If You Loved Me at All

New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve. So much to think about.  I thought about life.  And I thought about death. 

I thought it was my last night to sign up for Obamacare.  I had an extension, because I "lost" my job.  I thought the extension was until December 31st.  Papi came home and we started making dinner.  I had to pull the trigger on expensive, shitty healthcare (dismantled and fucked up for you and I by the Republicans).  I logged in to the platform, ready to put a $250 a month premium on my credit card.  I message came up.  I was outside the extension.  It ended on the 30th.

Papi started making pasta.  I tried to help.  It's New Year's Eve.  I played 'Sunspots', a Julian Cope song I loved when I was fifteen.  We take turns with music in the kitchen.  I thought of Margaret.

*Photo, Obliteration Room, Yayoi Kasuma
*Title, Julian Cope

Everything Is

My face felt horrible.  I woke up, and it was swollen on one side and when I scratched it, it bled.  I am well into my forties, but don't think I should be fat, wrinkled and experiencing some sort of cystic acne, face eating virus all at the same time.

I walked into the dark hallway and saw a couple of people already waiting.
"Is this where the test is?"  I asked, motioning toward the closed door with a sign on it. At the university that I have attended off and on, for more than twenty-five years.
They made a few monosyllables that indicated yes, barely looking up from their phones.
They looked young, but multicultural.  What a bunch of badasses, I thought.  They'll make amazing ESOL teachers.

They let us inside.  I watched as they wand-ed people, like at the airport.  Made them lift up pant legs, shirt sleeves, actually shirts.  A turban.  And then it was me, pulling my shirt up in front of a big window, raising my arms, pulling my pants' legs up, re-signing my name multiple times before they thought it matched.  I sat in front of that test for nearly four hours, after waiting a half an hour to get in, blowing of my break, just because I was afraid I would invalidate something or do something wrong and blow the whole, nearly three hundred dollar thing.  And the preparation I had done.  Yeah, I waited until a week before I was supposed to take the test to study, but when I did, I did bust some ass.  And, I am supposed to know this stuff anyway.

I stood in the Infinity Room, feeling like my feet weren't below me or that my head was above me.  The more I looked, the more I saw.  We were on a boat, that was floating, through everything.  Through infinity.  When I looked down, I saw the Blue Mosque.  When I looked far, I saw everything.  The heat hit my face.

I saw my sister, and we spoke and laughed.

I saw everything.

*Photo of Yayoi Kasuma's The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, Infinity Mirrored Room.  

God Bless the Child

The holidays are upon us.  I usually like them, but I have been in high job hunting and making sure I am ready for taking classes in January mode. And, I was taking a test to add a field to my teaching certificate.  One of those long, multiple hour, multiple hundred dollar tests.  It's weird, I've taken them before, the GRE, the PRAXIS Spanish test so that I could teach it, my GACE Curriculum test -  the one that validated my degree and ensured I got an eight thousand dollar a year raise.  This new one though, one that shouldn't be difficult, for some reason was worrying me.

As I drove to the Housing Authority, my phone was exploding.  I thought it was about a different, gossipy thing.  I like gossip.
"Hilary, um, call me.  I don't want to text you this."
"Have you heard?"
"Hilary, call me back."
Finally, "Hilary, he's died.  I didn't want you to read it on Facebook or some weird email."

I put my phone down and started preparing to hand out pizza to the Housing Authority kids.  Every year, they have little parties all during the week before they get out for Christmas break.  I knew he was ill.  When they mentioned his name, I almost expected it.  I thought I had it together.

"I see trees of green, red roses too...." Tyrone sang.  He is one of my students.  They were making them practice for February's Black History celebration.
"I see them bloom for me and you...." he continued, low voiced and off key.
"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world..."

And then I cried.  And cried.  And I couldn't stop.

Warrior Pose

"Highs and Lows?"  I asked the students.

"My high was that we got extra recess today, my low, I got sent out of the room for throwing scissors at the teacher." Theo responded.

"What did you gain by throwing scissors at her?"

"What do you mean?"  he asked, genuinely.

"I mean, you like extra recess, did you get that for throwing scissors at her?"  I responded.

"No,  I got sent out."

"Did you like that?  Did you want to get sent out?  Did you get something you wanted, like extra recess?"

"I didn't want to do math.  So, yeah, I didn't have to do it."
He got his reward.

"The Christmas festival is this weekend.  That's my high.  We'll get presents...."
"Wait, when is it?"  Zoey asked.

"NO.  It's only for Muslims, because we don't get presents like you do."
I watched Zoey's face fall and felt completely pissed off that one low income kid would say that to another.

The days are shorter and grayer.  People ask me what I'm doing.  So, what I'm doing.  Still working in the projects.  Subbing when I feel like it.  Taking a bunch of classes in January and testing in to more endorsements on my teaching certificate.  Working shit out.

Being the best me I can be.

I Felt the Lonely Comin' Down

"Ms. Wagner, why is the sky bright yellow?"
I looked outside.  It was bright yellow.  At 5:30 at night.
My boss looked at me.  "Emory cancelled the tornado drills because people would think it was real."
"Aazim, I have no idea, but I don't like the looks of it." I answered.
"You're supposed to be smart.  Why don't you know the answer?"  he asked.
"Can't win them all!" I answered, chasing him through the yellow parking lot.

"Let's get physical!  Physical!"  a strange, blond boy yelled, arching his back and shaking his ass.
"What's your name?"  another yelled.
"Hilary."
"She got destroyed by Trump." a brutish boy announced, his broad face widening in a mean smile.
He turned and screamed in a girl's face.
I had noticed him a month ago.  Two months ago.  Now all his behavior made sense.  But, why his parents chose a school that emphasizes kindness made no sense to me.  I watched each 20K a year kid run around and felt confused.

I drove to the Housing Authority.  I stay the same whether I am in the projects or at a private school.  I speak the same and act the same.  They are all my babies, but my project kids are my loves.

"How old are you?"  one of the private school kids asked.
"Guess, and then I''ll tell you."  I answered, knowing the responses would be funny.
"Twenty-five" he answered.
"Twenty-six" another seconded.
"Fifteen!"  a third yelled.
"I know you're not old," Blair declared, "you don't have wrinkles!"
"I have wrinkles when I smile,"  I answered, pointing at my eyes.
"Those are the good kind."

I sat in the room with the kids that where in trouble at the private school.   I told them what they were supposed to do, then picked up a book off of the bookshelf.
"I WAS ON FIRE."  I read to myself.
"It was my earliest memory."
I watched them and read, feeling content and happy in my world.  I glanced up occasionally, when the problematic boy, the white kid that I had witnessed throw money at a staff member, looked at me.
"I was standing on a chair in front of the stove, wearing a pink dress my grandmother had bought for me.  I felt a blaze of heat on my right side. I turned to see where it was coming from and realized my dress was on fire."

"It sounds like fun out there," I said out loud.
"Everyone is doing their choice activity.  I know you'll get on your game so that you'll be with them next week."
"Yeah..." he responded.
"You guys can go.  Have a great weekend."

"Who'd ya vote for...?"  Tamira asked me.
"I'll tell you if you tell me first who you think I should have voted for...."  I answered.
"Stacey.." she answered, eyes glowing.
"But....some people didn't..." she started to answer, before stopping herself.
"Mean old white people in the sticks, " I answered, "didn't vote for her."

Tamira's eyes glowed brighter and she ran around the table and hugged me.

*Title, Dolly Parton
*Quotes, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

I've Said it a Thousand Times

I love it that when the city buses go by, the floorboards shake in my house.  I don't live in an especially large city, but I do live in the largest city in the southeast.

"Wow," the assistant principal breathed, "is she...is she really so... sleek?"
"Yes," I answered, closing my computer so that he couldn't look at my desktop picture.
"My dog is like a seal, a wet seal, her name is Lola."

I quit my job about six weeks ago.  It has been a series of experiences.  Dreams, weird dreams, public perception issues, interviews, everything.  For a while, I had classroom dreams, terrible dreams about things getting out of control.  Margaret, my dead friend, appeared randomly, several times. Most of the time, I didn't dream at all.  People ask how it is going.  People ask how Alec's dad is doing.  I get hostile whenever anyone asks.  There isn't a one word answer.  Last night, things got different.  Weirdly, I ran into the person that ran me out of my job.  I was uncomfortable, we were in a crosswalk, and she had aged twenty years.

I've heard that my old school is talking shit about me.  My rational self said that it was what people do when you leave, they discredit you.  But, it pissed me off.  And, why are things so falling apart when I leave, essentially if I sucked so much ass?

I applied for a type of job I used to apply for years ago, when I had hopes and dreams.  Lola was sleeping when I left the house.  I hugged her and told her how happy she would be on Staten Island.

We set up the foosball table at the Housing Authority.  It didn't matter that one of the legs was missing, we propped it up with milk crates and dictionaries.  I didn't think about anything for an hour and a half, except trying to get my turn.

"Can we see your dog?!"  the kids screamed/asked.
"She's so cute..." they murmured.
"We don't like dogs...." Habiba mentioned.
"They're made of pork."
I started laughing.
"Dogs aren't made of pork!"  I responded.
Then I caught myself.  She is eight and Muslim.
"I don't know why we don't like dogs, but we don't."
"I understand.  I've heard that before and I don't know either."

And then, we did her math homework.

Seashore

"Cabeza, nariz, hombros, rodillas...."  I sang with the three year olds, shaking my knees together in a fake Charleston dance while we sang our song.
"NOSE!"  a little boy growled, pointing at his nose, which was filled with a solid looking green substance.

Alec, Lola and I drove to the beach the next morning, to the panhandle of Florida, where his family was vacationing.  The sand was powdery and the water clear.  Lola ate all of the Whataburgers that I no longer eat on the way home, making the most of our vicarious eating habits.
Most of the area west of there was destroyed about two days after we drove home.

"Hey, thanks for your time, but I've accepted another offer..." I emailed a school, in lieu of sitting through another interview.  It looked like a good school, but I thought the coordinator sounded bitchy.  So, I said fuck it.

"Hilary, his dad has been put on life support.  He really needs to be up here."  I could feel my throat quivering and got off of the phone.  I booked Alec on the same connecting flight his brother was taking through Atlanta.  He flew the morning of his birthday.

"Look, I've turned down offers.  Pay raises, schools that were walking distance from my house."  I said to the guy, taking a drink of my coffee.
"I'm not willing to go just anywhere.  It has to be good."
"How many are we competing against?"

"I'm interviewing a lot.  I can wait until January.  Or next school year.  It just has to be right."

The Air That I Breathe

I was driving for a really long time.  It felt like I was going to enter Alabama at any second.  The topography changed over and over again.  Highway, historic West Side, changing to strange supermarket chains that I had never heard of.  All of the signs turned to Spanish and a series of Mexican and Caribbean restaurants popped up.  The houses were made of cinder block.  My mind filtered through all of the implications of teaching in that area.  If only it wasn't so fucking far away...

After driving in the out way, I accidentally pulled into the bus lane and nearly hit a metal gate trying to make a u-turn. I casually pulled into a parking space at the giant, empty, elementary school.  I rang the bell.  A man made his way through the dark office.
"Hey, come on in, I'm the principal." he announced, friendly enough.
"Where do you live?" he asked, the minute we arrived at a conference room.
"Atlanta..." I said hesitantly, knowing it sounded very far away.
I saw three covered bridges on my drive back to the big city. 

Classical music was playing.  A friendly guy asked me a few questions.
"What drew you to apply?"
"The show.  The exhibit.  It sounds exciting."
"It really is..." he breathed, "it's huge..."
"We'll be in touch!"  he told me brightly, sending me away with my Yayoi Kusama flyers and pins.
The interview lasted ten minutes.  But I felt different.  In the world again, in some way.

I stood on the recess field, watching the goats in the neighboring yard while I monitored the students.  It was my first day ever as a sub.  My first day ever in a private school.  I was stunned to find out that I was subbing for a recess monitor and basically spent the day hanging out outside watching goats.
"Hey, Hilary.  My name's Blake!"  a kindergartner informed me. 

Then, I drove to the projects.  I greeted my group, throwing genuine compliments everywhere.  As we played multiplication bingo, I chuckled and spoke to my group, feeling free of cloistered private school decorum.

"9x5"  I announced while they scrambled to do the math.
"Fingers!  Count on your fingers if you have to!  That is nine added together five times!  I have scratch paper!"
We digressed for a minute, when I explained that a rhetorical question is a question that doesn't require an answer.
"You know, when your teacher says 'Why do I hear talking?' she doesn't really want an answer, she just wants you to be quiet!"  I said, laughing.

For once, they laughed too.  We were bonding.
I left, after having made about half of what I usually make in a day.  But I felt okay, actually more than okay.
Alive.

All the Eternal Love I Have

"Do you have any resume paper?"
The sound of the text from a former co-worker woke me up.  It was 6:15 in the morning.

I jumped in the car at 4:45 in the morning and drove to my mom's house.  She was having knee replacement surgery and needed to be at the hospital by 5:30.  We arrived on time.  The waiting room was dingy and the fluorescent lights flickered.  Someone had carved their initials (P.J.) in the wood column in the middle of the room.  Someone else added "BLOOD" to the column.  I felt nervous while they wheeled my mom to the back.  I left and drove back to my mom's house to let her dogs out.  One sat by her bedroom door, refusing to move.

"We would like to offer you a position!"  the email read.  I was back at the hospital, in the recovery room with my mom.   I had been unemployed one day.
"Thanks, but I'm good."  I responded.
My phone started blowing up with calls from two other districts.  I felt flattered, but overwhelmed.  I ended up with job interviews scattered throughout my first week out of work, woven between visits to my mom's house to take care of her dogs.  I felt like I had to strike when the iron was hot, but felt like screaming CAN'T YOU ALL JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE???

I sat in the front office of the school, watching a Sheriff deliver papers and parents pick up kids that were being sent home for bad behavior.  A social worker was walking around.
"WHENEVER the doctor makes me take an antibiotic...."  the woman next to me said loudly into her phone.
"He gives me the pill AND the cream.  THAT did not happen.  And NOW, I must see him immediately."
I had never heard a person so publicly discuss a yeast infection in my life.

I sat outside on the patio of a bar with friends, on a school night.  I did not have another interview until 1:30 the next day.  It was nice to be out, to not have to think of teaching school the next day.  To not have to put on my monkey suit job interview costume until later.

I saw a boy riding up in the distance, a boy with cornrows.  I taught him years ago, and several other members of his family.  It was late, but his dad wasn't really known for supervision.

I extended my hand and he stretched out his as he rode by, touching for a second, then he continued into the night.

*Title, derivative of Yayoi Kusama

The Obliteration Room

"When would you be able to start?"  the principal asked me from her perch across the table in the rather dingy room.
"Uhhh...um, I don't know.  Maybe two weeks...."  I responded, eyes on the ground.

My last day of work was last Friday.  I began the process of requesting to be released from my contract two and a half weeks into the school year.  Kitty, I knew I should have told you, but I had to be quiet about it.  And, I'm not sure if I'm even ready to tell you yet.  Less than seventy hours later, I was sitting in front of another principal on a job interview.

I tried to drive back home, but my brain was in a fog.  I was weird on the interview, too.  Mind wandering, kept just answering "Right..." or "I don't know" to questions. I think the word "fuck" mixed in with a couple of my responses.  I was close to my house, then suddenly I was lost, I was on the west side of town instead of my neighborhood.

"Yayoi Kusama lived through the second World War in Japan...."  Lois Reitzes informed me.
"She hallucinated from an early age, her fields of flowers were not a happy memory."
"She tried to kill herself by jumping out of a window...she returned to Japan and still resides in a psychiatric hospital."
The sun was bright.  I kept looping and driving down roads I didn't know, unclear about how I had ended up on Abernathy in the first place.
"We have to give her mother a break, even though she was incredibly violent."
"Her first time at the Venice Biennale, Kusama crashed it by setting up her own exhibit on the lawn outside."

"How did it go?"  my mom's text message asked.
"I don't know...." I said when I called her.
"Pros and cons, I mean, I could work there, it'd be alright."
"Hilary....." my mom started.
I started crying.
"I just want to be an Infinity Room attendant.  I just want to stand there for two months inside of one of Yayoi Kusama's rooms and not say anything.  Just stand there."

"Then," my mom answered, "that is what you should do.".

*Title, Yayoi Kusama

Closer to Heaven

"Mamaaaaa.....bring me some shoes!"  Taisha screamed.  It was 6:50 in the morning and we were walking through the apartments.
"Grandamaaaaa!!!!"  she howled.

Our school has a parent initiated attempt to get the students to walk or ride their bikes to school, instead of taking the bus or riding in a car.  Our district is only four miles wide.  One parent really wants to make sure the children of the Housing Authority are included and arrives at school around 6:30 in the morning, picks up teachers that are willing to be there, and drives us over to the apartments to walk with them to school.

I've been meeting her for over a year.  She ran up to me and hugged me.
"Hey...", I said, putting my coffee cup in the holder of her car, "um, Friday is my last day...I'm leaving....".

Taisha had on cute flats.
"Why didn't you wear tennis shoes?  It's Walk and Roll?"  some of the muslim girls asked.

I work with Taisha after school.  She's in my group.  My fucked up giant group of sixteen.  She's a star.  Immaculate, clothes and hair clean, presenting in the best way.  No one has to know she lives in the projects, because her parents have made sure they don't know.  And, she works and acts accordingly.  Until, Tuesday morning.

"BUY ME SOME FOOD!" Myla screamed as we walked past the gas station.  Another boy grabbed a gas pump and threw it on the ground.

They yelled.  They screamed.  The walked in people's yards.  They talked about the bikes that were unsecured, the houses they would rob.

I worked.  Taught my classes, attended meetings, packed my things.  Felt sweaty and gross all day.  Graded papers. Went back to the Housing Authority that night to tutor.

"They went fucking crazy on the visitors last Friday... screaming, demanding food, grabbing shit.  Their names are on the board."
Out of the sixteen students in my group, ten of their names were on the board.  The ones that were not on the board had been absent.

"You all have debased yourselves."  I said quietly.
"You have acted under what you are."
"No one bangs on the table and begs for food."
"I didn't do that!  It wasn't me!" Zoey and Tamira screamed.
"Did I say Zoey or Tamira?  Whoever did it, I don't want to know.  I don't want to know because I don't want to think of you that way and you're better than that."

I left, feeling tired, dirty and defeated.  Laaida jumped out from behind a neighboring car, all sixth grade of her burka wearing self.
"Hey!  I thought this was your car!" she laughed, even though she was by the wrong car.  The other white teacher's car.
"I wanted to surprise you!"

I watched my students jump on top of a utility box and do our school's chant.  They saw me, and did it louder.  I wanted to film them, send it to my boss, show how great they were.  But, she's a dick and doesn't deserve to see it.

I smiled and clapped, phone in my pocket, and got in Alec's car and drove away.

Ms. Petosa

You better THINK, think
Think about what you're trying to do to me
THINK, think think think

"After everyone figures out how to open his or her lock, Ms. FELICIA"  Aazim hissed, in place of the character's real name, "explains that she used to work for Wall Street but quit her job because it was her lifelong dream to be a teacher."
The sound whistling through the place where his front teeth should have been as he glared at the rest of the group.  The kids eyeballed him, while he smirked at giving them all the Felicia.  And, he was a year younger than all of the kids in my after-school group. 

"Is there any pig or cow in the sausage today?"  a student asked me in the lunch line.
"I don't know, why don't you eat pig or cow?" I responded, curious.
"I feel bad for the animals.  I went to this place, a burger place, and everyone sat around eating hamburgers.  They had pictures on the walls of happy cows and I couldn't believe anyone could sit there and eat them with those pictures in front of them."
"Thank you for letting me know.  I'm like you, too." I answered.

"¿Qué vas a hacer este fin de semana?" I asked my wild-ass, last class of the day on a Friday.  The rough girl, the one that makes everyone cry, the one that is rude to me for fun and pisses me off, Mikayla, raised her hand.
"I'm getting my ears pierced and my hair professionally done."
"I can't wait to see it," I responded "I'll look for you on Monday."

"Let's take a walk... so we can sit and talk...."  the band thundered in my ears as I stood in the park in the night, watching the moon rise with a red planet beside it.  A child ran by, and wrapped a glow band around my wrist.

"We have moved to Dubai!  We re-homed most of our dogs, but Lola's dad is the only one left.  He's eight and no one wants him.  Can you help us find him a home?"
"Of course!"  I answered.
I hugged Lola and told her over and over in my head that I would never leave her.  She would never be without our home.  She would never have to know new people, or a new place without us.

Mikayla passed through the lunch line early in the week.  Her ears weren't pierced and her hair was the same.
"Hey... what happened?"  I asked her.
She shrugged.
"Didn't work out."

I love it when children's authors visit our school.  I watched the guy entertain the kids and read from his book.  My class was enraptured, I didn't have to bitch at them once.  The author asked for a selfie with the kids and the kids went wild, running toward the stage.  We got all four hundred and fifty of them basically under control.  And then, he raised his phone and he asked for another from the kids.
"What an asshole." the fourth grade teacher to my left muttered.

"See, I'm not so good at Spanish... when I was at Whitford, my teacher, he uh, left, then I was at Trinity, and we had Chinese....".
Three schools by the beginning of fourth grade.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere, I'll be here...."  I almost said.

But, I didn't want to lie.

* Aretha Franklin, Think
**R.J. Palacio, Wonder
***The Rock-A-Teens

Fall

"Summer", as teachers call it, came and went, and by late July, "Fall" began, or, our return to school.  It was hot.  It was ridiculous.  But, I was determined to have a good year, as it would be my last before searching for a new school or a new opportunity within my district, which would be re-configured for the 2019-20 school year.

I started my work at the Center as well.  Our leader is gone and things are...difficult.  I was assigned a group of twelve, though the cap was supposed to be eight-ish.  And, an additional four third graders, making it a group of sixteen, "small group tutoring", below grade level children that are living in poverty.  A fellow teacher was assigned to co-teach, though we had no time to organize any sort of arrangement, as the children sat in front of us.

During the first weeks of normal school, a fellow teacher arrived early, which means really early as our report time is 7:15 in the morning, to find a naked man sleeping on the basketball court behind the trailer where his classroom is located.  He calmly told him to put his pants on, which laid beside him on said basketball court, and called the police.

As parents drove up to drop their children off, and teachers and administrators tried to find parking spots, a half naked man stood ranting, as the small town police triangulated, taking a really long time to haul him off.

"What was your favorite part of your day?" I asked the massive group of children at the Center, while they slapped each other and fucked around.

"I saw you.  I saw you in the hall.  I saw Miss Wagner at school."

I was happy to see you, too.  I was happy that you were there.  I thought it was sweet that you hugged me.  I have your back.  I will take care of you.

Summertime

Lola and I sat in the living room in the middle of the sunny summer afternoon, both doors closed and the blinds drawn.  Men had our house encircled, scrapping, spraying, climbing on ladders, crawling on hands and knees.  Soccer played on an endless loop.  I have never had house painters before and had not anticipated how the event would play out.  Lola was not pleased.  We spent six days locked in, me trying to keep her calm and away from the windows, watching every World Cup game.

I emerged nearly a week later, feel pale and atrophied, shielding my eyes from the sun.  As I jogged through the park, I heard the whistling, the man that whistles so loudly I can hear him while inside my house as he rides his bike down the street.  And, he doesn't just whistle, he is like a one man symphony, a literal symphony.  He stood, his back to the path I was on, staring up at the trees, serenading them with his orchestra. The trees and the birds and the early morning sun enveloped him as one of their own.

I returned home, tingling from being outside again.  Fire trucks tore past, barreling toward the Capitol, racing to put out the man that had deliberately set himself on fire, just hoping to get someone's attention that he needed help. 

The Not So Quiet American

I awoke to the sounds of footsteps on our roof and chainsaws blaring.  Instead of being on red-alert, Lola rose her head slowly and sleepily, giving me her version of a smile.

The tree men were here.

I gathered her up and went where the tree men were not.  I pulled up the newspaper on my laptop.  Anthony Bourdain was dead.

I worked in restaurants, mostly as a cook, for around ten years.  I culminated my experience with a brief stint as an assistant pastry chef in a French restaurant where I met one of the owners, Eric Ripert, shortly before Alec and I left on a nearly year long trip through Asia.

I read Kitchen Confidential shortly after it came out and devoured Bourdain's stories.  The pirate brigade ferociousness of the line cooks.  The lifestyle. I vicariously relished the sight of a dinner service beginning with the line doused in brandy and set aflame to the sounds of Flight of the Valkyries.  A mad scientist, pastry "terror dome" filled with gallons of molten seafood stew, conceived while fucked up and served to unsuspecting guests, with hopes that it didn't spring a lava-spurting leak.  My experience was never quite as intense as his, but I did enjoy reading the ride.

Later, he would talk about The Quiet American and show the world Hanoi.  All you have to say is 'Hanoi' to me and it invokes memories; I found it one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.  It holds a place in my heart that is bigger than New Orleans, larger than Havana, it's Hanoi.  I read the The Quiet American while in Vietnam, and was entranced by the mystery of Indochina, the roots of war, the opium and the decaying splendor.  He went to Hanoi for the first time the same year Alec and I did, the year 2000.

We are all friends here, right?  I've got my demons.  You've probably got yours, too.  But Anthony Bourdain seemed to have slayed the beast, whether it was worries of an unaccomplished life, the slavish life of a restaurant worker, addiction, mental illness.  He went on to craft a life of anyone's dreams well past the point when, in his own words, he should have been sent to the glue factory.  Extensive travel, exotic food, basically doing whatever the fuck he wanted.

But, it looks like you can never really slay the beast.  It lays and it waits.

La despedida

"Oh what a night!"  the sound system boomed, while dozens of elementary school students danced in the makeshift disco in the school's library.
"What a lady what a night!"
I found myself chuckling, listening to various disco songs about fucking while the kids danced obliviously during our indoor Field Day. 

I sat at my post, watching children file down the stairs to leave school. 
"It was the second to the last day of Spanish!"  one of my fifth grade students students exclaimed. 
"That's right," I answered, unsure of how to address his comment.
He milled back and forth, staring at the floor.  He hugged me. 
"We only have one more day.  Then it's over.  I'll be gone.  I won't be here.  You'll be gone, too."
He continued pacing, grabbed me again in a hug and ran down the stairs, his sport emblazoned back pack bouncing quickly from his shoulders.  A difficult student with a laundry list of conditions.  He seemed so off-kilter, disoriented.

I entered the "Teacher's Lounge", a small, windowless room with fluorescent lighting, hard chairs and a microwave.  I think "lounge" is a wildly glorified way of describing the place.  Two teachers stood next to a table covered in cupcakes.  Each had a cupcake in one hand and a popsicle in the other.  One had an additional to go plate stacked full of cupcakes. 
"Oh my god, Hilary, open the freezer!"
I opened it, to see it packed full of every flavor of popsicles imaginable.  I glanced back at their feral faces, mouths lined with sugar and eyes aglow with strange light.  We had twenty-four hours to go.

Shonelle was clutching me, her arms wrapped tightly around me.
"I'm going to miss you." she whispered.
"I'll miss you too, but we'll see each other at the apartments!"
"Everyone on this hall hates their Spanish teachers, but we got you.  We love you."
"Believe me, I have students that hate me."  I answered.
"Yeah, Patty does,"  she answered, referring to a fifth grader that also lives in the Housing Authority.
"But whenever she says anything, I tell her to shut up."

"Some of your interactions with students have not been positive.  I don't know, I find you a pleasant person, some of the time....".
Thank you.  That must be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. 
Mahmo stood in our office, waiting for me, having snuck away from his class again.
"Did you have a meeting?!"  he scream-asked.

I stood outside the classroom with Laadah, one of the students I have taught for two years at school and who was also part of my group at the Center.  I didn't want the rest of the kids to know that I had gotten her a present. 
"Congratulations on finishing fifth grade!"  I told her, handing her a bag of chocolate truffles. 
"I know you're fasting, but maybe you can eat them in the night when you break the fast...."
Her face erupted with joy and she hugged me.
"I am going to miss you so much," she said, "will you be at the Center next year?"
"YES."  I answered, thrilled that she liked her gift. 
"Where is Raaidah?"  I asked.
"She's not here, she says it's because she has to go to her brother's graduation, but it's not until seven o'clock tonight."  she answered, raising her eyebrows.
"She couldn't do it....."
"No.  Yesterday she yelled at everyone in class all day to be quiet...." 
"I'm sorry, Laadah...."
She hugged me again.
"I'm taking swimming lessons this summer!" she told me, eyes wild with excitement.  I really didn't know how much I loved her until that moment. 

We stood outside of the school, waiting for the school buses to take off.  The drivers revved the engines and started honking the horns.  I was desperately trying not to cry.  They started to drive.  Kids waved from the open windows. 

Suddenly, the overcrowded school bus that goes to the projects tore by, countless heads and hands thrust through every open window.  I found myself jumping and waving, yelling out, as all their little heads and hands got smaller and smaller in the distance.

Eight Mile

I woke up gasping, feeling like I was drowning.  I couldn't breathe.  I couldn't even swallow, my throat was so sore.  I couldn't believe I was sick again.  This year, I've had a CT scan, an ultrasound, several feverish debilitating colds and a vomit laced stomach virus.

The emails started and would not stop coming.  Accusations against me that ranged from "singling out"  a child, to "maltreatment", to racism.   The same parent that accused me of not being able to speak English and demanded a meeting between me and the principal, only to cancel it when only an assistant principal agreed to attend.  Each time one of the accused teachers tried to address the accusations, another email would fly in our boxes that was even longer than the previous.  Accusations against me were mixed with accusations of other teachers, students and substitutes.  Confusing descriptions of my misbehavior were mixed with things that had happened in Science and recess, classes I am not even present for.

Alec and I were trying to prepare Lola for another visit to the vet.  I couldn't speak anymore because I had lost my voice.  Taking Lola to the vet when it's raining is an unbelievable task.  We have nearly wrecked the car because she becomes eighty plus pounds of hysterical pit bull if we turn on the windshield wipers.  She had to go to the appointment.  They were going to assess if her epidural shot worked.  Alec and Lola ended up racing to a hotel a half a mile from the vet, north of the city, simply to avoid driving fifteen miles in pouring rain in the morning.  I helped pack up Lola and watched them go, feeling worried.  I squeaked out my goodbyes. 

A new accusation flew into my inbox, for a bathroom situation that I wasn't present for.  I do not enter the student bathrooms.

I woke up, wondering how my cold could keep getting worse instead of better.  I called my Uber and waited on the front porch, texting Alec to see how the night went.  It was pouring.

I received the message that my Uber was there and ran out in the rain.  I was drenched in minutes while I watched my phone get soaked, while the driver sat passively at the wrong address.

"Sorry," she said casually when she finally pulled up.  I was wet to the skin.

It was hours before I was dry, but I never felt warm the whole day.  I cordially administered tests to the student who threatened to shoot me last week and made my way through the day, cold and sick to my stomach from too much cold medicine.  I kept texting Alec to see if he and Lola were safe, if the visit went alright and if they were home.

I bummed a ride to avoid walking in the rain to go to tutoring.  At the Center, I made my students write persuasive essays about things that are important to them.  One picked "extended recess".  When I asked for her talking points, her persuasive arguments, she said:

"We work harder than teachers.  They get breaks all day and sit around and socialize with other teachers."

Yeah, fourth grade life is a real killer.  Punching that clock 24/7.

My heart hardened in a way I didn't think was possible.

Backwards Forwards

I watched the girl get in the boy's face.  Open her eyes wide, shake her head repeatedly, brow beat him, act like her mom.  Her mom that gets in my face, acts ridiculous, unfair, disrespectful.  Uncalled for.
He stared straight ahead, and put both fingers in his ears.  I think he might have put his feet on the table.
I call that problem solving.  Conflict resolution.  21st Century skills.

"So, I shaved off all of the hair on my arms and hands, because, well I have hairy hands."  Muslimo informed me, while we pulled out our copies of 'Wonder'.
"I cut my finger." she added, showing me a bandaid on her thumb.

I entered one of the classrooms where I teach and shoved my flash drive into the desktop so that I could set up for my lesson.  The general ed. teacher tried to calm the class down, get them ready for me.

The boy that moved in halfway through the year began issuing insults to me under his breath, like he always does.  Staring at me, trying to stare me down.  Just because I'm there.  Just because I arrived to teach a class he doesn't like or finds difficult.  I've worked with him.  Treated him with kindness.  Blew off his insults, ignored them.  Even when he threatened me, I blew it off, because I wasn't going to give it credence or amplified importance.  He's a child.

I found it sadistic, but I have a lot of rich entitled kids that are sadistic.  That enjoy trying to make another person feel bad, just because someone is there that they can throw darts at.  And it makes them feel good.  To pick on a maid, or a teacher.  Lord of the Flies.  America's Future.

"I'm gonna get a rifle." he muttered, glaring at me.

I'm sorry, but you don't get to threaten me with firearms.

You just don't.

And, it ended there.

You Might Ask Yourself

Men, some not even men but teenagers, shimmied up the border wall and straddled it, one leg in either country.  Countless other people from the caravan stood below.  The were at the border wall that extends into the sea, and at San Ysidro, in Tijuana, at locations where I've spent countless afternoons.  I would have done anything to be there, to be there cheering them on. 

"You tell me why you were talking about me!"  the ten year old screamed in my face. 
"I wasn't talking about you.   I apologized to the back table for the distraction coming from your table."
"You talk to me now!" he continued to yell, rising and getting in my face.
"I've answered your question." I answered calmly.
"YOU were talking about ME to other students!"  he yelled, walking toward me and inserting himself between me and the desktop computer. 
"Oooooh, you told her!" his only friend in the class cooed, laughing.  The rest of the class stared on in astonishment as I tried to keep the lesson going. 
"I demand to know why you were talking about me with other students!"  he continued yelling.
"At this point, your harassing me."  I answered.
"How can a child harass an adult!" he yelled over and over, while I tried to continue the lesson. 

"Look, Mrs. Lovett, Anton had a really bad day...." I said into the phone, my voice shaking.
"His behavior is YOUR fault!"  she shrieked back.
"He only acts like this because he thinks YOU don't like him!" she continued.
"I am coming to your class TOMORROW to observe."
"Okay."  I said weakly and hung up.  Observe me, though you're not my boss and have zero qualifications to evaluate my abilities.  But of course, I'm the one that has done something wrong.

I walked to the Center after a Central Office meeting for all elementary Spanish teachers.  Meetings for whole departments at this time of year has never been a good thing.  Six years ago, I was laid off.  One year ago, our instructional hours were slashed.  This meeting had been surprisingly painless, but I felt a little annoyed to have lost forty-five minutes of tutoring time for a meeting that seemed to be basically an exchange of pleasantries.   When I arrived at the Center, my kids were helping the kindergartners.  They begged to keep doing what they were doing.  My boss assured me that everything was fine and my kids could stay with hers.  I slipped out a side door and walked away, feeling like no one needed me for anything. 

I called an Uber and my driver even drove right past me, though I was waving my arms in the air, then he blamed me when I got in the car.

"How was Lola's epidural?" I called, while opening the front door.
She walked up wearily, a huge square shaved out of her fur. 

I woke up, tired and with puffy eyes, both from lack of sleep and crying.  By the end of my "observation", it appeared that the parent wanted to enroll in my class. 
"I told Anton that that is how he needs to act everyday!"  she exclaimed.
"That would be great."  I responded.
"And call me if you have ANY problems!"
I let her save face, pretend like the reason she came was to make sure her kid acted right.  I was glad I had triumphed, but questioned why people in my profession have to deal with this kind of shit so regularly. 

I was happy when Friday arrived.  But Friday night, I literally threw up all over the house.  My stomach churned and my body ached.  I slept most of Saturday.  There has been a stomach flu going around school. 

I'm not sure if that was the only thing that got me. 

The Heart of the Matter

"Do you see her?"  I heard a student say while I walked down the hallway.
"I've known her my whole life."  I glanced back to see one of the ghosts of Christmas past.  I taught both of her older sisters at my old school and then they moved to the district where I work now.  I was flattered that she thought of me, remembered me. 

"You are WALKING from school to the Center?"  Muslimo asked me, incredulous.
"Yeah, it's only like, a mile."
"But what if you get run over by the train?!"  she howled.
"Muslimo, I look both ways before I cross the tracks."
"What if it comes up really fast?"
"Muslimo...."
"What about, about....you're going to pass Trinity Walk?"
I averted my eyes.  Trinity Walk.  The apartments where the girl was murdered.  It was still in their heads, as if the location was what was to be feared.
"I don't go that way." I answered quietly. 

A theatrical group showed up at the Center one day after school.  They wanted to do an anti-bullying play.  Sly smiles spread across all of the teachers faces.
"Oh, wow, it will last more than an hour....oh so, um, we just watch them entertain the kids and we sit back and get paid....."
Broad smiles spread across our faces. 
I looked at the actors.  White do-gooders.  This ought to be good.  But as the play began, it was more nuanced than I expected.  Creative.  And the actors generally seemed thoughtful, it was an original take on bullying.  One of the women walked on her hands and slowly flipped over as they mimicked kids walking in a circle.  Somehow it didn't look like showing off, it was amazing and I envied her strength and grace.  I like watching people do something they enjoy.  And I scolded myself for being condescending. 

When the play ended, the actors did a little question and answer session with the kids, trying to make sure they understood the play.
"Why did Polly bully Josh?"  they asked.
"Because he's WEAK!"  a number of kids called out.  I saw the look pass over the actors faces. 
"He's a nerd!" a third grader called out, wrinkling her nose.  I felt disgusted. 
"What do you do if someone tries to bully you?"
"I hit them."  Shanika answered definitively.
Other kids nodded.
"I get my brothers!"
The actors kept trying to get the kids to look at the situation a different way and at times, the kids played along.  But we all knew the first answers were the real answers.  I felt for the actors. 

After, the third grade boys stared wide eyed and dazzled as the athletic woman moved to an easier subject, showing them jumps and twists and flips that she was able to do effortlessly.  Their faces were filled with pure wonder.

Suddenly, one of them jumped straight up and did a full backflip himself, flying a few feet in the air and gliding in a full circle, then landing squarely on the carpet on both feet. 

Fall on Me

"Ms. Wagner, did they tell you what happened?"  Mahmo asked me lowly, while I loaded my school computer and books into the trunk of my car in the parking lot at the Center.
"Yes, Mahmo.  The superintendent emailed us.  And....I saw it on the news."
"She was stabbed eight times....they said he was bipolar.  Ms. Wagner!  What is bipolar?" Mahmo screamed/asked, in his distinctive way.
"Issues.  Means he has issues." Raaidah answered, authoritatively.

She had been on my mind since Sunday afternoon.  The girl that had been murdered in the apartments.  The apartments where I work after school, where I tutor.  I remember moving to Atlanta in spring of 1982.  A child murderer was ravaging the city.  I questioned why, why, why my mom would move us to a place where a man was killing children.  I didn't know or care that I didn't fit the demographic.  Or that we lived a couple of miles outside of the city limits.  It scared me.

"There's a vigil tonight," Mariama told me casually.
"A group of us from the Center are going."
I already knew about the vigil, and was flattered to be invited to go with the group of children.

She went to the school where I work.  I think I remember her.  I could only imagine her fear, her pain and the ridiculously unnecessary death.  I pictured Miriama.  I pictured Mahmo.  Raaidah.  I pictured all of them.  And I felt like I couldn't speak. I could only imagine how they must feel, a child, murdered in the complex where they live.  And the man was at large.  The boogyman.  I felt their fear.  So much that my stomach felt like it was bleeding from the inside out.

I looked up crisis techniques.  Don't bring it up, wait until they do, then listen.  We went through two hours of tutoring until they circled my car, when I was leaving.  I listened.

"I'll be there." I told Mariama, though I had already planned to.

I shot gunned two beers at a bar around the corner.  And came back, parked my car at the Center and approached the area of the vigil.  I stood, alone.  I watched Miss Edith come in with children from the Center and waved her over, feeling like they deserved my preferential location more than I did.  Mariama and another child, a child of the apartments, sat on the retaining wall that I leaned against, one on either side.  Laddah was next to them, her eyes fixed and unwavering on the speakers.  Their physical presence felt like a warm blanket, something cloaking me, though I wished I could do something to comfort them.  Some of the worst behavioral problems my school has had in years approached, some of the middle-school aged, alone and without parents.  The boys.  They took a knee.  And they stayed like that for forty minutes, without talking, without doing anything but listening.

We left an hour and a half later.  Laddah was cautious, trying to keep her candle lit.  Mumar, the wildest boy we have experienced in a while, ran at her, bull in a china shop, and put out her candle.  She kicked him in the stomach, barely raising her long sleeves and skirt, not even ruffling the hijab.  He raged at her.  I put my hand on his stomach to hold him back, re-lit her candle and the candles of the other children, saving Mumar for last.
"Be careful," I asked and he was.

The following evening, I read over my students' "What Home Means to Me" project.  I scanned Mowliid's, happy that his handwriting is legible.

"I can stay in a safe place," he wrote,
"where I can't get merdt..."

Merdt... merdt...murdered.

The Bell Jar

"Yeah....you're going to have a class like that at school," I responded, to the girls of my tutor-group.
"Like, SEX ED?!" Muslimo shrieked, while the rest of the girls stared at me with mouths open.
"No, not sex ed but, oh god even the word is gross, um, puberty class.  You know, how everything works?  Don't worry, the boys and girls are separated during the talk."
"Boys have puberty too??!!!"
"Yeah, and they don't want to talk about it in front of girls, either."
"Well," Maryan stated definitively, slapping her hand on the table, "it already happened to me.  Happened in January.  Happened again last Monday."
"At least you're done with that for the next month."
"That's right." she answered.

"Shanika is never coming back."  Mariama stated, an uncomfortable smile on her face.
"I know, she's mad at me because I kept getting on her about working here."
"It's not just that.  She's mad at us.  She doesn't want to be with us anymore.  She is hanging around with you know, the bad people."
"We tried to bring her back."
"She keeps trying to fight me.  She doesn't even get herself ready in the morning, her mom does it for her.  And she wants to fight."  Mariama continued.
I looked at Mariama.  I wanted her mom to get her up in the morning and help her get ready.  The girls dissolved into stories, the fist fights when they get off the bus, the attacks on the bus, frightening adults that threaten the kids physically.
"I threw my backpack in a bush and pretended I was going to fight her, just to make her go away...."
I felt weary.
"Look you guys, I know my advise doesn't really mean a lot, but when you're older, fighting, physically fighting - people are really going to look down on you, really think badly of you.....I know that here, if you don't push back people will think you're..."
"WEAK." they said in unison.
"Yes.  Weak.  But if there is anyway to avoid it... you're just better than that."
"My mom said if they come at me, fight back....."  Naado began, voice raised.
I listened.  And I wondered if my 'advise' was even relevant there.  Or safe.  And I worried, worried about my girls, fourth grade, surrounded by violence that will harden and shape them.

Some 4H club brought came in to do an anti-smoking campaign.  Our kids immediately proved too advanced for the lesson when the started answering their questions with name brands of cigarettes and responses like 'weed' or 'cocaine' when the lady was just asking about tobacco.  At the end, they were shown a series of international, anti-smoking commercials.  One featured a parade float and fun house music, everything in bright pastel colors.  People in hospital gowns sang to the carnival-like music, most of them missing parts of their faces, mainly parts of their jaws.  Others sang through holes in their necks.  Some hissed away through oxygen masks, all while the jolly music kept playing.  All the while, the float rolled through town.

"Ms. Wagner, can we please just go in the back now and do homework?  Math, school work?  We want to work."  Muslimo stated emphatically, eyes wide.

Parkland, U.S.A.

"Some teachers are retired military and law enforcement and would not hesitate to protect our children."

"But, you will be apart of innocent children and teachers being defenseless against a killer??? No Gun Zone = Invitation to criminals and psychos."

"It's so obvious that liberals don't care about protecting children."

"We value life and want our children to LIVE. If you don’t want to carry that is fine, there are teachers already trained and equipped to protect."

"You obviously don’t care enough to do whatever it takes to protect your kids!"

"No says the voice of the fricken teachers union ..."

"There will be other teachers who love their students (and yours) enough to do whatever possible to protect them!"

"It takes an average of eight minutes for first responders to arrive...our children don’t have that long to wait."

"Let your co-workers who are willing to be a last line of defense do so as you are helping evacuate more children safety."

"Good, we don’t need any more chicken shits “educating” our kids!"

"Stay the hell out of the middle American states, you would probably melt down when you realize just how much Guns are part of life out here!  Where do I send the case of paper towels to wipe you up when you melt down!"

"Yeah, I was just told by a police officer that I'm being selfish for not wanting to defend my students."

"Some teachers and staff DO want to protect the kids and we should let them."

I could feel the tide turning pretty quickly.  If you have some doubts about adding "armed guard" to your list of duties during the workday, you are a teacher who doesn't really care about kids.  You know, the same way you don't really care about kids if you want to get paid for your work.  Or if you don't buy your students school supplies out of your own paycheck.  If you don't spend weekends raising money for the school.  You really don't care.  You really don't have a 'passion' for this, do you?

I expect you to have gone to the best schools.  I expect that you have experience teaching in the best schools. I expect you to teach my child all day, exactly to my specifications, because though you went to the best schools, I know what's best.  I expect you to support my child emotionally, answer all of my emails within minutes, and perform the services of an armed guard.  I expect you to take a bullet for my child.  THAT IS WHAT A GOOD TEACHER WOULD DO.  Someone who really cares.  

If I do not expect this of you, it is because there is something wrong with you and you could never be trusted anyway.  Everyone knows teachers are idiots.  

"My mind goes straight to a teacher having a breakdown and my kids locked in that room with that gun."

"A good number of teachers are on medication for anxiety and depression."

"And the teachers' lounge is essential a bar, or so I've heard."

Sometimes I wish the teachers' lounge really was a bar.  

Blue Valentine

They were swinging, hard.  Like all fist fights, everything was fine until it was not, and when it was not, you knew it.

I hadn't been around too many fist fights until I started teaching.  In high school teaching, they could be pretty awful.  Blood on the walls, people pinned to the floors, mayhem.  Threats of even more violence, things that go home on the bus and to the neighborhoods, guns, group attacks.

We walked back from the city-run auditorium, shepherding our kids to the Center after they practiced their Black History performance.  It is a joyous time that has filled me with pride for the past two years.  It is enlightening and celebratory, a presentation of African-American contribution that has often gone uncelebrated.

I heard something familiar, something unwanted, and started to run.
They were going to hurt each other.  My favorite fourth grader, who was now in sixth, and our troubled fifth grader had erupted in a brawl.  The only other adult close by was another woman, and she was trying to pull them apart.  They are large boys, and they were angry.
I yelled their names, knowing I wouldn't grab either of them because I wouldn't be able to separate them.  A mysterious man from the community ran in, and grabbed Jiinow by the waist, pulling him off.
"Go to the Center!" Ms. Harmon yelled at Jiinow.
"Take Mumar with you," she instructed.
"Mumar, let's go, come with me, you're not in trouble, but I need you to come...."
I know him, and I know that he is not sound.  He growled.  They were both crying, faces pulled with rage.  I knew what he would do, that time he ran away from the school, flight, flight, flight...
"An adult is speaking to you...." the mysterious man said lowly.
He ran.
Their enraged faces flashed in my mind, over and over again. The tears, the humiliation.  The abject pain.

"I'm going to Saudi Arabia."  Anward announced the next morning.
"To the Haj."
"You're kidding, that's amazing!"
"I will get to smell the stone," he announced, peppering his words with perfectly pronounced Arabic words that adding a flavor to his description.
"But you know, I'm a Kurd.  My Arabic sucks.  I hope it's okay."

"I might just need to go on a junket...."  my boss at the Center announced, as we walked back from the Black History performance the following day.
"I don't have plans for the vacation, but I really might need to take a junket somewhere...."

Downward Dog

"I love modulars."  Mowliid announced randomly.

I gazed at the bright eyed boy, small for his age, with consistently the cleanest clothes I think I have ever seen.  Why he loved the trailer at school was a mystery.
"Why do you love modulars?"
"THEY are good buildings."
"Okay...."
"AND, they can go on a truck."
"And be moved to a new location?"
"YES." he answered definitively, a look of satisfaction on his face for having explained himself fully. 

I have nearly completed a Soberuary, or a booze-free January.  At times, I feel like the Seinfeld episode when George Costanza gave up sex and became hyper-intelligent.  Other times, I feel overstimulated by the extra activities I do in my new-style quest for healthy living. 

I stared at a book that leaned against the white board in one of my classes.  Its cover had one of those famous Dust Bowl photos of skinny, rugged white people, looking strained.  The title, MIGRANT WOMAN, was emblazoned across the front.  I wondered why people viewed poor white migrant workers as valiant but poor brown migrant workers as takers. 

"Did you show them what child abuse was?" one of my students asked, snickering.
"Don't make me come over there...." I responded, laughing.
"Are you going to turn the car around?"
"Don't make me turn this car around, I'll give you something to cry about...."
"Do you want something to cry about?"
The whole class was laughing.  They love my stories about popular, parent sayings from the seventies. 

Next, I'd like them to try one of those old metal slides in the summer while wearing shorts. 

The Day of Kings

"When does the tree come down?"
"You have to wait until after Epiphany.  At least Catholics do."
"What's Epiphany?"
"The day the three kings arrived with weird shit like mir for the child-God Jesus."

"I saw a picture of my mom IN FRONT OF A CHRISTMAS TREE."  Shanika informed me during tutoring, eyes wide.
I blanked for a moment.  And?
"She used to celebrate it...."  Shanika added, in a whisper.
She says that they don't celebrate any holidays at all anymore, but that the lack of commemoration is religiously based.  Sometimes I wonder if it's actually poverty based, or a complete rejection of material things in a quest for purity, influenced by their circumstances.

Maryan showed me a small, clear stone with some sort of object in the middle of it.  It was the second time in two days that she had shown it to me.  I knew she loved it, but I couldn't figure out why.  She would only tell me that her sister gave it to her.  This time, she held the stone up so that I could get a better look at it.
A small, pink imprint of a baby's foot was in the middle of the stone.
"It's for the baby."  she told me, her mysterious eyes locked on mine.
"For the baby that died."
She turned the stone over and over in her hand, then quickly obscured it somewhere under her hijab.

The circular machine arched over my head.  It made a swooshing noise over and over that reminded me of the contraption in "Contact" that Jodie Foster tried to go to space in.  My right arm was bandaged from a blood extraction.  An IV with a strange, coiled tube extended from my left arm.
"Okay, I'm going to start, and I'll stay here to monitor.  You will notice a metallic taste in the back of your throat, you will flush and you will feel like you have to urinate.  Don't worry, you won't.  Here we go."
He activated the IV, paused, and left the room.
"Don't breathe.  Don't swallow."  an automated, authoritative voice commanded.
I began to roll backward through the tube-like machine.
I stared straight up, watching the radioactive symbol on the machine begin to glow brightly as I passed through the tube.

"Rafa has died.  He will be buried the sixth of January."  Rafa.  Probably our closest friend in Tijuana.  Why?  How?  My breath caught in my throat.  He was gone.  Rafa was gone.  It seemed impossible.  They were burying him on the Day of Kings.  The Day of Kings.

I ran through the Housing Authority, chasing a runaway ball.  The air was almost Spring-like after days of below freezing temperatures.  The kids cheered and laughed, waiting for my return with the ball.  As I rounded the fence and down the hill to the ball, I realized a huge smile had spread across my face.   I couldn't have stopped it if I tried.

"Thank you for the apartments, thank you for the apartments, thank for the apartments...." repeated over and over in my head as I turned and ran back to the kids with the ball, hair sailing in the breeze.