In another week, the floodwaters had receded enough for school to open. On the first day, Monty and Bob and I walked around saying hello to the children. The little boys wore black shorts with white shirts and the little girls wore red dresses with white blouses. The REALLY little kids wore purple. I learned to avoid anything small wearing purple. They tended to cry and piss themselves if you got too near.
Monty held out his hand to each passing kid and said, “Good Morn-ing!” The Thai teachers simply nodded while the little ones waiied them respectfully. Whenever Monty's stuck his hand out in front of him, the kids fought to shake it—often in groups of nine or ten. And when they did get to shake hands, they didn't just shake. They yanked. They held on. They hit. Hell, I would too if a big dumb punching bag like Monty fell out of the sky and landed in my playground. The problem was that the kids naturally assumed that since one farang didn't mind the abuse, it must be open season on ALL farangs. The worst part was that when the kids weren't shaking hands or counting to ten, they were picking their noses, spitting into their palms, possibly wiping their asses. And I happen to come from the school that doesn't find kid spit, kid shit, or kid boogers to be cute.
“Say, Monty,” I said. “Just how did this whole hand shaking business get started, anyhow?”
“Oh,” said Monty, “I started it.”
“Do you think you could stop it?”
“Why would I want to stop it?” Monty kept shaking hands until a little boy socked him in the balls. Still smiling, Monty made his way to the bathroom and didn't come out again for twenty minutes.
Bob was relatively friendly with the students, or at least, he appeared to be. Bob was too bitter about losing his high paying position in Cairo. He didn't consider his current position to be any higher than, say, mailman or auto mechanic. I could hear Bob talking, but I only half understood what he was talking about. I understood that he loved his country and believed that any man could be a millionaire if he set his mind to it and a woman who can cook is a woman worth keeping and there might not be a heaven and hell but the good we do in this life will be rewarded in our next life and Egypt was really so much better than anything Thailand had to offer. I understood all that he had to say; it was the source I couldn't figure. Even if it were a mass of twisted wires all sparking and shorting each other out like in the case of Monty, I could say that I understood. Bob seemed to be a dent in the fender, a warp in the wood. I didn't want to argue with him, so I smiled and nodded. I didn't want to converse, so I smiled and nodded. I did a lot of smiling and nodding with Bob. Because how can one converse with a dent or a warp?
The next day, I stood in front of my first class and taught. I taught the first, second, and third grades. The kids sat in their seats and looked at me with large eyes. I went through the alphabet, then drew pictures of animals on the blackboard. I drew a duck, a dog, a pig, a cow, a snake, a bee, and a cat. Then, just for the hell of it, I drew a two-headed giraffe with wings. I was a natural born artist. When all the animals were on the board, I passed the eraser around and let the kids get rid of them, one by one. I remembered an education class I took in college, back when I was undecided about what I wanted to be in life. The class was a mixture of child psychology, methods of teaching, and rules of discipline. It came right after my James Joyce class. I got a C in both. I didn't go on to study further methods of teaching, nor did I continue to read much Joyce, but what I did discover in these classes, along with my entire college curriculum, was that there weren't many choices the world had to offer. College ended my indifference. By the time I graduated, I knew I didn't want to be a teacher, scientist, real estate broker, or literary what not. Yet, there I was, all dressed up with forty plus students under my thumb. We wrapped it all up with “The Hokey Pokey.” The students stood and cheered. I waved good-bye and made my exit.
Shit, this job was cake.
“Mister John!” It was Sangwan. She ran to my side and showed me her watch. It was twenty minutes past nine o'clock. “Class finish ten o'clock,” she said.
“You're kidding.”
Sangwan took me by the arm and led me back into class. Then she left. The kids weren't watching me anymore. They were making paper airplanes and throwing them across the room. They were standing on their chairs and hiding beneath their desks. There were little boys socking little boys and little girls trading yarn. I picked up a yardstick and tap tap tapped the desk in front of me.
“All right,” I said. “We've still got forty minutes together.”
A piece of chalk ricocheted off the blackboard. I picked it up and drew a picture of a goat. A couple of kids looked, then went back to their comic books, spit fights, paddycake and crayons. I pointed to the goat and said, “Baa-aah!” None of the kids were paying attention. So I cupped my hands around my mouth and hollered above the noise, “BAA-AAH! I'M A GOAT! BAA-AAH!”
Comic books, spit fights, paddycake, crayons.
A six-inch version of myself appeared on my left shoulder. “Say,” it said, “Do you know that you're baa-aah-ing like a goat?” “Yes,” I replied. “Now, fuck off.”
I took hold of my stick and began to walk up and down the rows. “All right,” I snarled. “Who wants some?” I wasn't really upset. Only assholes get upset with children. “Who wants some?”
A little girl sitting behind me lifted my shirttail and pointed to my underwear, two inches visible above my pants. The kids thought that was pretty funny. I didn't think that was funny at all. I thought about standing that girl in front of the whole class and lifting her dress over her head. Then I thought, no, that's probably not a good idea. So I lifted her desk instead and tilted it at an angle where all of her books and pencils slid onto her lap. The kids and I thought that was really funny.
Those first few days went by like an avalanche. I threw what I had out there and waited for it to sink in or bounce off. For twenty minutes or so, the lesson seemed to take effect. Then there was some invisible line crossed and the class went to hell. I had this fear that a blue-skirted teacher was going to stick her head in my room and ask what a former music store clerk was doing in front of a classroom of children. Hell, I was afraid the kids would catch on and start pointing their little fingers.
“Dishwasher!”
“Usher!”
“Temp worker!”
No one pointed the finger. Still, I waited. I dropped pieces of chalk down little boys' shirts and waited. I swatted little girls when they weren't looking, blamed it on the kid behind them, and waited. In the States, I'd be taken to court. I'd be fired and taken to court. These kids just laughed and laughed. They seemed to be on MY side.
Up above, the clouds rolled by, indifferent to the whole scene.
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