THE LAST WORD

I knew Aleta back in the 70’ and 80’s. We were teachers at the same school; she taught 7th & 8th grade English. I had 9th & 10th graders for Biology. She was a large woman, certainly taller, much heavier than me. She had never married, a feminist from day 1, she loved to intimidate men of any age. I coached wrestling; she called it RASS-ling with a thinly veiled question about boys who RASS-le and their sexual orientation. I think we were friends but that was back when I was under the patriarchal scheme and you wouldn’t want a woman to have the last word. It was a problem for me in that she was the smarter, a quick witted, wordsmith and she would compromise you in front of your peers. 

In the Jimmy Carter and early Reagan years, nobody sued teachers. Teachers could get away with what would now be punishable, outrageous behavior. Aleta kept a towel on the floor beside her desk where boys were required to kneel. When they had questions they had to humble themselves at the kneeling towel before they could get an answer or the hall pass to use the restroom. Sometimes, depending on who it was, boys had to kiss her on the cheek and tell her how wonderful she was. She was a really good teacher, she truly cared about each and every kid and everybody knew it but being a boy in her class gave education an extra dimension. My kids were more likely to be singled out simply because of me, RASS-ling and whatever else she took from our relationship. She would inspect my son’s lunch to see what was coming out of our kitchen; sometimes sample a bit of a sandwich or cookie. She told him, next time his mother made those chocolate chip cookies to put in a couple extra for her which he did, and she did. 

Teachers had a table in the cafeteria but we all ate in the teachers lounge, away from the noise. Aleta would banter with me about whatever was in the kid’s lunch and start some oblique, cross examination as to who made my lunch and why. If I had made it she would query, “Why, what did you do to aggravate your wife?” If she fixed it, it would go something like, “You’re a big boy, why can’t you fix your own lunch?” In either case it was just a segue into a higher level battle of wits. I didn’t want to go there with her. The interest in what came out of our kitchen was always a way of putting me on the spot. Like I said, you can’t always let her have the last word so my only chance was to change the rules. 

I kept my lunch in a brown paper bag in the refrigerator, in the lounge. It usually consisted of two sandwiches, wrapped in waxed paper and something sweet like cookies or a tupperware cup of fruit. One day I had a two pound margarine tub in the sack instead of cookies but I didn’t open it. It went back in the fridge. After a couple of days of the unopened tub protocol, Aleta asked about it. “What did your darling wife fix for you that you’re not eating?” I blew her question off but she wouldn’t let it go. “If you’re not going to eat it, will you share? If it’s as good as her cookies we should all get a bite.” I pushed it across the table. She shook it, sniffed it and said something to the effect, “. . . must be pudding or cobbler.” 

I taught biology. In lieu of a nonexistent budget, we took shortcuts and made do. That meant we caught live frogs in the fall so we could do frog dissections later in the year. They froze well; all we had to do was thaw them out. ‘Rana pippins’, leopard frogs which in late summer were plentiful and just the right size. Kids would catch as many as possible, sell their extras to others who had neither the will nor the stomach to wade for them in local ponds; sometimes you come up with a big bullfrog. I had such a frog. Aleta pulled the top off the tub and stared down. When you know something they don’t, a split second can drag out beautifully. I was loving it. In the cool refrigerator the frog was content to take a nap. With a little jostling and time to warm up, it was ready for something else. ‘Rana catesbeiana’, the bullfrog simply hopped out of the tub onto the table beside her lunch tray. It wasn’t a scream but it was loud. She tried to stand up but her chair was too far under the table and she lurched backward, knees and elbows, over the chair and onto the floor. The aftermath was all I could have hoped for. Before she hit the floor, I’m sure, she was already thinking that she had initiated the action. All I did was bring a frog with my lunch and let her do the rest. I collected the frog and released it that evening; I had been taking it home every night, feeding it crickets and bringing it with my lunch the next day. Aleta and I sparred for years, able to take as well as we gave. It wasn’t often that I got the last word but the frog caper may have been the best. 

We moved in 1985; I left one school for another, new friends, different assignment. All I know about Aleta is that she retired in the early 90’s with health problems. Kidney failure, being on dialysis, she didn’t get around much. Another teacher friend of mine went to visit her often. They played cards and listened to music. She passed a few years later and I never got to tell her, honestly, that I had finally grown up, that she was right all along. The patriarchal model was simply a bullshit distraction to insure male privilege, that women must be superior, at least most times. She had been looking forward to having my daughter in her class, that I had saved the best for last. I wish they had done 7th grade together, something the boys have to remember that would have been cool for a daughter as well. I don’t know why I thought of her this morning, swimming laps but I'm glad, it's a good memory.