32) The Tale Of The "Monday Off Kid"

There we sat, two peas in Mrs. Taylor’s second grade classroom pod. We were happy as could be, causing mischief, exchanging Fruit Roll-Up halves to create our own concoctions, and learning cursive… if that’s not a second grader’s heaven then I don’t know what is. Life was grand, until one fateful Monday.

There was a bit of a lull in the day as snack time had just ended. It was late morning and the sun was beginning to reach its peak. Tim and I stared out the window; the September sun was causing a haze to rise in the recess yard, freshly paved that summer. We flicked boogers at one another and envisioned the havoc we would wreak playing football in a few short hours. I was quarterback, Tim was wide receiver and like any grown man will tell you while reflecting on his glory days… we were unstoppable.

But in the midst of my magnificent daydream, right as my perfect spiral was landing in Tim’s hands for the game-winning touchdown, Satan strolled into our classroom. Of course, she wasn’t really Satan, at least I haven’t found the conclusive evidence yet (rest assured my feverish search continues to this day), but I have my theories. She was Mrs. S. I think I disliked Hilary Clinton solely because of Mrs. S. She sauntered up to the front of our class donning an awful gray pantsuit with the same blond bob and to this day whenever I see Hillary, I see Mrs. S.

Mrs. Taylor introduced this devil woman to our class: “Okay everybody settle down. Settle down. This is Mrs. S; she is going to take a few of you kids to a special class for the next two hours. If she calls your name, stand by the door quietly in a single file line.”

Special class? What is this?

Mrs. S started to read the list: “Karl.”

That kid’s really quiet and weird, what makes him so special?

“Joey.”

Joey is a weirdo. Glad he’s gone for a bit. He stares at me funny and sings a lot.

“Corey.”

Dude Corey showers maybe once a week. He stinks. There is no way he’s more special than me.

“Diana.”

She stabbed Marc with a pencil last week. She is not special.

“Tim.”

What did she just say? Who? If Tim gets up I’m gonna lose my mind. How the hell is he special and I’m not?

“Aaaaaand…. Brandon.”

Lady stop reading names, I’m still trying to piece together what is happening. If Tim is going then I am going so you might as well say my name.

Then Mrs. Taylor spoke up again: “Everybody who was called please follow Mrs. S, everybody else please take out your math books.”

Wait. So I’m not going and Tim is? No, no, no. This will not work.

I didn’t know what to do. I was lost. Tim and I stared at each other as he walked out the door. Call it gay, call it what you will. But in retrospect, I would describe this stare as a longing gaze. I wanted to go, he wanted to stay. Both of us would be disappointed.

I sat in class, without my best friend, and to make matters worse, I was doing math. I still ask “what’s the tip?” after every meal so you can imagine how much attention I paid. So, I got a phantom tummy ache. I learned at an early age that the best way to get out of school was a faux stomachache. Fevers could be checked and I was yet to perfect my fake cough, but stomachaches and diarrhea? Ha, like an elementary school nurse had any desire whatsoever to inspect some kids bowels, she knows what happens when you mix a styrofoam tray of chicken patties, mashed potatoes, and chocolate milk. She was on the phone with my mom and I was out the door in twenty minutes. Crisis averted. I’ll be back in school tomorrow, Tim will be back in class, and everything will be fine, I said to myself.

I was right. The rest of the week went by swimmingly. It was like Monday never happened. Mrs. S was nowhere to be found and Tim and I were on our way to recess football superstardom. The weekend was equally wonderful. Monday rolled around again, snack time followed, and after that? You guessed it, I saw Mrs. S outside our door. I wanted to lunge at the door and lock her out, yell “FIRE!” so the entire class would spill out and trample her, take someone hostage and refuse to let a soul walk out with her, anything to prevent what I knew was about to happen. I did none of these things. Mrs. S took Tim. I got a “tummy ache.”

Mrs. Medeiros, the school nurse, may have been easy to fool twice in a row, but my mother sniffed out the farce that was my easily upset stomach. My mother called the school and inquired as to what could have provoked the same illness, at the same time, on the same day two weeks in a row. The principal, Mr. Kelly, informed my mother that young Tim had a reading disability. For the remainder of the year he would be going to a special reading class for two hours, every Monday. Mom realized that the sudden onset of my pretend Irritable Bowel Syndrome was a direct result of Tim’s disappearance from class. My mother didn’t immediately say anything to me; she just gave me that look. The one mother’s give to unruly sons that says, “Just wait until your father hears about this.” My knees buckled.

That night, my father was home early. I have always known that if dad is home before seven o’clock, well then I am in some shit.

The whole family sat down for dinner, which was actually quite amiable, and I was surprised. Mother had prepared a nice meal of corned beef and cabbage, if I remember correctly. That was always my favorite. And I had even helped her make brownies, without nuts. Mom always loved putting nuts in the brownies if I wasn’t around to direct her. Luckily, I had shuffled around some appointments that day and found the time to be at her side.

Upon completion of the meal, my father instructed my sister to clear the table.

Am I not in trouble? I don’t even have to do dishes and I got the good brownies? This is great.

But while my sister was off in the kitchen completing her chores behind silent doors, my father bellowed the words of death, “John Henry, we need to talk. Come here.” Shamefully, I made the trek, which felt like a mile, across the dining room and plopped in the seat nearest to the head of the table. My father then placed his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and proceeded to explain to me the situation at hand:

“Now John Henry, Tim learns a little differently than you, so he needs to go to a special class. It’s for his benefit and it’s selfish of you to want to have him in your class if it affects his education. Tim is going to be in this class once a week for a few hours. Now that is not that much. I know you can be a big boy and make other friends for that time he is gone.”

Hmmm I don’t like where this is going.

“Your mother has already spoken with Mrs. Taylor and Mr. Kelly. You’re not going to be allowed to leave anymore when Tim is gone, okay? You’re going to need to get over this and be good in class while Tim is away.”

Oh that’s what you think big guy, if I can’t mess around with Tim then I’m not going.

“You need to be a good friend and let Timothy get the help he needs.”

“But dad, class isn’t fun when Tim isn’t there.”

“School isn’t all about fun John Henry, its about learning.”

“But dad…”

“No ‘buts,’ John Henry. You’re going to be staying in school on Mondays, with or without Tim. And that’s final. Now go to your room and do your homework.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Your mother picked up some make-up work when she got your sister today.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I left the table in a huff. Not only had the bomb of staying in class without my sidekick been dropped on me, but I also had homework. Rough night. And it had started off so promising, nut-less brownies and all. There I sat at my  tiny little desk, staring at a worksheet, but all I could think about was the destiny that awaited me in what was now less than a week.

You know how days you eagerly anticipate take forever, and ones you dread are there in a flash? Well it felt like I woke up and it was Monday again. Truthfully, I cannot even recount the events of that week. They were empty and pointless, mere checkpoints on the way to my living hell. Those two lonely hours were bound to arrive, why bother with everything else. Life as I knew it was over.

When my mother woke me up for school, I got out of bed and began to get dressed. Then, it struck me, the greatest idea of all time. Sure Edison had something with that lightbulb thing, and the wheel has its merits, but that was miniscule compared to this. “Don’t go,” I thought. It was brilliant in its simplicity…. Don’t go. Say “No!” I knew my father was long gone anyway. Mom wasn’t going to fight me, she had better things to do too. In fact, she would probably like the idea of having an extra pair of hands around the house to help with chores. So as I heard my mother hurrying my siblings out the door, I strolled downstairs in my Superman underpants.

“John Henry what the hell are you doing? Go upstairs and get dressed night now!” she exclaimed.
“No. I’m not going.”

“Ya know what, I can’t even deal with this right now. Whatever.”

And then they left.

Oh…. My…. God. Has it always been this easy?

I can’t even describe the emotions that were running around my body. I’d had some fun in my day, the occasional adrenaline-producing lie, the more common jump from my treehouse into a pile of leaves, but this was surreal. Was I Peter Pan, flying on my way to Never Never Land? Or was I Ponce de Leon locating the Fountain of Youth? Think about it, I was a kid who didn’t think he was going to school again… ever! I couldn’t even concentrate. I thought: Should I move all my toys into the treehouse now? Seriously, that was my life plan prior to this discovery. I was going to wait out the storm with this school garbage, then move to the tree house and live out my days with my toys (no girls allowed, of course).

Well Tuesday morning arrived and my mother was a great deal sterner with the wake up call. The dream was dead, I wasn’t done with school. “John Henry wake up, now. And I’m not putting up with that shit from yesterday morning. You’re going to school!” she scolded. And you know what? I was fine with it. I got a bit bored towards the end of the day on Monday and I didn’t know how I was going to entertain myself for an entire day again. As a young kid my tolerance for consecutive SportsCenter episodes was about six, but that still left a few hours to kill. I didn’t feel like doing chores again.

Monday came again, as they tend to do. But this time each and every day of the previous week wasn’t a grind waiting for the hours I would have to endure sans my number one chum. In fact, I’ll go ahead and say it: I was looking forward to this Monday. Like an experimental scientist, I was eager to test my theory. I had theorized that my mother knew that I would put up more of a fight on Mondays regarding the school issue, for Tim would not be there. Therefore, I hypothesized, she would be more willing to let me pull my “No. I’m not going.” stunt. I was right.

I didn’t even get out of bed for this ride. Mom walked into the room and I said, “I’m not going.” There wasn’t even a rebuttal. The door simply closed. Wow. I just skipped school without even taking my head off the pillow. In my memory I thought this went on for six more weeks, my mother tells me it was closer to 16 more. That brought the grand total to eighteen Mondays in a row where I just didn’t go to school. Eighteen Mondays! That has to be a record, I don’t care what you say. That second Monday was the last time my mother even bothered to open my door on a Monday morning. She knew what was in store if she did, I knew too. There was no need to even set the ball in motion. Mom had no desire to be a real life example of Sisyphus, rolling a rock up a hill for all of eternity just to have it roll back down on her right at the summit. I don’t know what excuse she conjured up to steer clear of my room on Mondays; avoiding a nuisance, a pig sty, slaughtered lamb blood painted over my door, but whatever it was, it worked. We were both happy.

Even the teachers found it hilarious. Amongst the faculty at the James Tansey Elementary School in Fall River, Massachusetts I had a nickname… I was the Mondays-off Kid. That was my moniker, and I relished in it. I strolled the hallways like a made man, winking at the girls, even throwing an occasional Fonz-induced “Ehhhhhh!” at a fifth grader when I was feeling particularly sprightly, as I was a huge Happy Days fan growing up.

Like all dreams, this one eventually died. Mr. Kelly had enough of it. A measly second grader was undermining not only him, but also the educational system as a whole, and he couldn’t stand for that. As an administrator, he had to do something. On that momentous eighteenth, eighteenth, Monday he picked up the phone, and rang my mother.

“Mrs. Feitelberg, it’s Mr. Kelly over at Tansey. I need you to come into school. We have to talk,” he said. Ever gotten your mom sent to the principal’s office? I have. They had a discussion and it was explained to my mother that we had broken the law, I was officially a truant and my parents would need to be reported to social services. Mr. Kelly posited that the only explanation for these absences were that I spent the weekends with my father and he would refuse to return me on time so we needed to get the police involved. My mother informed him that my father happily lived with us and I was just a spoiled brat, so the authorities seemed unnecessary.

After a good deal of back and forth, Mr. Kelly said, “Well I will tell you what: put him in the car, say you’re taking him to lunch, pull up at school and honk the horn. I will go out and get him. If he doesn’t miss another Monday I won’t call DSS.”

“…. OK, that could work.”

My mother packed me into the car, claiming a Happy Meal was at the other end of this drive. Before I knew it, we were parked outside my Alcatraz, the horn tooting like a prisoner escape alarm, and out strolled the warden, Mr. Kelly. “John Henry, you need to go join your classmates, they’re in the middle of a spelling quiz,” he said.

Yea fat chance buddy, way to lead with something I’m dying to do. I’m on my way for some chicken nuggets. I didn’t even acknowledge him. I just focused on my staring contest with the dashboard of my mother’s car.

He repeated, “John Henry….”

Not happening pal.

The staring contest continued.

A few more “John Henry you need to join your classmates.” Were met with the same response: a blank stare.

Finally, with a sigh, Mr. Kelly undid my seatbelt and picked me up, but I wasn’t going to make this easy for the old bag. I was a second grader who played five sports, I was in the peak of my physical fitness, and I was a squirmer. This 65-year-old bag of bones wasn’t getting me that easy. I kicked, I flailed, I cried, at one point I even screamed, “You wear a Speedo! That’s gross!” (we went to the same beach… he did). But eventually, Mr. Kelly’s old man strength prevailed and I found myself in Mrs. Taylor’s classroom, taking a spelling quiz. Without Tim. He was in his “special” class, fucking spelling “a” and “I,” for all I know.