The Next Day
The next day I arrived early, but Jarnell beat me to the classroom. We chatted a bit but spent the rest of the time studying until the rest of the class arrived. About five minutes after the hour Mr. Lounds began preparing his lecture and a student walked in late to his class. As the student entered the instructor shook his head with disgust. “You need to be in my class on time. You can’t just walk in anytime you want.” The student sat down and started unpacking her stuff, ignoring him.
“You guys think showing up to class is no big deal. It is unprofessional and no one will want to hire you. You need to get your shit together if you want to be in this class.”
“I’m sorry, I was having car problems.” She replied.
“You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to start locking the door at 6pm. If you are late, even by a minute you will be locked out. That is what they do at Logan, if I showed up late I wouldn’t be able to attend the lecture. Why are you any different?” He walked to the door and slammed it shut. “I can’t believe the lack of discipline in this class.” He sat behind his desk sitting silently for a few minutes.
Dallas raised her hand. “Mr. Lounds?”
He lifted his head to look at her.
“I have a question about the chapter.”
“Did you read the chapter?” He asked disapprovingly.
“Yes.”
“If you read the chapter you wouldn’t have any questions.” He stood walking toward the whiteboard.
“I read the chapter, but there are things I don’t understand.”
“Are you data mining?”
“I tried to.” Dallas looked bewildered.
He sighed and shook his head. “You have to data mine. If you listened yesterday you wouldn’t have any questions to ask. This isn’t that hard guys.”
“Can I just ask you a question?”
“You wouldn’t have to ask a question if you were reading the material.”
“I did!”
“Clearly you didn’t.”
“I did, but I don’t understand it! Can’t you just answer my questions?”
Mr. Lounds held his hands to his face and growled through his fingers. As he lowered his hands he revealed his burning red face.
I turned to her and asked if I could help.
As she began to speak the teacher interrupted, like the day before. “Shawn, stop.”
I turned to look at him.
“Shawn shut up, I told you about this.” He then addressed Dallas. “Clearly you have not read the chapter. We are going over data mining again, maybe this time you will use it.” He turned to the whiteboard and began writing, and for the next twenty minutes he explained his study technique of data mining.
Dallas gave up on trying to get answers and she sat fuming. Once Mr. Lounds was finished with his explanation he sent us on break. Everyone needed to get out of that acid filled room. Outside we sat on metal picnic tables, Dallas pulled out a cigarette and slid it between her lips, the cherry glowed bright, and she exhaled a large cloud of stress-filled smoke.
“That was some bullshit!” She took another drag. “Who does he think he is? Can’t he just answer a damn question?”
I sat at the end of the picnic table facing a small pond behind the school. A little duck caught my eye as it met up with its family near the grass. Watching the adorable parade of ducklings was so cute, thus far it was the best moment I had in massage school.
When we got back from break Mr. Lounds told us to practice hands-on massage. He randomly paired people up and told us to go to work. Everyone looked anxious, I was incredibly nervous. It felt strange to be thrown into the fire without any kind of instruction. I had massaged friends and family in the past, but this was different, working on strangers was a new world for me.
“Can you come over here and show me some techniques, I’m nervous and I would appreciate some guidance.” I called out to him.
He was sitting at his desk opening up his laptop. “You will be fine.”
“Please?” I pleaded.
“I have some homework to do. I am studying to become a chiropractor and I need to get this done.” He waived his hand at me. “You guys have it easy, what you are doing is a walk in the park compared to my schooling.”
“OK, but I would really appreciate some help. I am nervous and I don’t want to do anything wrong.”
“Just do it Shawn, it is not that hard.” He said ignoring me.
I bumbled through the massage uncomfortably and I was certain the student I worked on was bored at best. The class was drawing to a close and the instructor said we could go.
I sat down to collect my things and felt something uncomfortable within my chest. This has to be anxiety, I thought to myself. I closed my eyes as a strange sensation shuttered throughout my body. It felt like a swarm of buzzing little monsters were within my chest. I meditated and pressed my breath against my back. Inside my mind’s eye I visualized flies pouring out between my shoulder blades. I took a breath, opened my eyes, and left.
That night I went home and setup my computer on the kitchen table. I wanted to learn what massage school had to teach, even if the instructor wasn’t willing to help. As I sat I felt an odd sensation under my sternum. It felt like there was something sticky within my lungs. The discomfort continued and I started to cough. This is weird, I thought to myself. I grabbed a paper towel after one really deep cough to hack out the goop in my lungs. Looking down at the tissue I saw a thick glob of dark red blood. Interesting, I thought to myself and threw the tissue into the trash can.
