Self-Referential Joke

If there’s some time, then I’d like to address
darkening shadows and threatening thunder.
Maybe some person would like to confess
just what has led to the danger we’re under…?

Some cannot speak, and instead they will halt,
kind of check out, and then cease to participate.
There are mistakes that aren’t anyone’s fault.
There are ideas you just can’t assimilate.

I say, just toss it, and leave it to chance.
Maybe you’ll feel like you really are living.
People walk best who have learned how to dance,
that is, if judges are feeling forgiving.

Can’t keep a secret, and can’t change the laws.
Who even comprehends? Who even cares?
Don’t bother waiting for cheers or applause.
Finish the dishes, and head on downstairs.

Like an old joke that appears to be true,
merely enjoy it, and don’t overthink.
Somebody asked, “Do you feel like we do?”
Just nod and smile, and order a drink.

Chip Meister

Mr. Askance

Mr. Askance, Mann Middle School’s Reading Teacher, was miserable. Truly miserable. His misery was bound by nothing one could touch; and, because of this, it spread quickly and grew. At first Mr. Askance kept all of his misery to himself; he was a professional, after all. But his misery—which he kept solidly locked away—could not contain itself and began to seep out through increasingly unkind gestures and pronouncements.

Each day, Mr. Askance’s misery poured out through dull explanations, impenetrable lessons, uncipherable chalkboard notes, and impossible assignments he sent home and expected parents to review and sign.

When one entered his classroom, he always said the same thing, “I am what I am, and you are unaware.”

Mr. Askance taught little, aside from how to read a newspaper; oh yes, and how to copy words out of a dictionary; and, how to sit without fidgeting; and, of course, how to NOT to ask questions: nothing interrogative, imperative, declarative, interpretive, factual or evaluative—nothing.

Mr. Askance was a displaced teacher. That is, he never lasted very long at any one school. During the year, his particular teaching methods were always found wanting and not long after the end of any school year, he was moved to another school—the theory being that through such fluidity he would perhaps be able to find new beginnings. But, of course, Mr. Askance was indeed what he was.

Surprisingly, he did appear to find a modicum of success at Mann Middle School, but one could tell by merely looking at him that Mr. Askance was running out of time.

Each day, he sat at his desk with a newspaper spread out in front of him, and he sold Crispy Bars right out of the box. Mann Middle School students were addicted to Crispy Bars: many bought at least one per day “to keep the cavities in play.” Some days, students gave up their lunch money just to hold the precious silver wrappers in their hands.

In actuality, Mann lunches were made by a cache of church-like ladies. The only problem was that whatever it was these ladies made, they cooked to death—soggy vegetables versus delectable Crispy Bars? A no brainer!

Anyone who has spent any time in middle school knows, nothing really stays within the confines of the classroom. Circular files positioned in the school hallways are filled with discarded silver wrappers. Silver wrappers are scattered across the tables of the cafeteria, stuck to heaters, plastered along with discarded chewing gum on walls, sticking out of lockers, and even swirling around in urinals. At day’s end, so many silver wrappers are scatter-shot about the school that Mr. Lines, Mann Middle School’s janitor, can’t begin to chase them all down.

Before the holiday break, Principal Blaugh summons Mr. Askance to his office, stationed in the center of it all. They sit across from each other—Mr. Blaugh behind his rather large and suspiciously clean desk, and Mr. Askance sinking down in a low-slung leather chair.

Mr. Blaugh talks in low and pensive tones. He asks Mr. Askance about conflicts of interest, subsidiary unclaimed income, and ethics, as if the teacher was a student sitting slunk down in an uncomfortable seat. Then, suddenly, Principal Blaugh’s tongue pulls up short, hands fold, long fingers curl into a bridge, and he sits there looking at Mr. Askance—waiting.

Mr. Askance stammers, stutters, says he’s sorry, admits he has lost sight of his reasons for wanting to be a teacher—says he has “misplaced them—somewhere and can’t find them.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Blaugh says, “not being able to find what you’ve lost is the reason.” Mr. Askance shifts in the chair, feeling as if he is being looked down upon from a great height, mumbles he will try to do better. “Yes,” Principal Blaugh says, “You will try to do better because Mann Middle School deserves better.”

What hadn’t been said, what Mr. Askance hadn’t been able to come up with was a solid reason for any of it, his teaching, his isolation, his misery—not one solid reason, no matter how he examines it.

The silence that sat between them was like the reason he was searching for.

During the silence, Mr. Askance mentally dismantles his room—one dictionary a time; he takes down the net hanging from the ceiling that captures his keep sakes; he removes the papers he let students stick on the walls—“pick a place, any place”; he takes home his books, after carefully placing them in cardboard copy paper cartons; he empties the closet, his desk drawers, and upsets the wastebasket and leaves it in the center of the room. When he completes these tasks and the walls are bare, he takes down the bulletin boards, tearing them from the walls as large chunks of plaster fall around his feet in white powdered dust.

After he leaves Mr. Blaugh’s office, Mr. Askance isn’t even certain what has, in fact, transpired. He feels as if he has tried unsuccessfully to talk his way out of a traffic ticket.

With the disappearance of Crispy Bars what is one to do but move on. And students do move on. They no longer peck on Mr. Askance’s door with quarters in hand. They no longer greet him in the hall and ask him how many are left in the box. They no longer come to his room after school to buy “one for the bus ride home.”

As the sun sinks toward the horizon— Mr. Askance sits alone in the dark. And in the room is a perpetual sound—a high-pitched humming emitting from the ceiling to the floor.

Ground shifts under middle school students’ feet with constancy—this they are used to, and although everything seems to stay the same, nothing remains the same for long.

“What happened to Mr. Askance?”

“Is he sick?”

Teachers disappear. The most conscientious leave notice, and for these teachers, Mann Middle School feels compelled to provide some kind of going away party—a get-together, of sorts, with presents in bags—an obligatory fountain pen that will never be used, a bottle of mid-priced wine, a going-away card passed around under the table and quickly signed. The parties, for the most part, are uncomfortable, with forced smiles all around and the lack of atonement. Everyone makes an appearance but no one really lingers. The school tries to acknowledge that it has become a better place for each displaced teacher having been there. Then the party ends, and then, poof, all vanish into the ether: The let go; the displaced.

During the summer break, the old guard, who conjure-up reasons to wander the halls, wearily pass the displaced and disappeared’s rooms—now completely gutted of anything personal—the closets and waste baskets and bulletin boards are left empty. No notes, no-thing.

First day back in September, newly hired teachers make their way through the halls of Mann Middle School unaware of those displaced and disappeared and soon like mayflies themselves— they’ll be remembered for a season and eventually forgotten too.

Vocabulary List Notes: Helgrammite: (N) The larvae of a mayfly is a helgrammite/prized as bait. The larvae are so prized but the adults only live for a day.

The students can feel the sounds in the souls of their feet; they can feel it when they touch the bare walls; they can feel it as it very nearly vibrates their hearts.

After a while, they tell themselves they will get used to it—the humming misery.

J. Bradley Minnick