Oslo Forest

Today was payday. No, tomorrow was payday, but by accidental good fortune, Farthing’s credit union always processed his paycheck a full 24 hours before it should have. Thus, Farthing was always happiest a day earlier than most everyone else, whose lighter spirits coincided also with the end of the work week.
The damper was the arrival of the potential new student. Today was the day of reckoning, of evaluation. Lorna was out on bus duty with three other staff, helping to remove the students from the buses which were lined and curbed in the lengthy parking lot like stacked planes. The staff began at the far end, and worked their way back, escorting the kids toward the path behind the long gate that ran the length of the sidewalk next to the buses. “Walk on down to class,” the drifters and pause’rs were urged.

“Level 7. This is Lorna in the bus bay. The Bumble Bee is on his way back. And, I see Elvis has also entered the building,” she said, via walkie talkie.

“That’s the new kid!” said Flannery, back in the room, while Farthing sat at the computer fiddling with the morning’s music selection. He was not sure what type of mood he was in, conflicted between the euphoria of an available paycheck and the gloom of being killed by a strange new kid with unknown powers of destruction. Amelia always liked George Strait, and the music player on the desktop was stacked with that singer’s straight talk.

The Bumble Bee was a short little seventeen year old who looked about eight and acted about five, and all due to some syndrome beyond his control. When he arrived from his bus, the room had to be notified, as the Bee often liked to lag and drift and say hello and look around as though all was wondrously new, even though, well, it wasn’t. He was a man at leisure, with the clothing and posture of an old man; he liked to say hello really loud to the ladies, and smile admiringly at the bigger kids, and make like a walk down a crowded Mumbai lane in the evening; if there was food misplaced or lying about, he might take a moment to eat all of it, and arrive at the room a good deal later than he should and with innocence and chocolate on his lips.

You had to check his lunch to make sure he had not huddled in some until now unknown crack in the wall to munch it all. If he did, he would make a good go of lying about it, suggesting negligence on the part of the sandwich maker back at the ranch called home. There was always a slightly supernatural edge to his explanations because the facts never stacked up. But Bumble Bee was a good kid and the school was the best place for him to be. Each day when he walked in the classroom door, whether with the crumbs of guilt or smile of innocence, he was happy to be exactly where he was.

“Hi Flannery. I am here! You see me?” said Bumble. It was always some variation of that. He wanted to be sure that you saw him.

Soon after, the new student arrived with mother and speech pathologist and several administrators. He was not actually going to be a permanent part of the class just yet. They wanted to see how the kid did for an hour or two. Would he participate? Would he stay seated? Would he remain quiet or start to flap his arms and yelp? Would he take instruction or lash out with a pencil and kill Flannery dead.

Farthing wore his white shirt, because if blood was to fly, he wanted it to look as vivid as possible so that there would be no question of whether the child should be placed permanently in the class. “We would love to have him, but, well, Farthing’s shirt is just a bloody mess and that will be a bugger to get that stain out,” the family would be told, and the student sent off to a better, more appropriate place.

In actuality Farthing suspected the morning would prove uneventful, but liked to imagine some mayhem as it made for a more interesting workday.

Farthing adjusted, or tried to. They were a classroom of four, but several someones in neighboring classes got fired, or suspended indefinitely, which meant that Amelia would be pulled from the class and placed in charge of another. She was needed more, elsewhere, and the lack of her presence in Level 7 changed things just so. Farthing was not entirely pleased at this disturbance in the force, but thought it was a great opportunity for Amelia.

It was the beginning of the second week of Amelia’s absence when news arrived that a new student would be placed in their class. They were down to just twelve students from twenty-two the previous year. It was an oddly matched bunch, hitting the extremes of the capability spectrum, and with several kids having physical ailments that made them quite delicate. The Wonder Twins, as he called them, would not be coming on Friday’s field trip to Cardinal’s stadium because of that frailty: too much walking, steps and sun, slopes and light, would make it difficult going. Their mother decided to keep them home that day. He wondered what would happen when the new student arrived the next week. He was expected to be tall, burly, unruly and quite unplaceable with any other school. The powers, working with the district and parents, decided to give it a go and evaluate him.

As Farther listened to the description of this soon arriving stranger, he pictured Bruce Banner in teen form, exploding without undue provocation into a Hulk, and with children tossed about the room and running for their lives.

“Get the mats!!” Flannery cries, trying to restrain the new kid.
“Children, over here, get in the corner,” Lorna commands, shielding the kids with her motherly resolve.
“I am trying Flannery, I’ve got to ‘ave more time,” Farthing answers, racing to the office between Level 7 and 6 to get the mat on which the marauder and destructor of continuity can be restrained.

The new kid flings the chairs and pulls down the metal cabinet and stands with feet atop two student tables and yanks down the cardboard street sign hanging from the ceiling that Amelia helped Farthing hang for their “Classroom City” unit. Farthing runs with the red mat toward Flannery, who is holding the new kid by the leg and being dragged across the floor. New kid is tall, 7′7 or even taller, and grabs at Farthing to rip his head off his shoulders and eat it. Farther ducks, hitting his head on the table, knocked out cold. New kid turns on Flannery and smashes him in the chest with free foot. “Lorna call the administrators!” Flannery shouts, barely able to catch a breath. Cheryl next door approaches through the office, asks what in the world is going on, and says Level 7 needs to keep it down as they are working on a government unit next door. She turns and leaves.

This outcome would not be possible if the curve of continuity had not been interrupted with the departure of Amelia to Level 5. Farthing wondered if the student arriving next Thursday would be the harbinger of a descent into classroom hell. But it would be an adventure as well. You couldn’t know what to expect with the students and often the picture given to you as their official bio was not quite the reality that greeted you. You never knew. All you could do was clear the mind, and wait and see and interact.

Level 4 was suffering its own version of change. Linda was fired, and to listen to Linda tell it, it was entirely without cause; she was dismissed because Anna, that room’s teacher, had it in for her. You could sit and listen to the explanation, and nod your head, and totally buy into the theory, so long as you discounted the multiple other possible theories that were more scientific. Sometimes missing a lot of work, or getting arrested and failing to clarify it to your employer, or taking cell phone calls from felonious boyfriends in prison during class, or interacting via internet with your students can get your fired, depending on who you work for. But Linda, no conspiracy theorist, knew the truth, and named names: Anna.

It was not an easy job, especially at the lower levels that Anna taught in. Each child came with a disability or three, and no two children, even with the same issue, were quite the same. Atop these foundations of born difficulty, lay the edifice of personality created by biology and the environment. The kids arrived at the school with behaviors that often had little to do with the uncontrollable elements of their primary disability. The same things you saw in standard kids–the indulged child, the faulty molding by parents–manifested itself atop the base disability. The task then, was to differentiate between those behaviors that were innate, unresolvable, and those that could be modified in such a way as to make the child’s life easier when they entered society. As the kids proceeded through each level, they improved drastically, although, others eventually reverted as their time to go approached. “It seems like with autism in particular, they close right up again as they hit their teens,” more than one teacher had commented.

The teachers at the lower levels had to deal with the worst of the behavioral issues. It appeared a thankless task that involved constant redirection, constant behavior modification and more than a few trips to the restroom to deal with bowel issues gone wild. Compared to what they did, and had to deal with, Farthing felt blessed.

He might have to deal with a potential destroyer of the classroom, and the loss of Amelia to another room, but he did not have to spend time redirecting poop from the floor to the toilet. Lacking that and a host of other indignities, life could be considered not too bad.

He stared up at the street sign. Virgina Road. Virginia. Virgin. The forty year old virgin. He had set his computer to download the movie while he was at work today, and he wondered now if his computer accomplished that task without interruption. It all depended on the connection, and whether the anonymous neighbor with the unsecured wireless network had left it open. His normal hookup involved plugging his computer into his phone, using it as a modem, and from all evidence, his phone did not really like being used that way. He always hoped for the good connection. But usually it was slow going.

He got out of the car, having reached his apartment complex, and said “Catch you later” to the driver.

He used to travel to work via bus north and then wait a bit before transferring to a second bus west. Now that light rail was running, he could shave more than a half hour off his time. Instead of heading east for the bus, he now walked west, and despite it all being in the neighborhood, there was a distinct economic difference between those two directional opposites.

West was better, with his preferred street lined with watercolors–purple, pink– and all the yards neatly flowered and grassed. In the mornings the bees, the birds, and a few dogs with their owners attached by leash were all outdoors to start the day. It could have been a street on Cape Cod, or some small college town back East, and far different from the beige developments that overwhelmed what was left of the Phoenix landscape. On the little street to light rail people had grass, and trees not merely palm, and one bold multilevel home set back off the curb home had a huge sculpture dominating the lawn; it said, “I am a little more unique, for I have art and culture on my grass.”

The other morning a woman smiled at him as she walked by with two dogs, and he thought, “Finally, an attractive pet lover out here.” There were always more women than men doing the early morning dog walk, and mostly rather plain faced. Sometimes it was an old woman passing by and giving him a big smile. “Good morning,” he always said with as much jolliness as he could muster so that she would not fear that he might be a killer getting an early start on a day of psycho-nontherapy.

Hoover Street was so pleasant that the distance of the block was not the bother it could have been. This morning he did not get that walk, opting instead to ride with a coworker. It was hot, he was hungry and not in the mood to deal with the public. This also meant his arrival would be later than normal and cutting into his decompression time.

That afternoon at the school it was time for birthday celebrations, always held the last Friday of each month. By holding one big celebration, and largely banning parents from involvement (interference), it simplified the process, while avoiding the types of snack food arms races that could develop if each child had their own day, and their own parent to stage manage. Today there were just two with birthdays: Charlie Brown, a student, and Vitalia, an assistant in the upper level division.

The school was divided between a lower level, which included practically everyone below the age of ten, and the upper level, dominated by those from 13 to 15, but including a few approaching 18 or even 21 and whose special circumstances dictated their continued attendance at the school.

“We won’t ask Vitalia’s age, but I’ve had a wonderful, wonderful time working with you ” said Cheryl, the teacher with whom she worked.
“Aw, and I’m not gonna tell my age either. It’s a secret, ” she said laughing.
“Vitalia just turned 21,” shouted one of the kids.
“Okay, okay, do any of the students have something to say to Charlie or Vitalia?” asked Flannery.
Hands shot up.
“Bart, go ahead, give it up,” said Flannery.
“I just, you know… I wanna say you are my favorite teacher ever. And I really like you, and I think you are the best teacher and I like being your teacher…you being our teacher.”

Bart stood with hands in pocket, round arms eclipsed by the huge oval arm holes on his muscle shirt, and Farthing wondered what rationale in the home allowed such a thing. It was the type shirt that even a fully muscular grown man could barely pull off without snickers and typecasting by others. He also wondered why Vitalia was this child’s favorite. He remembered a kid from the previous year, who pretty much fawned over every teacher but him. He liked to think of the child as the arch villain of his classroom life, though he never let on.

Several of the boys requested birthday hugs. “You mean you want to give a hug?” they were corrected, as each approached Vitalia. Farthing thought it a bit shady, knowing that boys, whether standard or with disabilities, were virtually the same creatures, and all perverse; at 13 years of age they might use any excuse to get close to a fully featured female. He raised his eyebrow. Had he been a woman, and had it been his birthday, and had he been asked that question, his response would be, “No! But you can hug Charlie sitting here next to me, or you can go home and hug your mom.” Farthing, being a man, didn’t trust them. Or himself. It was never totally clear.

“Okay, let’s sing Happy Birthday,” said Cheryl, “And we will do both versions!” and they did. Then it was out with the ice cream and chocolate chip cookies, with all the teachers lending a hand to construct ice cream sandwiches. After distribution, the teachers sat at the back table, commenting on ice cream, and cookie, and how good it would have been had they been frozen for a while.

Bart watched, then lifted a finger as he approached Vitalia at the desk as if to say something, but the words never got out of his mouth before she redirected him: “Bart, talk to you friends” with her fingers pointing the way back. He shoved his hands in his pocket and walked away, shoulders bent, but peeked back around for a one last glance look that certainly was not the one last glance.

“Hey, look at that. Notice the kids who are talking and those who are not.” said Cheryl.
“Uhm, yea it looks like…” began Farthing.
“All the kids with autism are the ones sitting alone,” she continued.
“Yea, that’s odd to see that played out. Almost to a person,” he added.

Flannery approached. “Hey, see that? You can really tell which of our kids have autism.”
“We were just talking about that,” said Cheryl.

Farthing watched the kids, some smiling into the air, some flipping frantically through books, others huddled up front like a clique of cool kids. He also knew that if he were he a kid, regular or standard, he would be seated alone, flipping a book, and wondering things nobody could fathom or understand.

It was Saturday night and Alexander Farthing was at home eating a late meal of Jamaican beef patties. He picked them up at Lee Lee’s Oriental market, but it was not the right brand. These were a bit too sweet, with hints of cinnamon or something not quite right. He had to choose between the $7 pack of two of the wrong brand or the $14 pack of ten of his preferred brand. He opted for the smaller pack in a weak effort to remain somewhat loyal to his twin goals of eating better and not spending the last dollar of his small paycheck. He was only seven days into the school year, so his pay on Friday covered two days, which was about enough money to be regrettably blown entirely by accident. A beef patty here, a McD’s spicy chicken there, a movie, and suddenly he could find himself eating Ramen noodles for the next two weeks.

Two days before he had arrived late for work by about a half hour, and it was enough to discombobulate his entire day. Farthing was a creature of habit, and up until now, and through his first year, and contra previous work habits at other more distant jobs, he was rarely late. Arriving early was the thing that left him at maximum tranquility. He could get off the bus, have time to hit the restroom, do some prep work, and eat breakfast, and all at leisure.

“What happened, is everything okay?” asked Shamus the Teacher when Farthing arrived, and the other two assistants stared at him as though his head was made of something unusual. “I’m fine, just woke up late,” he said, somewhat ashamed at the utter dullness of his excuse. He wished for a more riveting explanation. “My two year old started a race riot at her preschool,and my ex-girlfriend tried to shoot me” he did not say to anyone, and it was moments like this when he realized the utility of having a child or life drama, neither of which he had.

The students arrived on the previous Tuesday, but one could never be sure who would actually be on the roster. There was a recession on, and the state was cutting back money to the districts, and the districts were moving many services in house instead of subcontracting them out to private schools. There was also some esoteric school contract bidding change that one of the owners of the school had explained in somewhat vague fashion during the staff meeting, and which caused Farthing to wonder if he should have a backup plan.

The Sunflower school was small, perhaps 80 or so kids in seven levels of instruction, and targeted towards their individual educational needs. Indeed it was a school for those with developmental disabilities of one type or another, and each student arrived as a registered member of one of the many school districts in the Phoenix area. Thus while the school was privately owned, it still remained dependent on the state and city districts, their whims, finances and preferences.

Thursday’s late arrival only served to dampen Farthing’s normally euphoric moment which occurred every other Thursday at 8:24 a.m., when his paycheck would hit his bank account a full day earlier than those of his coworkers. He glanced at an email on his cell phone alerting him to the new deposit, but arriving late was gnawing at him. It was a bad sign so early in the year. Bad habits were a slippery slope. If you are late on day six, then certainly by the one hundredth day you will be missing entire weeks.

Sometimes it rains when you least expect it. And when you are merely a man on the backside of the desert, and filled with frequently flaring lust for water, rain is relief and joy and rest. To have to rise and actually go to work in such coziness defied the nature of the gift, and he imagined God laughing aloft the cloud. “I will give you what you want, but you shan’t fully enjoy it, and must work instead of sleep.”

God would say shan’t as surely as he would tempt and mock. Alexander Farthing hardly expected any less from an invisible God, and walked through certain days certain that he was heaven’s favorite source of amusement.

He showered, got dressed, grabbed his umbrella and backpack and headed off to his second year at Sunshadow School up somewhere north. In the desert, and if when one hails from regions filled with rain and distinct seasons, you begin to imagine the rain as brighter than the light from the sun, and more than mere water.

It was late August in Phoenix, and school districts one by one began drawing their students back in, cutting vacations and leisure short. No matter that it was hot, 115 degrees of hot, and that if by some unfortunate accident you managed to knock yourself out, you would lay there baking into a loaf of man on the sidewalk. It was the nature of the city and its satellite cities to make as though all was normal, and you were not in the oven. Phoenix toddled after New York, Chicago, or Atlanta, smiling along the way saying, “Aren’t we all fabulous cities, and what friends we are.” But no city in the middle of a desert is normal, no matter the appearance and pretenses. It takes an irrational type of man to start a city in a desert, and to try to force the desert into the normative behavior of a non-desert region. It took a crazy person, or a bunch of crazies actually, and no amount of stadiums or new light rail trains would obscure that lack of practicality.

Thursday and Friday there would be no real work. Just arranging the room, pulling books to use for the reading, language and math groups, and sitting through various meetings. On Thursday at 9 am the staff gathered themselves in a circle on chairs fit for much smaller derrieres. The owner of the school welcomed them back, and invited each staff member to share their summer experiences. Farthing was not born with the constitution to be a sharer, nor did his summer circumstances lend themselves to animated story telling: he was not pregnant with future man-child, he hadn’t biked with his best coworker friend 20 miles or gone to a family reunion in New Mexico, he had not been to Disney, nor bought the house next door so that his granddaughter could be within a hug’s distance. Such were the tales told, and as interesting as they were, it upped the pressure. When away from school, you ought to return with a story to tell, no?

It seemed an equal balance between those who did a lot, and those who did nothing, but even those who didn’t travel or “vacation” had accomplished a lot; Farthing was among the do nothings, having neglected for practical reasons to pro-rate his salary at the previous year’s start, and leaving himself in permanent mental dichotomy for the entire summer break, both wanting the summer to end in order to have money and something meaningful to do, and wanting the summer to never end in order to avoid ever having to do anything meaningful at all.

He assumed that the lazy, hungry, bored and ambitious parts of his brain would re-harmonize sometime in September. His first free paycheck, one he could blow without spontaneous homelessness, would come on September 18th. He had calculated that out, and set that day as his first moment of potential optimum happiness. He hoped the arrival of students next week would provide sufficient distraction till that date arrived. That was over a month away.

And today was Thursday, the first day, with tables to move, and coworkers to say hello to, and daydreaming to be set aside. He arrived early, as was his deliberate habit, and, back in the room, he turned the air conditioner down to 72. The desert is hot. No reason for the room to be, ever.