A School Mix
1.
Mary Jane Blalock taught me Algebra I. She had Mediterranean
skin and jet black hair that she wore shoulder length. The ends curled up
toward heaven.
One Monday she didn’t come to school. Mr. Guin, an old man
who kept bricks in his back pocket to help him from falling forward, was her
substitute. His hair was white. His skin was white. There was a lot of dandruff
on his black coat and tie.
It was a crucial time in algebra. Seems that every day in
algebra is crucial. Such a linear discipline. Don’t go to Square 2 until you
understand Square 1. Factoring
polynomials. Anyway, we were stuck with Mr. Guin for a while.
I listened to what he had to say about the topic. He seemed
to know his stuff. Even though my classmates were rude, he ignored it, as if it
hadn’t happened. Maybe he’d seen a lot of action in foreign conflict and
nothing bothered him. Maybe he just didn’t care about anything. But for some
strange reason, I picked up on factoring polynomials and aced the test. When
Janet Blalock returned, she gave me an innocent kiss of the cheek.
2.
Mrs. Schmidt, the art teacher, was having an affair with Mr.
Jennings, the assistant principal. Everyone knew it and gave them their
privacy. Their cars took bay at opposite ends of the faculty parking lot an
hour before the first bell.
I made a bet with my friends that I could manage to secure
videos or pictures of them doing whatever it was that they did two mornings a
week. My key to the school (another story) finally had a purpose. The schematics
of the buildings allowed me to guess where they might have their nest. Afraid
to breathe, I hid and waited close to their makeshift bed.
There was fondling and giggling; partial undressing and
penetration. Shelves rattled; glass jars broke on the linoleum. I forgot to
take pictures.
3.
Mr. Ruffin was in love with the student teacher. We could
tell by his latest poetry that he read aloud every Friday. We felt bad for his
wife, and for Marsha, that he was behaving so badly. But who were we to confront
an adult?
When my father died in January, Paul Ruffin and Marsha came
into my bedroom where I was lying on my bed, avoiding the crowd of people in
the house who’d dropped by to pay their respect and bring fried chicken and
casseroles.
“Here,” he said, handing me a book of poetry. “This might
not help. I wanted you to know that we are thinking about you. You should write
about your feelings when the dust settles.
You might find some inspiration in this book.” Marsha grabbed my hand
and squeezed.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Are you in it?”
“Yes, page 47.” He patted my leg and said not to worry about
my school work. “Marsha can tutor you to help you catch up. She’s really good
at that.”
“Ode to Drosophila melanogaster”
She had a difficult time finding the white-eyed
male under the microscope, and the red-eyed
female. I rearranged the scope for her and
found it every time. “Here it is,” I said.
“Damn fruitfly!” she said under her breath.
I hear the diesel burps of yellow dogs
on the other side of red bricks. “You’ll miss
your bus,” I said. “One more time,” she
begged. I checked the focus once again, and
there he was, brilliant plumage, two globe-like
compound eyes, red like the sun setting before
a hot summer storm. She placed her palms
on the black lab table, slung her pony tail
to the side of her neck. “I SEE IT!” she
shrieked. “It’s so beautiful. I gotta take a
picture, Mister, somehow, please. The bell
rang and I had to send her out into the rain.
School buses don’t wait forever.
“While
Australia Burns”
1.
Widespread
panic, hot hot planet on fire.
One
billion animals charred, burned – the silent
outrage,
people dying, homes as kindling for a do-nothing
Oz
sleeping on the job while oxygen supplies deplete themselves,
while
freakazoid doxology fills up the smoky heavens; while fat tongues
vibrate
lost hearts and souls; while the status quo is honored and worshiped
like
Baby Jesus. You tell me not to worry, that these things happen;
natural
phenomena; a catastrophe that doesn’t involve us.
It’s
on the other side of the planet, right?
2.
I
never bought the bill of sale that Gary Pounders
tried
to deliver in mechanical drawing class. He tried to steal
my
mathematical calculations, my format, and called me
Squarehead
and Tree-lover. I stepped right up to the plate
on
that one, and hit a high pop fly that flew over the river,
over
the ocean, landing on the other side of the planet.
3.
Wouldn’t
line up with the fire and brimstone spewing
from
the pastor’s mouth, the End Times are here, unfolding right before
our
bloody eyes. Waiting since childhood, when I first learned to read,
when
teachers told the truth and said that boys should never cry; waiting
on
confirmation that my foundation was sturdy and reliable.
4.
I
tell you not to worry about these things, that it’s merely a predicament
of
breathlessness, of uncharted territory, of excessive disregard of what the
trees
were
telling me long before we cut them down in order to count their rings.
“Eating Paul and Getting Yoko Ono’s Drink by Mistake”
1.
I ate Paul with meatloaf today. Yoko
Ono drove by the window in a pink-and-white
Studebaker, ran the red light on the corner
as if it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there yesterday
so maybe it wasn’t there today, just something
my mind did to me. I
told him that his beard
looked good and mentioned how neatly he’d
kept it up
2.
since the last time I ate him in the German
restaurant, the one that was closed because
the owners refused to pay their taxes. The
brats were half the size they should have been
but no one complained. It’s not natural to hear
an oompah band crank up in the middle
of the day. Large numbers of Germans
make me
3.
nervous.
The Starbucks barista mixed up my order
with something that looked like a dead wren
in the bottom of some tar. My coffee was too
simple – a grande Americain with whole milk –
so I think my drink was for Yoko. That sounds
like something she’d order.
“Cold
Storage”
While you
are shoveling snow, I am up to my ears in wishful thinking. Traded day-trip to
the
mountains
for becoming one with the refrigerator. I find my childhood on the first shelf,
the stuff that really matters. Latest left-overs, some sort of surprise that
everyone fights over: banana pudding, Hawaiian pizza, cold turkey.
Inside its
bowels, the filthy blood smudges from a leaky steak on a glass shelf, cottage
cheese containers full of the most beautiful mold – dark gray fuzz with hints
of lavender, and the oddest shade of blue. Bacon that’s in the preliminary
stages of breaking down, rotting but ever so slightly; three craft beers, and
part of a colossal green salad. There’s Kikkoman soy sauce, some left-over
Yum-yum shrimp in a small white take-out; batter from unpoured pancakes, five
brown free-range eggs, grape jelly, and all of the ingredients to make some
damn-fine Bloody Marys.
I discover
unimaginable things, unlike tuna salad and left-over vegetable casserole,
pickled beets
perhaps?
Ancient vials of pasty, caramelized substances. The vegetable bins, speckled
and hard-crusted bottoms, dried juices from any combination of green thing and
nerve. Meats, both raw and cooked, stare up at me like tumors. I want to kick
them in the shins, move them out of here, warn them of pending doom, dark and
mysterious. There’e a quart jar of mayonnaise with an expired date, two bottles
of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a half-full package of Kraft American singles, and a
dozen hearts.
There’s no compromise for what you keep, what you discard, what you treasure and hoard; what you give away to someone in need; what ends up being your favorite thing on the list. House all of it in cold storage, use it judiciously, timely, and as wisely as you know how.
John Dorroh spends time digging in the soil. He travels as often as possible and discovers fodder for poems and short fiction. His poetry has appeared in about 75 journals, including Dime Show Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Ospressan, Selcouth Station, and Synchronized Chaos.
