Other teachers

In one school, there was another out dyke on staff. She was only there for a term and I later found out she’d been fired from her previous school.

For taping a kids mouth shut and locking him in a cupboard.

Anyway, she (let’s call her Jenny) took a shine to me.  Now, I’m not the world’s most perceptive person, but I could see the ‘locking kids in cupboards’ crazy coming a mile off.   I was still polite, and that was enough of an invitation for her to seek me out in the main staffroom come by my desk a lot. 

I think we got to know each other when I had car trouble and she drove me to school one day.  It was not my first choice for a ride I assure you, but  she lived in the same dykey neighbourhood.  I get in and she’s blaring Pink’s ‘Fingers’ at top volume and grinning at me.  Being behind all pop culture curves, I didn’t know the song but still managed to feel uncomfortable just listening to the distortion and her singing.

Such an overt display of lesbian ‘friendship’ was unprecedented at my school.  My staffroom was abuzz with innuendo and titters (I never understood ‘tittering’ til I heard it happen.  Unmistakable).  When I revealed I was not thrilled by the attentions of the lady in question, well, that was even better. We had entered lesbian stalker territory!

Now when Jenny visited, other staff would smirk and generally humiliate the woman behind her back.  Awkward for me though.  Don’t like the crazy lady, don’t like the homophobes.  And, as we know by now, I was always going to take the path of least courage…I said nothing. To either party.  I ducked my colleagues comments, I weaved her and I felt shitty about both.

In the end, she was de-registered by the powers that be.  Maybe it was the Facebook photo hugging students, or perhaps the rumours of the affairs that followed.  Either way, she left under a cloud.

The moral here?  Well, there is none.  And there is no winner when your allays are not you people and your people are not your allays.