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The Real GOOD Loser, A Story That Could…
Chapter Twenty-Three: Fear
“I’m a lonely insignificant spec on a has-been planet orbited by a cold indifferent sun.”
— a quote from The Simpsons; The Mysterious Voyage of Homer
*
“That’s wild Jose,” Lily says to me from behind her desk.
My last day as a teacher at this recovery high school has me hiding out in Miss Lily’s office one last time. It’s Friday and the building is full of teachers preparing for In-Person-Learning that is set to begin again next week.
With nothing to prepare for myself, I’ve spent most of today listening to those teachers complain about this or that. Students…This virus…Politics…Money…The World.
Pandemic Life continues, I guess—Or is this just life now?
As a final assignment for my class I required my students watch the movie Finding Neverland and write a short story inspired by it. Lauryn titled hers “Through Those Eyes”. Giving it to Miss Lily to read, her and I discussed how good it was but soon found ourselves discussing that show Game of Thrones again. Lily finished the show and agreed with me that the ending was awful. And I just told her my conspiracy theory about it. Hence her comment: “That’s wild Jose.”
People continue to be up in arms about all this “cancel culture” stuff and this more recent “woke entertainment” thing. As usual I try not to engage in all the bitching out loud, but dealing with Sirena has had me bitching a lot in silence lately—which has had me noticing a lot of new entertainment pushing this strong woman narrative.
I just told Lily this knowing she might get annoyed with me but had to in order to tell her my conspiracy theory about it….
There was this show called The Newsroom I was watching before that fire happened. It first aired in 2012 but was cancelled after a shortened third season at the end of 2014. To me the show was extremely informative and enlightening when I watched back then— Why did that show get cancelled?
Was it because it was maybe feeding us too much truth? … Was it because it was making us too aware of what was really happening around us?
There’s a part in that show I’ll forever remember. It’s the part when its main character—a news anchor played by Jeff Daniels—is asked by a college student what makes America the greatest country in the world.
Pressured into providing an honest opinion to this question, this intelligent man is triggered…and goes on a long rant about why it’s not anymore.
After giving evidence supporting his opinion, this man says, “It sure used to be,” reminiscently before using words that are forever engrained in my mind: “The first step in solving any problem, is recognizing there is one: America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”
For some reason my crazy mind connected that scene to how that show Game of Thrones ended.
In its last episode, Daenerys—who most all viewers found themselves cheering for at one point or another—stands over the city she had just destroyed. In the background her dragon takes off in a way that has its wings appearing connected to her. Someone with an eye for symbolism like me would see that as the devil taking flight…with our once beloved Daenerys as the devil in disguise.
That episode first aired in May of 2019. A year later Covid came along and disrupted life as we knew it. “If Donald Trump had not come along and surprised everyone in 2016,” I said to Lily a few minutes ago, “Who would have been President of The United States then?” I connected the dots for her and said most experts had expected it to be Hillary Clinton.
Explaining this, I told Lily how I remembered hearing the writing for the last few seasons of Game of Thrones had been delayed.
“Were those in power—the people with money that produced these shows—conditioning us in a way that would have us hating Hillary Clinton and blaming a woman when Covid was unleashed?” I wrote in my journal and said to Lily. “Did Donald Trump winning that election in 2016 surprise those planning all this but work out for them regardless?”
I told Lily to watch that episode again and ask herself what people would have been thinking had Hillary Clinton been President when Covid happened last year. “It would have had a lot of us hating Hillary Clinton,” I told her. “A strong woman.”
I’m not often a conspiracy theorist. In fact, nothing bugs me more than people saying professional sports are “fixed” or “scripted”. Since my diagnoses, whenever I get over-excited about an idea I have—or in this instance a conspiracy theory—I fear my mind might be playing tricks on me.
When I was putting this together and writing about it in my journal, I knew it all sounded crazy. At the end of that entry, I actually questioned whether or not I should get back on meds again—I’m not sure if that’s funny or not.
Later that same night I turned on this show Expanse I’d started watching. Realizing that show was about humans divided and still fighting one another in space, I turned off the television and opened a book that night…completely exhausted by entertainment’s ability to make anyone and everyone into an unreasonable-intolerable-hardass-enemy.
A knock on the office door interrupts Lily and I. Principal Sam leans in and tells the two of us to come to the break room. Standing up, Miss Lily walks by me to head out the door. The smell of her hits me as she does—Kinda Cinnamony; my favorite.
Watching Lily turn into the breakroom in front of me, a loud song begins in chorus: “For she’s a jolly good fellow… For she’s a jolly good fellow… For she’s a jolly good fellow … Which nobody can deny.”
A few students have come in today to surprise Miss Lily. Me and the other teachers knew about this, but it is now clear Lily had no clue herself. Balloons surround a blue tablecloth covered table holding a single card and a cake with the words “Congratulations Lilia!” written on it.
“Don’t they know you hate being called Lilia?” I whisper standing beside her.
Turning to look at me, Lily pokes me in the chest. “Shut it Mr. Jose,” she says.
Miss Lily has gotten engaged. That boyfriend of hers finally proposed after a short breakup earlier in the year. A breakup that lasted only two weeks and was a result of some pornography Lily had found on her boyfriend’s phone—some pornography Lily told me way too much about.
“The shit he was watching looked so mean to me,” she said looking half heartbroken, half enraged that day.
I’ve been told “I see people”. Maybe that’s why people share their secrets with me…I don’t really know. The conversation her and I had that day was somewhat unprofessional maybe but also strangely productive.
Trying to make her less upset, I told her what she described on her boyfriend’s phone is everywhere. “It’s awful,” I said; giving her examples of what I’d seen myself as a person that has been single for a long time now.
After Lily and I had this conversation that day, she did some research and incorporated what she learned in a class with our students she titled “Fantasy Verse Reality”. In that lesson’s introduction Lily wrote:
With pornstars becoming influencers on social media, and all of you thinking you can get rich doing an OnlyFans page, you kids need to know the truth: What might excite us visually is not the same as what excites us in reality…and what we think we want and what we really want are often two very different things. Today we are going to have that uncomfortable but necessary conversation.
When Lily did that lesson I thought Nel and Pras might die of discomfort. “What you put online stays with you for life,” she warned them that day—a warning that’s blade secretly cut into my own skin when she it.
Lily is an amazingly gifted communicator and will be having meetings to continue my class when I’m gone. She’s gotten that ring she’s been so eager to get and I am super happy for her today.
“I still don’t get why you never went after that J.”
From beside me, Mr. Joseph says this to me while the two us eat our cake. This math teacher friend of mine just refuses to get it. Lily is twenty-seven years old and the list of reasons why her and I could never be a thing are too long and too real to try and list to him.
For one, I’m an almost forty twice divorced father of three. Something Council John liked to say to the men at the halfway house might apply: Just because the pieces fit…doesn’t make it a good fit.
Lily and I may have shared a moment though. “I just want to find a good guy J,” she said during that little break in her relationship. “You’re looking for the right guy,” I corrected her that day. Trying to be a friend to her and not listen to that other brain that’s gotten me in enough trouble in this life already.
I continue to be unlucky with ladies my own age these days, but older moms seem to like me for some reason. Last weekend I went to the casino where I played roulette with one who came to like me so much she FaceTimed her daughter who lived in Texas to introduce us.
“Her daughter’s name was Miranda,” I said to Lily telling her this. “What I really need though is a much older woman like her mom. A super nice older lady who appreciates a back rub and will love me like a little puppy dog…and maybe let me like her face from time to time,” I added with a laugh.
I went to the casino last weekend to feel alone around people—it’s sad really. Driving home after losing money I shouldn’t be losing right now I couldn’t help but think “landmines” are being set up for my kids everywhere…
“We have no disposable income to speak of these days but it’s becoming easier and easier for us to dispose of our income,” I wrote in my journal that night. “Our state will be selling fifty-dollar scratch tickets soon. How stupidly dangerous and irresponsible. Just another way to suck everything possible from the middle class.”
Eating cake beside Mr. Joseph and hoping to quiet these negative thoughts of mine, I try to think of something to say that will satisfy the requirement of idle conversation now.
“Have you noticed Lily wears sunglasses all the time?” I ask him.
“Yeah…so?” he says.
“Sunglasses intimidate me,” I reply seriously.
At my words Mr. Joseph lazily drops his fork to his plate. Looking at me he shakes his head and uses that thumb of his to remove some frosting from the edge of his lips.
“You know J,” he says sucking that frosting off his thumb, “for a good-looking guy, you’re a real pussy, you know that?”
Remembering Uncle Marsh using this same word on me earlier in the school year, I smile a response. “Yeah…I’ve been told.”
Driving home after Lily’s little engagement celebration, my phone attached to its stand on the dashboard rings. Pressing a button, I answer it: “Hello my dear,” I say solemnly to the pretty face looking back at me.
“Just calling to see how your last day went,” the voice says. “You doing okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answer. “I’m taking the kids to lunch tomorrow…that’s when it will hit me maybe.” Turning my eyes from the road I look into the phone. “We’re calling you X2 now by the way.”
“That’s real nice,” Sirena says. “Asshole!”
I give her a look through the phone. “Like you don’t deserve it,” I say honestly to her.
I had told Sirena about my lesson last week. She’s still an English teacher at that middle school her and I worked at together and is truly much better in the classroom than I am. I still run things by her from time to time and teasing each other has always part of our relationship.
Teaching was her calling, I tell her. The year I was in that halfway house she won teacher of the year in our town— Did she earn that award or was she given it for surviving me that year?
I couldn’t help but ask myself that then. But Sirena is really a gifted teacher, and her students are lucky to have her. Motherhood, however, was clearly not Sirena’s calling.
“Just because a person is good at producing children doesn’t make a person good at raising children.”
My mind remembers Sirena saying that once. She wasn’t referring to herself when she said it, but it’s a statement I can’t help but mentally attach to her now.
I expressed my frustration with Sirena to my students last week; hoping her and my semi-toxic relationship might provide a lesson and also a warning to them, but the truth is my son loves his mom, and she loves him. To our son things are great and really that’s all that matters. Loving a child takes many forms, I’ve concluded, and ultimately I respect her for doing what is best for him.
“If your story works you better not forget how long I took care of you!”
Hearing me excitedly talk about giving my story another shot, this line Sirena uses on me now is one I’ve heard a lot. The “time she took care of me”, I swear, gets longer every time she uses it on me.
Sirena really doesn’t hear how she sounds sometimes. When we were together I was the one who could tell her when she sounded ridiculous; like she does to me in this moment. We all don’t hear how we sound sometimes—me included—but Sirena really doesn’t sometimes.
“I’m proud of you,” she continues after I refuse to respond to her comment, “You know that, right?”
“I do,” I answer…wanting to believe her.
Sirena is cleaning something as we talk. She’s OCD about her cleaning—just one of the many reasons her and I being together with my boys was always going to be difficult. I like a clean house myself, but there is a healthy level of clean I think.
Looking at Sirena through the phone I desperately want to believe she’s proud of me but can’t help but wonder what lies she’s hiding from me at the moment. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at those lips of hers again without wondering that now.
When I asked Sirena why her lips looked swollen, she said she had “an allergic reaction to peanut butter”. A lie I believed because I’ll always be gullible it seems. Lily laughed at me for believing that. “I’m telling you J,” she said when I was still questioning it, “those are lip suspenders.”
I had snuck a picture of Sirena and showed her. Lily calls lip fillers, “Lip Suspenders”, and fake eyelashes, “Tummy Ticklers”. She’s so surprisingly and inappropriately funny sometimes. “I’m sure Sirena’s gonna buy herself a nice set of fake tits next,” she added that day. I don’t want to believe what Lily said but fear she might be right.
Sirena is always looking in a mirror and is obsessed with two words: big and small. I’ve seen her use these two words on people often but also the destructive effect they have when used on her. Frustrated over this lip thing, I told Lily I’d prefer to “bite and suck on a thin lip any day!” I was making a joke of the situation…but at the same time secretly telling Lily the truth.
I’m not to blame for Sirena’s insecurities, but I don’t help either.
Over the summer, me and my boys were at the beach when this beyond naturally beautiful woman; wearing a little yellow bikini, was playing with her son not far from us. “Pretty girls like that only get hit on by guys they’d rather not get hit on by,” I told my boys before walking over to this girl and awkwardly asking if she’d take a picture with me to embarrass those boys of mine.
Maybe I was joking when I sent Sirena that picture. Or maybe I was trying to make her jealous. Either way, I shouldn’t have done that knowing how Sirena thinks. “She’s from Arkansas and owns a bikini store,” I wrote in my text to Sirena with that picture, “If I run away again…look for me there. :0)”
Sirena used to think I was funny but not so much anymore. I’ve been trying to convince myself that my sense of humor was wasted on her.
“I know you’re excited to work on your story,” Sirena continues talking to me through the phone. “But you have to be realistic too,” she says. “You’ve come so far, and I don’t want to see you lose everything again…No surprises—okay?”
As I set out to write this little story of mine, not every problem I see in the world around me has a solution. Many of them do though and surprises will be necessary to get people’s attention.
I could maybe yell at Sirena now like she’s done to me: “I don’t need to tell you everything!” I could maybe say.
“I know,” I decide to reply calmly. “No surprises…I promise.”
What I say to her now is a lie, but it’s better than starting a fight I figure—she’s not the only good liar in this semi-toxic relationship of ours.
*
Article Title: P.A.I.N. through Fear
Dated: Friday January 22nd, 2021
“You’re almost there and you’re afraid you won’t make it. The closer you get the worse the fear gets.”
—a quote from the show Game of Thrones
Dear Class,
Last week I described a future where I had changed the world with this story I hope to write. Allow me to now share with you another potential future…
—3—
—2—
—1—
—Action!—
Sitting on this stage, the lights shining on me are so bright I feel blinded by them. What I see in front of me is nothing short of a miracle. I made it. My book was published—After everything that happened, was I right to believe all along?
Standing in the front row, I watch Lauryn give me that “I love you” sign with two hands she knows I think is corny. I flash my more traditional peace sign back at her and watch her mouth those two words in my direction: “F*** you,” she mouths slowly.
Seeing this relaxes me some. Looking at family and friends scattered around her, everyone—even Nel—is wearing one of those red hats with that word we’ve made famous stitched across its front. My heart is full as music plays loud.
The song everyone is dancing to is And We Danced by Macklemore. I might have suggested Wings by that same band had I been asked; it’s one my boys favorites. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many smiling faces at once but feel paralyzed by fear sitting on this stage now—Is it normal to still be afraid?
The music fades and I watch the host of this show make her way to me on stage. She shimmies herself up against the back of her comfy armchair across from me, takes a deep breath, and then wiggles both her arms to the side looking emotional. Silence settles in as the crowd and I wait for her to gather herself.
Locking eyes, we both smile—that type of smile where both people are trying to stop themselves from laughing. This is really happening, I think to myself, Drew Barrymore is about to interview me on live television.
“So…J,” Drew says slowly as reality settles in, “I have to ask…Have you gotten X2 back yet? ——Or has she maybe gotten you back?”
Drew’s eyes shift away from me to look at her audience. My face warms but I don’t talk.
“Oh sweetie,” she says after a planned moment of silence for X2, “I’m just messing with you.”
Drew laughs and moves her hand in a way that might swipe that question she just asked from the air in front of her.
“What I’m really dying to know,” she resumes, “is what these secret meetings between you and Dwayne Johnson are all about… Would you mind filling us nosey peeps in on that?”
Drew looks at me quizzically.
This moment between us on stage is merely theatre. Drew knows exactly what these meetings are all about. And why I can’t tell her in front of all these people. We have orchestrated this show and have been meeting in private over the last few weeks.
Acting nervous, I shake my head to answer her question about these meetings. On cue, a large man walks out from backstage wearing a butler suit…it’s Shaquille O’Neal.
Shaq walks past Drew, between her and the audience, and places a silver serving tray on the table between us. Using a crisp white glove, he removes the lid to this tray revealing a ham sandwich sitting on a single white napkin.
“In case you get hungry,” Drew giggles.
Shaq puts four fingers over his mouth, gives me and then the audience a funny face, and then tip toes off stage without saying a word. The crowd roars with laughter.
As the joke recedes, Drew wipes tears from the corners of her eyes and speaks again.
“Well then,” she says composing herself, “let’s get to it shall we. You’ve come here today promising to tell us this big secret of yours. So… Mr. J… What is it?”
Placing both elbows on her knees, Drew leans forward in her chair and eyes me. Hoping I can deliver the mind-blowing showstopper of a secret I promised, my stomach jumps to its throat as I try to remain calm—Are they ready? I wonder knowing I will find out soon enough.
In just a few seconds Oprah Winfrey will come out from backstage with Ellen DeGeneres and tell everyone in this audience to look under their chairs. There members of this audience will find my secret written with a black sharpie on a smooth white rock.
Attempting to give this moment a climactic feel, I stay silent and go to take a sip of water from the glass on the table beside me. Leaning over I find my arms won’t do as I want. Looking down, I see a white straitjacket holding them in place.
Lifting my head, I look up to see everyone in the audience laughing at me. This isn’t my dream coming true…it’s my nightmare.
How could I be so dumb? … How did I let this happen again? … WHY DID I LET MYSELF BELIEVE I COULD CHANGE ANYTHING?
The room goes pitch black and becomes suddenly silent. A moment of absolute terror passes before a single light turns back on appearing through a doorway where the audience just was. Through that doorway I see a man sitting on a throne wearing a crown.
Focusing on this crowned man through that doorway, I watch him stand up, pass through that doorway, and slowly walk down some stairs towards me strapped in this jacket on stage. As this man gets closer I realize who I’m looking at.
Standing in front of me, this large man wearing an expensive suit grins down at me with lips glistening with sweat. Pulling his right arm out from behind his back, I am frightened to discover he’s holding a gun.
His hands really are big, I can’t help but think to myself.
Calmly, this crowned man lifts that gun and points its barrel directly between my eyes. “You’re fired,” he says right before pulling the trigger.
—BANG!
Waking up from this nightmare, I find myself no longer excited about writing this story of mine. That’s what intimidating people and fear can do to us: scare us in the light so we destroy ourselves in the dark.
“They win by making us think we’re alone.” I think that’s what those Star Wars movies say about it.
Things rarely happen like we imagine. And being afraid is okay I’m told. Maybe it’s a sign of being a good person? Regardless, I’m letting my curiosity trump this fear growing inside me and will try and write this story. As the fears of what I think might happen to everyone if I don’t currently outweigh the fear of what I think might happen to me personally if I do.
That said, please wish me luck…I’m gonna need it!
Sincerely Yours, With Love, Mr. J.
WEEKLY QUESTION FOR REFLECTION:
“Living in fear is comfortable.” I’ve heard people say that. In your journals, please try and explain to me why that might be. Fill a page!
The Teachers Playlist:
Ready or Not by The Fugees
“If I could rule the world, everyone would have a G.U.N.”
*
(End of Chapter 23)
Recovery High School 