The Gift of Second Chances

by Morris Marshall

“Excuse me, Professor. Could I speak to you for a minute?”

I looked up from my computer. Class had just ended, and the lecture hall had emptied out. A young woman was standing inside the doors at the back. Her pale skin contrasted with her curly black hair, which fell to her shoulders. Dark circles stood out under her eyes. My first thought was that she’d been crying.

“Sure,” I said. “How can I help you?”

The woman came down the aisle to the front of the lecture hall. “I’m in your Microeconomics class. Mondays at eight a.m.”

I didn’t recognize her, but that wasn’t unusual, given my large classes.

“I’m Sarah Hall. I haven’t been to any of your classes, and I missed your midterm. I was wondering if I can still write it.” She sat down in one of the seats and put her backpack on the desk.

“Do you have a medical certificate?”

Sarah reached into her bag, pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.

“This is dated a month ago,” I said.

“I’m sorry. I just haven’t been able to get out of the house. My anxiety has been bad. I did well last year in high school, but during this first term of college...”

I sighed. “You’ve missed a lot of material. Our second test is next week.”

“I know. I’ve been trying to catch up.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, placing Sarah’s note in my briefcase. “Can you email me?”

Sarah represented my third mental health certificate this term. I’d given makeup tests to the previous two students even though they’d submitted documentation weeks after the original test. Professors in my office were beginning to talk:

Someone is letting students use cheat sheets.
Some profs are giving make up tests without proper documentation.
My students are complaining that so-and-so is giving open book tests and they want them, too.

“You’re making us look bad, Chris,” Barry Simmons, who’d been a full-time prof for 25 years, said one day when the office was empty. “We’re trying to set standards, and our own students are complaining that other profs are giving breaks to their students. Your name came up several times.”

“My tests are as tough as any other prof’s,” I said. “I just think we should be more compassionate in mental health situations. When I was in university, there were no supports at all.”

Barry rested his arms against the top of my cubicle and took off his glasses. “That’s not a reason to lower standards.”

“Students are more isolated today,” I protested. “Especially since Covid. It’s also harder to find employment. I’m seeing more students with mental illnesses. If I can do something to make their lives a little easier, I will.”

“Why do you care so much anyway?” Barry asked.

I just smiled.

* * *

Saturday, August 14, 1993

After experiencing several weeks of hot, dry weather, Toronto was looking forward to fall and was filled with optimism at the prospect of winning a second consecutive World Series. The Blue Jays were sitting on top of baseball’s American League East. In contrast, the Canadian economy was in a slump, and companies were cutting back. I’d lost my payroll job in May, a year after graduating university.

I called my friend, Al, late that afternoon on the rotary wall phone in our kitchen. “It’s too hot to play tennis, but how about playing some pool?” I asked. “I could use the company.” We both had matching mullets (his black, mine red) and a penchant for Grunge music. Al was raising a child with his long-term girlfriend while my longest relationship was two months.

“Sounds good, Chris,” he said. “Play for table?”

“Of course.”

We met at the “Rack ’Em Up Billiards” on Keele Street, north of Rogers Road. There were two six-by-twelve slate tables in the middle of the room. Two teens were playing “Ms. Pac-Man” on a machine in the corner.

I removed a cue from the collection on the wall while Al racked up the balls.

“Your break,” he said, sitting down.

I drew back my cue and launched it forward, hitting the white ball, which struck the other balls with a loud “CRACK!” The yellow “one” ball sailed into a corner pocket.

“I’m solids,” I said, walking around the table.

Al went to the jukebox, inserted a quarter and punched in a selection. A familiar guitar riff sounded, followed by Kurt Cobain’s voice belting out Smells Like Teen Spirit, as the teens playing Ms. Pac-Man nodded in approval.

Halfway through our first game, Al put down his cue and looked at me. “Are you okay, Chris?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You’re quieter than usual.”

I rested my pool cue against the table. “I was just thinking about Linda. I can’t figure out why she broke up with me. Everything seemed to be going so well.”

“You can do a lot better than her.”

“I wonder if there’s something wrong with me.”

“Nah, it happens to everyone. It just takes time to find the right person.”

Another song came on the jukebox, one we referred to as a “Tear-in-your-Beer” song.

“I can’t listen to this, Al.” I walked outside, sat down on a bench and stared at the ground. The sun was sinking in the late afternoon sky.

Al joined me a few minutes later. “It’s okay, Chris.” He cleared his throat. “I was wondering. Are you still seeing Doc?”

“My psychiatrist?”

Al nodded.

“Yeah. Just a few weeks ago, I had so much energy, playing tennis and jogging everywhere. Within a day or two, I couldn’t even get out of bed in the morning.”

“That’s extreme. What did Doc say?”

“He thought it was bipolar disorder. He put me on lithium. I started feeling better after several days, but it was making me drowsy, so I reduced the dose.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Al said. “Maybe you should give Doc a call on Monday.”

“I will.”

Al patted my shoulder. “Come on, I’ll walk you home. I’m sure you’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

We rose from the bench and walked south on Keele Street back toward Rogers Road. The Saturday Blue Jays game drifted out of a passing car. They’d just beaten the Boston Red Sox.

“What’s going on over there?” Al asked as we rounded the corner onto Rogers Road.

Two police cars, lights flashing, were guarding Regent Street, and two similar cars were waiting at Hillside Ave, the next intersection, where I lived. In between, people lined Rogers Road, with children holding their parents’ hands and teens congregating in small groups, talking quietly. Three police officers walked along Rogers, stopping periodically to speak with someone in the crowd before moving on.

Al went up to a white-haired man with a cane. “What happened?” he asked.

“There was a shooting,” the man said. “I heard some guy tried to kill his family. They’re looking for him. The Emergency Task Force is over on Hillside Ave. They have a house surrounded.”

A police officer, in his forties, muscular with blond hair in a crew cut, came into the middle of Rogers Road, holding a bull horn. He directed us away from Hillside Ave. “Everyone stand on the other side of the street!” He looked at me. “That means you, too, Red!”

“My street is blocked off,” I said. “I can’t get back home.”

The officer lowered the bullhorn. “What’s your address?”

“Six Hillside Avenue.”

“Are you Chris Sanford?”

“Yes. What’s going on?”

The officer grabbed my arm. “You’re under arrest for careless use of a firearm. You have the right to remain silent...” He slipped handcuffs around my wrists and directed me toward one of the police cars parked on Regent Street. He opened the driver-side back door, put me inside and shut the door.

A clear, hard plastic barrier separated the police car’s front and back seats. The officers sitting up front were plainclothes police detectives. The older one, bald and heavyset, sat in the driver’s seat. The younger detective was thin, with short dark hair and a tan.

As the police car pulled away, a man carrying a City Pulse News camera on his shoulder approached the back window. I ducked down. Al told me later he’d seen a picture of me on the news the next day. A brief image, but I wondered how many others had seen me as well.

It was almost dark by the time the bald detective brought the car to a stop behind the 12th Division police station. Outside, the branches and leaves of trees, now black forms, swayed in the wind.

“Your neighbor was home when the gun went off,” the bald detective said, looking at me in the mirror. “She could have been killed. The bullet went through your bedroom wall and through her wall. It landed on her stairs.”

“I was only trying to hurt myself. The gun must have slipped.”

“It’s a powerful rifle,” the dark-haired detective said. “Hunters can take down a moose with one of those. Where did you get it?”

“My dad’s a hunter. He went up north and accidentally left his gun closet unlocked.”

The light in the back seat came on. The bald detective turned around and looked at me. “My son was about your age. He was addicted to drugs. He took his life a year ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you still in school?” the detective continued.

“I graduated from university last year.”

“What did you study?”

“Economics. I was planning to start my master’s this fall.”

“You’re going to get through this.”

“I guess so,” I said, unconvinced.

“You’re still young,” the bald detective said. “You’ll get help and move on. Don’t give up on your dream.”

He opened the back door, helped me out of the car and took me into the station.

* * *

Today’s news is filled with stories about police abuse, murders and corruption, but that short exchange with the detective stayed with me all these years. I never knew his name, but I still think about the positivity he instilled in my life. I went back to 12th Division when I got my first teaching job, hoping to thank him. He’d already retired.

After class the next day, I opened my college email. Sarah’s email about the missed midterm was near the top. Under the circumstances, most profs wouldn’t give her a makeup test, but I knew what it was like to be paralyzed by mental illness, feeling empty and hopeless day after day to the point where you’d do anything to stop the pain. Mr. Corbett, my high school guidance counsellor, once referred to suicide as a “permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

“Hi, Sarah,” I wrote. “Can you write the exam next Tuesday at noon in my office?”

Maybe I am too easy on my students, but I’m determined to give them the academic support that I never received. If that makes me a pushover, so be it.