A Temporary Arrangement

Photo by Marcus Löfvenberg / Unsplash

Years ago, I spotted a hawk-like man flying seaward above the 405 Freeway. He appeared calm, hardly flapping his wings at all. I lost sight of him at the 10 interchange, but I found myself growing curious. What would it feel like to spin the wheel hard and go soaring off the edge of an overpass? Would I be weightless? Was it like flying?

I knew I hadn’t seen anything. My mind has never been my friend. So I ignored the hawk-like man, respectfully, the way one might treat an odd neighbor. I kept driving to work. He kept soaring toward the sea.

I was teaching at an after-school academy in Koreatown. Across the red bricks of its facade drooped long banners that listed the honors its students had won, the prestigious universities entered — as if the academy deserved the credit. The other teachers were recent graduates and working toward getting credentialed. They had binders full of lessons. They had good ideas.

I, who had been around longer, better understood our purpose. They would all be moving on soon, teachers and students alike. What we had was a temporary arrangement.

I walked into my classroom and said, “Kids,” then looked out upon them, faces like a plot of sunflowers. And in that room, I had to become the sun. I turned it on. “You’ll never believe what I saw.”

I told them about the hawk-like man, and the more they laughed and shouted, “Teacher! You’re crazy!” the more I spoke of him in a light and playful manner. I’d learned to treat all matters of life like so, to keep the unpleasantness at bay.

Kevin, who had recently taken to wearing a puka shell necklace over his school polo, said, “Yeah, right. It was probably a seagull.” I said, “Do seagulls have arms?” And he crossed his own and scoffed. “Probably!”

I called on Jenny, who had lifted her hand so high it pulled her from her seat. “Did he have friends?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

I wiped the whiteboard clean and clapped my hands together to signal the conclusion of chitchat. The class sighed. They were good kids. They could accept anything as normal and go on about their days. They knew what they had to do.

I helped with their homework. Whether they asked about long division or grammar, I’d tell them they were brilliant and show them things on the board. Then, magically, they’d teach themselves.

When the bell rang, they trooped past where I stood by the door and bumped me with their backpacks, on purpose — affectionately, I think. They stomped away to the shuttle vans idling in the lot, and I switched off the room lights behind them.

Lynn lived in old Los Angeles, in a wooden Victorian atop a yellowing hill, haunted by crows. I would take the stairs to her unit as if stepping into a dusty old film. I imagine she did too. That night, I found her stirring a bottle of wine into a saucepot, her short hair cinched into the rounded tip of a paintbrush. There she is.

It smelled wonderful there, the air steamy