A Message to You, Rudy

"Stop your messing around...better think of your future...." the song rang in my headphones, but not loud enough.  I was walking through the park and the fountain was frozen.

It's funny, but not funny.  Terry Hall died.  I always thought that the Specials were the coolest of the ska bands.  But you know what?  That was a long time ago.  I used to go to this place called the Metroplex.  I started going there when I was fourteen or fifteen.  It was downtown, and I loved it.  I couldn't drive and I would bum rides off anyone just to be there.  I saw tons of cool punk bands and it lead to this massive love of music that used to encompass all of my Saturdays, when my old best dead friend and I would spend the day going to every record store in town looking for albums, then eat burritos or pizza at the local places that aren't around anymore.  

Even when I was in my thirties, I would trudge up the hill in Tijuana, listening to "You're Wondering Now"  on my iPod.  A good friend of mine in college used to play that on an acoustic guitar, at Sylvia's Atomic Cafe in Candler Park.  It's obviously not there anymore.  

You never know how much you have lost until it's gone, Terry.  

These months have been weird.  World Cup occupied a lot of my non-work time.  I am not really into sports, but World Cup does something for me.  The Mexico national team does something for me.  I was shocked when Ochoa blocked the Polish goal, and I was on my feet, screaming.  I haven't felt something that spontaneous and real for a while.  

Lola's latest surgery came back non-malignant.  I cleaned the house and the car.   I took a super shower and plan to bathe Lola, too.  We will be clean and ready for the new year.  

Ready.  

*Title, The Specials

On Top of the World

"You are the one, you're the one in my heart, you're my darling, my life's greatest thrill...."  I sang lowly while trying to criss cross across traffic on the downtown connector.  Lola was barking loudly from the backseat, eyes red, afraid.  

She actually started calming down.

"My cherie amour...pretty as a summer's day...you're the only one that I adore, makes all the gray skies go away....."  I continued, making up lyrics as I tried to make it to the vet.  

She had a little surgery a week ago.  Thankfully, non-malignant, and I was trying to get her stitches out before the snow thunder cold tornado thing hit the southeast.  We have been going outside of the perimeter since her vet retired and Lola had cancer.   It sucks going out there, but I like this vet.  

I've been out of school for almost a week.  I'm a little stressed.  My students got their annual books, Hannukah has been a success, I have to keep watching my work email for Rafael paperwork, got the lights on the tree, hate mail from the new teacher that will be Rafael's teacher when we return and I needed to watch Lola so she wouldn't pull her stitches out and clean the house for my family's Christmas gathering.  And buy a bunch of presents and food.   

I kept waking up, worrying about getting Lola to the vet.  She can't wear her harness because of the location of her stitches.  Just a flimsy collar.  The vet is on a really busy road.  I'd lay there at five in the morning, thinking about it.  

"Ask your sister to come with you.  Or get those vet people to help you get her out of the car.  Don't do it alone."  Alec told me, repeatedly.  

I did it alone.  

The morning of Lola's appointment, I went to the Farmer's Market to get food and shit for the gathering, and a steak for Lola.  It was awful, but I was up and moving, even wearing my Golden Girls velour tracksuit and letting idiots crash their carts into me while I cage fought for the shit I wanted.  And then, when I was almost done, I reached into my purse and my wallet wasn't there.  I almost hid my cart under a shelf and ran away, but I knew I would only end up back again during Snowmaggeden and I had to get Lola to the vet.  I texted my sister.

"We are on our way with cash."  she responded.  

They were there in twenty minutes, epic Atlanta traffic navigation.

I unloaded the shit and got back in the car with Lola and sang my way through traffic.

She barked at the vet techs.  We all held her down while the pulled out the stitches.  One part wasn't all the way healed and we held her down again while the put some sort of skin glue on it so it would continue healing.  I don't like doing this to my dog.

I was glad that we were out of there, only the stressful journey home to go, during horrific traffic.  And then, Lola wouldn't get in the car.  She kept going between my legs, trying to pull out of her collar.  I kept staring at the street, knowing everything that I did was wrong.  It went on and on for probably fifteen minutes.  This was all my fault.  If  my dog got out of that collar, she would be in that street and dead.  And that, I can't take.  

The teenage girls that work the front desk of the vet finally came out.  They had the treats that my dumbass forgot and helped me get Lola in the car.  My chest was so tight I thought I was about to die.  I would have bought them Fetanyl if they asked me to, out of pure gratitude.  

I cleaned the house today, with Karen Carpenter helping me.  The whole place smells like Fabuloso and no one ever loved her, baby.   

I wish every one of you luck in the new year.  Beauty and love.  I honestly wish all of us everything.  

Rainy Days and Mondays

"YOU NEED TO CLEAN YO BUTT!"  the girl screamed in the middle of the math class I have to push-in to.  She was up, on her feet, one of the fighting girls from last year.  Big.  She could beat my ass in a minute.  

"HE TOLD ME I HAVE GINGIVITIS!"  she continued screaming.  

Gingivitis.  I never knew that was a big issue.  I really didn't care if she beat the other dickhead's ass.  I just kept trying to do math with my kids. 

"Everyone, I need you in the Media Center.  Five minutes.  It's important."  I heard the announcement and ran around the building until a door would accept my key card.  I don't prop the easiest doors open anymore.  We all used too, because the thingy is broken and it's a pain in the ass.  But, Uvalde.  

"I wanted you to hear this before you saw it on the news."  the administrator started.  Her voice broke.  She is not a crier.  Did someone die? Did someone get shot?

"We are on the list....the list...."

Oh god.  The list.  The one the DOE released a few days ago.  The list of the lowest performing, Title One schools in the state.  Yay us.  Bottom five percent of the worst schools in Georgia.  

"He gave my kids the finger!!!  He drew it on a paper and showed it to them!  He is insulting my students!"

He IS one of your students.  

I watched the meanest teacher in the school back Rafael into a corner, physically, for the second time in a week.  Screaming at him.  I watched Rafael's eyes, I knew he wanted to cry.  But, after you've crossed the Darién Gap, you learn to be tough.  

I watched Baby Gustavo organize the vis-a-vis pens in rainbow order.  The Hispanic kid that is not ESOL though everyone thinks he is grabbed the pens, sending several of them flying across the floor.  I picked them up and rearranged them in rainbow order.  Baby Gustavo looked at me and nodded.

"I'm OCD,  too."  he whispered.  

"HEY!  You're giving them the answers!" a teacher yelled at me while I tried to scaffold a lesson for one of my students.  

I snapped.

"You are denying them services.   They are in ESOL for a reason.  You barely let me pull them out, which is fine, but when I'm in that room you won't even let me speak to them.  They are in this program for a reason."

It was a full argument, in the hall, in front of other teachers and students.  And, it's not over.  

Rafael should have been in Intensive English.  I reached out to my coordinator when he arrived and we agreed that I was keeping him, because we both thought it would be too much change for him to change again.  I couldn't stop thinking about him, in that class, not being taught, those big eyes filling with tears.  

"So Rafael, my big mystery.  Tell me more..."  I sort of started.

"Well,"  he started in Spanish.  "We left when I was six."

He's almost nine now.

"The selva was awful.  Robbers.  It was not all felicidad."
"I'm sure it wasn't."  I responded.

"So, I went to this school in Chiapas for a minute.  They were racist."

"Because you're Black...."

"Yeah."

"I was in Tijuana, too." he continued.  

"Tijuana....I lived there....."  I responded.

"I was there twice, we got deported back there after we crossed."

"Oh Rafael.  I am so sorry."  

It was all I could say.  To think, he was in Tijuana, where I know so many people.  And he was there.  

Bottom five percent of schools in the whole state.  I thought of it over and over again.  And then, I emailed my coordinator.  We had to save him.  My school was not good for him.  

"CALL ME ASAP."  was the reply.  

I called her, while pacing in the same hallway where I argued with that teacher.  

"There are options.  We have to serve the whole child.   By the time they get Intensive English worked out the school year will almost be over.  There are options."

"Tell me."  I responded. 

"Are you willing to tutor him, before or after school?"

"Yes."  I responded.

"You should think about this."  she answered.

"I said yes.  I don't have to think about it."

"We are putting him in third grade.  He is only eight.  His birthday is on Christmas.  You will tutor him every morning from seven until seven forty-five, before your classes begin. You will be paid.  I am getting you a Rosetta Stone subscription.  Please stop crying, Ms. Wagner.  And, what is wrong with those people at your school?"

"I don't know."

*Title, The Carpenters

A Buen Hambre No Hay Mal Pan

I watched as the cold/flu spread through the faculty and students.  

"Y'all, I don't know if you saw our parking lot yesterday.  It was empty."  our principal announced during a quickie staff meeting.

"Thank you.  Just thank you.  Thank you so much for....coming today.  Lord, Ms. Kake had like, the whole first grade in one room and she doesn't even teach first grade.  Ms. Heard and Ms. Carr both had their babies and we have three more pregnant teachers on the way to leave.  Mr. Taylor got promoted to another school and Ms. Terry, well she quit.  Ms. Kent, you know she had a family member pass away and now she's got a pneumonia...."

It just went on and on and on.

"If y'all can eat with your classes in the cafeteria....I hate to ask but we have no one to do lunch duty.  You can leave the minute the kids leave at the end of the day if you could just eat in there.....you can wear jeans, too.  Whatever you want.....just come back, okay?'

And then, I got sick.

My phone started blowing up by about ten in the morning.  Texts from multiple people, apologizing, but filled with comments about a mysterious kid that showed up from Venezuela.  Mom didn't speak English.  No one knew what to do and they were using phone apps to communicate with them.  Getting him registered was apparently complicated.   I started looking up what stuff I could find on him from my couch.  The state longitude system wasn't telling me shit but I at least was able to start a transcript request. I came back to work the next day, even though I still felt shitty.  

I walked into the front office to sign-in and saw an anxious looking administrator standing there.

"I don't mean to jump on you right when you walk in but....." her eyes gazed to the left at a little girl and her mom sitting there.

"They're from Panama."

I don't usually get "off the boat" kids.  Most of my students were either born in the United States of immigrant parents or arrived as refugees or asylum seekers when they were less than five years old.  Now, I had two in one week. 

My mom's dog died recently.  I have avoided mentioning it because it is awful.  That is all that I have to say about that.  

"Wagner, your gonna have to help me.  That boy, Rafael, he won't keep his narrow butt in that seat.  He's up, all over the place, all the time.  He even started eating chips in the middle of class."  the meanest teacher in the school announced as soon as I walked through the classroom door.  

I stared at the little boy from Venezuela.  I was still trying to figure out why an eight year-old was placed in fourth grade, but I digress.  I told him quickly in Spanish that he should stay in his seat and not eat in class.   Then I looked back at the teacher, hoping she was satisfied.  

I sat next to the little boy and tried to talk to him a little.   His English was pretty good and his Spanish, obviously beautiful.  I asked him which town he was from in Venezuela.  He answered 'Caracas' like there was no other city in Venezuela.  When I asked him if he missed it, he breathed in deeply and responded 'yes'.  I looked at his clean but dingy short-sleeved white t-shirt and his skinny arms sticking out from it.  Wide, hyper eyes.  Funky street-wise, fake leather falling apart jacket slung over the chair.  Thin Mickey Mouse printed pants that appeared to be pajama bottoms.  And, a huge smile.  

They were just going to have to get used to his narrow butt and show some compassion.  

How the Moon and the Sun Came to Live in the Sky

I saw Ms. Ranier wearily rubbing her face when I entered the front office.

"It's been that kind of day...."  I mentioned, while signing out.

"Girl, yes.  Some kid pooped in the urinal in that bathroom." she said, motioning across the hall.

"AND IT SMELLED TERRIBLE."

"That kid of yours, Melinda, those noises she makes are weird."  I mentioned to Ms. Martin.  I'll be working with my students in her classroom and all I hear are these growling noises coming from Melinda, who is usually seated behind me.  

"Yeah, she's getting better about it in class, but now she does it in the cafeteria.  She waits until it's totally silent and lets out a long snarl."

"He gone, you know.  Bobby gone."

"Wait, what, what do you mean?"

One or two, one or two.  Big Bobby, the guy at the gas station where I buy my beer.  

"What happened?"  I asked.

"Was it bad, what happened?"

"Over there, in that park.  Fentanyl.  He gone."

I looked over at the "Hill Street Beauty Spot", a weird, roadside area across the street from the gas station.  He died there, alone.  The guy that always hung out with my friend that sits in a wheelchair, as if it is a regular chair.  One or two, you gettin' one or two, he asked me for years when I'd pull up. 

"I just saw him."  I responded.

I sat on the dirty floor of my trailer at seven thirty in the morning, rigging my brand new bookshelf back together with wood filler and duct tape.  Then I sort of turned it upside down so the repair was less visible and piled the books back on it.  

I finished reading a folktale to Muriel about how the sun and the moon came to live in the sky.  Water visited their house and pushed them up to the sky after filling the house with itself and sea creatures.  

"So Muriel, what do you think is the message of this story?"  I asked.

"DON'T LET BIG PEOPLE IN YOUR HOUSE!"  she exclaimed.  

"My mom is taking me to see llamas after school today."  one of Muriel's table-mates informed me.

"Oh wow!  That's awesome!  I would love to do that."  I responded.

"I'll ask my mom to call and invite you."  he replied sweetly, and continued working on his paper.  

I got some beer from the gas station.  My friend in the wheelchair wasn't there, no one was.  I cut across a side street behind this church.  Everyone was double parked and a lot of people were in the parking lot.  I realized it was a funeral and shoved our car on the side of the street, ass of it nearly in the intersection.  A Black cop on a motorcycle hissed out, beginning the procession and then, two massive black horses pulled out, dragging a shiny black glass-windowed carriage with a casket inside, adorned with flowers.  A black limo followed and another Black cop on motorcycle closed the gap as men ran into the street, trying to clear the road.  

The horses galloped down Hill Street, headed south, dragging the carriage with the casket behind it.  

*Title derived from Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky

It Was Another Day

"We would like to request mercy from the court, she needs help."  the lawyer requested.  

"Explain the nature of the incident."  the judge responded.

"She arrived to work drunk and a co-worker asked if she could drive her home.  She grabbed the co-worker by the neck, said that she would choke her out and threatened to kill her several times."

I think about that day in court kind of regularly.  It was easy to want mercy for the lady in shackles until you heard the actual thing that she did.  The judge was Republican-appointed and a member of the Federalist Society.   I was stunned when she did just that, showed mercy in sentencing.  

"Did you see Alfred's new haircut?"  Mya asked with a smirk.

Alfred.  The boy who harassed her so terribly.  We never speak his name.

"Yeah."  I responded, before laughing involuntarily.  It really was an awful haircut, unfortunately making a really fucking pervy kid look exactly like a warped penis-head.  

"He had a crush on Mya."  Pway announced.

"Yeah....I heard that."  I answered, shaking my head.  I don't know if I would call sexual harassment a 'crush', but ten year olds don't always know the correct terms.  

"He just needs to close it."  Mya responded.

"Yes, yes he does.  And he better keep it closed."  I answered.

"And, he's never going to get anyone with that hair."  Mya continued.  

We all started laughing.  

"They gonna jump her!"  Demetrius announced as we walked up the hill away from the school.

Here we go again, I thought.  The Hale girls.  I walked up beside the new fifth grade girl.  

"Are they threatening you?"  I mumbled under my breath.

"Yes." she answered.

"She been sayin' all day that she was going to get me on the way home."

The girl pulled out her phone and moments later, a car pulled up at the corner and she jumped inside.  

I didn't even know her name.  I walked back to school and alerted the admin.

The third meanest teacher in the school stepped out of the classroom for a minute.  I was leaning over Mario's desk, trying to help him with some classwork when I heard it.

"Hey, cómo está?"  a kid said mockingly to the class.

Mario and I locked eyes.  Is this what we thought it was?

"Ching chong, ching chong!"  another kid seconded.  

"That's racist."  a third kid announced.

"Stop."

They continued.  

I cornered the boys with the third meanest teacher.  She ripped into them, inches from their faces, while I stood impotently behind her.  They tried to say they didn't do anything.

"Get over here!"  she yelled to the kid that had tried to stop the comments.

"What'd they say?"  she yelled.

"They were pretending to speak Spanish and then they started saying 'ching chong'."  he said, matter of factly.

"He was directing it at them,"  he continued, motioning to Mya and Pway.

"They think that they are Chinese and that they talk like that."  he finished, before shrugging and sitting back down. 

Sun came up it was another day

And the sun went down

You were blown away....

I sat in the dark club on a Tuesday night, listening to the sad lyrics sail through the air, all while trying not to feel sad. 

Why'd you ever let it get that far.....

The new fifth grader was standing next to me at the front of the walker line.  She usually kept her distance, it is not exactly the coolest thing for a new fifth grader to be hanging around teachers, especially not the white one.  

"Are your people coming for you again today?"  I asked quietly.

"No.  My uncle gotta work.  No one will be home 'til later."  

"Stay close to me.  I'll walk your way but pretend I'm not with you."

She nodded quickly back at me, eyes darting away.  

She walked about ten feet ahead of me and the three Hale girls hovered directly behind me.  An angry mom stood at the top of the hill, waiting for the middle Hale girl that had been harassing her daughter.  As we got closer, the mom mumbled,  "Get in the car.  I gotta work." and drove away.

As we breached the top of the hill, I took a right and kept walking toward the new girl's house.  The other harassee passed by, screaming "YOU UGLY!!!!" at the Hale girls from the window of her mom's car.  

"Ms. Wagner, why you walking so far?"  the oldest Hale called.

"Seems like a nice day for a walk."  I answered.

"Naw, why don't you go back to the school?"  she responded, a tight smile on her face.

"I'm good."  I answered and kept walking.

I made the right turn where the Hale girls were supposed to turn left.  They followed us to the right.  

"Aren't you guys going the wrong way?"  I asked, stalling a little while the new girl gained more ground and got closer to her house.  

Finally, the Hale girls ran back in the direction of their house.  I stood at the top of the street until the new girl waved from her driveway, not leaving until there was no way the Hale girls could catch up with her.  

I stood in Paw Ku's backyard late on a Friday afternoon.  Bway Pa was sailing by on the swing, smiling and taking pictures of herself in her dark sunglasses.  Kaw ran by, pulling his shirt up, threatening to show us his "six pack" while he chased Angel and Paw Ku's little brother.  Hyoo played with his little sister and cousin, all with plastic, glow-in-the dark vampire teeth glowing in the late afternoon sun.  Their tongues were all blue and red from the ring pops they ate.  A strong, pungent smell of fermented fish poured from the house as Paw Ku's mom picked Thai chilis from a one of the many vegetable-bearing bushes in the yard.  We fed the cats lemon pepper chicken wings and hula hooped.

It was a beautiful afternoon.  

*Title and lyrics, Drunken Angel, Lucinda Williams 

Let it Snow

"Hey. Lindsey says the Hale girls are going to beat her up after school."  a co-worker told me.

I looked back at her.  I was waiting with my dismissal line of walkers.  What the fuck was I supposed to do about that?

We walked up the hill.  I saw all three Hale girls surround Lindsey, but when they saw me see them, they disbursed.  

"Get up here."  I hissed at Lindsey.

"I'm afraid to walk home."  she responded, once she was by my side.

"Hey!"  Demetrius yelled.

"They sayin' they going to beat her up, they're going to wait until they get around the corner so you can't see."  he continued.

I kept walking.  I got them to the corner and turned around.  One of my bosses had explicitly told me to let this shit lie, that what happens after the corner is their parents' problem.  I caught Mr. C two minutes later.

"The Hale girls are going to jump Lindsey.  I don't know what to do."

"I'm going over there."  he answered, pulling his keys from his pocket and walking to his car.  

"They were in her driveway!"  he announced, as soon as he pulled back in.

"And you know, they live the other way.  You should have seen their faces when I pulled up.  I told them they better not be doing what I know they were doing and they left."

Donor's Choose was matching donations for "equity schools", aka, schools like mine that are majority minority and poor.  I quickly launched my project, asking for hundreds of dollars of new books for my classroom library and a new bookshelf to hold them.  Then, I turned my Facebook into a beggar's station, repeatedly re-posting my project and soliciting my friends to throw me a few bucks.  I threw myself a few bucks, more than I would like to say, mainly to get the funds matched before they ran out.  Alec shucked in, too.  

My school has adopted a reading focus this year, which I think is great.  They have been conducting PLs on how to do guided reading and remarkably, bought each teacher a classroom library of diverse books.  I attended my collaborative planning when they unleashed the books.  I watched the overview that entailed the diversity of the new books highlighting Black and Hispanic children.  I started shifting around a little.  Where were the diverse books about Asian kids?  They are one of the largest rising minorities in my school and the group receiving the most hate.  And no, they aren't Chinese or Japanese.  They are refugees.  Burmese, Karen, even Khmer.  The kids yell "ching chong" at them and the girls even face additional sexual harassment.  IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.  

I helped unload the boxes of books into the various classrooms.  At least five boxes each, phonics books, literary texts and even little bins to hold them in.
"Man, this must of cost a small fortune."  I muttered to the admin helping us.
"Girl, yes.  This is thirty thousand dollars worth of books."  she answered.  

And...you know how many books were allotted to me, to my classroom?  Zero.  Not one.  

"Ms. Wagner....can you help me with my homework?"  

I looked at my phone to see who was texting me.   It said "Paw Ku's mom" from my contacts.

"BTW, this is Paw Ku."  the second text read.

We texted back and forth, with her sending pictures of this brutal 6th grade math homework.  Alec and I were trying to figure it out until after nine one night and the next night, I even enlisted Mr. Warren.

"I think the answer to number two is four."  he texted back.

"But I got a buddy who teaches 11th grade math, let me get him in on this."

Finally, Paw Ku face-timed me.  It was so good to see her.

"Ms. Wagner!"  she said, as she usually starts sentences.  

"I miss elementary school.  But middle school, it's okay."

I smiled into the phone.

"How is Kaw, is he doing okay?"

"Yes, he is."  she answered.

"But, he might move where his niece moved.  And, there is a girl that's like way taller than him that likes him."  she continued.

I burst out laughing.  

She put her little brother on the call, the one I now teach with my kindergarten group.  We talked a long time.  It is really hard letting them go.  

 

A torrent of Michoacan Spanish poured from the mother's mouth.  Jaime's mom was pissed.  

"Those girls!  They follow Jaime and yell groserías at him and one of them hit him in the head last week!  There are three of them and one of them is grandote!  They bang on our door, begging for snacks, like I would give them anything!"  

It was one day after the Lindsey incident.

"Mire, esas chicas son locas.  La mamá, también."  I answered.

I didn't even tell her that mom nearly got in a fight with another mom in the front office last week.

"Es ridículo.  No sé que decir.  Voy a contarles a mis jefas.  Pero si no puede venir Ud. a caminar con él, lo haré.  Voy a llevarle a casa."  I continued.

"Oye?" she asked Jaime.  

"Espera la maestra.   She is going to take you home tomorrow." 

I walked through the neighborhood the following afternoon, not because of Jaime, but because of a different situation with a child.  She held my hand and trotted along, with a lollipop sticking out of her mouth.  

It was a really pretty afternoon.  

Verde y Malverde

"Ms. Wagner....that kid of yours, Hot Rod, he touching people's butts again."  an administrator announced while I walked through the door after dismissal.  
"Yeah, I'm sorry.  I keep telling him to stop."
"He called another kid the N word, too."
"What?!"  I exclaimed.
"He said that the other kid said something anti-Asian, so, you know."  she said with a shrug.  
"Hey, wait... "  she continued.
"It wasn't Hot Rod, it was that other kid you have...Adam that said it."  

"I'm sorry."  I responded.  

"I'm gonna get Ms. Wagner to call your mama!"  the second meanest teacher in the school screamed at a Hispanic kid while I fled her classroom to go to my next class.  

It really didn't matter that he wasn't one of my students.  Or that his mom speaks English.  He was Hispanic-y looking, so, you know, must not speak English!

I had to go to court the other day.  It's kind of a long story that I might tell you one day.  Or maybe not.  At the courthouse, we ended up watching a series of criminal trials that were scheduled before ours.  All of the defendants were walked into the courtroom via a side door.  They wore jail jumpsuits.  Their feet were shackled and their arms attached to a chain that encircled their waists.  I felt grotesque sitting in the back of the courtroom, watching what was none of my business and probably one of the least pleasant days of their lives.  

In the hallway during dismissal, one teacher started beatboxing and a second followed.  I spun around to see Mauricio, dancing and shaking it in the middle of both lines of walkers.  Everyone was cheering and I could not stop laughing.  
Ku turned and shrieked.

"Hey, we got a social work referral to the county 'cuz of Hot Rod.  He grabbed a girl's butt and mom said it was sexual harassment."
I stared back.
"Yeah, I know it's stupid."  she responded.
He's five.  He grabs everyone's ass.  I think he touched mine, too.  It is not right, but it is not sexual.  

I watched a co-worker tiptoe around the corner, eyes wide as if in a horror movie.  She froze and pointed at the parents we were meeting from approximately twenty feet away.  I glanced over at the couple, wondering if one of them had sprouted a third head that I hadn't noticed.  No, they didn't, I verified.  They were just well, a different ethnicity than my co-worker.  I really can't say much else.  But I can say that I was ashamed, ashamed of her and mortified to be working with someone who feels this way and has no qualms about broadcasting it.  If there had been a "NOT WITH HER" sign I could have hung around my neck, I would have.  

"Hey, open that little red box on my desk."  I instructed Muriel.
"You might like what is in there."
She opened it up and looked at the candy and Halloween spider-rings inside.  She walked back with three.
"One if for you."  she announced, as if I couldn't take any of the ones I wanted.  
"And this one if for your dog."

"And this one is for me."

*Title, José Cota

No lo entiendo

"What is that in your pocket, Adrian?"  I only asked because my little kids get in trouble for bringing toys to school and I wanted to help him hide them somewhere else before anyone saw.

"They're for us!"  he hiss-whispered, eyes darting from side to side as he clandestinely shoved the brightly colored objects into his pocket before raking the zipper shut.  

Later, myself and the rest of my now first grade, ESOL Good Men sported matching pipe-cleaner bracelets.  Just us. 

I glanced over at Hot Rod while I tried to collect the walkers during my afternoon duty.  Both of his hands were pulling his shorts straight up over his crotch, kind of like a front-wedgie.  His mouth dragged horizontally into a wide snarl, silver teeth gleaming. 

"Booty!"  he growled with delight.

"BOOOTY"

A friend from my former school district retired and donated boxes of books and school supplies to my classroom.  Really nice stuff, glittery pencils, multi-colored erasers, fidget spinners, high-end folders, just opening that box filled me with delight.  I decided to show it to Muriel, it was just her and me in the trailer and I really wanted one of the kids to see it.  I planned to put it all in school supply pouches and give each kid a bag, but hadn't gotten to it yet.  I really wanted to show someone.  Her eyes widened when the lid came off of the box.  

"Why don't you pick out some things?"  I asked.

"I was going to give you some later, but why don't you take some stuff that you like now?"  I asked excitedly.

She ran her hand lightly over the supplies in the box, eyes glowing.

"No." she answered.  

I looked at her with confusion.

"I think....I think you should save them for the kids, you know, the kids that really need them...."

The kids that really need them.....I looked at her worn, donated clothes.   I remembered her "All About Me" first grade project that she tried to hide from the rest of the class.  I worked on it with her, hoping we could make something that she would be proud of.  When I asked her what she wanted to do when she was older, I know, weird question for a first grader but we were using a template, she said "Work with the guys".  I was baffled until I found out that her father, a refugee, worked with newly arrived refugees.  The guys.  I looked at her clumpy hair, unadorned with cute braids and beads. But Muriel has something invaluable,  something that can't be given or taught, something better than a hot pink eraser.   

I had a moment the other day.  Work has been hard, harder than it should be this early in the school year.  I came home and went into our room and closed the doors and sat on our bed.  I thought of the teachers that don't want to teach my students.  They look at my them with narrow, suspicious eyes and pursed lips, while stating in hushed, harsh whispers I don't think she speaks English, eyes darting around as if a ship full of extraterrestrials just landed on the playground.  

You think they don't speak English, but you haven't actually....spoken to them?  A kid in your class?  A kid on your caseload?

She needs some kind of special school...we can't serve her here.....wait, how do you say her name again, wait, how?

I repeat myself, though the names aren't difficult.

I don't think I can say that...how?

I see the paperwork and the names are wrong.  All Hispanic children do not have the last name 'Lopez'. 

"Oh Ms. Wagner....is that little Asian boy really covered in ....pox?"  I was asked.

"No.  NO!  He is home because of an allergic reaction, he has a bug bite on his lip and it swelled.  HE DOES NOT HAVE ANY TYPE OF POX."

"But I heard it was all over him....all over his face....."

"It's not.  It is one bite.  There is a picture.  IT IS NOT POX."

I started thinking about the day I walked past the pre-k line and heard a teacher calling to me, jogging up to me.  "Are you taking them?" she asked, breathlessly.  I turned in confusion and saw a Hispanic child and an Asian child standing there, children I have never met. Clearly must not speak English!

"What happened to Mya?"  I asked one of the counselors.

"She was being harassed, it was pretty bad."  she answered.  

"Racist stuff?"  I responded.

"Yeah, the Asian stuff but sexual, too.  Really vile.  She was so embarrassed she wouldn't even repeat what he said.  We had to get other kids to tell us."

Mya usually waves at me from the bus while I walk back to school from my afternoon duty.  I watched her bus go by that afternoon.  Her head was lowered and pressed to the seat in front of her.  No one was sitting beside her.  

I thought about the second meanest teacher in the whole school yelling at one of my new students for not raising his hand before getting up and asking her a question.  At the end of her commentary, she leaned in an inch from his face.

"COMPRENDE?"  she screamed.  

I was crying a lot.  I know it's stupid.  I would try to stop thinking about it and only think of it again.  I know what you might say.  That place is horrible.  You should quit.  But what good would that do?  How would it help?  Would it really change anything if I just wasn't there?

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

As I walked toward the market after parking the car, I noticed a man sort of hanging out of the window of the car next to mine.  I thought he might be about to ask directions.

"Hey!"  he called.

"Next time park slower!"

Park....slower?  I mentally asked myself.  How do you park slow?

"I got two kids in the car!"

"Okay."  I responded and continued walking.

"AFTER YOU TWO GET DONE SCISSOR FUCKING!!!!"  he shrieked, face red with rage while he tore away in his minivan.  

"What was that?" my sister asked, walking up beside me.

"I think it's a reference to lesbian sex."  I responded.

"Men always trying to get us to do that."  she commented, and we continued walking toward the store.   

"How long should I wait until I walk or move furniture onto the new floor?"  I asked the man that had been repairing the trailer floor for most of the morning.   I asked him in Spanish, telling him apologetically that I was trying to get a little practice in.  He actually seemed happy to not have to wrestle with English and engaged in a lengthy conversation that ended with him telling me that he was undocumented and from Honduras.  Only his wife and kids were here in Georgia; the rest of his family was still back there.  Then, he told me that he will probably never be able to see them again.  

"I don't have a driver's license,"  he mentioned.

"I can't get one in Georgia, but I am very careful.  It's the bad people that give all of us a bad name, make people want us to leave."

No, I thought, it's pure xenophobia.  And, a complete lack of appreciation for what you do for this country.  The school district couldn't find enough workers to repair our buildings and started hiring contractors.  From what I am seeing, the contractors are predominately men like the guy that fixed my trailer floor:  hard working and undocumented.  I thanked him when he was leaving and then put my face flat down on my desk the minute after he closed the door.  

"Have you seen this?"  the text from my neighbor questioned, accompanied by a picture of one of the limbs on our massive oak tree, split and hanging by a thread.

"No!  It must have just happened!"  I scream-texted.

"It just fell."  he answered, accompanied by a picture of the giant limb spiked right in the middle of the street.

We started driving home.  As I got to the street behind my house, I saw firetrucks pulling up and blocking the street off.  We drove around the block.  The limb was huge and resting on the power lines in front of the house on the other side of the street.  I sat there in the pouring rain staring at it, unsure what to do.  

"If you could be eating your favorite food right now, what would it be?"  I asked Yaaz as part of my beginning of the year icebreakers.

"Nachos and scrambled eggs."  he answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.  

"Hey, that new kid of yours, the one who barely speaks English?"  Ms. Kent began.

Hot Rod, I thought.

"Yeah?"  I answered.

"Well, he let off some words when he was leaving school, cursing."  

I laughed a little.

"Like what, ass or something?  Poop?"

"BITCH.  MOTHER FUCKER.  You should have heard him, screaming it right in front of the front door during dismissal."

Great.  

I walked out of the back door and toward the trailer.  A Spanish-speaking couple that had been power washing the school was outside, painting the exterior doors.   Their elementary-age daughter was with them, in the middle of the school day, painting a door.  

*Photo, Doll's Head Trail

*Title, Leo Sayer

Socorro

I opened the back door of the house, tired, and the whole yard was wet with rain.  Lola darted out.  I heard the birds that live in the bushes squawking and started running.  Lola had one of the birds in her mouth.  A baby.  I screamed for her to drop it and she stood there, confused.  I brought her back inside and sat inside myself, afraid to go out and see what was happening.  I finally went out there and saw a baby bird, dead, with its mouth open and clouded eyes staring toward the sky.  I had to pick it up.  I was freaking out.  I got a file folder and closed my eyes while I drove it up under the bird's dead body.  I stared upward, so I wouldn't have to see it crumble. I looked at our fence line, where all the other birds were staring at me, hoping to peck my eyes out.  

"Your pulses seem great!"  the guy that gives me acupuncture exclaimed. 
"I'm sorry, that's impossible.  They should be screaming HELP ME."

I'd been painting our kitchen.  I had a ten week summer break this year.  I wanted some sort of balance between enjoying myself and getting things done.  And then, in late June, I put painting the kitchen on my docket.  I thought it might take a week.  It took a week to clear out every dish and piece of food, shelf and blind, as well as scrub everything down.  The rest is a blur.  Scrubbing, painting, contact paper.  Laying on my stomach painting woodwork.  Watching Alec and my sister precariously balanced on books and counter tops, trying to get a clean line of paint on the ceiling.  I honestly don't even want to talk about it because it was so horrible.  I would open my eyes in the morning and want to climb under the bed.  The whole house was a disaster.  If we wanted a fork we'd have to walk through multiple rooms, looking for it.  Our coffee maker was balanced on a chair by the TV.  I forbad any type of cooking in the kitchen after I went through the horror of scrubbing grease.  For approximately four weeks, I did nothing but scrub and paint the kitchen.  I remember taking one day off.  When it was finally done, and again, I can' t even talk about the details without freaking out, I only recall tip toeing through the kitchen and marveling at pulling open a door and seeing exactly what I needed laying inside.  I only recently allowed hot food to be prepared in there, after we got a new hood installed.

And then, one week later, school started.  I felt sort of chill.  I came in, pretty cool.  I picked up my badge and my key to the trailer and walked out back, greeting co-workers.  I unlocked the door to the trailer and hesitated, because where I was about to put my foot had no floor, just joists.  I jumped over the floor-less area and surveyed the situation:  all of the classroom furniture and my boxes of stuff were crammed in one corner.  Multiple parts of the floor were missing, as was part of the wall, that had been replaced with plywood.  I walked through and dragged a paint bucket to a safe part of the floor and turned it upside down so that I could sit on it.  I dragged the internet stuff around, wifi was out, and got it up and running.  I put my computer on top of an upside down trashcan and tried to figure out what to do.  

I let the school year begin.  

*Photo, Doll's Head Trail 

Roe

"I really hope my mom's not out there with a sign."  my friend said sardonically while we pulled into the medical complex.  It was cloudy and we were teenagers.

"You are in your second trimester and will require the two-day method." the doctor told us bluntly.

We had borrowed the money and she made the appointment.  She had skipped periods, but didn't know she was pregnant.  It's normal for teenage girls to skip periods.  I skipped almost a year of periods when I was in my late twenties while we were traveling in Asia.  It happens.  

She made me stay in the room while he inserted something to dilate her.  She was horribly ill all night.  We went back the next day and they did it.  She asked me to stay in the room with her and I did.  They gave her a shot of Valium before they started and when I watched her get woozy, I really wondered if I asked nicely if they would give me one, too.  Watching an abortion isn't pretty.  There was a lot of blood and when the doctor and nurse left the room, my friend freaked out and jumped off of the table, spewing more blood.  

"We can't leave it like this, we have to clean it up...."  she muttered, still jacked up on Valium.  

"Sit down,"  I told her.

"I've got this." 

"You didn't see like, fingers or toes, did you?  Fingers or toes?"  she repeated.

"No." I responded while I cleaned up blood with paper towels that I ripped from a dispenser on the wall.  

I saw something the size of bait shrimp that shouldn't ruin a teenage girl's life.  Especially one that had no family support, a family that thought sex was evil, left her unequipped and would have sent her off to the leper colony forever.  

We went back to my family's place.  She recovered.  Our correspondence wained for a few weeks until I couldn't get any response at all.  Her dad finally answered my calls and said that she had tried to kill herself.  She was in the hospital, recovering.  They ended up sending her to a state home for drug abuse, never knowing the real reason that she did what she did.  She knew they would hate her, never forgive her, for having sex and getting pregnant and having an abortion.  It wan't drugs.

Years later, I was sitting on the floor of our five hundred dollar a month apartment.  I had only been teaching a year or so, and one of my high school students was calling me, one of the few that I would give my real phone number.

"So Ms. Wagner....I went out of town and...something happened.  I'm pregnant and they won't let me get the abortion unless someone comes with me to give me a ride."

"Tell me when and where."  I responded.

She came from a disadvantaged background.  We were working on college applications  This was the last thing that could derail her.  

I remember picking her up the morning of the procedure.  I had a lot of cash on me, because I wasn't sure if she would need more money.  She made me drive by a shop, where she went in and got a bunch of money they owed her for work.  We drove to the other side of town.  The abortion clinic had cameras and heavy security.  It was different than the one decades ago.  We had to show ID just to get past a guard.  She handed them a wad of cash and they took her back.  They told me it would be a couple of hours.  I drove to Target and bought her a bunch of thick pads, a fluffy robe and slippers.  I was scared.  I returned to the clinic and waited.  They took my bag back and she came out, wobbly.  I told her she could stay at my apartment, but she insisted on being taken to a friend's house.  Her family had already exploited her enough, that is another story, but I hated watching her bang on the door of another house, in a robe, begging for someone to let her in.  

It happened again about a decade ago.  I prefer not to say the origin of this, but it was another teenager that we had to drive out west, because by then, it was parental consent for girls under eighteen in Georgia.  Protestors were out front, with huge ugly images.  They had to stay away a certain distance, but they came right at you within that distance.  I wanted to kill them.  Another teenage girl, with no family support.  By now, I was older and ready to beat someday's ass.  

All of these situations have been difficult, more for them than for me.  It shouldn't be that way.  Abortion access should be expanded, not restricted, so that women don't have to go through this in this way.  Birth control access should be expanded, too.  I could go into the ins and outs, explain all of my positions, but I won't.  Women and girls deserve bodily autonomy.  That's it.  

I'm still ready to beat someday's ass.  Politicians won't do anything for us.   If you know someone that needs an abortion, contact me.  If you are reading this you know how to contact me.  I will do anything within my power to make sure that they are safe and get what they need.  

Thunder Always Happens When it's Raining

I went to the beach.  To Tybee.  It's weird, when I was in middle school I didn't like that beach.  I was always glad to go, but it did not meet up to my movie image of what a beach should be.  It's the closest to Atlanta but has a lot of sea grass in the dunes and not exactly clear water.  Now, I love it.  I've been to beaches in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia but for some reason, Tybee warms my heart.  I love the old fifties cottages we rent, the unimaginative fried shrimp places and the back river where I can see the lighthouse light from all of the way across the island.  I like Chu's, where I buy a six pack while walking to the beach and admiring all the houses on Chatham.  Then, I sit.  And look at the sea and swim in it.  

Texts started coming in two days ago.  Paw Ku and Kaw had "failed" Milestones for the second time and were going to be retained.  I was horrified. I love those kids and will miss them, but they should not live in elementary school.  I am a 190 day employee and don't work during the summer, but this was bullshit.  I was in the sweltering back yard, turning my phone into a hot spot so that I could request interpreters.  I was not giving up on them.  It turns out I didn't have to do a lot, they already had it in hand and my boos are going to sixth grade.  But lord, why freak me out like this?  And, them.  

I was listening to "Mexican Radio" on my phone.  I thing that song is really misunderstood.  I love Mexican radio.  I love being on the border.  I love picking up the signals that seem so far away, though it is a matter of miles.  I love not knowing but wanting to know "what did he say?".   And, there are a lot of hot winds on my shoulder right now.  The song is referring to the Santa Anas, but jesus, Atlanta is boiling alive right now.  

It is seriously like hot breath in here.  

*Title, Fleetwood Mack, duh

Building a Boat on an Alien Sea

I saw a girl twirling around in the 7am, early morning light.   She was wearing a white dress and a tiara and she twirled and twirled and twirled.  

It was Awards Day and she was a fifth grader, dancing behind the school, in front of the trailers.  

"You are beautiful."  Adrian announced walking right up to her, as I tried to march the rest of the kindergartners out to the trailer.  

She kept twirling and jumping, the most beautiful thing we saw all day.

I hid in the back of the Awards Ceremony, watching my fifth graders go away.  It was hard.  It is always hard to watch the fifth graders go, but this group was especially difficult.  That is all I have to say about that.  

"Do you remember that park we walked Lola in, on the way back from Terlingua?"  Alec asked.

"It was Uvalde."  

Uvalde.  I remember.  A dusky town, low-rise.  Lots of Hispanic people.  We walked Lola in their park, not knowing the horror that awaited them.  

Every time we are on the road, I see these schools.  I always wonder what it would be like to work there, if it would be a nice place, comfortable.  It is strange to be somewhere with tragedy lurking and not even know it.  

I ended the Housing Authority, too.  My last night was last night.   I can say a lot about that too, but won't.

I just need to be the best me I can be.  

May Day

"Let's go, soy sauce."  a girl called to Kaw as they walked from their testing room.   My hand inadvertently went to my mask-covered mouth.
"Is she talking to you?" I asked, laughing a little.  Kaw smiled too and shuffled away.  

"Whatever, merkin."  one of my Housing Authority students responded to something he perceived as an insult.  

The trailer started vibrating at the same time it does everyday.  Fuzzy bass from the loud rap music filled the air as the guy across the street did his front yard work out while his giant, off-leash dog looked on.  My kids started moving their shoulders and shifting their heads to the beat while they did their work.  

"That girl called you soy sauce...."  I mentioned, inquired of Kaw.

"Yeah."

"I laughed, I don't know why.  I was uncomfortable.  Did it bother you that she called you that?"  I asked.

"Yes."  he answered definitively.

"She kept tripping me so hard I almost cried."

"What is her name, Kaw??  I will take care of this!"  

"It's Heather or something.  I don't know her last name.  Or whose class she is in.  And, I don't want to be a snitch."

My second graders ran to the trailer, like they always do.  Me, I take my time, chatting and walking with the kids that don't feel like running.  It's our nature walk.  When I got to the trailer ramp, three kids stood under one umbrella in the glaring sun.

"We need shade."  the announced, smiling.  

"I'm not a snitch."  Kaw whispered furiously to Angel, while I was trying to start small group testing. 

"But you should care!!  Care more than if you are a snitch or not!"  Angel responded.

"Look, I don't want to get beat up.  I don't want to get hit."  Kaw responded.

Angel stood up and walked over to my desk and started whispering to me, as if I was unaware of everything that was happening.

"Kids are vaping.  Bway Pa did it, I saw the smoke-stuff come out of her mouth.  They were on the playground and they did it in the cafeteria.  I saw Amari passing around the vape stuff and he had a lighter, too.  He said if anyone told he would beat them up."

"Thank you for letting me know, Angel.  You did the right thing.  I will take care of this."

"Is there anyway you could wait to tell until 2:30 today, like, after the buses get home?"  he responded.

I smiled.

"I'll take care of this."

I started their test and immediately texted admin.  I didn't want to email, it could get lost.  Those kids needed to be searched, immediately.  I didn't care if Bway Pa went down.  She needed to quit this shit.  Her friends were afraid for her and afraid for themselves.  If she was going to let them get their asses beat, we were done here.  

Paw Ku handed me an envelope.  It was the same envelope that I gave her with a thank you note enclosed for the pretty carnation and weed-flower head band that she gave me for Teacher Appreciation Week. 

"That was for you, Paw Ku!"  I exclaimed.

She kept waving it until I looked more closely.  She had written on the envelope "from" in front of her name and "to" and added mine.

I took it to the trailer and read it.  

Dear Ms. Wagner we can always be in touch by letter Instagram and mail I'll miss you plus I don't want to leave without you love Paw Ku

"Did you tell?"  Angel whispered to me, a week later.

"Yes."  I responded.

"I told right after you told me.  They don't care."  I answered.

He looked shocked.  I never received a response to my text and got a very frosty reception from admin for days.

No wonder these kids don't trust me anymore.  

New Day Rising

I sat at my desk in the utility trailer behind the school on the first day back after Spring Break.  It is getting lighter in the mornings and I was not all the way feeing this operation.  My mind was more in Terlingua.  I noticed movement through the window and realized it was a dog running past.  It filled my heart with dread.  Another loose dog, an off-leash dog, a dog whose body I might see in the street on the way to school the next day.  

"So, like, Wolf...that was Kim Kardashian's kid?'  Bway Pa began.

"That was Kylie!"  Kaw hissed.

We all stared at him.

"Boo...that came out fast...." I muttered and we tried to get back to Social Studies homework.  

At seven o'clock in the morning.  

We've been testing.  All the time, testing.  It is like the Twilight Zone.  My brain starts to fog as I sit there, watching them, watching them take the test.  

Ms. Snyder walked through the classroom I was testing in, randomly.  She was wearing some sort of yellow headdress and a black t-shirt. 
"Happy Earth Day.  I'm the sun."  she said dourly, and left. 

We saw the dog again, lurking behind the fence.  I saw it run across the playground, too.  Or what we call the playground.  A cracked blacktop.  Or the dirty field in the back.  

I stood, waiting for my walkers to arrive, talking to a pre-K teacher.   A student ran by and gave me a hug.  Victor strolled out, a huge smile on his face.  

"Well hello everyone!" he announced, arms spread wide.  

"Oh, no."  I laughed.  

"No hugs for you.  Move along."

He shrugged and raised his arms in the air and dropped them.  

I walked to the car and saw the dog sitting patiently by the fence.  I tried to approach and it sprinted away.  

I stood on lunch duty with only one other person present.  Testing, or people that just used testing as an excuse to not show up for duty explained our lack of adults. The kids were bad, loud, crowding up.  Then, one of the worst fights I've seen since teaching high school popped off.  I have a lot more to say about that but I really can't right now, Kitty.  All I can say is no child should know how to do that to another child at ten years old, while multiple full grown adults struggle to make it stop, all while tripping over beads ripped from someone's hair.  

I walked kindergarten outside, all of them with their sunglasses on.  Ku screamed and pointed.  I knew right away what it was and saw the dog by the cafeteria dumpsters.  

"That dog!"  a fellow trailer-parker commented.  "I nearly hit it this morning when I pulled in!"

Jaime's mom roared up on an ATV to pick him up from school.  He happily hopped on the back and they sped off.  A second later, Victor ran up.  

"Where'd they go?"  he asked breathlessly.

"They left.  Jaime's mom picked him up on an ATV."  

"I know!  I wanted a ride on the....tractor." he responded hopelessly.  

I sat at my desk, trying to get my shit together while my fifth graders ate breakfast.  Paw Ku and Kaw lurched up beside me.  

"Bway Pa cut herself.  She did it on purpose.  It's on her arm."  they said, almost in unison, like twins.  She wasn't there that day.  

"Thank you for telling me.  You two are good friends.  I will take care of this.  She won't know that you told me."  I responded.  

I carried a leash around and treats that Lola loves for a week.  Every time I looked at the dog, even through the glass doors of the teacher's "lounge", it took off.  I left it food one night and it was gone by the morning.  I couldn't stop thinking about it.  

Ku picked out a book from my shelf, something he never does.  It was Dog Man.  He flipped through it, legs crossed and hand to chin, like he was really reading it.  I heard him puffing through his nose, this noise he makes when he replicates a freight train moving when he draws trains, which he does everyday.  

I spoke to a dedicated group of dog rescuers.  They sprang into motion overnight and clandestinely set up a trap baited with hot dogs and liquid smoke that we monitored from a camera that was strapped to a tree.  I watched it obsessively.  There's more to that too, Kitty, but I can't tell you now.  

"So, I'm wondering how many moon's my anus has."  Baby Gustavo mentioned randomly, while researching his planet project in the trailer.  

"Uranus is very gassy."  I answered.

"Uranus is cold,"  he answered.

"Which makes no sense 'cuz I would have thought it was hot."  he returned.

"Yeah, but Uranus has gas rings around it."  I responded.

"STOP TALKING ABOUT BUTT HOLES!!!"  Mario yelled.

"We can't."  I responded.

"Once it starts, it is impossible to stop."  

*Title, Husker Du

Miss Me When I Leave

I have a lot on my mind.   I got my fourth COVID shot this morning.  I went for acupuncture this afternoon.  I helped try to trap a dog this morning that has been hanging around the school.  I don't want it to die.   I cannot ride up to work and see that dog in the street, dead.  

Last week, Alec, Lola and I drove to south Texas.  Big Bend National Park.  We drove for two days to get there.  The Chihuahua desert.  We stayed in a solar house in the middle of nowhere.  That was where we wanted to be.  The stars were amazing.   The wind kicked up hard at night and it was really cold.  Lola, Alec and I huddled together in the bed, at the edge of the universe, and it was awesome.  We went to the parks.  I reached across the Rio Grande and almost touched Mexico, via the Santa Elena canyon.  I saw rams, roadrunners, quail and javelina.  We ran into la migra a lot.  I think we saw two migrants.  I can't stop thinking of them.  

We didn't help.  

*Title credit:  Willem Kaiser and Raina Ferguson