Fat School Confidential by Joe Rourke Read Free Book Online Page B

at fat school, and I had to deal with the biggest prima donna on campus—literally.
        Jimmy Dyer greeted me with a “What up, Man?”
        At close to four hundred pounds, scraggly-haired Jimmy sat leaning in his desk chair in the back row. Flanked by big-boned, adoring teen girls, he had a captive audience. Realizing he was the star student, I tempered my teacher’s stance by humoring him.
        “ Nothing much, Jimmy. How’s it going with you?”
        Taking into account Jimmy’s weight, I worried about the structural integrity of his chair. In high school, I used to tilt my desk back against the wall. But I was a good hundred and fifty pounds lighter than him. The desks at this school, however, weren’t the unibody design I was used to. Jimmy could at least scootch out of the way to avoid disaster—depending on his reaction time, of course.
        Jimmy glanced past me, towards the “Mr. Rourke” printed in large happy letters on the whiteboard.
        “ Your name is Mr. Rourke?” he asked.
        “ Yes.”
        “ That’s cool.”
        Without replying, I gave a polite, closed-mouth grin. I didn’t know where he was going, but I surmised embarrassing me was high on his “to-do” list.
        “ I had a Mr. Rourke once.”
        “ Oh, really?”
        Jimmy paused, glancing at the girl to his left. They snorted in laughter. I tried hard not to react. Looking around the room, I noticed that no one else shared Jimmy’s sense of humor. There were perhaps fifteen students in the room, and like him, they were all around sixteen or seventeen years of age.
        I passed out a syllabus.
        “ This should give you a rough idea what the class is about. We will be using the red textbooks, which you can find on the bookshelves in the back of the room.”
        The few students who paid attention to me turned their heads to check out the books. The rest of them seemed just as dazed as they were during their morning walk. Jimmy kept staring at me—as if he were readying himself for a comeback. I ignored him.
        “ Mr. Rourke?”
        “ Yes?” I replied, turning to face a beaming, freckle-faced girl, who, despite her considerable girth, seemed genuinely happy to be in class.
        “ What are we doing today?”
        “ We’re not going to have homework to do today, if that’s what you’re asking.”
        I paused, thinking this would be a good time to get the class off on the right foot.
        “ I want to tell you all a little about myself, what we’re going to cover in this class, and what I expect from you.”
        “ Great!” The young lady’s unbridled enthusiasm caught me off-guard. If only the rest of the class could develop such positive energy, maybe, just maybe, I’d have a great first semester.
            “ I’m from L.A. I’ve taught high school for several years, mostly public school. I have an art degree, but I minored in writing. I jumped at the chance to teach here, and I hope to make an educational impact in each of your lives.”
        In other words, I gave them an idealized version of Mr. Rourke, teacher. The morning consisted of going over syllabi, rules, and expectations. Other than Jimmy Dyer that first period, the students were respectful, and some were disarmingly friendly. I had to keep my guard up, though. I
    didn’t want any of them to see me as anything but their teacher.
        When we broke for lunch, I sat with the other teachers. Joanie Tepper was there, as was her husband, Sam. Strumm and Frank Mills joined us as well. Strumm did a visual sweep, eyeballing a young couple pressing against each other at a table next to ours. Noticing his disapproval, they slid a few inches apart. Public displays of affection—platonic and otherwise—were frowned upon. Brief hugs were okay, but anything beyond that was verboten. Something about it affecting their “program.”
        After lunch, Frank joined