Dream Like Martin

Mondays suck.  This rainy, gray, not enough hours of sunlight Monday in late February started with an extended conversation about farting.
"Y'all, it's nasty!"  the kindergarten class was informed.
"Go to the bathroom 'cuz I DO NOT WANT TO SMELL THAT."
The convo lasted a long time.  It seemed appropriate for a shitty Monday.

February is Black History month.  In the bougie schools I worked in, Black History month had been sort of pushed aside, because the idea was to have a diverse curriculum that was inclusive all twelve months of the year.  I've always agreed with that and for that reason, thought "history" months were cheesy, no matter if it was Hispanic, Woman or otherwise.  Though I work in a Black school now, I've noticed a resurgence in Black History month celebrations even in bougie areas or basically, my former employment district, which I still frequent three times a week to work at the Housing Authority.  It's funny, Black History month doesn't seem like simple recognition or education of Black achievement because it is ordinarily not included in curriculums or life like I thought it was, but more a celebration of the culture of the varied and un-monolithic contributions of Black people.  The Housing Authority opened my eyes to it and my school really celebrates it as well.  It feels like Christmas week, with theme days and encouragement to dress as different things or wear certain colors, each different, every day of the week.

Black History month school celebrations also provide ripe opportunities for white teachers to Rachel Dolezal it up, and I certainly am not going to end up like that. Most of the dress up days could be addressed tastefully, but it is easy to overlook things.  I just try to imagine myself pumping gas somewhere and what a random onlooker might think of what I'm wearing, obviously outside of the school context of the celebration, and usually decide to not engage in the dress ups.

"We going to have to get you a little dashiki..."  Ms. Snyder said coyly, while she waited for her students to use the bathroom.
"Wash your hands!"  she called, as one of the kindergartners exited.
Her dashiki was quite festive.
"No way."  I responded.
"I am not going to end up on the news as the crazy white teacher, culturally appropriating everything." I responded, laughing.
"What do you mean," she responded slyly, literally looking at me from the side of her eyes with a little smile.
"I wear myself a little 'ol Rolling Stones t-shirt, what's the difference?"
"It's different."  I responded.
She nodded affirmatively and continued her bathroom routine, and I felt like I might have passed a test.

"She was the first African American southeastern Congresswoman."
"Barbara Jordan."  Aazim answered.
"He founded Jet and Ebony magazines."
"John H. Johnson."  he continued.

I've quizzed him so many times for the Black History bowl the Housing Authority conducts that I know the answers myself.  Shit I never knew before.  I can recite them in my sleep.

Maybe I should have been able to a long time ago.

Lift

Alejandro was shaking and crying uncontrollably.  He had just finished his graded rendition of Lift Every Voice and Sing.
"Alejandro, oh my god, Alejandro, I'm sorry....I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you were upset....I was laughing and joking around with them and I swear I didn't know...."  I explained, grabbing his shoulder while he shielded his face from the rest of the students at the table.
"It's just a stupid song, stupid crap."  I whispered furiously into his ear, shocking myself by referring to Lift Every Voice and Sing as stupid crap.
"It's not your fault," he typed into the browser window of his Chromebook, without clicking enter.
"Sometimes when I see people laughing I just freak out and cry."
"It's weird, I don't know why."

"I took my first Spanish class!"  Prem announced, his eyes dancing with excitement.
"What does puto mean?"
My mouth fell open.  So did Veronica's.
"Did you learn that in class today?"  I asked.
"NO!" he screamed, then ran off toward the trailer.

"You know what!"  the second meanest teacher in the school yelled at the class.
"This isn't just going to count for one grade, it's going to count for four!  One of them will be a quiz grade!"
Adriana shifted uncomfortably in her seat, still waiting her turn to sing Lift Every Voice and Sing in the hallway to her teacher, for four grades.

I sat with Prem and Veronica in their Reading class, trying to help them while keeping track of Faba and Juan who were seated in separate groups.  The teacher passed out a blurry, small print worksheet of "The Cat that Walked by Himself".
I felt my eyes glaze over.
"I'm not reading all that." Prem said dismissively, when I tried to get him to put his eyes on it.
The teacher started getting kids to read out loud, while a second Special Ed teacher alternated between berating their performance and asking comprehension questions.
"Where'd the baby come from?!"  she yell-asked.
I knew what she meant but tensed up for a minute because it could easily bring a host of nuanced responses.
"From the woods?" one kid ventured.
"The dog had it?"  another tried.
"From the butt." Prem whispered to me definitively, shoving his worksheet in the cubby-thing under someone else's desk.

I stood with the walkers, ready to go go go.  Adriana walked up, her report card in an envelope.
"Let's see it!"  I said, while she carefully opened the envelope.
"Oh god," she gasped.
I looked down the report.  All Fs.  Every single grade, except for a B in ESOL.  My grade.
"She been doing a lot of that crap lately, given out them Fs for no reason...."  a girl that we normally don't like muttered sympathetically. 
We smiled weakly and started the hike out of the school and through the neighborhood, twenty-odd kids behind us.

Salvation Show

I sat at my morning duty post, watching one of the more troubled members of our student population enter the Media Center.  He walked stiffly, with his eyes darting from side to side to see if anyone was looking at him.
He was carrying two trays of Valentine's cupcakes and wearing a sports coat.
"Hey, Jeremy, let me put your cupcakes on the table so they don't get crushed...."  I said, trying to make him more comfortable.  He handed me the cupcakes and walked over to a friend, while fumbling with the buttons on his sports coat.
"Help me get this shit off....." he mumbled, while his friend struggled with the buttons.

I drove to the Housing Authority, already feeling a little relief that I had finished conducting three weeks of testing and the last day of school before a four day break.  I only had two hours of preparation and then two hours of the Black History performance to go before the break began.

"Hallelujah!" the radio screamed.
"And when your heart is troubled...."  Neil Diamond continued, when I suddenly had a weird vision of my principal singing the song on the stage of the school.
"You gotta reach out your other hand...." she belted into the microphone.
"Hallelujah!"  the teachers of the school sang, all while lined up behind our singing principal.  The meanest teacher in the school stood in the middle of the line, singing loudly.
"Reach it out to the man up there!"  my principal continued.
"Hallelujah!"  the teachers sang, now kicking their legs up like Rockettes as they sang back up.
"'Cause that's what he's there for!'' she sang, eyes closed and arm in the air.
"Take my hand in yours..." our assistant principal sang earnestly, after grabbing the mic.  Her big eyes stared straight ahead in a reassuring manner.
"Walk with me this day..."
"In my heart I know..."
"I will never stray..."
"Halle, halle, halle, halle, halle, halle, halle, halle!!!" the back up singing teachers screamed, legs kicking high in the air with each word.

I glanced at Steve, riding shotgun on a branch in her new, ten gallon terrarium and continued driving toward the apartments. 


*Lyrics, Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show, Neil Diamond

Musketeers

"You guys have to understand that when it gets warm outside, Steve is going to want to leave.  He'll want to be with his people, maybe meet the ladies....I've been leaving the top of his terrarium open and so far, he's been choosing to stay with us....but we have to be ready for that to change...."
I looked at the small brown and sometimes green lizard that had taken up residence in the trailer's recycling bin.  He had remained so long that I decided to buy him a small "bedroom" so that he might be more comfortable, and safely enclosed so that he could be hidden from the custodians and not free roam when it wasn't safe.  Forty-five dollars worth of moss, hollowed-out log, feeding dishes and freeze-dried crickets.
"Maybe the ladies will come to him...." Juan mentioned absent-mindedly, eyes glued to the little lizard inside his terrarium in the middle of the table.
"I think Steve will be a gentleman."  Faba seconded, never removing his eyes from the lizard.

"Um, we may have made a mistake when selecting Xavier as our HBCU."  I informed my after-school group.
"What do you mean?!"  Habiba asked, "I researched it myself!"
"I know, I am totally confused.  Miss Evelyn says that there is more than one Xavier and that we picked the...um, you guys, I think we may have picked the white school."  I responded, whispering the end.
"WHAT????"  the group exclaimed, mouths open.
"And their mascot, it's got um, a weird name.  It's like...,"  I lowered my voice, "gold digger, or something like that."
Habiba's eyes widened.
"I am not calling myself that."
"Yeah, I feel you.  Let's stick with Musketeers."  I answered.

I stood in the front office of the school, waiting to check-out my testing materials.  I heard a scuffle in the hall and looked left just in time to see a student in the hall punch an administrator in the arm as two adults struggled to subdue him.
"Bitch!"  he yelled, as parents and children looked on.

I knelt beside Prem's desk, watching him do Math work.  Something caught my attention and I made myself still, willing my ears to rotate like satellites.
"Wa chee ho hon...hee ho hon...."
I looked to my left.  A student was making what appeared to be "Chinese" sounds, derogatory imitations of what he thought any old east Asian language would sound like, while staring at Prem.  He locked eyes with me.  I looked down at his paper and noticed his name, one of the students that had been identified as violent and aggressive and to be avoided at all costs.
"What are you doing?"  I asked firmly, not giving a shit who he was.
"Nothing." he responded.
I looked at Prem.  He was hunched over his work, assuming a submissive, beaten-down posture I had never seen him use before.  His eyes stared straight at his paper.
Prem is a superstar.  He is wildly intelligent, funny and subversive.  He can literally jump three feet in the air whenever he feels like it.  I had never seen him that way.
The intercom cut-in.
"TEACHERS, WE ARE IN A CODE THREE LOCKDOWN."
We slammed the lights off, closed the door and locked it and herded the children behind desks, attempting to make them invisible to anyone peering through windows.  I put my arm around Prem's shoulder and pulled him to a safe place, slamming glowing Chromebooks as I pushed my back to the wall with Prem crouched at my feet, my body between him and the door.
Code three is the highest level and I knew it was real.  No one would call a code three, lock down drill fifteen minutes before dismissal for the day.
We remained that way, until the lock down was dismissed.
Prem looked at me.
"Can we go see the lizard?"
"Yes, let's go see Steve."  I answered.
We walked on the wooded path behind the school.  A school-system police car was parked in front of my trailer.  Another, real police car sat in front of the school.  We walked past and entered the trailer, where Prem sat and stared at Steve, his eyes alight with joy.

I drove to the Housing Authority, weary from days of conducting ACCESS testing and basically, everything else.
"When Justice Roberts refused to read Rand Paul's question exposing the whistleblower's name, he left the Senate chamber during the hearing and conducted his own news conference, reading the whistleblower's name to reporters."
Cunt-faced piece of shit, I found myself muttering, suddenly enraged.  Fuck it all, right?  If you don't get what you want, just do what you want to do, who the fuck cares?  Nothing really matters anyway, right?

I drove home on Friday, Steve riding shotgun in his terrarium.
"Take good care of Steve this weekend!" Adriana had called, waving over her shoulder as she jumped into her mom's car that afternoon.
I looked in at Steve.  He was inside his hollowed-out log, his head nestled next to the wall, eyes closed in a way that made him look like a cat or a puppy, not a reptile.  He didn't move for a really long time, not when I picked up the terrarium, not when I carried it to the car, not when I started the car.  He looked kind of yellow.

I listened to the final arguments, or basically pleading from Democrats for witnesses, of the Senate impeachment trial on the radio.
I over looked at Steve's motionless body and started to cry.

Camino de Belén

"Did you know that cannibalism is when people eat each other?"  Faba asked me.
"Yeah...." I answered.
"Can we try it?"  Prem asked excitedly.
"Flesh...." he whispered under his breath.

I laid on my stomach, ready to roll into the MRI machine.
"I don't think they gave you enough Valium, you're not showing it at all....I think it's going to wear off while you're in there."
I started holding my breath.
"I can't do this.  You have to stop." I finally answered. 
"We are going to get through this together." the technician answered.
I laid there a few minutes, trying to get myself together.
"Okay.  Roll me in."
I lowered my face, gripped a plastic rail and started counting.

"Please set a goal with your grade level about how you can help with our CCRPI score." an administrator stated during a faculty meeting on our first day back from the end of the year break. 
A teacher, who has told me countless times that she wants my job, rose and turned toward me, calling out across the entire room.
"I've done your job and you need to move those kids on the ACCESS tiers!"
"You're setting my goal for me....?"  I mumbled, shocked. 
Those weren't even my scores; I had worked there a week before administering the test.  And who the fuck calls out another teacher about standardized test scores in front of the whole school?   How the hell were her scores?  We are an F school.  My students shouldn't have to balance out everyone else's shitty scores.  Why doesn't she try to teach her own fucking students and bring up our CCRPI? 
But the bottom line was, she was trying to discredit me, in front of everyone, because she wants my job.  My stomach churned. 

"Mr. Pulchic has problem with his legs." Yami announced randomly during after school tutoring.
"Well you see,"  Aazim began, authoritatively, "his middle is quite large and his legs are very small.  It is difficult for them to hold everything up." he explained, fingers on his chin and eyes fixed on Yami.
"Ms. Swort has the same problem."
I found myself snickering, even though I knew it was awful. 

Soberuary has arrived again.  I haven't plied myself with as much yoga and herbal tea as I have in previous years, but I still have that George Constanza feeling in the episode when he gave up sex and became really smart.  I'm not really smart yet, but I am on a steady, manic path of self improvement.  Sans alcohol. 

Snowman, Why Are You Here?

"Pablo, are you excited about Christmas?"  I whispered.
"Yes...." he answered.
"What did you ask for?"
"An iPhone." all six years of him answered, definitely.

"Nunca he visto nieve...."  Rosa informed me while we ran to the trailer.
"Oh, Rosa.  I really hope it snows this year." I answered, knowing every time I see that snowflake on my weather app I would think of her.
"Voy al gimnasio los miércoles ahora.....¡y le entiendo todo!"  she whispered dramatically.
"I am so proud of you, Rosa."  I answered, struggling to make myself speak English instead of Spanish.
"You have been working so hard."

"Hey, Alejandro's brothers are in your classes and they don't celebrate Christmas, so we'll be hanging out in the trailer during the holiday parties.  You can send his brothers to me, if you want."  I emailed various teachers.
No one answered.
"Our mom is picking us up before the parties..."  Gustavo mentioned one day, randomly.  It figured.  Their mom is no fool and would never want her children to be uncomfortable.
"Hey, Alejandro's probably not going to have to go to the trailer on the holiday party day, his mom is coming to pick them up." I informed the second meanest teacher in the school.
"Uh, okay, well, I'm going to send some other kids with you, you know kids that I haven't been able to make parental contact with...."
I don't know why she was so determined to not let me in that room during the party.  Did she want to send the kids with me that she had barred from the party for behavior?  Turn my trailer into a little mini-jail?  Or the kids that didn't pay the eight dollar fee for admission?

"Ms. Q said that all the kids that don't celebrate Christmas are going to the trailer with you."  Veronica whispered, later in the day.
"What!?"  I whispered back, furiously.
I was getting pissed off.  Can't answer an email but can send me fifty kids no one wants to my trailer.  Kids I don't even know.
On the day of the parties, I spirited Gustavo and another little boy from his class out of the classroom before the parties began.  I had my Scrabble game in the trailer and a bunch of candy, in anticipation.  We booked toward Alejandro's classroom.
"His mom is picking him up."  the second meanest teacher in the school informed me, as if I hadn't mentioned this fun fact to her a few days ago.
"Okay, have them buzz the trailer when she comes."  I answered.
"No, she'll be here any minute, you should take them to the Media Center, I told them that's where you'd be."
We collected the third brother and the four of us sat in the Media Center.  It is open at the top and sits in the center of the school.  We could hear the parties all around.  I set up my work laptop and let the other boy and Gustavo play math games on it.  Alejandro and his other brother and I sat around and talked.  Teachers came in with plates full of food and fraternized.  We sat and waited while the clock ticked.  An administrator came in.  She didn't ask me why I wasn't wearing our mandated Christmas clothes or why I was sitting with students in the Media Center during the parties.
Their mom arrived an hour later.

"Snow..ow...ow man!  Why are you here?"  the kids sang, hauntingly.  I locked eyes with Alejandra, who flattered me by looking thrilled when she saw me in the audience. 
"Snow...ow...ow man, why are you here?  You are just a little snowman with your little twig hands.. why would anyone want to talk to you....?"
She saw me wincing at the lyrics and nodded.  And continued to sing, staring at me with a distaste on her face while she sang the mean lyrics.

"Hey...." one of the volunteer mentors at the Housing Authority said in greeting.
"I can't find my girl and her dad said she was here....but I know something happened...."
"Yeah, she's been suspended." another teacher responded.
I looked at Habiba.
"They jumped that girl, the one that was in your class last year at school.  All four of them...."  Four girls I taught at The Center last year and one that I taught at school.
"Her mom came up here and wanted to know what happened to her face."
"But...you know.. the other three didn't hit her...just jumped on her jacket and spit on her...." Habiba said lowly, knowing what they did was just as bad.

"I saw what she was doing!"  the kindergarten teacher said with surprise.  She was talking about Helina, my non-verbal girl.
"Wait, you mean when she tried to poke my eyes out with a pencil?"
"Yeah!  She almost got you!"
"Yeah, I have to watch her.  She tries to stab me."  I answered.  Or rip my finger nails off.  Or tear holes in my clothes.

I crowd-sourced a book buy so that each of my students would have a brand new book to take home and keep and read over the two week, end of the year break.  I told myself not to get too excited, not to be disappointed if they didn't react with glee, but honestly, they were marvelous.  It was more that I could have ever hoped for.

I walked up the hill into the neighborhood with the kids that walk home from school.  Adriana always walks by my side and we talk.
"My mom bought them presents.  They're coming over on Christmas."  she whispered, referring to Juan and Alberto, who her mom also always gives a ride home.
"Oh my god, I am so glad.  Your mom is so nice, you all are so nice."  I responded, relieved.
"Their dad is trying to take them, take them away from her....from their mom."  she responded, with a much more serious look than any ten year old should have.

I entered the kindergarten classroom the day after the the book give away.  I was shocked when Helina set up a chair for me, like the autistic girl usually does who was absent, and sat next to me, resting her elbow on my knee.  I held onto the tiny kindergarten chair while I sat down, afraid she would rip it out from under me and I'd fall on my ass.  I told her how pretty her hijab was and praised her for mouthing sounds that she refuses to vocalize.

About twenty minutes in, she shoved the eraser end of her pencil into my mouth, just when I got complacent.
I swatted it away and laughed.
"Oh, Helina.  No one gets one over on you."  I said and hugged her.  And she hugged me back, her eyes batting and mischievous.

Santa Goes Straight to the Ghetto

I walked from my kindergarten class to my first grade class, around 8:45 in the morning.  I noticed Chance the Rapper.  He is always flattered and grins when I call him by the nickname that his all-day teacher calls him.
He was wandering in the hall, all six years old of him, with a late slip in his hand.
"Chance the Rapper!"  I called out.
He half smiled.
"Chance...are you okay?"
He broke into hysterical crying, his words spilling from his mouth in a way that I could barely understand.
"The car, what happened in the car?"  I asked.
"Did she yell at you?"
He shook his head, hiccuping and crying.
"Did she hit?"
"Yes!" he screamed.
"Where?"
"Across my face!"  he screamed and cried.  I hugged him.  And he cried low, feral cries from the bottom of his soul.

I really hate Mondays.  And there is just so much pain, so much abject pain in every corner of the place where I work.  It's deep and dark and way down in the recesses where no one needs to go.

"I have a low...." Adriana whispered, while I set up her computer for small group MAP testing.  She and Veronica were absent on Monday and I had hoped they were doing something fun.  I always do "highs and lows" at the beginning of my lessons, but I was still surprised that it had infiltrated our normal conversations.
"My mom's in the hospital..."
"Her diabetes?"  I asked.
"We didn't buy the $300 stuff from Kroger.  We got the $10 stuff...."

I went to check on the Martínez family again, a family who normally is never absent, trying to find out if they were there for testing.   I found Alberto, a member of a different family, who came in late though he normally doesn't.
He reeked of urine.
I pretended not to notice, and brought him to the testing room.  He has been under a lot of stress, his dad left for another woman, leaving his mom with four kids to care for.  And she won't update her phone numbers for us, no matter how many notes I send home.  And Alberto, my tough little dude, has started peeing his pants, even though he's in third grade.  This was the first time I had known him to arrive in school in that condition.

I walked through the Cafetorium with Veronica and Prem, on the look out for Faba and Juan that are in the Band class, whom we watch, pick up and then, run out to the trailer and do our thing.
Juan was shaking and his head was down.  Faba hovered nearby.
"He had to sit out...."  Faba whispered.
"He doesn't know his notes... his mom won't let him practice at home...."  the Band teacher said, exasperated, knowing that I had gotten him his trumpet so that he could participate and worried what I would think, though I wished he wouldn't worry about that.
I put my arm around Juan and he started to shake.  And then, he cried.
"I'll call her!"  the Band teacher said, but I knew none of the phone numbers worked.
I knew I was going to cry, too.  I pulled Juan to my side and asked him if he wanted to go get a drink of water or stay with us.
"Stay with you." he responded, and we went to the trailer.
"Adult problems,"  I said over and over.
"We are going to solve this, Juan, because we are adults and we've got this."

I sat with third grade, during the last hour of the day.  Alberto still smelled terrible.
"Juan, he's been hurting me...." he said, his strong Mexican accent dragging out his vowels.
"What did he do?"
"He hit me, he hit me a lot...."
"Why?"
"I don't know why.... I just cried and grabbed the puppy and went in my bed, under the covers...."
"I am so sorry, Alberto.  This should not be happening.  I'll talk to Juan.  I will talk to him about this..."

I stood in the Cafetorium, watching kids eat lunch while people yelled at them.  The nicest teacher at the school took over the "silent music" that was supposed to signify silence, and played "Santa Goes Straight to the Ghetto", loud as hell.

Children snickered and shoulders grooved.
And the nicest teacher at the school danced for them, right up on the stage of the Cafetorium.