A Pilgrim’s Digression

“…need to gather information for the Operating Plan, Operating Plan 5 actually, and if…”

My eyes are becoming thick as glazed donuts. The guy in front of me looks like a pirate. He has a patchy beard; his wife should buy him a beard trimmer for father’s day. Maybe he’s not married. He has a little twist of a pony tail high up on the back of his head. Pony Tail Guy, like Comic Book Shop Guy. Kinda fat, too. Patchy the Pirate. All he needs is an eye patch. Arrrgh.

“…the Directors and I are developing a vision, or a strategy, what have you. Discussions are ongoing to determine…”

Must stay awake. Will Pony Tail Guy fall asleep? This keeps me awake, watching him. He fell asleep in our last meeting. He actually started snoring. Last two meetings, now that I think about it. This room is darker than our usual meeting room, but he doesn’t fall asleep.

Eye patch. I knew a girl with an eye patch. That was third grade, and her name was Donna. I had a crush on her. So I sit here. Imagine if I were a third-grader sitting in on this meeting. Render ridiculous. Riddikulus, Neville said.

Donna. A little girl in my third grade class. It’s a cliché, but her brother shot her eye out with a BB gun. For awhile, she had a big wad of cotton taped over the empty eye socket, then a black eye patch. She wore thick glasses, too, that made her one good eye a glowing, misty orb. She wore her straight, brown hair in a pageboy. I remember her in plaid, which wasn’t a cool style in the early eighties. She wore plaid skirts and multi-colored turtleneck sweaters. She had big teeth, but all third-graders have big teeth. When their permanent teeth come in, children’s teeth are full-size but their faces are still childish and round.

Donna sat beside me in class, and we’d work together when there was group work. I liked sharing my reading book with her. She would shyly put notes in my book for me to find later. Other kids teased us for liking each other.

Wonder what Donna is doing today? Hope she’s happy. What year was it? I always have trouble figuring years, or any numbers really. 1982, maybe. Anyway, it’s long gone.

“…now, we need to discuss whether after each project is submitted we need to have a close out meeting, what…what did the people from Google call it? A post mortem, though I don’t like that word, like it even less than the word fungible, but I think we need to have a close out meeting…”

Why am I always attracted to wounded chicks? Because I myself am wounded. Mutually assured destruction, let’s call it.

After Donna, there was blonde-haired, blue-eyed Colleen Wilt. Overweight, that one. On the playground, there were large tractor tires half-buried in the ground on which we climbed during recess. We would crawl inside the biggest tire and talk for the entire half hour. We liked the way our voices echoed against the rubbery walls of the tire. I remember a gang of boys standing outside the tire and making fun of us. Colleen took me through the rest of that year. Then, next year…I don’t know what happened. Kid’s are so changeable. From one year to the next, who knows what the difference is, but something changes and suddenly two kids don’t know what to say to each other anymore. Maybe their interests change. Friends go their seperate ways after awhile. Gone.

“…now what we should cover in a post mortem is what went right with the project, what went wrong, what worked, and what didn’t…”

Third grade me is shy, quiet. I still cry, if teased. I don’t know my multiplication tables. I remember we had to be able to stand in front of the class and say our multiplication tables through twelve. I could do through six really well, but after that I would hang. Too much to remember, maybe. I can’t count in my head; I have to use my fingers. So that hinders me. My teacher becomes angry if I even look at my fingers, so I mentally visualize my fingers and count imaginary digits. Sometimes when I have to count, I lay my hand on my leg and, ever so gently, I press with each finger as I count. I still do this today, over twenty years later.

The morning I had to say my multiplication tables was a rainy day. I rode the school bus to school, and with my finger, I wrote sums on the steamy bus window as I tried to get over the hump of the sevens. Rain pattered against the glass and cars splashed by in the opposite lane.

At school, when it was my turn, I stood in front of the class and said my times tables until I got to seven. 7 times 2 is 14. 7 times 3 is…21 (I could get that one by remembering the equation in reverse: 3 x 7 is 21; I could do my threes). 7 times 4 is…28. 7 times 5 is 35 (easy, fives are easy). 7 times 6 is…is…(I am gently pushing with my fingers against my leg, trying to count)…41, no, 42 (Why can’t I ever remember that? I like 42!)…7 times 8 is…

I get no farther. I begin to fidget from one foot to the other; I break out into a sweat. My mind is blank now. I can’t count on my imaginary fingers, or on my real fingers.

Mrs. Smith clears her throat. She is a thin, black-haired woman, someone I would describe today as having a French woman’s face and a French woman’s severity. “You can’t count, Matt,” she says. At first I think she is insulting me; I lose count on my mental fingers.

“Sit down,” Mrs. Smith says coldly, finally.

I hear sniggers from a boy named Chris as I go back to my seat beside Donna.

“Don’t feel bad,” Donna whispers. “Seven is a hard number.” And I feel a little better, though my eyes are still prickly with tears.

Donna says her times tables all the way to twelve. Bright girl. Beautiful girl.

“…perhaps before the post mortem, um, close out meeting…now I’ve got that word post mortem in my head…I will send around a form I’ll make up for you to voice your concerns in writing. That will serve as an informal agenda…”

I read somewhere that school, with its bells, assigned seats, and discipline is meant to be preparation for the drudgery of adult work. Where did I read it? I don’t know. Karl Marx; Pink Floyd. Who knows. This is like a scene from Office Space: we are having an hour-long meeting to plan for future meetings.

Third grade me sits, fingers pressing his leg, trying to work out the product. I can’t quite figure it. Quiet, quiet me; how did you get here? I remember a story we read in third grade about a boy who moved from the country to the city, and how he was homesick for the country. In the book, he wore sneakers. That was the first time I’d heard that word. I’d always heard them called tennis shoes. I remember thinking I’d like to live in a city; I’d like to walk on sidewalks and take the bus. Now I do all those things.

It isn’t even half as glamorous as I expected.

“So then, are there any questions? No? Until next time…”