Perilous Playground of Pubescents

Perilous Playground of Pubescents

“Impossible. You can't do it, Mrs K. we know you can't!!”

These little 5th grade shits, she thought, always taunting their substitute teacher. Mrs K was enduring this latest gig at a private school in an affluent Chicago suburb for the last couple of years. She’d finally settled a decades long divorce, her youngest son was off to Boston, and her 70th birthday loomed. Attorneys fees left her bankrupt, and no amount of 'The Secret', as many times as she watched that DVD and practiced the techniques, was working fast enough. Time was not on her side.  

On this Spring day the daffodils were peeking out from the patches of dirty snow shoveled to the edges of the playground. Yes, it was the end of April, but in Chicagoland, snow will fall on Easter, and the Bunny still hides plastic eggs full of jelly beans in the backyard that won’t be uncovered until you’re out there watching 4th of July fireworks. Understandably, on this Fun-N- Games Friday at the school, the kids were clamoring to get outside, burn off some energy in yet another Monkey Bars challenge.

'I don't think I care for this job at all” Mrs K told her daughter on a recent phone chat. “Never, ever, ever get married, hon. Don’t do it!” She implored with a sigh. It was a shame Mrs K wasn’t a smoker–-only for theatrical flair-- because a long drag of a cigarette could really punch up her world wearied wisdom. Her daughter loved that much of her mom’s relationship advice was inspired from reality TV shows like ‘The Bachelor Pad”

Mrs. K was a deep-in-her-bones thespian, who held a parent pleasing teaching degree. She never dreamed she’d be working the back up plan in her seventh decade, but her dreams of Broadway stardom were dead and the local community theater, where she was a bonafide star, made its final curtain call the same year she was eligible for “retirement” . "What retirement?” she would rhetorically ask her kids with an exhausted laugh. “You know that role as your father’s wife cost me everything” 

She'd stuffed her wigs, her Mary Todd Lincoln hoop skirt, Xanadu roller skates and face tape into a pine trunk, then into a storage facility that sat surrounded by overgrown weeds off the side of Interstate 88.

“I know, Mom, I can’t imagine how annoying some of these spoiled kids are! Focus on the quiet ones. Kids love love you!” And kids really did love her, her dramatic expressions and way with words. Except one. The fifth grade Queen Bee, Sophie Leclair, lived rent free in Mrs K's head. She was the tall blond bully , a “Napervillian” who taunted Mrs K at every turn. There was the toilet water incident after Mrs K fainted during the Thanksgiving program, Itching Powder in Mrs. K's winter coat, a live cicada in her coke can, and the stack of winning scratch off tickets that went missing from her tote. "Oh no, I think I saw someone tear those up in the bathroom and flush them down the toilet" Sophie said, feigning concern.

Normally, when Mrs K got 'the feeling', she would sneak out on her lunch break to play the slots at the riverboat casino just 7 miles down the road. She won $10,000 on two separate occasions, months apart. She had 'the feeling' today, but because it was (Friggin') Fun-N-Games Friday, all teachers had to stay on the school grounds.

The noon bell rang, and the kids sprinted out the doors to the playground. First up, weekend gymnast Lily pounced up to the monkey bars and swung across in seconds, as the crowd cheered. Then 'Air' Jordan as the kids called him leapt onto the bars gliding to the other side in a blink. One kid after another swinging across the metal playground bars like TV's American Gladiators.

"Now you go, Mrs K!" Sofia demanded with a smirk "You look soooo athletic! I’m sure you can do it!” '

"Oh no, monkey bars are not for me" Mrs. K replied. Besides, she was on crutches already from spraining her ankle at an Easter buffet over the weekend. "Shirley's dog knocked me right off my feet as I got up for a second helping of roast beef" she told her daughter that night when she got home from urgent care. "I just tumbled into the table, deviled eggs in my hair, the carving knife missing my fingers by an inch!"

The kids were disappointed. Mrs. K realized this was not the show her audience came to the playground to see.

'You know what? I will not stand by like a cream faced loon!' she said "Hold my crutches!" One of the many boys in mesh basketball shorts clumsily took them from her. The audience erupted in cheers.

"This thing was here when MY kids were kids" she said nervously, scanning the metal menace, its bars bars splattered with bird poop, and weathered from years of what she called the Vicissitudes of Midwest Mother Nature. 

“Steel Rod” she whispered to herself as she rolled her shoulders back. It was a technique she learned from an acting coach in college when she was an understudy in MacBeth. She would visualize a metal rod, like those of the Monkey Bars, sliding down the back of her spine, regally fortifying her 5’2” frame. 

“It's Fun and Games Friday. It's all just Fun and Games” she repeated to herself as she hopped over to the first rung and gripped onto it tightly. Breathing in and out as the cacophony of cheers and giggles buzzed around her.

"Mrs K Go All The Way! Mrs K Go All The Way!" they chanted.

Mrs K was holding onto the bar as tightly as she was the shred of dignity that remained while performing for these pint sized pistols.

She took one deep breath and released her right hand grip, in a swing of faith.

SLIP. SNAP. THUMP. Mrs K fell to the ground, and the kids fell silent--except for a baritone "BOOOOOO" from Peter, a savant on the recorder, who Mrs K thought was mute until that moment. Mrs K spit the wood chips from her mouth “Someone get a grown up please!!” she said, over enunciating her words as she did when she needed to keep the tears at bay.  

The kids stood frozen around her as she winced in pain.

“Or Forget it! Just leave me here for dead!!” she wailed. The kids didn’t know if that was a serious demand or if she was doing the Gallows humor thing she taught them about the day before.

Sophie stepped forward, reaching for Mrs K’s uninjured hand to help her up 'Aw, it looks like it's all fun and games... until someone breaks their wrist!' She smirked and quickly pulled her arm back to her head, smoothed out her long blond locks.  

Mrs K looked down at her most-likely broken wrist. The yellow woven bracelet on it read: “WWCZJD”. One of her daughters made it for her as a nod to the omnipresent rubber LiveStrong bracelets made by a famous cyclist. “I don’t trust him” Mrs K would always say, I don't care how fast he goes on his 10 speed." Her kids would laugh and tell her he was a role model for millions of people.

"You know what I ask myself when I’m in a bind? What would Catherine Zeta Jones do? That's someone to pay attention to" she would tell to anyone who would listen. Mrs K even named her favorite shelter kitten after her, spelled –CAT-herine Zeta Jones, of course.  

“That’s right, it is all just Fun and Games..." she replied, staring into Sophie's soul. “Until it’s NOT.”  

Deb, the school nurse came running past the swings, the sundial, the seesaw, arms flailing with a first aid kit and roll of gauze in her hands. “Everybody back up!’ She shouted with the authority of a war zone medic. “The ambulance is on its way! Mrs K, don’t move an inch! This is the worst casualty I’ve ever seen on this playground!” Deb frantically blew the wood chips and dirt from Mrs K’s arms, slathered Neosporin on her scrapes. 

Mrs K sat silently, squinting her eyelids, but never blinking, never taking her eyes off of Sophie. She could see the flicker of fear in her eyes for the first time. WWCZJD? She started to visualize. This duel had just begun.

###