The Man in the Mirror

I can hear lions from my back yard.  Owls roost and howl, creating a cacophony of noise that belongs in National Geographic.  I am lucky.  Luckier than most.  I live in a magical place.

"I'm looking at the man in the mirror!" the kids sang, at one of many awards ceremonies that accompanied various grades.  I stood there, waiting for my part, my uncomfortable part. They were going to make me come up there, with a microphone, and address everyone to give out ESOL awards.  I watched the Asian moms come in, they caught my eye because they stand out racially and I knew who they were there for some of my students.  I was surprised and glad that they came.

I always picture my Karen students among large leaves of green, in beautiful jungles, the ones Alec and I hiked in in northern Thailand and Laos, surrounded by beauty, dressed in white, climbing gracefully through beautiful areas.

"You can't just stand here, go in or go out."  one of the para-pros instructed harshly, when one of the Asian moms stepped outside to take a phone call.
The mom was dressed in winter clothing, a large puffy coat, in mid-May.  Her face was stretched and worn, beat down.  She quickly came back in.  Nothing about her reflected those beautiful tribal girls I saw twenty years ago, and she might have been one of them.  Her babies still looked like the rich green plants I saw in Thailand, even though they live in a broke-down, semi-suburban sprawl, the place where I spend my time, too.  The place that was supposed to be better.

I watched the Vazquez family, a family facing stress beyond normal measures. I watched the mom watch her son give the introduction to the assembly, dressed in a suit, his feet not touching the floor before he stood up and charmed everyone with his eloquence.  Another of her sons played the violin with the strings assemble.  When the older son crossed behind the adults, she made him give her his dress shoes and shoved them into a Kroger bag, while she in return gave him his tennis shoes.  And hugged him and kissed him. The father had been there the day before, for Field Day.  Ate lunch with his sons, helped out the PTA.  The only man I saw doing that, even when the ambulance pulled up to to take a chid away in the bus line and my teacher roommate broke her foot and we dragged her out of that place, that place where we work.  Where one man, a teacher, kicked the feet out from under a child and smiled.

We had Field Day at the Housing Authority, too.  It was one of the most fun times of the year.  We chased them, threw water balloons, played tug of war all while some of our "bosses" joyously sprayed the kids from a balcony with a giant hose.  It was a wildly toned-down version of what went on at my school for Field Day, which kept it in the safe parameters of old school fun and joy.

"Will you be here before I get here?"  LeGary asked me desperately, in the hallway.
"Yes.  I will be in the science room before you are released and I'll be waiting for you."
I rushed to be at my duty station after my last class, the room where I monitor the homeless kids, so that I would be there before he got there.  He came in crying.  His brother Lonnie always cries, but LeGary does not.
"I don't want to ride that bus." he stated.
"She's here, my mom is here.  She came for Lonnie's award ceremony."
"We are going to find her.  You have to help me, there are a lot of adults here, I haven't met your mom, what does she look like?"
"Well, she's wearin' a little wig...." he answered, lowly, with eyes wide.  That could have been eighty percent of the women in that building.
We looked all over for her.  But she had taken Lonnie and gone home, on MARTA.  The other two kids rode the giant school bus to the shelter, alone for hours.

"Do you know what you are looking at?"  Carl, the custodian, asked me.  He used to work at my former establishment, and I don't know why I qualify him as 'custodian'.  He's a comrade.
I looked over at the Cafetorium, and saw children dancing and singing to Old Town Road.
"That's pure joy." he told me.
"That's why I work with kids," I answered.
"They still have what we don't."

The last day of school happened.  The end of a strange year.  My school has the same tradition my old school had of going outside and waving to the kids as the buses pulled off.  I like it.  I took the homeless kids and we went out there, even though their bus wouldn't be there for a while.  The librarian had her karaoke machine out, blasting rap.  And the teachers line danced in the carpool line, long after the buses pulled off and the parents' cars stopped coming.

I finished up my work at the Housing Authority a week after I was out of official school, because my former district cannot manage a school calendar.  I dressed up, and stood with a microphone in my hand, determined to sort of own it since I had spoken to so many large groups of people in the last few weeks, clutching said microphone and staring at the ground.  We stacked the chairs and the teachers went out after for drinks, like we have for the past three years on our last night.  I left my car, or I mean Alec's car, parked in the apartments, as did two of my co-workers.  We walked back in the dark to get them, through the bougie area of my former district and into the projects.  I heard a thumping sound.  I quickened my step.  Multiple kids, middle schoolers that I know, were punching a boy.  His arms we extended vertically, as if he was hanging from monkey bars, and they were punching him in the ribs, in the back, on the front porch of one of the apartments. 

"They're fighting... we have to stop them...."
"I can call 911....." one answered.
The kids stopped and stared at us.  I locked eyes with a little girl that I taught three years ago and I think I saw shame.
"Is everyone okay here?"  Ms. Henry asked, authoritatively.
"Yeah, it's good!" the boy that was getting beaten responded.  I knew him, too.  He is mentally unstable.  He probably asked them to do it.  And unfortunately, when he decides to turn it around on them, he will probably kill someone.
"Hi Ms. Henry!"  a group of kindergarteners yelled, from their spectator's perch of the fight.  They didn't even know they weren't supposed to be there.

I drove Alec's car back out of the apartments and off to my summer break.  As I glanced to my left, I saw a boy being helped by two other people, one on each side, back to his apartment.

Can't Nobody Tell Me Nothin'

"FOCUS...." I instructed my four-student, third grade team.
"Chili cheese fry brain," I mumbled, looking sideways, undercutting my previous warning.  They started giggling.
"Rat smell..." I continued.
I can't even remember where the ongoing, chili-cheese-fry-rat-smell inside joke started, but the last hour of the school day is a constant mix of sternness and delirium.

I looked over at Faba.  The students had been instructed to wear their teacher's favorite color to school that day.  His too-small, tight green t-shirt had obviously been dug from the bottom of a drawer, with care.

"Are you worried about something?' a little girl asked me.  I smiled and asked her what she meant.
"You just like you're worried about something." she said and smiled, touching my hand.

Alec read over the New York Times article about humanitarians in various stages of legal trouble for trying to help migrants survive their trek across the southwestern United States.
"That's what you used to do..." he kind of asked-stated.
My mind's eye flashed backwards to the men in the back of my car, to the medical helicopter flying into the desert sky with one man while the Border Patrol handcuffed another, to the men splayed out on the dirt road, eyes red and Mexican ID cards laid in front of them.
"Yeah." I answered.

I walked through the cafeteria to the place where my desk is located.  A hand extended, the little girl in the same sweater, the one that was worried that I was worried.

Gabriel swept the floor of the lab where I sit with the homeless kids, waiting for their special bus.  He is on the school's Safety Patrol.  I teach a number of his four siblings, they are pretty widely regarded as probably the most awesome family in the school:  smart, respectful, sweet.  All of them.  Everyone even knows their parents, a rarity at my school, because they escort their children to and from our establishment everyday.
"Gabriel, were you ever in ESOL?"  I asked in English, though I usually force him to practice Spanish with me.
"No, they gave me the test though when we moved to this school from Silver Hill."
Remarkable, I thought.  Neither parent speaks English as a first language, yet they were able to raise their son to be bilingual enough to not qualify for English services.
"I didn't know that you had gone to another school before here." I responded.
"Well, my mom doesn't have a driver's license...."
I felt the hair on my arms stand up.
"So we needed to move closer so that she wouldn't have to drive far to bring us to school." he continued.
"My dad works all the time." he added, still sweeping the floor.
The dad, the same dad that still finds time to accompany his children to school every morning.  They chase each other up the front sidewalk, all laughter and smiles.  A man that truly enjoys his children.
"One day he got pulled over and he gave them his Mexican driver's license and they took him to jail.  It took a long time to get him out."
I noticed an almost electrical smell, emanating from the sweat accumulating at the roots of my hair.
"So, he has a trial coming to decide if he will be sent back to Mexico.  My mom is from a town called Honduras."
"I am so sorry, Gabriel.  That must be so stressful for your family." I said, hunting for the right thing to say.
"It is.  It is very stressful.  We have to rely on our faith." he responded solemnly, like a person well beyond his eleven years.

"I still think you're worried," she told me again, one of the following mornings of many mornings.
"You need to think of happy things." she advised me, and walked away.

"Highs and lows?"  I asked my Housing Authority group.
"HIGH...."  Aazim answered, eyes aglow.
"My parents, both of them, left us, all of us, alone in the apartment on Saturday....."
"ALL of you?  You, Mahja, Suleymann.....wait, who am I forgetting?"
"Jabez!  Yes, all of us...." he said, sighing contently.
"Is the apartment still standing?  Does it have walls still?"
"It does, it does," he answered.
"I drank soda until my heart was content."

*Title, Old Town Road, Lil Nas X

Don't Go Breaking My Heart

David looked at his paper and gave himself an 'A'.  Written in red, it looked like the anarchy symbol my little punk rock friends used to write on everything when we were in high school.

"You a judge?"
I turned slowly, realizing the man on the sidewalk in front of my house was talking to me.
"What...?" I said, trying to be pleasant.
"You a judge?"
"No..." I answered and tried to smile.
At that moment, we locked eyes.  His were red rimmed and hostile, it was a violent, horrible stare.  I turned slowly, trying to look casual and walked up the steps to my front porch.
"You fine...." he hissed.
"Look at you....you look good...ummm...you tight....." he continued.
My hands were shaking while I fumbled with my keys, trying to get through that door before he ran up behind me.
"You so fine...."
I knew he was going to be on me in seconds.
The door opened and I shot through and closed it behind me, locking it quickly.  I spun around and watched him trot down the sidewalk, still talking.

"Can you make sure LeGary gets a Kona Ice?"  I asked the kindergarten teacher, handing her four dollars.
"Don't tell him it's from me, if you he asks just say there was extra money or something."
She smiled and started saying something about me being nice.  I abruptly turned and walked away.

I walked through the hallway around lunch time and saw the teachers lining up the kids with money for ices in the front of the line and those that did not, in the back.
"I tried to get treats from Dollar Tree for the kids without any money, but they didn't have anything..." one mumbled to me while lining up the haves at the front of the line.
I walked through the cafeteria to the room where my desk is.  A festive truck was parked outside, outfitted like a tiki bar with signs advertising exotic flavors of ice like Tiger's Blood and mango.  Smiling children stood in a line, waiting their turn to buy a fancy ice.  The rest sat in the cafeteria, staring at the truck.
I saw LeGary across the cafeteria happily eating with his class, a giant, bright red ice in front of him.

"Don't go breaking my heart......" sailed out from the tiny speakers on my phone.
"I couldn't if I tried......"
"OOOOH hooo!  Nobody knows it!"  Faba and I sang together while he finished writing his El Deafo narrative.

"Wagner, did you get yourself an ice?" my principal inquired, in front of everyone, at the faculty meeting.
"Um, no I didn't make it out there...."  I didn't know how to tell her that though it was generous that all of the teachers were offered a free ice, I would never walk out there and get it in front of all of those kids.  And I was mad at myself that I hadn't secured enough cash the night before to get the other four homeless kids in my duty group ices.  I was tired and decided to go home instead of drive around town trying to get four piles of single dollar bills.

We watched the motivational speaker begin his peppy talk.  He had the same last name as I do.  The second and third graders started to wiggle within thirty seconds.   A first grade teacher cruised by, holding her phone up where I could see it.

"Your husband's boring" it said.  I could not agree more.

*Title, Elton John