"The Death of the V-Neck" and other pointless stories by Samantha Cocco

The Death of the V-Neck

Micronesia boasts a very strange type of window in most buildings and homes. These windows are made of smaller plates of glass called louvers; each louver is, on average, 3" x 24" (the math teacher in me would like to remind you that that is a surface area of 72 square inches), depending on the size of the window. Sets of 5-10 louvers are connected on a metal frame that has a small handle positioned so that, when pulled down, the entire set of louvers opens. Push up, and all of the louvers close. I don't know where one can buy louvers, but everyone seems to have them, including my school. I've only seen a handful of buildings with actually panes of glass as windows.

The thing about these louvers is, when you close them at the end of each day, if you push a little harder on the handle, it locks the louvers into place, and the handle snaps into place flush with the edge of the window. Behind this handle is just enough space for a gecko to lurk during the night and on through the morning.

A favorite game of mine (read: the most dreaded part of every day on this island) is one I call, "Where's Gecko?" (you guessed it - inspired by the infamous Waldo). Every morning when I unlock my classroom and push the door ajar, I can sense it: the geckos are waiting. They've been waiting all night, hiding behind the louver handles, chirping their absurd little noises, that high-pitched cackle that I know would be translated, if gecko chirps could be understood, as, Where should we hide tomorrow morning? Did you see the look on her face today?

The room has been warmed by the morning sun, and, having had no air flow, the stuffy heat is unbearable. I have to open some louvers. The students will be here any minute. My eyes scan the room and I wonder, will they be hiding behind the same handles as yesterday? Will they have switched up their game, knowing I'll be expecting them hidden within the top louvers on the right side of the room? Do geckos have higher brain functioning? I'm dripping with sweat, partially from the heat, partially from fear. They have no higher brain functioning, I decide. They could be anywhere. I have to open the louvers. I push the door open further and start towards the first handle.

It's not that I have a phobia of geckos. My mom has a phobia of snakes, and if she knew tiny green and black snakes were slithering behind those handles, she would be paralyzed with fear, too. For me, the thing to understand is, it's not the sight of geckos that strikes fear in my heart. It's the fact that sometimes, they are not only behind the handles, but hanging onto the back of the handles, and the force of pulling on that handle, the sudden unlocking, sends geckos flying -- right at my face.

Once, a gecko flung off of the handle and whizzed past my ear. I heard it chirping for dear life as it flew past my head. I, of course, thought it would land on me, and did a song and dance of shrieking "GET IT OFF ME!" and jumping around the room for a few moments. That was the day we had a new sophomore student that had arrived early and was sitting in the back of the classroom. The look of terror on her face at the sight of her psychotic new teacher left me wondering if she would be back for a second day.

This past week one morning, I arrived about 40 minutes before homeroom began, giving myself ample time to work up the courage to open all of the louvers. There are 36 handles to pull down; it's a large classroom. It was Friday and I was feeling good about finishing up a second week. A current of fear ran through my heart, but I pushed it away. Not today, geckos! I started for the first handle, the bottom louvers on the right side of the room. All clear. I continued along the perimeter of the room, whistling to myself. Keep in mind that, some days, there turns out not to be any geckos at all, and I feel pretty silly for opening all of the louvers so cautiously. This must be one of those days!

I arrive at the 11th set of louvers: top louvers, with a handle at about eye-level for me. I'm absent-mindedly looking out of the window I've just opened, beaneath the 11th set, watching students walk towards the building. Still whistling. Unbeknownst to me, all the while... a gecko had been silently lurking. Not only lurking, but clinging -- to the handle of the 11th set of louvers. With the force of the handle unlocking, he flies off of his handle (literally), and in mid-air, spots a safe, new, dark home to aim for -- down my v-neck shirt. He slides in perfectly, not even bouncing off of my breastbone first -- a swish, you might say, if he were a basketball instead of a gecko. I would have much preferred a basketball.

My reaction? Let's leave it at the fact that the juniors should be very thankful they had not yet shown up for homeroom, for the sake of immense trauma. It took only a few moments for the gecko to realize he was unwelcome, and scurry down my shirt onto the floor, where I maniacally stamped his life to an end. May he rest in peace.

I won't be wearing v-necks to school for a while, I've decided.


Not So Goofy

You may remember a blog entry in February that mentioned how I'd be spending Valentine's Day with a new man who had entered my life: a tiny, struggling, doorstep puppy named Goofy. He arrived at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic High School one dark, cold February night (it had dropped below 80 degrees) in a soiled cardboard box, whining pathetically and in bad shape. I found him in the morning and fell in love with him immediately, but resigned to the fact that I couldn't keep a dog on a volunteer's stipend, that he was not my dog, and that the treatment of dogs is different here on Pohnpei than it is where I come from.

Fortunately for us both, the woman who rents the campus apartment where he was left decided to keep him and raise him as a watchdog for our school and her apartment, as both see a high number of break-ins along with the rest of the Catholic mission. I was elated, and even more so when she asked me to care for him for the first month while she was off-island. Just a puppy, he couldn't stay outside all night, so for that whole month he was in my care last Spring, I locked him in her bathroom when I left for the night - and cleaned up a growing puppy's night's worth of presents each morning. But I loved him no less - Goofy (named by our principal, Sr. Maria, another of his admirers) was young enough to be trained not to be so territorial and mean as most other dogs are here, and further, to show me as much affection as I desired.

We fed him real dog food, not bones and ramen like most other Micronesian dogs get, and he grew much faster and more normally than other dogs. I continued to be very affectionate and playful with him, and he with me. My Micronesian students and coworkers laughed at my baby-talk and told me they were going to eat him, but I'd been missing my Shih-Tzu at home in Ohio, Teddy, so much, I didn't care. I knew they wouldn't really eat him, and he was the only thing to make me smile on some very homesick days.

By the time I returned home from Chuuk in June, he was sleeping outside each night and seemed to have grown even more in the three weeks I was away, looking like a full-grown dog, though he couldn't have been more than a year. He was so happy to see me, so I tried not to be bothered by his horrible stench that had accumulated from never taking a single bath in his life. I noticed he was venturing off-campus much more during the day, and wondered where he could be going until he started coming home with scratches and cuts, and once, a very broken leg. I knew they were the result of fights with other dogs, and realized suddenly that my babying and affection had ruined him. He couldn't survive in Pohnpei.

I wanted to send him home, but I didn't think my mom would be too pleased with me. I wanted to take him into our house, but realized that we four humans hardly fit in there, much less a large, stinky dog. I resigned to the fact, again, that dogs live differently here on Pohnpei than what I'm used to. Other dogs would continue to fight him, even, as I witnessed, venturing onto our campus to find him and pick a fight. I became so sad everytime I watched him try to befriend other dogs, only to be chased away or beat up by the territorial beasts. I described him to my friends and family back home as similar to Buddy the Elf, played expertly by Will Ferrell in "Elf": tragically friendly, unable to understand the meanness of this world.

In July, walking to school on our usual route one morning, three dogs were playing at a store close to our schools when one broke from the pack and made a beeline toward us. I began to reach down for a rock, but then realized - That's Goofy! He has made friends! Two friends! Two dogs were being raised by a Filipino family living above the store, with kids that go to the Catholic elementary school across the street, and they were raised the same way Goofy was, with affection and real dog food. He jumped on me, then ran back to play some more. The two of them are good-looking dogs, not mangy and straggly like other dogs here, and they played very nicely with him. I was so happy. I thought, maybe I did ruin him, and maybe he'll never be a real Pohnpeian dog, and other dogs will still seek him out to pick on him, but at least now he has a couple of friends to help watch his back and treat him well.

Goofy, with his unconditional love and pleasant disposition, continued to keep me good company during long hours put in at school over the summer, and as we advanced into the school year and students began to flood in, he bounced around, tail wagging furiously, to greet the returning students. They marveled over how big he had gotten and threatened to eat him, just like always, but patted his head when I wasn't looking, and I saw the slightest glimmers of affection in their eyes. After school and at lunch, I saw some students playing gently with him and chasing him around. I knew then that a mean, territorial dog wouldn't do well at our school with so many teenagers, and thought, maybe I didn't ruin him. Maybe he's just the right dog for our school! But I still felt sad that he wasn't tough enough to really protect anyone, or himself, when it came down to it. I spent half of my after-school hours fending off other dogs when they lurked around campus looking for him.

This past Friday, I was working late in the computer lab long after school had ended. Goofy was sleeping just outside the doors to the lab, ever close by my side. Sr. Maria was locking up the other buildings when suddenly I saw my docile, bumbling little friend stand up quickly, ears sharp and pointed, tail straight, staring in the direction of the building Sr. Maria was locking. I called his name, trying to calm him, but it seemed he didn't hear me. He didn't move a muscle, but began to growl and bare his teeth. I'd never seen him do such a thing.

I stepped behind him and looked in the direction upon which he was focused, and saw a man walking towards Sr. Maria. She turned around and listened to what he was saying, which I couldn't make out. Suddenly, Goofy made a beeline for the man, barking furiously. The man turned around and backed towards the building, clearly scared. I ran towards them, calling his name and trying to make him leave the man alone. When I reached them, I swatted him and said to the man, "Kupwuromahk, maing," (I'm sorry, Sir), but he began backing away from the dog, who was still barking and snapping at him. I went to swat him again, but Sr. Maria grabbed my arm and said in her Basque accent, "No, let him. That is a drunk man harassing me. I think he is the one who tried to break in the other night." Our timid little dog, whose instincts I thought I had ruined, snapped and barked at the man until he left the campus, following him all the way out of the Catholic mission.

The next night, a Saturday, I was working in the lab all day, walked over to 5pm English mass, and came back to continue work on a project I've been focusing on - putting together a school library. I was there well past dark, being cautious by locking the doors and locking Goofy in the room with me, feeling more confident in his abilities for protection. I had the lights turned off, because the termites were swarming, so the only light in the room was the dim blue coming from the computer screen. With the doors locked and lights off, anyone outside the room would not have known anyone was inside. I hadn't heard anything at all outside when suddenly Goofy had the same reaction he had had the evening before - sharp ears, sharp tail, eyes piercing through the darkness. He went to the locked doors and stuck his nose in between them, blowing air out of his nose furiously. I got up from my computer, peered outside, and quietly unlocked the doors. He shoved through them, and stood outside for a moment in the same stance before taking off in the direction of the kitchen. Frightened, I quickly locked the doors again and listened through the darkness. He began barking and snapping and I heard a man yell, "SET!" (the Pohnpeian equivalent of "Sh**!"), and take off through the bushes behind the kitchen. I didn't see Goofy again for the rest of the night, but I have a feeling he was busy patrolling, or hunting down that man.

I can't say for sure that the drunk man had any intention of harming Sr. Maria, or that the man who ran through the bushes was trying to break into the kitchen, or do anything to our campus at all for that matter. But some sort of instinct kicked in for Goofy, and he transformed into a wild, territorial beast, out to protect me, Sr. Maria, our school, or all of the above, from anyone who seemed threatening in the least. Not so "goofy" anymore.

Bumbling, loveable, licking-my-toes Goofy by day; sharp, instinctual, territorial watchdog by night. Maybe I didn't ruin him after all.