I Love Corey, Chapter Eighteen

Well here it is, Chapter Eighteen. Once again I am indebted to Ernie for his editing and proofreading. When he points out my errors I can’t believe I could be so careless and overlook the questioned part. Everything from the wrong word (lose-loose) to adding extra words, leaving words out, and just generally making a mess of it. My spell check does a good job but if I use the wrong word and spell it correctly it accepts it. I’d say I’d pull my hair out but I keep it cut too short. Besides, there isn’t that much of it left. Anyhow, hope you enjoy. 

I love Corey, Chapter Eighteen

Well I must say that Wednesday was better than Tuesday. Not that it was all that great mind you, but at least it had nothing to compare with Tuesday’s school board meeting. That absolutely hateful alarm clock started making its infernal racket at the usual time and Corey was once again draped all over me. When I tried to get out from under him so I could shut it off he just held on to me and made it difficult. I eventually managed to wiggle out and shut the odious thing off. Blessed silence. 

I decided that since Corey had gotten to bed late I’d let him sleep a little longer. I went about my usual routine and finally woke him up just in time for me to leave. He grumbled about my letting him sleep so we didn’t have time for any “fun and games” but I just grinned and told him to think about what he had to look forward to tonight. He brightened up and I left for the usual meeting.

I was there at my normal early time and as the other teachers filed in it as pretty obvious that nobody was very happy about the meeting last night. There were grumbles concerning the Scouts and the state but mostly everyone seemed to feel that it was a shame those problems couldn’t be worked out. It seemed to be about an even split on which should change their policies. The one thing everyone seemed to agree on was that Rev. Langston was way out of line. One of the teachers that had attended his church said she was never going back and she was going to urge her friends to change churches with her. That produced some discussion about which church everyone attended and what the good and bad points were of each. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised but quite a few people seemed perfectly happy explaining what they thought was wrong with their own church all the while asking her to attend it and telling her she would be welcome. 

Principal Mathers showed up at his usual time and the meeting got under way. We covered the usual and there was some discussion about last night. Not very much was said but we all knew that we had an enemy in Rev. Langston and had no doubt that he was capable of trying to create trouble both for us individually and for the school in general. It was pretty obvious that most thought I would be the most likely target. I had to agree with them. The only thing I’d add to that assessment was that the school board was just as likely to be targeted too.

The day went along about normally until noon when JJ handed me a letter from his parents. I had invited them to dinner this coming weekend to get acquainted. This was something that I normally didn’t do during football season as I liked to use the weekend to plan strategy but was by no means unheard of. They had accepted and I had planned to use the time to try to become well enough acquainted to get some idea of how they might react when they learned of JJ’s sexuality. Perhaps I should explain that when I first started teaching here I had started this program both as a means to get to know the student’s parents and to allow them to get to know me. By now I would guess that at least half of my student’s parents had accepted and I’d made some good friends out of it. JJ’s parents had been unable to attend due to a prior commitment the last time I had invited them which had been last year. Anyhow, I opened the letter and quickly read it.

“Well JJ,” I said as he was still standing there. “It looks like dinner this Saturday is off.”

“I kinda figured that. They were pretty angry this morning when Dad wrote it.”

Since no one else was in the room at the time I decided to go ahead and tell him what I thought.

“Based on last night and this letter I think I’d be very careful about telling them how you feel. I don’t think they’ll take it well.”

He just stood there with his head down. He looked like he had just lost his last friend.

“JJ, look at me.” He raised his head. “If you ever need anything, like someone to talk to or anything at all please, please feel free to ask. I really mean this. I’ll try to help in any way I can. You’ve got my phone number and know where I live and I don’t care what time of day or night it is please feel free to ask. I don’t know if I can help but it won’t be because I won’t try.” I wondered what else I should do or say. “You remember the back door? There’s a key for it taped under the chair just to the right of it and if you need to get away I’ve got a couple of spare bedrooms. If I’m not home go ahead and use it. Just try not to leave too big a mess. Anything in the fridge is fair game but be sure to let someone know where you are. If you can’t get ahold of anyone else call either of these numbers and tell them.” I gave him a piece of paper with the names of my minister and one of the Deputy Sheriffs I was friends with and their phone numbers on it. I didn’t know what else to do. All I knew was I had a bad feeling about this whole situation.

About that time some other students came in to talk about the football team and I told JJ to take care and I’d see him around.

The rest of the day was the usual mix of trying to encourage the students to think for a change instead of expecting me to do it for them and trying to make them learn a little math. There were times I felt I was losing the battle but other times one of them would show that they had really learned to think or reason things through. Those were the times that make it all worth while. After all, that’s why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place.

The rest of the week was just like all weeks. Nothing happened to stand out in my mind except we won our game. That clinched a place in the playoffs and I took the list of sizes and colors home to order the briefs for the team. It’s simply amazing what an incentive does to motivate people, even when they are young. I would have liked to celebrate with Corey but he spent the evening with his mother. I’d invited them to dinner but she wanted to cook for him. I could understand that as she almost never saw him except for their Thursday night dinners. I wondered how she could bear being without him the rest of the time. I was depressed when he was gone this one night a week and couldn’t imagine having him absent from me for six nights a week. I also worried about her as when I’d seen her last week she looked like she was even more run down and spaced out than normal. I still thought she was probably a drug user but didn’t want to suggest that to Corey as he had all he could do to try to catch up with his studies. He probably knew anyway. After all he’s not stupid and based on the rest of my students is undoubtedly familiar both with drugs and their effects on people. 

When Saturday rolled around it was raining. That meant we wouldn’t have any yard work to do and I suggested we go over to Vern’s house and see about helping him get his shop straightened up. Several of the tools had sold and we had to get the rest organized so he could use them. We were just getting ready to go over there when the phone rang. It was Frank Davies and he wondered if I would be available to help load the lathe the school district had purchased. I told him to come on over as we were just heading for Vern’s and we’d be happy to help him load it.

We got to Vern’s house and after about ten minutes Frank showed up so we had to get busy loading the lathe. It’s a good thing we still had the use of the fork lift as I’m sure it must have weighed a couple of tons. Frank said he’d be back to get the tooling for it in the afternoon and left.

Vern and I sat down and started figuring out what had been sold and where we were on recovering my investment. So far about half of the planes were sold along with the lathe and several other items. When we added it all up I discovered that my thirty-five hundred dollar investment had brought in forty-one hundred and seventy dollars and that didn’t include anything from Nancy and the boys. I told Vern that I was happy with the results and the rest was his to worry about. I hadn’t started out to make a profit and was just happy that Vern had a nice table saw and he could use or sell the rest as he saw fit.