They had us wait outside the main office for a while but I really had to pee so I started wandering the halls. I wondered if any of the security guards would think I was a terrorist. A school shooter. As though the lockdown was in place to protect against me. People like me. I popped into a bathroom and they had a row of six old-school urinals that extend down all the way to the floor. I don’t want pee to splash onto my shoes but I do wanna pee next to five of the homies. Give and take. Everything in life is give and take. Sometimes I invent unrealistic scenarios in my head and then think about how I’d behave, how I’d want to behave. I never really think about dramatic or consequential things like what I’d do in the trenches on the frontlines of World War 1 or what I’d do if I witnessed a brutal murder but more about things like what I’d do if the Sheldon High School security guard confronted me while I’m wandering the hallways during a security lockdown. I’d tell him I’m not a school shooter so just let me get back to daydreaming about the early 90s in this school when these crazy urinals were built. I’ll take a few photos of Jackson and then I’ll get out of your way. You should probably get back to focusing on protecting against real school shooters anyway.

Jackson has been substitute teaching for a few months now. He studied biology and spanish in college but I think he’s a jack of all trades when it comes to subbing. I can’t envision him having any sort of authority over the kids but is that even required of a substitute teacher? I think it’s much more important for a sub to be young or cool or funny or memorable and Jackson is probably all of those things, depending on the weather and how well his training is going.

He’s obviously doing this for money, not because it’s his life’s calling. I think that’s probably true of all substitute teachers. There might be a few who have rich husbands and are just super bored but Jackson does not have a rich husband nor is he super bored, he’s just trying to pay for rent and groceries and gas and maybe the occasional late night Taco Bell while the majority of his energy and focus and passion goes toward running. It’s a tale as old as time: The struggling vocalist who waitresses while auditioning for Broadway shows. The novelist who serves coffee during the day and writes their debut book at night. Whatever it takes to keep moving toward The Dream. 

crowd, which is maybe predictable because mostly millennials attended the Alvvays concert and millennials are mostly boooooooring. Y’all need to clear this room out and go home and do the crossword or eat avocado toast or whatever you people do. 

If any Sheldon High School administrators are reading this, please don’t fire Jackson from his occasional substitute teaching gigs for pretending to smoke a cigarette in school. I made him do it. I made him pretend to read Playboy too. He practically begged me to scratch it from This Magazine but I said No Jackson this is about Art, don’t be such a fed. Let the feds be the feds. They’re not going to fire you for an unlit cigarette in a photo that we took AFTER SCHOOL when there were no students in the building, and if they do then you don’t want to work for them anyway. 

We took the photo of Jackson leaned up against the MLK photo right before MLK day and I wanted to post it to Instagram but didn’t. Not because it’s distasteful but because I didn’t want to leak too much magazine content prematurely. Only students are supposed to be psychologically vulnerable to the abstract messaging of generic motivational posters hung on math classroom walls. But what effect does it have on the 🤣🤣gOoFy SuBsTiTuTe TeAcHeR 😭😂 doeeee!? 🤷🏻‍♂️ Martin Luther King and Jackson Mestler: Just two dreamers. There’s not much else to say.

The BAD TEACHER concept clicked in my brain because Jackson is so good. I’ve always been attentive to his compulsion to obey all forms of authority without question. As much as I’d love to prescribe a freudian explanation for why he is the way he is, I’ll refrain because I like when my writing maintains a lightheartedness and for some reason you can’t publicly psychoanalyze your friends based on their childhood experiences without it feeling too serious. I think his inability to disobey is part of what’s made him such a strong athlete. When we were still running for Oregon, Ben Thomas would assign a short jog and a short swim the afternoon after a long run and I sometimes just couldn’t bring myself to do it. A bunch of people couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Most people actually. I want to be flawlessly obedient but the truth is sometimes when I’m unsupervised I’m unaccountable and I’ve found some kind of peace by admitting that’s just how the cookie crumbles. Of course Jackson always did the short jog and the short swim. One time in a team meeting Ben Thomas said that Jackson was the ideal athlete to coach. He lets Ben do his job to the best of his ability because he unwaveringly listens. Not in a way that’s obnoxious and makes everybody hate him. He’s not like Tracy Flick. Jackson’s never been a square. Earlier this fall he agreed to come with me to the Alvvays concert at the McDonald Theater even though he only knew one song but when that song came on he went nuts. Nuts! Nuts emoji. We were basically the only two people dancing in the entire