I Can Prove I'm an Optimist. I Got Out of Bed, Didn't I?

The rule in drama seems to be sets of uneven numbers -- three being more exciting than two or four, and so on.  But, this being the early 21st century, with everyone having far too much to do, with still that silly limit of just 24-hour days in which to do it, I think I'll stick to just the two tales today, which either point to my innate belief that the world is a far better place than it seems determined to show itself to be, or to my inability simply to lie down and let the paving truck do its work.  Jury is still out.  Asphalt is still warm...

After my adventures as a college drop-out (which designation I didn't realize I had earned until long after it could have done me any good.  Like, made me seem sexier in dark places...), I returned to Penn State, to take up my books again, and earn that all-important Bachelor's Degree.  But this time, instead of living in a single room, with no cooking (And no guests.  But no limit to the amount of noise or smoke one might want to produce), I was invited to share a little house, way out in the country, about 25 miles from the State College central campus.  As the owner of a little red VW Beetle (originally from Germany), I had the requisite mobility; with the other tenants of this four-bedroom dwelling all sharing the monthly overhead of $43 (not a misprint -- four ten dollar bills, and three ones, delivered every month to the wife of the property caretaker.  She always seemed to be smelling my clothes), my rent had gone way down; as the recipient of a monthly stipend from the government, due to my military service, plus a non-specified 10% service-connected disability, I felt fairly able to meet my obligations while I learned... whatever it was I was taking then. 

But, one thing leads to another.  One car expense, for instance, lead to a $300 repair bill, largely because I didn't know better than to take my little car to the VW dealership, where the polished concrete floor was more reflective than my bathroom mirror, and I couldn't just walk in and drive my car away, mostly because it was up on a lift with its innards spilling out in awkward ways.

So, burdened with this new debt, I went to the Student Aid Office, to see about getting a low-interest loan of maybe a thousand bucks.  This didn't seem outrageous, and would provide a bit of a cushion, should the other side of my dar decide to fall off without notice.  But the man in the Student Aid Office seemed to misapprehend both where he worked, and what his job description actually was.  I think he believed he was working in the Student Intimidation and Humiliation Office, where he would have been either a kaiser, or a tsar.  And he would have had a standard-issue riding crop, with which to slap the desk, when the student in question seemed to be losing concentration.

Now, this next part may seem insensitive, but this man only had one arm.  His nice tweed jackets had one sleeve neatly pinned up, and as he wore a wedding ring, I assumed that it was his wife who put the pins in place each day, and sent him off to work.  Where, if it was time for one of my appointments, he would sit on the edge of his desk, with the window behind him, and lean over me, and insist that the best thing I could do -- flicking a pencil at the desk to emphasize his every word -- would be to 'Sell.  Your.  Car." 

It seemed a real issue for him. Perhaps, to him, my little red VW represented a level of fun and freedom he couldn't bear to see flaunted about in his own office.  It didn't make any difference, apparently, that the car actually had no back seat, for the kind of shenanigans he might have imagined -- and being a VW, even with a back seat, shenaniganning was less attractive in reality than in fiction.

But these are just conjectures on my part.  What I did know, for sure, that selling my car, and moving back into the high-rent district that was State College of the day, would only make my financial woes more woeful.  He would sit there, at meeting after meeting, not getting his way on what he considered a non-negotiable point in granting me this load.  Until finally, with a palpable disdain, as though washing his hand of me, he relented and pushed the papers across his desk, for me to sign, and then, to get out.  I could almost hear him, as the door shut behind me, "And don't come back crying to me when you wish you'd sold that car!"

I never did wish I'd sold that car.  I did wish I'd changed the oil, but that's another matter.  I also wish, in retrospect, that instead of fixating on my mobility, this Student Aid professional had done just a little investigating, to find that, in fact, because of my status as a disabled Veteran, the state of Pennsylvania was prepared to pay my tuition bills -- thus relieving me of a substantial amount of my college expenses.  Which discovery I made, almost accidentally, with the help of another University professional who worked in an entirely different capacity.  All the while, the other gentleman, the one with the pinned sleeve, was being regularly reimbursed for doing what, to me, seemed a pretty slipshod job...    

And now, a more recent tale.  Which I will attempt to keep as compact and detail-free as possible, yet as rich as necessary, for both your comprehension and enjoyment.  In fact, let's make it like a fairy story.  We'll call it 'The Little Favor"

Once upon a time, nine years ago and ninety miles from here, there was a school.  It was an old school, in an old city, and the school had many students who all wanted to learn how to make art.  All kinds of art: movies and cartoons, fabrics and pottery, jewelry and typefaces.  It was a busy place.

One day, one of the teachers, who had been teaching for a long time, decided that his days of teaching were over, and that he needed to take a rest.  So the school looked far and wide, because they wanted the best possible replacement for their retiring colleague.  Finally, they offered the job to someone who was very surprised, because in all his life, he never thought he would be able to teach artists, in an art school!  At first, the school seemed happy, and the students seemed quite happy, and the new teacher, called Mr. Grey, because of his grey hair, was the happiest of all.

And so it went, for five years.  Mr. Grey coming ninety miles each week, to teach his students many things.  And at the end of that year, Mr. Grey was called into the office of another teacher, Mr. Pink.
"Oh Mr. Grey," said Mr. Pink, "I have a terrible problem.  I must take a vacation next year, and there's no one to do the extra things I do, to help the students and all the other teachers.  But if I don't take my vacation, I may never get a vacation again.  Can you help me, Mr. Grey?  Can you take my place?"

Mr. Grey thought and thought, and then he said, yes he would.  He would be glad to help Mr. Pink.  So the paperwork was all done, and Mr. Pink got his vacation (even though, almost every week, he visited, to play with the wonderful tools the school had for the students to use), and Mr. Grey continued to teach his students, while he went to new meetings,, and met new people.  It all seemed very nice, and everyone seemed very happy.

Then, there was an important test, but not for all the students.  This time, the test was for the teachers, especially the teachers like Mr. Grey, who were now doing extra work for their departments.  The test was set by Mr. Cash.  'Bring me a list," Mr. Cash said.  "It must list all the money that you spend, to pay the wonderful teachers, plus an extra gift for them, because they've been so good.  The list must also contain all the money you spend, to buy the clay, and the jewels, and the movie film, and other things that the students need, in order to learn.  And the most important thing is this: even though you are giving an extra gift to the teachers, you list, when everything is all added up, must come out to be just the same as last year's list!  Won't that be fun?"

No on seemed to think this would be fun at all.  After Mr. Cash had gone back to his office, there was much grumbling and complaining.  How will we do this, the other teachers cried.  But Mr. Grey was calm.  He knew it had to be something silly -- a joke of some kind, to make them all laugh.  So, while the other teachers were working very hard, to make the list Mr. Cash wanted (and sometimes, to make the list work right, there weren't as many classes as the year before, and some of the teachers, instead of getting extra gifts, had no classes to teach at all!), Mr. Grey made a very sound and very sensible list.  He knew how much things had cost, and how much more they would cost, and he made his list just right.  And he handed it in, early in fact.  And no one said a single thing.

And the next September, when Mr. Pink returned from his vacation, Mr. Grey told him he looked refreshed.  But instead of saying thank you, Mr. Pink asked Mr. Grey into the office, and shut the door.  "Mr. Grey," said Mr. Pink sternly, "I've bee told that some of the other teachers weren't happy with the things that you were doing while I was away.  I'm afraid I'll have to tell our very important supervisor, Mr. White."
 
Well, Mr. Grey was shocked.  No one had said that anything was wrong.  In fact, at all the meetings that they had, they always talked about the things they had to talk about, and everyone got a turn, and there was laughing, and often there was cake (which was mostly Mr. Grey's idea).  How could there be anything wrong?    

Soon, Mr. Grey was called into Mr. White's office as well.  Mr. White had a very soothing tone of voice.  He had always seemed to like Mr. Grey.  And he seemed as puzzled as Mr. Grey was.  "There's only one thing I can think of to do," said Mr. White.  "And here's what it is.  I'm going to ask each of your fellow teachers to send me a letter, in private, to tell me what you did.  And of course, you won't be able to see these letters," Mr White explained, "because they'll only be for me.  And when I've seen them all, we'll decide what we must do."

Well, it seemed very very strange to Mr. Grey.  And he didn't know what to do.  There was no one else at the school, so busy teaching art to young artists, to talk with about this.  He did ask Mr. Brown, and Miss Black, and one or two other teachers, to send their own letters to Mr. White, to explain what they knew about Mr. Grey and his work of teaching art to young artists.  But mostly, all Mr. Grey could do was wait, and continue his work, even though. every day, he had to work with other teachers who might be saying unpleasant or untrue things about him.  It began to make him very ill.

Weeks later, Mr. White called Mr. Grey up to his office once again, and closed the door.  Mr. White brought out a letter, and let Mr. Grey read it.  'This is what the others have told me," said Mr. White, "and on this page, is what I have decided that I must do."  Mr. Grey read slowly -- it had been a long day, and he had to drive ninety miles to his home, after this meeting.  But the things in the letter didn't seem to make sense -- they didn't even seem to say anything at all.  The thing that was the most plain, out of everything, was something about Mr. Cash's list.

"I had to work very very hard," said Mr. White, "to come up with a list the way Mr. Cash wanted it.  And even so, I couldn't do it all the way.  And this is your fault."  He seemed quite upset.

"But Mr. White," exclaimed Mr. Grey, "didn't Mr. Cash say it was all a mistake, an that none of the teachers would get the special gift after all?"

"That doesn't matter," said Mr. White. "Even if it was the most stupid thing in the world, you should have done it anyway.  That's more important than teaching art to young artists.  We also feel that you were too funny, and you had too much cake.  You may go."

So Mr. Grey walked to his car, and drove ninety miles to his lovely, lonely home.  He didn't quite know what to do.  A week later, he got another letter from Mr. White, with an outline of the things Mr. Grey would have to do, in the coming year, to prove that he could be a teacher, to teach art to young artists, and all the things in the letter seemed to make Mr. Grey sadder still.  How could he sit, for instance, at the feet of Mr. Pink each week, to learn how to be a good teacher, when most of the students thought Mr. Grey was a fine teacher already?  And how would he work with the people he had thought were his friends, when he didn't know what they had said about him, to Mr. White?  It was very painful and very confusing.

Finally, one day, Mr. Grey's loving life-partner, Mr. Blond, said, "Why are you even thinking about this?  Why are you letting this make you sick?  This is hurting both of us."

And this was the thing that made the most sense, to Mr. Grey.  He thought some more, and then he sent a letter to the school, and said he didn't think it was such a good idea for him to be teaching there any more, even though teaching art to young artists was the thing he loved most in all the world.  And he went to the school one afternoon, with a rented truck, and emptied out his little office, and his little work space, and when he had swept the floor and emptied the trash can, he closed the back of the truck, and said good bye to the security guard, and drove away.  And he never went there again.

So.  The man with the pinned sleeve was an amateur, in my estimation, to some of the semi-fictionalized characters in my story.  And they, like the man I came to call The One-Armed Bandit, continue to draw salaries, and have insurance coverage, and be the representatives of a place teaching art to artists.  And maybe I'm just far more stupid than I can grasp.

But betrayals (which is how I typify these events) are not on a par with, say, having an eighteen-wheeler plunge through the living room wall.  One assumes the truck driver didn't have the GPS coordinates for the barcalounger programmed into the steering wheel.  In my case, I was left to wonder that, to all appearances, the academic equivalent of gratitude is vengeance.  I was left in amazement that a scenario I might expect to wonder at, onstage, in a play about Kafka, would instead be playing out in my own professional life.  Secret letters?  Confidential accusations?  No recourse? 

I don't think I can adequately express how shamed and disillusioned I am at this, and how damaged I feel, that this unlooked-for dream should be snatched from my hands (hands that had proved more than capable of the duties involved), out of pique.  I try, every day, to find some thin bonus, some tendril of 'well, at least I have...", to make the real loss seem less devastating. 

Two years have passed.  My heart, now is literally broken, but under repair.  My energy seems at a constant low ebb, but there are the new medications, which may...  The transformative abilities on which I've always been able to call -- feeding chunks of raw life onto an internal conveyor belt, and sending them on their way toward some resurrection as art -- don't seem as readily available to me now.  Maybe all of this is normal.  Betrayals certainly seem to be.  But I've never been exactly here before, with so little of my own life left, before, so I wouldn't know.  I can only guess.

'God Never Gives Us More Than We Can Handle', a waitress says confidently, as she brings me a coffee.   'Life Isn't Fair,' the same waitress says, glancing over the headline photo, of the truck in someone's living room.  I don't expect a clear answer to anything.  I would deeply appreciate a hint, from time to time, that at least some others feel as disoriented and philosophically unsteady in life as I do. 

But, I got out of bed...