Wincing the Day Away

I watched the millionth, skit rendition of the same story, glassy-eyed and tired from a long week of sleeplessness and toxic work environment.  I glanced to my left and noticed a serious looking child cradling the classroom broom in his arms while stroking its dirty bristles, eyes locked on the skit.  

I walked through the school at 6:30 in the morning, already almost late to meet the Housing Authority kids for their monthly walk to school instead of ride the bus day.  I saw a co-worker chatting with Miss Alice.  I can't believe anyone actually comes to work at that hour.  They probably thought they saw a ghost when I walked by, as it wasn't ten minutes past when I was supposed to be at work.  

We walked through the neighborhoods and over the railroad tracks, as the sky slowly lightened and the day began.  Later that morning, an escaped emu would disrupt the parent drop-off lane, standing still and then darting between cars and up sidewalks as startled parents and children stared at it and tried not to run it over.  

I sat with my back to everyone, hunched over my laptop, hoping to be left alone.  

"LONDON — A British bakery chain has apologized after creating a Nativity scene in which the baby Jesus, surrounded by three wise men, was replaced by a sausage roll.

And not just any sausage roll, but one that had been bitten into."

I snickered, probably for the only time all day.  

"Scary movies don't scare me...."  Maryan responded, "I just think of things over and over and they won't go away.....".

"I have that problem, too."  I answered, looking back at her piercing stare.  

She widened her eyes and grabbed my phone, resetting the stop watch for her one minute fluency read.  

We sat under the fluorescent lights, nine hours after we had walked to school together, getting ready to start tutoring.  

"Well, my high of the day is that Mr. Jackson walked with us to school today!"  Muslimo announced with a little purr and side eye.  We burst out laughing while the girls started outing each other's crushes.  

"My low was.....my low was,"  Maryan started again, her voice quiet, "I saw a pile of feathers in the drop off lane....."

"Oh yeah, the emu!"  I interjected.

"They had blood on them." 

We Take Care of Our Own

"Okay muchachos, ¿Qué es el Libro de Guinness?  Who can explain what the Guinness Book of World Records is?"

"It is a book of beer." a small blond girl offered, definitively.  

"The local people have long believed the monarchs are the returning spirits of their diseased relatives....." Lily read aloud for the class.

"Deceased." I quickly corrected, as she continued reading, unfazed.

"I wanted to check in on Tim's behavior.  We doubled down on his ADHD medicine.  I'm sure you've seen a difference!"

"I can't breathe.....I can't breathe....I CAN'T BREATHE....."  Eric Garner's guttural pleas filled my car as I drove over the railroad tracks and to the Center to tutor.  The gray sky seemed to darken and grip the earth stronger.

"So broken windows is predicated on the idea that if you break a window in a neighborhood, soon, all the other windows in the neighborhood will be broken. So you have to work hard to keep those windows from being broken, so that means cracking down on small offenses. So don't let people jump turnstiles. Don't let people ride their bicycles the wrong way down a sidewalk. Don't let people smoke weed in public. Don't let people urinate in public."   

I turned right on Howard.  

"And of course, this only happens in certain neighborhoods and doesn't happen in other neighborhoods." 

"...police in cities like New York were stopping 500,000, 600,000, 700,000 people a year almost entirely in black and Hispanic neighborhoods and very often physically searching them as well...it's traumatizing....".

I made my left into the apartments.  

"...there is a thing called a roadside cavity search...."  

"Please just leave me alone...." he pleaded, his breathing labored.

"The kids were asking about the Civil Rights Movement.  They think it happened a long time ago..."
"Whaaa?"  a few of the other Center teachers gasped.
"I was there!"  one of them exclaimed.
"Me too!" another seconded.
"I thought we'd watch 'The Watsons Go to Birmingham' today."
"ALL of them will watch it."

I watched the Watsons carefully plan their drive from Flint, Michigan to Birmingham, Alabama.  The last rest area they could safely stop at.  How early they would leave Michigan in order to drive through the south in daylight.  When Byron runs excitedly to a lunch counter to order hot dogs and fries for the family and is addressed as 'boy' and told to leave.  The look of excitement quickly falling from his face, disgust, anger and confusion replacing it.  The four little girls singing in the church choir.  

"What is their problem?  Why do they have such a chip on their shoulder?  Why don't they just get over it?" rang in my ears, a lifetime of 'questions' in white voices.

George Wallace's face appeared on the screen.
"Segregation now....."
"Segregation tomorrow....."
"Segregation forever....." the teachers said in unison with the archival Wallace footage.

It was burned in their memories.  It always will be.  

*Interview excerpts, NPR, Matt Taibbi

Dreamers, Poets and Nap-takers

"Oh wow, there was a dictator in Libya, it's a country in northern Africa, he was known for doing kind of crazy things.  You know like, setting up a big tent to sleep in while visiting New York City or he had this like, all-female security team that would bust out with him whenever he appeared in public...."

I have no recollection of what prompted that conversation.

"Wait, will you write his name on the board?  I would like to do further research on him...."

"Qaddafi," I wrote slowly on the board "but it can be spelled other ways..."

"I demand that you change my child's grade from a two to a three.  If she did not learn what she should have, it is your fault."

I walked into school, noticing one of my Housing Authority students carrying the same lunch box as mine.  The Center gave them to us and we all use them.  Our padded, purple boxes with an inspirational message on the outside.  

"My child has NEVER had a disciplinary issue at school and I repeat, NEVER.  We would like to speak to you.  Our phone number is (404) 877-2030.  We are available after 5:30 on Friday."

As I timed Naado reading her passage out loud, I glanced up to see that the other two members of our group had clandestinely rolled up the skirts of their hijabs and flipped them backwards over their heads, transforming their head covers from long, nun-like items to a sort of weird turban.  They laughed hysterically upon being noticed, exposed necks stretched tall and eyes wide with excitement. 

"Noooo!"  Naado shrieked, covering her eyes and tugging on her own hijab as the girls quickly jerked them back down, bubbling with laughter.  

"Telling our child to reflect on his behavior is COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE.  Now, he does not want to come to school.  If you are looking for suggestions for appropriate consequences, I would be HAPPY to provide you with some."

"All day, I watch humans scurry from store to store. They pass their green paper, dry as old leaves and smelling of a thousand hands, back and forth and back again.

They hunt frantically, stalking, pushing, grumbling. Then they leave, clutching bags filled with things - bright things, soft things, big things - but no matter how full the bags, they always come back for more. 

Humans are clever indeed. They spin pink clouds you can eat. They build domains with flat waterfalls..."  Muslimo said aloud, while the rest of us followed along.  

The clock ticked and the sunshine outside dimmed as we sat around a table under fluorescent lights, ten noses in ten copies of the same book.  

*Quote and title, The One and Only Ivan