Thuyump! Theodore plunged down a Key Foods bag filled with papers onto a desk with twenty year-old coffee rings on it. Nearly toppling over a stray desk chair, Theodore tried finding his way out of his burly maroon winter jacket.
“Hello,” Theodore said, expecting more students.
“Hi, hello,” the man said. He seemed Russian, or Eastern European. He was wearing a neat button-down shirt with an urban dragon flamboyantly stitched onto it, something native-born Americans would find tacky. He had a thin moustache that hardly moved when he spoke.
“Where is everybody?” Theodore asked.
“Oh, they’ll be here soon,” he said, and yawned on the last word.
“And what is your name?”
“Igor,” he shifted his eyes, focusing his lowered eyes at Theodore. “I’m the best in the class,” he said matter-of-factly. “So, Dr. Drek not coming?”
“Yeah, no, he’s not coming. Not anymore. He’s sick and I’m substituting for the next two weeks until you take the CAT IV test. I’m Theodore.”
“You look so young. Like a student.”
“I know, I know. Everyone says that. Well, I’m just part time. But I love to teach and working with students. I think it’s my passion.”
“Well, that is good. I am happy you are the teacher.”
“Happy? Why? You don’t even know me yet. You might hate me.”
“Well, Dr. Drek not so good for me.”
“Oh yeah, how so?”
“Well, I am military man. In Russia I was in army. I do things on schedule, with strong routine. Look at my notes!” Igor lifted up his typewriter-type prose towards Theodore. “Dr. Drek not very helpful. He just talk about his wife problems most classes. I was very upset. I tell him, ‘you must teach us writing for exam,’ but he say that we are fine writers. But he never comment on our writing. I am very afraid for exam.”
“Huh, strange. He told you about his wife?”
“Oh yes. That is real reason why he not here. He going through bad divorce. It real bad, I guess.”
“Oh really, how do you know?”
“He tell us all. I wanted to quit class, but I need exam for my degree.”
Two more women walked into the room, carrying cold air on their coats into our shabby white room.
“Ask them,” Igor said, “Dr. Drek tell us all about his wife. He getting divorced.”
A black woman in her early thirties looked at Igor strangely, “yes, yes, Dr. Drek talk about his wife. But it not his fault, you know. He was not happy in his marriage for a long time and now he brave enough to speak out. Everyone should speak out when they not so happy.”
“Oh she like him so much,” Igor said lowly.
“What you say?”
“I said you like him.”
“He a good teacher and you should show him respect. He a teacher for 35 years and he want to help us…”
“He does not help us. He want us to stay right here, with him, miserable, a sad man.”
“Whoa, okay people. We’ve got to stop talking about your professor and start focusing on the next two weeks, so you can pass this test.”
An middle aged Asian woman peaked her head into the class, “this is English class?” she asked.
“Yes,” Theodore said, “come on in.”
“Where is Dr. Drek?”
“I’m your new teacher. Dr. Drek will be gone for the rest of the semester.”
“Gone? What, gone?” she looked around the room, slightly panicked, “Dr. Drek has my books. I lent him my class books since his wife threw his out. He needed them for copies. Now he’s gone?”
Theodore winced his eyes like a wrinkled blanket and put his teeth together and raised his lips, simulating pain. He felt like the ceiling was caving in, under snow. Monica would be happy to see him in a situation like this — standing at the wrong end of a shooting range, far from the educational politeness of the New School, stranded in a bakery of south Brooklyn’s discord.
“We are screwed,” the Asian woman began, “Dr. Drek say that we good writers, but he just wants us to fail exam.”
“Why would he want you to fail the exam? I find it hard to believe a professor would want his students to fail.”
“He thinks he can keep us here. To protect him. You know, some students like him and want to hear his awful stories. But it is ridiculous. I call the office to get out of this class, but it is the only one this semester. I just need to pass the test.”
“Alright. This is enough. I need everyone to sit down and let’s get started.”
Class was supposed to start at six, but most students showed up a half-hour late, and expressed similar polar views as to the disappearance of their previous teacher.
“He was having an affair with a Mexican woman,” a woman in the back row offered.
“Hey, listen,” Theodore politely snapped, “I’m really done talking about Dr. Drek. If anyone brings him up again, you have to leave the class.” Some students rocked back in their chairs, others just silently looked down at their books.
Outside, globs of wet snow fell. The broken blinds in our room just dared you to look through them, to imagine how you were going to escape, and navigate the soggy street gutters to find the slimy portal into the G train. Theodore felt an eerie pull, like the room was the center of a vacuum and he was suctioned to his seat.
After three hours of reading and pounding practice essay questions about “Sonny’s Blues,” it was time to depart.
“Okay. It was nice meeting you all. See you Wednesday and make sure you reread ‘Two Kinds’.”
“So, Dr. Drek really not coming back?” the black woman asked. She sounded Caribbean.
“As far as I know, no. You’re with me until to you take your exam in two weeks.”
“Ohhh. His divorce must be bad?”
“Yes, we’ve talked about it.”
“Did you say how she poisoning him?”
“What?”
“His wife be poisoning him. She even told him she poisoning him after she found the three women.”
Theodore felt like she was just trying to get a rise out of him. “Well, I don’t know what to say. I hope he’s OK. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
2
That night Theodore dreamt he was an air traffic controller for a no-where regional midwestern airport. His head was lowered and his posture was slumped as he was walking along a wintery tarmac at dawn. Of course, he was supposed to be up in the tower, directing planes and controlling flashing gadgets, but he couldn’t find his way to the airport. He could see the air traffic control tower in the distance, but flurries of snow somehow obscured the path to reaching it. Luggage loaders tooted by in orange vests ambulating on dented navy blue carts with airline symbols. Even though Theodore looked out of place in his administrative uniform, no one stopped to give him a lift. Next he heard a dull, roaring fuzz behind him, and turning around he saw a massive 747 touching down, at two hundred miles per hour. Scampering to the right like a gorilla on ice skates, Theodore narrowly escaped becoming 747 roadkill. Immediately after, Theodore looked up and saw another humongous air bus about to clip him over his epauletted shoulder…
The dream feed was severed by the hard digital imitation phone ring of a tiny Motorola phone under Theodore’s sagging mattress. In the melty 5:38 AM morning light, with face engulfed in pillow, Theodore scooped at his phone, but clumsily knocked it deeper under his bed. Like a bear rolling out of his stagnant winter cave, Theodore was now on all fours in his Fruit of the Loom white briefs clawing at his phone, one finger’s length out of reach. Then his paw snatched it.
“…Morning darling,” his mother began slowly, trying to resist smothering him with an Italian mom phone hug. She was a busy-body and always had errands to run. She and her husband made frequent trips to family in New Jersey and once and a while they went to the Coaster Hotel in Atlantic City. Today was one of those Atlantic City phone calls.
“Listen, we’re goin’ to my brother’s in Patterson for a night and then we’re gonna do AC for a night. We’re takin’ the bus and we’ll be back on Sunday morning. So what’s new with you, Mr. Hotshot, huh?”
“Hey mom,” Theodore said in a husky morning voice. “Yeah, I’m teaching a new class. It’s alright. I’m kinda still asleep. Can you tell…?”
“Yeah you sound like you’re on tranquilizers or somethin’. You got a lady over there? Don’ let me bother ya. We’ll be back Sunday. Can you believe your father’s wearin’ that wretched shirt with the bananas on it that Uncle Marty gave him. What a loon. People are gonna think he need special ed. Bananas. It’s crazy. Whateva. Call you. Love you. Bye.” Click.
“Thanks, mom.”
Theodore rolled out of bed and searched for some breakfast in the dim kitchen. All the food in the refrigerator had been wrapped in tin foil and strange black bags with printed Chinese characters on them. The light in the refrigerator had also been unscrewed. Vexed, Theodore poked around the counter and found Venus left a post-it note on the counter in meek handwriting that she was suffering from an eighteenth century version of hoof-and-mouth disease and didn’t want to leak it into the food supply. If he had still been living with Monica, they would’ve slept till ten, slowly woken up and then traipsed over to the West Village for poached eggs and greens and Bloody Maries over at Elephant and Castle. But no, now he was living in a building that smelled of curry, with a hypochondriac putting his food in Asian cat litter bags, and his most pressing task was to convince students to pay no mind to their philandering ex-teacher.
3
“I used to be a sharpshooter in the Russian army,” Igor said.
“I do accountant in Hong Kong,” said Larry.
“I play a piano for the older people in Romania, and I play basketball with them.”
“But, do many elderly people in Romania play basketball?” Theodore asked, squinting left eye behind his round glasses.
“Yes.”
“Alright, great.”
Theodore had students working on short autobiographies to practice their writing, and he wanted them to realize that their life experiences were important. He was appalled at how some students seemed totally demoralized by their education, and possibly previous teacher. Tatiana, a first generation twenty year-old Russian-American girl who worked at Silver Shears in Brighton Beach looked like she was two bobs away from taking silver shears to her wrists. Once after class she confessed to Theodore that she “grew up in a house with neither love or money, and a severely depressed mother who took all her cigarettes.” She said that Dr. Drek told her she had spunk, she had life, but she couldn’t connect a sentence like she could cut bangs. Maybe she make a u-turn from the physical therapy track she was on and do beauty school. Theodore was sympathetic, although privately, the middle-class writer in him saw this as gold material for countless short stories, at least three episodes on a Russian-American reality TV show, or at least some immigration experience street cred.
“Would anyone like to volunteer what they’ve written?” Theodore probed.
“Sure,” Igor said plainly, “okay. Since twenty years I was sharpshooter in Russian Army. In mornings we eat breakfast, eggs, some ham, some olady, yes some vodka too. We were training all day to be better shooters. Captain was a tall man with small moustache, like mine. More taller than pomegranate tree. One day the captain came back from a village with three women dressed in black tops. Captain said to me: Igor you are the best shooter here. You receive two women. Everyone else, one. I miss army.” Igor chuckled lightly at himself, amused. “This before I get married. You understand.”
Everyone rolled their eyes. Igor always thought he was the best. Chloë, the black Caribbean woman, rolled up her lips grotesquely like she was going to hurl.
“Oh oh, he’s a dog, right?” May, the Asian woman missing her textbooks, said.
“Would anyone else be willing to read their autobiography?”
“Ok, yeah, I’ll read,” Chloë said, eager to outdo Igor. She sat straight up in her seat.
“I lived in a small village near Kingston in Jamaica where I took care for my five younger sisters and brothers. My father was a hardworking man and drove a taxi and so did his brother. My father’s brother lived with us in our small one floor home. Once the government told everyone that an awful storm was coming and everyone must leave their home. Nobody listens to the government and we decided to stay home and my uncle and father hammer large boards over the doors and windows. On the day of the storm it gets dark and we light candles and sit in the living room. My younger brothers and sisters were crying and the dog sat quiet in the corner. We waited a long time but no storm come. Everyone was getting hungry and so they said ‘Chloë make us some food.’ Because people always ask me to do thing for them. In the house there was not enough chicken for everyone. I was so mad that they did not prepare food for the storm. But I obey, so I decide to go out and find some more chicken.”
“The sky was dark, but it look safe. No storm coming now I said. However, once I get one mile from my house, the rain start real hard, hitting me like bullets. Lightning flashed in the sky and it get real dark and hard wind. I find a small place to lie down under a door I find along the road. My family mus’ be so worried about me, but the rain too hard to walk in. When the rain stop I come out and the water up to my knees. The news say this hurricane Ivan and we all survived. I hope that since I have been so strong I can keep going and finish my education and make my family proud.”
Everyone in the class applauded, except Igor, who made a sideways grin.
“Oh my goodness,” Larry said. “You must have been so, scared.”
“I was,” Chloë said. “I was hiding under an old door from someone house. And I just pray to God I don’ get hit by lightning or nothin’. Oh, my. Mr. Theodore it was scaaary.”
“Mr. Professor, Mr. Professor, I am confused, though. Can we write stories like this on final essay?” Sivan, a flustered, red-faced Iranian woman asked.
“Yes, definitely. Your experiences make important connections to the literature we read.”
“Oh, but Mr. Professor, our last teacher say we cannot.”
“Well it depends on the assignment, sure. But for this exam you can. In fact, it you will probably have a better chance of passing, if you write about some aspect of your life. On the essay, show how literature helps you think about your life.”
“Oh wow, professor. I never heard of this.”
“Who else has had a teacher who said you cannot talk about your real life in writing?”
Everyone raised their hands.
“Mr. Professor, most of us has had Dr. Drek for last class and class before that, so we all told same thing, Professor,” Sivan said. Her voice was very high, and monotone in pitch, so it sounded like an overactive child repeatedly punching a doorbell.
“Really? You’ve had Dr. Drek more than once?”
“Some of us, many times had him.”
“Huh. Who here has had Dr. Drek more than once?”
Most of the class raised their hands.
“Has anyone had him three times?”
Same hands.
“How many classes have you taken with him?”
“Professor, I cannot remember. We’ve always had Dr. Drek. For a while now. We need to pass the exam while he is gone. Please, Professor.”
