Love in the Time of Climate Change (34 page)

“You bastard!” she chided me. “How am I supposed to stay sane with all this shit reeling around in my head? It's your fucking fault!”

“That's why I'm here,” I said, giving her a hug.

As far as I could tell, Clara was a wonderful teacher. She cared deeply about her students and was always envisioning creative, out-of-the-box strategies on teaching and learning. She had a fabulous sense of purpose and spirit, and her presence had been a great stabilizing force in my life. Her passion for teaching was contagious and was a major contributing factor to my entering the profession.

For a brief moment, a number of years ago, Jesse had somehow gotten it into his crazy head that we would be a good match, but both us knew otherwise. There was zero chemistry, never had been, never would be. It was one of those things that was instantly apparent. As great a friend as she was, girlfriend material she clearly was not. Plus, the possibility of having the Roommate as a brother-in-law, and perhaps having children that shared his genetic material, was a profoundly scary thought.

Clara had been coming over routinely on Sunday nights for dinner, always a great treat for the two of us kitchen-challenged non-cooks. Sarah was working nights this week so we were on our own in the evenings. Clara's talents in the kitchen were phenomenal, and now that her
lawyer boyfriend was on some weird minimalist diet, she was in need of a culinary outlet and was sure to wow us with some scrumdiddlyumptious Sunday-night dish.

To further accentuate the positive, Jesse and I had gotten into the habit of always smoking a joint before her arrival, in anticipation of the fabulous feed to come. Before she had her coat off we'd swoop down upon her like jackals on a kill, ravenous with pot-induced munchies.

“There is a god!” I said, barely containing my drool as I opened the door to let her in. I immediately took the cover off of the pan she was balancing.

“Spinach lasagna. I swear I had a dream about this last night.”

Jesse was jumping up and down and clapping his hands like a three-year-old.

“Goodie, goodie, goodie!” he cried.

Dinner was like one of those carrion-beetle-on-roadkill nature clips you see on YouTube, only in faster motion. Now you see it, now you don't. Fifteen minutes after she had knocked, there wasn't a noodle left.

“Amazing!” Clara said, shaking her head. “Have the two of you even eaten since the last time I was over?”

I let out a long, low rolling belch that rattled the glassware.

“You're welcome,” she replied.

Here was another great thing. She would actually do the dishes. Check it out: she would come over to our house, serve up two stoned fools a home-cooked gourmet dinner, and then do the damn dishes. It was nothing short of spectacular.

“I love you!” Jesse called out as we collapsed, bloated and semicomatose, on the couch.

“Me too!” I seconded.

“You better!” she called back.

Dinner over, dishes done, she joined us in the living room.

“So, Casey,” Clara said. “I need your advice.”

“As long as it's not about women I'm good to go.”

“Oh no. I thought things were promising with that teacher in your class?”

I told her the sad, sad story.

“There's always May,” she said soothingly, trying to be supportive.

“If I hear the word
May
one more time I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. Anyway, enough about me. What's up?”

Clara put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I do hope it works out. I really do. Anyway, I drove over to PVCC and was pretty inspired by your photovoltaic panels.” I had told her all about the October event when we dedicated the new photovoltaic array at school.

“I'd like to do some work with my little ones on solar energy.” She always called her second graders her “little ones.” So cute.

“I can't go too deep—remember, they're only seven and eight—but I do want to introduce them to the basics.”

“Go for it,” I agreed, burping again loudly. “Never too early to start!”

“And I want it to be positive. Upbeat. Hopeful. I don't want to overwhelm, but I do want to …”

“Turn them on?”

“Exactly! But how?” she asked.

There is nothing like a little bit of pot and a huge pan of spinach lasagna to get those neurons firing away. Not always productively, not always in sync or on task, often seeking tangents or alternative routes that lead to dead end after amazing dead end, but firing, damn it, firing!

It's one of things I love about marijuana. Never a dull neuron.

By the end of the evening, just in time for the closing credits of
Downton Abbey
(“Damn,” Clara's sister cursed. “Damn, damn, damn! How am I to know if Ethel the prostitute
gave up her illegitimate son to his grandparents?”), we had written, performed, and perfected The Great Photovoltaic Puppet Show!

Cast of thousands (well, three sock puppets and a PV panel crudely fashioned out of a lasagna pan, to be exact), characters to die for (although no death allowed, the target audience being, after all, six years old), drama, action, laughs, pizzazz! And, to top it off, educational!

Of course, writing a puppet show by committee was not exactly the easiest thing to pull off, particularly when two-thirds of the authors were bloated beyond belief and still really high.

The plot, if you could actually call it one, went something like this:

Freddy the Photon travels all the way from his home on the sun to visit his good friends on earth
.…

“Why's Freddy a ‘he'?” Jesse asked.

“Because it rolls off the tongue well with photon,” Clara answered.

“Why not Fanny?”

“Jesse, no one's named Fanny.”

“How about Felicia, or Felicity.”

“Jeez, stop. Whatever.”

“I'm just trying to be sensitive to women's issues,” Jesse said. “You know, strong girl stuff and all that.”

“It's a fucking photon, for crying out loud!” Clara yelled.

…
So Freddy the Photon travels all the way to earth. He meets his friends Sam and Morgan on their way to school
.

“Hello,” he says. “My name is Freddy the Photon, but you can just call me …”

“THE MAN!” Jesse yelled, clapping his hands.

“Stop acting so stoned!” Clara groaned.

“I'm serious. It's funny. Puppet shows should work on multiple levels. You've got to throw an occasional zinger to the adults in the crowd.”

“What adults? This is for my class, remember? The only adult in the room is me, and even that's pushing it! We're not taking this show on the road!”

“You never know,” Jesse said.

“I know! This is not leaving Room 112 of Glenfield Elementary School! Ever!”

“That's what they said about
Les Misérables
!”

“Please, someone tell me we don't share the same genes!”

“Humph!” Jesse humphed.

… “
You can just call me Fred,” the Photon says
.

“Wow,” reply Sam and Morgan. “We've never had a photon for a friend before.”

“That's because you're a bunch of losers,” Jesse whispered.

“What?” Clara asked.

“Losers. No one would say that line. They'd be like, “AWESOME, DUDE! YOU ROCK!”

“Will you stop already?”

“Come on! What's wrong with ‘awesome dude'? Put some spark into it. Light it up. He's a fucking talking photon, for Christ's sake! You said so yourself.”

It was readily apparent that this was turning into a pissing contest between the two siblings. To her credit Clara, seeing me nod my head, let him shoot the farthest on this one.

…
“I'd like to help you,” Fred says. “I'd like to do some work for you. See my friends, those electrons over there?”

“What's an electron?” Morgan asks
.

“SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR LASAGNA!” Jesse shouted.

“Seriously. If you're gonna act like an idiot, I don't want you here!” Clara was pissed. “Casey and I can do just fine, in fact better, without you! Right, Casey?”

I was biting my lip and looking down, stifling my laughter, trying not to establish eye contact.

“Right.”

…
“Electrons are really tiny,” Fred answered
.

“Tinier than a baby?” Sam asked
.

“Much tinier.”

“TINIER THAN A BABY'S PENIS?” Jesse once more shouted.

That was it. That sent me over the edge. I was engulfed, consumed with the giggles. Jesse really was acting like a total idiot, but damn if everything he spouted didn't crack me up. The more upset that Clara got with us, the gigglier we became. It got so I couldn't look in either of their general direction without feeling drops of pee dripping down my pants leg. I had to run to make it to the bathroom.

“You're worse than my damn students,” she said, groaning. “Casey. I thought at least you would be mature about this. I am so disappointed!”

God, I hated that word.
Pissed
was okay.
Angry, mad, upset
… whatever. But
disappointed
? It was like an arrow through the intellect. It brought back images of my childhood after I had redecorated the living room couch with finger paint.

“Disappointed!” Clara repeated, scowling.

Tell me a worse word from someone you respect?

“I'll do better, I swear.” I conjured up images of sadness and despair, of being rejected by Samantha, in a desperate attempt to choke back the chuckles and get back on task.

No such luck for Jesse. He was given a timeout in his bedroom until he could prove he could behave. Nothing like a big sister to lay down the law.

The plot continued with the photon telling his friends how electrons loved him, adored him, absolutely worshiped him, and how he could make them so excited they would actually produce electricity.

“SOUNDS LIKE AN ORGASM TO ME!” Jesse shouted from the open door in his bedroom, clearly not getting the maturity memo.

Freddy brings out a photovoltaic panel and does a quick little song and dance about photovoltaic power.

I'M A PHOTON HEAR ME ROAR

A little push from me

I'll get you so excited

We'll make electricity

You're sure to be delighted

And it's all for free

Nothing is ignited

Now you can watch TV

And your house it will be lighted

You know it's called PV

You know it's called PV

YOU KNOW IT'S CALLED PV!

YEAH!!

Okay. So it's the lamest thing you've ever heard, but remember: the target audience were six and seven, and the characters were socks, for Christ sake! Anyway, it was all about the content.

Obviously, Morgan and Sam see the light and go on to convince all of their family, friends, and neighbors to install photovoltaic panels. The world is thus freed from the tyranny of fossil fuels (although exactly what that means is left somewhat vague in the show), as well as the horror of climate change, (again, somewhat vague, with Freddy saying, “Nobody likes a warmer planet, nobody!”).

In the end, everyone lives happily ever after, including Jesse, who was eventually un-banished and allowed back out of his room once he promised to behave.

Needless to say, there would be much anticipated applause from the crowd.

Or not.

But it wasn't bad. Well … it wasn't awful.

One could do worse on a Sunday night than a pleasant high, a free pan of spinach lasagna, and an award-winning, critically acclaimed solar puppet show. Much worse.

“S
O
,” S
AMANTHA SAID
.

“So,” I replied, fiddling with the computer and trying to look busy. I was suffering an extreme anxiety attack. It had been a week since she had so ruthlessly thrown me to the wolves and now here she was, staying after class again. Smiling that stunning smile and twirling her pigtail between her thumb and her forefinger in that certain way that she had to have known drove me crazy. It was as if she were deliberately mocking me. Driving me over the edge not just to the brink of madness but headlong into the full-fledged abyss of insanity.

Maybe this is what she did. Maybe this is who she really was. Maybe she was the devil in disguise, a succubus, a demon sent to seduce me and then suck out my life force. An evil, conniving wicked, wicked woman who delighted in turning on guys, enticing them into her cunning web of lies and deceit, playing with their frayed emotions, ramping up their feelings until they were borderline lunatics, destroying every remnant of sanity they possessed, and
then leaving them tattered and torn and battered and beaten. Forever wondering what the hell just ran them over.

I stared hard at the computer, willing myself not to look up.