Dr. Duke found a seat in the back of the jam-packed board room, between a teacher from Monroe Elementary and an Asian man who appeared to be asleep; the man’s zipper was open and his shoes were untied. Duke was coming off a week-long peyote bender in Sedona and felt as if the room was tilted to one side, like a ship in a storm. He watched a District administrator trip and nearly fall over a laptop power cord. Nobody else in the room seemed to notice, or if they did, they didn’t care. The five Board members and the Superintendent trooped in from an adjoining room. The Board members looked glum, as if the fate of western civilization rested on their shoulders; on the other hand, the Superintendent was beaming as if he’d just won the lottery. The contrast made Duke’s forehead throb and he wondered, again, why he was here on a Tuesday night when he could be home watching the World Series. Duke had $500 riding on the underdog Cardinals. He’d bet a twenty-three-year-old Navajo virgin he met in Sedona and spent a week trying to bed down that the Cardinals would shock the Detroit Tigers in six games. Duke failed to get the girl into the sack, primarily because she thought it would be bad luck to lose her virginity during the Major League Baseball play-offs.
During the Pledge of Allegiance Duke silently cursed George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Newt Gingrich, and for good measure threw in Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joseph Lieberman, Katie Couric, and Diane Sawyer. “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your pubic region,” he whispered – or at least thought he whispered – though when several people turned to stare at him he realized that he’d been shouting like a street-corner preacher. “I had a bad week in Sedona,” he explained. “Too much sun and peyote, not enough sex. But you have nothing to fear. I’m just a run of the mill psychopath.”
The Superintendent launched into a monologue about an obscure Albanian research study which indicated a strong correlation between eating organic strawberries and improved standardized test scores. The Board members scribbled notes and nodded their heads; one wondered if the strawberries had to come from Albania or would strawberries from Oxnard or Santa Maria work just as well? The Superintendent had no idea and his inability to answer the question didn’t bother him in the least; he was still smiling as if he had the King of Siam by the balls. Duke found the Superintendent’s sunny demeanor annoying and wondered what prescription medications the man was on. Lithium? Zoloft? Paxil? Luvox? Enzyte? Even when he described a gaping hole in the budget the Superintendent’s rosy expression never changed. “Sweet Jesus,” Duke thought, “this guy should have captained the Titanic. He would have glad-handed the passengers when the ship was going down. ‘Isn’t this weather wonderful? Great night for sailing!’ Ladies and gentlemen, don’t pay any attention to that iceberg! I assure you that we have everything under control.’”
A teacher from La Cumbre Junior High was making an impassioned public comment about saving her school from an invasion of elementary kids. The teacher painted a dire portrait of overcrowding, first graders forced to make peepee next to seventh graders, traffic congestion, building code violations, and so on for three minutes and ten seconds. The speech was long on passion and short on facts and logic, but what the hell, George W. Bush is a moron who never lets facts bother him and he’s sitting in the White House playing president. To Duke the argument sounded silly, not to mention premature. The La Cumbre crowd needed to chill, hold a soothing group hug, and then get it through their panicked minds that the District wasn’t proposing to build a fortified, cinderblock and concertina wire compound on the campus. The world would not grind to a halt if a few hundred elementary kids moved into classrooms on a half-empty campus. Get a grip people!
The side-effects of a week-long peyote binge coupled with the endless drone of public comment were taking a toll on Duke. He heard the sound of flapping wings and saw a flock of pigeons fly through the open door and land on the dais in front of the Superintendent. The pigeons bobbed and clucked and cooed and preened until suddenly they transformed themselves into teachers -- angry, underpaid teachers armed with ripe tomatoes – which they began throwing at the Superintendent and Board members, a hail of crimson bombs. The Board members ducked under the dais or scurried for cover while the Superintendent took the brunt of the assault, smiling as jovially as ever as tomato juice and pulp dripped down his face, all over his papers and his necktie. No problem, ladies and gentlemen. Isn’t it great to see such spirited teachers! How about a big hand for our wonderful staff!
In fact – and much to Duke’s chagrin – nothing of the sort happened. There were no pigeons, no tomatoes. About forty teachers merely stood in solidarity while their elected leader read a proclamation. Damn, Duke thought, this time I’ve gone too far, totally rewired my own circuitry. If the illusion is unreal and the unreal is an illusion…what! Sweet Jesus, I’m jabbering. I’ve got to get out of here. But where’s the door? And why are there bars over the windows? And is the Superintendent really holding a cattle prod?
What saved Duke from terrible public embarrassment was Kenneth Locke, self-proclaimed genius, master of the Arts, master of the forehand, the backhand, and the serve and volley; Kenneth Locke, who peddled around town on a mountain bike, with a tennis racket and a guitar strapped to the front forks, visiting every public agency where he could take advantage of his right to three minutes at the podium to spread his gospel of Art for Art’s Sake. “I have the knowledge and I am the messenger,” Locke began, “I am the heir to Leonardo DaVinci and the spokesperson for the emerging avant garde.” Locke attended Board meetings week after week, using his allotted time to advance a philosophy that never failed to amuse and befuddle his audience. “You can’t serve two masters,” Locke intoned, “and it’s even harder to serve three or four.” At this the Asian man next to Duke woke with a start and clapped his hands. Locke said, “If there is no master there can be no student, and if the student isn’t ready, the master will not appear. Think about that!” A driver, a three-wood and a three-iron from sanity, Locke concluded by telling the Board that he would be out of town and out of touch for a while, but would return and update them on his quest.
Duke leaned back in his chair. This was better, much better; being in the presence of genius made the whole meeting worthwhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment