Suddenly, winter struck again. And I mean full on winter. I put on a sixties parka that I haven't had to wear since last year and a puffy hat. I put Lola's pink jacket on and took her for her morning pee prance around the block. Lola was stopping traffic. A construction crew ran at her, petting a praising her good looks. The garbage men called out to her. One laughed and shook his head from side to side as the truck went by. I knew what he was laughing at. You got a big, beautiful eighty pound pit bull and you put her in a pink jacket and prance her around the block like a princess. That's right, I thought. We were sensational.
"I need referrals" the administrator's email said. Usually, they say the opposite.
"If you all are having problems with new Zee in your classes, give me something to work with".
I was baffled. Yeah, the kid put his head down for a few days. I don't write students up for that. I call their parents. So, I called his parents.
"Hey there, I'm Zee's Spanish teacher. I know he's new to the school but I am a little worried because he is completely shut down, he just walks in everyday and puts his head down and doesn't interact".
His dad kept me on the phone for twenty minutes. Things had been hard. Pops was a travelling musician and finally decided to check back in when he felt that moms wasn't paying enough attention. Zeek had been in a bad school district, one that I knew by name as rough. I saw in his transcripts that he had gone from an honors student with an A/B average to failing all of his classes. Pops said there had been trouble at the old school. He said it was other kids bothering Zee, but for some reason, I sensed that Zee had been violent there.
"Our school is a very caring environment," I found myself saying, and meaning it.
"We are on his side. The only thing we want is for Zee to succeed".
For once, what I was saying actually wasn't bullshit.
"¿Cuando eras joven, qué te gustaba?" I asked my students, because I knew that they liked talking about the things they loved as children and because I needed their asses to speak in the past tense. I told them about my love of the Hulk and Wonder Woman and Atari - you know, caveman pinche seventies stuff. Hijo de la gran puta, did I open up a can of worms.
"They got the red ones here!" I saw a boy that looked similar to Zee saying, shaking a red power drink in his face.
"Zee, is that your brother?".
"Yes"
"Wow, you look exactly alike".
I kept walking. Somehow it endeared me that his brother liked the red drinks in the vending machines at our school. I just hoped it would rub off on Zee.
"Someone has been drawing penises in all of the books we are reading." I told the class.
"You've seen it. And all I have to say is fellas: we know that you think your downstairs is neat. Draw it on your own paper. Ladies, am I right? I know that we don't draw pictures of wieners. That is not how we roll. We don't even doodle pictures of our own body parts. So fellas, draw it somewhere else".
The girls nodded emphatically and everyone burst into laughter. And then... the cuando yo era joven took on a different turn....
I noted in the contact log that I had spoken with Zee's father. Then, other teachers began adding their parts.
"He began coughing loudly and refused to take water. Everyone was staring at him. He began shaking and talking to himself. I cleared the students out of the room and called an administrator to get him out".
"He refused to take his headphones off and the music was so loud that we could hear it. I ignored him and tried to do my class. He got up and started walking around randomly. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was 'checking on the kids'".
"He walked randomly up to another student and asked him if he wanted to fight. He went to another and screamed the same thing in his face. I tried to intercede and he called me a scaredy ass bitch".
"Okay so I was in elementary, at Oakfearn. I looked for a book in the library about how babies were made," the blonde, popular preppie told twenty five students.
"It was so graphic! There were like, diagrams of things I had never seen before!"
Her face was bright red with laughter as she bent over laughing. We were all laughing. I was almost crying.
"I still have it!" she shrieked. "I stole it from the Oakfearn library!".
"Oh my God," another seconded. "I was cleaning up my room the other day and I found my 'how babies' are made book that my parents gave me when I was little. My mom saw me looking at it and said, 'Ohhh, you used to make your dad read that to you every night before you went to bed!'"
All of us, including our narrators were screaming and crying. It was just so funny and fucked up.
"I am afraid for the safety of my class" Zee's next teacher entry said.
I wrote my final entry. I was starting to get nervous. I didn't want to get shanked because this kid had a mental problem.
"Zee entered class late and I told him he needed a late pass. He snarled at me and left, slamming the door loudly".
I didn't mention that even my ghetto-est kids muttered "bruh, what up with him?".
"He never returned to class".
We were reading our book outloud in class. They like doing it, but I was annoyed because a few kids were sleeping. I got on their asses to get their heads up or check out and go home. I finally touched one girl on the arm, a girl that has physical problems. She sat up, and started heaving a wheezing. Her eyes looked disoriented and her breath was wavering and faultering. I held her head.
"Julie, take deep breaths. You are okay, you are okay" I repeated over and over. She felt hot.
It was alarming.
"Do you want me to call the nurse?" a student asked, standing with his finger on the panic button.
"Yes" I responded.
When they responded on the intercom, we all screamed 'nurse'.
Julie was gasping, heaving. She stood up. Her eyes were spinning in her head. I grabbed her arm and walked her outside.
"Hold the door open" I commanded the student at the door as I halfway carried her across the hall.
She collapsed.
The nurse and an administrator ran up.
"She's struggling to breathe. She's disoriented. Please let me know if you need any other information, I am returning to my class".
"Julie is safe" I told them.
"I am writing to let you all know that Zee has been withdrawn from our school. Thank you for your documentation, it was very helpful in the hearing" the administrator's email said.
I felt sad. That kid is troubled. I was also shocked at how quickly it played out.
My first three years of teaching were riddled with student and parental violence. I called parole officers of students. I was shoved by a student and had it blamed on me. I was physically threatened by a parent in front of administrators who responded that I should 'pick my battles'. I had students that carried a kid out of my classroom so that he could not beat up a girl. I had a student threaten to shoot another student in the same class.
I am not used to my safety or the safety of my students being an issue.
I still wonder where Zee will go now and if we could have helped him.
"Okay, so I was on the bus. Everything bad happens on the bus. There were these older boys, like eighth grade that were talking to me. I was flattered, older kids were talking to me!"
We were laughing, the same way we had been laughing through all of the stories.
"They told me to look at this website, washington books, they wrote it on my arm".
We got a little quieter. Why did they write it on a little girl's arm, mark her that way?
"What is it?" we asked.
"It sounds government?".
"Well, I looked it up at home" she said, laughing a little.
"All this porn came up. And my mom walked into the room".
I knew we were supposed to laugh. But it was uncomfortable and I saw that she was blinking her eyes rapidly.
"My mom freaked out. She called the school and made all of my teachers have a conference. She told them that I was looking up porn on the internet".
Her eyes darted back and forth. They were getting red.
"I am so sorry, Kerry. That is horrible. I am so sorry".
It was all I could say.
It was all I could do to make it better.
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