Dreaming is Free

"Oh" the first grade teacher repeated.

"Oh".  
The first graders scribbled furiously on their white boards, trying to correctly spell the word.  
"Times up!"  the teacher called.
I heard a little gasp.

I looked across the room at the sea of white boards.  Nothing like staring at a million white squares with "ho" inscribed on them at eight o'clock in the morning.  

"Over thirty school staff members in Georgia have died of Covid in the first six weeks of school....."  the local NPR station announced as I drove down the pitch black highway on my way to work.  Many of my classes have the telltale signs of quarantine.  First, one student is missing.  Then, two rows of students surrounding the missing student's desk disappear for a couple of weeks.  Then, some gaunt looking kids return, eyes a little bigger and skin stretched more tightly across their faces.  Oddly, the adults that spend all day in these rooms are never really addressed, or quarantined.   It's like a weird open secret at the school.  

Ku was having a moment.  I had taken the wood-backed eraser away from him that he was pounding repeatedly on the table.  

"Sit in this chair."  I commanded in the most neutral tone I could muster.  

He shook his head and crossed his arms, obstinately.  

"Okay.  Let's continue....."  I said to the rest of the class.   I was going to try to ignore him and hope he didn't start ripping the whole classroom apart.  He started crying hysterically and climbed under a table.  I kept trying to teach.  The kids stared at me with open concern and shock.  They wanted me to fix it.  

"Ku, why are you so upset?  Please come out from under the table."

He ripped his mask off and threw it across the room.  He followed by throwing a wooden block at me.  

"Ku.  You have to put on the mask or this face shield.  Which one?"

"No!" he yelled and climbed out from under the table.

He got an inch from my face and coughed in it.  His face registered complete defiance.  My hands were starting to shake from being so pissed off.

"The mask or the shield."  I continued, holding them both out.  

He pushed toward me, crying, and started hugging me.

"Ku...I just don't understand, why are you so upset?"

He grabbed a tissue, wiped his face with it and threw it on floor at my feet, his face defiant again.  

"Put that in the trash."  I said, again trying to maintain a neutral tone.  

He grabbed another tissue and rubbed his wet mask with it over and over, all while crying his head off.  Then, he put it on, took my hand and we walked with the group back to his regular class.  

Lola's radiation site no longer has scabs on it.  And the pink skin is starting to get a gray, five o'clock shadow.  It reminds me of the hills around Tijuana in early spring, when bright green moss-like buds begin to overtake the barren peaks.  

"We're moving."  Paw Ku announced.

"WHAT?"  I responded.

"No."

"Well....something happened.  My mom was going somewhere and my grandma asked where she was going.  My mom said 'none of your business' and my uncle attacked her and beat her.  She has red and yellow and black bruises all over her legs....."

"They look really bad."  Bway Pa seconded.

"My mom didn't call the cops because he might come and get us if we did.  My dad came home and said we are out of there."

I was speechless.

The phone on my desk started ringing.  The call was coming from inside the building.  Always a bad sign.

"Hey, this is Wagner." I answered.

"They're here.  THE FAMILY IS HERE.  Did you ever get an interpreter?"

"I emailed two different people at the central office several times and got our principal involved.  No one is answering me."  I responded.  I didn't mention that I nearly have an ulcer from the rage this is provoking. 

"Okay, can you come up here?  I have to ask you a favor, too."

"Oh no.  Okay."  I answered.

"That kid of yours, the one that hits everyone.  He hit another kid and started throwing food all over the cafeteria.  I called dad and he pretended he didn't understand me.  Will you tell him in Spanish what happened so that he can't pretend he doesn't know?"

"Sure, but I'm texting him because every time I call he keeps me on the phone for a half an hour and I don't have time for that.  Where are Ku's parents?  Are we going to get him evaluated for special ed?"

"I had to send them home.  They couldn't understand me."

I saw the "We Are Karen" jersey when I looped behind the cafeteria to enter the school because our key badges aren't working again.  I knew it was Ku's dad, waiting for him.  

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry..."  I said immediately.

"It's okay, okay" he responded, with the same bright, open, kind eyes of all the Karen people I met in Thailand, twenty years ago.  He should have been pissed.  

"I'll fix this.  I promise."  I said, and walked away.