The Counter Council

©2023 Elder Road Books
Originally drafted in 1985
Never Published

DEAR MISS THOMPSON,

Remember when you said, “Your days of quiet learning are over. From this day on, people will see you, watch you, and listen to you learn. Your work and your grades will be entered and compiled in a computer, which will sort out the brightest, most intelligent of you for leadership, first in your class, then in your community, and ultimately in your country, and perhaps the world. The rest of you will be shown how to follow and be good strong citizens and classmates.” I’m sure you remember. It was recited to every third grade class you taught from that year forward.

It didn’t take long for the crème de la crème to emerge. Paul, the artist. Terry, the politician, Kevin, the intelligentsia. Pam, Miss Personality. They became our first and lasting student council. Now, two decades later, these are the leaders of the community and the country. The rest of us, perhaps as intelligent, but not nearly as socially acceptable, have been trained over the years to follow, unquestioningly as good strong classmates and citizens.

Almost unquestioningly.

Today, I want to tell you about the counter council. You told our parents at the time that we were a strong group of friends, bound together by religious ties and a common code of ethics. Translated, that meant the misfits of the class. Not dumb, mind you, just on the outside of anything significant.

Brian, always big, but with a mind for science and language. Wayne, poor family and not too good with his hygiene, but a mathematical whiz and a reading level that put his vocabulary out of the reach of his peers. Liz, Irish freckles and red hair, good looks, and a temper, with an imagination to match her height as the tallest person in the class. Nathan, an idealogue already, with thoughts that were a little frightening to his contemporaries even then. The perfect counter-match for the council.

We played together, went to church together, rode the same school bus, and in the maple grove out back of my place, sat in our circle learning each other and life in ways our classmates never imagined. Only recently have I learned how to express and analyze what occurred during that and following years.

We were alarmed in our way, that all our grades and work would be put on a computer for future reference. Mind you, only the four of us in the class were into in science fiction so deeply that we could put together a scenario that would frighten ourselves. So, while the rest of the class was competing for that precious designation as leaders, the four of us were consciously sabotaging our own records.

Keep in mind that we were some of the most pacifistic students you have ever had. So, our deviance from the norms was not brought to the computer’s attention by acts of violence. We learned early that those who came up for corrections and discipline were the troublemakers, but only if they attacked the elite.

Brian and I were riding our bikes out on Elder Road, home from Wayne’s house, when a pack of the troublemakers came by and pushed us off our bikes. Then they gathered around and jeered at us as we sat in tears, picking the stones out of our knees and elbows. They got away with that behavior to a certain extent, as long as it was the outcasts that they attacked and not the elite. Of course, some of them had a difficult time restraining themselves and have been imprisoned. For our part, it moved our classification category to “victims.” Later in life, the same computers would re-classify us as “survivors.”

Well, what evolved in the woods during fair weather, or the barn out back of Brian’s house in foul weather, was a certain type of symbol language that only the four of us understood. You came by Brian’s desk one day and made him stand in a corner for doodling in class and not paying attention. I looked at those ‘doodles,’ and could read the notes for a science fiction story that he finally managed to publish before we graduated from high school.