Standing
As usual, I was standing and waiting outside of the Teacher’s Lounge for Mrs. Buzzi to come as I had to escort her back to the 7th grade class…or was she escorting me? Aw hell, I didn’t know….
It was still early and I had about a half hour to wait. As usual, I was mad at the entire thing. My friends were downstairs, laughing, gabbing, acting ridiculous as I stood here alone, resentful, looking foolish to any passer by, normally goddamn teachers.
Mr. Dalekoczac was the ugly old Ukrainian teacher. My father had always said, “You better be nice to him, or you’ll get it.” And he’d wave his finger at me as if he was teaching me a secret lesson that only he and Dalekoczak knew about.
Just as my father, and the parents of other kids in school, Mr. Dalekoczak had been a prisoner of war under the Nazis and of course he suffered for it…But he survived and became a teacher who during Christmas time was collecting gifts for himself; the old routine we practiced was our parents would give presents to the teachers and the teachers would give us good goods. Weird, but that’s the way things worked in those times…
Well Myron, who sat next to me, didn’t have any gift for Dalekoczak, his parents were too poor, but Myron wanted a good grade, as he knew his grades barely passable. So he found a Christmas card somewhere and signed his parents name in it and gave it up for Dalekoczak’s collection.
Dalekoczak opened the cards one by one, took the money that was there for him and gave a little booklet as a keepsake in return, Yurza Murza, about a smart alecky kid who got a licking from adults was his favorite to give to the kids…we smart-assed kids thought otherwise….
Dalekocsak eventually got to Myron’s envelope and pulled out the empty moneyless card. A look of confusion fell upon his face as he stared at Myron. His face quickly turned to anger and he crumpled the empty card up, cursed, glared at Myron then went on to the next money-filled offer.
What a bastard, I thought, as now I saw him march down the hall. Firm chest under stiff posture that reminded me of the Nazi films I saw instead of him being a victim. He came up to me and looked me up and down, as if looking for something wrong he could criticize.
“You here again?” he said in Ukrainian.
I answered Yes, waiting for Mrs. Buzzi. She’s gonna take me back to class, but I didn’t do nothing, she always picks on me and I don’t know why I’m out here every day…
Dalekoczak angrily shook his head and began berating me for messing up the language, using propositions and adverbs instead of nouns as he had spent teaching us. “Hivno ne znayesh!” he cursed, You don’t know shit! and he stormed off into the Teacher’s Lounge.
I cursed to myself and went on standing, looking after him, thinking, pondering….and waiting…and waiting…always waiting….
###
No comments:
Post a Comment