Jonathan Rich

The Same Is Not the Same

David Thunder Bortolotto

Over the phone with no Distinct way of knowing over what Massive space between She tells me how much colder in Boston Everything right now would be and Remembers red nights when her father Would come at her and call her away and She’d have to use her deep prison voice To get him to stop and get off her.

But those days are over and so are the Ones I believe sometimes when I’m dead Eyed and red throated yelling high and Loud, in the first dream of tomorrow I have The same is not the same and what I am Over how massive and great is known to Me.

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The Student Who (Almost) Killed Me

Jonathan Rich

The last day of class before Winter Break is kind of worthless. Any instruction offered will no doubt be forgotten, and any in-class assignments made on that last day will have to be graded during the holiday, so the best a high school English teacher can hope to accomplish is contain the non-denominational festivities. This was the case when I was teaching high school freshman English at a public school. On that last day one of my kinder students presented me with a gift. As a rule, I do not accept gifts from students as it sets a bad precedent of favoritism and puts both student and teacher in an awkward situation. However, when a young woman whom I will refer to as Kimberly Jane (not her real name) placed a decorative box on my desk, the beaming look on her pubescent face made me reconsider. “Mr. Rich, I have really enjoyed class with you this fall,” she said. “I was a little worried about high school, but you make English class fun. I saved my allowance and bought you this dessert. It’s my favorite, and I hope you like it.” I started to give her the speech I always used when this had happened before, but then I thought of an acceptable out: “Kimberly Jane” – she always wanted me to use both first names – “While I appreciate the gesture and the thought behind it, I have a severe tree nut allergy. If this was prepared in a room where nuts were even out of the bag, I could get very sick. Maybe you should keep this for yourself?” I confidently responded. “Oh, my father works in the food service industry, and he made sure there were no nuts involved. It is a chocolate covered ap-

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ple” she smiled. “No nuts.” An apple for the teacher, and one covered in chocolate without any traces of nature’s kryptonite? How could I refuse? “Well then, Kimberly Jane: thank you very much. It means

a lot.”

“You are very welcome, Mr. Rich” she grinned. “Merry Christmas.” “The same to you and yours,” I replied. I took the box home and forgot about it until Saturday when, after a nap, I woke up hungry and wanted a snack. I remembered Kimberly Jane’s generosity, unboxed my dietary demon, and took a big bite. Instantly, I knew I was in trouble; I tasted decadent dark chocolate, a crisp Western North Carolina apple, but also almonds, pecans, cashews, and maybe even a hint of pine nuts for good measure. In the past when I ingested any of these, I headed to the nearest toilet, stuck my finger down my throat, and immediately got the offending allergen out of my body. This time, however, when I propelled the offending antagonist out of my throat, I felt it begin to swell. Having been through this before, I looked for my EpiPen injector but remembered my last refill was in my desk back in my classroom desk. But, there was a drug store 5 minutes away. I grabbed my keys as well as a dry erase board because when this has happened before I have about 10 minutes before I can no longer speak clearly, and thus began the quest for emergency relief. Now, this was the weekend before Christmas, and the parking lot was packed with thrifty shoppers as well as the usual long afternoon line at the pharmacy. I could feel the hives starting to form on the back of my neck as I patiently waited in line and knew I would be unintelligible when I got my turn. I wrote EPIPEN in big letters on the board, but this only confused the pharmacy clerk. “Do you want an EpiPen?” he asked, and I groggily nodded in the affirmative.

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“If you do, then you need a prescription,” he responded unimpressed. That only made me just underline the word “NOW” on the white board I was shaking at him. “Do you have a prescription?” he repeated. “If you don’t, then you need to get one from your doctor Monday.” I rolled my eyes, which were now starting to get blurry from the early stages of anaphylactic shock and grunted “EH-PEE-PINNN” sounding (and starting to look like) a modern-day Elephant Man. “EH-PEE-PINNN!” The other people in line were starting to stare, and I gathered from my metamorphosis my hives were spreading. They all backed away as I continued to grunt and gesture at the board, and the room started to spin. But it was then an angel appeared out of nowhere (ok, it was from the door of the adjacent Minute Clinic where somebody was being treated for an inner ear infection), and this cherub grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. “Sir, are you having an allergic reaction?” the nameless seraph calmy asked. I nodded as best I could (which is hard to do when your neck is covered in hives) and the minor-league physician/impromptu savior said, “Drop your pants.” The angel quickly disappeared behind the pharmacy desk, then returned instantly with not one, but two EH-PEE-PINNNs. “You are going to feel a pinch” she said before simultaneously jamming a syringe into each of my exposed thighs. “You may want to sit down for a minute while the needles work their magic” was the last thing I remember hearing before I woke up being strapped down to a gurney by four EMTs (who did NOT pull my pants back up) and was rolled out of the public view. However, as I passed the pharmacy desk, I was cogent enough to give the insolent pharmacy manager a hive-covered middle finger as I passed his elevated desk en route to the ambulance and grunted “MARE-EE CHRISS-MAASS.”

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