I Can't Make it Rain

On the first Tuesday of our winter break, I stood next to a multilane highway, the cars flying past and wind whipping around me.  It was cold.  A couple of hundred other teachers and parents stood with me.  My sign said:  THE HOSPITALS ARE FULL.  IT'S TOO SOON.

We were in front of the mega-complex that houses Human Resources, the Superintendent and Board's offices, two schools, the testing warehouse and the offices for international student services.  It looks like a mall, and it was completely empty, as the majority of people that rarely interface with students anyway were enjoying their break and would not be sent back into schools face-to-face at any time.  Actually, many of them left early for the break, without even bothering to process months old paperwork that would allow vulnerable staff to stay virtual even during the upcoming, face-to-face return.  It was appalling.  

It felt odd driving to the complex way out by the perimeter and parking my car in the lot of the district that employs me, pulling my sign out from the back seat and walking up front to protest it.  But, I wasn't going to park in the Hardee's parking lot, and I feel like I should own them as much as they own me.  I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for tow trucks to pull up or some clandestine guard to close all the gates and lock our cars inside.  I found a place on the highway, spaced myself at least ten feet on either side from the others and held up my sign.  

Eighteen wheelers blew their massive horns and held up fists in solidarity.  Pick-up trucks full of workmen honked and waived.  The MARTA bus drivers blinked their lights and raised fists.  All of the people that I thought would think, shit, I'm back at work, you should be too, showed overwhelming support.  My eyes kept tearing up, which I mentally blamed on the wind.  

I know there are a lot of people that want their kids back in school, face-to-face.  Right now, Georgia is facing record high numbers of COVID transmission.  Both the county where I live and the county where I work are in the highest level of spread that the charts record.  Statewide hospitals are 89% full and in the metro-Atlanta area, most are more than 92% full.  My district adopted a new metric that would evaluate when we should go back to face-to-face school, discounting a previous metric that had been surpassed five times over by active cases.  By their own internal memo, we were over the percentage-positive amount that would indicate full virtual learning according to the new metric on the day they told us we had to come back into the building, five days a week, on January 4th.  They have since buried the initial memo, leaving no guidelines at all.  Cases will be spiking in the next few weeks because of holiday travel.  The bars and restaurants were not closed and the schools opened, as Fauci recommended.  The schools are simply being opened.  Our schools have not been outfitted with plexiglass partitions or updated ventilation systems.  The mitigation remedies are:  everyone wears masks (until some kid pulls his off), tell them to wash their hands, clean your classroom a lot with the supplies we claim we'll provide, make the kids social distance (right) and some one will do contact tracing, but we won't tell you if there is an outbreak in the school.  The majority of my students have told me that their parents do not intend to send them back face-to-face, because they don't think it is safe.  In the beginning, no student would even be face-to-face more than two days a week and virtual the rest of the week.  Teachers will be faced with the mess of teaching in-person and virtually at the same time. There is a vaccine that is currently circulating through the populace.  Soon, the ordinary flu season will be over.  Why now?  Why can't we wait eight more weeks?  How much more will really be lost?

In the last week, two more people I know have come down with COVID.  A friend's mother died of it a couple of weeks ago.  A co-worker of my niece and his girlfriend both got it, leaving my niece running around during the "holiday season" getting tested.  One of the cooks that works directly with Alec got it a couple of weeks ago, leaving Alec scrambling.  

I made a new sign.  It's bigger than the first one.  I will be out there again tomorrow, standing on the highway in the wind, hoping someone is paying attention.  

*Title from "You Don't Love Me Yet", Roky Erickson

2020

"I used to like reading and writing, math...." Prem said absentmindedly.  It was after school and we were chatting while he sat in his closet and I sat on my couch, fifteen miles apart.

"But not really anymore..."

Why?  Because the instruction at our school is so boring?  Because all most of the teachers do is yell and demean the kids?  They are sucking the life out of Prem.  Out of everybody.  I spent the whole weekend daydreaming about getting him into a private school or winning the lottery so that I could buy his family a big house in a good school district.  I asked if he could get tested for gifted, anything to not kill his naturally inquisitive instincts.  Nothing worked. 

 

"Ms. Wagner, the reason I have my camera off is because I'm going to the bathroom."  Baby Gustavo informed me.  I winced, but thankfully the microphone was off, too.

I watched Paw Ku clutch rice into her hands, making it into balls.  She handed it to her four year old brother and he ate it.  She took little pieces from the plate for herself too, with her hands. 
"Do you eat the rice plain or with stuff on it?"  I asked.
"We eat it with fish," Kaw explained, from his separate remote condition.  The 'we' being Karen.
"Sauce or actual fish?"  I asked.
"Fish!" he responded.
"But, I don't eat the eyes."  he continued.

I hadn't realized that was going on.
Paw Ku held up a whole cooked fish to the camera.  It was picked nearly clean.  She dug the eye out and gave it to her brother, who ate it and grinned at all of us.  He's only four.  He knows my name and chants "I killed Ms. Wagner" when he is the imposter on Among Us.  

I sat, spacing out, watching one of the homeroom teachers blab on and on and on.

"What is inside my mouth....?" an un-muted student whispered. 

We were finally done with math.  After my last class ends, I spend most of the afternoons helping my fourth graders with whatever they need.  We do social studies, science, math, whatever.  When we are finished, someone usually starts a game of Among Us and we play and talk and listen to music for a while.  

"If I could have any pet, I would definitely have a crow."  Paw Ku mentioned randomly.

"Or an alligator.  And a lion."

"I gotta go!"  Bway Pa announced.

"I have to take a shower before it gets dark!  The light is broken in the bathroom and it's really dark!"

We all waived goodbye.  

Kaw has been coming to our one-on-one reading class religiously at 8:30, every Wednesday, the day when we don't have normal classes.  I'm throwing everything at it and I think he's doing really well.  I only plan for an hour, but we usually go over and at times the lessons have been almost an hour and a half.  He doesn't complain.  Actually, it's usually hard to get him to hang up.  I had to reschedule one of the Wednesdays because I wasn't at work.  We decided to meet after school on the Tuesday before.  When Kaw came onto the call, he was acting weird.  He hates turning his camera on and I don't make him, but he wouldn't even speak.  Finally, I heard a whisper.

"I can't talk because my brother is sleeping..."

"He's in the room with you?"  I whispered back.

"Yes...."  

I heard a baby start to cry.

"Oh god, Kaw, I'm sorry.  Let's read together another day, okay?  How about Thursday, after school?"

"Okay." he answered and we read Thursday, instead.

"I'm negative!"  Mario announced one day in class.

"Oh Mario, did you have to get tested?"  I asked.

"Yeah.  My mom's boyfriend has COVID so we all got tested.  My sister is negative too, but my older brother and sister and my mom's results aren't back yet."  he explained.

"Does your mom's boyfriend stay at his own house or is he with you?"  I responded.

"Oh no, he lives here with us.  His dad does too."

I saw Baby Gustavo's mom walk into the room behind him in her robe, waving at him to turn his camera off.  And then, I heard Gustavo's voice.

"My mom is crying.  Our friend from the congregation is dead.  Of COVID.  They wouldn't even let us visit her in the hospital."  he explained.  

"My mom had it three weeks ago."  Jorge mentioned.

"She's a nurse.  She's back at work now."

"I am so sorry.  I am just so sorry."  

I didn't know what else to say.  By the end of the week, five of the seven people living in Mario's house had active COVID.  Mario, who is eight, and his twelve year-old sister were caring for them, delivering plates of food outside of the infected's closed doors and running away, so that they could step out and take their food back into their quarantine rooms.  

One Wednesday, I spent nearly the entire day on calls with my students.  An hour in the morning with Kaw, then multiple hours in the afternoon with Kaw, Prem and a lot of the rest of fourth grade.  We did math.  We did science.  It was exhausting.  

"Watch this!"  Paw Ku announced.

I could see that she was outside, walking with her laptop.  The sky was gray and her face looked exhilarated, her long dark straight hair whipping back as she started to run.  Then, she was in someone else's house.  Then she was in front of Kaw's laptop, while Kaw danced around in the background, one of the few times I have seen his whole face in months.  Or ever.  They both started jumping around and chasing each other. 

One Wednesday morning, Kaw and I watched a speed lapsed video of hot air balloons over New Mexico.  It was beautiful.

"Oh wow...." he said quietly.

"Yeah...." I responded.

"Would you do that?"

"YES" he responded.  

  

Out of nowhere, our district changed the metric they use to decide if we are coming back into the building.  They changed it to one that will make us come back into the building in a matter of weeks.  It was shocking.  

"Do you think your parents will keep you at home or send you back to the building?"  I asked my students.

"School's better virtual."  Prem answered.

"We're not going anywhere.  Our house is like a prison, but it's a good prison."  Gustavo informed me, while snuggled under a fluffy blanket in his underwear and a wife beater with his brother and their laptops.

"We like going to school this way."  he continued.  

"I got in trouble in school...."  Kaw told me.

"How?  You wouldn't do anything bad...."

"I got in trouble because I didn't know anything."  he answered.

"I remember that!"  Paw Ku responded.

"Remember when that boy wouldn't stop trying to kiss me and grab my leg in kindergarten?  I ran away to my grandma's house, crying...."  she continued.  

"No."  Angel answered me, definitively and without explanation.

Our Story Begins...

Shutdown hasn't been everything that I hoped it would be.  I started taking classes to finish my reading endorsement in June, figuring that I needed to use this time well.  And, expensively.  I bombed through the second of three classes in the summer and then, started the horrific finisher in the fall, while trying to virtually teach.  What the fuck?  I thought.  I'm not working two jobs right now because I can't and I don't even have to drive to work, saving me a lot of time.  It has been a virtual nightmare.  I spent the Thanksgiving week break writing a sixty-eight page paper.  By choice.  Because by Monday, I have to work again.  

I've utilized some of what I learned during the endorsement.  I administered Kaw the diagnostic assessment of his reading ability the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving week.  I was shoddily taught on how to administer this thing and I tried to do it right, because I only took these fucking classes to figure how to help students that struggle to read.  They say to go two grades below a student's grade, to help build confidence.  He couldn't read any of the words on the second grade list and I had to go to rock bottom.  He was at a frustration level by what is considered a level below kindergarten, though he is in fourth grade.  I tried to pretend everything was okay, congratulating him and telling him he was doing great.  I, personally, was freaking out.  

"Okay, Kaw, thanks for working with me here.  I know this is boring, but I have to figure out what to teach you next.  It will get more interesting." I said after over an hour of diagnostic assessment.  
"Let's call it a day."
"But, can you help me with my other work?  And can you meet with me during the break or on the weekend?" he responded.
 "I am working with Bway Pa at 1:00 to do Social Studies work, do you want to join?  I don't want to wear you out...."
"I'll be there."  he responded, and he was.  

We finished the work.  Paw Ku piped up and presented her screen, she had finished earlier and was looking at pictures of traditional Thai dancers.  We looked at them, while Paw Ku talked about how beautiful they were.  

"Would you visit Thailand again, if you could?"  I asked. 

"NO."  Kaw responded.

"It is too dangerous."

"What if you could go to the  Karen villages, in the north, would you visit there?" I asked.

"I would go there, but the rest of Thailand, too dangerous..." Kaw and Paw Ku responded, unanimously. 

"I looked up the military...."  Paw Ku mentioned, showing her screen again.

"I'm sorry, Paw Ku, stop.  They are showing piles of dead people and we don't need to see that."  I responded.

Piles of dead Karen people.   

 

The Water Cycle

"Why do you think the third amendment is important?"  one of the teachers with which I virtually teach barked into the camera.
"Because no one wants soldiers tracking blood in the house on their dirty feet."  a student responded.  He was new.  A student that hadn't been taught to be submissive and passive.  One that was actually taught to speak in class and use his mind.   

I worked with fourth graders after school, because apparently school is for lectures and everything else is homework.  Even in elementary school.  The kids blow up my Google Classroom feed, screaming for help, even during the classes we sit in with their general ed. teachers. 

 
"Alright, water cycle.  What is it?"  I asked, while googling it on a different tab.  
"Water fall from sky...." Kaw answered, hesitantly.
"You are so right..." I responded, knowing it wasn't enough but typed it into his Google Slide for him, anyway.  He was trying.  And keyboarding skills are not a standard.  And, I will do anything for Kaw.  My mind drifted back a week ago and months ago.  He texted me on my fake Google Voice number during the first week of school, in August.  

"I am new boy." his text read.  Bway Pa and Paw Ku help him, I found out from the beginning.  

We have a freer schedule on Wednesdays and Kaw could easily take a day off from school.  But he doesn't.  He blows up my feed, asking for help.  We worked alone last Wednesday, on math of all things.  Some of my other students tried to come onto the call, but I insisted that I needed to work with Kaw, alone.  It was murderous, torturous work.  I hate math.  After an hour and a half of work, with Kaw speaking but his camera off, he asked me some questions.

"Will you keep helping me?" Kaw asked.

"Of course.  What worries you?  Why won't you speak in class?  Is it too many people?"

"I can't do anything.  Every time I talk people tell me to say it again.  They don't understand me.  And, I can't read and I can't write.  I can't do anything.  I like school here better than in Thailand, because they don't hit me.  But I can't do anything."

"Kaw?  I've noticed that whenever you see someone do something on a computer, you don't need the directions repeated.  You look at it once and you can do it, automatically.  I wish I could do that."  I answered.  

"Yeah, I can do that....."

"What do you think about me and you meeting every Wednesday, we can work on some things...."  I suggested.  

"Yes!"  he responded.

"What do you think about ten o'clock, is that a good time for you?"  I answered.

"I get up up early, how about eight thirty, is that a good time for you?" he asked replicating my speech.

"That's a perfect time for me, Kaw."  I responded.

"I will put up the link."

I have a lot more to say about Kaw, and the student I taught years ago that was killed this week, though he was still just a child.  But I don't think I can do all that right now.  I feel really tired. 

MAGA

I was sitting on my sister's porch, the only place I go besides the grocery store.  We live in Atlanta in a highly liberal neighborhood.  A pick-up truck roared by, with giant Trump flags on each sides of its bed.  We looked at each other.  What the fuck?

There is not a lot I can concentrate on.  I do my best to teach my classes from my couch.  I have been taking another reading instruction graduate class at Georgia State so that I can better serve my students.  I am never doing that again.  I detest academic writing and have done way too much of that in my life.  

I finished my paper last Saturday and went for a jog around the park.  I heard tires squealing and saw a pick up truck at a nearby intersection.  I heard shouting.  I inadvertently hunkered down, thinking of tires squealing in Charlottesville and Trump pick-up trucks.  Or maybe tensions were just high, because the election hadn't been called.  As I ran, I heard more clanging and honks.  A woman walked by, carrying her Biden-Harris sign.   

"Did they call Pennsylvania?"  I called.

"Yes!"  she responded, as cars honked at her and pots and pans clanged.

I got inside the house and turned on the TV.  I was stunned that they had called the whole election for Biden.  I thought they would equivocate it, make it conditional, say this that or the other, we'll just see.  The cover of the New York Times read:  BIDEN BEATS TRUMP.

I was surprised when I cried a little.  I just want him to go.  Trump has to go.  I jogged back to my sister's house.  The whole neighborhood was either dancing in the street, or lighting fireworks or shooting guns in the air.  Or just driving around, honking their horns. 

We uncapped a couple of beers.   Suddenly, a white pick-up truck tore down the street.  Giant Trump flags flowed from the back of the bed.  I couldn't believe they were here again.  In our neighborhood.  

I could see the woman in the passenger seat.  She was older and light haired.  Her face was in a grimace, mouth a-gap.  A black hole scream of a mouth.  It reminded me of Donald Sutherland in the seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  But, she had not been snatched.  

She was honestly terrorized that Donald Trump did not win again.  

Stars of Track and Field

"I hear that COVID voice again."  Alejandra mentioned absent-mindedly.  I stifled my inappropriate laughter.  The COVID voice belonged to another student's mother.  I looked at the little panels in our MEET.  Alejandra was wrapped in a blanket, obviously half awake.  Baby Gustavo was laying under the covers in his bed, wearing a wife beater and what we inadvertently discovered later when he got up, his underwear. Mashia was dressed and at the kitchen table, but rarely unmuted herself because we would either hear the COVID voice in the background or a wild call to prayer.  Pablo sat eating breakfast, a cheese stick in one hand and a Pepsi in the other.  He had some barbecue chips, later.   Mario didn't show, as usual.  

"Are you guys ready for the matching game, the vocabulary thing, or do you want to play something different?"

Pablo quickly unmuted himself.

"Among Us."  he requested.  

"Not during school!"  I responded.

"After!" 

"Then let me see Lola."  he responded.

We meet up a lot after school.  It takes up most of my planning time.  Occasionally we do school work, but the kids mainly just want to talk to each other.  Often, we play Among Us in a private match against each other, while we simultaneously talk on the MEET and listen to music. I've gotten better at Among Us after an unfortunate first day where I was killed over and over.  My students felt bad for me and quit killing me, simply leaving me standing in a corner with a pumpkin on my head.  

I voted.  During my lunch one day I drove down to our basketball arena, State Farm.  Alec and I both decided that was where we would early vote, mainly because they have hundreds of machines and the place is huge, as opposed to ten machines crammed into the public library.  A poll worker waived me in to free parking directly across the street and pointed to where I needed to go.  I don't go out very much and when I do, I realize I feel strange.  The sun seems really bright.  I feel kind of rumpled and puffy.  I stare at the ground or scope around, trying to jump away from people that get too close.  I always wear a mask and don't even bother with makeup anymore.  My hair is perpetually pulled back because it has gotten ridiculously long.  And for some reason, I randomly feel like crying.

I entered the arena and was met by enthusiastic young people working the poll, as opposed to the regular older set of poll workers.  They wore t-shirts that had a large basketball on it instead of a peach, but with a little green leaf on the top and adorned with the "I voted" banner.  They had plexiglass and hand sanitizer everywhere.  I got through quickly and walked past the bars and restaurants that people frequent during the games and thought of different times.  They were all shuttered.  I was surprised when they guided me right into the main arena.  I stood at the top of the stadium stairs and looked down at hundreds and hundreds of voting machines lined up on the basketball court.  And down I went to the floor and placed my vote on the same court that we watched LeBron James play on.   It was a strange sensation and I glanced up, thinking we maybe needed a cheering crowd.  But, the seats were all empty.  

I went back out into the bright sunlight and to the car, getting to the couch five minutes before my next class began.  

*Title, Belle and Sebastian

Among Us

"Hi Mrs. Caballero!  This is, um, Hilary Wagner, from Westward Elementary.  Um....I'm calling because, well, Veronica is locked in the garage...."

"Cóm...WHAT?"

"Um yeah, we were talking after school on Google MEET and she went in the garage to see the dogs and um, well, I'm really sorry, she locked herself in....I told her to tell me Adriana's number, she's upstairs, but Veronica ..."

"I KNOW I KNOW, no lo sé, right?"
"YES!  She doesn't know Adriana's number and told me to call her mom so...."

Thankfully, Mrs. Caballero burst out laughing.

"It's all good!" she exclaimed, snickering.

"I'm really sorry."  I responded and hung up.

I looked back at the screen.

"Veronica, your mom is calling Adriana.  Prem!"  I yelled into the screen,

"Put down that gasoline!  The hammer too!  If I have to call your parents and say that the house is on fire, Ms. Wagner is not going to have a job on Monday!"

Prem laughed and put the can of gasoline down and the hammer back in a bin and came back to the computer with his cat.  

"Prem, oh my god!  Turn around!  Ku has the hammer!"  I screamed, watching Prem's five year old brother dig in the bin and run away behind Prem's back, carrying a large tool.  

I heard the garage door open and watched Veronica run back inside her house.

I sat at my kitchen table, listening to the second meanest teacher at the school teach a class while I watched Lola run around the back yard.  The neighbor's landscapers started blowing and mowing their yard, drowning out the mean teacher's voice.  

"Okay!" she yelled.

"You have fifteen minutes to complete this!"

Holy shit, independent work time!  I sprang into action, dropping a MEET link in her chat and directing my students to join my call so that I could actually help them with the assignment.  Prem and Veronica piped in immediately.  They really didn't need much help and I sat and watched them work, waiting for questions.  I looked outside and saw Lola trapped on a three and a half foot high retaining wall in our backyard.

"I'm sorry you guys.  I'll be back.  Lola is trapped."  I said and quickly ran outside.  I had to pick up all eighty-five pounds of her, while she tranquilly waited to be lowered to the ground.

"Okay, I'm back."  I announced.

"Are you on the beginning, middle or end of your narrative?"

"Ms. Wagner, can I tell you something?"  Angel asked sleepily while we waited for his test to load.  We had been at it for hours.

"Sure."

"Okay but, DON'T CRY."

"Okay...." I answered, a little worried.

"My dog, you know Hazel?  We were outside and well....she killed a little mouse."

"It's okay, Angel.  It's just what dogs do.  They aren't trying to be mean."

Angel's mom walked in and asked me why the testing was taking so long.  I explained to her in Spanish that the test was stupid and that I was really sorry, that it was just something they were making us do and I wouldn't make Angel sit through it much longer.  

"You know a lot of words in Spanish." Angel mentioned as his mom left his room.

"Yeah, I like Spanish a lot, but when I get nervous I make mistakes.  I don't want your mom to think that I don't speak well."

"I make mistakes when I'm nervous, too."  Angel responded.

"It's okay."  he added with a smile.  

Memories

"Ms. Wagner.  Meet with the ESOL students tomorrow.  They are all missing Social Studies assignments."  I was a little put off to receive the missive from a colleague, directing me to drag the students into virtual class on a day when they did not have their regular classes.  I looked at their assignments.  Yeah, they were missing some stuff.  As was the rest of the class.  I love my students and want to help them, I guess I just don't like being commanded to do things by people that are not my superiors and don't even do a shadow of what their own jobs are.  I sent my kids a link to meet up on their mental health day, adding a message to their Social Studies teacher that when I have tried to get them into virtual class on Wednesdays for extra help, they usually don't show up, but hey, we are all just trying to be the best we's we can be.  

Three out of six came, right on time.  It was a casual atmosphere, Alec making a massive lunch in the background and Lola jumping on the couch beside me.  I did not change my background and warned them a few times when I needed to get another monitor or more coffee, but never cut my camera.  I went into their assignments and realized most of them hadn't been taught how to use the technology they were supposed to be using. On top of it, the teachers didn't understand the technology either, it was a series of dead links and unwritable forms.  I was pissed.  They had been given zeroes, as was the rest of their class.  

I got one of my emerging students to share his screen, and we got to work.  I heard a little tune in the background, while one of my other students started playing music on her phone.  

Here's to the ones that we got

Cheers to wish you were here, but you're not

'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories

Of everything we've been through 

Toast to the ones here today

Toast to the ones that we lost on the way

'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories

And the memories bring back, memories bring back you...

"I like that song." I said and directed him on how to dictate his answers to me while I wrote them down and photographed them with my phone, because the doc was so dead it was unwritable.  

We continued to work, little heads down and up, questioning and answering and humming.  They would sing out loud the ones that we lost so rhythmically and I would feel my eyes welling up, thinking of the all the people that were gone, the ones that had died, of how much we had lost when school shut down last March.  I though of the teacher that I work with that was asked about how she felt on the first day of pre-planning, only to mention that the father of her newborn child had been killed, the same week as Rayshard Brooks, and played the same song to convey her feelings.   

"I have to go to another meeting..."  I told them.  

"I have to hang up."

"Can we keep working together?" Paw Ku asked.

"Yes.  That is why we did this.  Stay on the call.  Teach each other to submit."  

I can't wait to see you tomorrow.  

*Title - Memories, Marroon 5 

 

I Didn't Kill the Deputy

I pushed in to my virtual class, trying to figure out what to do.  My older students have figured out how to follow my MEET links so that we can meet together in small groups and figure out assignments, but with kindergarten and first grades, it's a mess.  And, those are the teachers that are pushing more and more for me to "take them".

I am so afraid of not doing my job.  It is important to me.  I watch my students, I pin them, a way that I can only see them and not the rest of the class.  I try to figure out if they're engaged, if they're working.  I pipe in, speak to them.  Some of them have been able to come to my pull-out virtual room, mainly by themselves, or sometimes, with parent help. Some of my kids have to wake their parents up, because they are laying on a bed beside them after working night shifts, but still trying to monitor online learning.  

Prem's little brother's teacher was determined that I should take him out, all of the time.  But, you know what?  I don't have a magic wand either and I knew from the time I screened him that he was a really unschooled five year old that would need major assistance. I piped in to his class.  I warned the teacher first, because I was going to un-mic.  

"Hi...Ku....can you hear me?"  I asked.  

I saw his face turn toward the camera and thank god, he didn't scream when he saw me. 

"Are your parents around...or your brother...?"

Prem shot into the screen.  The whole class could hear this interaction.  

"Hey Prem, can you click on the link in the chat, I want to work with your brother for a minute." I saw Prem's face fix on the screen and open up the new tab.  

"Go back to your school work, Prem, thank you!"  I yelled, knowing that his teachers were saying things like, if you don't turn this in within the next 90 seconds....you get zeroes, zeroes, zeroes!  

And, you know what?  Ku actually liked the school work his primary teacher was giving him and wouldn't pay attention to me at all.  She had an instrumental version of "I Shot the Sheriff" playing and he was grooving and shaking, doing a little bit of math the whole time.  

"Prem....hang him up with me," I called.

"He is doing just fine."

Dog Days

"Whose legs are those?"  Prem asked randomly, during one of our pull-out sessions.  They sit on the floor, my students, with their Chromebooks on chairs and at times, various family members walk behind whoever is in class. 

"Hey wait, Veronica, is that Adriana?  Is that your mom?"  I asked, happy to see missed members of their families that I haven't seen in a while.  Identifying legs is hard.  I sit on the floor too, while I work.  But my back is to my shelf of records, so legs don't walk behind me.  

I have to get to my MEET groups first, before any of the students join.  Whoever gets there first controls the meeting.  I found this out the hard way when I couldn't mute a new student who tends to sing Islamic chants the whole time he works.  And he gets there early.

Everything changes when I get to remove my students from their virtual classrooms, for pull-out.  Some of the teachers try to dictate all of the time, yelling at me like they do their students, Ms. Wagner, you have ten minutes, get them back on time.... Others want me to take the kids all of the time, because they have a bit of a hands off approach to any child they view as "international".  Sometimes these kids aren't even ESOL students...just Asian, or Hispanic, or African.  I know most of them and don't mind helping, it's just a little weird.  They think I can speak every language in the universe and have an immediate line to every parent of a non-majority ethnicity kid and can just, you know, get it done, wether they are English learners or not.  Sometimes, ethnic confusion pops up even with the ESOL kids... Ms. Wagner, speak to her in Spanish so the other kids won't know what you're saying....but Ms. X, the student is Burmese and doesn't understand Spanish.... I respond.  

I do like it when we leave.  The snacks come out.  They show me the books I sent them this summer.  Many lay down on their beds and prop themselves up on pillows. It's not that I don't want them to do school work.  I just don't see why everything has to be so extreme - dress code, no water, sit up straight.  

And, I get to guess whose legs are those, and visit with everyone.  

Covid 2020

"This is Alberto's sister.  Please text me back, I'm trying to help him, he can't get online."  It was 7:50 in the morning on the first day of school.  And, I knew that Alberto's sister was only in high school and was probably trying to get online for her own classes, too.

Virtual teaching officially began.  By the second day, the students had learned to mute their teachers, leaving them speaking voicelessly to entire classes.  The kids even muted each other.  They took over teachers' Power Points, tearing through them at record pace.  I knew I shouldn't laugh, but I couldn't help it.  

"Ms. Wagner, I can't get in, I don't know my password...." Bway Paw exclaimed in a message.  I started emailing teachers, begging them to give me sign-in information for their pages.  Some refused.  Others simply didn't answer at all.

"Hey, can I call you on TEAMS in a minute, it won't take long."  Mr. Warner asked.  I logged on to the call.

"A bunch of your students are missing, I don't know where they are....Rosa, David, Agnieszka..."  

I was glad that he cared.  

"I got a hold of David's dad and he said that David's mother picked him up for visitation and never returned....."  he continued.  

I gasped. Where is he?  Where the fuck is David?  Is he safe?

"I don't know what is going on with Agnieszka's dad...."  Mr. Warner continued explaining.

"Yeah...he's difficult.  All last spring he just kept saying that he didn't know the kids still had to attend school.  We told him a million times that they did, that they attend online, but he would just say the same thing whenever we could actually get ahold of him....let me request an interpreter, he needs to come pick up her Chromebook....." I responded. 

I found an old contact for Rosa's stepfather and discovered that she had moved.  I checked out her new school and it was a lot better than ours.  I was happy for her, but I'll miss her.  I hope she gets to see snow this year.  

"Ms. Wagner?"  Angel asked into the phone.

"Yes!  Angel, how are you??!!"  I responded, thrilled to hear from him.

"I can't get in, I can't get into my classes!"  he answered.  I could hear his mom in the background, speaking in what seemed like an agitated tone, in Spanish.  I was pissed.  I had been asking and asking for passwords and was being refused.  Angel had missed days of instruction.  He was one of multiple ESOL kids from the same class that could not enter the online classroom and we were being completely stonewalled.  I tried as best as I could to get him online and ended up asking to speak to his mom.  

"I don't speak so much English...."  she said awkwardly into the phone.  

"It's okay, I speak Spanish...." I answered.

It was like a volcano erupted.  She was furious.  She hadn't received a single message from any of Angel's teachers, yet received succinct log-in information on the first day from her other children's teachers.   

"Look,"  I said in Spanish.

"You are right.  This is ridiculous and I'm angry, too.  It's not right.  This is going to be resolved today."  Thankfully, I was able to keep my promise.  

"The WIDA remote screener will be our virtual tool for assessing English language proficiency for incoming students.  You will call the families, tell them to drive to the Center and pick up the student part of the test at 10:00am on Tuesdays, you will schedule a time to call back and screen the child virtually, use whatever the family wants you to use Zoom, What's app, FaceTime, whatever, just put it on your phone, screen the child, call them back to review the results, do all the paperwork, figure out some way to virtually upload it even though we want the forms handwritten.....blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....."  

Yeah, no problem.  Easy fucking peezy.  

The only part I was excited about was that I saw one of my new students to be screened was Prem's little brother.  Prem is such a cool kid that I was excited to receive a new family member.  I called, and his sister facilitated the screener, via FaceTime.

Ku was not having it.   

He repeatedly ran away, crying.  He flopped face down on the couch and tossed the phone away.  When he saw my face on the screen, he screamed.  I finished the screener, feeling horrible.  A message popped up on my computer.

"I could hear you testing my brother...."

"OMG, I am so sorry, Prem.  I totally terrorized him."  I answered.

"It's okay." he responded, then dropped out.

"Hey Ms. Wagner.....can we go live?" 

I thought the message was sweet.  I hadn't received my teaching schedule yet and had been communicating with my students via various messaging platforms, but not on a live video.  I set up the link and sent it out.  I waited a minute and suddenly saw little Alberto pop up on the screen, seated at a little desk in his bedroom.

"Hi Ms. Wagner."  he said, the same little enigmatic smile on his face that he always wears.

"Hi Alberto!  It is so good to see you!  How are you??"

"Well you know, my mom, she stopped hitting...yeah, she doesn't do that anymore.  And my dad?  Well, we don't like him anymore.  That woman with the baby I told you about?  They were not just friends.  And my mom, well, she got us a new dad, but we call him by his name.  Not 'dad'.  And, my mom's going to have a baby!  Its a boy!  I am so excited!"

I smiled broadly into my laptop.

"I am so happy for you, Alberto."  I said, really meaning it even though it was an unusual story.

"I am so glad things are going well."

Sloppy Joe

I watched the Republican, oh, my bad, Democratic Convention.  I was surprised to see the leader of the progressive movement, the person who came in second before the DNC-Biden coup, speaking on the first night, paired with Kasich, a Republican.  Kasich applauded the Democrats for resisting the "radical left".  I really don't give a shit what he thinks of liberals and don't really know why anyone else does either.  By the second night, my blood was boiling.  A montage of seventeen "rising stars" of the Democratic Party.  Mysteriously, all of them were Biden supporters.  Not a single progressive in the lot, no Squad, none of the people that have pumped energy and interest into a decaying, corrupt Democratic Party.  In addition, we got to watch Colin Powell and Cindy McCain.  AOC was relegated to a one minute sound bite, announcing the delegates for Sanders.  It was wildly misunderstood online and the insults started flying again.

"YOU JUST GOT US DONALD TRUMP FOR FOUR MORE YEARS!"
"Bernie supporters cost us the last election!!!!"
"If you don't get what you want you just take your toys and go home!"

Yet, you keep telling me that I have to join your side, while yelling and insulting me and blaming me for the last election.  Bernie Sanders didn't lose the election for Hillary Clinton.  Hillary Clinton barely appeared in public for months at a time and rarely visited the rust belt.  Patriarchal attitudes toward women by women didn't help either.  Jim Comey threw a Hillary email bomb right before the election.  The Russians conspired against her in order to help elect Trump.  The Electoral College allows for one person to win the popular vote and also, lose the election.

But, let's blame Bernie Sanders.  And his supporters.  Insult progressives, yet demand that we vote for hair-sniffing, malarkey-phonograph, "you aren't Black enough if you don't vote for me" Joe Biden.  I am not seeing myself reflected anymore in the traditional, Democratic Party.  We started the primary with a diverse panel of candidates.  Diverse by means of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, progressives and moderates.  And what did we end up with?  An old, white, male, moderate DNC-establishment candidate that wants to shove the progressive wing behind some curtain.  It doesn't help to have to watch a bunch of Republicans at the Democratic Convention, instead of the people that are actually bringing the party alive.  If there are Republicans out there that are still on the fence, I don't think Kasich or Michael Bloomberg is going to convince them.  Give it up, and let's celebrate what is good about our party and for me more than anything, that is the progressive wing.

So, before you start yelling at me too, yes, I am going to vote for Sloppy Joe.  And yes, I voted for Hillary, too.  But it is getting harder and harder to stomach.

First Day

"Okay, which system are you using to deliver assignments, VERGE or Google Classroom?"
"Google Classroom."
"Which video conferencing system are you using, TEAMS or Zoom?"
"Google Classroom."
"Are you telling me you are not using TEAMS or Zoom, but instead are using Google Meet, which is imbedded in Google Classroom?"
"I don't know.  I'm using Google Classroom."
"Which video conferencing?"
"Google Classroom."
"I'm using VERGE and TEAMS."
"I'm using Google Classroom and TEAMS."
"I'm using Google Classroom and MEET."
"Can you make me a co-owner of your class so that I can be in your live sessions?"
Radio silence. 
So, all of you are using a variety of platforms that you don't understand.  And, I am reliant on you in order to do my job and co-teach your sessions. 
Most of this went down after eight days of training, one hour before we were supposed to go live, on our first day of school.  All of the multiple teachers I have to collaborate with in order to access my students were using a hodgepodge of platforms, not really understanding how most of them work and failed to include me on them, no matter how much I asked. 

I sat, waiting for the moment when the kids were supposed to start logging on for school.  I felt like I was sitting on top of a giant machine, The Washington Post's printing press or like a uranium centrifuge processing plant or something, feeling the vibration while it geared up and start whipping up speed, going up to full bore.  Then, it crashed.  And crashed.  And crashed.  Tab after tab on my computer with the students' access pages showed the various sites crashing.  Texts and phone calls from district started flooding my phone.  My own internet started failing.  I felt an immense panic and started crying hysterically.  I'm using my Mac, not that shit the county gives us.  I upgraded my internet.  All of our efforts, all of the stress and it was all failing.

I set up my Google Voice a few days ago, though I no longer mind if my students or their parents contact me directly by phone.  I was surprised when I got a text from one of my most at risk student's sister, before eight o'clock.
"Hey, I'm Alberto's sister, I'm helping him but I have questions...."
I texted her back immediately, but never heard anything back. 
"Hey...I miss you...what am I supposed to be doing?"
I messaged back and forth all day on the county's system, oddly feeling like I was talking to an old friend instead a girl that just entered fourth grade, one of the few that knows how to use all this online shit. 

My email blew up for a minute, from the vice-principal and principal, telling me that I had a new student coming in to kindergarten.
I scoped him out the minute they put him in the system and realized it was Prem's little brother. 
I can't wait to meet him. 

Gardening at Night

I've been a little under the weather.  Not like, ventilator-under the weather, but definitely have some sort of cold.  I started getting a little nervous and decided to get tested again.  I still don't go out, but Alec is working and was exposed by a co-worker.  I also just kind of wanted to know.  I decided to go to one of the free, health department sites because I wasn't sure how many times my health insurance would pay for these tests and even if they did pay, I knew I haven't met my deductible and I don't want to cough up another $180.00 right now.

On Monday, I pulled up to the first health department site and was surprised to see a sign out front that stated that the site was closed because of "lightning".  I drove to another free site and got in line.  Thunder cracked through the air and the testers came out and informed us that they too were closing because of lightning.  I drove home.

Tuesday, I tried again and drove to a different, roving health department testing site.  I was surprised to get in there really fast.  I registered while standing there on an app on my phone and walked over to a tent where a volunteer handed me a bag via a really long set of pinchers.  It had my test inside and my name and date of birth on the outside.  I walked to the next tent and waited for the plastic covered volunteer to finish fumigating a chair, then sat in it as he stood six feet away from me, directing me how to perform the nasal swab myself.  The swab was like a mascara wand on a long stick.  I did the deed and handed him back the bag.
"Do you guys have an idea of how long the results might take?"  I asked cautiously.
"I did my own test a week ago Monday and just got the results back last night." the volunteer answered.
Eight days.
"Thanks." I said repeatedly and left.

The school year officially began on Wednesday.  My district decided not to pay us for five days worth of our salaries this year and instead, replaced four of them with a stipend-paid "learning institute".  The stipend is about one hundred dollars a day less than I usually make and for the fifth day, I get nothing. 

Each day began with a TEAMS call.  Everyone has pretty much learned to mute their microphones and keep the camera off at this point.  We were guided through a series of online modules and instructed to do small activities and upload our work into multiple folders and platforms in order to receive our stipend pay.  In the afternoon, we were told to work independently but to stay on the TEAMS call, muted.  By Thursday, things started getting strange.  The calls were lasting from eight in the morning until five in the afternoon, most of it in muted silence.

I laid on my bed with Lola doing modules, hearing people occasionally unmute their microphones.
"Rainier...Rainier...." the meanest teacher in the school suddenly began whispering into his microphone.
"I need help!  I don't know what I'm doing!"  he whispered furiously.
It was weird hearing him in my bedroom.
He was met with radio silence.  Lola rolled over on her other side.
"Oh hey....." Ms. Rainier suddenly purred.
"Sorry....I was eatin'...what'd you need....?" she continued in a sleepy tone, her southern drawl dragging her words out.
At random times someone would inadvertently unmute themselves, causing half the school to also unmute themselves and yell "MUTE YOURSELF!" before the offender said anything embarrassing.
"Anyone wanna hear a song?" another teacher offered one afternoon, breaking hours of silence.
"Sure." I responded in the chat.  I ended up sort of regretting that.
I was getting texts, too.  Laughing, complaining, or requesting to copy my work.
It felt like some giant, metro-Atlanta sleep over.

Thursday night, I received a message from the health department.  My COVID test had been damaged in transport and was inconclusive.  They requested that I come back and be tested again.

Friday, they let us out for a long lunch, but requested that we keep the TEAMS call rolling but our microphones muted.  I let the TEAMS call operate on auto-pilot and drove to another testing center.  I sat in a line of cars in a giant, cracked, sunbaked Porsche parking lot next to the airport, waiting for my turn to get tested again.

I looked up at the the big, commercial planes flying overhead and suddenly had an overwhelming urge to cry.  I got myself together, just in time to shove the mascara wand up my nose again.

*Title, REM 

The Bubble

The COVID circle continues to tighten.  A close friend got it.  Then Alec's work closed down due to a co-worker having a confirmed case.  Alec had worked with the person and had to get tested again.  It was much different than the first time, he was there over three hours in a line of cars that snaked through a neighborhood and was told to wait seven to ten business days for the result.  It's just coming closer and closer.

School decided to begin classes virtually and re-assess the situation in September.  I am relieved but would really like more information.  Is the teacher start date the same?  And in this talk of budget cuts and furloughs....can we discuss my payment for the next fiscal year, which started on Monday?  Again, I am incredibly relieved that they are not going to force us into an unsafe situation on July 27th.  I just wish we could minimize some of this uncertainty, especially when we are talking salary and schedule.  And as for the Housing Authority, that is still up in the air too.  And it's about 500 degrees in Atlanta right now, Georgia is clocking in at over four thousand new cases a day, the redneck governor is trying to silence our mayor and all of our heroes are dying.

Strange products keep going missing.  I'm not talking about the early explicables like toilet paper, masks, hand sanitizer, yeast, flour and Emergen-C, but really odd, inexplicable stuff.  Windex is gone, which I don't get.  It doesn't have all the anti-bacterial stuff of the other sprays, it's just like benign blue chemical.  My niece tried to make seafood and couldn't find Old Bay anywhere.  Fresca is like a black market item at this point.  Radishes are AWOL.  For a bit, cooking spray was some sort of hot commodity.

Two years ago, I began my thirteenth year teaching, crossing my fingers that I could make it through one more year of abusive bosses and weird-ass interdepartmental insanity, before making a change.  I didn't make it and asked out of my contract during the second week of the school year.  They let me out about six weeks and eight hundred dollars later and I embarked on an extensive tour of schools that lasted four months, only to decide on an ESOL job at a Title I school that actually felt right.  I finished the school year and felt revived, finally, about my place in the universe.  Year fourteen brought COVID and March school shutdowns and the shift to virtual teaching.  Year fifteen begins soon, online.  For almost two years, I have had the sensation that I can't imagine what next month might bring, or how different next year might be and I wonder even more now.  I found it kind of exciting at first.  It still is, but with an underlying feeling of not so nice uncertainty.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

Tell me what you know about dreamin', dreamin'
You ain't really know about nothin', nothin'
Tell me what you know about the night terrors every night 
5AM cold sweats waking up, to the sky
Tell me what you know about dreams
Tell me what you know about night terrors...nothin'
You don't really care about the trials of tomorrow...
I'm in the pursuit of happiness and I know
Everything that shines ain't always gonna be gold

There are a lot of different ways this could have gone down.  I'm not going to start with December, when the U.S. could have had an ear to the ground and started amassing testing kits, PPE and contact tracing.  Let's just go to March, when the cat was not even seeing the bag in its rear view window.

We could have really gone with this.  Stay in.  Get groceries delivered.  Chill.  For a bit.  Watch Netflix.
When we flattened the curve and were reporting few new cases a week...we could have moved to stage two.
People could go out with masks to the grocery store.  Maybe start getting some of those routine, medical appointments done that we get annually.  We really wouldn't need to go to Target or get our nails done or our hair cut.  We can cook our own food instead of making restaurant workers take risks because we are shitty cooks.  We could maybe not go to that lake in a neighboring state this summer.  That could wait.

And then, maybe we would have had this thing under control enough to think about restarting the school year.  We could start later then we normally do and maybe go farther into the summer, in hopes of a vaccine by January.  We could do some sort of small class sizes, everyone with masks and the desks spread out, with kids coming in in stages so that all of them get some sort of in-person instruction and we could make sure they have the technology to work at home a lot of days, or indefinitely, if we had to shut down again.

There are a lot of things that could have been done.  But, they didn't do it.  People simply couldn't behave themselves.  Everyone did the minimum and shot out of the house the minute that they could.  And now, our numbers are crazy and everyone wants their kids to go right back into those classrooms, even though most of society only added to the problem we are having now, instead of doing the right thing.

Alec got sent back to work a couple of weeks ago.  Since then, the circle of people I know with COVID has narrowed.  Before, it was stories I read in the newspaper.  I didn't disbelieve it, but it wasn't anyone I knew.  Since then, a store in the market where Alec works had to close because of a COVID positive case.  The restaurant where my niece and sister work had to close down two locations, because of COVID positive cases.  My niece's best friend got sent home because someone tested positive in the bar he manages.  A friend from college had to close down two of his restaurants because of positive cases.  And then, a close friend of mine contracted it in late June.   The circle is closing.

School starts in the fall, our in Georgia terms, in a little more than two weeks.  My district has not released a plan, but I anticipate full roll out, without even limitations on mask-wearing.  I could spend a lot of time discussing that, but I'm too tired right now.

It's been really hot.  I jogged through the park anyway, with my mask, trying to run some of this out of me.  I heard the man, the whistling man, in the park.  I saw him on his bike, whistling to the trees, to the air, to the world.  I could hear him for blocks.

*Lyrics, Kid Cudi, Pursuit of Happiness

Miles of Gold

"How long do we need to wait before getting tested?"
"I don't know, let me Google it."
"KLB said if we protested, the responsible thing is to get tested."
"Some of these places want a doctor's referral.  Wait, they are turning me away because they say I have to have symptoms.  I did the online registration."
"These tests are only 70% accurate, they give out false negatives."
"They say days eight after exposure has the lowest rates of false negatives, only 20%."
"Wait, I found a place that does a PCR test, it is supposed to be 99.6% effective and you can be asymptomatic."
"It takes 48-72 hours though to get results, what is the point if we go on day eight, and get results on day eleven?  Might as well just stay inside and wait for symptoms until day fourteen."
"I've been called back in to work and I can't walk into that building with all of those people without being tested.  It just wouldn't be right."

We registered online, which in itself was a ridiculous process full of dead links and crashed pages.  We finally got appointments, after several tries on various days, and then headed to the site hours ahead of our appointments.  A police car blocked the driveway to the drive-up clinic.  We drove around.  We came back.  We got in a car line in the Sherwin Williams next door.  We drove away and left.  We called, after never even getting a confirmation of our registration.  No answer. We checked the websites of the Fulton county health department testing sites, and they said we needed to call and register, but no one answered the phone.  We started driving to a Fulton county health department site that friends had said was easy, but turned around because we wanted the accurate test, even though we had to use our insurance to pay for it.  We returned, and Alec walked up to the police car. 

"He said people are waiting in the Waffle House parking lot."
We drove over, parked the car and waited with a bunch of other people sitting in their cars, with masks on.  No one went inside the Waffle House.
The clock was ticking.  The parking lot at the clinic was empty, but the cop car still blocked the entrance.  Cars were lining up again at the Sherwin Williams.  It was ten minutes ahead of our appointment time, but we still hadn't received any sort of directions from the clinic. 

Then, the police car ripped away from the entrance to the clinic. 

I put the car in reverse as quickly as a 2006 Honda Hybrid can move, looking into the mirrors as all of the other cars in the Waffle House parking lot did the same.  I pulled out onto the superhighway-type road, hoping to cut off the Sherwin Williams people that came after we did when I noticed, in horror, that cars were pouring out from all of the massive parking lots on all sides of the clinic, all headed toward the same entrance.  I NASCAR-ed the shit out of it and got into the clinic parking lot.  As soon as no more cars would fit, the cop reappeared and blocked the entrance, leaving god knows how many competing cars driving around N. Decatur and Lawrenceville Highway, until the entrance would open again. 

Three months into the pandemic, I don't know about you, but I am really tired of winning. 

Take it Away

There is a small little yellow house, on the southwest corner of Grant Park.  Right behind the zoo.  But it's not a house, it is a police precinct.  It's a few minutes walking distance from my home.  I jog past it all the time.  Probably for the last twenty-odd years, even before we bought our home.  They are Zone 3 police.  I remember when I first started living around here the Zone 3 police were in the newspaper all the time for extorting money from drug houses for protection.  Then, though Zone 3 is housed in my community, we are policed by Zone 6.  Zone 3 continues to nearly kill anyone in their path when they tear up the street in front of my house, only to turn their lights off the minute they see food. The police that killed Rayshard Brooks are stationed there.

I'm disgusted that murderers drove down my streets and through my neighborhood, everyday.  That I jogged past them.  And then, when protestors engulfed their precinct they came out like in a way that shocked me.

"The helicopters are really loud tonight...."  Alec and I mentioned to each other, last Saturday, the 13th.  We weren't budging, we were only less than a week from being exposed to large crowds.
I looked at the photos and videos of what had happened mere minutes from my home Sunday morning.  The most terrifying parts were when rows of police stood in full riot gear, calmly, only to charge at our residents on cue, swinging clubs and throwing tear gas.  All because people, residents, decided that those police didn't belong here.

Papí and I walked down there the following night, with our masks.  Dozens and dozens of police cars blocked the road between our house and there's, they just sat there, parked.  At least forty cops in riot gear stood in front of the cars.  We cut through the back streets to the other side of the park.  A tank-like military vehicle was parked at the corner of the park, flanked by at least fifty-more cops in riot gear.  Atlanta avenue glowed with unmarked cars, all the way up to Boulevard.  The Atlanta ATV guys, the ones that tear through traffic en masse came.  I could hear their engines coming closer and then, I saw dozens of them at the top of the hill, looking down at the almost military like force of police.  In formation, they backed up and road away.

The police stared at us.  And stood around, joking with each other.  If anyone got too close, they shined flash lights in their eyes and yelled "Get back!"
They were really comfortable and it infuriated me.  This is my neighborhood.  None of these cops belonged here.  I have more right to this ground and they were the ones that needed to leave.  And they were all here to defend the murderers that they housed in that little yellow house.

I've heard that most of those guys, I don't use the word 'pigs' because pigs are dignified creatures worthy of respect, got a case of the blue flu the last few days.  I'm glad they are gone.  I jogged past the area where the park and it was nearly devoid of their personal vehicles as well as their po-cars.  But I burn again in my stomach when think of what would happen if I, as a public school teacher, sat in the parking lot and refused to to teach.  I don't understand this power, or this relationship with the community.

I can't imagine saying that I won't work unless I get to kill people.  And, that it would be rewarded.

Fourteen Days

"Do we protest, march, just to make ourselves feel better, aggrandize ourselves?"
"Do protests or marches actually make any difference?"
"Do we protest just to say we did something, if anyone asks?"

I've done some activist type things.   More than marching, but yes, I have marched before.  Some of them were wildly boring and uneventful.  I wondered why I was there.  Other things, not marches, I worried I would be jailed, for more than one night.  I've taken action too, wether it was voting, or cooking in a migrant shelter, leaving water in the desert or making a difference in my day to day life with the way I view and react to Black people and other minorities.  Here I am, talking myself up.  But this one freaked me out.  The virus.

"I don't want to get sick."
"These protests are different.  The numbers are making a difference.  They need bodies."
"I hear them.  They're here.  Get your mask, let's go."

And we went.  I was happy about all the pop-up marches, not just marches in downtown Atlanta, but marches in Kennesaw, Stonecrest, Athens, everywhere.  When we heard the chant coming down our street, we went.

We marched with them up the street and around the block.  Then, they gathered in the park and Alec and I split.  For downtown.  We walked to the Capital and when no one was there, we went to Centennial.  It felt like a river that swept us up immediately and we walked.  And walked.  We kept our masks on and held hands the whole time, never letting go.  The street was full.  Traffic was blocked by the stream of people, but the cars that we blocked raised fists in the air, Black fists, cheering and screaming.  We were in midtown and sheets hung from the balconies, declaring that BLACK LIVES MATTER.  A man, a young organizer, yelled instructions through a megaphone, telling us when to go right when on-coming traffic was coming, or when to run to the sidewalk altogether.  All I could see were blocks of people in front of me and blocks of people behind me.  In midtown, he told us to take a knee.

"Ya'll are starting stuff and you can't do that.  She'll call the curfew on us again and you have to stop.  When you hear this beep beep from my megaphone, I have something to say and it's important.  Let's go."
We simultaneously stood.  And marched.
We were headed back south to my part of town.  I heard a car, squealing, and started to run, dragging Alec with me.  Charlottesville was all I could think.  I saw a man, in a sports car, his back wheels squealing and dragging, creating mountains of smoke.  He was Black, and his fist was out the window while he screamed into the air.

We marched back to Centennial, and then Alec and I walked home the extra mile.  We didn't really talk.  We just went home.

I've Got No Words

"Um, we are under curfew now so.....it's almost nine...."  I mentioned hesitantly to the men repairing our toilet.  Yes, the toilet that decided to nearly fall through what ended up being a rotten subfloor, which also had to be rebuilt.  In the middle of a pandemic, when I would prefer to be about twenty feet away from all humanity but cannot live without peeing.
"Do you think they will stop people on the highways?"  one of the repair men responded.  I found myself worrying about his skin, his slightly darker skin and what the police would do to a man of his color driving down the street after curfew while protests against America's treatment of black people filled the streets of our city and spread across every state in the nation.
"I don't know," I answered, "I've never experienced something like this."
It was the first night of curfew, after the protest erupted the Friday night before.

People that aren't from Atlanta don't really know the layout.  No one lives downtown, in the business district where the tall buildings are.  We just don't.  We live in neighborhoods with different names within the city of Atlanta that surround the downtown area where people work or go to school.  My neighborhood is one of the closer ones to downtown, about one mile from the Capital, even closer as the crow flies.  I can see its gold dome when I walk around the neighborhood.

Soon there was the ever present buzz of helicopters.  Sirens screaming and cops speeding down my street on their way downtown.  Ambulance sirens.  Convoys of police trucks all headed in the same direction.  The National Guard driving military vehicles in front of our houses.  And worse, later, when it got darker, loud booms resonated from downtown while we watched the news on TV, impotent, while they tear gassed the protestors and fired rubber bullets at them.  A mile away.

After days of protest in Minneapolis, Atlanta finally got going on Friday, the 29th.  Our mayor appeared on the television, begging protestors to go home and to not destroy things.  I voted for Keisha Lance Bottoms and I believe in her.  I believe in black leadership for the city of Atlanta.  It can be no other way.  She seemed honestly in fear for the protestors and in fear of what people might lose if their stores were destroyed.  Immediately after, T.I. took the microphone with the same message, followed by an impassioned speech by Killer Mike.  I turned my face to the side so that Alec wouldn't see that my eyes were tearing up.  I could only imagine how hard it was for them to implore the protestors to not destroy things when in the back of my mind all I could think was tear it up....tear it up....no one pays attention unless you do....we deserve it....we deserve this place to be burnt to the ground.....Berenice King followed Killer Mike and my emotions swirled with love for my city and the eloquence of our community leaders, combining with immense sadness and anger.  I can't breathe.... his haggard voice filled my ears and I squinted my eyes to avoid the image in my brain of his face, crushed under the knee of a nonchalant cop.

The buzz of the helicopters continued and I continued, sitting in my house, one mile away, watching the news.  Day three, I noticed a different kind of buzz.  By Sunday, I saw things on Facebook and whispers from neighbors that "they" were going to target residential neighborhoods.  WHITE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS.  I love my house and obviously would prefer it wasn't burned down, but it sounded ridiculous.  THEY were coming for us.  I saw the buzz from Grant Park to Decatur and even worse, people in fear that their Target store might get hit.  Oh, god forbid the Target.  I like Target too, I buy a pair of flip flops there every summer and even a pair of cheap sunglasses but jesus christ, you care more about a Target store than what this really means?  A man died, another man died.  I looked out on my street that night and saw that a number of houses had their lights off, as if you closed your eyes no one could see you, even though you are the one with your eyes closed.

One of my neighbors ran afoul during a COVID construction project in their backyard and ended up on our front porch with masks on.  They brought a bottle of wine, which I uncorked immediately and basically put in juice glasses.  We realized the minute that we drank it that it was exceptional wine, and we later found out it was the most expensive wine we had ever swilled and that they were asking us for something special.  When I realized we were flanked by another high-priced neighbor, I felt like a Beverly Hillbilly.

I watched when the tree men came to cut down the oak.  They had a 100 foot crane.  When they sawed at my oak, which is even taller and older, I winced.  And I stood in my yard and watched.  But then, I stayed.  I saw a rustling way up in the beautiful tree that was coming down on our property line and realized there was a man, way up in it, suspended by only ropes, with a large chainsaw hanging off of his ass.  I was stunned.  I sat there for four hours, watching this guy work in coordination with the crane, cutting the tree down, limb by limb.  I cringed when they took large limbs off from over the top of my house, the crane swinging from side to side, mere feet from my roof and kitchen windows.  I watched and I watched.

Soon, they were down to the trunk.  I watched while they cut off ten feet.  And then another ten feet.  Then, they cut off the rest.  It was large and round.  It took a really long time for the chainsaw to get through the base and then, the claws of the crane lifted it into the air and through the sky over the yard.  It looked like a human body.

I watched it, suspended and swaying in the air and cried like I haven't in a long time.

Stuck in the Middle With You

I took hydroxychloroquine once.  Or, for like multiple weeks.  I had malaria.  I have never been that sick in my life and it was hard to get my hands on it in the United States.  I was twenty-eight and weighed 135 pounds.  I was not a seventy-something year old fat man taking it for off-label, false preventive measures.

I dreamed that I saw Steve climbing on the rocks the other night.  When I woke up, I was sad that it was just a dream.
I had another dream about my dead friend, Margaret.  She was leading me through a mall with empty classrooms, again.  But it wasn't sad.  It was just weird.

I'm going to have to say something about the Rona, the COVID, whatever the fuck you want to call it.  Three things could have happened.  In November-December, it was obvious there was some janky shit happening.  We are the United States of fucking America, and anyone saying that there were no ears to the ground is crazy.  Or, negligent, which brings up le'Orange.  Inclusive, massive testing should have been put in place, as well as contact tracing, before all this shit hit us.  PPE.  Get the beds ready.  We wouldn't have had to shut down like this, which was the last choice because nothing was left.  And now... now.  A culture war.  le'Orange created a shut down because of lack of planning and then, rallied against it, saying it was some sort of violation of human rights.  The mighty le'Orange has won again. 

I'm from Michigan.  My mom moved us to Georgia when I was ten, but I still have an affinity for the state.   When I see "protestors" wearing tactical gear, Confederate flags and carrying massive weapons, I have doubts.  Those are not ordinary activists.  Those are people that have an agenda and were probably shipped in.  When I see random folks that joined them, out of fear for their livelihoods, I wondered why the state and the feds didn't provide enough for them to stay safe and stay home.

My mom gave five hundred dollars. She sent it to my account and I took it out in twenties, along with another two hundred other folks put in.  I bought a bunch of potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, fresh things and dried things:  rice, macaroni, whatever.  I drove the car onto the ramp and entered the abnormally vacant highway.  I haven't been that far away from my house in months.  The large, electronic signs that usually warn of traffic jams and accidents instead said "SICK?  STAY HOME"  and "SIX FEET DISTANCING".   I drove to my student's house and knocked on the door.  It was flimsy.  All the dogs were barking and no one was answering.  But I knew they were there and was relieved when I heard foot steps and their mom opened a window on the rickety second floor.
"Come to the other door..."  she said, poking her head out and smiling.  The steps to the other door looked kind of crazy.
I climbed up the steps and placed the bags of food in front of the door, the envelope of money hidden between the produce.  She opened the door and my little girls peered around it, still in their pajamas.

I smiled and waved and ran back to Alec's car, hoping this would help them at all.