The Oracle
I'm shivering in the middle of the school pitch. A wintery game of football is being played around me. Occasionally I run up and down the field, stumbling limply in and out of tackles in a vain attempt to keep warm and look as if I'm doing something. The air is icy and ferocious. Mr Stead the games teacher is refereeing two games simultaneously as the feared Mr Lynne is ill.
"Mr Stead": the name ends with blunt concussion, reverberating with the pain of a bruised skull. Despite the cold, and his impatience, his face is etched with a plump fixed grin. He is happy and fat with power. He has a swollen neck and cruel glistening eyes. He somehow spellbinds a scared and brutal clique of lads: knockabout toughs and clownish weaklings together. They are always the first to yelp sycophantic laughter at his self-deprecating jokes.
All of us secretly despise yet somehow want to be liked by Mr Stead. Yet self hatred wells in a wave of nausea for wanting to believe in this pot bellied deity in a football strip. From behind his ruddy smile and glistening eyes can swoop a sudden stinging punch in the back; a blow on the head with an elbow. Worse are the sarcastic jibes he flings about the pitch, branding the failures forever: "You lad, the puff in the Tuff shoes!" is roared at a spindly pale wretch in a wind sail kit. "Pathetic! You're like a pregnant fairy!" is barked at a tall thin clumsy youth who once scored a home goal in basketball.
Today, Stead is doubly tetchy and impatient, yelling orders and storming a Napoloeonic patrol across the pitch to referee the other game. Within minutes, due to the absence of Stead, our match has degenerated into wicked laughter and a mud fight between a couple of lads. We stumble to avoid the freezing splashes of dirt then gaze in horror as a red faced furious Mr Stead marches towards us signalling the game is over. We will sit on the touchline in shame and watch the other match. He's spluttering; and can barely speak. Where are the jokes? Even a clip round the ear would be reassuring.
There is the dread of the wait. Beads of sweat colder than the rain chill beneath the flapping underarms of our football shirts. From the touchline the players, even the victims of Stead's wrath, loom above us like athletes focused on the game, magnificently oblivious to our presence; deepening the humiliation. In the white daze of the changing room, we numbly line up facing the blank tiles of the wall, pull down our shorts and expose our bare behinds to repressed muffled laughter. Stead then proceeds mechanistically to leather our behinds with a slipper.
***
I'm kneeling on the floor of the school art room, painting an effigy of the Wizard of Oz on a huge piece of hardboard. Green paint drips off the brush. A shadow looms over me. I sense his presence, but stare fixedly ahead. Then the familiar high pitched rasp of a voice: "Magnificent! Brilliant, lad."
***
A summer evening. It's the school production of The Wizard of Oz. The curtain opens to the out of tune piano of the bald elderly music teacher, beaming a shy smile across the hall at the audience from behind his glasses . It's announced he will be retiring. Momentarily I yearn to be old, imagine sitting at his piano looking back at myself.
Everyone stares in awe at the hardboard facade of the Wizard, an exotic green skinned monster with face painted in demonic saturated colour. Rotating enamelled eyeballs spin from his hat. The Wizard's voice booms. The tin man quivers, the cowardly lion flails, the scarecrow stumbles stupidly about the stage.
A stout beaming man with a swollen belly emerges from behind in a robe and purple Arabian pantaloons. It's Mr Stead. He postures enjoying the adulation. He smiles his fixed comedian grin.
The hushed awe is followed by thunderous applause.
"Mr Stead": the name ends with blunt concussion, reverberating with the pain of a bruised skull. Despite the cold, and his impatience, his face is etched with a plump fixed grin. He is happy and fat with power. He has a swollen neck and cruel glistening eyes. He somehow spellbinds a scared and brutal clique of lads: knockabout toughs and clownish weaklings together. They are always the first to yelp sycophantic laughter at his self-deprecating jokes.
All of us secretly despise yet somehow want to be liked by Mr Stead. Yet self hatred wells in a wave of nausea for wanting to believe in this pot bellied deity in a football strip. From behind his ruddy smile and glistening eyes can swoop a sudden stinging punch in the back; a blow on the head with an elbow. Worse are the sarcastic jibes he flings about the pitch, branding the failures forever: "You lad, the puff in the Tuff shoes!" is roared at a spindly pale wretch in a wind sail kit. "Pathetic! You're like a pregnant fairy!" is barked at a tall thin clumsy youth who once scored a home goal in basketball.
Today, Stead is doubly tetchy and impatient, yelling orders and storming a Napoloeonic patrol across the pitch to referee the other game. Within minutes, due to the absence of Stead, our match has degenerated into wicked laughter and a mud fight between a couple of lads. We stumble to avoid the freezing splashes of dirt then gaze in horror as a red faced furious Mr Stead marches towards us signalling the game is over. We will sit on the touchline in shame and watch the other match. He's spluttering; and can barely speak. Where are the jokes? Even a clip round the ear would be reassuring.
There is the dread of the wait. Beads of sweat colder than the rain chill beneath the flapping underarms of our football shirts. From the touchline the players, even the victims of Stead's wrath, loom above us like athletes focused on the game, magnificently oblivious to our presence; deepening the humiliation. In the white daze of the changing room, we numbly line up facing the blank tiles of the wall, pull down our shorts and expose our bare behinds to repressed muffled laughter. Stead then proceeds mechanistically to leather our behinds with a slipper.
***
I'm kneeling on the floor of the school art room, painting an effigy of the Wizard of Oz on a huge piece of hardboard. Green paint drips off the brush. A shadow looms over me. I sense his presence, but stare fixedly ahead. Then the familiar high pitched rasp of a voice: "Magnificent! Brilliant, lad."
***
A summer evening. It's the school production of The Wizard of Oz. The curtain opens to the out of tune piano of the bald elderly music teacher, beaming a shy smile across the hall at the audience from behind his glasses . It's announced he will be retiring. Momentarily I yearn to be old, imagine sitting at his piano looking back at myself.
Everyone stares in awe at the hardboard facade of the Wizard, an exotic green skinned monster with face painted in demonic saturated colour. Rotating enamelled eyeballs spin from his hat. The Wizard's voice booms. The tin man quivers, the cowardly lion flails, the scarecrow stumbles stupidly about the stage.
A stout beaming man with a swollen belly emerges from behind in a robe and purple Arabian pantaloons. It's Mr Stead. He postures enjoying the adulation. He smiles his fixed comedian grin.
The hushed awe is followed by thunderous applause.
posted by Johnny Rem at 2/23/2006 05:43:00 PM
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