Beauty and Grace
Jan Hannah
2008
The view through the glass partition did not fill me with enthusiasm, not in the slightest. I sighed and stood staring in contemplation; wiped my sweaty hands down my trousers, chewed the side of my mouth, and entered. If another option had come to me I wouldn't have.
The dull classroom was scattered with bodies that were sat everywhere and anywhere around the randomly placed tables. Four of them were slouched over with their heads resting in their arms, either sleeping or recovering from the morning methadone hit; about the same again were sitting upright with their arms folded, looking as enthusiastic as damp old jay clothes; and the same again, maybe, prancing around like the dysfunctional teenagers I had just left in my previous job.
'Hiya, how's it going then?' I asked in my assertive, cool voice, 'this is a good turnout for a first day... have you all done art before or is this your first time?'
'Aye an no' came a high pitched Glaswegian accent. The other slept on.
I never wanted to be a teacher.
Enter - a confident looking man holding a clipboard. He approached and offered me his hand.
'You must be the new art teacher? The lads have been pushing for this for a long time now. Tell me, where have you come from? Do you live nearby?
Questions... questions. Inappropriate I thought, given the setting. I should have started questioning him back but I was overheating and nervous as hell.
His big blue eyes, magnetic and sexy under any other circumstance, must have recognised a chink in my armour.
Then, his accent changed...to broad Glaswegian... I'd been had.
'Ahm kiddin yoo on pal... sorrreeee! Mah names Rab and ahm daen an eight stretch, nothing to worry about though, armed robbery... ahh you've got tae hae a laugh, no?
The room exploded.
That was fourteen years ago.
Now at the age of forty five I've become wise; I'm wise to the wee wise guys and their wise cracks and I take **** from no man, or that's what I like to think. Complacency is not a clever trait; a girl can never be too careful in this climate.
8.45 a.m. June 2008
'******* beast! Look at him... should have been drowned at birth. What the **** is he doing here? I dinnae want to be onywhere near the likes o' him.'
'Stop that now' I barked 'what do you know about him anyway... you listen to jaily gossip and invent the rest... you don't know what life he's had... you know jack. In fact. You want to know something?
Silence...
You ask anyone out there in the public and they'd happily gas the lot of you.'
That shut them up. It always does.
In the learning centre it's my way or the highway.
Gerald the 'beast' slowly plodded his way across the waiting area towards the computing room, like a prehistoric salamander with legs apart for balance. All eyes were resting on him in silence. There was no denying it, Gerald was obese and grotesque; with his whiney plastic sandals, knee length shorts exposing varicose veins and a T shirt not nearly long enough to hide his blue/white jelly belly. Poor sod.
Twenty seven years behind bars, costing the country infinitely more each year than it chooses to pay me.
10.30 a.m.
Break time. Through the glass window in my small office I watch as the salamander starts to move. He's heading my way and today I am alone, and, I know he thinks I like him.
Then, in a moment of clarity I see something different, something I am not expecting and it makes me feel... disappointed... I see beauty and grace in the eyes of the man; once upon a time a perfect little baba cradled in his mother's arms, drunk from the milk from her breast, and loved like no other. Or maybe not...
Victim versus victim.
'Ccan I come in?...I wwant to ask yyou something' he stammered.
It obviously wasn't a question that required an answer... more of an announcement, and by the time it was over, he had already squashed his rear-end into the only other chair in the office, blocking my exit.
(Health and safety would not approve)
Christ he stank, of stale sweat and fresh sweat, beads trickling down over the fat rolls of flesh that tried to be a neck; pores dancing over in my direction, entering my lungs.
He was too close and short of breath.
'I wwant you to look up the computer for me. I wwant to find out the pprice of ice ccream vans. I'm thinking of that yyou know... planning on doing that wwhen I get out... sshouldn't be llong now I reckon... everything's looking good, and I ccould catch the school kids yyou know..wwith the vvan.'
For the love of Christ he's got to be joking. But he's not, he's waiting for an answer. THE MAN IS A GRADE ONE CERTIFIABLE NUTTER.
'Gerald. This is not one of your better ideas.' I humoured. 'A man of your profile is, um, likely to attract media attention; and that's even without an ice cream van... you'd have no privacy... from the press. I don't think it's a good idea.'
'Ii've thought about tthis wwell Jan and it's going to work. I've ffound Jesus now... yyou know that Jan, I've told yyou before, ddon't you remember?...he's on mmy side now.'
The inclination to continue with my rationalization was fairly small, to not at all. 'I'll have a look later.'
Ggreat. I'll be off nnow then shall I?'
He didn't move for an age. We stared at each other. Beauty and grace now long gone, replaced by cold darkness.
Slowly he wiped the sweat from his brow and his gypsy gold jangled as he rose and left.
Some salamanders will never be free.
