In Living Memory (April 2024)

 

"If you're not part of the problem, you're part of the solution" she announced. With that said, she wheeled around and rolled off down the corridor.

 

"She was serious!"

 

"That's why she's here with us, Stan."

 

"And SHE was a bank vice-president."

 

"Oh, Stan stop it! It really is unseemly to kick a person who's down."

 

"But I knew people just like her, and they really got under my skin. I used to dream it would come back to them one day."

 

"So, maybe that explains her, but what about you . . . what about me?"

 

"But I was never—"

 

"I used to think that about myself, Stan. But you know when you get to be my age and you have too much time on your hands or you can't sleep from 2:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m., images and echoes and scenes from the past come back. And not always in a friendly way.”

 

"Yeah, that's what Frank calls vomiting his personal history."

 

"Ah Frank. Yes, he has a way with, shall we say, colourful language."

 

"Yeah, but I he's usually bang on."

"He can be perceptive, but anyway, what I was getting around to saying was that in my case, I often don't recognize myself as I was in the past."

 

"But you were a school teacher, and you must've been a damn good one 'cause there's still students who write you. I mean, how they've kept track of you . . . I'd have no idea where to start and I wouldn't have the least interest in the first place. No fond memories of those days. No ma’am."

 

"That's what bothers me most."

 

"What?"

 

"To think that there were students I taught who like you feel the way you do."

 

"How would you know that?"

 

"Maybe 'know' might not be the right word. Let me give you an example. There was a thin little boy in my class—it was a third grade class—who started a month into the school year. His name was Robby. There was nothing remarkable about him. Just another 8-year-old child except that he was so skinny and he had heavy calluses on his hands."

 

"A migrant child?"

 

"Yes."

 

"So, why do you still remember this Robby?"

 

"Because of what I did."

 

"And that was . . .?"

 

"I saw him in the cafeteria. He didn't think anyway was watching when he dropped his sandwich on the floor and then asked the server to give him another one."

 

"Why would that leave an impression with you after . . . I don't know . . . so many years?"

 

"45 years, Stan. You see the sandwich he dropped on the floor, he picked up. But he didn't throw it away. He sat down at a table by himself . . . and ate both sandwiches. Ate the sandwich that had been on the dirty floor."

 

"You're gonna have to help me because I don't see where that's gonna be a disturbing memory."

 

"I haven't finished yet. When we got back to class, before we started our afternoon assignment, I gave the students a brief lesson in hygiene. I finished by saying, "And when we drop food on the floor, we shouldn't pick it up and eat it because it will have germs that can make us sick.” And here I looked directly at Robby. The other students were puzzled. What was I talking about and why was I looking at Robby?"

 

"I think I see."

 

"No, not just yet. I didn't get to speak to Robby after class, because as soon as the final bell rang, he was out the door."

 

"Did you talk to him the next day?"

 

"No. There was no next day . . . not for Robby."

 

"He didn't come back."

 

"No. And among the migrant children it wasn't unusual for them to just stop coming."

 

"But I thought kids had to attend school till they were . . . I don't know . . . 16 or so."

 

"That's the law. But nobody enforces it where migrant children are concerned.”

 

"So, I get why you're still punishing yourself with this memory, but what does it have to do with Agatha?"

 

"You manager friend?"

 

"She's not my friend."

 

"Well, Agatha—I didn't know that was her name, because I've never met her or heard her name spoken before. From what I've observed though, Agatha seems to suffer from dementia and her past may be visiting her in a different way. Causing her to incorrectly parrot meaningless management slogans. Ironically, in this case from a former leader of the Black Panthers."

 

"Now, if Miss Agatha knew that, her world really and truly would be rocked."

 

"That’s already happened, Stan."