Spindrift, Part Three

Ah the Green, the infamous Sprindrift Village Green: ground zero for street theater of the absurd and a steady stream of out of tune, self-medicated banjo players. In addition, a number of shmatah encased cafes offering braised broccoli, whole wheat pancakes, fair trade falafel, pesticide-free peas, sand sifted soy milk, chamomile mint fizzes, fennel frittatas and of course community-conscious couscous. 

The Green also was peopled at almost any hour with a vibrant host of hucksters; there were early stage terminal singing guitarists and the Especially Hairy Ones with eerie pairs of glittering eyes peeping through tangled manes- these extremely long tresses often had seen too many visions of nirvana or snorted one more spec of something ecstatic than could ever be accounted for rationally, their unsettling demeanor further emphasized by a tendency toward incredibly scary looking toenails. These truly strange ones however actually comprised a smaller percentage of the census than one might think, fewer in number but highly, highly visible, especially on weekends when they entertained the tourists and themselves with great brio and a kind of drug fueled innocence.

Frankly I just could not see Hermie Treadwell, former NYC high school teacher slightly eccentric but basically mild mannered, in any of these scenarios- it simply did not make sense. He was legendary for chiding his long-haired male students and was known to offer extra points for haircuts. He never showed any affinity for learning a string instrument and definitely was not one to hang out in public places in ripped jeans; the mere sight of pierced body parts on his students, even an innocuous, small conglomeration of two or three ear pieces, tended to kick off spirited invectives on self-mutilation. He also was the last person likely to uproot an entire family and relocate to some upstate backwater redolent of fatal nostalgia and an overdrive of fantasy but pitiably short on pastrami. 

To the best of my knowledge, Hermie had never been a pot smoker and in fact prided himself on being one of the teetotalers at the rather raucous end term parties; he called himself the designated dribbler while the rest of us abandoned ourselves to the Dionysian sensations of cheap sherry at Christmas. Still, when I think of Hermie, none of this makes sense. He was basically a very, very stable individual, not at all flashy, clean shaven, an un-apologetic caffeine addict who preferred diet cokes to green tea and never expressed any interest whatsoever in either the evils of fracking or the benefits of eliminating corn beef from the diet.

Fantasy, the retreat of last resort, or vice versa? I could picture Hermie saying something like this on the last day of school. The truth is that probably everyone at some point in their prosaic quotidian existence dreams of transforming their lives into something more adventurous and riskier. But how many of us actually get to do this? It’s just not practical. And Hermie Treadwell would have been the least likely candidate for that kind of radical metamorphosis. I understand the lure of course as I myself became seriously enamored that summer with the idea of cutting loose from the gulag and doing something rash and exciting. The real estate market already had tanked around the time of Hermie’s defection and there were zillions of opportunities for vicariously checking out new and unusual living arrangements.

Eventually I wound up seeing so many properties that year in my own escape fantasy it became more expedient to concoct nicknames for them, a convenient filing system for all the lives I had the pleasure of observing in the village of Spindrift. In order of appearance though not necessarily eccentricity, several of the more memorable encounters involved: Chotchka Lady, Corporate Nympho, Drinks-Like-A-Fish, Zen Boy, Dark Shadows, Hippie High Ho, The Shining, Incensed on Incense and Little Red Schoolhouse, to name just a few. Did Hermie also comb through sundry small town existences during vacations when he was not in school or at home marking papers or planning lessons on the rebellious colonists and the lure of westward expansion, or devising quizzes on the post-reconstruction period?  

I’ll probably never find out what drove him out or where he wound up because it seems that no one knows his exact address in or out of Spindrift, and he always kept his number unlisted, although I’m convinced he still maintains a landline. Ironically I never managed to bump into him either on the Green, though one would think he would have had to have passed through on some prosaic errand, like buying postage stamps or devouring a soft serve yogurt, and voila, we serendipitously cross paths in a marvelous stroke of synchronicity!  I suppose my ESP was not particularly in high gear at the time. In any event I finally decided against the whole moving thing for reasons of practicality, along with a good, long look at the landscape as the foliage began to wane. The dream quickly dissipated faster than a cloud of chalk dust as the trees grew bare and ominously lonesome, and I began refiguring how many more years in the gulag it would actually take to reach that final “magic number.”

But I still find myself thinking about Hermie and have begun allowing myself a few rewards on occasion, like the unselfconscious consumption, of greasy, ketchup drenched French fries, consumed unabashedly via my naked fingers-  like the song says, freedom’s just another word for no more weight to lose. . .  and do I really, really care what the decorum detectives think? As you can see, I’ve also taken to composing my own little aphorisms. I’ve been going over the various circles of hell with my seniors this year and have come up with a zinger for those who come to class unwashed: Abandon soap, all ye who enter here? Occasionally I continue to check the ads up in Spindrift as well. Recently I took an online subscription to The Sprindrift Times just to read some of the insanely absurd letters-to-the-editor. I’ve also begun taking a little more time off and using up my days because as it turns out absences definitely do make the heart grow fonder. . . .  

Sometimes when I’m meditating in between classes in the teachers’ lounge- a deserted, dank cave in the basement desperately in need of a wrecking ball- I find comfort in visualizing my inner space as a cloudless, blue mountain top with endless vistas. . . . If the universe is indeed infinite, is not anything and everything possible? Would chucking it all be such a bad thing. . . ? Why, why, must I remain at this crappy job?!? Life is short. . . .

 Nah, must stay. Nah-must-stay. Nahmustay, Naamastay. . . . Nah. Must Stay.



(12 June 2012)