Are You Nuts? (2 page)

Fifteen minutes later, Meg Swarthmore strolled into the room. “Now what have you done?”

Meg works part-time in the library at Grover Cleveland. She used to be head librarian but is now semiretired. At the beginning and end of the year, she works full-time helping to set up or take down all the materials. She is the ultimate clearinghouse for all school gossip. She'd tried giving up the telling-secrets business several years ago. Referring to her return as gossip central, she had said, “Living for cheap, tawdry gossip might not be as good as dying for chocolate, but it'll do until you get your next candy bar.” We had been good friends for years. She was not much over five feet tall and was plump in a grandmotherly way. She's in her sixties and could have retired years ago, but she loves books and kids. As for the gossip, she had one basic rule: never reveal a source.

I dusted my hands to clean off the classroom grime that always seemed to accumulate on everything over the summer. With a minimum of effort, they could create a Dust Hall of Fame or a Dust Museum out of the school.

“Done what?” I asked.

“Beatrix is in tears.”

“I'm a beast.”

“I saw her talking with Jon Pike.” Jon was the new head of the English department. I'd known him for years as an officious bore/colleague. In the last year, he'd become officious bore/head of the department. He ran boring departmental meetings during which he'd parrot boring Shakespeare quotes at oddly inappropriate times.

“Jon will certainly be a big help. Before and after he became head of the department, he was always willing to throw gasoline on a fire.”

“What did you say to Beatrix?”

“I tried telling her no.” I told Meg about the field-trip money. “Beatrix wouldn't listen. She told me ‘it wasn't fair.' To my credit, I did not call flaming destruction down from heaven on her.”

“Can you do that?”

“What?”

“The flaming whatsis?”

“Only on a really good day. When she threatened to quit the union, I said, ‘Please do.'”

“You didn't?”

“I did.”

Meg burst out into hysterical laughter. She had to sit in the chair behind my desk and hold her sides before she got herself back under control. She wiped her eyes and said, “I would pay to have a video of that moment. You could sell it and make a fortune.”

“I thought I was a model of calm objectivity.”

“We may need to work with you on that,” Meg said.

“What could I have done better? I didn't yell or scream. I didn't call her names. I only gave her a dose of truth, which she did not want. I said what every other union rep has wanted to say to her for years. If anybody else wants this job, they are welcome to it.”

“I don't suspect there will be a stampede to be grievance chair.” She shook her head. “Beatrix is an injustice collector, which is kind of sad. You know she wasn't always goofy. A year or two before you started teaching in the district, her husband died of a rare type of cancer and left her with two daughters who weren't even in grade school yet. She wasn't as driven before that. She was your average, mostly eager teacher. The death changed her.”

“Now, I do feel like a heel.”

“She is a nag and an asshole. Yeah, you'll probably get negative repercussions for what you said. You want to worry needlessly about it? I've always thought paralytic catatonia was an interesting response to stimuli.”

“That's probably not helpful here. I've got plenty of other stuff to be concerned about.”

Meg got up from the chair and plunked herself on a corner of my worn and battered desk. “Speaking of things to worry about, if we can manage to save you from Beatrix's wrath, I do have hot gossip.”

“The best kind.”

“Which I'm afraid has some unpleasant elements in it. Did you know that this evening there's an election for PTA officers?”

“Somehow it slipped my mind.”

“Well, there is. These things are important.”

“To whom?”

“You want gossip or you want to make caustic comments?”

“Gossip.”

“You remember the huge fight during the last school board election?”

“Yeah.”

Some of that fight had been a nasty set-to with stealth candidates from the religious right trying to sweep out four incumbents. With the strong support of the union, three out of four of the old guard had won. But an even deeper, more hidden agenda had not been revealed until later. Old wounds that many thought might have been healed were reopened. Ancient angers and enmities in the community had been renewed, and the new scars were not expected to heal for years, if ever. I knew Meg had been deeply involved in the election.

“Lydia Marquez, the religious right candidate now on the school board, has organized her buddies for tonight's PTA meeting. The election of officers occurs at the first get-together in August. She was going to pack the meeting to vote in her people.”

“Democracy in action.”

“Well, word got out. Phone lines are burning up in River's Edge even as I speak, summoning the faithful to tonight's meeting.”

“I'm still not sure I care.”

“Will it make a difference if I tell you the leading candidate for president is making you one of the big issues in her campaign?”

I was also concerned about the reactions to my notoriety among the students, faculty, and parents in the community. Would my celebrity status and extravagantly open gay presence cause ripples? I'd been on national television over half the summer with my lover. I'd have been foolish not to expect a backlash.

“Who is Lydia's candidate?”

“Belutha Muffin.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Well, she's heard of you, and she does not like you one itty-bit.”

“Is there such a thing as two itty-bits?”

Meg ignored my comment. “You should see Belutha in action.”

“Is she a deadly raving loony?”

“No, she comes across as Ms. Sunshine and Lollipop. She speaks mostly in mindless slogans. She always brings a laptop computer and a projection screen to show pithy slogans at the meetings she goes to. Once she brought a videotape filled with sunshine and flowers.”

“That doesn't sound criminal.”

“Insulting to anyone with a modicum of sense. I'd love to see that simpering smile wiped off her face,” Meg said.

“Sounds like you've got problems with her.”

“For years. I think I better go to the meeting.”

“Should I?” I asked.

“If you're going to be a subject of debate, it might be better not to. If you show up, you could become a flash point.”

“I could also defend myself.”

“Either way, it may not be pretty. You wouldn't be able to sit quietly on the side. If they don't know you from school, they'll recognize who you are from the television shows.”

“I could wear a disguise.”

“You could try the flaming-destruction-from-heaven trick.”

“Cool.”

Carolyn Blackburn walked into the room. She'd been superintendent of the River's Edge School District for several years now, and before that she'd been principal of Grover Cleveland High School. She'd been a decent boss and I'd trusted her more than any other school administrator, which really doesn't say much. Carolyn was a heavyset woman with silver hair and a broad, pleasant face that at the moment was packed with worried frown lines.

Meg said to her, “You look frazzled.”

“Meetings with lawyers and more lawyers. We've got three separate lawsuits against the district and another in the offing. Time was, you could run a school district and expect not to be front-page news.”

“It's not worth all those big bucks they pay you?” I asked.

“They don't mint enough money on the planet to make it worthwhile,” she replied. Her frown deepened. “I saw you on a few television shows this summer.”

“I missed them myself. My parents even had cable television and a satellite dish installed so they could tape some of the more obscure ones. I'm afraid they're going to make copies for everyone I know.”

She grinned briefly. “I admire your courage. I hope you and your lover are okay.”

“Doing about average, I guess.”

She nodded, then resumed frowning. “You've heard about the PTA meeting tonight?”

“Just now.”

“You need me to leave?” Meg asked.

“That isn't necessary. Tom, your situation is more volatile than I'd imagined. We did get a large number of calls over the summer as you were on more and more shows. After the
Oprah
appearance, the phones didn't stop for a week. These were mostly complaints. Oddly and fortunately, most of them were not from parents in the district, but this Belutha person is dead set on getting you fired.”

“The PTA has the strength to hire and fire teachers?”

“Of course not. But it's pressure on the school board that they're after. Politics—local or national—is about pressure.”

“I appreciate the help you've been over the years, Carolyn, but I'm not fighting about being in the closet here. If the school board wants to take action, I'll call my lawyer, the ACLU, and the Lambda Legal Defense Fund.”

“This time it may come to that. I can't stop the PTA or the board. I still think you are an excellent teacher and an asset to this district. I will do what I can to protect you. Maybe nothing will happen. This board may have been re-elected with a lot of union help, but they are an independent lot. It's a good thing I'm only a year or two from retirement or I'd resign. I may anyway.”

“Why quit?” Meg asked.

“The board is out of control. School boards are supposed to set policy and make sure the money is spent responsibly and according to the law. Presumably they leave the day-to-day running of the district to the administrators. Is that how you've seen things happen around here lately? They've been trying to micromanage the school district, and they haven't the slightest idea what they're doing. An administrator has to feel free to make decisions, not have a board constantly looking over her shoulder playing a game of ‘gotcha.'”

I'd never known a superintendent to be so frankly honest.

“Please don't quit,” Meg said. “You're too good an administrator and too sane.”

Carolyn smiled. “Which is why I don't know why I'm still in education.” She left.

“If she's worried, so am I,” Meg said.

“Let's keep this in perspective,” I said. “While my job is important to me, and I will certainly fight to keep it, losing my job would not be a total tragedy. I've saved money over the years, and Scott is a bit beyond very wealthy. If I get fired, we're not going to be eating gruel anytime soon.”

“Did you talk to Scott last night?”

“For quite a while. I miss him.”

“Before the baseball strike, he was gone on road trips for longer than this.”

“But this is harder for him. Pitching is something he's done since he was a little kid. Being a celebrity spokesperson, ‘out' athlete, and talk show denizen takes an emotional toll. He's hurting. Most of the time on the tour, we'd spend evenings into early mornings talking or holding each other. It wasn't passion or sex, but just a desire to comfort and soothe. He's worried about ever pitching again, being on the mound the first time and every time after, with hostile fans prepared to physically harm him.”

“That's got to be rough for both of you, but Scott isn't the first one playing has been tough for. I remember Jackie Robinson. How'd he get through it?”

“People of goodwill, someone who loved him. Scott has that.”

“Will it be enough?”

“I wish I knew. What makes dealing with this worse is the radical gay groups who insist that he has to go out and pitch no matter what the cost. He could be injured or killed but they don't care. They want him as poster boy, martyr. I think some of them want to bring him down as well.”

“I don't understand.”

“The jealous queens who've scrambled for their piece of the five o'clock news see Scott as coming out of nowhere and horning in on their turf.”

“But Scott can do so much good.”

“But petty jealousy is often the rule of the day. You know the Chicago gay newspapers have had almost no coverage of any of this. Only after the
Chicago Tribune
, the
Chicago Sun-Times
, and
The New York Times
had special articles on him did they even mention his coming out.”

“A prophet is without honor in his own country.”

“Or maybe they're just fucking morons.”

“There is that.”

I glanced into one of the boxes of computer materials. “I'm never going to get any of this done. I've got an orientation meeting at noon with all the union building reps. Then one of the candidates for union president wants to meet with me. He wants my endorsement. Although with me being a controversial figure, I'm not sure my word is going to mean much.”

“You've got to remember most of the staff around here have known you're gay for years and are pretty accepting. You may be more famous now, but you're still the person they know. You still command great respect. And there's a cachet to your being famous, which adds its own luster.”

“I've been feeling really lusterful lately.”

“Some people have all the luck. Who you back in the election could be important. People care passionately about who is in charge of the union, and bitter feelings can last for years. Who are you backing in the election?”

“Neither one so far.”

“Why not?”

“I haven't heard anything impressive about either one. I heard each one claim he's committed to equal rights for all teachers, so it's a wash on gay rights. What does your gossip grapevine say about the two of them?”

“You know Jerome Blenkinsop in the math department here?”

“I've been on one or two union committees with Jerome, but I don't know him well. I've never met the elementary candidate, Seth O'Brien.”

“They both grew up in the Chicago area. Seth's been in the district eight or nine years. He's taking graduate courses in computer science at Governors State, I think. He graduated from UCLA. Jerome's been here at least ten years longer than you have. He got his undergrad degree at USC. I guess neither one was enamored enough of California to stay there.”

“Somebody has to like these winters.”

“Yeah. Let's see. Both are married. Seth has a preschool-age child. Jerome's are older, maybe one or two in college. Both men are reputed to be friendly enough to work with. No affairs. Jerome's taken a variety of courses in numerous master's degree programs over the years. Never stuck with any one long enough to graduate. He's been involved in a lot of causes in the community for quite a while. I'll try to find out more.”

“Kurt hasn't endorsed either one. I wish he was staying in charge.”

“Rumor has it that Seth wants to fight to dump all the tenure laws.”

“Is he nuts?”

“That's the rumor.”

“That he's nuts or that he wants to dump the tenure laws?”

“Probably both. I was going to suggest dinner tonight, but I think I better go to this meeting. You'll need a firsthand account, and I may need to lend my leather-lunged warble to the debate. I still live in this district. I've got a vote and a voice.”

“You're a member of the PTA?”

“Actually, you are too. Everybody on the staff is. It's part of the Social Club dues you pay twenty-five bucks to every year.”

“It is?”

“You betcha. It sounds like serious issues and personalities are going to be on the line tonight. I've got friends that I can call.”

“Is it that serious? A PTA can't have that much power.”

“You heard Carolyn. I think she's right.”

“I'm more worried about Scott than about what either the PTA or the school board will do. I've been making these brave statements all these years about not living in fear. I guess this will be the big fight.”

“Possibly. People love to intrude where their noses don't belong. The meeting isn't just about you though. There are other issues besides you.”

“I wonder if Edwina is going to the meeting.”

Edwina Jenkins was the school principal. After teaching for a number of years, she'd gotten her administrative certificate and worked her way up through the ranks.

Meg used her pet name for Edwina. “Shit-for-brains probably has to show up. She's as useless as any administrator we've ever had.”

“Try not to hold back, Meg. Let me know how you really feel.”

“I guess she tells as many lies as any administrator. If she shows up, she won't be any help. I'm definitely going. I love a good fight once in a while. I'm in the mood to be nasty to a few people.” She stood up. “I've got to finish cataloging the new books that arrived over the summer. As well as plot, plan, and connive about tonight's meeting.”

I told her I would join her later to discuss strategy and possibly help make phone calls.

 

Half an hour later, I'd assembled the computer equipment. This was progress. When it was new, it had taken me half a day and three calls to the “help line” before I mastered the on switch. Next, I searched for my computer disks. I have a small collection that I use both at home and on the departmental computers that we share. I found the disks strewn in the back of my cabinet. I knew I hadn't left them there. I thought about hunting for the custodians to find out who had been in my room and why my stuff had gotten messed with. Was it important enough?

My next visitor was Seth O'Brien. I was not expecting him. I had a meeting with Jerome set for two that afternoon.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

I let the computer hum to itself and gave him my attention. Seth was in his late twenties. He was tall and heavyset, maybe a defensive lineman for a smaller college. He wore a loose T-shirt without any logo, baggy shorts, and sandals with white socks. Prior to Meg's information, I'd known he taught third graders in one of the elementary schools in the district. I'd heard he was a competent teacher.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“I'm hoping to get your endorsement in the election,” he said.

“I can't imagine my word is very important. With all the controversy surrounding Scott, my name isn't going to be something to hang on a banner.”

“People respect you, Tom. Members of the faculty listen to what you have to say. Your reputation is solid.”

“Thank you for the kind words. I'm not sure who I favor for president.”

“I think the elementary teachers in this district have been ignored for too long. We need to do more for them.”

“What hasn't Kurt done?”

“You high school teachers are always trying to run things. All the union officers are from the high school. All that extra money is spent for high school sports. We never get anything.”

“Did you ever discuss this with Kurt?”

“No.”

“Why haven't you volunteered to be on the negotiations team? Why haven't you come to any of the meetings?”

“We're discussing it now. The problem with the transfer situation in this district is horrendous. In all the years Kurt has been president, not one elementary teacher has been given a job in the high school.”

This was a sore spot in many unit districts. Many elementary teachers saw upper-grade and high school jobs as more prestigious. As grievance chair and building rep, I didn't deal with any interschool hassles. “Have any of the elementary teachers applied for the jobs?”

“Of course. It's not fair the way the elementary teachers have been treated in this district.”

He'd used the magic words—
it's not fair
. I'd heard that refrain so often I was more than sick of it. Besides the obvious response of “life is not fair,” there were other problems with it. Too often when people say “it's not fair,” what they really mean is “I'm not getting my way.” Further, by overusing “it's not fair,” that which is truly “not fair” becomes trivial. I didn't have the energy to get in a big fight with him about it, but I did ask, “What other things are the elementary teachers upset about, and why, if they are so important, weren't they brought up to Kurt before this?”

He said, “Planning time. High school teachers have more planning time than we do. We teach far more subjects than they do. They only have to plan for one or two subjects. We've got over a dozen. That's not fair.”

“I hear you're in favor of ending all the tenure laws.”

“Yes.”

“Are you nuts?”

“There are too many unqualified teachers in the schools.”

“Do you understand what tenure means?” I didn't give him a chance to answer. “For public-school teachers in this state, it simply means they have to give you due process before they can fire you. It means an administrator has to tell a teacher what they are doing wrong and give them a chance to fix it within ninety days. How is that a burden?”