very sociable. Tad seemed too friendly, too outgoing, and too ambitious to remain in that death trap of a town forever.

Oh, and little Horace. The boy had such a grand sense of humor. She watched Horace for several moments. He was back in the far corner of the playground, loping wildly in circles like an excited puppy. Several of his classmates stood grinning at each other, and giggling at Horace. The class clown. Horace will be a comedian, she thought.

Little William was also quite a character. He always insisted on being referred to as Captain William. His antics rarely strayed from resembling some sort of military exercise. William was obsessed with marching everywhere instead of merely walking like the rest of the kids. Miss Beal noticed William on the playground, hiding secretly behind the jungle gym while speaking rapidly into an imaginary walkie-talkie. He was also holding an imaginary machine gun with the other hand, occasionally rapid-firing at an invisible target. Miss Beal was sure that William would someday be a great leader in uniform.

It was only one year later when Miss Beal finally retired. Soon she passed away peacefully in her sleep. She had lived a long life. Her contribution to education was respected and acknowledged by all the townspeople as they attended her funeral.

Twenty years passed, and several things did change in the small oil town. But mostly things stayed the same.
Let's all take a curious peek inside the Drill Town tavern to catch up on the lives of the same kids from Miss Beal's playground on that sunny, innocent morning from twenty years ago:

The tavern owner is a familiar figure named Tad. He is older now, but still very social. In addition to being the owner, Tad works the night shift bartend duty.

The Drill Town tavern is filled with smoke. There are few outsiders in these parts. The ones that come into town are usually desperate for work. They rarely find it to be a pleasant experience.

Country music, clinking glass and voices from a time-impacted playground fill the air. The kids never heard the bell that signaled an end to recess. Now they have all become man-sized, whiskered, and hung over.

Horace is called Horse. Yes, he is still a comedian. Horse rests his ass all night on a bar stool. He is permanently slumped onto the shiny wooden bar, telling one filthy joke after another. Tonight he tells one about Awful Harry, an outsider working as a roughneck in the field. Nobody likes outsiders.

Awful Harry hears Horse slur out one too many dirty jokes about his wife, so he punches Horse real hard in the flabby gut. After that, Awful Harry lands another meat hammer onto Horses saggy face.

Tad, who is everybody's friend, comes around from the back of the bar to help mop up Horse's messy puss with a clean bar towel. Tad looks up just in time to see Captain Willy squeezing the trigger of a very real handgun.

The target is Awful Harry. Because, in Drill Town, the outsider is always wrong. Harry then lands awfully hard on the floor with an equally awful surprised look on his dead face.

The atmosphere suddenly holds nothing but smoke, silently drifting through the muted light of the room.

The military had refused admission to Captain Willy many years before. Something about mental instability, they had told him. But that had not kept Captain Willy from remaining a Captain in his own army, in his own war, protecting his own little Drill Town.

And looking down that night, from high above, from the glorious puffiness called heaven, Miss Beal was finally able to rest in peace. She had watched the scene quickly unfold in that smoky bar. Now she realized, after all these years, that at least one of her former students would be leaving town soon.

Albeit the trip would be made on a special bus to the maximum-security prison two counties away, the old teacher could not help but feel a little vindicated for her life-long struggle to show a young person that there is indeed life outside of Drill Town.

Yes, her little Captain William would be soon be wearing a uniform after all.

Moral: People only change on the outside.