7:58 p.m. - Monday, Oct. 15, 2012
Story #14
"Fucking white bitch," he screamed through his window at me as I pulled up to the school. The front of the building welcomes students with a facade wounded by two bullets. Every morning I play cockroach roulette when I open the door to my classroom. There's a 40% chance I will open the door to the biggest, flying roaches I've ever seen. The smell of mold . . .or something dead . . .permeates the walls and oozes into the classroom's foyer. I douse the room with febreeze, but it never goes away. At recess, my four-year-olds run around on a blacktop littered with bits of plastic, trash, cigarette butts. "Don't touch that!" I'm yelling constantly. Not a swing, not a slide . . .not a patch of soft ground, let alone grass.
He screamed, and kicked, and spit, and scratched. I cradled him in my arms as I felt the heat rising to my cheeks and the high-pitched screech cutting like a knife through my ears and into my pounding head. He pushed and pulled at my arms, desperate to get free. And the sound of his father's voice played over and over again in my brain. "I was addicted to crack cocaine when I had him . . .maybe that messed him up." "You don't understand," he said. "I don't even want to look at him." I respect this man for his honesty. I respect this man for showing up every day to take this little guy home. He could have left. And he didn't. I feel no judgment. I feel pain. I wish I knew how to help him.
I keep a gratitude book. Everyday, I write down one thing that happens in the classroom that was fulfilling . . .a precious moment. I have pages of moments. It's amazing to be here. But I would be lying if I said that on days like today, I didn't ask myself what the fuck I'm doing here. And I would be lying if I said that when I drive past the beautiful elementary schools here where I live, on the outskirts of Surburbia . . .in the farmlands . . .and see the schools nestled in the valley of the mountains, with the beautiful state-of-the-art jungle gyms, and acres of land . . .that my heart didn't seize with jealousy.
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