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