Tinged

"She had written these words, to be sure.... And for her, along with the residue of fear and the dubious sense of relief, there was, of course, the guilt-tinged bafflement when she realized that, unlike Lies, she had been spared."

-- Philip Roth, in The Ghost Writer

--

I'm about to eat a personal cheese pizza in the café lobby of the community center I mentioned before. Reading the same Philip Roth book and sipping tea, when that "Summer Girls" song comes on the center's radio. A song I haven't heard since middle school (okay, maybe high school), and yet I recognized the opening drumbeats and repetitive record scratches. Can't remember the names of Kentucky's senators, but I remember that. I used to sing along with it on the schoolbus, pretending to know the words until it got to the parts where I did know the words: "New kids on the block, dah-buh-dum-dee dee, Chinese food makes me sick...something summer..."

The last class went well, considering. I was sure to apologize to the disgruntled parents and thank the sympathetic ones, hoping that they really do understand: Miscommunication led to them paying for a workshop that I couldn't deliver. It's not an excuse, it's a reason. "X equals negative-B plus or minus the square root..."

These workshops have been clouded by a sense of doom for nearly a month. Before Thanksgiving provided me a much-needed escape from these Thursday evening punishments, I was begging my boss to cancel the classes. Refund the money. Take it from my check. Anything so I wouldn't have to do that again. See those parents. Raise my voice. See that infuriating little smile on the face of a child who refuses to hear--or do--what you say.

Thing is, as workshops go, it wasn't bad. It hasn't really merited the bad feeling I've had after each class. I've been more trapped before this, more precisely labeled a Persona non grata. So it's a case of dementia, or exaggeration. On my part, if no one else's.

--

And when, after the class, the center's liaison joked that I must be happy that I would never have to deal with her again, well, I didn't laugh. Not because I think it's true--far from it. She's just doing her job, and I'm trying--pathetically perhaps--to do mine. I don't feel that "dubious sense of relief" you're supposed to feel after you've finished a rough process; on the contrary, I feel "guilt-tinged bafflement."

(Who knew a simple bout of suffering would make me identify with Roth's Jewish heroine?)

At the risk of pressing matter into metaphor, I feel like Oskar Schindler at the end of the film: "One more! One more!"

--

Could I have taught them the songs themselves instead of just some dances? Could they have had more fun with another instructor? Could I have saved everyone a bunch of headaches by cow-towing sooner?

"Could" is a four-letter word tonight; it doesn't coo, it cuts; remove the U and it shows its true self, "cold;" it's a warrior in the kingdom of Might Have Been. I have nothing to say to it. Only doubt, the feeling that I wasn't who I could have been, a cloud of unknowing instead of a light. "Cloud"--another rearranging of the word.

Good thing this was the last workshop for a while. I need time to recoup.

--

In the café, more parents and their children. All around, at circular tables, egalitarian tables. I can hear them discussing their plans for the evening. My pizza is eaten; the box is empty. I haven't gotten any farther in the book. It sits open, the left page (142) dogeared, with huge blocks of italics on the right page.

Michael Bublé is on the radio, singing a Christmas song.

I've been spared.