LAST DAZE.....(part 2)

It's my direction, it's my proposal
It's so hard, it's leading me astray

My obsession, it's my creation
You'll understand, it's not important now

All I need is co-ordination
I can't imagine, my destination
My intention, ask my opinion
But no excuse, my feelings still remain

That's the way it was for me.  I had a new direction.  I had proposed to start living my life for me.  I was obsessed with two beautiful boys, I was desperately trying to co-ordinate my career with my lifestyle and yes, my feelings, deep down, remained the same.

The new class was my saviour.  I jumped in with relish and it became the sole purpose of my life.  I enjoyed every day with the children.  They reminded me of myself, lost in time and space with no prospects at home but together we formed a positive happy family where respect, love and security abounded.  The next 3 years would be the happiest and most remembered times of my teaching career.

I was so busy during the first few weeks with the class that Christine's return hardly registered.  I would spend my evenings working out individual programs for the specific needs of my class members and planning the following days activities.  Each afternoon I would return home, get stoned, walked the dog and usually Nuno was there waiting for me.  We walked, we talked we laughed and we loved without sin.  Just being together and sharing was enough for me.  Nuno was smart enough to realise that I was protecting myself and him and didn't push too far.

On Carol's recommendation (the Year 5/6 teacher) I was tutoring Nuno's brother Jack 2 or 3 times a week at home.  Poor Jack was the nicest, gentlest but dumbest boy you can imagine.  In class he was barely noticeable and always struggled with lessons.  At home I had a computer where we would sit and go through computer lessons in Maths and English.  These were all CD rom programs specifically designed for children and Jack, who had no mentoring at home both enjoyed and excelled during these times.  Most of his learning for the last part of the year was done at my house where he had the freedom to ask questions, take chances and start showing the confidence which he could never show in the classroom.

During the first term he would walk home with me and we would spend an hour doing these lessons.  When they were over Nuno would arrive and together we would walk Jack back home and then continue our dog walks.  It was a rewarding and special time for me.

When I returned home both Matty and Christine would have returned from work.  For the first few weeks we spent time together, Christine and I cleaning and cooking, then all three of us sitting together watching TV.  I was strong enough to limit my smoking to either bedtime or with the occasional quick puff in my room during ad breaks.  I had spoken with Christine and we came to an understanding that she and I would put aside any differences, or jealousies, in order to give Matty a happy, harmonious household.

It wasn't easy for either of us.  For me I would have to sit and watch the two of them kissing and cuddling like teenage lovers every night and for her she would have to watch me being the one Matty turned to whenever he was feeling sick - which was starting to happen frequently.  Christine either didn't have the ability to play nurse or Matty just didn't feel comfortable with her during these times.

His ailments were both frequent and unexpected.  Sometimes it would be just fatigue, sometimes he would have uncontrollable vomiting, bed wetting and loss of bowel control.  It must have been hard for Christine to be pushed away during these times and then watch me take control and ease Matty's discomfort.  It wasn't long before she began to get jealous and our truce starting falling apart.

Instead of making matters worse I decided to stand back and let her have her way.  I gave them time to be together, starting to spend my leisure hours either in my room or out with friends from Taxi's Combined.  This was when I would meet two amazing people who would be my best friends for the next 7 years.

John and Trudi (both worked at Taxi's) and were my drug dealers.  They were both in their 40's and had a young daughter.  I remember the first time I shared a cab home with Trudi after one of my weekend shifts.  At that time equal employment opportunities were still on sketchy ground in Australia.  At Taxi's Combined they had a policy which gave female staff a free cab ride home if they finished at 11pm but male staff weren't entitled to the same until midnight.  As my shift finished at 11pm and I happened to live near to Trudi she offered to share her cab with me on the nights we worked together.

The first time we shared I was stunned when she asked the driver if she could smoke in the cab and when he said it was fine she pulled out a joint and lit it!  We all shared it and consequently Trudi and John became close friends as well as the people I would buy drugs off for years.  Both Trudi and John were ex heroin addicts who had gotten their lives back together after a past equally as off centre as mine.  Trudi's brother and sister had notoriously been the last Australians to be executed in Thailand for drug smuggling a few years before.

I'm digressing.  Long story short, my drug habit which I had started to feel in control of, started to sky-rocket.  I managed to stick to my conviction of not going to school stoned but from the moment I came home I was packing cones, rolling joints to take on my dog walks, and returning home to spend the evenings in my room smoking bong after bong after bong.

If I wasn't doing it at home then I was visiting Kylie or John and Trudi and spending hours there getting stoned before returning home to continue smoking. I was even taking every opportunity at my taxi shifts to duck out and have a joint whenever I had a break.  I realise now that until that time getting stoned for me had been generally a social and recreational habit, now it was becoming a form of compensation.

Compensation for the agony of watching Matty and Christine getting closer and closer and pushing me further away.  Compensation for wanting Nuno but being strong enough to resist the temptation and compensation for the lack of sex that I had enjoyed so easily and frequently and compensation as a form of stress relief from having such a dynamic and challenging class to manage - even thought I loved my role as both teacher and mentor it wasn't easy dealing with children from such deprived backgrounds.

Halfway through the last school term Nuno suddenly disappeared.  It took me weeks to find out what had happened to him and during this time Matty also took sick and was hospitalized.  He had started to have lesions which were too obvious to hide and these were both mentally and physically affecting him.  The doctors couldn't identify any specific illness but for nearly a month he was in the AIDS unit of the hospital.  He was suffering from nausea, fevers, sporadic changes in heartbeat and had no control over his bodily functions.  Christine took extended leave from work and I would spend a few hours each afternoon after school giving her a break before returning home.

Home to a house empty of anyone except my dog.  No Matty, no Nuno and even no Christine who was spending most of her time sleeping at the hospital.  It was a very lonely and depressing time for me and my only compensation was my teaching, my dogs and marijuana.....