*
PIECE OF THE PIE
The performing arts school meant a lot to me and for me to
be a part of its student council seemed to make more sense than when I ran for
student council in eighth grade.
For that reason I raised my hand and volunteered myself. My
name was put on a list of possible candidates for school board representatives,
and the teacher at the meeting told myself, and the other volunteer that we
would be called to stage during open mic the next Friday to talk about why we
wanted to represent the school.
No one approached me in the coming week to ask if I had
prepared anything. There wasn’t any mention in any of my classes that the
coming open mic, would be an assembly of students running for representative of
the school board. That meant I didn’t have to worry about a speech-unless
someone did say something and I hadn’t paid attention to when a teacher
mentioned about it after class offhand. I have ADHD, Asperger’s, or whatever
learning difficulties, I suppose, and so I had been told. I might have missed
something.
Friday came. I rode the bus, as usual, for longer than most
high school kids rode the bus, as my school was much further from home.
On the way to school I heard the theme from the TV show,
‘The Jeffersons’. I can’t remember in what context it was played. I can’t
remember what the DJ on the radio had said to prompt it, but I heard it and
thought of something.
“…we finally got a piece of the pie!”
I didn’t know if I would be asked to stand in front of the
school to give a speech, but I remembered the teacher in our meeting saying I
might. If that happened, I thought maybe I would do something funny and relate
it ‘having a piece of the pie’.
I remember being in chemistry class and thinking about my
speech and after chemistry I had academic support or study class, where I
probably did makeup work for a class I didn’t do too well in, followed by maybe
a math class.
Friday open mic came after lunch break, of course. I usually
stuck with my friend Dan. I don’t recall whom I was sitting with at the time,
but it was most likely Dan and I my name was called to step up.
It had been explained that the candidates for School board
representatives would each step up and give speeches.
I ran from the bleacher where I was sitting. They had said
my name, but no one had approached me before to say that I would be called to
stage.
I stood, after the MC had ushered me and waited.
There were other candidates, but I was called up first that
night. I stood in front of the ragtag group of performing arts misfits, from
our school’s early years and breathed and spit out my speech:
“I’m here! I’m here! Hi! Hi, everybody out there, fellow
students, um, so when I think of the school it makes me think of a pie. You see
it’s like…each pie has a piece or a slice, that’s the different classes, the freshman,
the sophomores and so on…and it’s all held together in this plate or tin,
that’s Ljuba and Bob and the other administrators…and in the pie within there
has to be a crust…you students make up the gooey apple or blueberry filling,
but with each piece there has to be a crust, that’s the student board
representatives, and I want to be that crust part of the pie! -But, I want to
represent the entire school in my position as a representative and not just my
own class, or my own piece of the pie. I want the whole pie.”
The candidates that came after me, were just as surprised as
I had been that they would have to give a speech, though they had been told in
their meeting, they hadn’t been told about it further after.
The candidates that came after me gave honest answers on why
they volunteered for their position.
I lost, but volunteered for another position the coming
year, to represent the senior class division on the school board. I lost again.
I wouldn’t have remembered or gave any thought to the fact
that I made that speech until some years later when I was twenty-three.
The performing arts school had been founded by two people,
Ljuba and Bob, and it grew from what they envisioned. I found myself living in
the town in which the current school occupied, but changes were coming.
I was present at a hearing in which our principal and
founder’s job was put at stake.
Several people approached the podium to say how much the
school, as it had been, meant to them.
A friend of mine gave a well researched speech culling from
many of our friends from that great time, but I couldn’t keep from chuckling at
one thing she mentioned:
“It’s like what Bryan Clark had said when he ran for student
representative, we’re all like a pie…”
I chuckled, but then the guy next to me (a good friend from
my rough first two years, whom I hadn’t seen since, probably my early first two
years) nudged me and he was chuckling too and I decided to laugh.
My friend smiled as well. as she continued her speech.
The crowd in the auditorium looked at me funny when I
laughed, looking as if I wasn’t taking the issue at hand seriously. The guy
next to me knew why I laughed. The girl making the speech knew why I laughed
and later I found out who remembered my speech and suggested it be mentioned.
It was okay to laugh. I was the one who said it.
*
Bryan Paul, Winter 2013
