Disappearances

In the first grade, there was this kid who sat behind me and shook all the time. The teacher would hit him with a  long, dirty, yellow ruler. But he wasn't fucking around. He really was epileptic or had some serious issue. He vanished. That same year I remember lots of migrant workers' kids being there. They would come through, pick apples and then move on. The kids were so poor. One of the "apple pickers" stole a stapler and got into a world of trouble. It was just a little kid stapler that was a bright "Laugh-In" orange. Seems she disappeared too.

That same year a preacher came in and told these weird stories on a large board. It was a big board on three legs that had layers of cloth with different backgrounds. He would put these little cut out figures on different backgrounds as he went along. Maybe it was felt. Anyway, he came once a month and would always end with some prayer or moral. Mind you, this was public school.

There was a kid that was REALLY fat. Even by today's standards. He always got made fun of. Little kids are the worst fucking evil creatures there are. They find those weaknesses and jab their ugly little hot dog fingers into the soft spots. Anyway, the fat kid couldn't do any of the physical fitness stuff, and I think they were going to put him back grade only because of that. The fat kid disappeared too.

I remember hearing my second grade teacher was nearly cut up in one of the hay cutting machines. Apparently, she laid low in the grass and it went over her. She had one of those 70's huge astronaut beehive hair dos.

Our third grade teacher only lasted a year. She would put her head down on the desk and cry. Or pretend to cry so we would feel sorry for her. She lived in a trailer behind the funeral home.

The funeral home was great! It was in an gigantic white house just up the street from my house. The parking lot had great hills and we used to ride skateboards there. Behind the parking lot was a patch of woods. You would climb up a hill and disappear in the trees. Nobody could see you. We smoked back there. I don't know why but the back door of funeral home was always open. We went in to take matches, but we didn't venture too far into it's many odd rooms. The room just to the right of the entrance had the machine that sucked your blood out and put the "keep you fresh" liquid in. I never saw the liquid, but I always imagined it being ice blue. I remember hearing during this time that a body wiggled when the new fluid was pushed in. And a side note: if you were cremated, the body would jump around.

We mused endlessly about the bodies that might be there. I wasn't the only one with this fascination. A few years before when my great-grandmother lived down the street from the same funeral home, she watched it all the time waiting for the dead to arrive. When a body did come, she was completely wild. She would stay up all night if necessary to watch lights go off and on in various rooms. She watched the building until the funeral had taken place and the body was gone.