The broom, the pointer and the hand. 

Content warning: corporal punishment

What an oppression system does very well is to create power tripping monsters – in our parents, educators, doctors and such. When you live your whole adult life owing “the system”, having your existence designed to fit into the rat mold, and seeing your basic freedoms disappear, taking out your repressed anger on those inferior to you becomes the ideal outlet.

And oh boy, the schools were the perfect ground where one could exercise their second-hand power. What’s funny is that it wasn’t always from teachers and principals – even the janitors would occasionally join the power trippin’ game. You know you’ve hit a new low as a human when a broom gives you power. 

One such memory I have is of the cook at my kindergarten. Not even sure if she was a part time cook or part time janitor, part time butcher, baby killer…  but she did a lot of stuff around the floor. Such a job like hers was probably not paid well anyway, and her dignity as a woman and worker had probably dissolved into communist indoctrination since she was a wee girl. 

Man, she was scary. Tall, butch woman with thick fingers, let’s call her Tracy. She would mop the floors with you if she could, and chop off your tongue and serve it back in the potato soup she cooked for lunch (actual threats she uttered). On the other hand, our teacher Mrs L was a pretty decent lady, ferm, mostly patient, only occasionally indulging in corporal punishment, probably caused by her frustrations as a woman living in a communist patriarchal society.

When she needed to step away for a bit, she would often involve other teachers or … you guessed it, Tracy the cook. One fine afternoon during our nap time, Mrs L went away with other business and left Tracy the cook to supervise our sleep. Our tiny Murphy beds were lined up against the walls, my bed, the first or second from the desk, had a lady bug decal on it. We had to sleep on command you see, because that was the daily schedule. 

Tracy hated being bothered in any way, and needed to read her newspaper in peace after the exhausting lunch service. From behind the huge spread, she would peek at anyone who made a sound, be it a snore, a sigh or a random cough, ready to attack and silence the little bastard. 

So it happened that she saw me glancing at her with one eye open. I quickly closed my eye back pretending to sleep, and not hearing any reaction gave me some confidence that everything was going well… for about 2 seconds. Because the next second I felt my bed lift up underneath and squish me in. Head down, trapped between the mattress and the bed frame, I couldn’t even scream. Next thing, Tracy’s thunderous voice rumbled from the outside “Are you going to sleep? Or do I lock you in there?” Shit, yes, I will sleep, whatever you want of course, Mrs Tracy – I thought, but didn’t have enough air to say. She opened the bed and put it down, me coming back into the original horizontal position. Nevermind that she woke up the whole class but not a peep was heard. I just closed my eyes and waited for 4 o’ clock to happen so I could go home. I wonder why I had claustrophobia for the most part of my life… 

The next door class had it worse. One day their teacher sent in a pupil to ask our teacher for her wooden pointer stick “to beat up Mike” (let’s call him Mike). He was an absolute mess of a child, mean and rowdy, and was often slapped and punished. But this time, the tool of choice got an upgrade. Safe to say every kid in my class was thankful they were not Mike. 

Like Tracy the cook and the next door torture teacher, there were many others in the school system. Janitors would often chase kids around, throwing brooms and mops at those more rambunctious, you always had to get out of their way and mind your steps on the freshly cleaned floors. Fresh is a bit of an exaggeration – the smell of rotten cleaning rags and the dirty water were not exactly the ideal of cleanliness. You see, water wasn’t running for most of the day during those times, not sure if this was a preserving effort, or just … control. Blame the communists. However hygiene was not our forte. We had to save the water that was running usually for a couple of hours a day, and reuse as much as we could. Schools had to do that too. 

When I went to school, finally out of the kindergarten hell, I thought I left Tracy and her power tripping moods behind. Lo and behold, the new principal, Mrs P, took over the school reins, basking in her newfound power and proved me wrong. She didn’t cook or mop the floors, she was teaching violin, but this short, stocky, rolling bundle of punches, knew how to keep kids in check. One day, must have been primary school years, in the gym room, we had a bit more fun than usual, and a couple kids were loud. Harmless fun, just running around and yelling during the break. The door was left open, so she walked in quietly, then as we became aware of her presence and took turns getting silent, she walked straight to the loudest one, slapped him three times, right hand, left, then right again, then propped one leg on her high heel, asking-hand palm up, silent and deadly. Not a peep. The proverbial ball was in the boy’s court – well, it was a trap:  if he had said anything, more slaps would have followed. If he kept quiet, the asking hand was still there waiting for him to explain himself. Tough luck.

As the Revolution of 1989 concluded and the communists were down, the big buzzword going around was “democracy”. Not sure if we understood as kids, but we knew it touched on some freedoms and such. So maybe this was our chance to take back our power? As my colleague, let’s call her Becca, would find out, this was not that chance. She proudly strolled through the teachers’ entrance and took the stairs on the way to class, when she crossed paths with Mrs. P.  This time, Mrs P used words, not hands, in trying to understand why the little bugger had dared to walk through a teachers only area, so she bluntly inquired, leaving Becca with the only smart option for an answer “It’s democracy!” Whoop, came Mrs. P’s iron slap. “I’ll show you democracy” … 

To be honest, this is a good example of how things unfolded following the anti-communist revolution. Those who had the power, did everything they could to retain it, those who didn’t have it before, did everything to get it, because now the possibilities were endless, and so were the ways to get into shady deals without repercussions. This, in turn, gave way to other types of frustrations – but more about those in other stories.