It was the summer after year four at PeeVee, which at the time seemed like the Hell Year. I was in a world of hurt. The Memorial Day weekend was spent grading English 2 Honors Book Report Essays, grumbling over the class’ overall sense of arrogance and their growing exhibition of laziness. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to return to PeeVee in the fall.
That was a lie. I did want to return but for one reason alone: the Class of ‘91. Ten years my junior, they were a class of go-getters, a class of intense Honors kids who were itching to push the outside of the Shakespearean envelope. I couldn’t wait to work with them. Plus, of course, there was the upcoming WASC report, for which I had been named the English lead writer. I had a sense of loyalty and obligation. I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass, but I also knew that there were "someone"’s who were depending on me. I didn’t like it, but I knew where I would be in the Fall.
I had signed up for a two-week seminar in Ashland, Oregon, an Oregon Shakespeare Festival Drama Teachers workshop on how to direct Shakespeare, and I was set to leave in a few days. My look was disheveled, a half-beard growing and my hair inching longer, my black leather jacket slumping over my shoulders as I rode my newly purchased motorcycle (which I prayed was not some early sign of a mid-life/post-divorce crisis) over to C.H.S. to have Frankie go over my Professional Growth stuff for the year.
I must have looked like hell because her first question was not the usual "How’s it goin’?" but rather "What the hell’s wrong with you?" I could have asked her the same question, since earlier that year she had survived not only a resurgence of her six-year dormant cancer (about the original bout of which I had heard nothing while I was away at UCLA) and a front-office fire which had moved her office into a portable trailer in the front parking lot (about which no employee of the district could hear less). But I kept my smart-ass retorts to myself. Of course, this probably cemented her concern, and she pressed on, prodding.
"Did you ever feel like quitting?" I finally asked.
"I think it was years seven through nine," she smiled.
"And..."
"Then it went away. Don’t know what did it. Came back to school in year ten and education was the call again."
"That easy."
She lit up her second cigarette of the conversation. "Hell no. Hellish. But it turned around very easily. Loved my job. Wouldn’t have traded it..." She blew out a thick stream of white smoke then smiled like Mephistopheles. "Shitty year, huh?"
"Let’s just say that I don’t see myself as the Young Turk anymore."
"I told you watch who you trust..."
I shrugged it off. But said nothing. She was so smart.
"What the best thing going now? The Honors class or your Shakespeare stuff."
"Shakespeare. Most definitely." I explained my grungy look and my plans for the immediate future: the OSF workshop.
"But you don’t teach drama."
"But it will help in the Shakespeare class since we’re moving more and more into production." And I told her of how I saw production as the real tool for teaching, how it was truly process- AND product-oriented. How the kids were learning so much more (about so many more areas) this way.
And she did nothing but smile and light up another.
"What’s so funny?" I could help but asking.
"It’s a shame you’re not looking for a Drama position."
"Why?"
"We have one opening up..." She let that one hang in the air, twisting in the wind.
"Really?" She didn’t have to wait long. "Tell me more."
And she did. The most recent Drama teacher--famous locally for fostering great acting talent--had left the campus (and left the department in debt... seems she didn’t have a mind for the books), leaving an opening available.
Would I be interested?
Would I? You bet your--. But I remembered the Class of ‘91. The WASC.
I explained my dilemma.
She nodded and listened and smoked and smiled. "Well, you leave for Oregon over the weekend... let me know before you leave. If you’re interested, it’s yours."
I rode home stunned.
I told Lisa, who had just recently moved in--having left her L.A. private school job to cohabitate with me, and to teach at her alma mater junior high--of this new possibility. She was supportive to a fault. She helped me chart the pro’s and con’s. And at the end, I was still confused.
I called Kevin Davis and told him of the dilemma. His attitude was "Get outta Dodge." Obligations? Fuck ‘em. Kevin’s reputation as a (too-)nice guy had allowed most administrators to walk all over him, so he didn’t want the same to happen to me. His vehemence shocked me. Shocked me into a decision.
I would stay at PeeVee.
I was an idiot.
I went back on Friday to tell Frankie of my decision. She nodded silently. I could see my future carving out a rut five miles north. I stammered. She glanced up.
"If you could--I don’t know, somehow--hold the position for a year, I could guarantee my transfer."
She smiled that smile again. She lit up another cigarette, breathed smoke out her nose, and extended her hand across the desk.
The deal was done.
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