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2011-10-27 -

I have now moved into a new position at a new company, and while my heart is still very much with my previous employer, I realized it was just time to move on. Because of that, in my goodbye letter to my organization, I made mention of The Fonz/Fonzie from the show Happy Days, due to his �jump the shark� television moment, which has become the standard phrase for that moment when you definitely should�ve called it quits at something, but unwisely just kept going.

I�ve only been at this company a week, and yesterday I ran downstairs to the cafeteria to get a drink. A man was sitting alone, looking depressed. It turns out it was The Fonz. I don�t know what he was doing sitting there in the lobby cafeteria, but I seriously hope it wasn�t some kind of theatrical ominous warning.

The new place is great, and the employees are full of heart and soul, although I have had the misfortune of showing up precisely around the time the pre-holiday season has just started, and yesterday we had a mandatory group Xmas party-planning meeting. Anyone who knows me pretty well knows that I really don�t like holiday planning parties, tree decorating, sparkle cookie making, or red and green Christmas tree sweaters. It was my first interaction with the entire office at once, and when it was over, I felt like I really knew a few of them much better. One of the women was only on her 2nd day of work, and when we were brainstorming for a theme, she kept saying, �We should do a Cuban theme! We need to do a Cuban theme!� I wanted to do a gangster theme, because we live in LA, and it isn�t hard to find blue or red bandanas to hang up everywhere, but I didn�t share my idea with the group. Needless to say, her enthusiasm outweighed anyone else�s vote and our theme will be strictly Cuban this year. I think this was a mistake, because once she climbed that tiny mountain, she went on to suggest to the group that everyone wear white pants, white hats and keep a cigar hanging out of their mouth. No one seemed to protest, but I�ll say this: my white hat will probably get lost or burned somehow. Her next trick was to volunteer to head the decorating committee, which I also joined so I could keep a close eye on her. Some of her other antics: suggesting we decorate the entire office in huge green homemade banana leaves, white sheets of fabric and colorful cigar boxes filled with white napkins. Certainly she has some specific imagination. Someone asked where we were going to get a huge roll of green construction paper for the leaves, and she said she had one at home, next to all the other arts and crafts supplies. We found out later she was previously a 3rd grade teacher. I don�t see why she left.

The only other schoolteacher I ever knew was a young guy at a �place for troubled people� that I went to in my early teens. I was a bit of a handful at home, and so I was sent off to some Midwestern facility for a few months where I could �cool off for a while� with some other degenerate types. It was a vast mix of people from their teens up to their 50�s, so it was quite an interesting stay. Since many of the guests didn�t hold down a job, much less do any type of exercise (aside from the portion that had done bench presses in prison), we would take a weekly trip to the YMCA. Roughly 55 people would take the 8 block walk together: one young schoolteacher in training, an alcoholic priest, 6 ex convicts, a handful of troubled youth, one kleptomaniac, a couple of sluggish anorexics, two former armed robberists, and a bunch of other mishaps waiting to happen � all walking along like a lump sum of trouble.

The size and look of the group would always scare the other people at the Y, so the machines were generally open for use. Later on when we got back to the haven, we would split up into groups with our counselors and talk about how screwed up the world was for making us bad people.

The schoolteacher kid ended up in my group. He was nice, and kind of weird looking. He was White, Mexican, Black and Indian. Really pale and chubby with the curliest hair imaginable. He was very shy and not an immediate hit with the group. I just think no one knew what to do with him. Whenever a new member would come into our group, I decided we should initiate them before the counselor came back into the room. So we�d tell them they had to hop around their chair and do pushups while singing in order to show the group that they were vulnerable. It worked just fine until an uptight shaky codependent woman cried and told our counselor, who was never late to group after that.

I befriended the schoolteacher, partly because he was gay and wouldn�t want anything from me. We ate together sometimes, but since he was really shy, no one in the group knew much about him. After the elderly Calisthenics teacher in the tracksuit came to teach her weekly �Heart Healthy For Life �Workout class one night, I had dinner with him, and he asked me to tell him more about my life. I told him about my upbringing and the last person I dated, who used to make me hold his gun because he had fought at Desert Storm, and whenever he had flashbacks, still thought he was fighting in it.

He listened to me go on for a while, and then I asked him why he was so quiet during group.

�Aw, I don�t know, I guess I don�t feel like I have much to say is all.�

�Well � why don�t you tell me how you ended up as a Schoolteacher in training?�

�Alright. I guess it all started when I was a kid � I live in New Mexico and my mom was a prostitute. My Dad left us when I was 4, so I don�t really remember him. My mom had guys left and right, but this one guy she dated ended up moving in with us, and he really hated me.�

�Well, that�s probably pretty standard though. I think most boyfriends probably hate their girlfriend�s kids.�

No, he said. This was different. Two hours later, the conversation was going kind of like this:

��And then - when he was done beating me, he put me into a deep well / hole that he dug outside the house. That�s where I slept most of the time.�

I really didn�t think it could get worse. But it really did.

�Then � he would starve me for days on end. I would cry and cry but my mother was too drugged up to notice, so she pretty much let him do whatever he wanted.�

I was beginning to understand why he wanted to be a schoolteacher.

�And then ��

I wasn�t sure I could hear any more. I was bawling, but told him keep going, because I would just eat a lot at dinner later to stuff my emotions. What�s a little crying as opposed to being forced to live in a hole in the New Mexico desert?

�Well, and then � he used to put live scorpions into the well so that I�d get stung.�

�Did you get stung?�

�No, I didn�t actually.�

�Oh thank God!�

�Because he put fire ants into the hole. The scorpions took too long.�

�I�m surprised you didn�t starve!�

�Well � all he ever gave me to eat was oatmeal. That�s why I won�t eat it today. I hate fucking oatmeal. Can�t even look at it.�

�God, I just can�t believe you had to go through all that. Please tell me that was all.�

�Nah, he molested me too.�

�And it had to have ruined your sex life with men.�

�Nah, I�m not gay.�

When he was finished, I was exhausted, and speechless. I told him he should really let the group know about everything.

�No way! Those ex-con guys � they�d make fun of me! You saw what they did to all the new members!�

�No, actually that was my idea!�

I finally convinced him. At the next group, he raised his hand. He said he had some things to say, and that he was sorry he didn�t let the group get to know him better before. And then he launched into that terrible story of his.

The ex-cons weren�t making fun of his story at all, in fact one of them was crying. Afterwards, another one said he wanted to find the guy and kill him.

The counselor didn�t like that.

�Ok guys? No one�s killing anyone, this is a group to help get you get better, remember?�

His story sparked a whole slew of previously unheard admissions, mostly from the ex-cons. I felt like I was at a ride-along at a priest�s confessional booth.
Turns out the schoolteacher�s story was still the worst of them all, unfortunately.

When group was over, some of the guys hugged the schoolteacher and patted him on the back, and one of them pulled him aside.

�I�m serious, you want me to find that guy, I�ll do it for free, you hear me?�

He said yes, he had heard him, and thanks.

I noticed the schoolteacher walked a little taller after that session. I was happy for that, because it really seemed to have had an impact on him. We ate breakfast the next morning with some of the guys from the group, who seemed to really take to him. After laughing and joking around with everyone for a while, he stood up, got himself a big bowl of oatmeal and walked back to the table.

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