Tales (Working Title)

Now Playing: Fiction
Topic: The Rest of the '90's



CHAPTER 1
I’ve got an itchiness in my fingers that emanates from my brain, telling me that it is time to sit down and write once again. It has been a while since my thoughts have moved across a page such as this one, so you must excuse any use of English that may seem a bit rusty. Having been as immersed as I in the swamps of reality tends to drown out any sort of defined creativity.

That being said, it is time to move onward, backwards to the beginning. Perhaps not the beginning of time, but to the beginning of the tale. What shall it be a tale of? Of dragons and knights? Of cops and robbers? Of good vs. evil? Of nothing in particular? Shall I spin a fantasy that begins with the timeless Western beginning, or shall I move about in an Eastern eight-legged essay? Perhaps, the tale lies not with the beginning, but with the actual telling...

And so we begin on a journey that mixes fact and fiction, seeped in reality and in the reality of the imagination - do you see yourself in any of the characters? It might just be, for while I may change a name, I do not make the assertion that “this is a work of pure fiction and any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.” It could be you...or then again, maybe it couldn’t.

Imagine, if you will, a character who is as plain as the daylight that filters through a summer window at noon, a person who is there, but may not be noticed and blends in as well with the people and faces around him as blue blends with the sky. This is no Adonis, nor is he Einstein. He is not Buddha, not Gandhi. He is just a plain, simple man who has lived for a few years on this rapidly spinning planet. He is average, and nothing more. Picture his six foot frame filled out to a proportion that is somewhat greater than a shadow’s width, and somewhat less than an elephant’s girth, and you will see him. His stomach has begun to pudge outward a bit, his eyes feel the need for glasses. His forehead is lengthening yearly, leaving a bit more room for tanning, leaving a little less of the curlyish (wavy...straight?) chestnut hair.

The only somewhat remarkable thing about him is not his crooked smile (which you see more often than not), nor the canines in his mouth (which cause eight-year-olds to wonder if there really is such a thing as a vampire), but his eyes stand out on their own. No, not like a bug-eyed creature from beyond; more along the lines of a splash of color in a sea of beige. His eyes, he has been told, are kind, gentle and intense. They are not of any one specific color, though one might call them hazel, or perhaps even grey, if pressed for such a thing. If you look often enough, you will see that there is no one specific color that sits in his iris for too long a period. There is a constant change within them, a change that roots itself in his feelings and thoughts. When you see his eyes one minute they may glow greener than burning jade, yet a millisecond later, they have browned deeper than the darkest mahogany. Look closely into his eyes - my eyes - and you will see.

I did not ask for this responsibility, though I will take it, for I truly believe that it is my destiny to carry out such a thing. What responsibility? Why am I dwelling upon the plainness of myself, then turn around to seemingly call this a responsibility? Therein lies the tale...onward. But first, the beginning.



CHAPTER 2

I woke up that morning to the sounds of Sarah and Vinnie having phone sex with a Dominatrix - again. This wasn’t an unusual thing, and the bit was getting old, but it was still good for a laugh. As the newest DJ’s to hit the Bay Area, they weren’t half bad, and I could relate to them more than I could Howard Stern. I dunno, maybe it was the generational thing, the one being the attention craving Boomer, the others being the attention craving Xer’s. Whatever it was, I liked them, and I could always count on them getting me out of bed in the morning with their banter or regular play of whatever music the Corporations happened to be hyping at the time. Then I think it was fem rock, now swing, and tomorrow - who knows? Maybe the next alternative wave will be Chinese opera (though I wouldn’t count on it) (or maybe I will, seeing how the balance of power is beginning to shift). It took some serious hypocrisy on the station manager’s part to let them get away with their stunts and language (from goddamnit to bitch to asshole and back again), yet still had the gaul (gall?) to edit out “goddamn you” from a song on their playlist - I can respect that. The two faced American Beast strikes again.

On they went, as I popped up, ready to take on another day in what had proven to be possibly the most difficult job in history: being a white male teacher in West Oakland. It wasn’t difficult for the reasons you might think: for the most part, I felt safer there than I did in half of the middle-class places I’d lived in. The hardest thing about teaching was precisely that - the actual teaching. Trying to stimulate the minds of thirty-two fourth grade students was hard enough without the extra added bonus of the lack of resources, technology, or support. From the POV off the teacher, it looked like the school board was running off with 3/4 of the money meant for education (in a recent $6 million science and technology grant, the board took half off the top...and nobody knows why, not even the folks who got it), while the union wanted the other 1/4. To be fair, the place wasn’t so much corrupt as it was top-heavy and incompetent. Though, I’m not so sure that that’s better.

At any rate, I’d seen a number of excellent teachers come and go, as well as a principal or two, and I’d only been on the job for a couple of years. Nine times out of ten, they’d get a better offer from another district, and would still try to stay. The problem was, once you get the offer, you look at the hoops you have to continually jump through for the school district, and you realize you just can’t take it anymore. I made it through those hoops - at least temporarily - and I kept in mind the old teacher’s saying that you got what you got. Don’t complain about what you don’t have, rather, work with what you do.

This was the day, day two of teaching. Everybody thinks that the first day is the hardest; I don’t buy it. The first day is the day of excitement, of potential, of the beginning of class. Games to get to know each other are played, rules are set, personalities are first glimpsed...all three of my first days had gone by without a hitch. This was going to be my second day, the day where academics actually began. It was the day where testing began as well - not the tests that the teachers give (“All right, class, take out a pencil and paper...”), but the test that students give the teacher. Is this person worthy enough to teach us, or will he bug out. It seems as if there are times where a child wants to get you to get so fed up that you lose your cool with them or you bounce on outta the class, and I must admit to the first. I still had my own baggage that I took into those confrontations, and I know that it essentially ended communication (or at least temporarily suspended it). Like the time when, on the bus, one of the students refused to sit down, saying “now what you gonna do motherfucka?” I don’t think he expected a teacher to grab his shirtsleeve and shove him into the seat, nor did I expect that I would be handling it that way. I was as surprised as him, but it got him down, making us only forty-five minutes late. All positive interaction ended with us for a while, but we both got over it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever make it back to teaching, but I do know that if I get out of this intact, power trips like that won’t phase me. My baggage was shipped to Timbuctu a long time ago. Ha, Timbuctu...who would have known...? But I digress.

Day two was about to start. My plans for the day ran through my head as my feet peddled the green-fade-to-blue mountain bike faster along the street, the gears dutifully slipping the notched chain in greased silence, giving no hint as to what Day two had in store.

ADVENTURE TO SAVE THE WORLD, W/ ROOMMATES (GAY ANNIE AND KENYAN CAROLINE); INDY JONES-ESQUE. SOME MAGIC, SOME SCI FI…




This is definately a bit dated, as anyone from the Bay Area knows - Vinnie broke with Sarah a few years back, and now the radio show features her and No-Name, which, incidentally , is the name of a DJ here in Seattle, as well. earthwulf