The aggrieved policeman

When the policeman entered my kitchen, the first thing he asked was whether I was related to a man with the same last name who taught at Bayonne High School. Since both my parents grew up in Bayonne and still had family in the area, this was not an uncommon question. When I informed him that my father's cousin had taught at the school and asked if he was a good teacher, I didn't get the immediate response I had expected. When he hesitated, I thought I could gain his sympathy by informing him that he had died a couple of years ago, in his fifties, of cancer (I didn't really know the man; I only met him a couple times at family funerals). This didn't really register. Instead, he looked away from me, traveling back in time to the high school class my father's cousin had taught. "Yes, I had him as a teacher," he said, "No, he wasn't a good teacher." He didn't go into details, but it seemed important for him to get this off of his chest even after I had told him that he had died. I could tell by the look on his face that he had been hurt back then (perhaps he had flunked a class) and it was still with him and that this, at last, was his revenge.