Chris had only met her once on his first and her last day. Though he hadn’t known her beyond that, his first impression was in sync with what the grape vine had produced. Though she was polite and outgoing with him, Chris tended to read people from the way they interacted in their environment.

As he was observing her instruct what was to be her final lesson, he made a note of the resentment in the students’ eyes when she yelled at them to repeat a sentence from the text book.
“That is the train station! Not Dat is da tain say-chun! Say it again right!” The fury in her eyes and voice reinforced with the smacking of the long wooden ruler made the students fringe even more, before repeating the sentence with even less enthusiasm. “Ahhh! You are all hopeless!”

The husky girl with short curly blonde hair sporting a long flower painted sarong turned to Chris sitting in the back row, suddenly smiling at her new target. “I am so happy to not have to put up with these brats after today, but I feel sorry for you.”

While Chris’s personality didn’t harness such flaws that he’d heard and briefly seen, he made it a conscious point to exemplify his social strengths with both faculty and students from that point. If anything, while his brief observation hadn’t given him ideas what to do, he certainly had a clearer picture of what to avoid.

Because Chris was the only person that the students had ever seen Pam smile and speak civilly to, the students were shocked when he had them rip up the stack of review quizzes that Pam had prepared for him on his first official day back in November. As usual, Chris was a hit from the start.

On that scourging 36 degree day of March 2009, occupants of the municipally funded learning environment were indifferent to the blistering heat outside. Likewise, indifference, topped with a touch of spontaneity was Chris’s chosen strategy to get through another day of his routine life as an entertainer slash promoter slash inspirer.
All for the glorious international lingua franca, Chris may have not been the most certified candidate to ensure these middle-class 7th graders entrusted with a burdensome future would steal national examination spotlight, however, he was determined to get his rent and beer money, maintaining high spirits nevertheless.

A combination of charisma, confidence and charm fuelled by some inner drive he had yet to grasp clear awareness on had proved reckonable for the last five..no six…nine years domicile in the birth tera of his late mother. After the first two years, time clumped itself into a continuing blur.

After three hours of making jokes and having students over exaggerate scripted phrases and vocabulary words, the bell signaling the end of the third period rang. A psyched Chris was looking forward to lunch break.

Typically, he ate the free lunch provided by the school, but Monday’s set menu of Guay Jup, wasn’t his target of hunger; after three extended visits to the toilet during passing periods, Chris’s hunger had finally revived—Noodle soup wasn’t going to cut it today.

“North is that way, and you’re dumb if you disagree with me!” Pointing towards the teacher’s lounge window, a deep Australian accent layered with seasoned expenditures declared.

The matter-o-fact rebuttal was prompt. “You see, since the sun sets over there,” nudging his nose towards Chris who had just entered the teacher’s lounge, “That’s West, so therefore, south is that way,” the Chicago tenor 30something’s left hand’s thumb targeted a clock on the back wall behind him, “meaning north is right where some supposed educational specialist’s behind will be pointed when he’s bowing to the feet of the truly informed one!”

Chris timely but in. “Listen guys, I don’t care if the direction to your mom’s is at the crack of Neil’s overly-informed existence,” Chris pointed at the tip of the thinner man’s red necktie, shifting his finger’s aim 45 degrees to his right at the stomach of his 20 year, 50 pound senior, “nor whether it’s at Nathan’s Donation to the Distilled Doughnut Declaration of a Doped-up Nation–bottom line is I’m starving” A final hand gesture ended on a growling stomach.

Neil and Nathan both looked at Chris than back at each other, smiling, than back at Chris. “Chrissy boy!” A united greeting signified a temporary cease fire that had become the standard condition of Chris’s presence in the triad.

1 Comment

• 

  By Rhyta B., July 15, 2009 @ 2:32 pm

  ummmm no comments

Other Links to this Post

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment