Canaan Thomas, a student with a history of behavioral problems, was involved in an altercation with Mr. Glisan. Mr. Glisan ordered Thomas to run lines for dressing down late for class and Thomas refused. Mr. Glisan then asked Thomas to leave the gym, at which point Thomas cursed Mr. Glisan in front of the class. Mr. Glisan requested once more that Thomas leave the gym and report to the principal’s office at once. Thomas responded by tossing a ball in the stands and threatening to bring a firearm to school to shoot Mr. Glisan. School security was alerted and Thomas was escorted to the main office. Thomas is hereby suspended from school pending a hearing for expulsion.
What to do??? Read it once. Read it twice, then asked him, with fist and heart open, for his side of the story. He said he showed up a couple minutes late for class, and in front of the whole team the coach fired a ball at him and said to run suicides. He (my granitehead bro) tracked the ball and kicked it to the other end of the gym (this was a bad move, of course, but as it turns out the lil homie was locomotive) and told the teacher what he could do with his suicides. He claimed that day that the teacher called him a loser and a waste and only then did he curse (another dandy move but youngster was caught, bad breaks to boot, on that steep, steep slope of flawed judgment) and say he’d get his older brother (me) to come the next day and whoop the teacher’s ass. This was what made the teacher call security, not, as baby bro alleged that day (his eyes leaking Oregon raindrops) because he threatened to bring a pistol to school.
Man, they got you in the system now, I said. Satisfied?
For the record, my peoples, yes I know it could have been a snafu picking a side. But who gives a rat’s ass whose story I believed? The end game was this: my baby brother won’t be back in “regular” school (oh, the shit we forsake) for at least a year if ever at all.
At Canaan’s new school (an alternative school housed among a bunch of warehouses) the office, or what I’m guessing is the office, is empty, desolate, so I stride down the hall and peek inside the first open door and introduce myself to a lady sitting behind a messy desk. She greets me all cherry-like, and I tell her why I came. She knows Canaan, his grade, his class, and offers to walk me over.
Canaan’s class is in another building, and from the office to his class you can see the shabby warehouses, forklifts, bereft wooden pallets. Up ahead a semi pulls onto the lot, its engine making the sound of tools knocking, and muscles towards a garage where men in grimy jeans and hooded jackets wait in the cold. My escort stops and rubs her shoulders and points to the building. It’s really awesome you came, she says, her nose and ears chilled soft red. She strides off hugging herself.
Dinged lockers, a lone lefty desk tagged with Fizzuck Mizz. H, a dented trash can, that’s what I see inside. The classroom door is closed, but you can see the teacher (I’m guessing she’s Ms. H) through a window cut in the door. She’s standing by a portable chalkboard dressed in slacks and a blouse. She points to the word DREAM written in giant letters on the board. I crack the door and wave and she smiles and waves, and I stroll in searching for baby bro in the seats. He’s posted in a row nearest the back and sinks in his desk when I look at him. This classroom is all these classrooms. There’s a hand-drawn box on the board with a name in it, a wall of maps showing countries these youngsters, like it was for me and my patnas, got a 0.01 percent chance of seeing as nonsoldiers, a laminated poster of the classroom rules. Ms. H announces me to the class, all boys, and warns them on their best behavior.
What, he posed to be babysittin or somethin? says a youngster with level-five acne. Ms. H tells him to show me respect and the little peon balls a sheet and shoots it well short of the closest trash can.
She asks me if there’s anything I’d like to say.
What pops in my head is the story of old classmates, a pair of fine young gentlemen who had a dope spot near my high school. Every day they’d slouch in a desk by the window and eagle-eye the shit out of their spot, and each day whenever either of them saw a potential lick, they’d blast out their seats and scramble out the class and out of school in competition. They both (go figure) ended up in alternative school and I lost track, but no sooner than I’d waltzed offstage in my grad cap and gown, I heard they got rocked with state racketeering charges. Their fates beyond that? Gent A got bludgeoned to death with a bat in a state prison, and Gent B, well, let’s just say that by the time he sees the free world again, we’ll be booking weekend trips to the moon.
That’s the story that pops in my head, but what comes out my mouth is this: Hey, guys. I’m happy to be here. But we can pretend I’m not. That I’m a ghost.
This, of course, goes for everybody but my baby bro. I pick the desk right behind him and he twists around. I give him the you-best-not-embarrass-me-or-I’ll-fuck-your-young-ass-up look and he slumps lower than even I thought he could. Ms. H waits until I’m settled, then writes REM on the board. When we dream, our brain all but paralyzes us, she says. That’s what happens to us physiologically.
Physio-what?
Physiologically, John, she says. That means what happens inside our bodies.
Ms. H asks them to take out a sheet of paper and write down their last dream. Most of the class cracks open a notebook, all but the acne-struck youngster who says he don’t do no dreaming. Not only does he participate zilch, he balls up another sheet and tosses it haphazard. John, do you need a break, do you need to take a trip to the office? she says.
Nah, he says. Do you?
You hate to think it, hate to say it, but there’s a kid like him in most every class (well, the ones I was in), a rogue-in-training who’s at worst beyond rescue. Ms. H tours the desks and lets them write till they slap their pens on top of their sheets. She walks to the board and ask for volunteers.
One of the boys in the front shoots up his hand.
Go ahead, Juan, she says.
Okay. I had dream something chase me, he says. But I no see who chase. The chaser get loud and faster. And I kept run and run right off edge. Then I run in air and fall same time. I no hit ground, but I no stop fall either.