Children of Sisyphus

By Daved Ayres

Poor life choices and reality finally collide in a small town in Michigan, forcing a family to have to scrabble to survive. With a degree in hand, William returns to his hometown to raise his family and work his dream job teaching art in his former high school. Until the recession hits. Then he's forced to scrabble for anything he can to keep afloat and grasp at the fleeting remnants of his dreams as they pass through his fingers. Still, he struggles on to bear his burden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Sutton
• Release date: Aug 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301902859

Book preview

Children of Sisyphus

Published by Mike Sutton at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Daved Ayres

ISBN: 9781301902859

Chapter 1

They say that a duck's quack doesn't echo. The old man slurred as he swung the half empty fluted glass of bubbly in an arch before him. His audience, teachers the lot of them, watched on in stunned awe. Which is of course preposterous. I mean a quack from a duck is just ordinary sound, waves of energy that are disturbing air molecules, much like energy is passed through water in wave form from one point to another. Saying that a duck's quack doesn't make an echo is like saying that a dropping a corvette into a pond won't make a splash. Just because it's a corvette! And of course we all know it does. Well, we're all willing to try that experiment at least. I think that Mrs. Stolly has a corvette. The old man grinned.

An expanding ripple laughter passed through the crowd of educators. Polite, or nervous? It was difficult to tell. What was the difference? At least half of them would love to see Mrs. Stolly's corvette dumped into a pond, maybe with the woman herself strapped in it. Her husband too. And their dog. Just saying so aloud, wasn't too wise if one wanted to remain employed for very long. The old man didn't seem to take heed of any such niceties as he just plowed forward with the lecture, the pitch of his voice rising as his excitement grew.

Also it's like light. But that's both a wave and a particle, so I guess a duck's quack isn't really similar to light at all, beyond the fact that they're both comprised of energy. Forget I mentioned it. But it is this exact superstitious absurdity that is holding our country back today! People believing with all their hearts that a duck's quack doesn't echo! Foolishness. This is why we need more science in the classroom. And I hope that you all are going to be here to fulfill this need. He took a long pull on his wine, to a round of applause and then plopped back down in his chair, the steel-tubed frame just barely resisting the urge to collapse under his not insignificant weight.

Cut-backs and all. This wouldn't have been the first chair to have succumbed this winter.

Mr. Frederich was the district's oldest and longest serving teacher, having taught general science courses for some thirty-five years or so. Longer than many members of the current faculty had been alive. He had been a fiery proponent of the full ravaging glories of science and how it would improve the lives of any who took up the cause. When William was a student here, he had taken several classes with the old man. Mr. Frederich had burned into his soul an undying fascination for all things science(if not a speck of the man's talent). And now the old man was retiring. At behest of the school and many of the parents. This was his good bye party.

This was Frederich's party. Coils of brightly paper ribbon bearing the school's colors were strung across the ceiling from wall to wall like a psychedelic spider's web. Construction paper signs shaped like beakers declared respectful offerings of luck and happiness for Frederich when he was out on the greens golfing, or gardening or whatever old retired folks did after being forced out of their lifelong professions and onto the street.

The party was also for everyone else that the district was laying off that summer. A fact that seemed to have been swept under the rug as all William's colleagues seemed to focus on the loss of one old man with laser-like bearing. Five other teachers were being let go as the euphemism read, on the final day of classes for the school year. None of them had had the staying power of Mr. Frederich. Even if you combined the years that the other five were on the job, it total would still fall a year and a half short of his tenure. He was a fixture, and now he had been removed and tossed out. With a smile and a handshake and a much reduced pension. The difficulties of his passing eased with the second cheapest case of bubbling wine that the teachers could lay their hands on. In the last few hours they had transformed their lounge into a Lounge.

Good luck Sven. The principal and superintendent had said as they passed through earlier. The two were in and out before the wretched workaday stench of their underlings could seep into their suits. Fear and despair seemed to have a way of soiling expensive fabric. The teachers had been rife with both. Before the alcohol bottles had been breeched and the liquid fortification distributed in abundance. Huzzah for booze! It burned so very good. The celebration committee had three standing orders when it came to the hooch: cheap, strong and not prone to causing blindness.

In truth, it was well past time for Sven Frederich to retire from the public life of teaching. Or To be put out to pasture, as Sven there preferred to call it. He had been a fun and free-wheeling teacher from his first hours in the classroom. Most of the parents of the current crop of students had been taught Mr. Frederich when they had been in high school. A handful of their parents as well. They had been sorry to see him go. The graduation ceremony, his last and where he was the speaker of honor, had been the highest attended event in the school's history. Forget that year where the football team nearly made the state finals! He had played gleefully to a packed audience. They had seen Mr. Frederich at his best.

Now the man started to fall apart. At the annual after-party as he sulked in alcoholic fumes in the teacher's lounge. Early onset of Alzheimer's had ruined it all. The teachers broke into groups as friends collecting in their little cliques and trading gossip. Summer was here at last. And a strange one for all of that. This was the first break in even Mr. Frederich's long memory when summer classes wouldn't be offered. There would be no adult education courses to offer. And with it, no extra income for the younger teachers. The summer would be unusually empty and free, barring the required classes that they all needed to pass to remain certified. Accreditation and creditability must be maintained. So the superintendent had left with one last order of Noses to the grindstones people, so you don't get the axe.

The man had enjoyed working on their fear. Like a vampire feeding on blood, he took life from it. Mr Frederich had volubly called him an ass as the door clicked shut. A couple minutes later scattered applause broke out. Quietly. Insubordination could lead to a drastically shortened career.

The teachers were a bit frightened. Wine flowed freely. Laughter returned, lubricated by the happy juice. Life went on. Summer was here. Still got some pencils, and more books, but no more students dirty looks. Time for some fun in the sun to recharge the batteries for the endless struggle that would resume in the fall, where they would try and force knowledge into the brains of resentful and rebellious children. The teachers usually ended the year in a haze of exhaustion and exhilaration as four years worth of work walked down the aisle and out into the real world, all the way wondering where in the hell that they would ever use algebra out in the 'real world'. Answer, probably nowhere. But then, the real world was never really what they seemed to believe that it was.

William sat at the back table, rolling the stem of his champagne glass between his thumb and forefinger. Every now and again stopping to re-attach the base after it dropped off with a clatter. Six teachers had been let go, and he was number six. The junior member of the honored dead, with a mere four years of full time employment under his belt. His department had been throttled down in the most recent round of cuts and union rules stated that first in - last out. Though he suspected that in the coming months, if things stayed the same, or got worse, his department might just vanish completely.

Fact. The nation was once more in a recession. Fact. The crumbling manufacturing industry that had once made his state so proud and wealthy had up and vanished over the last few years. Want to get paid to build a car? Goto Mexico. And finally, Fact. With the loss of the auto-industry, came the loss of jobs and tax revenue and finally people as entire families left the state that had so long been their home.

In the end, it was all that he could expect. William was an art teacher. Is still and had been. He graduated high school, joined the real world, gotten scared and then moved onto college. College was awesome. He stayed past his four years, and well into his brother's four years. His brother didn't need them, he had joined the marines right after high school and now was busy being a sergeant on some base somewhere pretending not to be flamingly homosexual and no doubt failing in all regards.

His brother didn't need to goto college. He was living his dream and was now being paid to hang out with a bunch of macho dudes all day while they all played with guns and drove around in really expensive trucks. The gay redneck's dream job. William was sometimes a little jealous of his brother's luck in finding his way to happiness. His brother even wrote back saying that he had been dating a boy from the navy who looked really good in uniform. Secretly of course. Thankfully he didn't go further into detail.

William had taken four full years of confused wandering before he had accidentally fallen into the field of art and found something that he really loved. Slathering on paint and squeezing clay, filled his soul with contentment. But then he ran into a problem. He sucked. Hard. Like a Hoover with a V8. Well, that wasn't fair. He was competent, if barely, and had some great ideas to express. But that wasn't enough when you were surrounded by hard working dedicated souls who had amazing artistic skills and clearer vision. Gods and Goddesses of creation, who inspired awe in the most coarse admirer – which was pure delusion on their part, but accumulating world class pretensions towards divinity were a part of getting a degree in art. No matter how your professors tried to put you back in your place.

His professors had been the ones who had awoken him to the fact with the constant reminder that only two or three people in each class would end up living up to their dreams. William had looked around the room at all of the talented people who, like him, would be working at a Dennys one day, washing dishes to pay the rent. He decided right then and there to change his concentration. If you can't do, then teach.

Get a job working with your hands, his grandfather had always told him, it's the most satisfying thing you can ever do. Create, build, repair. His grandfather had spent forty-five years working on the assembly floor for the Ford Motor Company, putting together just about every model of vehicle that they had ever conceived of. He was proud of this. His work kept his family fed and clothed. It made his country strong. And the injuries he sustained while working? They were war wounds that he would show off with a sense of pride and brag about as he retold the stories about how he had gotten the scar. Or mangled hand. The man loved to repeat his mangled hand story. It still gave William nightmares.

That was all gone now. The world had changed. The plant had closed. Nobody had ever seen it coming.

William had changed with it and tried to keep his feet in both worlds. Combining manufacturing with the new service based economy. Not really, that was his pretension acting up again, his art-studentry flared up from time to time to heighten his self-worth to stratospheric levels. But anyhow, he had skipped past the normal traps that befell his classmates, even some of the really spectacular talents (a brief pause to gloat and stick out his tongue), most notably the dead-end minimum wage job. He had switched over to art education, and with another two years after graduation to chase after and attain not only his masters but also the woman of his dreams, he had attained his new dream of a steady job that paid decently(relatively speaking) and fostered creativity.

Sure, he had to deal with stupid kids, some of whom didn't appreciate the gift of a free education. But there were also the ones who seized what they were offered with a vengeance. Talented young men and women. They had been a pleasure to work with, and had more than compensated for their apathetic or downright hostile compatriots.

Now he was joining the ranks of the unemployed. Just in time for summer. The classic rhyme no more pencils, no more books, no more students' dirty looks. Morphed into no more paychecks, no more food, no more kids that are rude as it drummed about the inside of his skull. Stomping around like Godzilla on holiday in Las Vegas. It was odd how closely not having a job seemed to resemble being dead. With one major exception, being dead seemed to relieve you of all the temporal worries. Losing your job, just seemed to amplify them all. William drained a third glass of champagne.

His friend Carlos, the history teacher, saw him and ambled on over to William's table. So, you're awful quiet tonight. Carlos said, as he plopped down in a chair. Carlos had fallen victim to several of those devious little hazards. He mounted each and every one onto plaques and hung them on the wall of his classroom between the maps. The students loved him. Hey buddy, you're over here alone. How's it going?

Today was my last day of responsibility and uprightness. Now I'm getting drunkish. This seems like the right thing to do considering. He pumped his arms up over his head, spilling some champagne, and chanted Free booze for the win!

It does at that Wild Bill. What are your plans for the summer months? Sticking around and waiting out the drought.

I don't know. We have the house and don't want to leave it behind. Not after all the work we put in. But there's no work, and baby's gotta eat you know.

Get another teaching job. There must have been something rather burning in William's expression. He couldn't be sure since he was at the part of the drunkening process that involved his face going numb, so there was no way to be sure exactly what it was doing. That was step four. Step five involved passing out. That was where he stopped keeping track. Didn't you have a minor to fall back on?

I minored in psychology.

Why?

I don't know. And that's ironic. Carlos patted him on the shoulder and poured another round. This is the last one for me. I need to sober up a bit before I hit the road. But give me the bottle for when I get home.

What's the matter.

I haven't told her yet. And I don't want to face that storm without a nice warm cloak of invulnerability to protect me.

You haven't told her yet?

Nope.

Oh.

Yep. We've been holding out hope that Elmira would retire this year. Or better yet, die. But no luck there. She came and told me so herself just before the ceremony began. And since, he had been trying to get her high pitched sneering voice out of his head.

She's been talking about retiring for the last five years. That just makes her a vicious tease.

I know. Elmira Jenkins. Senior art teacher, both for the high school and district as a whole. She was William's teacher when he was fumbling his way through the required tenth grade art class. Elmira Jenkins assigned projects that combined cardboard, glue and yarn. Who in their right mind glues yarn to cardboard to paint pictures? Elmira instilled upon him a deep hatred for all things craft. He was vocal in his loathing. She was shocked when a scant decade after he left her classroom in a fit, he returned to teach in her department.

Let me find you two bottles. You're going to need them both. Hey, I'm going to be out of town for the next few weeks, stupid California vacation and all that. But when I get back, let's get a beer.

Thanks for the wine. Beer sounds good. It's been a long time since we hit up Stycks. William swallowed half of the wine in one gulp. The bubbles tickled his nose and the lovely wine left a burning trail as it slid down into his stomach, instilling him with a warm. Killing the fear and building that glowing, fortifying feeling in his soul. Everything was now as it was supposed to be. He could take on the world with enough alcohol in his system, and then not care when he lost. Smooth. He said, raising the glass in a toast as he tossed back the remainder.

Don't mention it. You want me to come with you? I can't really help in the hostilities, but I might be able to pull you out when things get ugly. Maybe I can call in some air support when things look bad.

Things won't look bad. They'll just be bad. That's how it's just going to be you know. Cause I know.

Yeah, you'll get yelled at, that's for sure.

And how. She might even start screaming and crying again. I hate when she does that.

It's not your fault. She knows that.

Her knowing doesn't make any difference in what's going to happen. Screaming and crying. Maybe she'll throw some stuff. Hopefully not the knives. And hopefully not at me again. I really hate when she throws knives.

Carlos looked horrified. William didn't know why. He knew Reene and had so for at least four years. Carlos was his oldest friend from his career as a high school teacher, and he had visited the Brock household a hundred times at least. Most recently to help install the new garbage disposal in the kitchen. And then to lend suggestions for a competent local plumber to come in and fix the mess. Carlos was damn good at teaching, but it turned out that knowing the rule 'righty tighty, lefty loosey' was the extent of his experience as a handyman. Funny part was, Carlos had assured William and Reene that he knew what he was doing, up until after the plumber left that evening.

Reene thought the whole thing was hilarious. Carlos would never live that boast down. Reene was already talking about finding him a child's toy tool-belt for his birthday. His wife loved to rub it in.

William took the bottle of champagne that he was offered, got up, waved good bye, and left the teachers' lounge for probably the last time. The small, room had been a refuge on the toughest days, and a place to trade 'stupid student stories'. William had enough of those to fill a book. Between the staff, they had enough stories about certain kids to write an anthology. Maybe two.

In the weeks running up to the end of the semester, William had slowly been packing up and taking home with him all of his personal effects. A nod to his innate cynicism let's call it. Just a couple books at a time here, and a poster there. Now and again a student might notice a sudden disappearance of a favorite personal creation of Mr. Brock (that's what he loved most about being a teacher – it stoked his ego. Noting in the teaching world was better than a roomful of kids looking at your work like you were a genius greater than Leonardo Da Vinci, MC Esher and George Ohr rolled up into one and then given physical form right before their very eyes. Pretension needs to be fed). More than once he had to calm his kids down and tell them that his art hadn't been stolen, he had just taken it home. Yes, he might bring it back, or he might just replace it with something better further on. He only had so much available space.

Kids, being kids, didn't have any real conception about fiscal shortfalls. That was all part of the wondrous joy of still being a kid. Innocence and naiveté. To them, the school would always be there, and they would always have to go. Until they either dropped out or graduated. Maybe with the exception of some strategically placed impromptu vacation days lying in between. The school just was. Half institution of education and half prison. They were required to attend, so here they were. Most of them.

William threw a smattering of paintbrushes and books into a cardboard box that he had procured from the kitchen. With one final turn around, to take a last look at his domain, he left with the box in hand. The room was clean. The lights were off. And all signs that he had inhabited there for the last four years had been scoured away. He lifted bottle in salute to his old life. To new endeavors! How he so hated being in this room a decade ago. Odd how hate had slowly morphed into love.

He stumbled out to his car, just a little bit drunk. The last box of his scholarly apparatus in his hands. The car was the same old beater that had served him so well through grad school. It was blue, and belonged in another era, and was leaking oil. But for the time being it got him wherever he need to go, and rarely needed to have any heavy repairs. So he kept it around for the commute to and from work every day. Sure, most of his students had better rides, even the ones without rich parents to spoil them. Some even gave him shit. But those were the digs. You put in sixty hours a week, and you still got treated like an utter slacker. He consoled himself with the fact that none of the little ankle-biters owned their own house. It helped, a little.

William leaned against his car and stared at the darkened school. Silent as a ghost with the coming summer, where only the maintenance crew would be scurrying around in preparation for the coming year. The work never ended, and as soon as they thought that they were caught up, the cycle began all over again.

For people who had jobs. Losing his was still a shock.

That wasn't true. He had been informed months in advance that his job was on the chopping block. The School Board meetings had been sprinkled with protesters – from both sides. They counter chanted their slogans – Reading Writing and Arithmetic broke up against Our Children Need Culture!

Piss off you sodden, short sighted no-talents! William yelled into the empty night. Hoping that the school board as a whole, and that smug Mr. Knossen in particular could hear them from whatever hole they had crawled down. May you get run over by a school bus driven by Satan!

Mr. Knossen. He had lead the charge against 'all the worthless departments and their lazy staff'. The woman couldn't draw a straight line to save her life. Even with the assistance of a ruler. It was her voice yelling the loudest that art was frivolous in these lean times and that students should focus on the basics. Reading and Writing and Mathematics. Science was of course left out of the mantra. Science was the playground of the Devil. His words. Whispered quietly in the dark amongst his fellow cohorts. William wanted to thump the man's pointy bald head.

Mr. Knossen, identical twin brother of the Reverend Mr. Knossen of the Faith Unity Trinity Baptist Church of Yahweh out on the corner of Green and Ridgeback a few miles south of town. A Zealot and his mob of Fanatics. They had become a powerful force here in town, with their constant protests and powerful rhetoric. Their favorite targets were non-congregation members – IE, everyone else. Liberal, Moderate