My First Fight Against Fascism Entailed Resisting Nuclear Strike Drills at School

The alarm went off. All the students knew what it meant, but Mrs. Whitewash had to make the announcement anyway. School was about learning how to follow orders.“Okay class, it’s time for another nuclear strike drill. Move it!”But Kip didn’t move.What he was supposed to do was get down onto the floor.He was supposed to crawl underneath his desk.The nasty old, cast iron desk with the wooden writing surface that lifted up so you could store your books inside.Kip didn’t mind the top of the desk. The sight of wood grain pacified him.But the underside of the desk was gross.For years and years and years, kids had stuck pieces of gum, and boogers, and all kinds of other nastiness on the underside of the desk.Kip had a weak stomach anyway. He’d thrown up at school on more than one occasion, and he’d never been able to live it down.He decided, he didn’t want to crawl under the desk.Nope.So, he raised his hand.Mrs. Whitewash’s head swiveled to fixate on Kip. Her face was in the process of making the transition into “grandmotherly.” Except, she wasn’t there yet and Kip frankly doubted she’d ever get there.The eyes, nose, and mouth were all in the right place. The graying hair, held in position by some kind of aerosol spray, curled like it was supposed to.But it was the flashing eyes that would prevent Mrs. Whitewash from ever being compared to a grandmother.Grandmothers were loving and patient and kind.Mrs. Whitewash was a drill sergeant.Perhaps, years ago, there had been hope for her, but thirty years of being a substitute parent at a rural middle school had broken her of whatever ability she might have had to find joy in the antics of young people.Kip couldn’t really blame her for that. Most of his classmates were a terror, especially the boys. Sometimes he wondered how he could be a member of the same race.Some of them were, simply put, feral.They didn’t even talk, they just growled at you.They didn’t listen to instructions except to deliberately do the opposite.More than once Kip had caught Mrs. Whitewash taking a sip from a flask she kept in the bottom drawer of her desk.She made eye contact with Kip once, while sipping, and though he’d quickly turned away, he remembered that as being the one and only time there had been a flicker of vulnerability in her steel gaze.She’d been screaming at a boy trying to get him to do something.He’d ignored her like she was a non-person.It’s a humbling thing to think yourself invisible.But that oft remembered flicker of humanity was not present as Mrs. Whitewash met Kip’s gaze now.She sighed before she spoke. It was a long, frustrated, exhausted sigh that was equal parts anger and submission.“What is it Kip?”“This is a nuclear strike drill.”“Yes Kip, you know it is, now get under your desk.”That was the part that Kip didn’t understand.This was the era of nuclear strikes. Every time he turned on the television, there was another made-for-TV movie about what would happen when nuclear war broke out. Everybody acted like it was as inevitable as the sunrise.They knew the drill.There would be a flash followed by an enormous mushroom cloud.You weren’t supposed to look at the flash, not even through a welding helmet. The flash would blind you.The moment they said that, Kip was already skeptical. Everything was supposed to blind you. That was their threat for anything they didn’t want you to try.“Don’t look at the sun or you’ll go blind.”“Don’t touch yourself or you’ll go blind.”“Don’t crash your sled into a tree or you’ll go blind.”Kip had tried looking directly into the sun.He didn’t go blind! All it did was create a white spot in the middle of your field of vision that kind of flashed as you blinked your eyes. Kip had been nervous at first, but he relaxed when he discovered it faded away after a few minutes.He didn’t know what they meant by “touch himself.”He poked the back of his left hand with the index finger on his right, and that didn’t even create a white spot in his vision. The business about “touching himself” was nonsense.He didn’t even know why they mentioned the thing about the sled. He wasn’t inclined to crash into trees.Duh!Besides, how was he supposed to even know there was a nuclear flash until he’d seen it?There was some talk that maybe there would be alarms to indicate the attack. These alarms would be similar to the alarms the kids had just heard.They needed to be prepared you see.How much had the town spent on the alarm system?How much time did they waste on these drills?Anyway, the television shows always played out the same. There was the alarm. There was the flash. There was the mushroom cloud.Next came the tidal wave of supercharged air that would roll over you and melt all the skin off your bones.The guys who came on television to explain this always looked like they were right out of the 50s. They had that 50s haircut. They wore those glasses with the thick black rims that covered the top half of their eyes. They had a patch of gray in their jet black hair.They spoke with strange inflections on their words, emphasizing the first syllable and letting the end of the world trail off ominously.“TH-is WI-ll BE the END of MAN-kind...”They sounded like the recording of Neil Armstrong.“THA-tsss ONE--ee SMA-lll STE-ppp...”On these programs, when the weird 50s guy came to the last word, they always sat there staring at you for just a little too long for comfort.They didn’t cut away for commercial breaks early enough in the 50s.Nuclear blasts entailed a lot more by the way. Kip knew that how you were fated to die depended on your distance from the blast.At ground zero, you’d be instantly vaporized.Farther out, you’d be melted by the cloud.Farther out from that, the radiation would get you. Your hair would fall out and you’d stumble around like a zombie.There was also something about toxic rain, Kip got fuzzy on the details. At this point, most of the shows he watched skipped ahead to the dystopian society that emerged from the wreckage of the old world. Handsome movie stars would be out riding dirt bikes and fighting fifty foot tall scorpions with medieval weapons.That seemed kind of cool. Kip found the idea of a mangled future where you didn’t have to go to school appealing.The trick was getting through that “instant death” phase.Kip didn’t know how to do it, he wished the programs would stop skipping that part.That seemed like the most important part!Why did they fixate on the terror and the inevitability of complete devesation?He did know one thing though, he knew that there was no dramatization that depicted anyone surviving because they crawled underneath a nasty old desk.Gosh darn it! Kip wanted answers.This was school right? Wasn’t he supposed to ask questions here? Didn’t Mrs. Whitewash say there was no such thing as a stupid question?She’d said it darn it! Emboldened, Kip found his voice.“Mrs. Whitewash?”“Yes.”“In the event of a nuclear strike, how is crawling under a desk supposed to help me?”A strange quiet settled over the classroom. Most of the other kids had already taken up position. They were laying in fetal position with their hands over their heads like they were supposed to. Kip happened to make eye contact with Lilah. He could see that her soft skin was pushed up against the hard metal edges of the desk. He felt a pang of remorse for that.He felt a brief flicker of understanding as he looked at her wide, scared eyes.What was she afraid of?Was she afraid of the nuclear attack?Or, maybe, she was afraid that Kip was about to get in trouble.His musings were interrupted by Mrs. Whitewash’s roar of “WHAT?”Kip coughed and looked away from Lilah to keep his heart from breaking. “It’s just that, I’ve seen the videos of nuclear blasts on television. We all have. If we’re near the strike zone, we’ll be vaporized instantly.“Instantaneously,” Mrs. Whitewash corrected for no good reason.“Yeah,” Kip continued, not missing a beat. “What good is it for us to be huddling underneath a desk?”“Hey yeah,” said one of the feral kids. It was Eric, Kip didn’t like him. “My dad said it would be like a white light that just turned you into dust.”Naturally, everyone in Kip’s class spent their family dining time discussing how they’d die in a nuclear strike.“My dad said it would be like getting zapped in a gigantic microwave,” said Dean, Kip didn’t like him either.“Not my dad,” said Kevin. Kip liked Kevin least of all.Kevin continued, “My dad built a fallout shelter. We’ve got enough food and weapons to last us for months. The second the alarm goes off, we’re supposed to run down and lock ourselves in and not come out until it’s safe.”“Fool, how are you supposed to know when it’s safe?” said Eric.“Aw, dad figures it will only take a few months, but before that, we’re not allowed to help anyone,” Kevin replied.“What do you mean?” asked Dean.“Well, if anyone comes shuffling along to the door and knocks and starts begging for help, we’re supposed to...” Kevin’s voice got lower again. “We’re supposed to get the shotgun and...”“Kevin!” Mrs. Whitewash said. “That will be enough!”“I’m just saying what my dad told us to do!” Kevin said. “We have a patriotic duty to rebuild America don’t we?”“Perhaps so,” Mrs. Whitewash said. “But murdering disaster survivors is not something we’re going to talk about in class.”“But dad says after enough radiation poisoning they’re not really human any more. Their brains get all scrambled up and they stop being able to talk. They just go around moaning like this, ‘Unghhh, Unghhh, ‘elp me, ‘elp me.’ That’s what they say instead of ‘Help me’ because it’s likely their lips will have been melted off.”“I know Kevin, but we’re not going to talk about that.”“But you’re the one who brought it up,” Kevin replied.Kevin could get away with saying things like this because he didn’t care if he got punished.For the first time in his life, Kip was grateful for Kevin. Most of the time he was one of those kids who just ran up and pushed you down for no reason and then went off laughing about it. But today, he had successfully diverted Mrs. Whitewash’s wrath away from Kip.“How did I bring it up?” Mrs. Whitewash asked.Ha! Kip knew that was a mistake. You never ask a kid like Kevin a question because that’s just giving him permission to say whatever he wanted.“Well, you’re the one making us do a nuclear strike drill!” Kevin said.“Yeah, and Kip’s right,” said Eric. “Confronted with the awesome destructive power of a nuclear warhead, what good will it do to huddle underneath a desk?”“We’re going to be melted probably,” Kevin said. “If we’re under the desk, we’ll just have liquid hot metal dropping on our backs.”“Nope, we’ll be vaporized,” said Dean.“That’s enough,” Mrs. Whitewash said. “Nobody is going to be melted or vaporized or anything. We are simply doing a drill!”“But...”“I know that all of you think that you’re experts on everything,” Mrs. Whitewash said. “But there are a few factors you haven’t considered. We are in the middle of nowhere! Got it? We’re in northern Wisconsin. Nobody cares about northern Wisconsin. They don’t even care about it enough to destroy it! This is not a strategic area. There will be no strikes directed at us. Got it?”“But my daddy says project Elf...”“I don’t care what your daddy says,” Mrs. Whitewash snapped. “Based on our geographic location, the worst we have to worry about is a shock wave. It might rattle the foundations a little bit, but it probably won’t bring down the building. In the worst case scenario, it might knock a couple ceiling tiles loose, but it probably won’t even do that much. But that’s why we’re practicing getting under our desks. It is actually a useful response based on where we live. Now, if that’s enough, I expect you all to comply with what’s expected of you, trust the adults in your life who know better. Now, do what you’re told and GET UNDER YOUR DESKS!”Kip hadn’t noticed before, but sometime during the altercation Mrs. Whitewash had retrieved her flask. She always became more forceful after a sip. As he watched, took a quick sip, but she didn’t blink, and the flicker of vulnerability didn’t make an appearance. Instead, she stared at the kids with hateful authority, daring them not to do as she had instructed.It was like dusk when the flower petals began closing up in preparation of the darkness.The resistance evaporated.Martin’s eyes, once bright in the room, faded away as they were covered first by his lids, then by his hands as they resumed the crash position over his head.One by one, all of Kip’s classmates eyes blinked out. Again he shared a glance with Lilah. Was it his imagination, or did she offer him a nod of understanding before she bowed her head?Kip’s classmates became huddled little masses, inert bodies that seemed already dead, strewn about the floor, without dignity, under their useless desks.Kip felt a profound sadness.Then, he had the unnerving feeling someone was watching him.He looked up to see Mrs. Whitewash’s flashing eyes.He was reminded of the nuclear flash. He knew he shouldn’t look at it, or he would go blind.So, he averted his eyes and tried to believe that everything the adults in his life told him was true, and that they only made him suffer for his own benefit.Kip slipped off his uncomfortable seat and got on his knees. A moment later, he was laying in fetal position, arms over his head, beneath the iron desk with the bubble gum and the boogers on the bottom.He tried not to look up. He tried not to think about it.Soon, this too, would pass.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI’m so happy you’re here, and I’m looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. 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