Preschool Prison

            The year was 2000, I was a four year old standing at a staggering three foot four inches. I was going to school at the prestigious private school, Challenger, which was a giant, red brick, three story building. The school, before it was a school, was originally a bank with offices above the teller stands and long lines. Outside there was a separate building, adjacent to the bank. It was used for making deposits and withdrawals with those vacuum-like tube things that will send you suckers if you asked for them. The tubes had been removed and all the ATM machines gone, which left an also red brick building without any purpose.

When the school was created, the small building was converted into bathrooms and a playground had been placed around it. Another fence around the perimeter had been erected to keep all the four year old pairs of legs inside the compound. My entire class and I would walk out to a recess after lunch each day with arms crossed and “Marshmallows” in our mouths down the hall to the outside. Outside they would corral us inside the red vinyl fence and let us roam around the playground, shells of old boats, and random patches of grass. Later that year I actually snapped my arm clean in half falling (or pushed, I can’t remember I was playing Spiderman) off one of the shells. After that incident, the boats were taken away and I was shunned for all of two days.

Playing outside one day, near the end of recess, I was confronted with an uncomfortable pressure in my bladder and I ran to the teacher asking her to let me into the bathrooms. The teacher would accompany me inside the building doors to a separate set of doors which led to the bathrooms with a large window in between them. She would then tell me to be quick and walk out of the building. I wish she would stay because on another occasion there was a Shopvac in there, that when turned on, scared me so bad I ran out of the building pants around my ankles.

I was almost done relieving myself, when the co-teacher poked her head into the first set of doors and yelled if anybody was still in the bathrooms. Since I was almost done, probably pulling up my pants, I did not answer her. Finally, I emerge through the bathroom doors ready to head back to class and I looked out the window to my dismay. There was not a single person left on the playground. No straggling students or teachers or anybody in sight, I was truly alone. The speed and efficiency in which the teachers had gotten the students out of that playground did not cease to amaze me.

Thinking that I would just catch up to the rest of my class, I walk over to the doors and pull the handle. The door stayed firmly in the frame and would not budge no matter how hard I pulled and tugged. The teacher had locked me in! I was stuck inside the bathrooms to our preschool out in the middle of the playground and I felt like this was the end of the world for me. My mind raced thinking of what I could do. There was no way to call for help or signal for anybody. There was nothing in the room, light enough that I could pick up anyway, that could break the window so I could escape. The thought of having to stay the night until the next recess session terrified me.

Thinking in a frenzied panic, I ran over to the door. There was a deadbolt on the door about five and a half feet off of the floor. I stared up at it like staring to the top of an extremely large building from its base, and then I realized I could jump. I prepared myself and leapt as high as I could towards the deadbolt. I soared through the air, eyes intent on that metal lever that meant my freedom. My will to get out was too immense, I didn’t just want to get out, I had to. My hand outstretched I touched to left side of the deadlock and pushed with all my might. The lever pushed upwards until it reached ninety degrees from where it had been and stopped with a satisfying “thunk.”

I came back to the Earth in disbelief. The door was now unlocked and I was free. I pulled the door’s handle as hard as I could and the door swung open. The cool bite of fresh air filled my lungs and it felt like evaporated gold. I ran outside into the purely delightful sunlight and headed towards the gate to the surrounding fence. I got to the gate of the fence and my heart sunk. The lever to the fence was locked with a padlock clearly labeled “Masterlock.” The feeling of being utterly out of options hit me. There was absolutely no way I was climbing a five foot, flat, slippery, fence. The end of the world had truly come for me, and the feeling of my previous victory was being mercilessly crushed by that padlock.

I do not know how long I stood there, at the foot of the gate, most likely crying. But then I heard something, something that sounded like footsteps. Heavier than a woman’s, and more like a six foot four inch man coming towards me. I saw the light and the end of my pitch black, forlorn, tunnel. I heard the man call out and I recognized his voice. It was the man who went by the name of “Mr. Sheen.” Everybody knew him, he was the only guy teacher in the entire school. He would, at recess, play soccer with all of the first graders and everybody wanted to be on his team. My savior had come.

He came towards me, looking at me over the fence and said a single line which I will never forget, “Let’s get you outta there, boy.” He reached over the fence, grasped me under the arms and with hardly any effort, hauled me up an over the fence. He then carried me all the way back to the school on his shoulder into the office of the school. In the office I saw both of my parents looking saddened but more frustrated than anything. On the other side of the room, behind the desk of the principal, stood my teacher sobbing into her hands. The principal was standing in front of her chair and looked as if she was explaining the situation to my increasingly angered parents.

Mr. Sheen set me down and I ran over to my parents, and gave them both a hug. I could not make out what they said to the teacher or the principal though they did thank Mr. Sheen. We left after a little bit of discussion and continued on home. Apparently, I had been stuck in the bathrooms and playgrounds until two hours after school had ended. When we got home I was asked the typical questions of what happened and what I did. After I told them, I could not make out exactly what my parents were saying to each other, but I knew this would be my last year at the prestigious private school of Challenger.