The Acupuncturist

In which I learn my energy is blocked

At my office door again is Abigail, precocious Abigail, if only I were a regular adult and not a middle school principal how I would love to spend hours chatting with Abigail about life and the mysteries of fractals and the latest National Geographic documentaries. She enters without a knock, on an important mission, in her hands a few sheets of paper neatly stacked and stapled.

“My short story,” she says. She’s beaming, this girl. “Just finished it last night.”

I save the draft email I am crafting and hit print on the lesson plans I need to run downstairs to the art teacher sub and then turn to Abigail. She thrusts the story into my hands. Five pages, single-spaced, double-sided. Must be 3000 words.

“Impressive,” I tell her. “Mr. T’s gonna love it.”

I attempt to hand the work back to her but she waves it off. “Let me know what you think,” she says, and off goes Abigail, so as not to arrive late to class.

I set the story on my desk, right next to my keyboard. Having spent two years in writing school, having submitted countless short stories to friends and professors and invisible editors of obscure literary journals, having filled more than one folder with form letter rejections, I know what’s at stake. I’ll read Abigail’s story if I do a thing, give it my full attention and tomorrow hand it back to her with measured praise and just the right touch of critique, I’ll get to it this very morning, in fact, right after I get the plans off the printer and down to the art teacher sub downstairs.

Only there is no art teacher sub downstairs. Instead there is a small crowd of children gathered around one of the Jackson boys, who is crumpled against the wall, crying, refusing to be consoled by the school secretary, who waves me over. “It was Nina,” she whispers, then returns to her desk, eight minutes and counting till the day starts with the art room full of tempera paint bottles and curious children and no sub. I reach for my belt to call for a counselor to scoop up the Jackson boy while I find a sub for the sub but I’ve forgotten my walkie talkie upstairs on my desk. So I help the Jackson boy up myself, shooing away the bystanders, find him a kleenex to wipe the snot from his nose and accompany him down to the nurse, promise I’ll be back to hear what happened, then rush back to ask the dance teacher to please sub for the art teacher sub, just for today, I know I promised all the specials teachers at the start of the year I would protect their prep time, but there’s no other option, and then it’s off to find Nina and determine just how bad of a mood she’s in, which turns out to be get-the-fuck-away-from-me bad, which means my morning is shot, which pushes everything else into the afternoon, and then it is evening. I have more to do now than I did when I walked in the door that morning. It’s a Sisyphean life, this. Time to admit defeat and go home.

There’s Abigail’s short story. Beside my keyboard. Unread.

I shove the five double-sided pages in my shoulder bag and bike home and at the dinner table my family and I talk about anything but my day at school, which was all very interesting in the first year but now is old hat. After dinner on the couch I open a Yuengling on and check my phone messages. One of the teachers is on his way to the hospital with his elderly mother. “Will try to make it in tomorrow but not sure,” he has written. “Ok,” I text back, “pls make sure sub plans available.” Were I a regular adult and not a school principal I’d ask for all sorts of details and send compassionate desires of strength and faith but I do not. In the basement on my laptop my Yuengling grows warm as I review the teacher’s schedule and email the sub agency to ask them to please send in someone who will actually show up. And while I’m here I finish up the draft email from the morning, from a parent who often reminds me that she herself taught sixth grade for a year after grad school, she has identified an inaccuracy, she wonders if we might even call it an injustice, in the way we calculate GPAs, putting at risk her daughter’s application to a selective high school. I finish my response promising a full investigation and then it is 11 PM and I’m still tinkering on my cell phone calculator trying to figure out how we calculate GPAs, then it’s the next morning and I’m standing duty outside the school, waving with principalish good cheer to the parents as they drop off their children when Abigail walks up and asks what I thought of her story.

I consider lying. But she’d see right through me. “I’m really sorry,” I confess. “I didn’t get to it.”

“It’s only five pages,” she says. “Don’t you have a degree in English?”

“Comparative Lit,” I say. “I’ll get to it today,” but I don’t, and the next morning when she catches me in the hallway I have to confess again that I have not yet gotten to it, and on Thursday I tell her it’ll just have to wait till Monday, so I can read it over the weekend. She shakes her head. Disappointed. Like when she watches her classmates chuck pizza pockets against the cafeteria wall.

The weekend comes and goes and on Sunday night I do sit down to read Abigail’s story only to discover I’ve left it on my desk at school. It’s not my fault. On Monday morning I try to duck her but it’s hard to hide when you’re the principal, and she tracks me down in the teacher lounge, busts right in. “I’ll read it this very afternoon,” I tell her. “Promise. I won’t leave the building until I do.”

She takes a deep breath. “Ok,” she says. She walks away, Abigail. The day disintegrates as usual but I am determined to make it happen. At 5:30 I text home that I am running late for dinner. I turn off my laptop and pick up the story and begin to read. The story is about a middle-aged single woman in small town America who has inherited a family diner that is down on its luck. Why in the world Abigail is writing about this topic is beyond me, but it’s well-written and I’m settling into the second page when my phone chimes with a reminder: My acupuncturist appointment is starting in 30 minutes.

For fuck’s sake.

I shove Abigail’s story into my shoulder bag and head out the door, onto my bike. It is not something I did on purpose, this appointment, there was a benefit gala one evening, a silent auction and an open bar, and suddenly I was holding my third Makers in one hand and in the other a $75 gift certificate for ONE (1) ACUPUNCTURE SESSION. After months of pushing the gift certificate around on my desk I finally called and made the appointment and now here lies Principal Biderman, stripped down to his boxers, belly-down on a massage bed, his face ensconced in a padded cupholder, eyes trained on the carpet, a small army of tiny needles rising from the skin of his pale, freckled back.

“It’s only five pages,” she says. “Don’t you have a degree in English?”

The acupuncturist, a wispy white woman, dead ringer for my 10th grade Spanish teacher, has left the room. Nothing is happening, no grand release of energy, no aligning of meridians. Had I thought to keep my phone in reach I could dangle my arms below my face and knock off a few emails, clean up my texts, review my calendar. I stare at the carpet. Thirty minutes pass. The acupuncturist returns, plucks out the needles, and after I am dressed she asks me how I feel.

“Fine,” I say, picking up my shoulder bag.

“You seem a bit stressed.”

“I have a stressful job.”

“I see.” She moves closer. Looks at my jaw. “Your tongue. Is it pushed up against the roof of your mouth?”

It is, as a matter of fact. I had no idea.

“Yes,” I say. And my tongue jams up against the roof of my mouth again.

“Try to relax it. Breathe.”

I take a breath. My tongue settles and then my jaw relaxes. It feels as though it’s been clenched for years.

“Holding your tongue like that is a sign that you’re not saying what you need to say. You’re blocking your own energy.”

I see. My tongue shoots back up to the roof of my mouth. I thank her and make sure the gift certificate covers her fee. On the ride home I check my tongue and find it jammed against the roof of my mouth. I check it again at dinner and there it is. My wife asks if I’m okay. “It’s my tongue,” I say. After dinner I go into the basement with a Yuengling and turn on my laptop where a slew of new emails have come in and soon I am wading through them when I think of the acupuncturist. Blocking your own energy. A lot of chutzpah, that one. But she’s right about the tongue thing. I take a breath and feel my tongue drop, feel my jaw relax. And then I remember Abigail’s story.

I reach into my shoulder bag and pull it out. I lean back in my chair and begin to read. Slowly, the way I read my friend’s stories in writing school. It’s a good story, Abigail’s. After a page I pause. My tongue is nestled into the bottom of my mouth, where a tongue ought to be. My jaw is not clenched. I begin reading again. It’s really a good story.