Charlie Ch. 06

Justine was also broken up. Broken up, lost like a sweater without one correct stitch. But she too was moving up. And out. She moved to D.C. and took classes at the University there. She worked for an artist in residence program as a theater teacher. She was essentially a consultant who taught theater to what one might consider underprivileged kids in neighborhoods such as Anacostia. The Metro didn't even stop there. Justine had to walk far past the bus line to get to some of those schools. Her shiny red locks bouncing from under her hat as she strut so fiercely through the mud and the cracks in the pavement.

Justine felt much of a chasm. There was the completely sexualized, and as she believed the true version of herself, and the teacher version of herself, which wore lower heels, longer skirts, higher blouses with higher necklines. But there was no hiding the sexuality of Justine. Her shapely calves always peeked out from her conservative skirts. Her breasts were undeniable, shook when she walked, hung when she leaned, perked when she stood. Her ass swayed, but these features were not a symptom of control of Justine's over her own body, but a simple symptom of a magnificent body in motion. Slender women, ugly women, pubescent girls and boys alike noticed her with hatred. Justine, accustomed to getting all the attention in theater crowds was oblivious to this hatred, taught best as she could at each school she was assigned, and always moved on, with sniggering awards.

But underneath it all, Justine wasn't exactly about to swear off her sexuality just yet. Nor was she about to stop wearing her corset every day. Or her smoky eyeliner. Her attempts to be the teacher, the conservative, the institutional authoritarian were half hearted. But the intuitive authoritarian was perfect for the jobs. One of the students Justine taught was James Henry. Two first names. He was labeled and diagnosed as Oppositional Defiant. That title sounds a tid bit unpleasant, but when Justine read the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual entry on these kids, and she worked with these kids, she began to think their predicaments were far more than just nasty. James had extremely offensive outbursts during rehearsals, for seemingly no good reason. He was mandated by the school to be there, as a way to learn positive behavioral functioning skills and make up some of the Literature classes he ditched. Justine knew he frequently got into fights at school. But if he didn't show to rehearsal a certain number of days, he wouldn't graduate, and for some kids that's all the motivation they need. No matter how bad they seem, they still want to graduate.

There was something about Justine and these high school kids, something about her demeanor. She was commanding but collected, so the kids listened to her automatically. She was subtly but undeniable cool, but still young and approachable, so the kids always eventually relaxed around her and had a good time with the plays. James was her biggest challenge with her simplest solution. He always tried to argue with her. Everything she said was met with an argument. Justine knew she always had the upper hand in these little arguments, but didn't want to waste precious rehearsal time playing his games. She held up one finger and said, "One."

The first time Justine did this, by the time she got to "Three" James had stormed out and didn't come back for two days. When he came back Justine directed him to stage left.

"Oh now you want me in your play," he said mockingly, hands folded across his chest, totally unaware of how immature he appeared.

"Stage left," Justine repeated calmly. James argued. "One." He argued more. "Two three. In that chair. You can learn a lot from watching. You have fifteen minutes before you're on anyway. Then you'd better be up." Justine's voice was soothing but firm. Eventually the frequency of James' time outs decreased. Justine, to be honest with herself, was surprised he even took them at all and stopped storming out completely.

On opening night Justine Zamora was passing out flyers as James' father approached her.

"Ms. Zamora?" he asked nervously.

"Yes?"

"I'm Mr. Henry. Jonathan Henry. James' father. I wanted to thank you for the work you have done with him. Ever since this play started it's all he could talk about. I'm so happy to see him interested in something healthy besides that awful music and those annoying friends. I don't know what you're doing, but you should share it with the other teachers here. They don't know what to do with him," said Mr. Henry, shaking Justine's hand vigorously, his eyes wandering, distracted.

"I just set clearly defined parameters for him and he responds well to that," said Justine, firmly, trying to finish off the elongated hand shake. "I hope you enjoy the show."

"Thank you. I will." And Mr. Henry began to walk off. Justine sensed she was being looked at and after a moment turned her head and caught Mr. Henry's glance on her rear. He immediately turned and walked away shamefully, taking an aisle seat in the middle of the auditorium.