class clown

He sits in the far corner of the classroom and really does struggle with the question: should I be funny, or should I focus. He knows what his classmates want; they want the clown. And he likes the role. It makes him feel special. No one can cut up the room like him. It’s like ham with eggs. But Mr. Lash told him, yesterday, that time was beginning to run out, that it was time for him to buckle down, to get serious, to focus. And Mr. Lash wasn’t the first, by any stretch. He looks across the room, now. Sid is the intellectual. Mary is the sensitive one. Lou’s the wordsmith. Hallie’s the artist. Fred and Allie carry the common sense mantles. Where would he fit in, if he went straight? Would he fit in? Maybe. Maybe not. He does think about this, but with that smile on his face because it’s best not to let anything on. Mr. Lash is lecturing, now, talking, pointing, and, finishing the 20-minute presentation, says, “Any questions?” and he says, “Yeah, can you go over that, again, Mr. L?” and the class guffaws. It wasn’t that funny, certainly not one of his funniest, but it was him who said it and he was the one they counted on and laughed with, or at. He wondered, a lot, lately, about that one, too.

rambled

He does wonder where she is
and what she’s doing
and who she’s doing it with –
with whom she is doing it, it
being
any
number of things.
of
course, and not necessarily
IT!
And he has wondered
if they
perhaps and/or perchance,
knew each other before, in a
previous life,
when he was a knight and
she
a
princess or even a tavern
maiden.
And he does wonder, still,
if … No, he
doesn’t. He does wish
he did, sometimes, but he won’t allow
himself
that.
He
can’t.

red donkey

He loads up a mini-van every Sunday and drives across the river to the open-air flea market just off Exit 36. Back home, across the border, he’s an artisan. He makes things. Nice things. Beautiful things. Glorious things. But, here, he just sells junk, his and anyone else’s. He does find it ironic, that when he visits the richest nation in the world he makes more money selling gizmos and gadgets than he does at home, selling what his hands create with precision and an almost sacred care. But he has long quit questioning it, or anything like it. So, he smiles, nods, and collects a pocketful of dollars for an old bike, a used VCR, a painting of a southeast Asia landscape. Someone looking over his wares asks him for the time. He says, “It’s still early.” The browser nods and picks up a bright red plush toy, a donkey. A red donkey. Perfectly odd. Two bucks. Sold.

phillippe

His name is Phillippe and he hawks newspapers at the red light just before the underpass outside a town called Pharr in southernmost Texas. He has two children – Jose Carlos and Angelica – and a common-law wife, Rose, with whom he’s lived for seven years, now. After he’s done, this morning, he will head home and count his money. The total will be sixteen fifty-six. He will use that to feed the children for the next three days. He’s learned how to make money last. He’s had no choice. In another year, Jose Carlos will join a local gang, even though he’s only 10. He’ll think it’s a way to become stronger, but it will only kill him, in the end. Angelica will be a serious student. Someday, she will graduate Princeton. No one will be there to see her in cap and gown and she will spend the afternoon alternately alone and with her roommates parents who have a summer home in the Hamptons. Phillippe knows none of this, of course, this morning, in the 98-degree heat, as he walks betweens cars, raising high the papers, the San Antonio Express. No one knows any of this. How could they? It is unknowable. As is the unlikely possibility that Angelica will someday become the Surgeon General of the United States, which she will.

esther's journal

FRIDAY, September 29: More rain. In sheets. But a good day, if not great. We read a short story in class by Kurt Vonnegut – “Harrison Bergeron.” Read it, if you get a moment. It’s good. But the discussion that followed was one of those times when you think you could teach forever. The question was this: what’s more important for society – freedom or rules? What ensued was a raucous, almost chaotic trading of ideas and opinion that gives you satisfaction as a teacher, hope for the future and an understanding of just with what we’re entrusted – these wonderful, young minds. I wanted the class to go on and on and on. I wanted to hug them all. It wasn’t the first time one of my classes has blossomed, like that. But every time it’s like a first time. You can feel the energy. My God, what a lovely revelation, always. I wish you had been there.

nice thoughts

He feels a great comfort, now, where he is, what’s he’s doing, and he wonders why it’s so, and if it’s going to come to an end, or if it can continue. He watches the sun set, near, across the western end of the football field and marvels at the indefinable colors. He looks at the sky, so big and blue, and feels small, yet significant. He smiles at the clouds, with a wonder and joy that seems misplaced at his age, or at least so very childlike. But he likes that, too. He’s even been reconsidering God and wonders if God would reconsider him. Nice thoughts. Good thoughts.

gaity

The girl is presenting a speech in class about her favorite band and it’s the Jonas Brothers and she says, to the class, a bit embarrassedly, “And I don’t care if you think they’re gay,” and the class twitters, even as the teacher stops her presentation and admonishes her, though gently, for it has become commonplace for kids to joke about homosexuality in that manner and she, the speaker, is too nice to mean great harm, if any harm at all. A boy to the side says, “But the Bible says it’s a sin,” and another concurs and the teacher backs away from a theological confrontation, because she must. In the far corner, sits Enzo Ford. He’s a co-captain on the football team and the homecoming king and he’s gay, though he hasn’t admitted it, yet, even to himself. And he feels a great shame wash over him, now, a shame even greater than the one he feels at night, when he’s left alone with his thoughts and his worries and his fears about going to hell, and he says, too, “Yes, it says so in the Bible – and the Jonas Brothers are gay.” And, so, Enzo Ford leads the second wave of laughter. It is all he can do.

esther's journal

SUNDAY, Sept. 24: I talked to Marnie, today, about being my “ghost writer,” pun intended. First thing she said was “Let’s not talk about that.” But I pressed on and got her to say that she would think about it. I just don’t think she wants to think about it. I understand that. I think she’ll come through.

On a more mundane note, the new head of school published a ruling on women and Capri pants. He’s outlawed them, which got us pretty up in arms, at least privately. First of all, or most of all, doesn’t he have better things to do with his time? Please. I wish I knew the date of my last day, I’d be sure to wear a pair. Perhaps the story in the local paper would read: “WS teacher dies in Capri pants.” Honestly.

I went to church this morning. First time in a long time. I didn’t run back the day after I was diagnosed. I felt that would be a bit too, too transparent. So, I waited a bit. I also waited until the new Episcopal minister arrived. I’d heard a lot about him. He’s a cancer survivor who’d spent years working with tribes in Africa. His homily was good, even inspiring. He said, “To live in the moment is to understand true spirituality.” I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it sounds like a thought worth pursuing. So, I might.

I called my daughter, tonight. She lives in Los Angeles. We don’t talk a lot. Have I mentioned that? She doesn’t know about “it.” I left a message. She didn’t call back. I’ll try, again, tomorrow.

I took a late walk, tonight, after dark, across campus. The moon lit the lake; a strong breeze made the leaves talk. I sat near the boathouse for an hour or so, just feeling life around me. It made me feel good, not sad. I think that’s a good thing.

esther's journal

SATURDAY, Sept. 23: Saturdays here are different. We have morning classes every other week. If you coach a team it often ends up being a full day. I was eating breakfast, alone, in the dining hall this morning and doing the inventory thing, again. I try to ignore it or disavow it, completely, but it comes back every so often – what I’ve been doing and what I could’ve been doing, instead. Then I saw Max Varacruz, one of our international students. He’s from Mexico and he’s in my B Block class. Max is a kid I can help. I will be able to reach him. I know that by the way he looks at me. I see it in his eyes and when I do I think that maybe this is exactly what I was meant to do – to reach these kids. It’s a powerful feeling. They’re looking for that – to feel that, to know that that’s there for them, that someone is there for them. I had to smile. It was a good moment.

who? WHO?

She makes a point
Of
Using his
Name when
Anything
Is to be done:
Joe and I …
Joe and I …
Me and Joe …
Joe says …
To the point that
It seems:
Well,
You guess. I’ve got my
Assumptions and inferences
And
Suspicions and
Ideas,
But they’re just those and
Nothing more. Until
She, again, needs to mention
His
Name, which I already know,
Thank you,
Very
Much. And
I become rather
sure.

julio

His name is Julio and he is the most adorable four-year-old you can imagine. His eyes are dark and alternately mischievous and mysterious. Sometimes you know exactly what he’s thinking; other times, good luck. His hair is dark, too, and curly and thick. It smells of a child’s sweat and his sweetness, too. When he talks, which he does when he’s excited, his words are light and a bit lispy, though not so much that he’ll ever be branded, should he live to be old enough to attend school, which he won’t, because he’s riding on his mother’s lap, as she and his father drive to the grocery store. The accident that will take place in a minute will occur in a moment’s split-second, the kind of collision that would be termed a fender-bender, in other circumstances. Not today, though. Forty-five seconds from this exact moment, Emile Gonzalez, 82, who lives in a retirement home and attends adult day care five days a week, will make a blind turn and strike the front right bumper of the car driven by Julio’s father. If Julio were riding in the back seat, in a car seat, wearing a seat belt, he wouldn’t even feel the impact. Because he is unstrapped on his mother’s lap, he will end up in a coma. He will be dead in two days. The cost of the auto repairs to both cars will total $2500. A mere pittance, given the loss.

esther's story

FRIDAY, Sept. 22: I took my kids outside for class, today -- it was cool and breezy with high, white, puffy clouds -- for an exercise in seeing and listening. I asked them to spend seven minutes in solitude, somewhere near the academic building just being quiet and observing and writing what they saw and heard. It wasn’t the first time I’ve done this with my classes. But, again, I was completely heartened by the results. It’s funny, or not, I suppose, that kids, today, don’t spend much quiet time, much time thinking or looking. They’re bombarded with all kinds of noise and captivated – or distracted – by all kinds of images. But when you slow them down, they do hear and see. Kitty Anderson saw dew drops sliding off leaves and, as she wrote, “crashing silently” to the ground. Pete Eggleston saw clouds move, or as he wrote, “slip slowly across the bluest sky I’ve ever seen.” Hiroshi Sumo, an international student from Japan, wrote about the “peace of a morning dotted with blood red flowers.” I saw a group of young people looking hard to see the world in which they live. The real world. It made me smile.

dreaming

In the dream she was married and said to him, "If I were to kiss another man, it would be you," and when they sat for dinner, she sat to his right, away from her husband, and even though she sat comfortably erect, he could feel her leaning toward him. Nothing more happened, at all, but that was enough.

dora

Her name is Dora and she’s the librarian at the school and she’s been that for almost 15 years, now. Before that, she was married, a mother and a lot of other things that now seem distant and almost imaginary. That was before the divorce and before Jim, their boy, died in Iraq. It’s been three years since all of that and the only reason she survived was the books. Not that she read them, for she wasn’t much of a reader. It was that she tended them. She cared for them They gave her something to do. Her doing that something gave her life some order. It may sound silly or simple or both, but it’s true. She used to laugh at herself: Mrs. Dewey Decimal. Today, just a few minutes ago, the principle told her that they were going to shut down the library. Not enough money to keep it going in these hard times. The kids would use the library across the street, in the high school. They would find something else for her, she was assured. But she knew they wouldn’t. Or was it: they couldn't.

stephen

He sees his father every other week, when his foster mother sets up the visit. They are not allowed to meet alone. It is one of the rules. The father’s name is Victor. The boy’s is Stephen. Stephen is 13. He is bright and has a ready smile. In three weeks, he will begin attending middle school, the breeding ground for the local gangs. He will be recruited and he will have difficulty refusing. It is the way things are, down here. His foster mother is good. She cares for him; she loves him. But the draw to his kind, or those he thinks to be his kind, will be far too strong. His father will like this development. His father will say it is what he did, before he got hooked on crack and cheap liquor. His father will show his son the gangbanger tattoo on his left biceps. Pretty soon, as soon as the law allows, the father will be inviting Stephen to live with him, again, and Stephen will agree and weeks later Stephen’s ready smile will be only a memory and he will be dead before he is 19. It is the way things are, down here.