Chapter Fifty-Two - The Price of Bonding

Chapter 52: TMI - The Price of Bonding

In an effort to start our April in-service day with a positive, team bonding activity, I schedule an all-staff breakfast at Costello’s restaurant. Everyone seems pretty happy with the biscuits, orange buns (Costello’s signature dish), grits, sausages and eggs. The Mime sits between me and Dana, my Title One Reading teacher. The Mime is very animated and starts to talk, unprovoked, about her past. It seems before she was a Mime she traveled across Asia hitchhiking, stowing away on trains and smoking hashish. After she was a Mime she worked for the Mafia laundering money and then worked as a stripper and lap dancer. It is unclear why The Mime has chosen now (or ever) to share this with us. It is sort of freaking Dana out and she keeps trying to change the subject. Knowing the Mime has three sons she tries to ask about the boys, but the Mime is determined to detail her sordid past.

I walk around to mingle, trying to stop at each table long enough to express my thanks for everyone’s hard work. As I circulate I notice all the bus drivers are sitting together at the same table. I had asked transportation coordinator Shasta to have the drivers try to sit with teachers to help develop a rapport, but either she didn’t tell them or they ignored her. The bus drivers also ignored the “mini menu” we arranged with Costellos to save on costs. The drivers scooped up regular menus and ordered from them. Oh well, since they segregated themselves at one table, the rest of the faculty is unaware.

At another table, Stone and PE teacher Billie are whispering conspiratorially. They keep glancing up to see who is observing them. When I approach they stop abruptly and physically separate, moving their chairs apart. I have a hunch this is not good but I am having enough trouble with problems I can see without worrying about possible unhatched plots.

When I stop by the table with the Wrestler he motions for me to sit next to him. While everyone else has ordered a substantial hot breakfast (the drivers more substantial than the rest), the Wrestler has only a glass of milk and a small box of Special K in front of him. Maybe he needs to lose weight for an upcoming match. I think about asking him, but he speaks before I can form the question. In a voice so quiet I strain to hear him, The Wrestler tells me he has accepted another job at an aircraft manufacturing plant and he has to start in a week. He keeps apologizing. I ask whether he can postpone his start date. No he can’t, in fact after breakfast he won’t be able to return with us to Prospect, he has to fill out paperwork for his new job. It will pay him twice what he makes now, he says, but his parents are still mad at him for quitting. They feel he ought to finish out the year. I agree with his parents but don’t say as much – what’s the point?

RitaMae asks me whether I noticed two staff members are missing: Neeley and Buffy. Before I can respond, she launches into the gossip.

After the students left yesterday, Neeley and Buffy went joy riding in The Forest in Neeley’s new 4-wheel drive pick up truck and it got dark and Neeley accidentally drove into a lake and the truck got stuck in the mud and they got out to survey the situation and out of the mist, several Rainbow people materialized and one, a woman, was topless and Neeley and Buffy got freaked out by the them (the Rainbow People) and returned to the cab of the truck where they spent the night, and this morning they walked three miles to a Kwik King gas station where the clerk told them how to get in touch with a guy with a tow truck and the guy towed them out and they are heading back to Prospect now and Neeley took photos because he knew I would never believe this story although he did try to phone me but there was no cell service in The Forest and it is all kind of ironic since Buffy has been stalking Neeley for weeks wanting to sleep with him ever since he slept with her after the Christmas party when he was so drunk, which he regrets but she won’t forget.

When I return to my table Dana throws me a glance that tells me The Mime is still going strong. As I sit down I hear about how The Mime spent last weekend – having sex on the floor of Stephanie’s kitchen with a guy she met at a bar. I am thrilled when I look at my watch and realize it is time to return to Prospect and get to work.

Before we leave Costellos I take a group photo to commemorate the occasion.