Freddogg Off The Chain

I read a Science Fiction short story 30 years ago based on the premise that aliens had infiltrated the genetic coding of the human brain accelerating every human’s I.Q by a power of 20. This resulted in a new language based on short spurts, stops and starts and sudden disinterest in the expressed thoughts of others, because everyone knew what everyone else was going to say before they said it. Here in the new millennium it’s called A.D.D. but all the “attention getting” medication in the world can’t make you hang around for the anticipated completion of a thought or joke from a person that is totally predictable in delivery, like a retired Dominoes guy on your front porch, who does too good a job to be taken serious, while wearing a vest and funny hat.

Back in 1976 I was coordinating a work study program for special education students who went out for a few hours and then at the end of the day we did the old round table “how was your day and what did you learn on the job” bullshit discussion?

On this particular day James had been fired from his rewarding placement: cleaning up a hoagie shop from 8 a.m.to 10 a.m.

James was called ‘Red’ by his friends because that was his skin color and that of his dad and his 11 brothers and sisters. They were the Red family and if you asked a Red sister, ”Is your brother Red in school,” she would answer, ”Which Red you talking about because we’re all Red.”

Red was fired for doing his job—that Red Boy could clean his ass off—then curling up and going to sleep while waiting for me to pick him up. The owner of the Sub Shop awoke from his hung over alcoholic haze early and came to the shop to find James curled up and asleep on a maroon ‘pleather’ sofa .The conflicting colors gave bald boy a redneck headache and he snapped at James and fired him.

Later that afternoon we went roundtable,10 kids and two teachers, myself and a 60 year old soon to be retired guy named Dick, who was an absolute saint and loved all those kids.

I started by asking Charles why he didn’t show up for his job of picking up trash around the school grounds. “Trash is not my bag, ”he said.

Dick looked at Chuckyin a moment of ministry weakness and asked “Chucky, when is the last time you cried?”

Chucky didn’t flinch, ”I don’t know man? When’s the last time you got off?”

I went into my boring lesson about how even if the job is done and done well if there is time left on the clock you have to get busy looking busy and they all agreed that was really stupid especially if you could get some rest to get busy later when it actually meant something.

I knew they were right and that I was too white but I pressed on and then they all looked at me while pointing at Dick whose head had dropped because he was sleeping but at least he was also wheezing.

Each kid spun silently out of their chair and found a piece of carpet on which to curl up and laugh alone and silently. They loved Dick and didn’t want to disrespect him.

I got them back into their seats, Dick nodded back into real time focus, looking confused, as steady John asked me, ”Fredman, do you know that dude lives back around Coolspring named Bungaloo? And do you know his brother, well it used to be his brother but now it’s his sister?”

“Really John? Which one am I more likely to know, the brother or the sister?”

‘Well you see the brother was always a little funny—you know—a punk—so he went to New York and got an operation and changed his name to Kitty Carlisle.”

“Is that the truth John, ”I asked?

“I am here ‘To Tell The Truth”, John said, and Red added “he sure enough is.”

I miss my world of unanticipated behaviors and unforeseen responses.

Professor Freddogg