Class Assignment

And now for today’s assignment - Making something bad out of something good. No wait that is too easy - make something good out of something bad. Now that is a challenge.

“To take something perceived ‘bad’ and to reframe it into something good. That was the assignment the teacher gave us. Why ? I don’t know. I think he sits up nights thinking of ways to torture us poor students. I think that he is a monster and should be fired and then we could get a good teacher and that would be a good thing. The End.”

The speaker was Angie Carlyle seventeen year old student in my creative writing class at Aunt MacArthur’s Halfway house for troubled teens of the southern suburbs who are rich enough to hire a good lawyer and thus get sentenced to hours upon hours of counseling and community service. My class counts as both community service (in the sense that if these kids are off the streets, the community is served) and counselling (in the sense that I give them advice to make some part of their life better). It is thus very popular with the growing population of upper middle class juvenile delinquents. I have a waiting list.

I give Angie an ‘A’ for doing the assignment. She did make something good out of something bad. I also write in my case notes that Angie persists in her rebelliousness and needs further counselling. I recommend another six week session in my class with the possibility of further sessions. I get paid by the student. I get paid to listen to teenage angst and attitude, most of which I find to be completely unimaginative. My goal is to make better whiners and more engaging arguers. If they become better people in the process so be it, but I do not have my hopes up.

The next student, Calvin Hobbinton reads his essay.
“I think that its a bummer how we don’t get to smoke weed. Lots of dudes are doing it and just because some old tight wad weeny wacking piece of shit judge doesn’t like the way I look I gotta do this crappy assignment. Plus I don’t get to hang with my Bros. And to lame it all out, I gotta come up with a happy ending. So I guess that I’ll have a flashback about grooving with my babe doing a number and wait happily to hear my scores. How about it, Mr. teacher-judge ?”

I think about telling Calvin it would be a happier ending if we were all buzzed but decide that this might send the wrong message. So I tell him to make a happier ending. He looks at me blankly. I get that reaction alot. I suggest that he say why this class is better than being at home with his parents. His blank look continues. I ask him if the judge who sentenced him to seven consecutive live terms of community service is in this class ?
“Nnno” he answers slowly. I can’t figure out if he is confused, cautious or is trying to access a part of his brain that has been damaged by drugs. I decided that it must be all three.
“Then is it a good thing that he is not here ?”
“She” corrects Calvin, “tightass bitch” he says while grinding his teeth.
“Then is it a good thing that SHE is not here ?” There is now more light in the room than before and the reason is that a light bulb has become illuminated over Calvin’s head.
“So the happy ending is that she is not here !” Calvin’s head is bobbing up and down in a staccato fashion. He is happy and suddenly the universe makes much more sense than it did before. I am a happy too. I consider Calvin to be one of my brighter stars. Some day, I think, he’ll work in Hollywood. Well, okay not maybe work, but get paid in Hollywood. Somebody will write down his ramblings and hit it big. Hmmm, maybe Calvin should also stay in my class for a few more sessions.
The next two minutes are spent trying to get Calvin to sit down. He is so happy that he is telling everyone in the class that SHE IS NOT HERE, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, THIS IS SO COOL.

The next to read is Marla Ab Lan Gatta. Reading is a big step for her, at least to other people, living in the flesh people and not icons on the internet. Marla is not allowed to be within 100 feet of any machine that can give her access to the internet (I miss my iPhone). Marla is currently going through laptop withdrawal. She has folded her spiral notebook in half and reads from the top half.
“Those communist, fascist pigs in Washington are going to get what is coming to them. Come election day, the people will take back this country and make things right. And the rat bastard head of all that is evil will be defeated and we will take our battle to other countries and free them from oppression and then the universe will be right and all those who oppressed us will be thrown in jail and then things will be okay. The End.”
She shuts her notebook top down with emphasis and waits for the throngs of fellow followers to cheer and raise her on their shoulders.
Calvin, like the rest of the class, is in a world of their own. It is left to me to react.
“Good speech, Marla. ... Um could you tell me what the bad thing is ? “
She looks at me like I was retarded beyond belief. “The communist fascist pigs being in power” The last phrase is said like this : ‘BEing in PowERRRR. as in ‘Oh my God are you that dense. Didn’t you know that ?’ I have to admit that I was caught up in the emotional frenzy of her speech but then I remembered that Marla probably regards me as one of the bad people in power. I decide that I had better get on her good side because you never know with revolutionaries. Nobody thought Mao or Fidel would gain power. I give her an ‘A’ and write in my notes that she is ready for another class that I teach: “Finding your Voice.” Aunt MacArthur’s will be featuring that class in the Fall.

The speeches go on and on. Amy Greenberg talked about how it was good that she wasn’t pregnant (anymore), ) Olivia Whitestone told of her adventures as a runaway and how it was good to be back home (after being away three hours) and how the good it was that the courts took pity on her despite the fact she cost taxpayers one hundred thousand dollars by leaving a fake ransom note. Mark Slate handed in his composition about how he hates everyone in class and wants to buy some guns and get rid of them all and how it is a good thing that this is his last class and he will never see them again. I gave them all ‘A” s and I wrote that all need more class time. (Actually I did not write that - I stamped it. I had a rubber stamp custom made at Michael’s.)

Now the last student stands before the class. She is the oldest of them at twenty-three. She wears a drab Muslim-like dress and head wrap despite the fact she is not a follower of Islam. (It is one of those court appointed things, this being the only way she is allowed to be in a class with underage male students.) Her name is kept from me - she is only known as Jane Doe.
She reads her essay which is by far the best written, most intelligently presented one I have heard today. (Of course, I could say the same about most television commercials and all cereal boxes but truthfully hers was better than that).
It is about how she has lived a life of fear and how she never was able to enjoy being a woman not even with her husband who repressed her night and day. But one day she met a man who saw her for what she was, a man who allowed to her blossom. A man who showed her that she mattered and that she had a voice. And all this happened because the judge deemed her temporarily insane. She had to have been insane to want her loving husband dead and to want to collect his million dollar life insurance policy but now he is dead and she has all this money which she cannot get a hold of until she graduates from her twelve years of community service unless someone will sponsor her and grant her a certificate of sanity. But that is beside the point, because now she just wants to show her appreciation to the person who has turned her life around. She does not have much but what little she has is his for the taking. All she wants is a chance to give. And give and give. Multiple givings in one night, I mean, session.

I was touched by her essay in places I can’t begin to say (in public at least). I gave her an A+, the plus being that I recommended her for special individual sessions in Creative Expression (that I am teaching in the Fall with selected students that show promise). I also stamped her for more class sessions and I wrote in my secret notes ‘Maybe I can get something good out of this bad assignment."
The End

What can you do with this assignment ?
Frank

Alias Smith and Jones

This is a story I started today - it is in raw form so I would appreciate suggestions.

SMITH and JONES

The pursuit of honesty is my quest. Perhaps that is why I am intrigued by politics so much. I like a challenge. On a local level, politics is all about being known. Most people, myself included, are more likely to vote for a candidate that they know something about. Whether I vote for Smith or Jones for town mayor largely depends upon two factors -

1) What I know about Smith
2) What I know about Jones

If I don’t know anything about either one then I am either a complete idiot or an uninformed idiot. I believe that modern politics is based upon the assumption that most voters are both.
In Taoism, there is the concept of the clean slate which means that in every moment of life a human being has the potential to be unaffected by both past and future, A sort of being in the NOW. It is a worthy goal.
In politics, a clean slate refers to having no skeletons in the closet which means that a candidate has no dirty laundry which means that the researcher looking for either skeletons or dirty laundry has not done their job because their is always something to find. These researchers are known as campaign managers (or if the candidate has enough money to hire more than one full time staff person, assistant campaign managers).
Back to my example of Smith and Jones running for the position of mayor of Bumville which is unusual because no one ever ran for the position of Bumville (most ran from it). It has long been considered a truth in the local politics of Bumville that no one in their right mind wanted to be mayor of Bumville. The first mayor of Bumville, Joe the wino, was in fact certifibly insane (4 out of five doctors who tested Joe certified this, the fifth who was also insane, saw nothing wrong with him. This fifth doctor later became Bumville’s second mayor after Joe, in the midst of a three month bender, fell down, saw God, realized he was mayor and in a moment of lucidity ran away.)
Most mayors after Dr. Strange (the second mayor) were appointed by a group of civic leaders who tended to pick ‘the person not at the meeting’ as the new mayor. This is why for the last twelve years the civic leaders meeting to pick the next mayor
has been attended by the entire population of Bumville. This is also why for the last twelve years the mayor of Bumville has been citizen of Nicetown (our sister city just to the North of us, the town on the other side of the railroad tracks). The current mayor of Bumville, Cissy Wetrock, a stripper at Bumville’s adult X club, recently discovered that she was the mayor of Bumville and had been for the last eleven years. Cissy threatened to leave town if she was not reliefed of this position which caused no end of angst with the civic leaders who told her that she had to take the matter up with the mayor because only the mayor had the authority to remove the mayor from office which is strange because the mayor of Bumville does not have an office.
Cissy was not a lawyer, but being a graduate of Hartfort Community College she was no dummy either. Cissy came up with a plan in the wink of an eye. The said eye wink was at an Native American patron who after twelve consectutive lap dances and seven Long Island Ice teas, promised Cissy he would build a casino in Bumville. Soon word that there was going to be a casino in Bumville spread faster than Herpes at an orgy. Almost overnight (actually it was five in the morning) two new people appeared in town, both of whom wanted to be mayor. The present mayor Cissy became engaged to (and with) the Native American patron (aka Clarence Bad Eagle) and moved out of state (via Clarence’s eighteen wheeler), leaving the town with the obligation of choosing a new mayor. And a here-to-fore unprecedented situation of needing an election to make that choice.
It was decided that the town would piggy back on the national election and the town’s voters would write in whoever they wanted for mayor. It also was decided that since many if not all of the town’s citizens had trouble writing in any way shape or form the candidates would be voted by using a certain color crayon. Mr. Jones chose the color violet (or purple if you had a box with only 8 cryons in it) and Mr. Smith would be known by the color orange or brown if no orange was available). Now Bumville would have to wait until November to get a new mayor.
In the next few days, it was decided that Bumville would also have to have a vice-mayor whose job it was to either bring vice to Bumville or get more vice to come to Bumville. Surprisingly, the idea of a casino coming to Bumville made Bumville attractive to vice. Mr. Jones chose a housewife from Albertville named Florence Prudence to be his candidate for vice mayor. Mr. Smith chose a businessman from a Vegas family named Sammy (the Chiwahwah) Costellinoczck. Since no one could pronounce Sammy’s last name he was refered to as the ‘man’.
It was here that I entered the story. As beat reporter for the Nicetown Noisy Shopper, it was my job to report on what was not boring in Nicetown (which is nothing). So most of my stories were about Bumville and how wonderful it is that we in Nicetown don’t live like they do in Bumville. But now it seemed that Bumville would have something special (a casino) and Nicetownites were in an uproar. It was up to me to find the rotten apples, the worms inside of them and expose them all so that the citizens of Nicetown would feel superior again.
(End of part one)

The Ring

The Ring

You used to call me everyday. I could set my watch by the sound of your ring. It would be two o'clock with my eyes closed. Then I'd reach for the receiver to answer in a voice that seemed to come from high up in my throat, afraid it might not be you--just Purple Heart, did I have something to give, pick-up on Thursday. But then you'd say my name with a question mark after the last letter, like a child at the other end who had called a number, any number, just to see who would answer.
The phone squats heavily on the desk, a dark cloud without a rumble, no more lightning, an island silent in the ocean of noise around me. Children's voices rise and fall outside. They play; they think they are happy like I thought I was before I waited for the phone to ring. Did I laugh too loud, were my stories too long, no point to them, really. Did they bore you, were you stifling a yawn, wondering when would I give up and move on?
Is that what I should do? Wander into the kitchen, bake cookies, thaw out the ice-box, iron my husband's shirts, call my mother? Thoughts of you nest in my hair like unwanted gnats that hover and cling. I didn't want this to happen. Keep it casual I told myself. Stay cool, be friendly, a little aloof. But then I started to depend on the golden moment, your voice, the laugh that made me feel I had said something very humorous, something clever, something smart. I picked your brain; you picked mine.
So it's back to real life again. No more day dreams, just pick up the socks, do the laundry, read the paper, wait for the soaps, watch the romances unfold, stare at "Dancing with the Stars", fill the albums and the scrap books and remember when the phone did ring and it wasn't the Salvation Army calling. It was Johnny Depp.