Chapter Eleven If ... Always a Teacher, Then Hardly ... Teachable
Chapter Eleven
If ... Always a Teacher, Then Hardly ... Teachable
“… as long as I’m not
being made to feel … small.”
--- Suzy, during her
interview for first – time work as a whore, film version of Cannery Row
Jesse’s and Zane’s birthdays came in mid and late August,
each with their homemade devil’s food cake spread thick with mocha chocolate
frosting and multicolored sugar sprinkles on top. Candles, too, of course. Blue ones.
I made them, as always, and invited the neighbors immediately to the
north of us, Faye and Tim, both times.
Dr. Tim was a retired professor from
The six weeks since
as being home with the Boys at all! Even though I believed them to be upstairs or
out in the
Or somewhere around.
Herry was at work, of course. He
didn’t know where they were either.
And when he returned, Herry immediately hid his hide in the
den busying himself on that all – important unpacking and setting up of the
radio and stereo system. Couldn’t miss a
day of NPR, not that man. The
refrigerator, desperately needed for three growing boys, I would have to take care of.
Hauled it off to the particular appliance dealer in town whom Realtor
Cornball had recommended. We didn’t see
it back for six months. I am being most
serious here when I say that, in December and January of that year and the very
next, to keep perishables for those three hungry youngsters cold, I used the
hoods of both stationwagons just outside through that russet portal to the
garage. And we simply ate no ice
cream. Nothing for frozen foods. Period.
The refrigerator guy had come highly recommended by Cornball. You
remember Cornball. From Alcoholics
Anonymous. And, many years, stone – cold
... ‘sober’. Like ... Herry.
Another of Cornball’s AA recommendations had been the agent
from whom Herry had purchased the initial insurance on his pad. Mr. Lorn came to the palatial front door one
Saturday afternoon to deliver the newly compiled policy and seeing me for the
first time and done up in turbaned towel and terry bathrobe just free from the
shower fawned, “Why, Legion. Legion. Isn’t that Greek? Yes. Yes,
I’m sure of it. Ya’ know, your husband
Herry and I learned we have a lot in common and one of those things is the fact
that we both spent a year at Creighton
studying for the priesthood. ‘Bout like
that year that all little Catholic boys grow up to do, ya’ know. Aheh.
Aheh. Aha, aha. Ha, ha, ha.
And we were around a lot of things Latin and Greek there. So I’m pretty sure of it. Such a lovely name. I bet your parents named you that ‘cause they
knew you’d turn into a goddess!
Wha’da’ya’ think about that?”
What I thought about that was that I had better call up
several other insurance agents and compare policies
and premiums. I did,
too. Spent a couple of months
researching this project that I had never planned to.
All because Lorn’s lore was such the crock. Profiteering schmoozer fuck and I wasn’t
buying any of it.
Turn into a goddess?!
Huh? Like I wasn’t already one
when I was born? What a mother – fucking
shitload of, “I bet I’ve gotcha snowed, haven’t I!?” Agent Lorn must’ve been
thinking to himself.
In the next two months’ time, in and amongst a few dozen other
daily duties and activities, I found an even more thorough policy for $200 less
premium per year. Gotcha yourself, Mr. Loser
Lorn. I took this information then to
Herry one afternoon when he returned from the laboratory. I was very excited at my savings prowess,
another Midwestern thing I was thinking.
I should have worked out my words beforehand very
carefully. Scripted them down on paper
and practiced my lines. Even by this
time when conversing with Herry about nearly anything, I truly should have
known to do that lesson first. Believe you
me, after this property insurance premium thing, I learned. And never forgot to again.
It’s somewhere near the first of the movie starring Debra
Winger, the film that was based on John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and made
about 1982. Where the job applicant for
the next available prostituting position, when asked by the kindly red – haired
Fauna, the bordello madam, did she, the applicant, think she could do this type
of work beings how it was she’d never been a hooker before that Suzy answers
something to the effect of, “O, yeah. I
can do this. I’ve done a whole lot of
things on my roadmap to getting here so far.
And I can do this, too, if I have to in order to survive. Just so long as nobody makes me, ah, well …
as long as I’m not being made to feel … small.”
Dr. Herod Edinsmaier was so incensed that I’d saved us $200
a year – or, more accurately, that I had had the unmitigated gall to think that we should trim our budget’s
specific line item by switching policies – that, with this particular episode,
he didn’t speak to me for only three weeks.
Often it was longer. Sometimes
two months or more. A typical scene saw
all five of us at suppertime around the small, brown rectangular table we had
owned for that same decade of moves now dwarfed in the forestside kitchen’s sea
of sable carpet and smack dab in the middle of the pineapples. The whole ones plastered in neat, linear rows
as wallpaper edging encircling the dining room intrados. Around 8:00 and all of the Boys were finally
gathered in, collected from various points, a soccer practice for Mirzah’s
peewee team of Kate Mitchell six – and seven – year – olds, a session Zane was
hosting out back in the Forest with the undivided attention of the purely white
– haired and gnarly former biology teacher – neighbor, Mr. Tromp, over the
intricacies of the late summer habitation of woodchucks. Jesse had the shortest distance from which to
come to supper. The den that housed the selfish,
space hog of a paternal stereo also sheltered the old beater, Haines piano;
and, of his own accord, Jesse was benched there plinking out something by ear that
he’d heard somewhere. That Suzuki ear of
his.
Herry, all smiles and raring to talk, talk, teach, talk to
his sons over dinner, took up his spot at the table’s head. Amidst the chatter that included accolades
for Jesse’s musical genius, the eldest son was suddenly addressed, “Tell your
mother, Zane, that I have a seminar in Iowa City all day tomorrow so as soon as
she tells you where she’s hidden the checkbook, I’m gonna go get gas. Mirzah, I can’t coach soccer practice the day
after tomorrow again after all. I’ll
have to catch up at the lab when I get back, ya’ know. You got through practice today okay though,
right? Zane, where’s that subscription
form you wanted me to help you with?
There was a special on it, is that right? Twelve issues of Playboy for what was it now?
Bring it to me, will ya’, when
we finish here. Let’s get that mailed
off while the special’s still on.
Otherwise, I’m afraid it’ll get
lost and we’ll lose out.”
Supper over. In my
direction, dead silence through a complete family sit – down dinner once
more. I cleared the table and started on
the dishes. Z went off to the den with
Herry, Jesse and Mirzah to show them all the Playboy order form.
I was silent, too, though.
For years, about that, I was silent.
About pornography. About Herry’s jokes
and hate speech of the usually – not – thought – of – in – that – way variety: of lawfully ‘free’ though truly criminal
speech. About Herry’s exhibitionism and
voyeurism and the southwest windows to the
I know a lot of women are.
Silent. They fear masterful
reprisal from assaultive words or involve – the – kids, then divide – and –
conquer icebox shunning like I routinely experienced or beatings, even
death. But I was educated, for christ’s
sake, and a very, very hard worker to boot.
Thirty – eight sessions of college, either quarters or semesters or just
one credit during six weeks in the summer or something. And all of it, absolutely all of it, I had worked
and paid for by myself – except for that $125 worth which AmTaham and Mehitable
had spotted me to go toward that fall quarter’s tuition when I was 18 and first
at Iowa State back in 1966. I knew
better. For the love of gaaawd, I knew
better!
Was I ever paying for it now. The first ones of its twelve issues, indeed,
began arriving in their blackened, sealed plastic wrappers with only a simple
white mailing label affixed and the addressee in regular black font, “To: Mr. Zane Truemaier,” then the rest of the US
mailing address. My son, the new 11 –
year – old, had been bestowed by his daddy, around his latest August birthday,
with a subscription for a year’s worth at least of Playboy magazines. I
believed that, at the time, crimes were being committed. Actual, real crimes. Legal ones. Or, I
mean illegal ones. Not just moral ones. And
by the Boys’ father. Child
endangerment. Supplying porn to minors. Molestation.
Verbal, at the least – and who knows otherwise.
O, well. My babies’
lives. But. Hey.
Forget about it.
Freedom of thought.
“You’re a freethinker yourself, Legion.
So forget about it. This’s
nothing more than ‘free’ speech – and doncha be messin’ with Herry’s freedom of
speech and his gaaawd – given and constitutional and, therefore, his entitled rights to teach his own Boys
about their First Amendment. Including
their ‘free’ speech property rights. Doncha
dare! How dare ya’, You Stupid Ass
Heifer!”
“Legion!!!” O o o o,
I recognized that yell: I was being called off the dogs once again, I
was. Same as the only times when Herry condescended
to disgustingly utter my first name.
“Legion! A lot of nice people
read Playboy!” snapped my attorney,
that alleged officer of the court and supposed upholder of Family Law itself,
some three years later. Come to find
out, even ‘nice’ Mr. Jinx did – Mr. Jinx, also a father himself of minor
children. According to a mutual
acquaintance who had herself witnessed stacks of the exact same pornography
genre in Lawyer Jazzy Jinx’s residential study when visiting there on a foray of
hers once for some reason unrelated to my custody case.
I continued to keep shut up about it. Until one weekday afternoon very shortly
after the first issues had come, Jesse and three little friends, over after
school just especially to play, burst inside making a beeline back to the Boys’
bedroom. Midway through the olive shag
of the vast wingspread that was our living room, I intercepted just Jesse and asked
him to join me in the miniature bathroom off of the kitchen. Behind closed doors. And right now. When he exited after the suddenly called, one
– on – one conference, the three friends in the foyer, still waiting and
tapping and snickering and anticipating, and Jesse turned right around and
headed with the soccer ball back outside.
“Ya’ know, Jesse, I don’t know what Jonnie and BJ and Eddie’s moms and
dads’d think about them looking at those pictures and stuff. So. Aaah. We can’t be doing that. Ya’ know, lettin’ ‘em. ‘Cuz they might not like it or
somethin’. And then they couldn’t come
over here anymore, ya’ know.” I had
broke silence. Big whoop. Big, big … literally … mother – fucking whoop. That was it.
That was all I ever said. About the crimes done my children. Then.
* *
* *
Supper was often so late.
It was still summer, though waning; and folks, for generations of
Midwesterners, had eaten the evening meal a lot later as a matter of course
than they did in the wintertime. Mirzah
had gotten through soccer practice okay all right. No thanks to Herry. When the first organizational meeting for the
various age levels of play was convened, there was Herry, mouth open and hand
up, volunteering to coach the six – and seven – year – olds, all of these
particular boys and girls also attending Kate Mitchell Elementary School, the
Boys’ new school!
Such a beauty it was, too.
Fairly newly constructed with a fantastic playground that included a
colorful,
50 – state
The kindergarten level of Kate Mitchell was distinct with
its own separate playground even; but after that, academic progress was fairly
individualized. “Units” the children
were put into. Open classrooms,
too, they were described as, I believe. Unit A, Unit B and Unit C. A had first, second and maybe even a few
third grade little ones in it as I recall.
And Unit B had third and fourth graders mostly while Unit Cers were the
upper classes of elementary students.
Altogether, then, kids through to about the age of 12 years. Very bright, very cheery, wide corridors, big
classrooms and big personal spaces inside of them. A pretentious media center – and – library
combination. Finest of all, lots and
lots of non – Caucasian faces every day and some of them at every level with
accents from very far off lands. I quickly
came to like
Only problem was its location. Kate Mitchell was situated at the very far
edge of the city’s most southern housing subdivision in a neighborhood not
ritzy nor splendiferous enough for Herod when he, with the ‘aid’ of AA’s
Cornball, had gone house – hunting six weeks earlier. Herod Edinsmaier desired a splashier area, one
much more in sync with where Mehitable and doctors would be found living,
hence, the picture window to the
Kate Mitchell had a reputation; and that rep was, well,
overall, something on the order of bleeding – heart, leftist, hippie parents
sent their kids there. So it, in
Fall soccer, as administered then out of the City, was
already holding practice down on Kate Mitchell ground before academic semester
classes actually commenced. Nets chock
full of black and white balls and two stacks of bright orange cones perpetually
heaped, for an autumnal playing season’s worth of time anyhow, took up
temporary residence in the back of Herry’s Crown.
Herry coached, too.
Dr. Edinsmaier managed two, full back – to – back beginning sessions,
the very first one on Tuesday where he greeted all his little charges with time
to spare really. Extra time to check out
their, well, let’s just say that the mothers were so pleased and relieved to be
dropping off their littlest athletes to the deftness, adroitness and so capable
hands of a doctor! Then followed the
Thursday one. Some new team members who’d missed out on
that very first session joined up and some more mothers for Coach Edinsmaier to assure then. Both at 5:15 pm that first week not
concluding until 6:45 pm. So suppers had to come late, and that
was okay.
Then something happened.
Something out of Herry’s control, of course. And he couldn’t seem to make
it anymore again.
There was the seminar down at the University of Iowa midweek the second
week of soccer practice so I was glad ‘to help out’ and sub for him on that
Tuesday evening but had not known, when he’d called me around 4:30, why he
couldn’t make it, so could I? Until
suppertime, of course, when it was plainly heard by all with the directive from
the household’s head to his eldest, to tell me – me, just across that small
table and the man’s spouse – that their father had needed to work late in
preparation for leaving for
Herod the Sloth neglected to mention to my Boys and to me that
he had just squandered three hours of that earlier workday. In the same manner as how he had daily been
doing when he was a resident at the time of every one of Dr. Shark’s four
performance reviews of Dr. Herod Edinsmaier in the two years that we lived in
Hershey and had needed nighttime babysitters so that I could practice my part –
time 12 to 10 pm, regularly scheduled small animal shifts. Herry, but not a single one of any of the
other pathology residents, wasn’t home evenings – any evenings; and Dr. Shark’s reviews stated that, among many other
of his job functions, Dr. Slacker Edinsmaier’s use of work time stunk. Dr. Shark, I’m sure, was referring to Herry’s
doctoring time in the field of medicine, not out in the field of soccer
practice or playing the field which Stark wouldn’t have been privy to, of
course. Almost always a procrastinator
except maybe during that term of
* *
* *
Dr. Legion True finished out coaching Mirzah’s soccer
season. Not exactly the doctor who’d
started it. But still, this same
finishing thing for me again. Except it
was officially only ever known that I ‘was just helping out’ my husband, Dr.
Edinsmaier. Dr. Edinsmaier was the six –
and seven – year – olds’ team coach, not Dr. True. That’s the way the roster stayed for all of the
subsequent weeks’s worth of practices and games – the weeks that turned into
months. Encouraged every once in awhile
at suppertime by things Herry might let slip about his getting out to the field
next time, that’s also how Mirzah continued every practice to recount to his
little buddies – how it was going to have to be his mama substituting again
this afternoon after all. Mirzah’s
soccer mom never forgot, never forgot even one time, to remove the equipment
from the Crown and put it into the shitbox Dodge at 7:00 am, let alone, to replace
the balls and cones back into the real teacher’s Toyota after practice just in
case that, straight there to the playing fields from the laboratory, Dr. Herod
Edinsmaier, soccer coach, could make
it sometime.
I was pretty enthusiastic about it all actually. I even took the three extra night trainings
to become a certified safe
The mothers, it turned out, had been ordinary. Ordinary women. Not a looker nor a chesty one in the bunch,
and none of them stood around visiting together those ten last minutes waiting
for the end of soccer practice in anything but sweat pants or twills or blue
jean shorts themselves. Nothing enticing
enough, I began to think. Most certainly not special enough for Herry
to want to commit, early on, to investing an entire season’s worth of his time here; that was for sure.
There was one, though, BJ’s mama. Now I thought
she was pretty and svelte and very athletic herself,
a brunette. Mona
biked in an annual triathlon competition in a nearby community sharing its
three components with two other women, one a capitol city sportscaster even,
who performed the other two parts of the event.
Mona and I became friendly, jogged together down the Forest asphalt
paths many mid mornings after our children started school, drank orange herbal
tea together after for a few minutes and swapped book title suggestions. BJ was welcome anytime at our urban woods
property way across town, nearly 25 minutes in rush hour traffic at 5:15 pm
where he was invited along with Jesse, as well as Mirzah, his teammate, and
Mirzah’s oldest brother, Zane, to continue their explorations of things Herry,
mouth open and always talking, talking, talking, was teaching. Always a teacher, that Herry.
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