To Me You Seem Giant

by Greg Rhyno

  Eventually, Ellis shuffles in, reeking of cigarettes. He apologizes for what he calls his “tardiness,” and Gail starts the meeting.

  “Well, I should start by introducing Molly. This is Molly Pearson.”

  “Hi, Molly,” we all sing in unison.

  She grins self-consciously and waves, like she’s the guest of honour in a kindergarten class. Gail continues. “Molly’s coming to us from ... Victoria?” She looks for help.

  “Vancouver,” Molly says. Everyone nods, as though her geographic origins have been scrutinized and met with approval. “I have some family here in town, so I thought I’d give it a shot. It’s ... nice.”

  I can already tell she’s disappointed. Thunder Bay has that effect on people. “Molly is taking over for Candice, who, if you haven’t already heard, had a baby girl last night!”

  Everyone around the table erupts into the expected chorus of pleasant surprise and asks for details Gail doesn’t have. Personally, I’m more interested in the other new arrival, and it’s pretty clear I’m not the only one.

  “This is your first time teaching, then?”

  Danny Pound gets an angle on Molly while I’m still just absorbing her existence. He’s in his mid-forties and recently went through his second divorce, so I guess he doesn’t want to waste any time.

  “Actually,” Molly replies, “I volunteered for a year in Kenya before I—”

  “Ah, don’t worry,” he interrupts, not letting the facts interfere with his opening gambit. “I’m sure you won’t do any worse than Curtis here.” He laughs and slaps me on the back, as if to suggest we share some sort of playful camaraderie. We don’t. “Just kidding, buddy,” he says to me without taking his eyes off Molly.

  “I’m Pete,” I explain, feeling a little like the straight man in Pound’s lame comedy act. “I’m also supply teaching.”

  She looks like she’s about to say something to me, but Gail calls everyone to order and starts working her way through the agenda.

  “Okay, so Stan’s going to join us in a few minutes—he’s just meeting with a parent right now. In the meantime, we need to talk about textbooks. Does everybody have enough right now? I noticed we’re a little short on Western Civilizations ...”

  One of the great things about meeting a beautiful woman for the first time is you get to witness all these different ways she’s beautiful. From across the table, I get a front-row seat for how Molly’s beautiful when she sips her coffee, how she’s beautiful when she laughs politely at a bad joke, even how she’s beautiful when she frowns. And as the meeting continues, there seems to be more and more to frown about.

  After textbook talk, item number two on the agenda is provincial assessment. As if on cue, Kovalski materializes, and Gail starts distributing large booklets full of tiny numbers. He recognizes his new hire, shakes her hand, and sits down. Then, like seasoned middle management, he doesn’t ask any questions and takes charge.

  “Okay, good,” he says, looking around the table, “you’ve all got the stats.”

  He proceeds to rattle off a semi-prepared presentation about the importance of statistics and what student success and failure could mean with regard to accountability and funding. Somewhere between scope and sequence and valid assessment, my mind has completely refocused on how I’m going to get Molly to go for a beer with me. That’s probably why I don’t actually hear the announcement when he makes it. I just feel it, the way you can feel weather change before the storm actually hits. The news reverberates off the other teachers in my department, and as I tune back in, I’m able to pick out the different reactions. Ellis rolls his eyes. Pound is indignant. Gail is vibrating with dogmatic enthusiasm.

  “Are you saying,” Pound says, “that we’re going back to standardized exams?”

  Stan holds up his palms in a gesture of peace. “Based on the success of the provincial literacy and numeracy tests, the Board is greenlighting a pilot program to make all culminating assessment more consistent.”

  “And by ‘consistent’ you mean ‘the same,’” Ellis says.

  “Teachers will still create summative assessments, but yes, starting next semester, all students enrolled in Ontario high schools will write a sealed exam from the board based on provincial curriculum.”

  People start talking at once.

  “Wait, what’s being standardized?”

  “Can we even see the exams beforehand?”

  “—a wonderful opportunity.”

  “I just redesigned my whole unit on—“

  “—like I’m back in the sixties.”

  “Stan,” Pound booms, “we have to go to all these workshops about multiple intelligences, differentiated instruction, and now the province is implementing standardized exams?”

  Kovalski works his mouth into an grin. The wingspan of his moustache prepares for flight. “Come on, guys,” he says weakly, “don’t shoot the messenger.”

  I can see why he’s planning to retire.

  After the meeting I start heading back toward History Storage. Molly has disappeared in the opposite direction and I find myself walking beside Ellis for a little while.

  “So what do you think, Ellis?” I ask.

  “About what, Peter?”

  “You know. This whole standardized exam thing.”

  “Bah.” He dismisses the idea with a wave of his hand. “The pendulum swings back and forth. You watch. This won’t last too long.”

  Ellis Kohler is the oldest member of our department and kind of the reason I have a job here. He was my associate when I was a student teacher, and his mentoring style mainly consisted of leaving me to sink or swim while he drank coffee in the staff cafeteria. I guess he thought I did something right, though. He gave me a pretty stellar reference, and here I am.

  Ellis refuses to retire, but in a lot of ways, he checked out years ago. He doesn’t use email, data projectors, or even computers for that matter, and no one ever calls him on it. While the rest of us are pulling out all the stops to compete with the internet, Ellis just teaches out of the textbook. Or sometimes, off the top of his head.

  I can’t wait until I can get away with being a crazy old man.

  On my way back to the school later that night, I find myself wishing I had brought a mickey of vodka to sneak in. I’m twenty-seven years old and nervous about going to a high school dance. When I walk into the building, a bearded, middle-aged Superman is sitting on a chair near coat check with his legs propped up on a folding table and an issue of Cosmopolitan resting on his flabby blue stomach. When he sees me, he puts the magazine down and stands up.

  “Lookin’ good, Man of Steel,” I say.

  Jim Lodge pats his belly and smiles. “I know I shouldn’t invite comparisons, but the wife loves it. Seriously. When I go home tonight, it’s going to be all ‘Up, up, and away!’”

  Dolores Lodge, Jim’s wife, was my grade five teacher. This is information I don’t need to know.

  “Where’s your costume?”

  “Guess I’m just going as a high school teacher.”

  The tucked-in shirt, the sweater vest, and the khakis do feel a bit like a costume. There’s no way I’d dress like this outside of work. I wonder if the real Superman has trouble putting on those schleppy glasses and that suit all the time. He must worry he’s starting to turn into Clark Kent.

  Jim gives me the lay of the land and a few words of advice. My shift is for the second half of the night, and I’m essentially on supervision detail. There are a couple other teachers, and a cop, so I shouldn’t have to do too much heavy lifting. In fact, for the next little while, he expects it will be relatively tame. That last hour, though, things can apparently get a little nuts.

  “Let Officer Dan handle the really drunk kids—that’s what we pay him for. You’re probably going to have to break up a few dance-floor makeout sessions,” he warns me. “Kissing’s okay, a little ass-groping’s okay too, but we generally draw the line at hands in pants. Got it?”

  I nod, sudd
enly terrified.

  “You’ll be fine. Get in there and have some fun!”

  I walk away from Jim’s red-and-blue bulges feeling a little nauseated. On my way to the gym, I hope and pray I can find another teacher to buddy up with; otherwise, it’s going to be a long, awkward two hours of looking like a creepy old wallflower.

  “Hey, stranger!” Vicky Greene appears beside me dressed in a skintight cat costume and, unlike Jim, she wears her spandex pretty well. Like a figure skater or a bike messenger, she’s just on the socially acceptable side of obscene. I can see every curve of her Pilates-fit thirty-something-year-old body. She loops her arm around mine so that as we walk, I can feel her hip rubbing against my thigh. Up, up and away.

  “Where’s your costume?” she scolds me.

  “I didn’t think we were supposed to wear costumes.”

  Seriously, am I the only authority figure who’s not dressed like an idiot? Even Officer Dan is wearing a cape and devil horns over his uniform.

  “Where’s your holiday spirit? This is the one night of the year you get to be someone else for a little while. Do something you might not usually do.”

  As we get closer to the dark mouth of the gymnasium, I feel the heart-shuddering bass and smell that nostalgic, chemical smell of dry ice. In the hall outside, it seems like every teenager is also being someone else for a while. I see Gene Simmons in full Demon regalia bending over to get a drink from the water fountain. Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers sit cross-legged on the floor and argue about the Conn Smythe Trophy. A girl in a dog costume suddenly materializes and tells Vicky how much she loves her cat suit. As they talk, various monsters and superheroes walk past me on their way to the bathroom.

  Given the chance to be someone else for a while, I’m not sure who it would be. Some days, I wish I could be one of these kids again. If I could start over, knowing what I know now, I’d be so much better at being a teenager. Most days, though, I’m just happy that whole mess is behind me. I think that, ultimately, I’d like to be me, but just not the me I am right now. Maybe the me I’ll be in a few years. These days I’m just a little too in-between things. It’s been a long time since I felt like I had my shit together—almost two years since Catherine, and Filthy Witness, and everything that happened in Toronto.

  And so, arm in arm, I walk with a married woman into a teenage Sodom and Gomorrah. Almost immediately, I’m accosted by Slutty Red Riding Hood.

  “He-e-ey! Mr. Curtis! You were my supply teacher last week!”

  “Hi,” I say.

  It takes me a moment to place her, mainly because she’s far more naked than she was in Biology class. Her pale cleavage spills dangerously out of a laced bodice, and her legs, wrapped in thigh-high stockings, sprout from a tiny ruffled skirt. Her red sheer cloak is more a nod to the idea of clothing than it is an actual article.

  She leans in closer and pulls my tie out of my sweater vest to squint at it. “What are you supposed to be?” she asks. Her breath is sweet and very alcoholic. I look over to Vicky, who raises a pretend bottle to her lips in a little drinking motion.

  “Um, a high school teacher?”

  “Oh my god!” Red Riding Hood giggles. “That’s adorargh—”

  I’d like to flatter myself and believe that the word she’s attempting to say is adorable. Unfortunately, what comes instead is the partially digested contents of her dinner and what looks to be some kind of berry-flavoured wine cooler. All of which lands on the front of my teacher costume.

  By the time Vicky returns with Officer Dan, a crowd is starting to form. Officer Dan attends to Red, whose fairy tale has ended in a weepy mess on the gym floor, and Vicky escorts me to the one and only male staff washroom on the other side of the school.

  “Do you need any help?” she shouts through the door.

  “No!”

  I really don’t. I’m naked to the waist and rinsing my shirt in the sink. My sweater vest is ruined in a very awful and very smelly way. I shove it into the trash like a bad memory and try not to get any vomit on my hands. I try my best to wring the shirt out, but it’s still soaking and cold when I ease it back over my shoulders. Where I’ve wiped down the front of my pants with wet paper towels, it looks like I’ve pissed myself.

  Vicky is waiting when I walk out. She gushes with amused sympathy.

  “Oh, you poor thing. You should just go. I’ll tell Jim.”

  I agree, but then Vicky asks a crucial question.

  “Do you know how you’re getting home?”

  I had planned on getting home the same way I came: on foot and in dry clothes. This no longer seems like an option.

  “I’ll just call a cab,” I tell her, knowing full well she won’t let me.

  “You can’t take a cab. Let me drive you. Officer Dan’s here until the end of the night. They can make do without us.”

  I squint down the hallway and see Thunder Bay’s finest prodding Superman in the stomach with a plastic pitchfork. I wonder whether Red Riding Hood will make it home safe.

  “Really, it’s no big deal.”

  “It is a big deal.” She laughs a little. “Look at you! You’re a mess.”

  Several depressing likelihoods race through my mind. First, I think the odds are pretty good that Vicky has either Shawn Mullins or Third Eye Blind in the CD player of her 2002 PT Cruiser, and I’m going have to hear at least seven minutes of it before we get to my apartment. That’s, like, two songs. Second, I think the odds are equally good that she’s going to invite herself into my apartment for a drink, and I’ll oblige, because she came to my rescue and now I kind of owe her one. Finally, if I were a betting man, I’d say that by the time she gets me out of my wet clothes—which she inevitably will—and by the time she takes off her costume—which she inevitably will—I’m going to be in way over my head. So, yeah. I am kind of a mess.

  “Sure,” I finally tell her. “You let Jim know what’s going on, and I’ll go grab my coat from the staff room. Meet you back here in five minutes?”

  “Deal.”

  Vicky bounces off toward the gym. On her way, she looks back and smiles at me, and for a moment, I do feel like I’m someone else—someone who doesn’t care about full contract, superintendents, or husbands. Someone who has the moral flexibility to let Vicky Greene take him home. Then the moment passes, and I’m back to me. Boring Old Me.

  When I get my heavy coat on over my wet clothes, the damp soaks into my skin until it reaches my bones. Boring Old Me pushes his feet through one of the side doors and out into the premature Thunder Bay winter. Twenty minutes later, when I’m home, shivering and thawing out, I can’t stop thinking about what it would’ve been like to peel that cat suit right off her. If she showed up at my door right now, I’d let her in, no questions asked. Sometimes doing the right thing is all about timing.

  SIDE A

  Rescue Us from Boredom

  For someone who’s part of a rhythm section, Deacon’s got a pretty shitty sense of time. He was supposed to meet me in front of his locker and give me a ride home, but I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes and there’s still no sign of him. I’m about to give up and walk, when Mr. Murdock stops in front of me.

  “Mister Starkey,” he says, looking down. “How are we this afternoon?”

  “Uh, good. Really good.”

  Mr. Murdock is one of those nickname guys. Everyone’s Champ, Sport, or Cap’n. Ever since grade eleven, when he found out I play drums, I’ve been either Ringo Starr or Richard Starkey or some combination of the two.

  “So. Young minstrel. Any rilly big shews on the horizon?”

  I’m thrilled to have an answer. “Yeah, actually, we’re playing Whiskey Jack’s tonight.”

  “Ah. Whiskey Jack’s. The Toppermost of the Poppermost.” I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I smile and nod my head like I do. “Well, break a leg. I suppose one of these days I’ll have to come out and see you play.”

  “For sure!” I gush like a twelve-year-old girl at a Beatl
es concert. “We’d be honoured.”

  Jesus. Did I really just tell him we’d be honoured? Murdock smiles and continues down the hall, but I’m going to feel like an idiot the whole way home.

  After supper, Deacon appears at my door, all bristly haired and chipper and wearing a Countdown to Ecstasy t-shirt, which I hope he changes before we go on stage.

  “Sorry about earlier,” he says as we walk down to the basement. “Had an oral exam in French. Bunch of us had to stay after school and finish it.”

  “An oral exam? With Mademoiselle Gauthier?” There’s a joke there, but I don’t make it.

  “It’s not Mademoiselle Gauthier anymore. It’s Madame Greene.”

  “What the fuck? She got married?“

  “Yeah. To some vice-principal at Churchill. I think he used to play for the Flyers or something.”

  “Seriously? A hockey guy?”

  “Yeah. Like you had a chance.”

  We heave Deacon’s enormous Trace Elliot cabinet up the stairs and then out into the Sabre.

  “Oh, hey,” Deacon says as we catch our breath, “Rita said not to pack your drums tonight. Just bring breakables.”

  “Shit.”

  While it’s nice not to lug my own gear, I always hate it when I have to use someone else’s drum kit. Even after I adjust the height and the angle of everything, it still feels weird. My balance is always off and I never play quite as well. We go back to the basement, and I grab what I need. Snare, pedal, cymbals, sticks—all the things that can break. All the things drummers don’t share.

  It’s cold out, but the Sabre warms up quickly. The front dash smells like hot dust and there’s a faint memory of cigarettes in the upholstery. Deacon pushes a tape into the player, and music blares at us. He turns it down, but just a bit.

  “You’re going to kill your ears listening to ... whatever this is.”