The Rise
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN form CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale
The Rise
18
“Come in Petra. Have a seat. How are you settling in?” said the principal.
David, the pastor’s older brother and the brains behind the school, was a lifelong educator; a down to earth, practical guy with a passion for high school football. He taught several classes and served as the team’s coach. Petra noticed right off the bat quite a few giant Hawaiians in the student body.
“Thank you for the opportunity. The kids are amazing and we’re off to a good start. I brought a list of materials I need.”
“I don’t see a request for updated textbooks here.”
Her budget was slim and the Christian textbooks at the trade show left much to be desired. Flat, boring, and biased were the adjectives that ran through her mind.
“If it’s alright with you, I’d like to begin with novels. I can pull exercises from the textbooks on hand.”
The English department had been making do on very little for some time. This worked in Petra’s favor, allowing her the opportunity to develop a brand-new curriculum. To begin, she ordered four classic novels. Wuthering Heights for the 9th graders, A Tale of Two Cities for grade 10, The Scarlett Letter for the 11th grade and Crime and Punishment for the senior class. Had the doctrine of the church been amenable to psychology (it was not), any reputable therapist would have gleaned considerable insight from her selection of starter books.
Besides the four English classes, she was required to teach American History and biology. A heavy load for a newbie. Often, she spent late nights learning what she would teach the following day. It was a whirlwind and a challenge.
She nurtured creative writing, from essays to short stories to poems and plays. Inspiring creative thinkers became the core of her teaching philosophy. As a result, she came to know her students well. Their common struggle to find an authentic self within the confines of a strict religious upbringing influenced Petra in uplifting and destructive ways.
On the one hand, she had to admit that the religious dogma she was operating under was contrary to her more inclusive beliefs and rather damaging to her soul. The stigma of her addictive past hung about her neck like an albatross. It fanned the flames of unworthiness, of somehow being less than everyone else.
On the other hand, the students began to achieve critical acclaim for their writing. In the spring of her first year of teaching, she entered her students into a writing contest and won six scholarships at the prestigious Maui Writer’s Conference. No other school in Hawaii could boast such a success. In addition, national student anthologies published many of their poems. Her ability to teach, engage and grow her students, regardless of their innate aptitude, was a gift. Each class contained all ability levels, from special education to advanced placement students, which had its obvious challenges. For the most part, the students adored her and worked hard.
Every once in a while, things went off the rails with a parent. One father criticized her for teaching his child about a murderer in the novel Crime and Punishment. The church doctrine warned against secular entertainment. It frowned upon any theme that contained a violent or sexual nature. He did not agree with her literature choices. Petra wondered if he would have the same vehement reaction to Macbeth and Hamlet.
Two weeks later, he came back and apologized. His seventeen-year-old son, at the dinner table, began discussing the opposing philosophies of Nietzsche and Hegel.
His father asked, “Where did you learn that?”
“‘Crime and Punishment’,” he replied.
“For the first time, I have hope that my son will go to college. We’re planning to visit campuses over the holiday break. No one in my family has ever been to college.”
He became a vocal advocate for her teaching style and her literary choices. Single-handedly, he quieted an exponential, underground growth of parental discontent and hostility.
Her ideology was simple. Because she had experienced an inferior education at an American high school in a foreign country, she taught her students as if they were in their freshman year at college. Even though a good portion of her academic plight had been of her own making, she understood what it felt like to land in a university without the proper tools. Having failed her first year, she came close to bailing on higher education altogether. Her students would not suffer the same fate, not on her watch.
Moving along at a slow, unthreatening pace and avoiding homework wherever possible, she tricked them into learning. They read the more demanding novels out loud together in class. Everyone took turns reading a specific character’s dialog with the AP-level students playing the part of the narrator. They stopped often to discuss the mindset of the characters, the twists and turns of the plot, or vocabulary words no one had ever heard before.
When it came time for her senior class to read Hamlet, she bought, out of pocket, a dozen copies of Kenneth Branagh’s screenplay so they could act it out. She also purchased a copy of the movie and after they performed a scene, they would watch it unfold on screen. The process progressed at a snail’s pace but had its rewards, as deep concepts and creative thought pathways wove into receptive, impressionable minds.
Petra encouraged her students to question and expand upon their current reality and beliefs. Such discussions were contrary to church doctrine. Over time, her classroom developed into the headquarters for a growing resistance. Many students had become disheartened and their writing revealed the sordid details.
The level of hypocrisy they experienced in their homes and within the congregation was odious. Most everyone around them was pretending to be someone they were not. Wanting no part of it, but terrified of being ostracized by the only community they had ever known, resulted in a self-defeating paralysis. Hiding from themselves, they hid from each other; they hid, and they hid, until that one hour a day, when, for a brief-moment, they fell into their authentic selves. The church leadership may have sensed the growing unrest, but the student’s intellectual growth made them look good and gave them the desired impetus to look the other way.
In the middle of her second year, Tiziana, a sixteen-year-old raised by a single dad, enrolled at the school. He was a substance abuse counselor with a new gig on Maui. In the middle of a school church service, Petra noticed her for the first time. She knew nothing about the girl but felt connected to her on a deep, incomprehensible level. As she stared at the vulnerable, almost urchin-like child, an audible voice spoke to her. Familiar with that voice, she walked straight up to Tiziana and whispered in her ear.
“God told me to bring you lunch every day for school.”
Tears welled up. Her body shook from violent sobbing. She crumpled and fell to the floor. Petra sat down next to her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m the one who always had to make lunch for my brothers and sisters. Every time I made them, every day, really, I prayed that someday, someone would make me a lunch.”
Petra flashed to her lunchless school days. Once, in middle school, she asked her mother if she would please make her a brown bag lunch like the other kids. They were living in Westport, Connecticut, and everyone had a pre-packaged lunch from home or money to buy a hot meal. She had neither. If she wanted to eat, she had to ask the other students for spare change to buy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Begging felt awful and was extra embarrassing in such a well-to-do community. Either her mother was up to her old tricks, there was a serious lack of food in the house, or simply too focused on her next cocktail to notice such inconsequential details.
Perceived by her peers as a disadvantaged person, it was difficult to fit in or make friends. Poverty had no place in such a ritzy town. Besides, like a viral infection, it might be contagious. She had one friend, Dana, who came from a wealthy family with a doting mother. Soon, Dana started showing up with an extra sandwich and the need to beg disappeared. Petra never mentioned the sandwiches, because Lou’s response to her request for a bagged lunch was met with hostile anxiety.
“The last time I had to make a brown bag lunch for your father, I threw up on the kitchen counter. I will never make another one again!”
Had Petra allowed herself to open her mouth, she would have unleashed an avalanche of unwelcome emotion.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You don’t make me lunch. You don’t give me money. I’m hungry! Don’t you care if I eat? Maybe you don’t give it a second thought. Well, guess what? Dana’s mom knows all about you. She knows what a shit mother you are. She knows you let your kid go hungry while you drink cocktails at the country club. Did you know she makes me lunch so I don’t have to beg for change in front of everyone? I fucking hate you, you stupid bitch!”
Like all of her flashes, it came and went in an instant and packed a huge emotional punch. All the anger, the embarrassment, the unworthiness of even the smallest consideration, hit her like a tidal wave and she wept right there alongside, and in unison with, her newfound, God-given daughter.
The following school year, Tiziana’s father transferred to Oahu. In a bold move, he allowed her to stay behind in Maui with Petra. Under normal circumstances, he would never have permitted such a thing, but he loved his daughter and wanted what was best for her. As a young child, she lived with active addicts. Her father, now sober, was acutely aware of her trauma-related coping mechanism. At five-years-old, following a spiritual experience, she found a refuge in Christianity. Her mental and emotional stability depended on a strong church affiliation. Faith, in a supreme and loving God, became her anchor during those tumultuous early years. He understood all this, supported her desire to stay at the church school and recognized her affection for the teacher who made her lunch every day. If not for those God-inspired lunches, their adventure through “the best of times and the worst of times” might never have happened.
When Tiziana moved in, Petra’s life changed. Overnight, she had two kids who were thick as thieves. They bonded as if they were blood.
The two of them encouraged her.
“Why don’t you go on without us? We’re good.”
It felt a little spooky, like the beginning of a horror movie. Except for childcare during the school day, she had never left her son. Even then, Petra was quite the helicopter mom, always checking in on him every chance she got. His teacher reprimanded her.
“You need to drop him in the morning and pick him up in the afternoon, just like any other parent.”
The next two years were extraordinary. Tiziana was a gifted singer and an indispensable part of the music ministry. She was also a cheerleader. Between school events and church functions, the three of them were always on the go. Their only complaint was a legitimate lack of funds.
One day at Costco, while staring at a printer, Petra looked at Tiziana and said, “Printer or food?”
To which they both, being all too familiar with a poverty mentality, replied in unison, “Printer!”
The choice seemed obvious. They overcame the food problem by throwing a potluck. Everyone loved their little house, even the wealthiest congregants. In a pinch, the living area and the backyard could accommodate fifty people. That size crowd ensured a variety of delicious dishes and the leftovers would keep them fed until the next paycheck. As neglected children, they both possessed the inherent skill set of seasoned survivalists.
Petra’s salary was inadequate, and the congregants knew it. In addition, she had taken in another child, a gifted child, who brought them all to tears when she sang. No one considered helping. They were on their own and accepted that, for whatever reason, it was God’s will for them to live by faith. Considering their recent potluck maneuver, one might conclude they were sustaining themselves by the art of manipulation. One Sunday, after the service, an affluent woman approached them.
“My husband and I prayed about it and we feel we should give you this.”
She handed Petra a twenty-dollar bill. While she took it and managed a polite, “Thank you,” as soon as the woman left Tiziana, disgusted, blurted out, “She had to pray about twenty dollars?”
At the three-year mark, Petra’s perfect world, like clay earth after a sustained drought, cracked into ever-widening fissures. The person she created to live in an uncompromising religious community was falling to pieces. Her revered teacher persona, yet another invention, was not strong enough, or genuine enough, to withstand the pressure of mounting bills, unrealistic expectations or the moral restraints required to maintain outward perfection. She had disowned so many parts of herself that she had no reservoir left to draw upon. What had once been a vehicle with a four-cylinder engine, now depended on a single, spent and sputtering cylinder to get the job done. Refusing to become a hypocrite, she battled rising addictive thoughts. Her inward adolescent screamed and balked in response to her play acting.
“Hey dumb-ass! Since when did you become little miss goody two shoes? It’s not you. This is some elaborate grift. Way out of your league, honey pie. You know what you need? A cigarette and a glass of wine.”
There was a moral clause in her teaching contract, which she signed without hesitation, because it lined up with her life choices. In it, she agreed to abstain from alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and fornication.
At the time, she was disinterested in all those so-called vices so, “Why not sign?”
One afternoon, while walking out to her car to grab a lesson plan, she noticed one of her students, Makoa, sitting by himself on a cement wall. It was the middle of the 5th period. He should have been in class. It didn’t feel right, and Petra investigated. As she approached, he rose from his seat, arms flailing.
“Get away from me miss. It’s no gud. I say dey back miss!”
“It’s okay, Makoa. I promise, whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.”
He sat back down. When she reached him, she reacted as her training dictated for volatile situations with teenagers. She knelt on one knee in front of him to make herself smaller and give him all the power.
“I no wan live anymore miss. I juss wan off masef. It's all mai fault!”
She listened as he told a heart-wrenching story about his mother leaving and blaming it all on him. He was terrified to face his father.
“This is not your fault. Makoa, look at me, look at my face… She lied to you. It’s not your fault. It’s on her, not you. I’m going to help you get through this. Will you let me help you?”
She led a shaking child, housed in a giant Hawaiian man’s body, to the principal’s office and telephoned his father. Makoa’s dad rushed over, embraced his son and took him home early.
Later that day, she was called into the head pastor’s office. That was unusual. She waited for quite some time before being ushered in.
“Please have a seat. What I have to say is extremely uncomfortable.”
Her heart thumped faster and louder as her anxiety level rose.
“When I drove in this afternoon, I saw you kneeling in front of a male student. I’m not accusing you of anything, but as leaders in this community, we must avoid even the appearance of evil.”
She stared at him in a state of shock and disbelief.
“Appearance of evil? Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Did it look sexual?”
She explained what had happened and why she was in that position. In a million years, she could not understand where his mind went. It was like a dagger that carried a new frightening message.
“It doesn’t matter how pure your intentions are, this is how they all see you.”
Her mother’s voice rose from an obscure cubbyhole and berated her with a venomous stream of accusations.
“Did you forget? You’re just a good-for-nothing addict, aren’t you? That’s all they see when they look at you. You didn’t surprise him at all. He expected as much. Dirty disgusting little whore, that’s who you really are.”
Somehow, Petra maintained her composure while falling into a dissociative state. She fled the Pastor’s office, taught her last class, drove home with the kids, went into her room and sobbed for hours.
She did not feel like going to work the next day, but she pushed through the resistance. Her principal was waiting outside as she and the kids drove up. He walked right up to her rolled-down window.
“I’m so sorry. There’s been a huge mistake. Come on inside. I need to talk to you.”
He had arranged a sub for her first class. He wanted to make sure they had plenty of time to “sort the whole mess out”.
He sat her down, made sure she had a glass of water and began, “There’s been a huge mistake! My brother was so wrong! He had no business calling you into his office like that. He should’ve brought the matter to me.”
Unlike his brother, David was an open-minded, extraordinarily kind man who gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.
“Just so you know, I got a call from Makoa’s father late last night. He says you saved his son’s life. Makoa was preparing to kill himself. He thought he’d shamed his family, and it was better to die than face his father. Because of you, they sorted everything out. He’s incredibly thankful.”
Through her tears, all Petra could manage was a nod.
“I’ve explained everything to my brother. It’s all taken care of. I apologize for him.”
Too little, too late. Petra’s perception had already shifted in a polar opposite direction. She began viewing the world and everyone in it through a different and all too familiar lens. Abandoning her trust in God, she slipped back into survival mode. It was so simple. All she had to do was embrace what her subconscious mind had been telling her all along. The old messages from childhood resurfaced with a vengeance, and in seconds, overwhelmed and annihilated a decade of Bible learning. It was as if those scriptures were nothing more than a frail software program laid on top of a virus-infected hard drive.
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A harrowing tale, shot through with unlikely humor and fantastical creatures.
This autofiction (autobiography and fiction) novel revolves around a lifetime spent underwater struggling to find the surface. The narrative follows the journey of an unlikely heroine from the bondage of childhood trauma to self-awareness and freedom.
It is a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success that finishes with a big Hollywood ending.