Musketeers

"You guys have to understand that when it gets warm outside, Steve is going to want to leave.  He'll want to be with his people, maybe meet the ladies....I've been leaving the top of his terrarium open and so far, he's been choosing to stay with us....but we have to be ready for that to change...."
I looked at the small brown and sometimes green lizard that had taken up residence in the trailer's recycling bin.  He had remained so long that I decided to buy him a small "bedroom" so that he might be more comfortable, and safely enclosed so that he could be hidden from the custodians and not free roam when it wasn't safe.  Forty-five dollars worth of moss, hollowed-out log, feeding dishes and freeze-dried crickets.
"Maybe the ladies will come to him...." Juan mentioned absent-mindedly, eyes glued to the little lizard inside his terrarium in the middle of the table.
"I think Steve will be a gentleman."  Faba seconded, never removing his eyes from the lizard.

"Um, we may have made a mistake when selecting Xavier as our HBCU."  I informed my after-school group.
"What do you mean?!"  Habiba asked, "I researched it myself!"
"I know, I am totally confused.  Miss Evelyn says that there is more than one Xavier and that we picked the...um, you guys, I think we may have picked the white school."  I responded, whispering the end.
"WHAT????"  the group exclaimed, mouths open.
"And their mascot, it's got um, a weird name.  It's like...,"  I lowered my voice, "gold digger, or something like that."
Habiba's eyes widened.
"I am not calling myself that."
"Yeah, I feel you.  Let's stick with Musketeers."  I answered.

I stood in the front office of the school, waiting to check-out my testing materials.  I heard a scuffle in the hall and looked left just in time to see a student in the hall punch an administrator in the arm as two adults struggled to subdue him.
"Bitch!"  he yelled, as parents and children looked on.

I knelt beside Prem's desk, watching him do Math work.  Something caught my attention and I made myself still, willing my ears to rotate like satellites.
"Wa chee ho hon...hee ho hon...."
I looked to my left.  A student was making what appeared to be "Chinese" sounds, derogatory imitations of what he thought any old east Asian language would sound like, while staring at Prem.  He locked eyes with me.  I looked down at his paper and noticed his name, one of the students that had been identified as violent and aggressive and to be avoided at all costs.
"What are you doing?"  I asked firmly, not giving a shit who he was.
"Nothing." he responded.
I looked at Prem.  He was hunched over his work, assuming a submissive, beaten-down posture I had never seen him use before.  His eyes stared straight at his paper.
Prem is a superstar.  He is wildly intelligent, funny and subversive.  He can literally jump three feet in the air whenever he feels like it.  I had never seen him that way.
The intercom cut-in.
"TEACHERS, WE ARE IN A CODE THREE LOCKDOWN."
We slammed the lights off, closed the door and locked it and herded the children behind desks, attempting to make them invisible to anyone peering through windows.  I put my arm around Prem's shoulder and pulled him to a safe place, slamming glowing Chromebooks as I pushed my back to the wall with Prem crouched at my feet, my body between him and the door.
Code three is the highest level and I knew it was real.  No one would call a code three, lock down drill fifteen minutes before dismissal for the day.
We remained that way, until the lock down was dismissed.
Prem looked at me.
"Can we go see the lizard?"
"Yes, let's go see Steve."  I answered.
We walked on the wooded path behind the school.  A school-system police car was parked in front of my trailer.  Another, real police car sat in front of the school.  We walked past and entered the trailer, where Prem sat and stared at Steve, his eyes alight with joy.

I drove to the Housing Authority, weary from days of conducting ACCESS testing and basically, everything else.
"When Justice Roberts refused to read Rand Paul's question exposing the whistleblower's name, he left the Senate chamber during the hearing and conducted his own news conference, reading the whistleblower's name to reporters."
Cunt-faced piece of shit, I found myself muttering, suddenly enraged.  Fuck it all, right?  If you don't get what you want, just do what you want to do, who the fuck cares?  Nothing really matters anyway, right?

I drove home on Friday, Steve riding shotgun in his terrarium.
"Take good care of Steve this weekend!" Adriana had called, waving over her shoulder as she jumped into her mom's car that afternoon.
I looked in at Steve.  He was inside his hollowed-out log, his head nestled next to the wall, eyes closed in a way that made him look like a cat or a puppy, not a reptile.  He didn't move for a really long time, not when I picked up the terrarium, not when I carried it to the car, not when I started the car.  He looked kind of yellow.

I listened to the final arguments, or basically pleading from Democrats for witnesses, of the Senate impeachment trial on the radio.
I over looked at Steve's motionless body and started to cry.