Read Online 14 Stories by Stephen Dixon - Free Book Online Page B

she never figured for J.H. 54. “The books are for my own enjoyment during my free and preparation periods, or if the class cooperates, then during the study periods I try to give them whenever I can. Now I can’t as I have this program for a month and if I don’t keep them busy all the time they’d be climbing the walls.” She asks what happened to Miss Moore and I mention the operation and she says she liked her and hopes everything turns out all right. I say something like I don’t want to be detaining her from her shopping or if she has to be anywhere soon, but if she doesn’t then why don’t we have a coffee somewhere nearby? She says “Coffee’s too hot for today, even tea.” I suggest a soda or beer, though I don’t drink soda, and she says “Sure, either’s fine,” and we leave the store. Outside I say I ought to leave my groceries in the store and pick them up later instead of lugging them around. Or else I’ll just place the bag under the checkout stand before we leave, telling the cashier I’ll reclaim it in an hour. Then we head for the bar three blocks away. I’ll tell her what that student called me last Sunday when he caught me entering this same bar. And how many of my students ridicule me for my so­straight behavior because I won’t dance to their records with them, even if I tell them I’d love to dance with them or by myself if it weren’t for the possibility of another teacher walking in. How one afternoon I just sat at my desk and let the class throw erasers and paper planes at me, as I’d given up on trying to control them and lost the will, wherewithal or whatever it is to fight back. How on the hottest most humid day of the year this week I told the kids to just sit quietly and don’t type and by all rights they should be dismissed to find relief in the park and public pools and sprays, and for the first time my assistant principal walks in, face and clothes soaked, and says “I don’t know what you think’s going on here but I’ve been explicitly ordered by the principal and she by the district supervisor to see that every teacher maintains disciplined classes and structured lessons till the last day of the term.” How without being detected I’ve tripped several boys to stop them from running around the room, how others have told me to go on and teach when they had their arm around a girl’s neck and hand on her breast, that I’ve been dubbed ‘pigeon head’ because of my receding hairline and ‘fish lips’ because of what they think are my excessively large lips. How one day about twenty boys from a local high school burst into the room, turned over all the chairs and unbolted tables, threatened to beat up all my students and knife one boy in particular and toss all the typewriters into the street and the teacher after them, and then as swiftly left to pull the same prank with another class on the floor while my students cringed and sobbed behind me at the far end of the room. Or how on another day, but we reach the bar. She could say how come I’ve no nice stories about my students and I’d say because they’d be too unamusing to tell and I’d think uninteresting to hear. She studies dance, quit high school this year, lives with her mom. I explain why I’m only a sub. That I’ve also been living with my folks for three years to cut down on my rent and help out my mother with my ailing dad. I ask if she’d like to go to the Modern tonight. Only the sculpture garden’s open but we can get beer or wine there, espresso with snacks. I’ve an artist’s pass I acquired for ten dollars and a fake letter from a real art gallery saying I’ve shown there and for an additional two-fifty got a second pass for a nonexistent wife. She says she’d love to go. We return to the store. She says would I prefer meeting her upstairs