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