A rainy Thursday morning. The entire middle school was to get on buses to go down and see a play in Medellin. My first South American field trip. Elaine was in a state. At the best of times she was haggard and frayed. With four hundred kids getting on buses to go into the downtown core, she was a disaster.
The morning started off in the regular way. Kids trickling into first block one by one. Chauffeurs came late, maids let them sleep in, buses were held up by kids who weren’t ready, whatever the excuse the result was that a class that was supposed to start at 8:00 didn’t have enough bodies to start anything with until at least 8:30, twenty minutes before the block was over. I had been reduced to letting the little bastards do whatever they wanted, the only stipulation being that they were no longer allowed to jump out the windows. I put my headphones on and played on my computer, trying to blot out the worst of the chaos.
At 8:30 Elaine commenced marching through the halls, bellowing through her bullhorn. It was a squealing, distorted call to something or other, delivered in a language that was neither distinguishable as English or Spanish. Before I could say anything, my kids were gone, pushing each other down the stairs, and racing toward the buses. Locking the door behind me, I met Mavis in the hallway.
“I thought we were supposed to have lists of who was on what bus.”
“Give your head a shake.”
Mavis had been quiet lately. Subdued. I wasn’t sure if it was just in regard to me, or if it was part of a larger picture. I hadn’t been going to her Friday night gin-swillings lately, maybe this was a factor.
“What are we supposed to do?”
“Medicate ourselves. Kill ourselves. Who knows? Let’s get on a bus.”
We cut our way through the bedlam, Mavis wielding her immense purse as a weapon, blazing a trail. Elaine stood at the front doors, yelling incomprehensibly into her malfunctioning bullhorn. She caught sight of the two of us as we passed and waved us over.
“Good Christ. Let’s see what the walrus wants.” Mavis walked over to her. They exchanged words, Mavis nodded and returned to me. Elaine resumed yodeling.
“What did she want?”
“For us to go and direct kids onto the buses. What an idiot.” We boarded the first decent looking bus we saw. Making good use of her purse, Mavis kicked the kids out of the front seat and we sat down.
“Why did you even go talk to her?”
“I’m trying to kiss a little ass. They’re opening a new position. Discipline Coordinator. It’ll be some bullshit jump through the hoops position, but it’s going to pay a lot. What the hell. I’m here, right?”
“Well, should we go make it look like we’re directing kids?”
“Are you kidding? Listen. Here’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to make a racket with her fucking bullhorn until the school is empty. Then something is going to “come up” and she’s not going to be able to make it. She’ll have to “join us later.” What that means is that she can’t handle this shit any more than we can and she’s going to drive down in her own car after the play is over. She’ll be there for when the parents pick up their kids so it looks good. Same as last year and probably the year before.”
Outside the buses, it was bedlam. Kids were running from bus to bus, trying to see where their friends were. A few isolated were trying to herd them in vain. At about 9:30 the buses just started pulling out. Kids started screaming and running onto moving buses. Ours was the last bus out. Miraculously, nobody had been run over. We were underway.
As we drove out the front gates, I noticed, for the first time really noticed, the billboard that stood sentinel at the entrance to the school. It had a quote on it: “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” The quote was attributed to Juan Felipe Escobar, a graduate from last year. It bothered me. I had gotten to know these kids. Even in grade 12, there is no way they were using words like “capacity” and “indomitable”. Could they use the word “will” in any other sense other than to signify intention or at best the written instructions for the handling of a dead person’s estate? My musings were interrupted by a burst of squealing and screaming that rose to a sudden crescendo from the back of the bus. Mavis’ eyes bulged. Without a word she pushed her impressive girth past me and stood up in the aisle, facing the rabid little animals in the rear.
“THAT’S IT!!!” THE NEXT ONE OF YOU IDIOTS THAT RAISES THEIR VOICE ABOVE A WHISPER HAS A WEEK LONG DETENTION WITH ME. THAT STARTS TODAY. YOU WILL NOT WATCH THE PLAY. YOU WILL SIT WITH ME. I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER. I WILL BE HAPPY TO MAKE YOU SUFFER. I WAS BORN TO MAKE YOU LITTLE PUKES SUFFER. AM I 100 PERCENT CLEAR??”
Although their inability to understand English even after 8 years of full immersion probably rendered much of her outburst unclear, there was no mistaking the universal message of its tone. A blessed silence, or at least as close as one can get with fifty kids in a bus, descended.
“Good one Mavis.”
“Jesus Christ, it’s going to be a long day.”
We were taking a different road down the mountain. I supposed this was because we were headed for the downtown which was at the north end of the valley. The sky was a faultless, clear blue. The green of the giant mountains looked light and clean in the early morning light, cut here and there with the red of the soil. Here and there on mountainsides the haze of a fire smudged the air as farmers burned scrub.
“God, it is a beautiful country.”
“It’s why I came back. We’ve got it made here.”
“Except for the school.”
“Except for the school.”
Trying to put a better spin on things, perhaps inspired by the beauty of the morning I continued.
“At least we have jobs. So many people in this country have nothing. We’re pretty lucky.”
“Oh Please. Can you spare me? It’s a bit early in the morning.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence.
