work in progress
pearlmutt
Posts: 392
Back to Work
I sat on the front porch of the beach house. Wilson, Lauren, and I were smoking. Lee was drinking. We looked at the house across the street.
Ours was ocean front. It was called a cottage, but it had four bedrooms, each with its own bath. The master bedroom was on the ocean side. I don’t know how I ended up in there. I’m the one who volunteers to sleep on the floor, and I mean it when I say, “No, I really don’t mind.” It’s just not a sacrifice. Ask me to give up my cigarettes, alone time, books, bicycle, or evenings drinking at the Paradise Café, and I’ll be singing a different tune.
So my bedroom had a balcony overlooking the ocean. I left the door open at night during the thunderstorms because it was such a sensuous experience, better than sex. Well, maybe that‘s an exaggeration, but Lee was working most of the time, so it would just have to be a close second to sex.
Lauren was the first to point out that commercial landscaping has no business being done in the front yard of a beach cottage.
“Look at those ropes. It’s like they are expecting someone to drive up and decide whether they‘ll have the seafood buffet or the captain‘s platter,” she said.
I had to admit that number one I had not even noticed the house across the street until just now and number two the ropes were terrible.
“I can’t figure out why it’s roped off. There’s nothing growing in the garden area.”
“That’s not a garden,” Lauren explained. “It’s a bunch of rocks.”
“Who landscapes with rocks?”
“The Japanese,” Lee answered. But I really wasn’t seriously wanting an answer to that question.
And Lauren understood, “I don’t know maybe it’s some kind of new beach thing. The rope is really what bothers me.”
Then it hit me that while I’d been smoking on the other side of the house and enjoying the damp, salty breeze, Lauren had been smoking on the muggy street side. While I’d been watching gulls and waves and moonlight reflections, she’d been reflecting on the gaudy, super-cheesed out house across the road.
Wilson can only tolerate this kind of conversation for about five minutes. Four is being really generous, and five is testing the limits of his patience. Six is just impossible.
He cut in, “Jesus, who cares about ropes? Trish, what are your plans this year with your students?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about it.”
“Yes, well I can see that ruminating about your neighbors’ landscaping is really important. Has to be much more so than planning for your new year.”
Lauren cut her eyes at him. I wish I could say that I knew that look meant “You’re not getting any, buddy,” but Wilson has the sexual habits of a wild wolf, which sounds really fabulous until you learn that wild wolves only breed once a year. So the look probably meant “Be nice to your sister, or I’ll . . . Try to think of some way to punish you, you absolutely horrible, I mean adorable, did I think horrible? Oh, my god I hope tonight is the night for sex. Why was I looking at you like that in the first place? Sexy beast!”
“Wilson, I just had such a shit year last year that I don’t want to think about it.”
“Do you mean your test scores?”
Why was I allowing Wilson, teacher of the year, to get me started? “Those tests are bullshit.”
This response was not going to get very far with Wilson. I mean he actually can back up every argument that he’s about to make because his students pass their tests.
“The tests are a minimum of what the students should know.”
“My students come from crack houses and farms. The gulf between what they should know and what they do know is laughable.”
“Your students should be capable of performing basic tasks that require reading and writing.”
I wanted to strangle Wilson. “My students should not have to worry about getting beat down by their crack smoking mothers. My students should not have to worry about somebody shooting their brains out at a party. My students should not have to worry about how Dad is going to subsidize his tobacco this year. Don’t tell me anything about what my students should be capable of. You don’t know them.”
I heard Janesha telling me, “Don’t tell me who to date. You don’t know me.” When I told her that she needed to be careful because her drug dealing twenty-five year old boyfriend may not always have her best interest at heart. I understood Janesha more at this moment than in any of those in which I was instructing her.
“Being capable of reading and writing is not that much to ask of students who come from any background.”
“Look. That bullshit test is a product of bullshit law makers. Did you know that No Child Left Behind was ripped off from an organization that is composed of churches who help children?”
“I know that much of the original legislation was written by senators.”
“That’s right. In conjunction with the Children’s Defense Fund. And the man in the White House has taken its name, switched the words around, and raped it of everything that was in place to help my kids. And if they don‘t pass that test -- the man is going to take me away from my kids and possibly shut down my school.”
Wow, the use of the word rape was over the top. I tried to remind myself that I was employing the very propaganda techniques that I taught my students to avoid when arguing, noted. Then I said, “Fuck it. I know I’m right.”
“I understand that you are angry about it, but the test still stands as a perfectly reasonable tool; regardless of where it came from.”
“That legislation is in place so that our children can become mindless drones in the capitalist regime.” I was really on a roll now. I mean logic was definitely beyond me.
“Trish, the legislation is simply there to ensure that teachers who are not doing their jobs get them done.”
Now I had busted my ass for three years, to get the job done, so to speak, and my kids were still failing, so. “Do you want to hear something? Jason Gaulden, poet. From Compton. You’ve heard of the place I’m sure. I know my students have.”
I paused to check Wilson’s reaction. His legs were crossed. He was very still as he stared at me. “They can relate, so they might actually know a little more about it. But anyway, he graduated from the University of Colorado. Serves as a Youth Director for the Urban League. Do you know what he does?”
“No, Trish,” and I heard both his love and patience, “I don’t.”
But I bulldozed right over him without even looking up. “He writes poetry. Do you know what poem I most recently read by him ‘Why Rhyme?’ Do you know what the state official just told us last month?”
And now Wilson really was trying to say something. It sounded like, “But this is . . . .blah, blah, blah.”
I tuned him out and turned up my volume. “That poetry is going to be trimmed down on the tests. You know. We really shouldn’t be placing that much emphasis on it in our instruction from now on. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.”
Wilson nodded and then slowly said, “So what are you going to do about it?”
And that was the million dollar question. My face was red. I was very angry, and then I was very sad and very old. Much older than I’d imagined I’d be at twenty-nine, “I don’t know.”
A month later I walked into my school and handed my keys to the janitor before driving off into a blissful three day hiatus during which time everyone I knew thought I had lost my mind. I found it when I thought of Janesha, because I know her.
I went back to work.
Then I took a break from work.
We saw them come down our row. They were short. We are tall. The guy was wearing khakis. The girl was wearing a dress and some sort of strappy heels. We looked at each other. We had on tee shirts and jeans. The girl and boy versions of each other.
The guy turned to check the number on his seat. He was right beside Lee. On his back was a Vote for Bush bumper sticker. Lee looked at me to see if I saw it. I nodded.
Lee and I left our seats to get beer. At the concession stand the cashier asked to see my I. D.
“I don’t have it with me, but look at this throat. It’s the throat of a thirty year old. Come on.”
The guy laughed. “Okay.”
We climbed over the backs of the seats. No one was behind ours yet. I was carrying a beer in each hand, so was Lee. It was arduous.
Carefully stepping over the backs, I said to Lee, “I think I can, I think I can.” And he laughed.
Lee spilt some beer on our neighbor. “I’m so sorry, man.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. It’ll wash.”
And off Lee went making friends with the enemy. I glared at the back of his head as he laughed and leaned in and listened and shook his head. I had no idea what was going on over there in that conversation.
Finally, he turned to me. “This is Manuel. Manuel, this is Trish.” We shook hands and smiled at each other.
Manuel then introduced me to Catirina, who was remarkably small and beautiful. I noticed her wrist as I shook hands with her. The bones were thin and delicate. My hand was twice the size of hers.
The opening band came on, and I sang along. Neither Manuel nor Lee were into them, so they continued to talk.
At the end of the set, I told Lee I was going to smoke, and he broke off the conversation with Manuel to go with me.
“That guy’s amazing,” he said as we walked down the steps.
“What are you talking about?”
“You saw the bumper sticker on his back?”
“Yes, I was less than amazed by it.”
“No, no. I said to him that he must be pretty brave to be wearing that in here, and he told me that he’s not supporting Bush.”
“What? I’m sorry. Manuel’s amazing logic is lost on me.”
We reached the bottom of the steps, and I walked away from Lee. I didn’t care about hearing this half-baked idea of Manuel’s. I’d seen enough people in the past few weeks with ridiculous crap on their shirts. I was going to shake hands with the little guy wearing big bug glasses. He was holding a clip board and wearing a shirt that said “Register with me.”
When I shook his hand and said thanks, he stared blankly at me. I felt sort of ridiculous. I also felt very proud of this guy and didn’t really care if I looked ridiculous, at least I wasn’t wearing the ridicule worthy deed on my shirt all night.
Outside I found the smoking area. An orange, plastic barrier created a make-shift fence separating the smokers from those who were on the other side getting fresh air. I saw a lady smoking a cigar. She looked to be about fifty years old. She wore a black shapeless dress and a sea-shell necklace. She ran her unoccupied hand through her stringy blonde hair. She looked peaceful. I struck up a conversation with her.
“What kind of cigar is that?”
The man she was with answered, “A Don Diego Baby.”
“What a cool name.”
“Yes, you smoke cigars?”
“No, but my husband does.”
“What kind?”
“Any if he can’t get a Cohiba.”
They laughed.
“What do you do?” I asked the lady.
“I’m a school teacher.”
“So I guess you’re not voting for Bush?”
“No Child Left Behind. What a piece of shit.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. So she did from her point of view in Florida.
Lee was at the beer stand when I went back in. He handed me another. “So Manuel,” he began.
“Yes, Manuel. That wild and crazy guy.”
“He’s actually very sane. He just has a friend. A marine, who’s been called in to take the place of a commanding officer who was killed.”
“Oh,” I said.
“He explained that his friend had asked him to wear it. He just wanted people to know that it wasn’t for nothing. That they were doing something.”
I didn’t really see how the bumper sticker illustrated that idea, but I completely understood why Manuel was wearing it.
We went home and tried to convince people that they should not vote for Bush.
When he won, the only person I wanted to see was Lee. He was at the fire station, and as he hugged me in the parking lot, I cried and said a lot of terrible things about the people who voted for Bush. But the thing that Lee said, the thing that I remember was, “Honey, they just don’t know.”
Then I felt terrible, and I prayed for forgiveness.
I sat on the front porch of the beach house. Wilson, Lauren, and I were smoking. Lee was drinking. We looked at the house across the street.
Ours was ocean front. It was called a cottage, but it had four bedrooms, each with its own bath. The master bedroom was on the ocean side. I don’t know how I ended up in there. I’m the one who volunteers to sleep on the floor, and I mean it when I say, “No, I really don’t mind.” It’s just not a sacrifice. Ask me to give up my cigarettes, alone time, books, bicycle, or evenings drinking at the Paradise Café, and I’ll be singing a different tune.
So my bedroom had a balcony overlooking the ocean. I left the door open at night during the thunderstorms because it was such a sensuous experience, better than sex. Well, maybe that‘s an exaggeration, but Lee was working most of the time, so it would just have to be a close second to sex.
Lauren was the first to point out that commercial landscaping has no business being done in the front yard of a beach cottage.
“Look at those ropes. It’s like they are expecting someone to drive up and decide whether they‘ll have the seafood buffet or the captain‘s platter,” she said.
I had to admit that number one I had not even noticed the house across the street until just now and number two the ropes were terrible.
“I can’t figure out why it’s roped off. There’s nothing growing in the garden area.”
“That’s not a garden,” Lauren explained. “It’s a bunch of rocks.”
“Who landscapes with rocks?”
“The Japanese,” Lee answered. But I really wasn’t seriously wanting an answer to that question.
And Lauren understood, “I don’t know maybe it’s some kind of new beach thing. The rope is really what bothers me.”
Then it hit me that while I’d been smoking on the other side of the house and enjoying the damp, salty breeze, Lauren had been smoking on the muggy street side. While I’d been watching gulls and waves and moonlight reflections, she’d been reflecting on the gaudy, super-cheesed out house across the road.
Wilson can only tolerate this kind of conversation for about five minutes. Four is being really generous, and five is testing the limits of his patience. Six is just impossible.
He cut in, “Jesus, who cares about ropes? Trish, what are your plans this year with your students?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about it.”
“Yes, well I can see that ruminating about your neighbors’ landscaping is really important. Has to be much more so than planning for your new year.”
Lauren cut her eyes at him. I wish I could say that I knew that look meant “You’re not getting any, buddy,” but Wilson has the sexual habits of a wild wolf, which sounds really fabulous until you learn that wild wolves only breed once a year. So the look probably meant “Be nice to your sister, or I’ll . . . Try to think of some way to punish you, you absolutely horrible, I mean adorable, did I think horrible? Oh, my god I hope tonight is the night for sex. Why was I looking at you like that in the first place? Sexy beast!”
“Wilson, I just had such a shit year last year that I don’t want to think about it.”
“Do you mean your test scores?”
Why was I allowing Wilson, teacher of the year, to get me started? “Those tests are bullshit.”
This response was not going to get very far with Wilson. I mean he actually can back up every argument that he’s about to make because his students pass their tests.
“The tests are a minimum of what the students should know.”
“My students come from crack houses and farms. The gulf between what they should know and what they do know is laughable.”
“Your students should be capable of performing basic tasks that require reading and writing.”
I wanted to strangle Wilson. “My students should not have to worry about getting beat down by their crack smoking mothers. My students should not have to worry about somebody shooting their brains out at a party. My students should not have to worry about how Dad is going to subsidize his tobacco this year. Don’t tell me anything about what my students should be capable of. You don’t know them.”
I heard Janesha telling me, “Don’t tell me who to date. You don’t know me.” When I told her that she needed to be careful because her drug dealing twenty-five year old boyfriend may not always have her best interest at heart. I understood Janesha more at this moment than in any of those in which I was instructing her.
“Being capable of reading and writing is not that much to ask of students who come from any background.”
“Look. That bullshit test is a product of bullshit law makers. Did you know that No Child Left Behind was ripped off from an organization that is composed of churches who help children?”
“I know that much of the original legislation was written by senators.”
“That’s right. In conjunction with the Children’s Defense Fund. And the man in the White House has taken its name, switched the words around, and raped it of everything that was in place to help my kids. And if they don‘t pass that test -- the man is going to take me away from my kids and possibly shut down my school.”
Wow, the use of the word rape was over the top. I tried to remind myself that I was employing the very propaganda techniques that I taught my students to avoid when arguing, noted. Then I said, “Fuck it. I know I’m right.”
“I understand that you are angry about it, but the test still stands as a perfectly reasonable tool; regardless of where it came from.”
“That legislation is in place so that our children can become mindless drones in the capitalist regime.” I was really on a roll now. I mean logic was definitely beyond me.
“Trish, the legislation is simply there to ensure that teachers who are not doing their jobs get them done.”
Now I had busted my ass for three years, to get the job done, so to speak, and my kids were still failing, so. “Do you want to hear something? Jason Gaulden, poet. From Compton. You’ve heard of the place I’m sure. I know my students have.”
I paused to check Wilson’s reaction. His legs were crossed. He was very still as he stared at me. “They can relate, so they might actually know a little more about it. But anyway, he graduated from the University of Colorado. Serves as a Youth Director for the Urban League. Do you know what he does?”
“No, Trish,” and I heard both his love and patience, “I don’t.”
But I bulldozed right over him without even looking up. “He writes poetry. Do you know what poem I most recently read by him ‘Why Rhyme?’ Do you know what the state official just told us last month?”
And now Wilson really was trying to say something. It sounded like, “But this is . . . .blah, blah, blah.”
I tuned him out and turned up my volume. “That poetry is going to be trimmed down on the tests. You know. We really shouldn’t be placing that much emphasis on it in our instruction from now on. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.”
Wilson nodded and then slowly said, “So what are you going to do about it?”
And that was the million dollar question. My face was red. I was very angry, and then I was very sad and very old. Much older than I’d imagined I’d be at twenty-nine, “I don’t know.”
A month later I walked into my school and handed my keys to the janitor before driving off into a blissful three day hiatus during which time everyone I knew thought I had lost my mind. I found it when I thought of Janesha, because I know her.
I went back to work.
Then I took a break from work.
We saw them come down our row. They were short. We are tall. The guy was wearing khakis. The girl was wearing a dress and some sort of strappy heels. We looked at each other. We had on tee shirts and jeans. The girl and boy versions of each other.
The guy turned to check the number on his seat. He was right beside Lee. On his back was a Vote for Bush bumper sticker. Lee looked at me to see if I saw it. I nodded.
Lee and I left our seats to get beer. At the concession stand the cashier asked to see my I. D.
“I don’t have it with me, but look at this throat. It’s the throat of a thirty year old. Come on.”
The guy laughed. “Okay.”
We climbed over the backs of the seats. No one was behind ours yet. I was carrying a beer in each hand, so was Lee. It was arduous.
Carefully stepping over the backs, I said to Lee, “I think I can, I think I can.” And he laughed.
Lee spilt some beer on our neighbor. “I’m so sorry, man.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. It’ll wash.”
And off Lee went making friends with the enemy. I glared at the back of his head as he laughed and leaned in and listened and shook his head. I had no idea what was going on over there in that conversation.
Finally, he turned to me. “This is Manuel. Manuel, this is Trish.” We shook hands and smiled at each other.
Manuel then introduced me to Catirina, who was remarkably small and beautiful. I noticed her wrist as I shook hands with her. The bones were thin and delicate. My hand was twice the size of hers.
The opening band came on, and I sang along. Neither Manuel nor Lee were into them, so they continued to talk.
At the end of the set, I told Lee I was going to smoke, and he broke off the conversation with Manuel to go with me.
“That guy’s amazing,” he said as we walked down the steps.
“What are you talking about?”
“You saw the bumper sticker on his back?”
“Yes, I was less than amazed by it.”
“No, no. I said to him that he must be pretty brave to be wearing that in here, and he told me that he’s not supporting Bush.”
“What? I’m sorry. Manuel’s amazing logic is lost on me.”
We reached the bottom of the steps, and I walked away from Lee. I didn’t care about hearing this half-baked idea of Manuel’s. I’d seen enough people in the past few weeks with ridiculous crap on their shirts. I was going to shake hands with the little guy wearing big bug glasses. He was holding a clip board and wearing a shirt that said “Register with me.”
When I shook his hand and said thanks, he stared blankly at me. I felt sort of ridiculous. I also felt very proud of this guy and didn’t really care if I looked ridiculous, at least I wasn’t wearing the ridicule worthy deed on my shirt all night.
Outside I found the smoking area. An orange, plastic barrier created a make-shift fence separating the smokers from those who were on the other side getting fresh air. I saw a lady smoking a cigar. She looked to be about fifty years old. She wore a black shapeless dress and a sea-shell necklace. She ran her unoccupied hand through her stringy blonde hair. She looked peaceful. I struck up a conversation with her.
“What kind of cigar is that?”
The man she was with answered, “A Don Diego Baby.”
“What a cool name.”
“Yes, you smoke cigars?”
“No, but my husband does.”
“What kind?”
“Any if he can’t get a Cohiba.”
They laughed.
“What do you do?” I asked the lady.
“I’m a school teacher.”
“So I guess you’re not voting for Bush?”
“No Child Left Behind. What a piece of shit.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. So she did from her point of view in Florida.
Lee was at the beer stand when I went back in. He handed me another. “So Manuel,” he began.
“Yes, Manuel. That wild and crazy guy.”
“He’s actually very sane. He just has a friend. A marine, who’s been called in to take the place of a commanding officer who was killed.”
“Oh,” I said.
“He explained that his friend had asked him to wear it. He just wanted people to know that it wasn’t for nothing. That they were doing something.”
I didn’t really see how the bumper sticker illustrated that idea, but I completely understood why Manuel was wearing it.
We went home and tried to convince people that they should not vote for Bush.
When he won, the only person I wanted to see was Lee. He was at the fire station, and as he hugged me in the parking lot, I cried and said a lot of terrible things about the people who voted for Bush. But the thing that Lee said, the thing that I remember was, “Honey, they just don’t know.”
Then I felt terrible, and I prayed for forgiveness.
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Comments
Good work so far. The dialogue rings true, as does the narrator's voice.