He tapped me back, on the underside of my bare arm. The school was muggy. It felt like hot breath, even at 7:45 in the morning.
"You're peach." he announced, tapping my arm.
"Yeah, I'm kind of peach and pink." I answered.
"And squishy..." he responded.
"Shut up, Kavi, these guns are made of steel!" I answered, instructing him to view my apparently pasty flabby self as a super hero.
"So, I went to Cornell. My dad was a professor. I am not an idiot. I am educated." I sat back, knowing this meeting was going to be crazy.
"Of course." I answered, though there were two other people in the room.
He started crying. I locked eyes with him and found my own tearing up.
"Your child has been placed in the wrong grade, so she is going to be put in the grade she should have been in...the one below...and she is going to start getting ESOL services."
ESOL services she should have been getting five months ago, when she arrived here. And, when she should have been put in the right grade. The man kept talking. He was an American man, wearing Islamic bling.
"Okay...okay she..." his wife started saying.
"I'm speaking." the man mumbled lowly, and she quieted. And, he continued.
"She's Libyan A good looking woman?" he inquired, looking at me.
"Of course." I answered.
"She's raised them, speaking Libyan Arabic..." he continued, "but the real way to learn Arabic is the Koran..." he continued, giving me a linguistics lesson.
"So she, she live with me.." the wife began.
"I'm speaking." he mumbled, and she quieted.
"I always knew there was something wrong with her. She takes after her mother. That's who she lives with. The boy is fine."
I looked into the wife's eyes, trapped behind thick glasses as she looked at me fervently. How the fuck did you get mixed up with this? I thought to myself. I tried to scream it through my eyes, but I doubt it worked.
"So, sign here and here..." I told The Man.
"This is stupid... this doesn't make sense."
"Just sign." I instructed.
"Even though you're young, you look old." Baby Gustavo informed me, smiling serenely.
"What makes me look old?" I asked.
"Your hair." he answered, smiling sweetly.
"Why do we do ESOL?" he asked, still smiling and dancing.
You, Gustavo, will make me slit my wrists, I thought, and smiled at him.
"Hey, come over here..." Habiba whispered, motioning to a little seat on the playground of the Housing Authority.
"I have nail polish."
She pulled a little purse out from her many robes. She had two bottles of nail polish in it.
"Kayla is coming. She's a snitch. Move on!" she instructed a smaller child.
She unscrewed the cap and started painting some of my nails pink.
"Those people, the ones behind me, they fight. I've hear them. He yells at her. And, they throw wood chips at us."
"You mean those people on the balcony behind us?'
"Yes." she answered, eyes fixed on my nails.
She painted my thumbnail green. It was warm, but overcast. Everything felt like a cotton ball surrounded it.
"Which apartment do you live in? I know you have more than one, but where do you stay?"
I know you have more than one because I have taught half of your siblings and I know your dad has wives installed in more than one apartment.
"That one..." she pointed, motioning to a balcony where a young man stood holding a baby and a school age girl played.
"She's my sister."
"Where does she go to school?"
"Glenn Haven.... but she's sick, do you know what I mean?"
The mist seemed to be collecting around us as Habiba spoke in hushed tones. She continued painting my nails, but never put enough polish on the brush.
"Does she have an impairment?"
"When we hug, she hits....."
"She can't control her body...?"
"Don't tell her I said that she was sick."
"I won't, Habiba, I won't."
The marshmallow day surrounded us and we sat and painted finger nails.
"Lift every voice and sing....till earth and heaven ring....."
I stood in the hallway at 7:15 in the morning, doing duty. It was the Black National Anthem. And it sounded like an angel was singing it. I spied around the corner, expecting to see a child. A beautiful woman stood there, in front of the children.
"Ring with the harmonies...of liberty..." she sang, face uplifted as the children watched her, hypnotized.
No comments:
Post a Comment