The End As I Know It

by Kevin Shay

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry things are the way they are.” I gesture toward the computer in a futile attempt to communicate the state of the world.

  She shakes her head, furious. “Whatever the fuck that means. OK, I’m going home now. Did you leave anything there?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Goodbye, Randall.”

  She leaves.

  Go after her, asshole. Fix it.

  Instead I turn back to the monitor. My eyes fall onto a link:

  Water Supplies in Britain Are Threatened, Report Says

  I click.

  chapter 18

  386

  Days

  30 YEARS OF OGDEN, reads the banner hanging from the roof of the school. That’s right, next year is the big anniversary. With the self-published book coming out, half of it reminiscences from students and teachers and the other half an official history, commissioned from a BU prof whose daughter went here. No doubt he’ll put a staid face on the school’s beginnings, the small coterie of young proto-hippie parents who banded together in mutual dismay at the thought of stuffing their freethinking toddlers into a stifling mainstream education. They enlisted some sympathetic teachers, wrote up a charter, procured a ramshackle three-family house on Ogden Lane, tore out everything that didn’t look like a school, fast-talked the boards (zoning, education), and by the time the sixties drew to a close they were ready to start molding young minds, K through 6. I wonder how the historian will portray the school’s early years in the Old Building, which from what I’ve heard were just short of anarchy. The children’s activities self-directed, semisupervised, ungraded. Stray cats and dogs allowed to roam the halls. A field trip to a head shop. The teacher who served her students homemade ice cream, then revealed the ingredients: unrefined sugar, local organic eggs, and her own breast milk.

  By the eighties, after the construction of the New Building on a lot around the corner, Ogden had evolved from a state-licensed jungle gym into a testing ground for one faddish teaching methodology after another. But they kept the open classrooms and always had a few interesting teachers mixed in with the well-intentioned “educators.” It was an Ogden teacher who got me started with the puppets. Ian Lavelle was a sad case, alcoholic, sleeping in his car the last I heard. But before his decline he was storyteller-in-residence here. I was in fourth grade at a like-minded school on the other side of Cambridge, and Ian would come in occasionally to conduct puppet-making workshops. For some reason I loved these and began making puppets on my own at home. Much to the horror of Nicole, who found it a tragically nerdy activity. But I weathered her scorn, and my friends looked the other way because I was also outgoing and good at sports.

  And then a year after college, Ian Lavelle a distant memory, I found myself applying for the position he once held. Not without reservations, because it felt like admitting that my career as a musician for grown-ups was going nowhere. But I needed a steady income. So four years later here I am in the parking lot, about to make what could be my final visit.

  In fact, it may be my final visit to Massachusetts, as presently constituted, depending on when things start to fall apart. After things went sour with Paige, I decided to come up here early and embark on a little nostalgia tour of Greater Boston. I’ve driven around revisiting old places—houses I lived in, schools I attended, stores and restaurants and bars I frequented. None of which triggered quite the emotional rush I anticipated. Possibly the Valium had something to do with that.

  It was Boyd who gave me the pills, back when I was laid up in his house. One evening when Nicole was out, he sat me down for a little talk. Sat me up, actually, because I was still confined to bed. I’d clearly been under a lot of stress, he said. Whether or not I was right about Y2K, wouldn’t it be good to take the edge off the anxiety? I had to concur that it would. Well, he said, pulling out a small toiletry kit, he had episodes of back spasms about once a year, and each time his doctor prescribed a week of Valium as a muscle relaxant, except Boyd never needed it for more than a day or two. So here in this kit were the remainders. Not saying I should take them, necessarily, but just to have on hand if I felt the need. He handed me the kit, giving it a little shake so we could hear the plastic bottles rattling inside. Let’s keep this between you and me, he added, unnecessarily.

  But I didn’t want to start on them while driving, and sort of forgot I had them until last week, when my wrenching regret and self-loathing over what happened with Paige sent me in search of chemical relief.

  Boyd also made me promise that if I found the Valium helpful, I would see a shrink at my earliest convenience and get on something not so habit-forming. And I intend to, as soon as the Valium runs out.

  Which reminds me, maybe it’s time for another one. I take a half-empty bottle from Boyd’s toiletry kit, fish out a pill, and wash it down with a swig of Poland Spring.

  Oh. Just a second. Didn’t I take two an hour ago, before I left the hotel?

  Yeah, I pretty much did. Well, what’s swallowed is swallowed. Time to folk and roll.

  Ah, this place. That unique smell—composition unknown, but unmistakable hints of ammonia, Magic Markers, and someone’s bologna sandwich. The weathered red-orange floor tiles, the pockmarked concrete stairs. It all triggers me Pavlov-wise through at least four sensory pathways. And I haven’t even left the hallway. Over on those stairs I sat with a disconsolate Kelly, her little plastic glasses fogged with tears, after her friends ditched her on the playground. Stephen slipped and needed stitches in his chin right there by the K-1-2 cubbies. Cubbies! Haven’t thought of that word in a while. Last time I was here I had a job, an apartment, a family, and a future. Now I have some secondhand downers and a box of arrowheads.

  I wander into the nearest classroom, passing under four sheets of newsprint stapled together: RUTHANNE’S CLASS in a rainbow of watercolors. Smaller signs designate the sections of the room. The Science Benches, the Computer Stations, and the Reading Corner are dormant for the moment, because the class is gathered in the Meeting Area, over by the windows. Two dozen fourth- and fifth-graders sit in a misshapen oval, some in chairs and some on the triple-spill-proofed carpet, listening with less than rapt attention to Ruthanne Schram, who’s reading a page from the Mahabharata at them. Ruthanne has a real Indian spirituality jones, which I doubt she mentioned in her job interview. Not that the kids are actually worshipping Shiva, but she’s got them “studying” Hinduism to an extent that would get her ridden out of a public school on a rail. I wouldn’t barge into most classrooms unannounced, but I don’t have a great deal of respect for Ruthanne’s pedagogy.

  A kid named Nick, a charismatic ringleader who’s gained six inches and twenty pounds since spring, notices me lurking in the doorway and gives a small wave. Other kids look over, nudge their neighbors, and soon the whole group has turned its attention to me. It takes Ruthanne a couple of minutes to catch on, but finally, after half the class is stifling laughter, she turns around.

  “Oh, Randall! Well, hello! Does everyone remember Randall?” Nods, a few mumbled yeses, tepid response overall—fourth grade is about when they graduate from childish enthusiasm to playing it cool. Ruthanne bookmarks her text and closes it. “OK, reading time is just about through. So why don’t we go ahead and go to free study?”

  Free study? What the hell is that? The students scatter in all directions, some taking out books, others huddling around GameBoys. I gather that free study means “recess, but don’t leave the room.” This leaves Ruthanne and me more or less alone in the Meeting Area. She pulls a Rubber-maid bowl from an enormous velour purse.

  “Welcome back, Randall. Everyone’s been excited to see you!”

  “Glad to be here!”

  She opens the container and digs into a heap of some superhealthy brown grain. I look at my watch. Most teachers instinctively know that you shouldn’t eat your lunch in front of your kids half an hour before they’re allowed to eat their own. “I have this blood-sugar thing,” she explains. “
When I feel it coming on, I have to eat right away or I feel faint.”

  Several students I recognize drift over to me, full of news and questions.

  “Where are your puppets?”

  “Randall, Randall, I got a guitar for my birthday.”

  “Did you go to California?”

  “Guess what? We’re, um, acting out the Ramayana? And I’m gonna be Sugreeva, the monkey king?”

  “Monkey king, wow!” I feel decidedly mellow. Having some trouble differentiating all these high-pitched voices.

  “I’m Jatayu,” says a girl named Laurie, who plays the violin pretty well, as I recall. “I get my wings cut off by Ravana.”

  Rawhoona? I’m missing something here. I smile benignly, try to regain equilibrium. But I suspect this benzodiazepine buzz has yet to peak.

  “Hey, you know what, guys? I better go get all my stuff and get ready. But I’ll see everyone at All-School Meeting, all right?”

  “See you later,” Ruthanne says, mouth stuffed with bulgur.

  I head back to the parking lot for puppets and fresh air. A premonition nags at me, some unmedicated part of my brain telling me that this afternoon might end very badly, and yet I somehow can’t make myself care.

  On the edge of the parking lot, a muscular young Korean guy in a black T-shirt stands smoking. He sees me coming and moves to ditch the cigarette, then recognizes me and relaxes.

  “Hey, Cedric.”

  “’Sup, Mid-Knight. Welcome back.”

  “How are the All-Stars this year?”

  He shakes his head. “Dude, it’s like they never saw a ball before!”

  Cedric Park, a gym teacher in a school with no gym. Cedric spends each semester in a state of perpetual bewilderment at just how bad most of these kids are at sports. The intelligentsia of Cambridge and environs place a low premium on their children’s athletic ability, and Ogden caters to this attitude with a fiercely uncompetitive approach to sports. Poor Cedric expected things like teams, seasons, and rectangular playing surfaces but discovered he’d been hired simply to make sure everyone gets some exercise with minimal injury. He loves to gripe to anyone who’ll listen about his klutzy, eye-of-the-tigerless talent pool.

  “Just wait’ll you see this dude they got to replace you, dude.”

  “Oh, right, Glen something?” The new music teacher.

  “Serious loser. The kids know it, too, dude, they walk all over him.”

  I feel I can confide in Cedric.

  “I’m in a little trouble here, man. I’m sort of out of it.”

  He doesn’t bat an eye. “What’d you take?”

  “Valium. I mean, it’s been doing me right, but I may have miscalculated.”

  He nods sagely, reaches into his pocket. “Try one of these. It’ll sharpen you up.” He starts to open a small blue clamshell case.

  “No, no, no. Never mix, never whatever, you know?”

  “Hey, it’s herbal, dude! I wouldn’t bring anything heavy on school property, are you nuts? I take these all day.”

  “Herbal, you say.”

  Cedric was right: Glen Ganey is an utter dweeb. He stands with me in the back doorway, watching the kids dart around the yard as lunch hour winds down. I think I’ve recently moved my gear from the car to the Assembly Room, and I suppose I’ve chatted with some ex-colleagues, but the details haven’t imprinted themselves on my memory. Interactions are drifting right by me like dandelion fluff. Glen Ganey is memorable, though, in an under-your-skin way. A potbellied little man pushing forty with a walrus mustache, shabby clothes, and a shambling demeanor that screams “Disrespect me, I’m used to it,” he’s bending my ear about the Christmas Revels. Victorian England is the theme this year, apparently. As a folksinger I’m assumed to adore this festive annual performance, but I hate the fucking Revels, always have. Something about dressing up in period costume and talking in ye olde accentes undermines the whole notion of a living musical tradition. It takes the music I love and relegates it to the past, a quaint seasonal gimmick. I gag similarly on Renaissance Faires. Bet Glen Ganey’s attended a lot of those, too.

  “You really ought to catch it while you’re in town. The mummers’ play is the highlight.”

  “Mummers, mm-hm, absolutely.” I stare at the monkey bars, wishing Glen away. Students are actively avoiding me because I’m standing with him. A couple of kids I knew pretty well last year have passed us, started to approach me to say hi, and decided not to bother. Their schoolyard instincts compel them to shun him, and he’s tarred me with his brush of schlemieldom.

  We proceed to the Assembly Room. Glen has kindly volunteered to help me get everything ready for the show during the forty minutes between lunch and All-School Meeting. It won’t take more than fifteen minutes to set up, and I fear he’ll want to fill the remaining time with a jam session. There must be a clever way to escape from his clutches, but my thoughts won’t cohere long enough to come up with it.

  We prepare the room. Folding chairs in the back, benches in the middle, and empty floor in front. No stage, just an arc of electrical tape on the floor to delimit the performance space. I take out my guitar and begin to tune it.

  “Here’s where I keep my ax,” says Glen, unlocking a closet. And pulls out a black case in the distinctive asymmetrical shape of an autoharp.

  Seriously? The autoharp, dreaded scourge of sing-alongs the world over? A contraption that takes no particular skill to play but a master’s degree to tune and a deathwish to listen to? That’s his “ax”? Glen unsheathes the damnable device, rests it on his knee, and starts to strum. His reedy voice reaches deep into the roots of my teeth:

  “What shall we do with the drunken sailor?

  What shall we do with the drunken sailor?”

  Ogden, my heartfelt apologies for leaving on such short notice and saddling you with this stiff. Mercifully, he stops to tune a few of his ninety-seven strings.

  Oh boy. I’ve been getting mild effects from Cedric’s pills, nothing more than a few extra cups of coffee would do, but something just kicked in with a vengeance. Suddenly sweating, I tear off my sweater. Wrists and thighs tingle with blood set racing by my hammering heart. I grab the guitar and pace the room plucking “Railroad Bill” double-time, unable to sit or to play at normal speed. But here’s a strange wrinkle. The nervousness that usually accompanies this level of adrenaline is absent. The Valium has reached some twisted compromise with whatever Cedric gave me, rendering me the dispassionate driver of a hyperactive machine, foggy mind in electrified body. Should make for an interesting show.

  The first few students filter in and take seats. I can’t stop pacing. I run to the boys’ room, lock myself in a stall, sit down on the lidded toilet, try to oxygenate. Maybe a set list would be in order. I pull out a scrap of paper, write some song titles on it, rack my brain for the opening lines to any of the songs. Nothing. Fine, then. See if I care. We’ll wing it, the puppets and me. I flush the set list, wash my hands, and jitter my way back to the stage. Cedric Park, Cedric Park, what have you been feeding me? There was an old woman who swallowed a pill. I do not like green pills and ham.

  Onstage now. Whole school in the audience. Kids, teachers, administrators. They cheer. Well, do something. The raccoon. Introduce himself.

  “This is a friend of mine. Say hello, everyone.”

  And the puppet: “Hi, kids. My name is R. K. Raccoon. Do you know what that stands for?”

  “No,” say some. “Rodney,” say others, who remember this bit from last year. But my feral felt friend departs from the script.

  “It stands for Road Kill Raccoon! But I’m feeling much better, thanks.”

  And me: “Do you have a new story for us today, R. K.?”

  “Yes, I do, R. K. It’s about an RV.”

  “An RV, R. K.?”

  “That’s right.”

  “OK, R. K., whenever you’re ready.”

  “Ahem. Once upon a time there was a man who owned the finest recreational vehicle in all the land.
He was so proud of his RV that he drove it all around the countryside. But one day he ran over an old gypsy woman.”

  “A gypsy, you say.” Where are we going with this? R. K. is proving surprisingly fluent, more so than me at the moment.

  “Uh-huh. And as she lay there by the side of the road waiting for 911 to show up, she put a curse on the man. She pointed her bony finger at his RV and she said…” A raspy whisper: “Smal-ler.”

  “Smaller?”

  “Smal-ler. And the very next morning, when the man woke up, he noticed that his RV didn’t seem quite as big as it had been the day before. ‘I must be imagining things,’ he thought. But the next day it was definitely smaller. And the day after that he had to crouch down to get inside. And the day after that it was so small that he couldn’t even fit in the door! All he could do was sing a song.”

  “That’s a pretty sad story, R. K. So anyway—”

  “Aren’t you gonna ask me what the song was?”

  “Oh, I don’t really care, myself, but—you guys out there, do you want to know what song the man sang?”

  Clamor of assent. So the raccoon sings.

  “What shall we do with the shrunken trailer?

  What shall we do with the shrunken trailer?

  What shall we do with the shrunken trailer,

  Ear-ly in the morning?”

  I look over at Glen Ganey. He’s laughing louder than anyone, applauding even. Doesn’t realize we were making fun of him. “Well, that was an awful lot of effort for a stupid one-liner, R. K.”

  “Thank you!”

  “You’re going back in the bag now.”

  “All right.”

  Another song. I listen to myself strum an instantly recognizable Paul Simon progression. And begin to sing. A straight cover, at first:

  “The problem’s all inside your head, she said to me…”

  But then I get to the title line.