Excerpt

He walked into the first bathroom. It was an old party to clean up with brown paper towel signs and toilet paper streamers everywhere.. Even wearing rubber gloves, he wondered shat new and exciting germs he was getting on his hands. He scrubbed the sharpie made poem about poo, and girls, and farts from the walls, and wiped away all of the pubic hair with his eyes closed, breathing through his mouth as if germs could not enter between his yellowing teeth. He then replace the urinal cakes, which smelled like nothing nature had ever made, and smelled even worse when covered with the ammonia scent of pee and washed the filth form the mirrors. He got out as quickly as he could, almost at a run, not paying attention to his forward motion until he had run into Miss Winters in the hallway. With his head down, a mumbled apology, and a quick backward glance at her, he moved to the next bathroom.

Chapter 2

Adrienne Winters had moved into town last year to take a teaching position in the English department left vacant when Mrs. Johnson, the fossilized remains of a 1930’s debutante had retired to Florida with her ex-military husband. Adrienne had been chosen as a replacement because she was young, and therefore would most likely stay awhile, and because she was willing to work for the wages offered by a small town school.

She had moved from New York, where she had attended public school as a ghost. She had graduated from NYU with a degree in comparative literature which she accepted from the college dean who could neither place her face of her name. She immediately began looking for a small place to teach, because she abhorred the violence and discipline necessary at an inner city school and the sheer size of the suburban schools made her cringe with fear. So, she hoped a small place, with a small school, where she could teach a subject that most students slept through was perfect for her. If they were asleep, they wouldn’t ask questions. Questions through her off of the rhythm of the way she presented her material. The Rhythm of the material, like the stanzas of a Robert Browning poem, made her comfortable and kept her grounded in the world she had bubbled for herself.