| Vacationland Chapter 1, Page 2 As the afternoon wore on, the duo of Andrew and I took over the session. It wasn�t conscious, but we started to play Beatles song after Beatles song. He would play a riff � �I Feel Fine� or �Day Tripper� � or he�d sit at Jay�s keyboard and knock out �Let It Be� or �Hey Jude� note for note, and I would grab the mike and start singing (and occasionally pausing with embarrassment because I had forgotten some of the words). When we noticed the others looking annoyed or bored, we would turn to them for a request, but soon enough Andrew would rip into another riff and we were off. At one point the vice principal walked in. Shit, I said to myself, I had intended to tell him about this. He looked around the room, smiled at me and then left. Well, the school hadn�t hired me for my teaching experience (I had none), they hired me because I was good with kids (plenty of experience there). That was what I brought to the table. I got involved in extra-curricular activities, I didn�t walk away when the dismissal bell rang at the end of the school day, and I got involved in the kids� lives. After all, this was where I had gone to high school; and this neighborhood was where I grew up and still lived. We played on. At times my left hand cramped up as I tried to hold bar chords. I had been used to playing while I was sitting around on the couch in my apartment, not standing up. This was a different angle for that left wrist. I was, however, enjoying playing with, and in front of, others. It was exciting. And the kids were great. None of us wanted our little musical interlude to come to a close. The school year lay behind us; the summer before us. However, as long as we stayed in that classroom we were in some type of in-between state, an airlock between worlds, a sort of wonderland. But all things must pass. The Beatles, great as they were, eventually broke up. The boys had become men, and they went their separate ways. And, after three and a half hours, at almost three o�clock, it was time for us to do the same. Jason was the first. He had to head through the tunnel and beat the traffic � as much of it as he could, for at three in the afternoon in Boston, it is already ridiculous. After he brought his keyboard out to the car and the boys helped him with his amplifier, he came back up to say goodbye. He shook my hand. I�d be seeing him during the summer, but � after nine months of having class with them every day -- this may well have been the last time he�d see these kids. I would have been more emotional; I was when I left kids at my previous job. Jason said, �Well�goodbye�� and then, his lips tightened, unsure what else to do or say, he nodded his head and was off. The kids gathered up their stuff and went downstairs to use the pay phone. I packed my acoustic guitar in the cheap black case that I had from my first guitar, which I got when I was thirteen. On the case there were two bumper stickers, which I had placed on there years earlier; one of them just said �Maine� and the other one read �I�ll take New England any day.� Snapping shut the case fasteners, I took a look around the room, which had been my homeroom when I was a freshman at St. Dymphna. Then I locked it up for the summer. I tossed my gear in my red Geo Prizm and then joined the students on the stairs, where they waited for their rides. Soon their parents pulled up and I shook hands with the kids and wished them well during the summer. �Start your summer reading early,� I said, and when the last of them drove away, I was there alone, trying to figure out why I suddenly felt so lousy. The end of the school year, which I had so looked forward to, had come. I was free to do as I pleased for the next eleven weeks: no papers, no grades, no alarm clock! Besides the breakup luncheon the following afternoon, which was a free meal and therefore not to be missed, my calendar was open from that moment until September 1. Yet despite my newfound freedom, I felt down, bummed, blah. I had counted down the moments until the end of school, and now it all seemed so bittersweet. I started up the Prizm and headed home. By four thirty I had poured down two beers and I was sitting on my couch strumming the black Yamaha. I wasn�t much of a drinker and it was rare for me to have any before nightfall, but they were in the fridge and I felt like I needed them. I didn�t know what else to do with myself. God, when school had first begun, I would come home and sit down and get right to work, correcting papers, planning the next day�s lessons, reading whatever my students were supposed to read for homework. I remember many nights during the year when I would start to doze off at the keyboard while putting together a test, or when I�d finally give in and close a book only after I had read the same line a dozen times and it still made no sense to my fatigued brain. That first year had been a lot of work -- many days of long hours. Now it was over, and my time was all mine. This would be the best summer, I had told myself�and everyone else. The first and only summer where I would be completely without responsibilities. The following summer, I was planning to go back to school for my master�s degree and I figured that, because of school and the cost, I�d have to spread classes out over a considerable span, so I might be in school for several summers to come. It was all part of my plan: I was going to stay at St. Dymphna for five years, get some experience, get my master�s, and then get a job teaching somewhere in Maine. Some quiet, out of the way place where the pay was better and the cost of living lower so that eventually I could get a small house off a dirt road and live simply, enjoy the beauty of the land and write. What I really wanted to do with my life � what I had always really wanted to do with it � was to write; to be a novelist. I had been writing on and off since I was very young; unfortunately, motivation had always been a bit of a problem. I could never seem to push myself enough, to find that inner spark, to have the Muses sing their sweet song to me. I started and abandoned more stories than I care to remember. That was all going to change now because I had the summer free and clear before me and I was going to sit down every day before my computer screen and I was going to write. There would be no excuses now. I picked myself up off the couch and brought my computer to life. I thought about Jason, who had to be feeling worse than I was. I would see most of these kids in a couple months; heck, I would see many of them throughout the summer -- at the mall, at Revere Beach, or just around the neighborhood. Soon, Jason would be off to law school and probably a successful career after that. But I knew that he would never be able to forget the kids. You cannot be with them day in and day out for a period of months and then just walk away. They get to you. They burrow under your skin like ticks and, though they don�t quite cause Lyme disease, they affect you in other ways. I understood that, and so I got online and sent Jason an email. It was a line from one of the songs we had played that day: �Closing time; every new beginning leads to some other beginning�s end.� |