As they walked into the front door and made their way to the meeting room Frank smelled something interesting. He thought it was Marijuana. He noticed at the front desk a beautiful girl was sitting and talking on her cell phone. She was chewing gum, coloring her nails, and stapling all while talking. He also noticed that there were student art works in display cases that were in front of the business offices close to the front desk. Some of them were paper-mâché masks, which frequently resembled hideous monsters. One of them looked like Satan and had an upside down pentagram on its forehead as well as the Satanic Bible leaning against the mask.
Frank was a little unsettled to say the least. While no one was looking he brought his watch closer to the glass display case, and re-positioned his wrist as if stretching it. This pushed the camera button on the watch and thus notified Tony to remotely snap some pictures.
They entered the meeting room and then waited for staff to come in to start. A very attractive short blonde woman walked in and offered them some refreshments and said that the school’s Principal and Vice Principal,..the BIE’s Line Officer, and the school’s I.T. Support Technician will be in shortly and then she exited.
As they sat there alone waiting, Gulliver did something very weird. He stood up out of his chair, and walked to the whiteboard covered with dry erase meeting notes on it. He un-tucked his pastel blue Lacoste shirt, pulled it over his head, and started rubbing his chest until he painfully pulled out one hair. He started breathing heavily and then while in a praying posture he blurted out,”Jesus help us!”
Frank sat there shocked and stared at him while asking, “Is everything OK Mr. Webster? Do you need some help?”
He did a military about face, stared his small black eyes into Frank’s eyes, and said something to him in a different language. He slowly pulled his shirt forward to its original position and brushed his fingers through his hair like a woman. Gulliver tucked his shirt back into his pinkish colored dockers, sat back down in his chair, and closed his eyes.
Frank was so weirded out he said, “Maybe we should reschedule the meeting.”
He opened his eyes, stared up at the top of the wall and said, “I get a little nervous sometimes Franklin,” then he pulled out of his pink pants pocket a small purple brass tube. He then took the cap off of it and looked at Frank directly in the eyes. He twisted the bottom knob and purple lipstick appeared at the top. He then applied it to his lips, breathed in deeply, and let out a, “Woooooooooooo,…Praise Jesus!” very loudly. Frank was sure others could hear this. He was so shocked he didn’t know how to react in any other way than to just sit there with his jaw opened in amazement.
Right after this moment the four staffers came in mumbling to each other. They greeted Gulliver by saying, “Hi” as if nothing strange just occurred. As if Gulliver wasn’t wearing purple lipstick or any lipstick at all. As if no one just yelled a, “Woooooooooooo,…Praise Jesus!” They just sat down at the black boardroom table and smiled. Frank actually got a little scared at this point.
Gulliver said, “OK let’s get started. Frank is the new help for Herman.” He then began to introduce him to the staff. He pointed to a heavy set white man with glasses, sitting at the far end of the table, with a balding head and hair precisely cut like Friar Tuck, “This is the Principal, Johan Kephler.” Frank smiled, waved from his seat and said, “Nice to meet you sir.” He said, “Likewise” and nodded. At this moment Frank distinctly heard an enormously loud fart that came from the other side of the meeting room wall. Then came the sound of loud whistling, laughing, and pounding on the walls.
Everyone was quiet at that moment and then Gulliver said, “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the walls are quite thin here.” He paused while looking at him and then he stood there just blinking at Frank with an insane look in his eyes. Eventually he turned slowly, looked at Mr. Kephler, and then looked at the next person and said, “This is the Vice Principal Shaun Bayvis.” He was an older white gentleman that reminded Frank of a typical teacher except that he also looked like Mr. Rogers. Frank gave the same greeting to him that he gave to the Principal. Gulliver continued with the introductions, “This is our BIE Line Officer Aditsan Mai-coh and our I.T. person Phillip McCracken.” Aditsan Mai-coh was a tall and very dark complexioned Native gentleman cleanly dressed in a very nice gray suit. Phil was white, and had a light yellow short-sleeve shirt on that was tucked into dark blue cell phone pocket Dickies work pants. He reminded Frank of a Surgeon on a television show.
“Our office is putting together a special contract between……” before Gulliver could finish his thought the fire alarm went off. There were lights flashing everywhere and people were screaming and rushing out of the building yelling, “Fire! Fire! Fire! Get out! Get out!” Frank looked at Gulliver and he was frantically wiping the purple lipstick from his lips while the other staff members were getting up to go through the fire routine. He said to just follow him and we calmly left the front door to go outside.
It turned out that it wasn’t a real fire or even a drill. Somebody pulled the fire alarm. Apparently this was a normal occurrence. After they went back in, Gulliver said that he had a phone call and that he had to leave. He said that Phillip McCracken would show me around and help me get settled.
J.J. Fauria 