Stretch Howe and the Wig

[The following is a letter to Liz in 1998. Names have been changed to protect the guilty]

Earlier this week I was really getting into some hot teaching. It is evolution time, so I figured I'd get this mess out of the way in a couple of weeks. While all this profound explaining was going on, Molly MacMaeur, a student who is living her life again because she bombed my class last year, walked up to me and put a wig on my head. Well, that broke up the seriousness of the uniformitarianism concept I was trying to get across to the class. I guess I really looked funny, so I thought, what the heck, I'll play along with it. I didn't skip a beat. It was what you could say an example of being naturally selected to survive in the face of a catastrophe. I kept right on evolving. But, unbeknownst to us in the class, a real-life catastrophe was storming the halls of this great institution. All of this laid-backness was about to radically change without warning.

The wig worked well when a student who had asked to go potty (his exact words) came back to class. He opened the door and doubled over with laughter. Naturally, the other 38 students joined in. Sounded like a big colony of penguins (Have you ever heard a big colony of penguins? When you get home I'll show you a video about penguins). A girl who was tardy strolled in and added her snickers to the merriment. She tried with all her might to make it to her seat with a smile, but she broke up midway down the rows of tables, staggering from hilarity.

The mood changed when this great big guy, Stretch Howe--a football person (he even has a football name, doesn't he?)--who, heretofore, had successfully conned me into buying two dead-chicken dinners, a couple of barbecue orders for the Spirit Club, and who has been energetically working on my soft side with these mugs he's selling for some reason--comes foaming into the room, slamming the door, doing his lineman thing, charging by me with the most horrendous expression of defeat on his face. Right on the edge of tears he spikes his books on the lab table, plops himself on the little stool while gyrating his upset body, causing the whole room to tremble. Pouring his face into his cupped hands he proceeds to sound like he's speaking in tongues. I did catch "dirty" and "no good" from his grief spillage, and I'm sure I ignored some other words which are unacceptable to utter in the midst of tender ears. He looked like he needed some slack cut. It was obvious to me that he had experienced a most unfortunate turn of events in his life. Clearly, the mood was not appropriate for me to approach him with that wig on. First, the young man is very big, so big that I tremble at the thought of the things I've gotten away with, like the soft-spoken reprimand, "Stretch! Sit down!" You know you just don't go around talking to a big person like you could clean his plow. When you are looking toward the sky as you chew out someone, it is a bit contradictory, humorous, even dangerous. So, here is Stretch periodically spitting out hateful utterances and flinging his arms. I believe he would have drowned himself in the aquarium if he could have fit inside. He was that far gone. To add to the humorous tragedy of the moment, I noticed these two big Oscar fish in the corner of the tank next to Stretch staring at him. It was as if they were full of sympathy and understanding. They sure seemed compassionate. I wonder if they possess a listening-ear kind of thing. But, come to think of it, they always watch Stretch, after all, Stretch is their friend. More than once I've caught him giving them goldfish he'd scooped from the nearby aquarium. So they had come to really appreciate Stretch. With all this in mind, but the realization of me wearing this silly wig not in my mind, I went to his side to be a comfort. "Is there anything I can do, Stretch?" I asked in a pastoral tone with folded hands. Sincere. A soul full of compassion.

Momentarily Stretch glanced up, withdrew his gaze, then redirected his glance that had turned to a scrunched-up face with beady eyes firing through all those hateful wrinkles. "G#%(!@ sputter, blah, blah," Stretch replied unintelligently, having the good sense not to be totally rude, crude, and abusive to me.

I was first taken aback at his response. I thought he would have appreciated a terrestrial listening ear more than those fish. Surely a human touch was warmer than a fish stare he was receiving from the Oscars. I was perplexed. Why I was suddenly receiving his emotional refuse?
A weak voice in the back broke through Stretch's wailing, "The wig, Mr. Smith, the wig."

"Oh Rats!" I thought, ashamedly. Immediately I ripped off the wig and held it behind my back. I spoke again. Stretch looked up again and slammed his fist on the table and buried his head in his arms. He was humiliated and bruised and from his point of view I was belittling his plight.

Daughter, you know my heart. I would not intentionally torment a grieving soul. Yet, that was exactly what I had done. You don't wear a wig when you're trying to console a grieving man. For a happy man, it's okay. I could have said, "I was just kidding," pretending I knew it was on my head all the time that aggravated him, but Stretch was in no mood to be kidded. I could have told him the truth, "I forgot I had the wig on." However, sometimes the twist of events entangles truth to appear absurd. Knowing Stretch would not have believed the latter, I quietly walked away and returned the wig to the young lady who had brought it to class. To Stretch I was trying to be funny, and I believe it would have been a waste of time trying to tell him otherwise.

Intentional humor can have its rewards, among which is control. One is exhilarated by the power he has over another, not from the grip of screams of terror, but by the shackles of chuckles. I once had a job being a comedian. That's right. When I was in high school this farm person thought I was so funny that he offered me a job to make him laugh. He said, "Smith, why don't go with me tomorrow (Saturday) while I disc. I'll pay you."

"How much?" I asked. He laughed. Let's be frank here, the guy was easily entertained.

"Two-ho-ho dollars." His exact words.

"How much is two-ho-ho?" I asked. He doubled over. his face turned red. Stopped breathing. No sound. Finally, after a long inhalation he bellowed out the rest of his laughter. "Oh, you mean two dollars, don't you." I continued. He shook his head, while being driven further into hilarity, unable to speak, bending down close to passing out.

Back yonder two dollars a day was a good going rate for riding on a tractor just to make a person laugh. So I packed a sack lunch, got up at 5 A.M. He came by and picked me up at six. I hadn't taken into consideration the length of time I was going to sit on that tractor, not on a cushioned seat with springs but on a fender that has no flat surface. And I was very bony back then, too. All day long I bounced on that fender. Even my cries of agony was funny to the guy each time he drove out of the furrow because he was laughing at something I had said. More than once I had to steer the tractor back into the plowed furrow for him while he got over one of his laughing fits. The condition of that field, as I viewed it at the end of the day, looked like the work of a drunk. A pathetic job it was. In fact, he told me later that his dad made him disc that field over because of anonymous calls from fellow farmers teasing his dad about the condition of the field.

As a teacher you are not paid to be funny, whether the humor is intentional or not. You are to be professional. Occasions arise when students need your wisdom and maturity, your concern, your compassion; they don't need you to ride along on the finder of their tractor and make them laugh.

It is uncertain why Stretch was on the edge of self-destruction. I didn't ask him later, neither do I plan to bring the subject up in the future. I heard rumors that his girlfriend had terminated their amorous arrangement, but intensive research is needed for a definitive conclusion. I've heard of kids going berserk, killing teachers for less than what I had unintentionally done to poor Stretch. It is clear that Stretch's last expression of disgruntlement with me was not perpetrated by the wig. I wondered why members of the class were giving me strange glances. Many would look at me and then drop their eyes toward their desks, smiling. One or two went through the motion of wiping their faces--the weak ones who couldn't keep a straight face. I later discovered the cause. In the back storage room, where a mirror hangs, I beheld the reason for Stretch's outrage. He thought I was still trying to be funny. My taking off the wig left my hair in disarray. I had the appearance of having been zapped by static electricity, hair clinging together in the center of my head like a church steeple.

Ambrosia trifida

Back in Missouri
Some folks named them Horse Weeds,
Horsus weedus.
Most called them Ragweeds—
With a nasty tone;
Only the elite knew they were
Food for the gods.

Tall and thin
With big green hands,
Rough from too much sun,
They’d listen for hours
At complaints about the high price
Of bubblegum.
With voices like cicadas
And clicking grasshoppers,
They didn't say much.
And if the wind was just right,
You could catch a whiff of plant beer
On their breath.

Where Do Poems Go When They Die?

Everywhere I look they’re gone.
Pages and pages of poems, lost forever;
Only ghostly forms drift in my mind
Like smoke rising above blackened trees--
Their music with limbs and leaves
Of shrouded oaks burned into empty computer shells
And stubby stumps, scorched,
Distorted, all dead.
One has to smile at occasional visions of nonsense.
I know where they are:
In a folder in the office,
In a notebook in the bookcase,
In complementary copies of folded journals.
Or maybe in the computer’s hard drive
Backing up everything that forms
The flesh and bone of a man’s soul.
Ah! But everything is gone.
Where do the words of poems go
When the wind lifts them from the white pages
Whose edges are smeared with ash?