Post by goldenmyst on Apr 3, 2020 22:49:09 GMT -6
Black Cross for a Penitent Angel
My employment carousel finds me sitting behind the desk in a classroom at a school for the gifted. I am the substitute teacher for these acolytes of the baroque masters of melody. Young pianist, flutist, and organist birth notes on high with fingers on fire. This is an Olympian high school where Apollo’s children excel. I just melt in my soma zone while the kids strum my heart with the music of the Gods.
The girls chatter like Chickadees with boys in a high-school-lyceum where Bach can’t compete with green grass and blue skies. So we follow the sun onto the campus green where lads and lasses in their salad days do cartwheels while I sit in a Buddha pose with the heart of a child. My boyhood has passed me by without fanfare or trumpets. Mine is a stoic solitude lost in inner chambers.
One student seeks my counsel under the blue sky cathedral that arches over oak pews of the green grass church where her youth paints its dream. Her name is Gloria. She takes a seat in front of me and assumes my full lotus pose. My gaze is somewhere beyond this time and she waves her hands in my face saying, “Yoo-hoo—is there anyone there?”
My eyes come unglazed. She brandishes her wrists with her scars from her dark moods. She opens, “I’m unipolar. I go into deep depressions. I’ve tried to off myself many times. If I’d had someone like you in my life back then maybe I would have understood how precious life is. People like you who can tune out the world can teach me. I know you can.” Her supernal vision sees into my spirit that I have a prismatic mind that leaps the bounds of linear logic. She finds this fascinating. I babble merrily as a mountain brook.
She says, “You remind me of John Nash.” He was the schizophrenic genius depicted in the movie,
“A Beautiful Mind.”
I reply with a beam of a grin, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
When the bell is about to ring we gather back in the classroom. Deep in the cloisters of terracotta youth sits in fluorescent solitude among rows of wooden desks where they have sat for a century.
Gloria pops my bubble of solitude. “It’s raining. I would ask you to hold my umbrella for me to the car since I’ll have my hands full with my cello. But while I know your heart is pure it might look fishy. The kids here aren’t klepto but would you mind me hanging in here with you until the rain lets up? I know this is the last period of the day and the bell has rung. But you’d be doing me a big favor.”
“That would look just as fishy as me holding your umbrella for you.”
She says, “You are right. I’ll just leave it under your desk and trust in the Lord.”
She comes to my throne often seeking my words of Shamanic wisdom. One day she comes to me in need of guidance. She says, “I’m not sure what school to attend next year. I may go back to the Catholic School. But I may stay here at the gifted public school.”
I say, “Well this school is more tolerant. You will learn among a more diverse student population. The world out there is diverse.”
She plunges into a deep well of affront. She says, “Yes here I won’t get discriminated against for the color of my skin.” Her Brazilian roots burst into a scarlet passionflower.
Gloria says, “Since I’m a Catholic maybe a Catholic school would be best.”
“I admire much about the Catholic Church.”
“You see you are speaking of Catholicism like it is old fashioned but in some limited ways relevant. Please don’t put down my faith.”
“Your faith is part of who you are and that is precious to me.”
“You are so sweet, Mr. Boswell. But there is another reason for staying here. There is a male of the species who caught my eye. He is everything I dreamed of in a man. He is shy but lovable. He is my heart’s desire.”
I ask, “Would he happen to be older than you?”
She replies, “You are so funny, Mr. Boswell. He is a senior while I am a junior. Does that sound like too great of a difference?”
“Gloria, you are like the daughter I never had.”
She giggles. “Mr. Boswell, no teacher has ever said such a sweet thing to me. But I’ve got to get to my next class. Catch you tomorrow.”
One day Gloria tracks me down to the French class I’m supervising. My info bite about having studied Latin in college makes me out to be an expert in her eyes. But then everything about me seems to inspire her awe. Yet, contacting the office to seek my whereabouts and doing the footwork across campus clues me into her more than academic admiration of me. Her Latin grammar question meets my answer, “It has been a long time since I took Latin. Sorry, I don’t know.” She recedes into the building while I feel the eddies of her presence like vibes from the idolization zone.
Movie day arrives. Gloria asks me, “Why don’t you join me to watch the movie? You look so lonely and forlorn behind that desk.” Disarmed by her charm I sit next to her as she rewinds me back to sixteen.
The urgency to corral the wild horses of our mutual endearment comes like a flash of lightning in the night that illuminates the darkness. The classroom is an empty church of silence. It is just me and Gloria alone with each other. I watch her pack her book sack. Her gaze beams sunshine into my soul. She smiles and speaks coquettishly. “Mr.
Boswell, would you take me to Taco Bell?”
“The burrito express ain’t in the curriculum.”
Gloria clutches her book sack to her chest and
her words turn to dry ice, “Jeez, I was only kidding.”
I reply, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Don’t feel bad. We cool. Those greasy tacos don’t agree with me anyway.”
“Do you require your food to agree with your opinions? Can tacos express a political belief?”
“Get out of here you crazy goof.”
“Just some overdue humor.”
The Hadrian’s Wall that separates students from the teacher gets a much-needed repair. Our boundaries are rebuilt but still porous. At the end of the semester, she says, “I’m going to the Catholic school next year.”
I reply, “Won’t you pine for that shy but lovable boy who stole your heart?”
“That is the beauty of it. I don’t have to choose. He is following me to the parochial school.”
“You get to have your cake and eat it too.”
“Mr. Boswell, what kind of cake do you take me to be having?”
“A chocolate cake.”
“For joy, how did you guess? He is my Cuba Gooding for life.”
“I saw you holding his hand in the parking lot.”
“I’ll miss you like I would my father if he disappeared.”
“I’ll miss you being the only student who sought my Shamanistic wisdom on anything other than when to give bathroom breaks.”
“Mr. Boswell, you gave me a lesson even my everyday teacher never did. I learned that guys like you are wiser than the starched shirt crowd.”
I reply, “Well, don’t knock the stockbroker and banker guys. They may not shine like crazy diamonds but Vienna waits for you.”
“You’re so funny, Mr. Boswell. You didn’t break me but handled me well with neither a thimbleful of shame nor a dewdrop of blame. You used kid gloves with me because after all, I am a kid and a lass with tender emotions. Is that a tear in your eye Mr. Boswell?”
“Just allergies. I’m allergic to mushiness.”
“It must be all the pollen in the air. My eyes are getting watery too.”
Gloria meets a boy at the threshold where sunlight meets fluorescence. She walks with him through the door haloed by sunbeams.
My employment carousel finds me sitting behind the desk in a classroom at a school for the gifted. I am the substitute teacher for these acolytes of the baroque masters of melody. Young pianist, flutist, and organist birth notes on high with fingers on fire. This is an Olympian high school where Apollo’s children excel. I just melt in my soma zone while the kids strum my heart with the music of the Gods.
The girls chatter like Chickadees with boys in a high-school-lyceum where Bach can’t compete with green grass and blue skies. So we follow the sun onto the campus green where lads and lasses in their salad days do cartwheels while I sit in a Buddha pose with the heart of a child. My boyhood has passed me by without fanfare or trumpets. Mine is a stoic solitude lost in inner chambers.
One student seeks my counsel under the blue sky cathedral that arches over oak pews of the green grass church where her youth paints its dream. Her name is Gloria. She takes a seat in front of me and assumes my full lotus pose. My gaze is somewhere beyond this time and she waves her hands in my face saying, “Yoo-hoo—is there anyone there?”
My eyes come unglazed. She brandishes her wrists with her scars from her dark moods. She opens, “I’m unipolar. I go into deep depressions. I’ve tried to off myself many times. If I’d had someone like you in my life back then maybe I would have understood how precious life is. People like you who can tune out the world can teach me. I know you can.” Her supernal vision sees into my spirit that I have a prismatic mind that leaps the bounds of linear logic. She finds this fascinating. I babble merrily as a mountain brook.
She says, “You remind me of John Nash.” He was the schizophrenic genius depicted in the movie,
“A Beautiful Mind.”
I reply with a beam of a grin, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
When the bell is about to ring we gather back in the classroom. Deep in the cloisters of terracotta youth sits in fluorescent solitude among rows of wooden desks where they have sat for a century.
Gloria pops my bubble of solitude. “It’s raining. I would ask you to hold my umbrella for me to the car since I’ll have my hands full with my cello. But while I know your heart is pure it might look fishy. The kids here aren’t klepto but would you mind me hanging in here with you until the rain lets up? I know this is the last period of the day and the bell has rung. But you’d be doing me a big favor.”
“That would look just as fishy as me holding your umbrella for you.”
She says, “You are right. I’ll just leave it under your desk and trust in the Lord.”
She comes to my throne often seeking my words of Shamanic wisdom. One day she comes to me in need of guidance. She says, “I’m not sure what school to attend next year. I may go back to the Catholic School. But I may stay here at the gifted public school.”
I say, “Well this school is more tolerant. You will learn among a more diverse student population. The world out there is diverse.”
She plunges into a deep well of affront. She says, “Yes here I won’t get discriminated against for the color of my skin.” Her Brazilian roots burst into a scarlet passionflower.
Gloria says, “Since I’m a Catholic maybe a Catholic school would be best.”
“I admire much about the Catholic Church.”
“You see you are speaking of Catholicism like it is old fashioned but in some limited ways relevant. Please don’t put down my faith.”
“Your faith is part of who you are and that is precious to me.”
“You are so sweet, Mr. Boswell. But there is another reason for staying here. There is a male of the species who caught my eye. He is everything I dreamed of in a man. He is shy but lovable. He is my heart’s desire.”
I ask, “Would he happen to be older than you?”
She replies, “You are so funny, Mr. Boswell. He is a senior while I am a junior. Does that sound like too great of a difference?”
“Gloria, you are like the daughter I never had.”
She giggles. “Mr. Boswell, no teacher has ever said such a sweet thing to me. But I’ve got to get to my next class. Catch you tomorrow.”
One day Gloria tracks me down to the French class I’m supervising. My info bite about having studied Latin in college makes me out to be an expert in her eyes. But then everything about me seems to inspire her awe. Yet, contacting the office to seek my whereabouts and doing the footwork across campus clues me into her more than academic admiration of me. Her Latin grammar question meets my answer, “It has been a long time since I took Latin. Sorry, I don’t know.” She recedes into the building while I feel the eddies of her presence like vibes from the idolization zone.
Movie day arrives. Gloria asks me, “Why don’t you join me to watch the movie? You look so lonely and forlorn behind that desk.” Disarmed by her charm I sit next to her as she rewinds me back to sixteen.
The urgency to corral the wild horses of our mutual endearment comes like a flash of lightning in the night that illuminates the darkness. The classroom is an empty church of silence. It is just me and Gloria alone with each other. I watch her pack her book sack. Her gaze beams sunshine into my soul. She smiles and speaks coquettishly. “Mr.
Boswell, would you take me to Taco Bell?”
“The burrito express ain’t in the curriculum.”
Gloria clutches her book sack to her chest and
her words turn to dry ice, “Jeez, I was only kidding.”
I reply, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Don’t feel bad. We cool. Those greasy tacos don’t agree with me anyway.”
“Do you require your food to agree with your opinions? Can tacos express a political belief?”
“Get out of here you crazy goof.”
“Just some overdue humor.”
The Hadrian’s Wall that separates students from the teacher gets a much-needed repair. Our boundaries are rebuilt but still porous. At the end of the semester, she says, “I’m going to the Catholic school next year.”
I reply, “Won’t you pine for that shy but lovable boy who stole your heart?”
“That is the beauty of it. I don’t have to choose. He is following me to the parochial school.”
“You get to have your cake and eat it too.”
“Mr. Boswell, what kind of cake do you take me to be having?”
“A chocolate cake.”
“For joy, how did you guess? He is my Cuba Gooding for life.”
“I saw you holding his hand in the parking lot.”
“I’ll miss you like I would my father if he disappeared.”
“I’ll miss you being the only student who sought my Shamanistic wisdom on anything other than when to give bathroom breaks.”
“Mr. Boswell, you gave me a lesson even my everyday teacher never did. I learned that guys like you are wiser than the starched shirt crowd.”
I reply, “Well, don’t knock the stockbroker and banker guys. They may not shine like crazy diamonds but Vienna waits for you.”
“You’re so funny, Mr. Boswell. You didn’t break me but handled me well with neither a thimbleful of shame nor a dewdrop of blame. You used kid gloves with me because after all, I am a kid and a lass with tender emotions. Is that a tear in your eye Mr. Boswell?”
“Just allergies. I’m allergic to mushiness.”
“It must be all the pollen in the air. My eyes are getting watery too.”
Gloria meets a boy at the threshold where sunlight meets fluorescence. She walks with him through the door haloed by sunbeams.
XoXoXo
