Lamb chops
Lambs lap my life. First Leslie:
Miss Lamb, young, pony-tailed,
high school teacher of physics.
(a subject I should have taken)
At Balwyn Baths she wore
a red bikini on swimming
sports day. At Wilson's Prom
she led form six study campers
to the peak of windy Mt Oberon.
Next, gruff bespectacled Ted Lamb
a Class 9 federal public servant,
interrogated me when he learned
I was to be a member of his tertiary
education assistance team while
still having an outstanding student
overpayment. Are you serious about
this work? Yes. Well that, he rasped,
will come out of your first pay cheque.
Six months later, one postcode away,
son of Lamb, Andrew, would snot me
with a left right combination Yarraside
post Bureau of Stats Booze Cruise.
Why? I had ripped, daintily, I thought,
but yes, deliberately, the front pocket
of the Neat and Trim blue uniform
of Bev Lamb, his clerical wife.
While she was yet in it.
I was merely illustrating its torn-ness,
the uniform to me the office
equivalent of overalls. But Andy,
with a cruise afternoon of ales
in him, saw an assault and launched
his fistic barrage. Hands dragged me
away from the Lamb fury as I tried
vainly to explain. My first and only
black eye took a week to heal.
Robert Lamb, a different kind
of enforcer, a smiling killer in a grey
suit, wheel-in school principal, curer
of alleged staff underachievement,
entered lamb-like enough, consulted
individually and collectively, before
granting us what we seemed to want.
Certainty. Robert ripped into a benign
Asian girl for being out of uniform.
Reduced her to tears. Then called her
into his office when apprised of his
overreaction. Apologised and asked
about her photographic ambitions.
Pulled a heckler out from assembly
and summarily expelled him. Insisted
all stand when he entered a room.
And he entered all rooms. Systematically.
To this Lamb I tendered my resignation.
bw
30.4.14
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