American History, Thursday, Period 2, Lesson 4
"Manifest Destiny," Algren said, launching into the lecture the moment the last student's butt hit their seat. Tyler stood back and observed this week; it was clear to him that Algren had the subject well in hand
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When the students made their way into class today, there was no teacher at the front of the room.
Ten minutes later, still no teacher.
Eleven, nothing. Twelve, nada. Thirteen, nope.
It was somewhere about the fourteenth minute and the thirty-second second that the door to the classroom swung open, and Algren, clasping a flask in one hand and a book on American history in the other, stumbled into the room.
If one had the grace call it a stumble. It was more of a slow, drunken ooze. The deliberate steps of a man who knew that he was three sheets to the wind, and who was trying to conceal it in the most painfully obvious manner.
He sat down in front of the room. On the floor. He'd missed his chair. He hardly noticed, anyhow. And he cleared his throat, and he spoke.
"Manifest destiny," he drawled, his speech just as drunken as his manner. "Something that someone much richer than I am thought up. Was a century and a half ago, and we crossed the continent a long time before now. So screw 'em. Go play hookie."
And then Algren had a nap, the end.
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