Port-a-let (Part 2)

That summer Jones updated his placement file, finagled some letters of recommendation from administrators who had no idea who he really was, boasted he could coach three sports, wrote a banal cover letter that actually used the phrase “the tonic of rural life,” and applied for a dozen teaching jobs from Astoria to Brookings. He scored five interviews and got offered three positions, one of them at .8 FTE teaching US History, American Government and two sections of Senior English at Astoria High School in the Clatsop County School District. Perfect. He didn’t want to teach full time and didn’t need the money.

He’d heard about the district and its totalitarian reputation on the matter of mandatory drug testing for all students who wanted to play sports. If you didn’t consent, you didn’t play. A few years ago, he’d read how some zealot doctor had dragooned students into an elaborate five-year testing protocol as part of his larger medical study on the efficacy of testing in lowering the rates of illegal drug use among all students, not just the athletes. The whole affair had blown up in the district’s face over the appalling ethics of coercing humans, in this case mostly impoverished teenagers on the Oregon Coast, to participate in a medical study, when all they wanted to do was play sports.

Interesting information, Jones thought. He could easily integrate these diabolical machinations into his curriculum units on 1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, his two favorite novels to teach along with Siddhartha. He used them to inculcate his secret cultural and political agendas. It was about the only reason teaching sometimes gave him joy.

But his choice really came down to the school’s mascot. He could have been a Knappa Logger, a Tillamook Cheesemaker, or an Astoria Fighting Fishermen. To Jones, the metaphors of logging and cheese-making offered little restorative appeal. Besides, Knappa didn’t have a decent tavern and Tillamook smelled like cow manure.

It was a wild and debauched summer before moving to the Oregon Coast. He moved himself and towed his Subaru behind the U-Haul truck.

In the first week of September at an orientation for the four new teachers in the district, Jones met the new high school art and photography teacher with the curious first name of Michael. She also taught a couple of sections of English because no school in rural Oregon could afford to have a full time art teacher although they could afford three teachers who taught nothing but weightlifting or dodge ball.

During a break, Jones watched Michael glide over to the terrible drip coffee and pour herself a full portion into a wrinkled paper cup she pulled from the pocket of her black cashmere coat. She resembled in look and age and style (but not drug abuse) the Kelly Lynch character in Drugstore Cowboy. He overheard her reveal to the district superintendent her brief personal story about how she came to live at the Oregon Coast. She was remarkably candid and the superintendent nodded his approval. Jones, too, had an opportunity to share part of his recent biography with another administrator, but left out the booze and dissipation episodes. He talked a lot about fewer distractions and living in the “real” Oregon although at this point he wasn’t sure what that meant.

Like Jones, Michael also hailed from Portland but her motives for relocation starkly contrasted with his. She was recently divorced from a failed musician and wanted to start over, away from her ex-husband’s friends and family. She also wanted to paint and take photographs again, two pursuits she had abandoned after marriage and becoming the teachers’ union representative for her large suburban district. Fighting budget cuts and tyrannical administrators had almost driven her out of the profession but she felt confident that a new job in a new landscape would recondition her atrophied skills for many forgotten passions. Living near the ocean could do that for people, or so the novels, poems, slick tourism ads, and television movies promised.

Since the only other new hires in the room both exhibited the burned-out appearance of teachers fried to a crisp during reentry, Jones and Michael gravitated toward each other as easily as playing three-chord rock and roll. After the orientation and the two-hour online safety training, they agreed to go out for coffee the next afternoon. Jones had asked.

At a cafe overlooking the Columbia River, Michael arrived ten minutes early to Jones’s 30 minutes early. She wore a green Forest Service uniform shirt, faded Levi’s, and red cowboy boots. Her hair was arranged in lengthy pigtails and Jones noticed that she apparently had used plastic twist ties from bread wrappers to do the job.

They found a booth, commented on the odd green glowing of the river, joked about being “country fucks,” and their new passion for Merle Haggard. Jones asked her about the provenance of her name and she said it was her father’s middle name, not her “real” given first name. In high school, she insisted people start calling her “Michael” to honor his service to the country. The name stuck, but she never legally changed it. Jones wanted to know more but refrained from asking.

They talked until a pregnant waitress suggested they order. This was all new for Jones, but he asked Michael if she wanted to accompany him on a road trip around the area the next day to reconnoiter historic sites for possible field trips. She agreed but with the stipulation that they also investigate places suitable for her art and photography classes to visit. It was the ideal model for a casual date between teachers and Jones didn’t even feel the need to bring a flask, a tactic he often used to great success when hanging out with women.