Fat School Confidential (11 page)

    “
How could you live in this weather?”

   
Giving each other a glance, Ellie and I rolled our eyes. At four-foot-eleven, Mom couldn’t see our exchange. At two hundred pounds, she had enough padding to weather a winter in Alaska.

    “
Did you lose weight?” she asked, while handing me her luggage.

    “
Probably.”

   
Getting into the Beetle, I added, “The school food is super low in fat, but it doesn’t taste nearly as good as yours.”

    “
I know,” she replied, eyeballing Ellie.

   
If there was one thing Mom felt superior to my wife, it was her cooking. Who could blame her? I didn’t exactly become a porko by eating tofu. Enchiladas, rice, beans—and my favorite, chile rellenos, were childhood staples. In Mama Rourke’s eyes, food was love—and vice-versa. Ellie learned to cook the traditional favorites with some measure of success, but it wasn’t the same. Even still, she was able to prepare Mexican dishes better than most on this side of the border.

   
Keeping in mind Mom was going to stay for three days, we first gave her the whirlwind tour of Kingsburg and some of the more spectacular sights that Central California was renowned for. After cruising by the Wal-Mart Super Center in neighboring Selma, we headed home. Staring at orchards and vineyards as far as her eyes could see, Mom blurted, “You should have never left L.A. Unified.”

   
Ellie, sitting in the backseat next to a sleepy, about-to-nod-off Bobby, gave me a look through the rearview mirror that, on face value, appeared she agreed with my mom’s assessment. 

   
On the defensive, I lied.

    “
They kept adding classes for me to complete my credential.”

   
It didn’t matter that I prided myself at being an expert equivocator—Mom was psychic.

    “
You should have a credential by now! How long have you been taking classes?”

    “
A couple years.”

   
Again, Mom caught me red-handed.

    “
It wasn’t a couple, Joseph. You were taking classes when they hired you in Los Angeles, no?”

    “
First it was Teacher Training. Then it was the Pre-Intern classes. Then came the Intern classes for the credential,” I replied.

   
No reaction.

   
If my mom were any more stone-faced, she would have made the perfect Mexican addition to Mount Rushmore.

   
On a related note, other than my beloved Ellie, none of my friends ever, ever called me Joseph. That designation, whether I liked it or not, was reserved for family. Coming from my mom, the formal use of my name seemed to reinforce her standing as the all-knowing, all-powerful mama hen.

   
The three days (and nights!) with Mama Rourke couldn’t crawl any slower. To add insult to injury—namely, my own, I took it upon myself to give Mom the A.O.S. tour. Ellie graciously declined the trip, staying home with the little guy. She was a wise woman.

   
Arriving at A.O.S. just before dinner, I walked Mom to my office.

    “
Wow. You have an office?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the carpeted floor ahead of her.

    “
Yup.”

    “
Did you have one in Los Angeles?”

    “
No,” I said, letting her in and pulling out a chair for her. “My classroom was my office, which actually is normal in most schools.”

   
Sitting at my desk, I logged into my computer. Mom glanced at my bookshelves, laden with books and toys. Then, looking off, she sighed. Did she mutter “Oh God” under her breath?

    “
They give you insurance, no?’ she asked, still looking off.

    “
Not as good as with L.A. Unified. But it’s something.”

   
Shaking her head, Mom scrunched up her face—as if she were in pain. “Joseph. You shouldn’t have left. You had the union!”

   
Mom was right. The teachers’ union, U.T.L.A., had my back. I had great benefits, too. Here, I had a salary that rivaled my freshman year with L.A. Unified and an insurance policy that was a joke. We were just getting by. But was I ready to concede defeat to my mother?

   
Glancing at my watch, I rose from my seat. “Let’s go to dinner.”

   
As we made our way to the cafeteria, Mom met Bill and a couple of the res staff. Although they were quick exchanges, I noticed how genuinely impressed she was with the way my

co-workers interacted with me, how deferential they were to me. Not that I was looking for any validation from her. No, not me.

   
Arriving at the cafeteria, we caught the students and staff mid-chow. Lucky for us, buffalo meatloaf was the entrée of the night. Served with peas and a chalky substance that resembled mashed potatoes, it provided a healthy—if bland—conversational distraction.

    “
Would you believe that your entire meal is under 4 grams of fat?” I asked, knowingly.

    “
It tastes like it,” she replied, chewing on the dry bison meat. Charlie Ross, a sixteen-year-old with a worldly southern charm that belied his age, stopped by our table.

    “
Hi, Charlie. This is my mom.”

   
With a look of surprise, Charlie said, “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Rourke.”

    “
Thank you,” she replied, pivoting her body to shake hands.

    “
Charlie is an excellent student.”

    “
Your son is an excellent teacher, Mrs. Rourke,” Charlie added, without a hint of irony or sarcasm in his voice. Truth be told, Charlie was at best an average student. However, he was intelligent, articulate, and polite to a fault. He was an academic underachiever and he knew it. Program-wise, he was losing a decent, if not awe-inspiring amount of weight. Despite his well-mannered disposition (towards me, anyway), Charlie had a

few run-ins with residential and program staff, mostly because of various unmets. He was a perpetual Gumby, and he couldn’t have cared less.

   
The visit to A.O.S. was a once-in-a-lifetime event for Mom, and I was all the better for it. The rest of her stay came and went without incident. We ate out as often as possible, so as to avoid any skirmishes in the kitchen. While I worked, Ellie “entertained” her—consisting of a trip to the neighborhood park and watching cartoons with Bobby back home. At least they all got to spend some quality time together. Correction: Bobby and Grandma spent some quality time together.

   
And just before sundown on that third day, we drove her back to the Fresno depot. There were hugs and kisses. And tears.

   
As the Amtrak San Joaquin lumbered towards Los Angeles, I couldn’t help but think I wouldn’t see Mom for many months—at the earliest. I worried about her health. If there were a cheaper alternative to A.O.S. for older folks, I would have signed her up in a heartbeat.

   
Between Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s, a good twenty percent of A.O.S.’s student body went home for good. Mostly students who met their personal weight-loss goals, these young men and women attended A.O.S. for so long that, in my eyes, they were more fixtures than students. More institution than fixture, Jimmy Dyer left as well, having sloughed off over three hundred pounds of life-killing fat. In spite of my own brief history with Jimmy, I wished him well and hoped he could keep the weight off back home.

   
Students weren’t the only ones to leave. Staff departed as well—some for better opportunities elsewhere, some who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—put up with the students, the staff, the location, or the program.

    
Of the latter group, Theresa Brooke was the first teacher to go. Aside from lesson planning overkill, Theresa agonized over her students—the rude ones, the lazy ones, the ones who didn’t give a shit about their grades, not to mention the ones who just wanted to focus on their program, lose weight and go home.

   
Theresa, like so many new teachers before her, took what her students said or did as a personal affront. She quietly packed up her belongings and left. Last I heard, she was running a program back east at one of Healthy Living’s fat camps.

   
Better her than me, I thought.

   
As a result of staff flight, I was able to land a much swankier office—with Daniel Abrams and Bill’s blessings. Situated in the same revered, northeast wing of the Admin building, right next to Sheila Skolnick’s office, and just a couple doors down from Bill’s, my new office was about as spacious as Frank Mills’s digs. Certainly, it had a more attractive layout, with a better view to boot. With my furniture from the old space relocated, and with additional collectibles and movie memorabilia from home, my new office was going to be the coolest on campus.

   
With work tapering off, and the end of the semester just weeks away, I found myself on autopilot. Other than presiding over final exams and projects, there wasn’t much for me to worry about. Dealing with my new boss was another thing. Bill Moses came to campus one day wearing orange pants. I didn’t know if he was trying to be funny or to reinvent himself as a fashion trendsetter, but it appeared he was failing on both counts. In the month or so since he began running the school sans Daniel Abrams, he never gave me a clear indication of his sense of humor—or his sensibilities. Bill tended to wear light-colored, button-down oxford shirts, khakis, and a cheerless-looking windbreaker. For him to wear orange was unheard of. Apparently without much to do, he stopped by my office.

    “
Have a minute?” he asked.

    “
I have several,” I replied, eliciting a chortle from Bill. Stepping inside my office, he closed the door behind him. I dared not say anything about, let alone glance at, his pants.

    “
Daniel wanted to be here as well to bring this up, but since he can’t, I’m going to do the honor,” he said, sitting across from me. I braced myself. Was I going to be fired? What did “honor” have anything to do with getting fired?

    “
We’re going to be starting up a satellite program for the spring semester. Called the Sierra Adventure Program, it will be geared towards new students and those who are struggling with their program.”

    “
You want me to teach those students too?” I asked, thinking of the additional workload.

    “
What we want you to do is develop curriculum for them, with the focus being site-specific.”

    “
You mean, site-specific to A.O.S., right?”

    “
I mean site-specific to the outdoors.” Bill smiled, adding, “The students will be camping.”

    “
On campus?”

     “
Sort of. You know how the campus pretty much dead-ends at the Kings River?”

   
I nodded.

    “
If you haven’t noticed, there’s an island there that will serve as the campground. It’s heavily wooded, and about as remote as we need it to be.” Crossing his legs, Bill folded his hands and placed them on his knee. “We’ll pay you separately for whatever curriculum you come up with. You won’t have to teach the curriculum, as you’ll simply administer it. We’ll have staff in place to run the overall program and supervise the students, staying with them twenty-four seven. As might be expected, you’ll receive a bump in pay when you’re up for review in a couple months. Plus you’ll have an additional title.”

    “
And that is?” I inquired, trying not to sound too eager.

    “
You’ll be the Academic Director of S.A.P.”

   
In four months’ time, I went from being a burned-out Special Ed teacher from L.A. to teaching fat kids at a private school in Central Cali to becoming second-in-command of said school’s academic department. Although the good news came from Bill, in my eyes, he was only a mouthpiece. Daniel Abrams was the one pulling the strings. Bill was at the school too short a time to be making these kinds of decisions. Either way, if the man in the orange pants tasked me with running a program by myself, who was I to say no?

   
In between bouts of prepping for the new semester, I worked on curriculum for S.A.P. Borrowing from the Internet—as well as from my own collection of resources, I put together a program that would be perfectly suited to the great outdoors. I customized the material to fit my particular

student population, making sure to incorporate multiple subject areas into each activity or assignment.

   
I took a break from creating curriculum to survey the location of S.A.P. Traversing the back forty of the school grounds, I stopped at the river’s edge to catch my breath and scan the island. On the campus side, the water was shallow and narrow enough to cross it in one short jump. Once on the island, I made my way through a clump of trees to a clearing. On one end stood a shack—no doubt there for staff to sleep in relative comfort while the students roughed it in tents outside. Stepping onto the mini-porch, I peered into the front window. Camping equipment and unmarked boxes lay strewn all over the floor. Turning round, I again faced the clearing. In the middle was a primitive fire pit, bordered with rocks. On the far end of the clearing stood a canopy—covering benches, tables and cooking apparatus. This was where my charges would be doing their homework.