The End

-Saturday July 4, 2074
John Stephenson, AP Columnist

A cold wind blew over the gathering. As the coffin was lowered, tears filled eyes of even the most stoic among us. It was over. He was over. The crazy dream turned reality that had been a career no one, except perhaps Mr. Meggs himself, believed was possible, had finally ended. The priest said a simple, quaint eulogy and the final page turned. With a sigh, I returned home to my apartment, introspectively questioning what all this vast mystery of life was really about. I couldn't help but turn back, and with a touch of sadness, I released one last "Hooey."

Or not. That would have been all too poetically just, but as romantic as that sounds if there's one thing that man taught me, it's that humor is the only thing that should be constant in one's life. No, Meggs having an ordinary funeral would be about as appropriate as him being a novelist, politician, comedian, or even Nobel Prize winning trash collector. Although from the looks of it, each one of those and more was present at what can best be described as a "Finally a Vacation!" party. Revolutionary? Hardly. Appropriate? You bet your shiny metal britches!

D- Meggs grew up the impoverished son of a textile worker in Southern Alabama who was forced to teach himself during his youth so he wouldn't suffer from the “inadequacy” that was the Alabaman school system. Although he failed third grade thrice, he lucky in the fact that his teacher decided he was advanced enough to proceed to the public high school. While there, he enjoyed an illustrious career of breaking hearts, skulls, and records for an astonishing amount of sexual deviancy. Although he barely passed all of his math classes, he decided to pursue the subject because it was an area in which he didn't fear change. As he said, "If 2+2 starts equaling 5, then I'll still be right half the time." He graduated last in his class from a local college, moved to Knoxville because of a blood debt and what appeared to be an illegal child with his Puerto Rican man slave who had family in Nashville, and pursued an illustrious career of destroying the hope, dreams, and optimism of all students that faced his unmerciful wrath. At least, that's how he told it.

In fact, Meggs was fairly normal. He lived a standard, fairly uneventful youth. He possessed an above average intelligence, did quite well in school, proved charismatic in a disturbing, unorthodox way, and saw a number of pathways to a variety of futures open up before him. But being the unconventional bum he was, he settled for teaching high school, and speaking from experience, the world is a much better place for it.

As we stood listening to the comic (one of Meggs's former students), I couldn't help but remember the jokes the man himself had told. It was like an obsession. He had a dark, warped since of humor that would have been intimidating in a lesser man and undistinguished in a greater one. Some of the things he said were certainly grounds for lawsuits, but when you’d inspired the greatest lawyer Knoxville had seen in years to stop “Snorting coke and start blowing smoke” it was hard to get convicted of the numerous crimes he willfully admitted committing. He may not have been the best math whiz ever, but the man was indubitably entertaining.

After the comic, various former students, ranging from his first year in 2010 to his last from just last May, read their favorite quotes, snippets from his novels, and “math problems” in a session that proved touching, insightful, and downright hilarious. He’d never published any of them despite a great deal of encouragement, but the word was that he had left permission for his students to do “Whatever the Hell, Heaven, or Nirvana they pleased” with his “scribbles, doodlings, and obscene grotesqueries”, and a compilation was planned to be released on the first day of school in August. The school had already promised to make a “D- Meggs Memorial Bathroom” where his quotes will be strewn all over the walls where he often wrote them himself, in his spare time. He claimed to have his greatest inspirations in the bathroom, and his handwriting had become a permanent feature of every trip to the urinal.

Then came the dancing. Meggs never claimed to be a very graceful dancer, and he had given himself plenty of opportunities to prove himself right. The band played staples of his classroom that ranged from the 1700s all the way to a neo-neo-romantic classical piece one of his own students had composed last year. As many of us are getting on in years, we weren’t able to imitate our youthful experiences. But needless to say, we made up for our lack of motion with many very fond memories.

Finally we adjourned to the auditorium where the grand finale took place: Meggs’s last work, a brief summation of his entire life learnings and experiences, was read for the first time. It was really his suicide note, but none of us could dare call it that. He’d convinced so many of us against the idea that we knew his own death had been more of an “appropriate ending” than any of the selfish, futile plots of our days. In typical Meggs style, it proved amusing, sporadic, and optimistic (in a characteristically pessimistic way). There were truly tears in every eye, but not from sadness. No, these were of hope, joy, and nostalgia.

He spoke fondly of his “thankfully over past.” He described a few of us specifically in less than flattering manners, but we could picture the playful irreverent gleam in his eye as he had written it. He spoke of his expectations for us all. He encouraged us, as he always had, to just be happy, as he was so lucky to have been all his life, even at the moment he had killed himself.

As he seemingly spoke to us from the grave, I zoned out, as I had done so often in his math class those many years and ago, and thought of how much he had affected me. He had truly cared in an unobtrusive way that made him quite easy to get close to. As open a person as I’ve met, he brought himself down to our level and made himself more of an educated peer than an authority figure. I had hated math until his class, and even after it I still dreaded each period. But I learned not to worry so much about it. I learned that stress and lofty aspirations are not synonymous. Mr. Meggs taught me that I really, truly could do what I wanted. He just reminded me I’d have to pay the price, unlike other blind optimists. He encouraged us just to be happy, whatever that might involve (within reason). He was the first person to take an interest in my writing, the first to critique and actually try to interpret it, and the first to tell me never to stop. I followed his advice, and I’m happy to this very day. I think he’d be the most proud of me for that.

In all of his 64 years of teaching, D- Meggs inspired thousands. He listened. He cared. And, perhaps best of all, he entertained. To Mr. Meggs from all of his students, thank you. Mission Accomplished.