Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams

I looked at Lola, fast asleep and rolled up in blankets like a burrito on my bed, wishing I could curl up and go back to sleep with her.

"I just have the worst writers block...." the nine year old wined, grasping his large head in his hands.
"You can't have writer's block when you are copying something off of the board" the tiny, Indian child with giant black rimmed glasses responded, writing casually with a Ticonderoga pencil that seemed too large for his small hand.
"But I have just had it for months!" the other continued, eyes to the ceiling and hands outstretched.
The little Indian boy sighed, shaking his head slightly from left to right, his hand continuing the required copying.

"Well, as for future goals, I plan to be a rocket scientist by the time I'm twenty-four".  I gagged on my coffee.  The scholarship applicant was pushing twenty years old and had a 1.3 grade point average.  Nice.
"But since my grades in science aren't so great, I might try switching majors.  If that doesn't work, I'll just stick it out and be a rocket scientist".
Nice B plan, I thought, wanting to send him a personal bill for taking ten minutes out of my Sunday before giving him the lowest possible rating for the scholarship. 

"So, you really have to let me try that tocino.  I simply can't stop thinking about it!" the large headed boy stated on his way out, waving his hands in the air.
"Lola's dog treat?" I asked, incredulous.
"Yes!  It just looks great.  Promise me you will make it for me".
"Uh, okay, I promise.  Do you have any allergies?"
"None what soever" he answered, giving me a direct look in the eye and a quick nod, as if we had just closed an important deal.
 "By the way, I got my behavior clip moved back up from yellow to green after you left".
"That's great.  I am glad you got back on your game".
"Of course" he stated, turning on the stairs and walking down, his backpack hanging unzipped and wide open.

I rushed home and got on the virtual conference to caucus about the scholarship applications.  Buzz whir and we were all connected to DC and staring at the same spreadsheet that reflected our common applicants, organized by who we had ranked the highest to lowest, as well as a comparison of our individual scores for each applicant.
"I just didn't see a lot of leadership there and her grade point average wasn't that great..." one of the co-judges commented, his voice ringing through the speakers of my computer into my kitchen.  I crept across the room and quietly opened a beer, hoping it couldn't be heard through the speakers. I clandestinely sat back down, took a deep breath and moved closer to my computer.
"She is undocumented.  Her whole family is undocumented.  She is working multiple jobs at sub-par wages to contribute to her household.  She has completed two years of college, paying out of state tuition and has a 3.3 grade point average, without the ability to get federal loans, though there is no reason for her to think an education will ever pay off for her in any way.  If she finishes, she still won't have papers.  For me...., for me, that is a tremendous burden for a young person to carry and I stand by my top rating".
"I would like to raise my score..." the third judge announced.
"I could go higher as well" the other acquiesced.
I sipped my beer quietly.
"Are we ready to move on?" the moderator asked.
"Yes, we are" we answered in unison.

The Italian triplets skipped down the stairs waving goodbye, their skin so transparent it was almost blue, but their eyes were large and excited, accompanied by little shy smiles on their faces.

"Ciao...." I called and raced home myself, to rip Lola's cage open and let her run free into the backyard, butt wiggling and legs galloping. 

Well Hello There

“¿Qué hiciste el fin de semana pasado?”  I asked the fourth grade class.  I am back with the little ones again, all day, no more high school.

“Hice plans for our vacation,” a small boy with a largish head answered, lowering his voice an octave. 

“And I am so flipping EXCITED!”  he shrilled, his voice pitched in an Esther Merman vibrato as his eyes widened and glowed.

“Theo says to tell you he loves you and wants to know why you aren’t teaching him Spanish this year.” Emma announced, tossing her bag into the car as I picked her up from the high school, my former job, after my day at the elementary.

“Okay, next step.  After you have your hombrecito, your little man, cut him out, then you can decorate him for a minute before you attach him to your carpeta de español”.

I wandered the room as they finished up the project.  I have a few kids in this class with some pretty severe cognitive problems.  I like them.  They remind me of Emily.  One of them grabbed a peach colored crayon and began coloring in the face of his hombrecito.

“I like…this…skin….” he whispered definitively, his breath heavy, while dragging the crayon precisely across the hombrecito, though the color was a complete opposite of his own skin. 

The fire alarm went off. 

“Line up”. I instructed, forcefully.  Fire drills are normally a joke, but for some reason, with the little ones, I feel a greater sense of urgency.  The sound of the alarm is shrill, blaring.  I plug my ears while I walk with the students; it makes my teeth clatter and oddly makes me nauseas.  The worst part is the corridor right before we get to the exit.  The alarm changes to an air raid-like siren while an automated voice repeats over and over again:  “There is a fire in the building”.  I always feel a panic in that room.  I don’t know why.  I look out at the sky so that the students won’t see it in my eyes.

It is the same kind of feeling I had a couple of months ago, late in a summer night.  I was awoken by the low wail of an ambulance.  Alec was out of town.  It was a lonely sound.  I could tell the ambulance was driving slowly.  Someone was already dead in there and the horrible wagon rolled through the streets, it’s shrill yet low sound echoing through the night.   The smell of blood filled my nostrils and I felt bottomless, down in the sea like the time I floated over a coral cliff and couldn’t see what might come up at me.   Drifting, looking into an abyss. 

“Are you doing okay here?  Are you happy?” the administrator asked me.

“Yes, I really am.  It’s awesome,” I answered.

“Good.  GOOD!  Because we are so happy to have you”.

I swiveled around backward in my chair to make sure he wasn’t talking to someone else. 

I was on my way out.  Certain mornings, Alec is NOT awake and at work before me and I actually leave the house before he does.  This morning, I was on my way out.  Alec sat at his computer with his coffee, Lola halfway in his lap.   I bent down while he kissed me on the cheek goodbye, and Lola simultaneously reached up and licked my chin.

Then, the sun came out and the clouds parted as the day greeted me and whispered, “Hello, gorgeous, YOU are amazing”. 

Welcome Back

“So, you said there was a park up here, one that you liked…”

“Yeah but, I was ten when we moved.  It might be horrible now.  Hoyt Park”.

I typed it into my phone for directions.

I remember it being beautiful.  Covered in snow, with toboggans and an ice skating rink, covered in skaters.  The old waters works was by there, covered in oxidized green. 

Baseball fields and an old cemetery covered it now. 

“I don’t remember it this way”.

“It’s alright, let’s take Lola out”.

We ended up trailing a mother and her two children on a path around the ball fields.  The smaller child was wailing.  The more the child cried, the more the mother screamed and dragged her.  Finally, she walked off, pretending to leave the child behind.  This brought the kid to near hysterically screaming.  The older one wanted to pet Lola.  I didn’t know what to do.  I wanted to tell the lady that Alec could take Lola to the car and could help her take the kids home.   Or I could wait with Lola, and Alec could drive them home.  I knew none of it would be acceptable, that I would be some yuppie bitch judging her. 

Alec and I walked toward the car with Lola, the wailing in my ears echoing as I watched them climb over some weird back hill next to the cemetery.

We drove through a terrible part of my former hometown to our hotel.

“Go get beer,” I instructed,  “a lot of it”. 

Summer Lovin'

Oh summer, how I love you.  Not for your weather, but for your absence of work.  If only you were about ten months longer. 

"I can't remember the last time I took a shower.  Probably won't take one today either.  I just take my clothes off at night, lay them at the foot of the bed, then put them right back on again the next morning". 

"And then I laid there and farted, creating a wind symphony with the other people in the room".

"On the day of the presentation of your research for your Specialist's degree, you must also make a cardboard triboard of your achievements!  No, electronic presentations are not acceptable. Paper, glue and scissors is what you will need to complete THIS professional program!".

"I know.  My boob has been sticking out all day.  There is nothing I can do about it.  This shirt is see-through".

"Hi, I'm Hilary.  I was Aidan's Spanish teacher this year!".
"You the one that was callin' all the time?" the mother asked coldly, turning her back and walking away.  A hush fell over the party for at least thirty seconds.

"Emma is at Grady".  

"Goooooooooollll!"

"God, we were wild.  three-ways, strippers, we did it all". 

"Where does all the beer go that you buy?".

"That thing you asked me to sign electronically; I just typed my name on the line.  Will that work?". 

"Okay, here's the doggie Xanax...". 

"It's a U.P. thing". 

"NO era penal".  

"And then, I shit my pants". 

"Can you advocate for a refugee, Central American family that is being placed in Atlanta?".

"Michael is on his way back to the emergency room".

"Oh my God, I have to wear sunglasses in my living room that house is so bright.  I am getting a second liner on all of my curtains".  

"If you see this man, call 911.  He's wanted".  You mean the guy I just passed outside the Texaco?

"What are your personal goals for the upcoming school year?". 

Oh no.  Do you mean the one that starts in like, ten days?.....In the 'fall' as we like to call it?  Didn't we just pack up 'last year'?

Betwixt or Between

I felt like a hammer had hit me in the head.  The incredibly loud PA, the singers screaming so loud their veins were popping out of their necks, the drum beats that blistered the bottom of my feet.  All of my favorite songs.  As soon as the music started, I was in a different world.

Man, I had to pee.  I did my business and walked straight out into the night, along Glenwood and over Moreland.  It was one in the morning.  I needed air.  I wasn't used to going to shows until the middle of the night.  I didn't help that I had put down nearly a twelve pack before even going.  But, wow, what a show.  My favorite local band from a decade and a half ago.  And, they sounded incredible.  I felt shell shocked.  And weirdly melancholy.  So much change.  The recent death, that shouldn't effect me because I didn't know him personally.  Everything is different.  Gone. 

I got up the next morning and my mood deepened.  I felt nostalgic, exhilarated and sad all at the same time.  I wanted to go again, see them again, who knew when I would ever get another opportunity.  Oddly, I wasn't sure if I could handle the physical exertion. 

My dog, the love of my life, has been sick. I took her to the vet and they said she had some seasonal allergies.  I looked up some remedies on the internet while I nursed my head with coffee and came across an article about the most toxic plants for dogs.  Most were in my backyard and would only require ingestion of a leaf or two to cause paralysis.   

There was no question.  Those plants had to go.  It was unequivocal.  I was almost angry at them.  She could have died.  But as Alec hacked at the old growth azaleas and oak hydrangeas that were in the backyard when we bought the place, I felt horrible.  I always thought they were beautiful, and they were poisoning my dog.  We cut them off at the base.  As I dug up all the things I had planted in the backyard, the things that I loved, I felt my throat closing and choking. 

I slept in a feverish sleep, dreaming of Lola falling into a deep ocean off of a boat.  I stared into the water, waiting for her to surface.  She didn't.  I panicked and woke up clutching my throat.  I had another dream of holding someone's baby during a car crash.  I didn't really care about the baby, but was doing my civil duty to try to save it.  I woke up clutching Lola in our bed while she tried to scuttle away, sleepy. 

I felt odd in my EDS class Monday morning.  It was back to my normal school world, so different from the world I had been in for days.  I guess my old world.

I am not sure which, if any, is my true world. 

Smoke

In the early 90s I was really into music.  Actually, before the early nineties.  In the 80s, at the Metroplex.  By the time I was in college, music in Atlanta was pretty awesome.  I remember going to Homage and seeing Smoke all lined up on the stage, sitting down, facing the audience with their instruments, looking totally impressive.  Later, when I had dropped out of college, I worked in Cabbagetown for a little while.  I was a baker, the only job I have ever fully enjoyed.  I was completely dedicated to my work, but would go next door sometimes to the musicians' practice spaces, that now host lofts and restaurants, and smoke pot, but only really fast, because I had ideas about what I wanted to do in the bakery.  The Gold Sparkle Band was awesome for stuff like that.  I would work late, instead of early, because I am not an early riser, unlike most bakers.  It would get dark and I would fiddle with pie crusts and recipes, alone in the bakery, happy with my day, happy that I could say when someone asked me, "What did you do for work today?",  that I could say that I baked four apple pies, made twelve scones and a layer cake.  But in the night, the sun would set on the stacks of the old mill and I could sometimes hear Smoke tuning up.  I didn't have to go outside, their music permeated the neighborhood.
And I would bake while they played. 

Days Gone By

"I'm fucked..." she said, her head lowered.  I saw the bright burgundy side of her carefully shaved head and we hugged each other.  She was crying.

I was surprised the first time I saw her in the teacher's copy room.  We had worked together when I was sixteen years old.  In a hair shop.  I had clamored for the job, being a punk rock kid in the suburbs.  I went to the Metroplex, a wonderful club 'downtown' as we called it, in Atlanta, not in Cobb County.  I had been going there since I was fifteen and it was my livelihood, the only place I wanted to be, except Little Five Points, but that was during the day time.  And this place, this hair shop, they could dye my hair purple and pink and blue and green for free; I had to work there.  And they were awesome.  People saw them everywhere, their hair -  their incredible hair!

I got the job.  My  punk rock, Cobb County classmates were pretty impressed.  I had a car now and was frequenting the Metroplex much less than I had when the only obstacle was getting a ride.  Even though I now had one, it had gotten weirdly boring, not the golden ticket that it was when I had to get rides from older classmates.   The hair shop took me to new places.  Clubs. Gay dance clubs.  Everyone wore outrageous costumes that I adored.  I felt way more adult.  It was a new scene for me.  And I was still in high school.  I walked into school everyday, did what I had to do, and went to work at the salon, and to clubs.

Seeing her in the teacher's workroom gave me a weird sense of deja vu, kind of like looking at a live snapshot of a former life.  She gave me my first fake ID.  I totally idolized her as a teenager, her awesome vintage clothes, funny expressions and wildly cool lifestyle.  We ran into each other frequently at one of the schools I work at after our initial copy room meeting.  I was always glad to see her, hopeful that teaching would work out for her and that her first few years wouldn't be as hard as mine were.  It felt weird to be in a veteran position to her, work-wise.  It felt weird to say that I was finishing my eighth year teaching, that I teach both elementary and high school at the same time, that no, it's not really hard, I've done it before. 

Spring Break passed in strange haze.  Long sunny days lazed by, Lola and I in the yard, her running and playing, then resting on the blanket next to me for a while.  Me, drinking beer and succumbing to the hypnotic atmosphere of "The Goldfinch" for hours at a time, interrupted only by text messages that I reviewed immediately from my mom that described the unimaginable horrors faced by my stepfather in the ICU.  The combination of elements created a weird emotional mix of bliss and extreme depression.

Returning to school was difficult.  I was surprised when I walked up the steps that gray day and to see her burst into tears. 
"They're not going to let me finish my program.  They say I'm no good.  I'm fucked.  I'm fucked.  I have so much riding on this.......".
I could feel the desperation.  I have been in hard positions in life before and have been scared, but I knew her situation.  She really did have everything riding on this.

"They're wrong.....they're wrong....." I repeated over and over.