On and on and on

I’m waiting in the foyer of the boys’ high school gym while upstairs my client is emptying rubbish bins.
Waiting, looking at framed photos of boys who’ve won sports awards and who have broad shoulders and shiny foreheads.
Also, there are photos of the PE teachers, all men.
Each man looks strong and weather burnt, with a dazed expression, like it’s suddenly occurred to him to think ‘how have I been here this long?’
The boys come and grow, grow, grow, then go.
They’re parasites on these drained men, who can’t or won’t leave.
There’s only one man who doesn’t look blindsided by his own endurance.
His face is very stern and golden and his eyes know that I have a photo in which my brother is shirtless, I’m eight and in a bright yellow T-shirt and jeans, and we look like crazy daisy hippies on a commune.
He knows about the white dresses I had when I was four.
And about the one time I literally couldn’t eat, as my parents fought over my father’s new woman.
It was toast I couldn’t eat.
He knows that too.
I might meet this tanned psychic someday but not today.
My client comes downstairs so I tell him I have to go and I’ll call him next week.
I get out quickly.
Being like he is, that PE teacher has a good chance of getting out of here quickly too.
Fortunately.