Closer to Heaven

"Mamaaaaa.....bring me some shoes!"  Taisha screamed.  It was 6:50 in the morning and we were walking through the apartments.
"Grandamaaaaa!!!!"  she howled.

Our school has a parent initiated attempt to get the students to walk or ride their bikes to school, instead of taking the bus or riding in a car.  Our district is only four miles wide.  One parent really wants to make sure the children of the Housing Authority are included and arrives at school around 6:30 in the morning, picks up teachers that are willing to be there, and drives us over to the apartments to walk with them to school.

I've been meeting her for over a year.  She ran up to me and hugged me.
"Hey...", I said, putting my coffee cup in the holder of her car, "um, Friday is my last day...I'm leaving....".

Taisha had on cute flats.
"Why didn't you wear tennis shoes?  It's Walk and Roll?"  some of the muslim girls asked.

I work with Taisha after school.  She's in my group.  My fucked up giant group of sixteen.  She's a star.  Immaculate, clothes and hair clean, presenting in the best way.  No one has to know she lives in the projects, because her parents have made sure they don't know.  And, she works and acts accordingly.  Until, Tuesday morning.

"BUY ME SOME FOOD!" Myla screamed as we walked past the gas station.  Another boy grabbed a gas pump and threw it on the ground.

They yelled.  They screamed.  The walked in people's yards.  They talked about the bikes that were unsecured, the houses they would rob.

I worked.  Taught my classes, attended meetings, packed my things.  Felt sweaty and gross all day.  Graded papers. Went back to the Housing Authority that night to tutor.

"They went fucking crazy on the visitors last Friday... screaming, demanding food, grabbing shit.  Their names are on the board."
Out of the sixteen students in my group, ten of their names were on the board.  The ones that were not on the board had been absent.

"You all have debased yourselves."  I said quietly.
"You have acted under what you are."
"No one bangs on the table and begs for food."
"I didn't do that!  It wasn't me!" Zoey and Tamira screamed.
"Did I say Zoey or Tamira?  Whoever did it, I don't want to know.  I don't want to know because I don't want to think of you that way and you're better than that."

I left, feeling tired, dirty and defeated.  Laaida jumped out from behind a neighboring car, all sixth grade of her burka wearing self.
"Hey!  I thought this was your car!" she laughed, even though she was by the wrong car.  The other white teacher's car.
"I wanted to surprise you!"

I watched my students jump on top of a utility box and do our school's chant.  They saw me, and did it louder.  I wanted to film them, send it to my boss, show how great they were.  But, she's a dick and doesn't deserve to see it.

I smiled and clapped, phone in my pocket, and got in Alec's car and drove away.

Ms. Petosa

You better THINK, think
Think about what you're trying to do to me
THINK, think think think

"After everyone figures out how to open his or her lock, Ms. FELICIA"  Aazim hissed, in place of the character's real name, "explains that she used to work for Wall Street but quit her job because it was her lifelong dream to be a teacher."
The sound whistling through the place where his front teeth should have been as he glared at the rest of the group.  The kids eyeballed him, while he smirked at giving them all the Felicia.  And, he was a year younger than all of the kids in my after-school group. 

"Is there any pig or cow in the sausage today?"  a student asked me in the lunch line.
"I don't know, why don't you eat pig or cow?" I responded, curious.
"I feel bad for the animals.  I went to this place, a burger place, and everyone sat around eating hamburgers.  They had pictures on the walls of happy cows and I couldn't believe anyone could sit there and eat them with those pictures in front of them."
"Thank you for letting me know.  I'm like you, too." I answered.

"¿Qué vas a hacer este fin de semana?" I asked my wild-ass, last class of the day on a Friday.  The rough girl, the one that makes everyone cry, the one that is rude to me for fun and pisses me off, Mikayla, raised her hand.
"I'm getting my ears pierced and my hair professionally done."
"I can't wait to see it," I responded "I'll look for you on Monday."

"Let's take a walk... so we can sit and talk...."  the band thundered in my ears as I stood in the park in the night, watching the moon rise with a red planet beside it.  A child ran by, and wrapped a glow band around my wrist.

"We have moved to Dubai!  We re-homed most of our dogs, but Lola's dad is the only one left.  He's eight and no one wants him.  Can you help us find him a home?"
"Of course!"  I answered.
I hugged Lola and told her over and over in my head that I would never leave her.  She would never be without our home.  She would never have to know new people, or a new place without us.

Mikayla passed through the lunch line early in the week.  Her ears weren't pierced and her hair was the same.
"Hey... what happened?"  I asked her.
She shrugged.
"Didn't work out."

I love it when children's authors visit our school.  I watched the guy entertain the kids and read from his book.  My class was enraptured, I didn't have to bitch at them once.  The author asked for a selfie with the kids and the kids went wild, running toward the stage.  We got all four hundred and fifty of them basically under control.  And then, he raised his phone and he asked for another from the kids.
"What an asshole." the fourth grade teacher to my left muttered.

"See, I'm not so good at Spanish... when I was at Whitford, my teacher, he uh, left, then I was at Trinity, and we had Chinese....".
Three schools by the beginning of fourth grade.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere, I'll be here...."  I almost said.

But, I didn't want to lie.

* Aretha Franklin, Think
**R.J. Palacio, Wonder
***The Rock-A-Teens

Fall

"Summer", as teachers call it, came and went, and by late July, "Fall" began, or, our return to school.  It was hot.  It was ridiculous.  But, I was determined to have a good year, as it would be my last before searching for a new school or a new opportunity within my district, which would be re-configured for the 2019-20 school year.

I started my work at the Center as well.  Our leader is gone and things are...difficult.  I was assigned a group of twelve, though the cap was supposed to be eight-ish.  And, an additional four third graders, making it a group of sixteen, "small group tutoring", below grade level children that are living in poverty.  A fellow teacher was assigned to co-teach, though we had no time to organize any sort of arrangement, as the children sat in front of us.

During the first weeks of normal school, a fellow teacher arrived early, which means really early as our report time is 7:15 in the morning, to find a naked man sleeping on the basketball court behind the trailer where his classroom is located.  He calmly told him to put his pants on, which laid beside him on said basketball court, and called the police.

As parents drove up to drop their children off, and teachers and administrators tried to find parking spots, a half naked man stood ranting, as the small town police triangulated, taking a really long time to haul him off.

"What was your favorite part of your day?" I asked the massive group of children at the Center, while they slapped each other and fucked around.

"I saw you.  I saw you in the hall.  I saw Miss Wagner at school."

I was happy to see you, too.  I was happy that you were there.  I thought it was sweet that you hugged me.  I have your back.  I will take care of you.

Summertime

Lola and I sat in the living room in the middle of the sunny summer afternoon, both doors closed and the blinds drawn.  Men had our house encircled, scrapping, spraying, climbing on ladders, crawling on hands and knees.  Soccer played on an endless loop.  I have never had house painters before and had not anticipated how the event would play out.  Lola was not pleased.  We spent six days locked in, me trying to keep her calm and away from the windows, watching every World Cup game.

I emerged nearly a week later, feel pale and atrophied, shielding my eyes from the sun.  As I jogged through the park, I heard the whistling, the man that whistles so loudly I can hear him while inside my house as he rides his bike down the street.  And, he doesn't just whistle, he is like a one man symphony, a literal symphony.  He stood, his back to the path I was on, staring up at the trees, serenading them with his orchestra. The trees and the birds and the early morning sun enveloped him as one of their own.

I returned home, tingling from being outside again.  Fire trucks tore past, barreling toward the Capitol, racing to put out the man that had deliberately set himself on fire, just hoping to get someone's attention that he needed help. 

The Not So Quiet American

I awoke to the sounds of footsteps on our roof and chainsaws blaring.  Instead of being on red-alert, Lola rose her head slowly and sleepily, giving me her version of a smile.

The tree men were here.

I gathered her up and went where the tree men were not.  I pulled up the newspaper on my laptop.  Anthony Bourdain was dead.

I worked in restaurants, mostly as a cook, for around ten years.  I culminated my experience with a brief stint as an assistant pastry chef in a French restaurant where I met one of the owners, Eric Ripert, shortly before Alec and I left on a nearly year long trip through Asia.

I read Kitchen Confidential shortly after it came out and devoured Bourdain's stories.  The pirate brigade ferociousness of the line cooks.  The lifestyle. I vicariously relished the sight of a dinner service beginning with the line doused in brandy and set aflame to the sounds of Flight of the Valkyries.  A mad scientist, pastry "terror dome" filled with gallons of molten seafood stew, conceived while fucked up and served to unsuspecting guests, with hopes that it didn't spring a lava-spurting leak.  My experience was never quite as intense as his, but I did enjoy reading the ride.

Later, he would talk about The Quiet American and show the world Hanoi.  All you have to say is 'Hanoi' to me and it invokes memories; I found it one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.  It holds a place in my heart that is bigger than New Orleans, larger than Havana, it's Hanoi.  I read the The Quiet American while in Vietnam, and was entranced by the mystery of Indochina, the roots of war, the opium and the decaying splendor.  He went to Hanoi for the first time the same year Alec and I did, the year 2000.

We are all friends here, right?  I've got my demons.  You've probably got yours, too.  But Anthony Bourdain seemed to have slayed the beast, whether it was worries of an unaccomplished life, the slavish life of a restaurant worker, addiction, mental illness.  He went on to craft a life of anyone's dreams well past the point when, in his own words, he should have been sent to the glue factory.  Extensive travel, exotic food, basically doing whatever the fuck he wanted.

But, it looks like you can never really slay the beast.  It lays and it waits.

La despedida

"Oh what a night!"  the sound system boomed, while dozens of elementary school students danced in the makeshift disco in the school's library.
"What a lady what a night!"
I found myself chuckling, listening to various disco songs about fucking while the kids danced obliviously during our indoor Field Day. 

I sat at my post, watching children file down the stairs to leave school. 
"It was the second to the last day of Spanish!"  one of my fifth grade students students exclaimed. 
"That's right," I answered, unsure of how to address his comment.
He milled back and forth, staring at the floor.  He hugged me. 
"We only have one more day.  Then it's over.  I'll be gone.  I won't be here.  You'll be gone, too."
He continued pacing, grabbed me again in a hug and ran down the stairs, his sport emblazoned back pack bouncing quickly from his shoulders.  A difficult student with a laundry list of conditions.  He seemed so off-kilter, disoriented.

I entered the "Teacher's Lounge", a small, windowless room with fluorescent lighting, hard chairs and a microwave.  I think "lounge" is a wildly glorified way of describing the place.  Two teachers stood next to a table covered in cupcakes.  Each had a cupcake in one hand and a popsicle in the other.  One had an additional to go plate stacked full of cupcakes. 
"Oh my god, Hilary, open the freezer!"
I opened it, to see it packed full of every flavor of popsicles imaginable.  I glanced back at their feral faces, mouths lined with sugar and eyes aglow with strange light.  We had twenty-four hours to go.

Shonelle was clutching me, her arms wrapped tightly around me.
"I'm going to miss you." she whispered.
"I'll miss you too, but we'll see each other at the apartments!"
"Everyone on this hall hates their Spanish teachers, but we got you.  We love you."
"Believe me, I have students that hate me."  I answered.
"Yeah, Patty does,"  she answered, referring to a fifth grader that also lives in the Housing Authority.
"But whenever she says anything, I tell her to shut up."

"Some of your interactions with students have not been positive.  I don't know, I find you a pleasant person, some of the time....".
Thank you.  That must be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. 
Mahmo stood in our office, waiting for me, having snuck away from his class again.
"Did you have a meeting?!"  he scream-asked.

I stood outside the classroom with Laadah, one of the students I have taught for two years at school and who was also part of my group at the Center.  I didn't want the rest of the kids to know that I had gotten her a present. 
"Congratulations on finishing fifth grade!"  I told her, handing her a bag of chocolate truffles. 
"I know you're fasting, but maybe you can eat them in the night when you break the fast...."
Her face erupted with joy and she hugged me.
"I am going to miss you so much," she said, "will you be at the Center next year?"
"YES."  I answered, thrilled that she liked her gift. 
"Where is Raaidah?"  I asked.
"She's not here, she says it's because she has to go to her brother's graduation, but it's not until seven o'clock tonight."  she answered, raising her eyebrows.
"She couldn't do it....."
"No.  Yesterday she yelled at everyone in class all day to be quiet...." 
"I'm sorry, Laadah...."
She hugged me again.
"I'm taking swimming lessons this summer!" she told me, eyes wild with excitement.  I really didn't know how much I loved her until that moment. 

We stood outside of the school, waiting for the school buses to take off.  The drivers revved the engines and started honking the horns.  I was desperately trying not to cry.  They started to drive.  Kids waved from the open windows. 

Suddenly, the overcrowded school bus that goes to the projects tore by, countless heads and hands thrust through every open window.  I found myself jumping and waving, yelling out, as all their little heads and hands got smaller and smaller in the distance.

Eight Mile

I woke up gasping, feeling like I was drowning.  I couldn't breathe.  I couldn't even swallow, my throat was so sore.  I couldn't believe I was sick again.  This year, I've had a CT scan, an ultrasound, several feverish debilitating colds and a vomit laced stomach virus.

The emails started and would not stop coming.  Accusations against me that ranged from "singling out"  a child, to "maltreatment", to racism.   The same parent that accused me of not being able to speak English and demanded a meeting between me and the principal, only to cancel it when only an assistant principal agreed to attend.  Each time one of the accused teachers tried to address the accusations, another email would fly in our boxes that was even longer than the previous.  Accusations against me were mixed with accusations of other teachers, students and substitutes.  Confusing descriptions of my misbehavior were mixed with things that had happened in Science and recess, classes I am not even present for.

Alec and I were trying to prepare Lola for another visit to the vet.  I couldn't speak anymore because I had lost my voice.  Taking Lola to the vet when it's raining is an unbelievable task.  We have nearly wrecked the car because she becomes eighty plus pounds of hysterical pit bull if we turn on the windshield wipers.  She had to go to the appointment.  They were going to assess if her epidural shot worked.  Alec and Lola ended up racing to a hotel a half a mile from the vet, north of the city, simply to avoid driving fifteen miles in pouring rain in the morning.  I helped pack up Lola and watched them go, feeling worried.  I squeaked out my goodbyes. 

A new accusation flew into my inbox, for a bathroom situation that I wasn't present for.  I do not enter the student bathrooms.

I woke up, wondering how my cold could keep getting worse instead of better.  I called my Uber and waited on the front porch, texting Alec to see how the night went.  It was pouring.

I received the message that my Uber was there and ran out in the rain.  I was drenched in minutes while I watched my phone get soaked, while the driver sat passively at the wrong address.

"Sorry," she said casually when she finally pulled up.  I was wet to the skin.

It was hours before I was dry, but I never felt warm the whole day.  I cordially administered tests to the student who threatened to shoot me last week and made my way through the day, cold and sick to my stomach from too much cold medicine.  I kept texting Alec to see if he and Lola were safe, if the visit went alright and if they were home.

I bummed a ride to avoid walking in the rain to go to tutoring.  At the Center, I made my students write persuasive essays about things that are important to them.  One picked "extended recess".  When I asked for her talking points, her persuasive arguments, she said:

"We work harder than teachers.  They get breaks all day and sit around and socialize with other teachers."

Yeah, fourth grade life is a real killer.  Punching that clock 24/7.

My heart hardened in a way I didn't think was possible.