The Great Expectations School Read Free

me to help direct twenty second-graders in a child-friendly production of
Romeo and Juliet.
I spent two days with the kids, riling pint-sized Tybalt and Mercutio for their emotional sword-crossing, coaching Romeo (who gave up a good nine inches to his romantic costar) to act lovesick, and explaining ruefulness to sweatpants-clad Friar Lawrence.
    Mrs. Haenick, the drama-novice classroom teacher, thanked me over and over for saving the show. “You've got this way of talking to them!” she told me backstage, beaming with surprised approbation, as if I had just sawed someone in half.
    Something clicked in me during those two days:
I can work with kids… and love it.
    By 4:30 a.m., my writing had devolved into exhausted drivel and the diner staff was visibly perturbed at my lingering. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled to the street to seek a bunch of Red Bulls. The ghost-town city creeped me out, and I hailed a cab to Grand Central Terminal. I napped against a pillar near the 4-5-6-S exit until a police officer'sboot nudged me awake. A subway platform bench became my home for the next three hours while I sang entire Beatles albums to myself to stay conscious.
    When the fair opened, I wandered the jam-packed corridor for fifteen minutes, wading through several major traffic fluxes initiated by shouts like, “Eighty-six needs six common branches! They're over there! C.I.S. 170 is taking special ed now!” My mystification at this strange, serious game of “placement fair” manifested in a fear that I was behind in the race; these people were portfolio-carrying professionals and I was some kind of kid impostor, a summer-camp white boy from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
    Then a beacon of clarity appeared. I found a sign that read “District 10 Placements” with a nearly empty sign-in list. Soon I was summoned into an office by kind-faced Susan Atero, who scanned my résumé for fifteen silent seconds.
    â€œ
The Mummy Returns…
you worked on that? In Santa Monica, it says?”
    â€œNot that film, the director, Stephen Sommers's, next film. It's called
Van Helsing.
”
    â€œ
The Mummy Returns
is my
favorite
movie of all time,” Susan enthused. “I watch it with my sons almost every week. What is the director like?”
    â€œStephen's very energetic. He lives and breathes movies,” I related, as if he and I were old bowling buddies. The truth was that I had driven out to L.A. for the summer with my cousin, only to find my previously secured internship on the Paramount Pictures studio lot handed over to someone with “a connection.” I spent several demoralizing weeks bouncing between the Culver City public library Internet station and Kinko's, hunting for unpaid positions and faxing my résumé all over town. Eventually, an assistant to the coproducer of
Van Helsing
invited me to hang out several days a week in the production office screening room, photocopying scripts when necessary. Once, for my most auspicious assignment, I arranged a folder of creature concepts for a presentation and, as advised, did not comminglepictures of Dracula with the Winged Beast from Hell. It all came to a dubious end when I had to leave town prematurely after a traffic ticket busted my budget. I met Stephen Sommers once, and I spent most of our three shared minutes confusing him with details about how a robot snapped my picture going through a red light.
    I nodded emphatically at Susan. “
Van Helsing
is going to be spectacular.”
    â€œHmm.” Promptly, her smiling mien sobered, and my hope that I could ride Hollywood name-dropping to a quick commitment form disappeared. I was suddenly certain that she knew all about the lame pseudo-employment prominently featured on my résumé.
    â€œDaniel. What strengths will you bring to an inner-city school?”
    I regretted not preparing seriously for this. I took a deep breath, aware that my pause had bloated into a hesitation.