Winter Season

Not gonna eat that

Oscar came home about 3 o’clock. She thought it was odd but then again, school hadn’t started yet. When she opened the door, she didn’t see him, she saw a thunder cloud. “What’s wrong?”

When he came in, he started pacing around the living room. “Let me tell you about these amazin’ people that I work with. Traditionally today, we have lunch catered in, cake and ice cream to celebrate everyone’s birthday. Things get too wild throughout the year so we all just decided to do it on the first day of in-service. Lunch was Mexican. Not much there I can eat. Cake and ice cream were chocolate, I wouldn’t eat it. My ulcer is doing better but I’m in no mood to test it. One of the teachers,” he threw his hands up in the air. “Cindy. In front of God and everybody walks over to me with a piece of cake and says,” he put his hands on his hips and changed the tone of his voice to an irritating squeak like register and every tenth word, sometime less, clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. Beginning with the clicking noise, “Oscar, ain’t you gonna eat,” tongue click, “your piece of cake?” Tongue click. “No, I said. I don’t want any cake.” Tongue click, “well you only picked at lunch and now no cake,” tongue click. “You might offend someone.” I replied, “It’s not my intention to offend anybody, but I don’t want the cake.” Tongue click, “well, I think your just being rude. I mean after all,” tongue click. “This is for us all.” Tongue click, “and seems to me you’re not being a team player.” Tongue click. He pointed at Esther, “I tell you never in my life have I ever wanted to shove a piece of cake into anyones face as I did that cow.” He started pacing again, “Cindy, I have an ulcer. Chocolate aggravates my ulcer. I’m not gonna eat that. She lets out a long sigh and holds her chest.” He held his chest like she did. His hand was palm down in the center of his chest. Tongue click. “Oh my stars, she giggled!” He hissed. “She turns and looks at some of the other teachers in the room, giggling!” Tongue click, “You know some of us have had several conversations about you,” tongue click. “We’ve speculated that you were gay.” Tongue click, “until you brought the new lady in town to the Christmas Bizarre.” Tongue click, “Oh and the prom. She giggled again.” Tongue click. “Then we thought maybe you had A.I.D.’s, that was why you are so skinny.” Tongue click. “Another thought was an eating disorder.” Tongue click. He started pacing again. Tongue click, “I am so thrilled that it’s just an ulcer.” Tongue click. “Why didn’t you tell us,” tongue click, “that you had an ulcer? We would have made a white cake too.” Tongue click.

“Gay, A.I.D.’s, an eating disorder. So they sit and talk about me?”

Winter Season