The teams came back from the lunch break at different times, so for awhile
there was little team work; just one or two teamsters slogging through the
paper pile, disgruntled, looking at their watches, wondering where everyone
else was; and thinking of calling it quits for the day.
Bilicki made no objection whenever his team suggested they call it quits. One
afternoon Amanda explained she had a dental appointment; and Bilicki himself
muttered he had business to take care of. The following morning the team
assembled but Mimi Agulnick was late. This incensed him. Mimi didn't have a
sense of fair play.
And Mimi came up with the most banal explanations for lateness. Always some
pathetic little story. This time it was her boyfriend. In her mid-thirties, frizzy-
haired, always touching the mole near her left nostril, Mimi talked with a
student's agitation about her boyfriend. She had no scruples baring intimate
details. This was part of the free spirit image she liked to impress everyone
with: the teacher who, when she wasn't teaching, could be naughty, could be
downright dissolute.
Yesterday morning she gave an account of her trip last summer to Jamaica
with the boyfriend. They'd stayed at a place called Ecstasy, where all expenses
were pre-paid, and everything imaginable was catered for. All told to a gasping
Amanda, their voices lowered, the giggles muffled, while Mimi stood bent over,
her elbows on the desk, her bosoms – my God given boobs! – bulging for world
acknowledgment; and her fat rump, unruly flesh stuffed and barely contained in
blue jeans, stuck out in free spirited readiness.
Ignore, Ignore! Bilicki clenched and grit, irritation bursting his seams.
She walked in an hour late this morning, a little puffed face. She gasped and
seemed frantic about something and apologized. To Amanda's What happened?
she launched into an explanation involving the boyfriend. He'd lost his job,
poor thing; he was depressed; he was unhappy with their situation, with having
to depend on her; she'd tried to cheer him up, and had left the house late; and
then the traffic and everything.
Bilicki didn't know what to make of these revelations, and what looked like
another display of shameless histrionics. In any event, despite the heaving of
her overburdened breasts, Mimi was ready and eager to pitch into the piles
now that she'd arrived, so he said nothing.
At some point the chatter broke loose.
"This essay is doomed from the start…doomed." "Who's the kid?" "Sandy
Quinones …know him?" "Oh, Sandy…he's in my class. Fancies himself a lady-
killer. He does little work and he thinks he's God's gift to the girls." "And the
girls go flip for him." "Well, one thing's for sure, he can't write." "I've been telling
him that all semester. The other day I said to him, Sandy, you're going to need
more than good looks if you hope to graduate on time. He tells me, Don't worry
about it. I've got the juice. I've got the juice!" "Well, this composition has no
juice whatsoever… "The Deathing of an American Girl". I think he meant "The
Dating of an American Girl"! With some of these scripts, you read the first
paragraph, the last paragraph, you get a pretty good idea whether it passes."
At this point Bilicki, his voice controlled but quivering with displeasure,
intervened: "I'm sure Sandy's mother would want us to give her son a fair
hearing."
"You mean, give her son a fair reading," Mimi said.
"Well, my dear tax-paying team captain," Amanda scraped back her chair,
turning a few heads in the room, "You're welcome to read this script…in all
holistic fairness… there you go." She grabbed her bag. "Now if you'll excuse
me, I have to go to the bathroom."
"Oh, let me come with you," Mimi said. "I left my bathroom key at home."
Bilicki sighed; he knelt at the pew of his soul; he prayed (for Mimi Agulnick) that
a sudden cancerous affliction would require the immediate removal of one of
her boobs; he prayed (for Amanda) that horrible-looking varicose veins would
show up and spread one morning as she lotioned her legs.
Mrs. Balancharia, whose accent at that moment sounded wonderfully soothing,
exclaimed, "We're almost done anyway, aren't we, Brendan?"
It certainly looked that way. Just the Sandy Quinones script, then the totals,
and they were done. Bilicki picked up the Quinones' script and he read it.
The Deathing Of An American Girl
The deathing of a girl come's from meathing a girl. Eather in school or on the
road and you and her begin to talk. You maybey would say, yo! Can I bring your
bag for you if she have a bag. Maybey she would say eather Yes or no. If she say
yes, you would take the bag from her and you would bring it for her. then you
would ask her, What is you name and she would tell you her name if she want to
but! I not shure she would want to. Then you would say my name is Sandy or
anything you want to say. Then you would ask her if you can foller her to her
hous. If she want to she would say to you yes, but if not she would say no. You
may ask her for her phone number. Maybe she would give it to you and the two
of you would exchange numbers. You may invite her to come to your hous and if
she want to come she would say yes. About two week's later you would ask her
if she would like to go out on a death with you. If she is in love with you, she
going to say yes. But if she don't love you she going to say no. but if she say yes!
you and her will plan a day or night and a place to go. When you go there the
two of you would share some ideas and eat some food if you want to. Then you
can do anything you want with her. Anyhow you want with her. That is what a
death is.
THE END
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 