Philip Hassey
Cantaloupes
Writing of Fiction
Three or four years ago Mr. VanTol still stayed up late worrying about the play to be preformed the next day. He would run the lines through his mind again and again. He hoped the way he saw the play would some how come out through the students and be displayed before the entire crowd. They would walk away feeling almost like they were new people themselves, with a higher form of artistic truth just been set up on them. Mr. VanTol didn't worry anymore. He slept quite well the night before the play, having no hope at all. Perhaps it was the Christian Reformed Church getting too liberal and so he felt he could be mediocre and not care either, or perhaps it was his age. He was old now, almost sixty.
After a day of hurried preparations and final touches to the set, Mr. VanTol walked onto the stage as the evening began. He surveyed the crowd; it was a group of parents. All parents. Parents of the students who were in the play. He hadn't advertised the play as strongly as he had in the past because he didn't want those who weren't parents to come and see his name on the bill, mentioning he had directed it. They might not want him to teach English anymore if they knew. Anyway, Mr. VanTol understood the parents would be proud of their children and support them throughout all things.
He welcomed the group with a great grin on his bearded face and announced "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." The crowed cheered. They had to. He opened the evening with prayer and a blessing, all the while thinking about how he really didn't feel prayer could help the play, and how these parents really deserved to be cursed rather than blessed for producing such worthless children. Perhaps they did have some worth, but it wasn't in the arts.
Mr. VanTol continued to stand and talk: bathroom locations, intermission. He also highlighted a few of the performers and explained their importance to him as individuals, etc etc. He may as well just recited something he used several years ago for a different play and not even changed the names. The parents weren't listening, they just wanted to see "their little Joseph in a play" or "little Suzy all dressed up pretty like, pretending to be an actor, how cute." They made Mr. VanTol sick.
No, back in the day, Mr. VanTol cared. Mr. VanTol didn't used to weigh so much. Mr. VanTol used to have energy. At those rehearsals he would leave no question in the minds of the students that their salvation depended upon perfection of the part. Throttling nice Calvinist students with merit based doctrine always put the fear of damnation into their hearts. At the very least the way he threw chairs made them fear for their lives.
But now, he was older. Fatter. Didn't care so much. The doctors had told him to cut down on the donuts, but Mr. VanTol wouldn't have it. He loved chocolate covered donuts far too much. Somehow he could put the blame on the donuts rather than on himself. The same way with the plays. The students were the problem, not him. He wished he had given up plays years before.
That is why he got Miss Redwig involved. Mr. VanTol didn't like Miss Redwig, but she was the only one who wanted to have anything to do with the plays. Miss Redwig was the "new math" teacher. Pretty posters and group activities make better mathematicians. "New math" made Mr. VanTol sick; he didn't like pretty posters. Wasting an entire group's effort on one of those posters was more a waste than he could pretend to accept. Perhaps she would do something good for these plays, but Mr. VanTol had doubts. He didn't think anyone who had anything to do with "new math" could produce anything worthwhile. At least she had energy, even if it was misdirected.
Mr. VanTol used to be misdirected. He used to smile more and he had energy too. He was very misdirected. The day he walked into Calculus at Dordt College with thoughts of becoming an inspirational high school math teacher were the most misdirected thoughts he ever had. He was so gung-ho about it all he strutted up to the front of the classroom, plumped himself in the middle seat and leaned forward eagerly awaiting the first blessings of college mathematics.
Unfortunately for Mr. VanTol his high school mathematics experience had not prepared him for the "new math" methods of doing Calculus problems. Counting marbles and making pretty posters wasn't his idea of learning new and exciting things.
He left the room screaming. The words "new math" and "pretty posters" scared him then, and it still bears the scars on his life now. He swore he'd never have anything to do with math again, and he didn't, until Miss Redwig. Just being around her made him want to die, but he had to slowly slide the plays onto someone else, and if she was the only one willing, then so be it.
It was after that incident Mr. VanTol dropped college for a year and lived in the woods naked. He had to bond with nature and find himself. "New math" can do that to one. After a week or two of life in the woods he had built a Thoreauesque cabin to live in, and was slowly amassing a collection of animal skulls and mapping out where the best berry patches were. He spent much of the morning sitting around reading high literature. He started to get transcendental ideas of simplicity and of individuality running about in his head, which led him to strut periodically. He was getting fatter on all the animals he was killing, so it was fortunate that no one saw him during this time.
After several months of living in nature, he walked to one of his favorite places. A spot on the side of a valley overlooking a stream and blackberry bushes all the way down to the bottom. He would go there for breakfast at least three times a week. On this occasion he was there to relieve himself. Mr. VanTol dug a little hole in the ground and squatted. He squinted and looked around. For a few moments, Mr. VanTol felt he had reached a new level of consciousness. The nature, the berries, the woods, the small woodland creatures, he knew them all, and now Mr. VanTol felt he knew himself and for a few moments was at peace with his own soul.
At that moment, one of the small woodland creatures, a chipmunk, nipped Mr. VanTol sharply on the hinder. This caused Mr. VanTol to jump up, snagging his foot on a root, fall down. He began to roll down the hill. He went rolling down faster and faster screaming out in pain the whole way down, then even more so as he rolled through the thorny black berry bushes, until at last he lay at the bottom of the valley and was washed by the stream water while looking to the sky. He felt pretty bad.
Mr. VanTol didn't feel much better when he stepped down off of the stage and walked towards the back of the gymnasium to watch the play. He had just told a large number of lies, and misdirected a large group of parents exactly in the direction they had wanted to be misdirected. He had lulled them into a feeling of pride over their children's accomplishments, reflecting so brightly upon their parenting. For their own sakes he hoped they wouldn't be disappointed.
He sat down and looked over the playbill and shivered in his seat. The cantaloupe scene always worried him. It was the last thing to happen before the first act ended. He generally preferred those lasting moments before the intermission to be positive memories for the crowd, leaving them wanting to stay for the second half of the show. He had the scene perfectly memorized in his mind as he did the entire play. With past plays he could have recited the lines along with the play. But in this one he couldn't. The characters weren't in his control, he had let them too much freedom by being his fat and not caring.
Aunt Polly (Miss Redwig) was supposed to walk in on the scene as Tom Sawyer (Dill Vis) was reading the Bible. At that moment, Huckleberry Finn throws a large cantaloupe from off stage hitting the Bible sending it sailing into Miss Redwig's hands. Some vague symbolism about Christianity is supposed to be made. The trick of the scene was the timing of Johnny Meidema. Johnny was the stagehand. He sat high up in the rafters looking down over the whole scene, and at just the right moment he was to let go of a cantaloupe which was attached to a rope, and it was to swing down into the scene and take action.
Had the group been a normal quality group this would be quite possible, however every single name on the bill made him twist and curl inside and out. The frightful bit of it all was these were the best actors in the school. There were none better, which meant for quite a few years of sub quality productions. If he still cared, he would be crying himself to sleep at nights. He wasn't.
Somehow now, Mr. VanTol could just about take amusement in the whole situation. For example Dill who played Tom amused Mr. VanTol. Here was a boy who had more of a record of being like Tom Sawyer than Tom Sawyer himself. Even during play practices sometimes his scattered mind threw him into completely different characters. A week ago he slowly produced the largest, toothiest grin on his face possible and then become the most believable Injun Joe that Mr. VanTol had ever seen. "Injun Joe" then realized poison water was coming from the water hole. He then took it upon himself to ensure the safety of the rest of the universe. After smashing it repeatedly with a bat, jumping up and down on top of the wreckage didn't improve the situation. The cost of replacing the water fountain after "Injun Joe" fixed it shot the drama budget pretty quickly. The damage done to the carpet wasn't appreciated either.
Even within the past year Dill had collected a great many awards. Mostly awards associated with detention and suspension. The most recent of which was about a week before the play. Dill had received a nasty little suspension. At first he only did something horribly malicious: Bashing an innocent bush with a stick until it was unrecognizable. If it had not been in the shape of the school's mascot "The Crusader" perhaps this deed would have been forgivable. But since it wasn't, he was taken to Mr. VandenBorn's office to await his sentencing.
Mr. VandenBorn's office was a place the children tried not to think about too much. It was a large high ceilinged dark room, with a sunny view to the outdoors on one side, overlooking the place where the "Crusader Bush" had been. In the office, Dill sat uncomfortably waiting for Mr. VandenBorn's coming. It was probably the quietest room in the entire school; perhaps the walls were soundproof. No sound was apparent, until Dill noticed a light classical sound coming from the radio on the other side of the room. He couldn't make out the sound of the music, it was just very quiet and almost intimidating in its sound. As he leaned forwards from the harsh chair he was sitting in, looking at the radio, his eyes refocused to Mr. VandenBorn's desk in front of him. Right there in a nice clear jar was Mr. VandenBorn's coveted marble collection. Marbles from all different decades and countries, all in one little jar, sitting there, calling out to Dill. Dill didn't resist the calling; he was a good Dutch boy too. His arm went forward and he stood up to get his hand down into the jar to writhe around inside of it until he found a prize. He found it, a see-through green marble with a splash of blue in the middle of it; he tightened his fist around the marble and smiled. As he did that, Mr. VandenBorn swung the door open with a roar. Dill swung around quickly trying to look as though he hadn't done anything, but his fist got caught in the jar and the jar followed his arm around. The jar pulled out, then flew off towards the wall in front of Mr. VandenBorn. Only a second later the prized collection was mixed with shattered glass all over his office floor. Mr. VandenBorn gave a look of displeasure and walked forward. And slipped. When the man hit the floor with a loud thud, Dill realized he probably was going to get more than a detention this time.
Of course, the teachers always got a good laugh when they heard what Dill had done this time. Even though they were good people and knew making fun of others was wrong, they still thought it was funny. The good Christian Reformed way of being "in the world, but not of the world" so one can make fun of people as long as it's not done "of a worldly fashion." This meant they smiled when they made fun of someone instead of getting angry and swearing about them. They did the same thing with Johnny Medemia the stagehand. They had some great laughs over that boy in a wonderfully Christian sort of way.
Their favorite Johnny story to reminisce over was the time Johnny went to a school dance. See Johnny wasn't exactly known for his coordination. So when all the teachers found out he a purchased a ticket to the Christmas dance, they all wanted to come watch for just a little while. The idea of Johnny dancing amused them so much; they all came and lined up against the one wall by the fruit punch. Had any of them danced perhaps the same result would have occurred, but they came to laugh, not to be laughed at.
Johnny arrived and all eyes looked towards him, as he sort of hopped to the music, like a rabbit, except tilting to one side then another with his hair slicked back. He walked straight towards the pretty girl, Jessica. Jessica was known for her good looks, but she also had a kind heart, so she was nice and slow danced with Johnny. She had a wonderfully long dress on that flowed around her beautiful form in such a way that many boys were jealous that Johnny had gotten to touch her. Her beauty almost transferred to Johnny as they danced around in that tight circle again and again. They danced closer and closer. For a brief moment it even looked as though they were about to kiss. And then, Johnny fumbled his feet a little, grabbed onto Jessica's shoulder and tripped on her dress. Holding on they both crashed down to the floor. They hit the ground so hard the CD skipped to the next song, a loud metal number. The moment was over and Johnny was laughed at. In a Christian sort of way though. No swearing.
Even though Mr. VanTol had laughed then when he heard the story, because he wasn't actually at the dance, he couldn't laugh any more. He could only pray that Johnny would be better with cantaloupes than he was with women. He had heard the story, of course, from Miss Redwig. She told it in such a "new math" kind of way, it had frightened Mr. VanTol. He feared she didn't realize what impact this story might have on the play. Somehow he could see her going home and making a pretty art project with graphs and bringing it into school to show the teachers the change of velocity of the momentum of Johnny as he fell. They'd all have a big laugh over it. Was she in touch with reality at all? Mr. VanTol wondered sometimes.
Then Mr. VanTol looked up and saw it coming. Only a few more seconds and the cantaloupe scene would be upon them. He inched forward in his seat and watched as Dill sat, reading the Bible and occasionally twitching his head one way and then the other. He was humming a Christmas carol playfully when Miss Redwig came onto the scene and walked up to him. She looked over his shoulder and watched him read the Bible for a minute. She was supposed to say something but she didn't. An expression on her face developed, one that looked as though she was creating a colorful chart with cardboard that had "verses read per minute over spirituality" graphed on it. Nothing was happening.
Mr. VanTol got worried. Dill was being too serene and Miss Redwig was thinking about "new math." Mr. VanTol looked up to the rafters and saw Johnny wrestling with the cantaloupes. Something was about to happen, because one of them fell from his hand. The cantaloupe fell straight down and hit Miss Redwig on the head. Miss Redwig jumped back, out of her spot, a little dizzied. Johnny seemed to get excited and hoping to salvage the scene, he swung another cantaloupe down on a rope as originally planned. However since Miss Redwig was not in the right spot, the rope swung around Miss Redwig. It wrapped around her, jerking her violently down to the ground. Another cantaloupe was let loose as Johnny tried to yank the rope back up. The third cantaloupe dropped down and exploded on Miss Redwig's face. The crowd burst into hilarious laughter as the stage curtains closed on the first Act.
Miss Redwig was damaged. She had a rather unpleasant scrape across her forehead and a lot of cantaloupe seeds in her hair. After she scrubbed her hair up and put a bandage across her head she went out for the second Act. The rest of the play went perfectly fine. Nobody even knew that there was a mess up, they just thought it was a particularly well-choreographed slapstick joke. The next night went flawlessly. The only people who wondered at all were those few extra-dedicated parents who went to both performances. Everyone congratulated Mr. VanTol for excellent work on directing "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
Mr. VanTol knew the truth. He far liked the first performance over the second. Somehow the truth of it made it better. He didn't quit doing plays that year.
