The Foot Soldier

1979 His hand was a continent unto itself. It came sailing toward me with such velocity that I nearly forgot what to do. “I’m Kevin Williams.”

“How do you do? Nice to meet you. Jack Chavoor.”

The hand engulfed my hand, made my hand seem puny or childlike when in fact my hand could reach and octave and a half on the piano, and it could palm a basketball unless the ball was overinflated.

“Have a seat, Jack.”

His movements were precise and deliberate, and his attire was in sync, was part of the plan, and got him where he was or made him believe it did. He still had the outline, the dimensions, outsized neck, shoulders, and chest of an athlete, a football player. But he had made the transition and wasn’t going back. He couldn’t go back; he was well past 40. His hands were manicured, lotioned and bejeweled.

“Thanks very much.”

“Glad you want to be on the West Fresno Middle School team. Now you’re applying for which position?”

I scolded myself for assuming he was a former football player just because he was black and massively built. Then I asked myself why it would be bad. Then I scanned the wall behind him for a picture of his glory days, but didn’t see anything.

“Language Arts.”

“Oh, yes.”

His aftershave encircled him like an invisible shield. He was overdressed for a principal. His suit was crisp and pressed perfectly; he had gold cufflinks and a black onyx ring on his pinkie finger. I was at an age where I was beginning to want an onyx pinkie ring. I had it in my head that wearing such a ring would make me more Armenian somehow, like an Armenian who buys and sells things, who started out at Flea Markets but eventually expanded his business to the point where he had a business card with the words “International” and “LTD” on it somewhere.

“I have my resume here.”

“Cal State Northridge?”

His office was under lit and tired. The windows were smudgy and cracked; his desk was metal and small. We could have been in the office of a trailer park manager.

“Uh-huh.”

“This looks fine. How did you hear about the position?”

“The ad in the paper.”

“Yes. This is the 8th grade Language Arts position.”

“Yes.”

“This would be your first teaching assignment?”

“Yes, sir.”

He massaged one side of his head and then the other. His hand seemed bigger than his face. He sighed and said “uh-huh” to himself.

“You’re good with kids?”

“Yes, sir. I worked for the YMCA, the Salvation Army…”

“Salvation Army?”

“Yes. They have a summer camp for underprivileged kids. Inner city kids, and I was a counselor.”

“Uh-huh. You played football?”

“High school.”

“Huh. Coach?”

“Well just a flag team. We won the playoff championship though.”

“Ah huh. Well, I think I can use you here, Mr. Chavoor.”

Couldn’t be this easy, I was thinking. He touched his moustache as if it was in need of adjustment. I wasn’t sure I was a teacher, but I had finished the courses and I was in love with a remarkable and beautiful woman and I needed a job to complete the picture. I wasn’t going to sell vacuum cleaners or sweep out filthy radio stations or toss 50 pound cement bags out of a train car in the San Joaquin Valley in the middle of August with the temperature above 115 inside the car. I wasn’t sure that teaching was my destiny but on the other hand I wasn’t sure what my destiny actually was or whether people ever really found theirs, even if they were sure they had because maybe they just talked themselves into it.

I had heard someone somewhere along the line say something like, “Some people live to work; others work to live.” Whoever that person was said it in such a manner it sounded like working to live was superior to living to work. But I didn’t think so. To me they were equal and you were one or the other, or you were a person who vacillated between the two, or maybe even transitioned from one to the other. There were people who didn’t grouse about their job because they were their jobs. Their whole identity was locked up in their job. I didn’t find anything wrong with that; it’s just that I knew that a job—to me—was something that felt like it was keeping me away from my destiny instead of being the conduit to it.

What’s a job, anyway? You hand over your time, mind, creativity, energy, youth, strength, health, stability and you get money and you buy stuff. Now some of the stuff is essential, but a lot of it isn’t. Still though, I wanted in, and I was willing to pay the price of admission. I wanted a house and a car and kids and vacations and a real Christmas tree with a toy train going around it and dinner out and barbecues and a fireplace at home.

I knew though that I would be working to live and not vice versa. My time not working would be my real life; my time at work would be like being in a play, a show, like a challenge to impersonate the sound, the words, the facial expressions, the customs and routines of a teacher. At the same time though, it would be me and I would be as real as possible with the kids. I knew I liked kids and that I could connect with them; I just wasn’t sure I knew all there was to know as an English major. I came to it on my own terms, picking and choosing, but calling yourself an English teacher, well it seemed to me that the best of them would be the ones that had breadth and depth in their subject matter.

“That’s sounds great,” I said, smiling my best smile.

“Can you do the job though? These kids out here are tough. ‘S a little different on the Westside. You have to be firm with them.”

“Yes sir, I sure can do that.”

Sell yourself Grace had said. The notion was creepy to me but I was in a play and so was Mr. Williams. He was saying stuff or would say stuff or had said stuff and I was doing exactly the same thing. It wasn’t that he didn’t mean it but just that it was one of the things that you say in a given situation. He had his costume on and so did I. He didn’t go around all duded up when he was at home; he wore jeans and a t-shirt like everyone else home from work. I didn’t wear a wool suit in the middle of summer for the joy of it; I didn’t want to wear a wool suit or a tie, ever. Why couldn’t we just be who we were? Then came that two-tone hand, the size of Asia, arcing like it was leaping over a wall.

“Well then, congratulations. Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks. Thanks very much.”

“Now, we start next week.”

“Right.”

“You’ll need a room key and I’ll show you your room.”

“That’s great.”

There was a pause. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to fill the void. He shifted in his chair.

“We have an after school program, a tutoring program. Would you be willing to participate?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And uh, we need someone to do the school newspaper and yearbook.”

Never say no. That’s what I heard. Newspapers and yearbooks had to be perfect and delivered on time and I was lousy at both of those things. He had the wrong guy. But I was 25 years old, eating baked potatoes and popcorn for dinner and Dad was paying the rent. I wasn’t going to say no. I couldn’t take the chance that there was something better somewhere else; I had a bird in the hand.

“I can do that.”

“That’s fine. Now, the Readers’ Club, that’s 7th and 8th grade, both, they need a faculty sponsor. They meet every other week.”

“Uh.”

I wasn’t sure how I was going do to all of this but I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t game. Maybe I would ease out of some of it one semester at a time. Of course when they saw the yearbook and the paper they’d probably scramble to find someone else. Doing the readers’ club wouldn’t be so bad, although I was pretty sure I would be tired at the end of the day which would make the tutoring hard to do, especially when I saw other teachers pulling out of the parking lot to head home to their real lives.

Everybody starts somewhere. Everybody has a first job story to tell. You have to pay your dues, I guess. It would turn out to be a pretty big tab though.

“On Wednesdays.”

“Ok.”

He had an index finger on his temple. He was looking down, looking at his desk blotter if he was looking at anything at all. I felt bad for him, trying to fill so many slots with one person, and I felt bad for misrepresenting myself; there was no way I could do all the things he was asking me to do. I was a rookie and as such, just teaching the five classes successfully was going to be a challenge. Still though as far as I knew, I was one “I don’t think so” away from not getting hired.

“And there’s intramural sports. You can coach, right?”

“Well, I…”

“You can’t?”

“Oh, yeah, of course I can coach.”

“Football right?”

“Yeah.”

“Basketball? Baseball?”

“Uh, I was never very good at…”

“It’s ok. I’ll just put you down for football.”

“Ok.”

He had no pen, no paper. I assumed it was a mental notation. I was trying to think of what to say when he stood up, stood towering over me, sizing me up for a second. I stood up and made ready to shake hands, but he headed for the door instead. He showed me the classroom where my teaching career would begin. It was drearier than his office. The walls were stripped bare and there were no books or materials anywhere. There were chips and chunks missing from the walls. There were water stains on the ceiling. There were names and proclamations carved in the desks.

I had a sinking, depressed feeling and I knew I was at the place where—if I were in college and it was a job, let’s say, selling shoes—I would just bail, just go to Foster Freeze and buy a root beer float and go home and put on “John Wesley Harding” and tell myself that there were more important things than money and a job.

But this was different. This time I was going to see this whole thing all the way through.

“Are there textbooks?”

“We have them on order. They’ll be here in a few weeks, hopefully.”

“Oh, uh, ok.”

I suppose I was unable to disguise my horror at the notion of having no materials, nothing to work with for 3 or more weeks because he was nodding his head in a way that suggested he was sympathetic to the dilemma.

“You can just pull something out of your files.”

“Oh.”

Of course there was one small glitch in that plan: I had no files. He knew I was a rookie, so why did he think I had files? What would I do with the kids after I introduced myself and took roll? I started pondering my day 1 lesson plan while we walked back to his office, where he gestured for me to sit down again.

“Now one more thing,” he said, leaning back in his desk chair.

“Yes?”

“You have to show them you’re in charge.”

“Of course.”

“You gotta put the clamps on ‘em from the start.”

“Right.”

“And when you have to deal with them, you deal with them.”

“Ok.”

“You see, you’re the foot soldier, I’m the general. You’re the hand pistol, I’m the cannon. See what I’m saying?”

“Uh-huh.”

I didn’t know much and I had said yes to just about everything but now, hearing the principal say, in effect, “The kids are bad, don’t drop them off on my porch,” I began to have some doubts.

“You don’t use a cannon when a pistol will do. And you don’t call on the general when you’re a foot soldier, you just keep on soldiering.”

“Oh, yes sir,” I said, fighting off the urge to salute him.

“All right, then. Just so we understand each other.”

“We do.”

“We gonna draw up a contract for you to sign. Come in tomorrow about this time.”

“Ok.”

“And remember you’re signing a contract. A legal, binding contract.”

“Uh-huh.”

He stood up and we shook hands, nodding and smiling at each other. I had landed my very first serious job. I drove home in the ’71 Dodge Colt station wagon with no air conditioning with a kind of faux jubilance, a feeling I could not muster on the first day of school.

“I’m Mr. Chavoor, I’m your Language Arts teacher,” I said, but my tone and pace suggested I didn’t know who or what I was at all.

A few decades later I would tell my student teachers to act, think and move like they owned the place, like the kids were in your house, and to be happy, gracious and watchful. I wish I could have had that advice that day.

I was nervous; my hand trembled a bit while I handed out their first assignment. They didn’t know the rules, no one had set the tone, there was no description of what we were going to do for the year and there was no seating chart assignment, but I handed them a paper, an “ice-breaker” activity with only four questions I had typed the night before and run off twenty minutes before class. They gave me a little over a minute of their attention. Even when you have something, a lesson plan may not go well, but when you have nothing or next to nothing, the kids are way too real to sit there politely and make the best of it. By the third minute of my teaching career I had lost first period entirely. They were up moving around, laughing, chatting, pushing and shoving, chasing each other. I implored them to return but they declined.

“Don’t worry,” one of the louder boys said, “I’ll go get help. I’ll go get the principal.” And before could call him back, he and his friend pimp-walked right out of the room and of course, didn’t return.

I was shell shocked. I had no plan B, and no one in the department offered any hints or suggestions before school started. I was a wreck for three days. The adrenaline poured into my body making me shaky and skittish. I couldn’t concentrate, had no plan and no materials. My heart was up and beating somewhere behind my Adam’s apple. I couldn’t remember things. Couldn’t remember where I had just placed a pen or piece of chalk. Couldn’t think what I was going to say next or what I had just told them. My ears didn’t just ring, they were blaring from the start of the day to the finish to the ride home and until I fell asleep and I wasn’t sleeping much. I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t even enjoy music. When I flipped through the records and put on Bob Dylan’s “Bringing it all Back Home” and the opening track, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” didn’t do anything for me, I knew I had to quit.

Wednesday at three o’clock I was sitting in Mr. Williams’ office. He looked at me and waited for me to speak.

“I’m quitting.”

“What for?”

“I’m not doing well.”

“That’s not unusual. It’s your first year.”

“I can’t do it. There’s no books, no materials. The kids are wild.”

“The materials are coming.”

“I quit. I’m sorry.”

“You can’t quit.”

“I can’t sleep. Can’t eat.”

“You signed a contract. That’s binding. That’s a very serious matter.”

“Well I’m breaking the contract.”

“You can’t. You can’t just break a contract. You signed it.”

“I…I’m not…I quit.”

“You won’t get your money.”

“Three days? You can keep the money.”

He was lying; I actually did get three days’ worth of a check a month later. The drive home was a strange mix of relief, shame and panic. What kind of good progressive Christian was I if I couldn’t reach them and then quit on them? Was I even a teacher at all? What other kind of job was out there for me? The ten dollar 8-track player was squeaking and “Passion Play” was coming to an end, “Here’s the everlasting rub: neither am I good nor bad.” But that couldn’t be right, I thought. It was bad to quit and it was good to quit, too.

I wrote a two page letter to Dad, explaining the conditions at the work place and how it was damaging my physical health which made it impossible to stay and that quitting was my only option. I told him that I would continue seeking employment as a teacher.

The next time he saw me he assured me that I had done the right thing, and that no job is worth the sacrifice of your health. I still felt very bad for some time though. I started to feel better when I saw that the Language Arts position was frequently in the Want Ads of the Fresno Bee. Overall though, I still felt bad; I was the foot soldier who went AWOL.

I never imagined myself in that position and I never faced it again. I did get a job and stuck to it and got money for houses and cars and Christmas trees and barbecues and it has truly been a wonderful life and it is true that I do work to live but I feel I have reached some kids over the years in a profound and meaningful way and for that I am willing to believe that being a teacher was part of my destiny, part of a larger plan. I may not have been born to be a teacher but at least I did some good while I was there.

Burbank Interview

Augusts 1979

This was my chance to move back, not just to Southern California, but to Mother Burbank. If you’re a native you know the feeling; it never goes away. Whatever parts there are inside you sends out a signal that you are in your spot, where you are supposed to be. Something in you says it’s ok to relax, that you’re on your home turf. I didn’t know it existed until I lived somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t Burbank. And the ironic thing was while I was a resident of Burbank I was restless and felt constricted and confined. But there’s a DNA for your hometown. Your soul hums contentedly like some old refrigerator that was never going to break, and your primordial defensive instincts are at ease.

Living in Fresno at the time, I was happy to be with the love of my life and my life was just beginning to take shape but I was homesick, too, even after 8 months in Fresno. I was so excited to interview for an English teaching position at my alma mater that I did not sleep the night before. In fact I did not sleep the night before the night before, and in those days I always told anyone who was interested—and even those who weren’t—that I always slept like a stone.

I stayed up late the night before the interview, visiting my school chum, Lenny, and we undoubtedly had some beers and probably smoked some cigars and walked all over town in the middle of the night, talking about everything and nothing at all. We might have ended our night at his favorite diner on Magnolia in North Hollywood still talking about sports, movie stars, successful peers and foolish politicians. He would have his fried eggs and French fries and I would have maybe a club sandwich or a cheeseburger or it might have even been a patty melt on sourdough instead of rye.

Whatever it was I felt horrible on the morning of the interview, and I had forgotten to pack a razor. It is the most important day of my life so far I thought while I looked for Dad’s shaving stuff. I would teach at the place where I went to high school. Maybe I would coach football there. My eyes were watery and bloodshot. Dad’s blade was dull and I started to look like I had been in a knife fight and had not fared very well. I found a styptic pencil and applied it liberally to the battlefield of my face. But instead of causing the blood vessels to contract, it appeared as though it caused them to shut for a moment and then burst open with vigor. I washed my face with half a bottle of Old Spice and ended up smelling like a car salesman in an old orange and brown hounds-tooth sports coat.

When Old Spice didn’t work I considered splashing myself with a bottle of Listerine but just the thought of the smell of Old Spice and Listerine plus the face on fire factor scrapped that notion. Instead, I tore patches of toilet paper stuck them where needed, which was pretty much everywhere the blade had been. All I can say is whoever it was that thought tissue paper was the way to go when you nick yourself was a fool. It has never worked, but there are just a certain number of us desperate enough to keep trying it, as if we hadn’t quite done it right the times before.

In a minute I looked like I had been caught in the watermelon patch and Farmer John had blasted me in the face with his shotgun that was loaded with curious looking white pellets. I was trying to laugh about the whole thing when my stomach abruptly sent an emergency message. Grateful to be in the right place at the right time I took the appropriate action while my stomach attacked me mercilessly. I felt betrayed. I had hitherto bragged about my stomach’s ironclad qualities, and I had mocked commercials about products—and those who used them—designed to rescue bowels in crisis. I stifled tears and groans of pain. When a ceasefire was finally reached and the paper work was completed, I staggered to my feet, washed my hands and grabbed hold of the sink. This can’t be happening, l thought. I have an interview in half an hour. I grabbed the sides of the sink and looked into the mirror, telling myself to knock it off and shape up. I opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed the bottle of Pepto and took three swigs. I had become the very person I made fun of.

In the kitchen I passed on Mom’s offer of oatmeal and Dad’s offer of cornflakes and fruit. They wished me luck and I headed for the front door. It would be like the old football days, pushing through the pain and weakness, ignoring it, forcing yourself to be stronger than if you were well. Or, like something in a game situation where the play starts out catastrophically wrong, like two teammates crashing into to each other, but it ends up somehow or another, a spectacular touchdown.

I was sitting in the district office waiting area, trying to look like a winner, the sure thing, the guy waiting calmly with his left foot resting on his right knee, the guy who might have needed a haircut but could pull it off without one, his head turned directly to the door he would enter confidently, the guy who was not at all cowed by the blandness, the dusty venetian blinds, the sameness, the florescent lights that washed out soul and character, the hollowed out, nondescript impersonal institutional look and feel to the place, no I was not at all intimidated, until it occurred to me that I had not thought about what they might ask me or how I might answer. It was ok though, it was a busted play and it would all come to me on the fly. Another stunning touchdown, this one the game-winner. The crowd leaps to its feet.

“Mr. Chavoor? Come on in.”

I shook hands with four people who referenced their respective titles but my stomach was roiling and it distracted me, panicked me. I chirped “Nice to meet you!” to each one of them. And so the interview began.

“Mr. Chavoor, tell us a little about yourself.”

“Of course. I, well, I grew up in Burbank. Went to Burroughs.”

“Uh-huh.”

How could at least make one of them not even smile? Not every applicant for the position was a native of Burbank. I had no experience and I wasn’t sure I had wiped off all the bits of tissue from my face, and no one was smiling. I needed some kind of leg up. I was nervous. I had to get on the scoreboard.

“Sherman was my dad’s cousin.”

They looked at me without expression. I thought must not have heard me.

“The principal. He’s a good guy.”

“Yes,” one of them finally said.

“Uh, yeah. Sherman was, he, really was a good guy.”

Silence. My stomach started making threats. I smiled, put my hand on my neck, then quickly put both hands on my knees, smiled again and coughed. Something rattled in my lungs. My eyes watered, and I wiped one clear.

“Mr. Chavoor, tell us your philosophy of education.”

“My philosophy?”

“Yes.”

“Of Education?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, well…”

I sensed this question called for lofty sounding phrases and buzzwords from the boring Ed classes, and for name-dropping as many current educational philosophers as possible. And it had to sound natural, as if all I ever did was think about, wonder about, talk about educational philosophers and their philosophies. But I was asked a question and all that stuff wasn’t my answer. The real question was did they want my answer or did they want to know how well I could conjure up a pontifical answer without it sounding too obviously like someone bullshitting. It was a dance for which I harbored a special hatred. Didn’t they value honesty? Wait a minute. Do I even have a philosophy of education? I must, I mean I want to be a teacher and I probably have a reason. All those goofy Ed classes when really there’s just you, the kid, and the story.

“Mr. Chavoor?”

“Uh, yes. Sorry. I feel that, I mean, my philosophy is… in an English class anyway, the teacher’s goal is to find stories that are obtainable but at the same time significant, like good literature, or I mean classic literature. But I like to stay in the 20th century myself. Well, except for Mark Twain and really I consider him the first 20th century writer, just like 20 years ahead of schedule.”

“Ok, well, what piece of literature would you teach?”

“Hemingway.”

“Yes?”

“His writing style is deceptively simple. He wanted to strip everything down. So kids can read it but it’s up to the teacher to help them find the deeper meaning. Yeah, I would pick Hemingway. Direct, you know. He didn’t go for sophistication, he just wanted to tell the truth, get at the truth, the reality. Like the reality of war, not the Charge of the Light Brigade kind of stuff.”

It was quiet. They were still the same grown ups from the early 60’s when I was in elementary. They were looking at me with that look. Poor clueless child. Doesn’t know shit from shinola. He has to learn our ways. Talking all that gibberish. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

“And which of his novels or short stories would you teach?”

“A Farewell to Arms.”

“How would you go about teaching it?”

My first thought was How the hell would I know? I haven’t taught a class yet! But I checked that off. My stomach was sputtering and whining and burning like a fighter plane heading for a crash. Hold on now, did my stomach just break the silence, or can it go into a spin without audio? I was tired, confused, and my eyes were watering again. They had asked a ridiculous question to ask a candidate with no experience but it wasn’t one they couldn’t or shouldn’t have. I was asking to be a teacher and they were asking me how I would do it. The truth was I hadn’t until that moment actually considered the day one reality of it.

“Mr. Chavoor?”

“I would, I would find out their opinion on themes in the book. Maybe a survey or just a class discussion. Like war, like what you think about war? I would try to connect their lives to the story. And of course I would, uh, make sure there were enough books for the students, you know their own copy.”

I picked one of them to look at to get a read on where I was. He was pressing the eraser end of a pencil against his temple and he was squinting his eyes. I was dead in the water. I also realized that since none of them appeared to be the lead dog on the team, I didn’t know which one of them to look at and as a result I hadn’t been looking at any one of them but rather had been looking at the space between them when I made my answers. Suddenly, the prospect renting a house on Frederic or Naomi Street and walking the halls of dear old Burroughs High was a dream that was fading to black.

“How much of the novel would you assign?”

“How much? Like, how many pages?”

Now they were just messing with me, I was sure of it. Short of a miracle, it was all over.

“Yes.”

“Well, 20. Or maybe 25. And it would depend on the length of the chapter we were in. Or when a scene ended.”

“In class? Every day?”

“I don’t… I mean, well, some of it would be homework.”

“Ok. Do you have anything else you want to tell us?”

Yes damn it, there is. This is the job I’m supposed to have. I grew up here.I lived on Catalina Street. I went to Burroughs. Mr. Carpenter laughed at a paper I wrote. Now I come back as an English teacher, don’t you see? I played football for Burroughs. We beat Burbank High my senior year. And I can coach football, too. I love football, literature, Burbank, and the greater LA area. I’m good with kids. I’m funny and I use humor to make them listen and understand. Grace and I will get married. She’ll love LA the way I do. We’ll go to the beach and to Dodger games. I can do this job because I’m supposed to. It’s a matter of destiny. I didn’t say any of that though; I only felt it. I only said a fragment of it, and I screwed up the fragment.

“I grew up in Burbank and I went to Burroughs. I love Burroughs High. Sherman Chavoor is my dad’s cousin. He was a good principal and is a good man. I love literature. I can teach.”

“Thank you for coming in today.”

I shook hands with each one of them, and looked straight into their eyes, not afraid to see their disinterest in my candidacy for the position of high school English teacher at John Burroughs High School. There would be no moving back to Burbank, no cute little rental with bougainvillea draping the front porch, no teaching of Hemingway to provincial Burbank kids waiting for truth and enlightenment, no coaching football and no completing some circle or cycle, some strange calling inside my head and heart. But I had Grace, and that was God’s first lesson in my adult life. I had the gifts and the calling but was knocking on the wrong door. And I certainly had the right life-partner, the love of my life, which at that point was all I needed.

I went back to Mom and Dad’s house, went to my old room and took a nap. I had no idea I would indeed teach A Farewell to Arms very effectively for many, many years and that I had the right dream but the wrong city.At the time I only knew that I had struck out but hadn’t lost the game; I was just waiting for my next at bat and for that waist high pitch over the middle of the plate.

Food Rules

I was hanging out with my friend Al, who likes to pretend he knows everything because he is pretty sure that he does. Not that he possesses all knowable knowledge but that he knows what to do with the knowledge he has; he has the quintessential plan ready to be drawn up and executed on short or long notice or on the fly. So he’s in Sam’s Club looking to buy a giant deli sandwich for a dinner party he’s throwing that evening.

“You and Grace are invited,” he said.
“No salami.”
“What?”
“Salami is nasty. You can’t get a sandwich that has salami.”
“Well….”
“No bologna. Although I did eat it when I was 10 and had such a bad cold I couldn’t taste it and there was nothing else to eat. Well there was but I just wanted to see how dead my tastebuds were, and they were because I ate it and otherwise it makes me want to barf.”
“Now look….”
“And pastrami! Oh man, that stuff should be outlawed. It stinks so bad your stomach rolls up in horror just at the smell of it.”
“You know what?”
“Head cheese, Mr. Al, what’s that about? It’s not cheese, that’s for sure.”
“Just forget it. Eat lettuce and bread.”
“Pimento loaf. What the hell is that? You’re cutting a piece of meat and it happens to have olives, pimentos and other unidentifiable stuff right in it? Crazy.”
“Yes, you are.”
“And then Spam. I think if I was starving I’d eat grasshoppers before cracking open a can of Spam. A can, ok? Meat in a can! And it doesn’t look normal.”
“A lot of people like it.”
“I have Hawaiian friends who like it and may have even offered it at Christmas parties, but as much as I love them, I just couldn’t bring myself to eat any of it. I mean, if there’s ham why would you eat a kind of mini-me version of it?”
“Anything else?”
“I mean there’s beef, fine, but corned beef? Forget it. It’s just some kind of spoiled meat. There’s no corn in it. I ate it once, I forced myself to eat it, just because Jon Smurr is my friend and is cool and loves being Irish and wanted everyone to share the experience.”
“I had to say anything thing else? Aye.”
“Just get sandwiches with turkey, beef, chicken or ham.”
“Ham is a cured meat. It’s a cold cut.”
“But it happens to taste good. There are only two kinds of acceptable pork: ham and bacon, you know that, right? Sausage? Pork chops? No way.”
“Ever had pork roast? Now that’s real good.”
“Hot dogs.”
“I said pork roast.”
“Yeah but I forgot hot dogs. I eat hot dogs, and that’s pork, sometimes. So there are actually three kinds of pork that are ok.”
“Thanks for the update.”
“But hot dogs are really awful. I mean carcinogens wrapped up in a sausage casing.”
“Yum and we’re having them for lunch.”
“But not hot links.”
“No hot links?”
“Ugly, nasty. Looks like they’ve been rotting in scummy water.”
“What about pork roast?”
“No. No way. It’s not ham, hot dog or bacon.”
“You’ve never had it though.”
“Yeah, I had it at your house. I forced myself to eat it because you’re a good friend. But I only took a few bites. After that I just pushed it around and hid it under the salad.”
“You didn’t eat Spam.”
“No. It’s more acceptable to hate Spam.”
“You ate more corn beef than pork roast, didn’t you?”
“As a matter of fact I did.”
“Hah!”
He turned away from me and picked up a huge circular deli sandwich from the refrigerator case.
“Wait a minute, that’s got Swiss cheese.”
“It’s turkey and ham,” he shouted.
“But Swiss cheese. What’s wrong with Jack or Chedder?”
“Ah, you know what? I’m putting this back. I’m gonna get some extra spicy salami here.”
“Go ahead.”
“You have the palate of an 8 year old.”
“Ah, but there are actually two other cheeses I like. String cheese and Munson.”
“Impressive.”
“I’m ok with it. I like what I like. I’m gonna start my own religion with my own acceptable foods so people would have to serve me things on the list.”
“Such as?”
“No, wait a minute. I would just make a list of unacceptable foods. Listing all the ok foods would be too long.”
“Not likely.”
“Like no clams, crabs, nothing that smells fishy.”
“Plenty of peanut butter and jelly though.”
“Of course. Sometimes you like it crunchy and sometimes you like it smooth. Sometimes you like strawberry and sometimes you like grape. Usually strawberry though.”
“Oh brother. Go on the Oprah Show why don’t you?”
“There would be no foods so hot or spicy it makes your eyes water. Why do people torture themselves? It’s like watching a horror film.”
“You won’t melt.”
“But why would you want to feel like that?”
“What about onions?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Purple onions sautéed are ok.”
“But?”
“White onions are too hot. Green onions stay on your breath for three or four days.”
“The things you’re missing!”
“Oh sure, like tongue?”
“I’m gonna serve you tongue tacos one day. You’ll never know the diff.”
“Oh, right.”
“I may have done it already. You don’t know.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Watch me.”
“It’s like this. Before Grace and I were married, I went to my mother-in-law’s house thinking hey this will be cool.”
“What.”
“An Armenian mother-in-law. Good eats, you know. So I’m thinking that and I walk into the kitchen and she’s popping the eyeballs out of a goat head. Wants to cook the brains.”
“And you tried it and loved it.”
“Ah, no.”
“You should have. Didn’t your mom make Armenian food?”
“Sure. Pilaf, grapeleaves, baked chicken. Lamb chops. No funky foreign animal parts, though. When my people were facing tough times they ate anything. Tough times are over, though.”
“You still should have tried it.”
“And then she suddenly retired.”
“Who?”
“My mom. I was like a senior in high school when she just stopped cooking.”
“What’d you eat?”
“A lot of chicken and a lot of pizza.”
“Why’d she stop?”
“By that time she had been cooking dinner for 25 years. I couldn’t blame her. She still made pilaf though.”
We reflected silently as we drifted down the snacks aisle.
“You grew up middle class.” Al said.
“That’s right.”
“Hmm.”
“What, I’m some kind of privileged class?”
“No, just spoiled.”
“I’m a product of my environment. I ate whatever was offered. My dad had his own food rules.”
“Huh.”
“No fish, no pork, no t-bone steaks, no Chinese. I didn’t even eat a pizza until I was 11.”
“We ate whatever was on the table. We didn’t care. Couldn’t afford to be picky.”
“We’re all a privileged class in this country, what’s left of it. We eat everyday. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t.”
“True.”
I looked at the bags of Sun Chips. He picked up a variety box of Kettle Potato Chips.
“How can you pick those over Sun Chips?”
“Kettle comes in four different flavors.”
“So do Sun Chips. Oh, wait. Only three.”
“Ah huh.”
“Sun Chips are better though.”
“You know, when you have friends over, serve some Sun Chips.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Aye, Mr. Jack.”
“A guy I worked with had crazier food rules.”
“What were they?”
“If it swims or flies he wouldn’t eat it.”
“Well, did he eat chicken? They don’t fly.”
“They can, can’t they? They just have their wings clipped.”
“They can fly but only in the wild.”
“Well, he used to say it’s gotta have hooves.”
“He ate horses?”
“Funny.”
“He wouldn’t eat fish because they live in the water they crap in.”
“What about birds?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he’ll join your religion.”
“He’d think our church was too liberal.”
“Yeah.”
“And in my food religion there would be a thousand dollar fine on anyone who uses cumin. And curry is just as bad. Awful stuff.”
“Curry has cumin in it.”
“No surprise there.”
“You know Mr. Jack, cumin is mentioned in the Bible.”
“Well if God wanted us to eat cumin it would have tasted good.”
“Tsk, tsk. What would you eat in India?”
“Not a thing. Cumin has the smell of an old, unwashed, blue, stubble faced, senile Armenian man in a bad mood.”
“Sure it does.”
“What’re you getting there?”
“Animal Crackers.”
“For the grandkids?”
“For me. I love Animal Crackers.”
“Ok now, did you know you can eat the box? The taste is about the same.”
“Animal Crackers are the best.”
“An utter waste of chewing.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Paste. No taste.”
“Very poetic.”
“Not as awful as fudge though.”
“Fudge has no flavor?”
“Fudge has too much flavor.”
“What?”
“You always hear people say, It’s so rich!”
“That’s a good thing.”
“That richness is your body begging for mercy. Fudge is out.”
“What, y0ur religion has a bad dessert list?”
“Of course.”
“What else is on it?”
“Brownies.”
“Brownies? Brownies and ice cold milk? What’s wrong with you?”
“They’re too sweet. However they are passable if they have been sitting out for a week.”
“Stale brownies.”
“Yeah.”
“For a week.”
“Yeah. Anything less and it’s still gooey. Anything more and it’s too dry.”
“What else.”
“Cherry pie. Too much goop, not enough cherries and the cherries aren’t fresh.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Mincemeat. Raisin pie. Rhubarb. All bad. Also, any pie that has pudding it in for the filling.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just go get some pudding! Only difference is the crust. And the price. For fifty cents you can have more pudding than you would ever want, but you can’t get a chocolate pie for fifty cents.”
“So your religion is prudent.”
“Yes, of course.”
“How about cookies?”
“Ginger snaps and oatmeal raisin.”
“They’re out?”
“In. Those are the two best cookies.”
“But Kelsey….”
“Yeah, she makes chocolate chip cookies.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t….”
“No, chocolate chip cookies are good, unless it’s something goofy like chocolate mint or the cookie itself is chocolate. And M&M cookies are a resolute failure. Can’t taste the chocolate. But regular chocolate chip cookies are cool. They’re not out, no way. Especially the way Kelsey makes them.”
“What’s the name of your religion anyway?”
“Foodyism.”
“Hah!”
We made our way to the food court where we had our hot dogs and soda.
“Know what?” I said, “I’m not as fussy as it sounds.”
“Right,” Al replied.

How She Is

That first week of school is an important one. A smooth week can set the tone for the rest of the year. This week teachers all over the country are starting up. Their hearts are full of love and their hope far exceeds their dread of things going awry. This is a story of a rough first week I had many years ago. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I wish I had a story of how everything went smoothly on the first week, and many of them did. But a story without conflict isn’t a story. So I offer this one and say to all my teacher friends and my dear wife, have a great year and keep on looking for the good, but when you have to get rid of a trouble-maker for the benefit of the other students, then do it and don’t look back.

 

“Excuse me?”
“I said shut the hell up.”
“I’m sorry but that language is inappropriate and unacceptable.”
It was the second day of school. I knew the girl was trouble and that she wanted to announce early that she was going to be a pain in the ass all year. The expression nip this in the bud kept repeating itself in my head.
“No it’s not.”
She stood with a hand on her hip.
“All right, well, take yourself outside in the hall, and when I’m done taking roll we can talk about that.”
I was fuming. Everyone else in the class seemed normal. The other classes were manageable. Why did I have to have this one wrench in the works?
“I don’t want to go out in the hall. Why would I?”
“Come on,” I grabbed a chair and walked toward the door, “Here’s a chair. I might be a while.”
“I don’t want a chair,” she said moving toward the door, “I want to stand.”
“Fine,” I said, “stand, then.”
“Fine,” she said, smirking.
I returned and tried to be composed, tried to take roll in a calm voice the sound of the names came out in shaky and choked with that pinched off rage. The kids were quiet and solemn, almost contrite with the exception of the girls’ co-conspirator. She was the follower; her guru was outside and she wasn’t sure what course to take without her. When I called her name she said, “Oh, I’m here alright!” and smiled, clearly the second fiddle. I went back outside ready for battle.
“Why did I ask you to come outside?”
“You didn’t ask me to come outside. You told me to take myself outside.”
“Why are you out here?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right. Just stay out here until you figure it out.”
I turned to open the door.
“Guess I’ll be out here forever then.”
“Guess so.” I went back in and put the kids on task. I came back 15 minutes later.
“Back so soon?” she said with that smirk that she knew made teachers want to slap.
“Did you figure it out yet?”
“I’m out here because you made a mistake?”
“You’ve got it backwards.”
“Oh. You’re out here because you made a mistake?”
“I don’t need this. You don’t need to have this attitude. I haven’t done anything for you to act like this. You’re out here because you told me to shut the hell up when I was speaking to the class.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Ok. We’re done.”
I turned to go back to my room to write her up and send her to the office. She tried to follow me and I put up my hand to stop her.
“You said we were done,” she said.
“You wait here. You’re going to the office.”
“OOOOO. I’m scared.”
I rummaged manically through my desk drawers, looking for the right forms, but couldn’t find them. I knew that if I wasn’t so upset I would be able to find them. I couldn’t even find a piece of blank paper to write on and I ended up tearing one out of a student’s three ring binder. My hand was shaking while I wrote, my temples were pulsing with rage. When I went back out she stood with her arms crossed and her head cocked to the side.
“Here you go,” I said, holding the note out.
“Whatever,” she said and grabbed the note from my hand and sauntered down the hall, laughing. “You spelled my name wrong,” she called out over her shoulder, “there’s no E in Ann.” She waved it like it was a get out of jail free card.
Back inside the room the students were still on the task. I knew they would be well-behaved without her, not to mention relieved. When the bell rang, they filed out quietly. Ann’s underling approached, giving me a fresh dose of adrenaline.
“That’s just how she is.”
She kept walking but I didn’t know how to respond anyway.
I came to work early the next day to have time to talk to Ann’s counselor. Ann was in the performing arts program and they had their own counselor. I hadn’t worked with Ms. Bivens before but Ann’s behavior was uncomplicated and egregious in equal parts. She listened attentively and then waited a long time before she spoke.
“This is typical.”
“Typical?”
“Just like her.”
“Well, I…”
“Have you called her father?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I will but I’m not sure what you meant when you said….”
“That’s just how she is.”
It was the second time I had heard this line of reasoning. From a kid I could understand it, but from an adult it was almost incomprehensible.
“Well, I don’t think that….”
“Oh, it’s not acceptable of course. It’s just that, well, you give her father a call.”
“I will. What I really want is a conference.”
“Well, that’s fine. Let me know how it goes after the call.”
I was so anxious to work my way through the protocol that I called Ann’s father two hours later on my prep hour. It turned out he was a teacher at a nearby middle school who happened to be on his prep at the same time. I described his daughter’s behavior and when I was done he had no response.
“I know that as a teacher yourself, you can’t conduct class when a student is so willfully disruptive,” I began.
“I know. You’re right.”
“So, I’m wondering if you could talk to Ann about what is appropriate classroom behavior.”
“I can do that for you, but it may not do any good.”
“I’m not sure I understand you.”
“That’s just the way she is.”
“Well she can’t be the way she is and be in my classroom.”
“I understand.”
“You’re her father.”
“Yes, I am. She’s been like this for a long time now. Since the 6th grade.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I was debating whether or not to recommend professional counseling.
“She’s an anarchist,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?”
“She’s an anarchist. That’s why she acts that way.”
“Well she is free to be an anarchist if she wants, but she can’t be an anarchist and a student. If she wants to be an anarchist she also has to accept the consequences that go with that choice. Since she is a senior I suggest that you offer her the choice of dropping out of school so she can be an anarchist or altering her behavior so she can graduate from high school.”
“But she loves to sing, dance and act. She’s very talented.”
“I have no doubt that she is. But she has to be willing to compromise her anarchistic principles in order to remain in the performing arts program.”
“That’s not the way it’s been.”
“Have you talked to her about her behavior in the past?”
“Numerous times, all the way back to the beginning of middle school.”
“She’s exhibited this aggressive, non-cooperative behavior since middle school?”
“Most teachers just feel that’s just how she is.”
“She can’t be the way she is in my classroom, sir.”
“I understand that. She has this problem with male authority figures.”
“Well, as I’m sure you’re aware as she makes her way through life in this world, there will be many authority figures, and let’s say half of them are male, and she will have to deal them with in effective, positive ways. She has to learn and start at some point.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“I’m not the perfect father and I don’t have perfect children and I say this just out of concern. Have you considered family counseling?”
“We’ve tried that.”
“Not that it’s my business or anything.”
“No, I appreciate your concern.”
“Well I’m going to request a conference with Ann and you and her counselor. This cannot continue as it is.”
“I support whatever you and the counselor think is best. I think the conference might go better if I’m not there.”
“But….”
“I’ve been to enough of them to know.”
“All right then. I will arrange a conference.”
“I’m a teacher. I know what you’re going through. Do what you think is best.”
After school I went back to Ms. Bivens. She agreed to arrange for a conference but she wanted me to talk to the peforming arts program director first for some reason. I did and she agreed that a conference was in order but she commented that it’s just how she was, and she had been acting out since she arrived at Roosevelt as a freshman and hadn’t changed. I was astounded.
On Wednesday Ann ditched my class but Ms. Bivens had nevertheless contacted Ann and arranged for a conference at 7:30 on Thursday. I arrived at Ms. Bivens office at 7:20; Ann showed up at 7:45, five minutes before first period began. I got up and walked out with saying a word to her. On Friday we both showed up on time. I got to speak first and I didn’t want to waste any time.
“You told me to shut the hell up and then you lied and said you didn’t say it. You were belligerent and argumentative. I will not allow you to remain in my class if you continue to act like that.”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“There are 30 witnesses who will testify to what you said.”
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to my friend. I told her to shut the hell up.”
“Your friend was two feet away from you and you spoke loud enough for me to hear you at the front of the class. I’m not buying that explanation.”
“That’s what happened.”
“Ok, I don’t see the point in this. This is ridiculous.”
“Sure is.”
“Ann, that’s enough,” Ms. Bivens said.
“Can I go? I have a class to go to,” Ann said.
“Go ahead and go,” I said, “you’re not staying in my class.”
She got up immediately and left without a parting comment.
“Ok, look,” I said to Ms. Bivens, “I’m cashing in my cards. I don’t care how you deal with her or what happens to her in her life. I don’t want her in my classroom. Period. I don’t like to send a bad kid to another teacher but I’m out of options.”
“I don’t think we can….”
“Look I’m telling you something. I’ve been teaching 19 years and I have never had this kind of problem before. Never had a kid like that. I don’t expect her to change and I will not carry her for 35 weeks. Her presence in my classroom will interfere with the progress of the other 30 kids. I have to tend to them, and to my own state of mind. I’m calling in a favor.”
“Wow. In all your 19 years.”
“Fifteen of them here at Roosevelt.”
“Some of her classes can’t be moved though.”
“Find a way.”
“We’d have to move her straight across.”
“I’d be willing to talk to her next English teacher.”
“Maybe she’d work better with a woman teacher.”
“Either way. Just– she’s not spending another minute in my class.”
“I’ll see what we can do.”
“Take care of it. Because I’m not going to be her teacher.”
The move was made straight across. Ann went to Mrs. Cunningham three doors down. I did speak to Mrs. Cunnigham and she was gracious and empathetic enough to agree to the deal. Three weeks went by before I asked Mrs. Cunningham how Ann was doing. She was fine was the report, a little darling. Mrs. Cunningham never asked for a favor in return. Actually, now that I think of it, that’s not true. Five years later she sent me a kid who became the first and only student to start a fist fight in my classroom in my entire career. I grieved the loss of my perfect no fight streak for a year. It was still worth a worthwhile swap though. I just knew one thing: that girl was not going to have the privilege of staying in my classroom. I guess that’s just how I am.

Downward Spiral

Today’s story comes from 21 years ago

We are all thinking about and grieving the loss of Robin Williams this week. We loved his manic take on on the world and felt his loss almost like family. And one of the take aways I see from this, and from others who are sharing about it, is none of us are impervious to mental illness. People are disclosing unpleasant things from their own lives in the spirit of getting all of us to a better, more honest place.

In that spirit I share with you today my own struggle with depression from 21 years ago. If you read it and feel that what I experienced wasn’t depression, just remember that I could not put all the details in one essay. I did what I could to get the depression under control. I was in therapy, I was on anti-depressants, I dug deeper into my understanding of God, and the love and support of my family and friends helped me get to a better place.

I offer this piece in the hopes that it might help someone see a way up and out. Feel free to share.

February 1993
It’s been a hellish, nightmarish year. The game at work is cutthroat and all the hustlers have stepped to the table. I can’t believe how everything can fall apart in just one year. My friends are scattered all over the the place. I walk three times a day to opposite ends of the campus. My classrooms are not my own rooms. Attendance is horrible. The students’ collective attitude is one of rebellion, defiance, mockery and indifference. Could I have taken this huge leap into embittered, entrenched, embattled, middle-agedom? Is it me, the kids or the system?
I don’t want to become that negative, pessimistic, cynical employee who causes others to feel depressed and then relieved when I walk away. But I fear that I may have become just that. How much of it is in my head and how much of it is in the circumstances? Will things get better? I can’t tell. Sometimes it’s hard to see the future when the present has swallowed you whole.
One thing goes wrong, and then another, then I fall in the downward spiral. I get depressed and do less instead of more. Doing less reduces the odds of something catching on, and the kids react negatively when nothing does. More things go wrong, school stuff piles up and goes wrong, stuff outside school piles up, and I get more depressed, and then I can’t even do the minimum. I flash back to other years when things were on an upward spiral, and then get more depressed at the discrepancy.
Eventually I start to feel like I can’t do anything at except eat, and I do a lot of that. I end up feeling bloated all day, day after day and that depresses me and I eat more. Soon it feels as though eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom are the only things that have any merit in life. I can’t even feel music anymore, not even my favorite albums, “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” and “Who’s Next.” At that point my own children seem like an irritant instead of a source of joy. I take more and more naps. Reading is out; it calls for too much concentration.
I start to dream of long forgotten people from a far away time. Lamenting all the transition and loss, I spin more in the downward spiral. I feel humiliated instead of joyful at the successes of my peers. I feel empty and guilty and numb in church. I start to forget appointments, meetings, promises, and agreements. Everything seems beyond control. I try to burn time in the classroom with busywork, and movies. I don’t put a single good unit together and get more depressed. I start to believe and understand that a man has it hardwired in him to make something, build something, leave something useful behind, and that’s not happening at all. I feel like since our children arrived they have been doing all the growing and discovering and creating, while my own life is stagnant.
I even get to the point where I wonder if formal education has any real value anyway. What is its long term effect? What is its goal? It may not be designed to get people to think; it may in fact exist only to condition people to show up on time, follow directions and to never question authority and to question those who do. All my life I’ve worked to live, not vice-versa. Does that mean I don’t have the calling?
Sometimes I don’t even want to get out of the shower because I’ll only end up at work, getting my ass kicked and sometimes the emotional blows feel like actual body blows. Even when I get through to kids– help them in some way, counsel or encourage or advise them—it doesn’t seem worthwhile. I never stop trying though, so maybe it’s just like a reflex after all these years. Maybe I’m not genuine; it’s just some kind of conditioned response.
I used to think I was smart and maybe I still am but there are colleagues here who I thought were not as smart than I am but they are coping with all this mess called teaching or even called life a lot better than I am. What good has being smart been if I’m only smart enough to see how limited I am? Being smart is like a curse. But then the people smarter than I am are sailing through this and any storm. I must be weak then. What if I had gone to UCLA or Berkeley; maybe I’d be a more disciplined, organized teacher and one who could think deeper, clearer, and better. None of this would be happening to me if I wasn’t such a lazy and intimidated student in high school. But I am holding on to the wise words of Satchel Paige, “Don’t look back, there might be something gaining on you,” or my own derivation of it, “Don’t look back, there ain’t nothing back there anyway.” Then there is Joseph Heller’s novel that I never read, Nothing Happened. Nothing may ever happen, maybe that’s the point. Everything might just keep going on and on and on, like some Ann Tyler novel where everyone is himself over and over and over.
How I long for the days when the faith gave me hope and confidence, how it would define every idea, every issue, every person and made it possible to move freely with an answer for everything that needed answering. But the paradigm has been altered and can’t be restored and I find that my faith now is not unlike being connected by a rope to a jeep speeding its way through the desert; gotta hold on to the rope so I won’t die in the desert, but it sure is a bumpy ride.
I feel responsible for every single thing that goes wrong– every kid acting out; every bit of graffiti; every kid who doesn’t get it. My peers say to me, “You take it too hard,” or “You’re too hard on yourself,” or “You’re doing so much more than you realize; you’re great with them,” but I don’t believe it. I know a teacher; she has her shit together 24 hours a day. I’ll never be like that. I don’t want to use sarcasm with the kids but I do lash out and I’m at the point where I don’t even know whether they deserve it or not. I can’t tell anymore when they’re just joking and when they’re not. I’m on the defensive a lot.
The students ask me what I wanted to do when I was in high school, and I tell them the truth: I didn’t have a clue. I don’t tell them that I didn’t have a clue in college and that my favorite line in my favorite movie is when Cool Hand Luke says, “I never had a plan a day in my life.” I’m starting to not like the person I’ve always been. Like the Dylan song, “When you’re tired of yourself and all of your creations…” For a long time I wanted to touch the lives of students without being altered by them; too late for that. I don’t even remember why I wanted that in the first place. I don’t even feel like brushing my teeth. I feel so low it’s like the Burl Ives line in East of Eden, “he walked around, but he died.”
I always believed that my forte was improvising but now that idea seems foreign and far away, but I don’t know any other way and I won’t do any other way, not when “it’s in you and in the situation” (Robert Frost). For right now I look for a short week, the next holiday, the next minimum day; I try to block out the travesty. They say everyone’s faking it. I don’t know though. I don’t think so.
I’ve wanted to cry but I haven’t; there’s nothing there. Remember Hemingway, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but look how he ended up. Not me though. I might not be smart enough to find the way out but sometimes you just have to wait. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”
Last week I had a dream. I went through a series of rooms that all looked alike, but each one was a little different somehow. The rooms I passed through would always be mine. I couldn’t lose them; they couldn’t be taken from me. But I couldn’t go back to them either. I couldn’t go to the next room without leaving one, and I always wanted to keep moving and gaining rooms, even if it was one at a time, gaining the next by losing the former.
The writing has helped. The darkness inside came out. I feel better; maybe I am. I’m just waiting for now for the room that leads to the upward spiral.

Captain of Debate

“But if he resigns, we’ll never know how much he knew,” I exclaimed.
“That’s what Grandma Gulian says,” Mom replied.
Grandma Gulian was an elderly friend of the family.
“Did she call today?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think it’s so cool she’s into politics.”
“College educated. She was a teacher.”
“She thinks that things are so bad with Watergate that it’s a sign of the end times.”
“Hmm.”
“You think Jesus is coming back in our lifetime?”
“Your lifetime; but not mine.”
“She’s cool. How did you know her again?”
“Benny-Boy and I were friends in Fresno.”
“And he’s Laura and Gloria’s Dad?”
“Um-hum.”
She cut two generous slices of watermelon, handed me one plate and then sat down at the kitchen booth with the other.
“He didn’t go to college but his mother did. How come?” She had a mouthful of watermelon so she shrugged.
“The war, I guess,” she said after spitting out some seeds.
“He’s a carpenter?”
“Carpet layer.”
“Pretty hard work.”
“Gave him a bad back.”
We ate watermelon for a while.
“So will we ever know how much Nixon knew?”
“He knew everything.”
“Yeah?”
“Everything.”
“So how do you know that?”
“I heard him speak once.”
“Nixon?”
“In college.”
“What college?”
“Fresno State.”
“What a minute now. Richard Nixon…”
“Was the captain of the debate team at Whittier College, and he came to…”
“Fresno State to debate. What were you doing there?”
“I went there.”
“You went to college?”
“Yes,” she said a little hurt.
“I mean, you graduated?”
“Yes!”
“What’d you major in?”
“English.”
“Like me? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“It never came up.”
“Huh.”
I tapped the watermelon rind with my spoon.
“Huh,” she retorted gently.
“So who did you like? What authors did you…”
“Eugene O’Neill, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald.”
“Wow.”
We looked at each other, thinking our own thoughts.
“And Shakespeare, of course,” she added.
“Of course. So, what did Nixon say? And how did it make you think that Nixon knew everything?”
“He was very good. Sharp and convincing. But it was his main theme that showed the kind of man he was.”
“What was that?”
“The ends justifies the means. Didn’t matter what rules were bent or broke if you, in the end, got the results you wanted.”
“Oh yeah, I get it. So getting re-elected was the result and it didn’t matter what they did to get there.”
“You’re pretty smart when you want to be.”
“Thanks. I never would have thought you and Nixon were the same age.”
“Exactly the same age.”
“You were born on the same day?”
“Uh-huh.”
She took her plate and mine and turned toward the sink.
“You and Nixon? So much for astrology!”
“I don’t believe in that stuff anyway.”
“Me neither. Well, I’m going out. “
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to the used bookstore. I haven’t read any Eugene O’Neill.”
“Huh. Why don’t you get a haircut before you go to the bookstore?”
“Nah. I like it like this.”
“Just the boches.”
“I like the ends. Everything’s good the way it is.”
I shook my head so my hair flopped back and forth. She made a face and whacked me on the shoulder, then I turned out went out, thrilled at the new revelations in our family history.