Professor Anster was spending his office hours as he always did. Chewing on a yellow no. 2 pencil, trying to decrypt a Sudoku puzzle and sipping on coffee from his favorite coffee shop that he constantly complained about being over run with “youngsters from the 60’s” and “degenerates” as he would often call them. Melissa sat outside his office and unconsciously stared at the professor through the open portal into his office. She despised the man but he was the only professor who needed a student aid in such short notice and she really needed to be a student aid. Quincy and Melissa had come up with a cunning plan to charge failing students a ‘small fee’ in exchange for a passing grade. Depending on the grade change depended on the price. All they needed was a person on the inside and that person was Melissa. It was a hard task because every time she saw the professor she saw a man she had hated, a man she came to hate all her Adult life. His name was Paul Olivera.
Named after her grandmother on her mother’s side, Melissa “Mel” Santos was a 24-year-old Grad student at the university. She was Brazilian and was chased more for her tanned perfect figure than her mind. It was hard as she often wore a crop top when not at work to see her one and only tattoo on her hip. A name in script, ‘Juan.’ She fought twice as hard to get respect because she hated being thought of as a simple pretty face. It was what her family always told her she would be. She was to bare children and tend to the house like her mother. Melissa had other plans. At 11 she came into contact with her first telephone. It was a memory she remembered for two reasons. It was the first and last time she vowed to be in a police station and it was the day her brother died. She was in the police station in Joinville trying to find someone to help her little brother. Her brother, and only real family member as far as she was concerned, was bleeding from a machete wound to the chest. A wound caused by her drunken father. He had many bad days where he drank and took it out on them. That day her mother was out getting groceries. Melissa was used to it always being her but when she wasn’t around Juan seemed to get it three times worse.
“Stop crying boy! Be a man!” Her father screamed in Portuguese to Juan as he continued to swing the flat side of the machete across his back. Melissa tried to stop him but as he brushed her away with a swing of his arm she found herself trapped in a corner. He stumbled toward her and raised his arm.
“You are a whore like your mother. Always in the business of a man, you will never know your place.” He hissed as he swung down hard and roared. Melissa curled tightly in hopes that the broad side of the blade hit her arm but she felt a large mass hit her instead. She opened her eyes and felt warm liquid on her arms and face, blood. She realized it wasn’t hers but Juan’s. He had rushed his father’s arm and somehow was cut across the chest. Their father stumbled back opposite the body. Melissa saw the fear of realizing what he had just done. He pulled himself off the floor and darted for the door. All Melissa could do was hold her little brother. She ran into the bedroom and grabbed the sheets. There was already to much blood on the floor when she returned she simply gasped. She ran to his side and wrapped the sheets around his chest. She put her ear near his heart in hopes for a heart beat. Although she was 11, Melissa was already a woman in her mind. She was forced to do most of the housework because her mother often couldn’t see because of a black eye or couldn’t breathe because of a broken rib.
Mel Did the only thing she thought would make sure her brother was going to be helped. She dragged him into the wheel barrel that was outside and pushed him to the nearest place with running water, Joinville.
When she got there her brother was long gone but she tried to get him help anyway. The people in the streets avoided her and shoved her away into puddles of mud. Soon the police found her and brought her in for questioning. It was a strange sight to the officers of Joinville even though they saw many onslaughts ensue in their city. They asked time and time again and all she would whisper was “mi papo…Paul Olivera”
That night was she slept in a jail cell and in the morning her mother came and found her. She felt dead inside and wanted nothing to do with the place she found herself in. anger filled her eyes as her mother spoke to her trying to relay news.
“Your papo is gone.” She whispered “ he got into a fight at the bar again. This time he wasn’t so lucky” Melissa Swelled inside as the news seeped in. She wanted to take his life. She wanted to make him pay for what he did to Juan.
Melissa had the same anger for her professor that she did for her father. Professor Anster was a man who would fail a student because he could. A man who would belittle his students, especially his female students with comment or their inferior intellect compared to his. Mel often gritted her teeth as the professor often told jokes about students who he disliked. She had only been his aid for two semesters but to her it felt like a lifetime. Quincy always told her to keep her head up and keep telling herself ‘ something bigger is coming our way.’ She thought that with her new found catch it could soon come to fruition.
“Is there something I can help you with Miss Santo or are you just admiring the view?” Anster blurted from his office. Her eye twitched because he always left the S off the end of her name no matter how many time she corrected him but she knew Anster loved to get under her skin because she shot down all attempts of him getting under her sheets.
“No just wondering when you will look at these papers I pre graded.” She pushed the words between her teeth that were locked into a fake smile. Anster stretched and got up from his seat and walked over towards her. He reached out for his coat at the door instead of the papers she had extended in her hand.
“Remind me Monday. I’ll get to them then. Have a good weekend!!!” Anster shouted as he scurried out the door
“But its only Tuesday!” Melissa shouted back but he was already out the door. He often left her to do the teaching in class to do something else he found more interesting.
She huffed and slammed the papers on her desk.
She took a deep breath and exhaled. Mel grumbled under her breathe to herself as she stacked the papers back into order ”Something bigger is coming our way.” Se stared at the clock atop the doorframe. She gathered herself, checked her make up, dawned a smile in the mirror before scowling at herself and storming out to the Professors lecture across campus.
