Students toss clay scraps into a fifty-five-gallon garbage drum filled with slurry water. Vases sit unfinished on shelves that line the filthy room, sharing crowded space with pottery wheels, kilns, and glazing supplies. The new art teacher has taken ill. “Nauseous,” she mumbles upon my arrival. Her hands are cold and clammy when we shake. “There’s something toxic in here.” The old teacher was fired after a female student accused him of inappropriate behavior. There’s an elephant in the room, lurking perhaps inside the murky depths of the slurry drum, which threatens to overflow, washing away all the evidence.
Tom Newcomer is a substitute teacher living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He’s survived fatherhood, retirement, and the hazards of public school teaching. substack.com/@tomnewcomer