“I’ma whoop your ass,
bitch!” I try to defuse the situation.
“That’s an excellent example of an exclamatory sentence, Cecilia.” Sadly, my well-timed grammar humor goes
totally under appreciated. It’s clearly
a rough room.
“Ahhhhhhh, HELL no!” Cynthia answers, shaking her head while walking
across the room. And the escalation has
begun. Obviously, “I’ma” have to let
rules of appropriate language go for the moment for two reasons. First, clearly we are beyond the little rules
and the objective here has changed. And
secondly, it is painfully true. Cynthia
is a total bitch most of the time. It’s
a reasonable statement.
But Cynthia is caught in a never ending loop. It’s like the tedious lineage excerpts from
the Bible with all of those “begot’s”.
Poverty begot teen pregnancy.
Teen pregnancy and poverty begot self-medicating and crime. Crime begot poor parenting. Poor parenting begot angry teen. Angry teen begot poor school behavior and
terrible social skills. Follow the
trail. I get it. Cynthia’s behaviors are easier to see, easier
to understand, and easier to forgive.
She is a handful, but she is in survival mode. She needs her bad behavior to survive so I
don’t feel right totally taking it away from her. I mean, I guess I could scream at her, get in
her face, make threats of detention and the like, but why? I am almost certain that approach has been
attempted every year she has been in our educational system and it has clearly
failed. So? I let a lot go with Cynthia. I try to squash my own ego and let her
go. Give her one place where she can’t
squander all of her good will. Consider
it a bridge I will not allow her to burn while she is in here. Of course, maybe I wouldn’t be in this
escalating situation if I had become one of the screamers. Who knows?
Back to Cecilia.
It is clear that this is no bluff.
Cecilia’s body language is in full fight mode. I stand between them like a human shield. Right now my body is about the only thing
that has put this brawl into pause. As a
small man with a big mouth, I have some experience in getting walloped, so I
think I’m good here. I try one last
thing.
“As a favor to me ladies, can you not do this in here?” This is a pause. Just the sound of their heated breath. “I’m not moving and I bruise very
easily.” I manage to catch Cynthia off
guard. She snorts out a quick laugh. The fight, for the moment, is diverted. And it is not the first time a little
well-place humor has gotten me out of a beat-down. You can feel the tension leave the room. You can see it ease in the shoulders of the
two girls. “Cynthia, why don’t you walk
this off? Take Lydia and slowly make
your way to the restroom.” Cynthia
shrugs and heads out. She is usually
quick to anger, but she is also quick to let it go. Again, it is more about survival than
fighting.
The room goes back to dull. Kids
go back to reading or pretending to read and today I will take either. I take a seat next to Cecilia.
“Why are you going to fight Cynthia?”
“She’s a bitch,” she says matter-of-factly.
“But why let her get you so crazy angry?”
“Cynthia didn’t really get me very angry at all.” I am a little confused.
“But you were ready to slam her.
AND, you used harsh language that I know you have never in your life
ever used before.” She chuckles and
relaxes just a bit.
“Cynthia didn’t get me angry.
Cynthia was just my excuse to BE angry.”
She can tell I don’t understand.
“I’m angry when my dad drinks too much and passes out in the front of
the apartments, but I ain’t allowed to be angry about that. And then I am angry when I have to watch my
little brothers all night, don’t have time to get any of this stupid homework done,
and get yelled at in class. But, I ain’t
allowed to be angry about that, either.
I’m angry about stuff that so far I just have to pretend didn’t even
happen, so obviously I can’t be angry at none of that. So, when I’m angry at Cynthia? I’m really angry at about ten other
things. At least I’m allowed to be angry
at Cynthia. So, I dump it all on her.”
You can say what you want about Cecilia, but for someone who sleeps
through a lot of classes she is wide awake.
Self-aware. Conscious of the
stacked deck and every elephant in her room.
I look into her eyes. They have a
sense of surrender to them. Her world
has been laid bare, for the moment, and she doesn’t care who is watching.
She looks back into my eyes as if searching for something. She doesn’t see it and looks away. It is sad when a wounded soul seeks solace in
your eyes, maybe some silent comradery, and they cannot find it. The reality though, is that it is there. The thing she is looking for? I know it.
And I have it. I know exactly
what she wants and I have it in abundance.
I am a master at masking. My
coping skills have become quite extraordinary over the years. In the wake of her surrender, I feel the need
to join her. Truth is, I often grow
tired of coping. Tired of being an
adult. Tired of being a man. Sometimes, I just want to be a person. There is so much I can’t and shouldn’t say,
but a new one seems okay to surrender to her. I talk quickly because I don’t
want the moment to be lost, or hear those words that I know are coming. “You wouldn’t understand.” I also talk quickly because this is the first
time I am really saying this out loud outside of my home, so nerves have caught
me off guard.
“In June, my father killed himself.
He shot himself in the head. He
left no explanation. No note. When I was little, my father was my
hero. I remember actually hoping I would
get a receding hairline so I could look more like him. And when I was about six, I would sit out on
the curb and wait for his car when he was working the day shift. As he got older, he became more depressed and
more isolated and all but vanished from my life. He is not here to be mad at, so I go around
looking for other things to be angry about.
And anytime I hear myself sounding just like him, I get angry and scared
that I will one day, with no note, shoot myself in the head.”
Cecilia just keeps staring. And
then, she stares some more. She is too
surprised to speak. I am too surprised
to listen. Finally, she says something.
“You won’t,” she says in a very small voice.
“How can you be so sure?” I ask.
“Cuz I’ma have to whoop your ass if you do.” It just might be the best
thing anyone has ever said to me. We
laugh. We laugh for a while.
And that’s it. The writer in me
is hunting through the pages for the magic moment that will bring all of this
full circle. But, I don’t feel much like
being a writer today. Or a teacher. Just taking a moment to be a person.
If you're enjoying the blog, here's a book I recommend. "Our Kids: Building Relationships in the Classroom," is available at Amazon.
No comments:
Post a Comment