World’s Largest BBQ Pit

I remember World’s Largest BBQ Pit

Central Avenue, Capitol Heights, Maryland

During my brief public school teaching career

Teaching ‘media arts’ to children

Film, video, television, photography, animation, audio

Kindergarten through eighth grade (5-13 years old)

Magnet schools were established in the 1980’s

A response to court-ordered school desegregation

An alternative solution to forced bussing

Select a themed curriculum for your child:

Math, Science and Technology 

French Immersion

Talented and Gifted

Montessori 

International Baccalaureate

Creative and Performing Arts, where I taught

I was twenty-four years old

World’s Largest BBQ Pit

That was its name

Down the road a few miles from the school

No tables, just enough space for a few people to wait in line

Separated from the staff and kitchen by thick bulletproof plexiglass

I don’t recall the menu other than…

Beef ribs!

My god

The best thing I had ever tasted

Huge cubes of tender meat on an inch of bone

With a heavenly, sweet, tangy sauce

Served in a Styrofoam container

With two pieces of white bread in plastic wrap

I was not a great public-school teacher

A handful of parents were pleased

They said I had inspired their children

I had recently enjoyed an assistantship at my university

I discovered a love for teaching

Then I apprenticed as an instructional technologist

(Until I quit that rather chilly, sterile, authoritarian corporate environment)

Teaching filmmaking to kids sounded like fun

But this was still school, and many of them did not want to be there

The younger groups enjoyed my classes – they seemed to have fun

Second and third grade classes were my favourite

Their brains were creatively awakening

Projects were interesting, original and authentic

The older classes were a terrible struggle

Only a handful of interested students

Others disengaged, bored, arms folded

Angry boys, some larger than me, would disrupt class

I knew nothing about classroom management

Fucking hell

I arrived early most mornings, to write

On personal computers, new at the time

A never-ending and never-sent letter to a friend

Stream of consciousness about a young couple’s nascent relationship

A mythical story about two kingdoms, set at Lagrange points

An arranged marriage between them, to foster peace

Ninety minutes of calm and dark before children arrived

Then I felt, well, ok to get on with my day

My days ended exhausted and stressed

I would comfort myself with a woman who showed interest

And by searching for, but rarely finding

Something as tasty as those beef ribs

I settled periodically on General Tso’s Ashkenazi-Chinese Chicken

Like a drug habit, seeking to re-experience that early high

Psilocybin mushrooms had been popular on my university campus

I took a course called Drugs and Society, in the School of Justice 

For one assignment, I wrote an experience report

I argued for the potential value of psychedelics

Shortly before the assignment was due, I injured my right hand

Mom had to type my final paper

I injured my hand by punching the dance studio floor fifty times

We were asked to get up in front of the class and to make fifty movements

I volunteered to go first and took my jacket out onto the dance floor

And proceeded to pound my fist into the jacket, into the floor

Counting out-loud to fifty

My performance was then briefly discussed by the class

“I think I see what he was getting at,” someone offered

Mom typed as I dictated from my notes

We discussed the values and dangers of profoundly altered consciousness

She agreed that there was potential value

But preferred that I not be the one experimenting

I conducted my mushroom experiment with a classmate

We took the mushrooms together in her apartment

We talked, listened to music, looked at art and took notes

She had a work of art on her wall made from many pieces of coloured glass

Moving your position changed its appearance

As I stood looking at it, she asked: Is it moving?

And I said: Well, no, because I’m not moving

And she said: Yes, but we took mushrooms!

Then the art began to move

We see what we expect to see – in the world and in ourselves

Our expectations are thick, distorting lenses

I keep re-learning that lesson, and I still forget

When I do remember, my mind moves into novel places

I imagine ideals and absurdities

And I try to capture these – and to apply them

My approach, admittedly, damaged relationships

I periodically proposed odd ideas to executive teams

This is a business, they’d say, not a theatre!

Or is it? I would ask

My god, you’re serious, they’d say

I commiserated with a colleague, a woman

I moved into her place

We started imagining a suicide pact

Then I leapt into a relationship with someone else

Just in time perhaps

I did not feel particularly safe at World’s Largest BBQ Pit

I was eyed suspiciously by people in the parking lot

Once, a boy about thirteen years old approached me

He pulled out a knife and causally pointed it toward me

He said, You wanna buy a knife?

I was confused and asked for clarification

Would I like to buy that knife? I asked

Yeah! he exclaimed with annoyance

I said, No, I have all the knives I need

And I went inside to place my order

I was nervous about what might happen when I left

But nothing did and I never saw the boy again

I went back several times after that

Because, my god, those ribs