Marie Antoinette

NonFiction contains hyperbole and truth. You've been warned. 

One of my colleagues, a history teacher,  had messages from kids on his whiteboard. My favorite: "I will miss you like Marie Antoinette misses her head." He is retiring after 200 years.

We have no evidence that Marie Antoinette actually missed her head in the first place. Medically speaking, once her head was separated from her body she was only cognizant for a moment before death. So in the second place, she cannot, currently, be missing her head, unless she's haunting France like some cheap 1950's superimposed movie ghost  endlessly searching for her head. But how would she look for it? She has no eyes. Is she reaching out with her soul?  Is she just stumbling around in her panniers with her hands in front of her, hoping she kicks her head?  Which brings me to the third place: Clearly he was a crappy history teacher if this is what kids think is happening.

This is the kind of shit I think about the first day of summer break.

If only I could get paid for my thoughts I would be a rich woman.

I know nothing about Marie Antoinette. She doesn't come up in theatre  history much. Moliere is our guy, and Louis XIV and his red heeled hooker shoes. Seriously, Louie, all drag queens should thank you. I do enjoy your total look.
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So today he ,"K",  was taking down his maps and such in his room as I sat on a desk and watched.  Knowing it was his last day, I deliberately did not shower. I then spent three hours digging out my bookcases---not just dust but ketchup --I know, gross, teenagers suck--to insure that I was as rank as humanly possible before climbing the stairs to his lair, where I hugged him tightly so he got a good, stiff nose full.  He appreciated it.

See, I've been in that building 13 years. He's been there since the Hellmouth opened and released him into Littleton. My first day teaching---ever---I was walking down the hallway, unsure what I was supposed to be doing to "set up". I didn't have a lang arts room yet, and the theatre door was locked, and everyone seemed to think I knew what I was supposed to be doing. I tried the door to 146 three different times, it was locked. Well, I couldn't open it, anyway. Turns out it's a trick only the other theatre teacher knew. So I was wandering the halls searching for a friendly face to tell me what I should be doing. When He walked toward me, he looked me straight in the eye and flipped me off. The kind of flipping off that is Aliens "Look into my eye", so that nobody else could tell. Flipped. Me. Off.

I had no idea who this guy was.

And so it began. One time there was a faculty gathering. I walked in, saw him, and ran to the trash can. I barfed loudly and deliberately (I was an actor before I was a teacher), and then left, too ill to stay. Performance Art. Only He understood, everyone else thought I was sick.Tell me I can't commit. The principal thought it was hilarious. Several teachers checked on me later to make sure I was OK.

It was a great moment.

We have  had many of those moments throughout -mostly the first seven years. As he aged and his cloven hooves began to pain him, he would send messages to me through students instead of clomping down the stairs himself. Even demons can age.

"I have a message from K--," the student begins.
I throw up on their shoes.
They leave confused.

Maybe two years ago he broke one of his hooves. It was HILARIOUS, he had to clomp around for weeks. Somebody looked at him and his foot broke,or he stepped off  stair and broke his foot or some such. I'm pretty sure he had it coming.

He told the kids I did it. Put a witchy spell on him with  my hellish heathen ways or some such.
I plead the fifth.
I also expect better accusations from a guy who taught Philosophy and Religion.

Last summer when I was directing an outside show that was renting the space, he clomped down to stare through the door at me. He caught my eye, squinted and flipped me off. I sought him out later, after finding a note on my desk that said "EVIL ONE--I'LL STOP BY LATER".
"What?" I asked after ascending the stairs to his lair.
"The hell, I thought you were just here dicking around. You're actually working. Hard." His voice and face expressed surprise and ....admiration? Can't be.
"And..."
"I dunno, wanna talk?"
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As I sat today, my stench permeating his room, he started removing stickers holding up his various maps. He labors under the delusion that he can save some of this stuff, to then ...put in his garage. Awesome. He mangled a sticker of Vishnu. He apologized and said "I can't save this," as he threw it in the trash.
"Vishnu forgives you,"I said.
He smiled.

He began to explain to me the origin and purpose of his world map which features China as the center. "I use it to teach bias to the kids," and then he said a bunch of other words that were in his native Satan language that I couldn't quite catch. Then he laughed. "You know what? I'm gonna be that old guy on the bench, telling the pigeons they don't understand bias."

"It's fine. I'll be on the next bench, poisoning them. You can help them find religion before they die."

Scene.


-- To GK With Love
kryssi
30 May 2017