My wife and I sat across from each other, eyes heavy with the kind of exhaustion you don’t shake with a good night’s sleep. The school had made its choice—they put our boy in harm’s way, ignored the words on paper that were supposed to protect him. An IEP, they called it. Just another stack of bureaucracy to them. To us, it was supposed to be a shield. But shields don’t work when the people holding them don’t give a damn.
So we made our choice too. He wasn’t going back. Not to that school. Not to a system that saw him as a problem instead of a person. We are taking matters into our own hands—homeschooling.
And Texas? We were done. Finished. Washing our hands of it. This place chews people up and spits them out, and we aren’t waiting around to be next. Somewhere out there, there had to be a place where education means more than lip service, where kids aren’t just numbers on a budget sheet.
Tomorrow, we meet the realtor. Sell the house. Cut the ties. A clean break. A new start. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a place where they gave a damn.
I size up the family as I walk into their home, the spurs on my texan boots jingling like the winner I am. Another bunch of progressive trashbags leaving our wonderful state, and for what? For a better future in a kinder place? I spit in revulsion.
Well, I’ll be selling their home, so I actually swallow the spit so as not to mess up the floor, and I also take my boots off since I don’t want to scuff the floor either. I hold out my hand like a man, and the guy has the nerve to actually shake it. I tremble with rage, but don’t let it show, so I just blush bashfully and ask him for his number when his wife’s not looking. Us men have ways of settling things. Usually at midnight. In a park. Behind the gents.
He gives me his number like it’s not a big deal, but I catch the twinkle in his eye, and that’s good enough for me. Oh yes, we’ll be seeing each other soon. “We’ll be seeing each other VERY soon” I say, shaking his hand again. He tries to pull away, but I maintain grip and eye contact. Can’t let these pathetic trashbags think that I’m not onto them.
I look him up and down. I’ve seen it a thousand times. He is all bravado and boot jingles. Dressed like he stepped straight out of a Western Warehouse. I could tell those shiny boots had never stepped foot on a ranch. Just puffed-up pride wrapped in a cowboy hat, trying to mask the desperation of someone who’s never been anywhere else. And doesn’t realize he is the one getting fucked by the system.
“You’ll be seeing me soon, huh?” I say, watching his eyes flicker. “Let me tell you something, partner. If you don’t straighten out that attitude of yours—if you don’t drop this little act and do your job like a professional—I’ll find someone else to sell this house.” I let the words sink in before delivering the knife twist. “Maybe a dame.”
His mouth opens, then shuts.
“Oh yeah,” I continue, my voice smooth as the whiskey he probably pretends to drink neat. “I’ll bring in one of those ‘progressive libs’ you despise so much. Maybe someone fresh out of California, with a Prius and pronouns in her email signature. Someone who’ll take your commission, your sale, and leave you standing in the dust.”
His face twitches. The bravado cracks. He swallows hard. His grip loosens on my hand.
“Good talk,” I say, finally letting go of his hand. “Now get to work.”
I leave, staring at my hand like a deer stares into headlights. Something about the way he squawked rubbed me the wrong way, and somehow I didn’t think we would be meeting in the park at night behind the gents.My mind raced, and so I hit the streets trying to clear the whirlwind of thoughts that were eating at me. “Ah dame…?” I mouthed, the bitter taste making me dry-heave, “from California?” I took to the nearest bar, and spotted a gray Prius parked outside. I shook my head in disgust at the antithesis of Texan virtue; an automobile beholden to no single man nor wolf, like a cowboy without a drinking problem. What was happening to the world? “He… he asked me to just do my job, Jim” I say to the bartender. He’s supposed to be serving me a drink and listening to my troubles, but he’s actually watching the Fox news report whilst polishing the same glass over and over. Jim gets it.Talking it out with Jim’s dishrag, I realize that maybe I need to reclaim some of karma I lost along the way whilst doing this job. I need to restore my honor. I stumble out into the street, grab a jerrycan of premium Texan gasoline, and pour it into the inlet socket of the Prius. Karma restored, I whistle a merry tune and do a cowboy strut over to the bus since I live one state over.
My wife and I sat across from each other, eyes heavy with the kind of exhaustion you don’t shake with a good night’s sleep. The school had made its choice—they put our boy in harm’s way, ignored the words on paper that were supposed to protect him. An IEP, they called it. Just another stack of bureaucracy to them. To us, it was supposed to be a shield. But shields don’t work when the people holding them don’t give a damn.
So we made our choice too. He wasn’t going back. Not to that school. Not to a system that saw him as a problem instead of a person. We are taking matters into our own hands—homeschooling.
And Texas? We were done. Finished. Washing our hands of it. This place chews people up and spits them out, and we aren’t waiting around to be next. Somewhere out there, there had to be a place where education means more than lip service, where kids aren’t just numbers on a budget sheet.
Tomorrow, we meet the realtor. Sell the house. Cut the ties. A clean break. A new start. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a place where they gave a damn.
I size up the family as I walk into their home, the spurs on my texan boots jingling like the winner I am. Another bunch of progressive trashbags leaving our wonderful state, and for what? For a better future in a kinder place? I spit in revulsion.
Well, I’ll be selling their home, so I actually swallow the spit so as not to mess up the floor, and I also take my boots off since I don’t want to scuff the floor either. I hold out my hand like a man, and the guy has the nerve to actually shake it. I tremble with rage, but don’t let it show, so I just blush bashfully and ask him for his number when his wife’s not looking. Us men have ways of settling things. Usually at midnight. In a park. Behind the gents.
He gives me his number like it’s not a big deal, but I catch the twinkle in his eye, and that’s good enough for me. Oh yes, we’ll be seeing each other soon. “We’ll be seeing each other VERY soon” I say, shaking his hand again. He tries to pull away, but I maintain grip and eye contact. Can’t let these pathetic trashbags think that I’m not onto them.
I look him up and down. I’ve seen it a thousand times. He is all bravado and boot jingles. Dressed like he stepped straight out of a Western Warehouse. I could tell those shiny boots had never stepped foot on a ranch. Just puffed-up pride wrapped in a cowboy hat, trying to mask the desperation of someone who’s never been anywhere else. And doesn’t realize he is the one getting fucked by the system.
“You’ll be seeing me soon, huh?” I say, watching his eyes flicker. “Let me tell you something, partner. If you don’t straighten out that attitude of yours—if you don’t drop this little act and do your job like a professional—I’ll find someone else to sell this house.” I let the words sink in before delivering the knife twist. “Maybe a dame.”
His mouth opens, then shuts.
“Oh yeah,” I continue, my voice smooth as the whiskey he probably pretends to drink neat. “I’ll bring in one of those ‘progressive libs’ you despise so much. Maybe someone fresh out of California, with a Prius and pronouns in her email signature. Someone who’ll take your commission, your sale, and leave you standing in the dust.”
His face twitches. The bravado cracks. He swallows hard. His grip loosens on my hand.
“Good talk,” I say, finally letting go of his hand. “Now get to work.”
I leave, staring at my hand like a deer stares into headlights. Something about the way he squawked rubbed me the wrong way, and somehow I didn’t think we would be meeting in the park at night behind the gents. My mind raced, and so I hit the streets trying to clear the whirlwind of thoughts that were eating at me. “Ah dame…?” I mouthed, the bitter taste making me dry-heave, “from California?”
I took to the nearest bar, and spotted a gray Prius parked outside. I shook my head in disgust at the antithesis of Texan virtue; an automobile beholden to no single man nor wolf, like a cowboy without a drinking problem. What was happening to the world?
“He… he asked me to just do my job, Jim” I say to the bartender. He’s supposed to be serving me a drink and listening to my troubles, but he’s actually watching the Fox news report whilst polishing the same glass over and over. Jim gets it. Talking it out with Jim’s dishrag, I realize that maybe I need to reclaim some of karma I lost along the way whilst doing this job. I need to restore my honor.
I stumble out into the street, grab a jerrycan of premium Texan gasoline, and pour it into the inlet socket of the Prius. Karma restored, I whistle a merry tune and do a cowboy strut over to the bus since I live one state over.