It’s only the second day of school, and I’m already sick. I can feel it. The scratchy throat, the watery eyes, and the snot-filled nose. I hate it, and when I get sick, I like sweets. Lots of them.
Arrow, the little girl who asked to bring cupcakes for her birthday, is digging through her lunch. She’s also the one who gave me the Twinkie yesterday.
She’s hanging her backpack up in her cubby when I ask, “Did your mom pack you a Twinkie?”
Arrow rolls her damn eyes at me. “No, and you said you don’t like vanilla.”
“I don’t like vanilla cupcakes. Twinkies are entirely different.”
She stands her ground and goes as far to put her hands on her hips. “How so?”
I put my fingers to my lips and smile, walking backward to my desk. “Shh. No talking during class.”
When I reach my desk, I sit down and Luna walks up. Did you meet her yesterday? She’s the one who sits on the other side of Cash and has the whitest hair I’ve ever seen. It’s almost as translucent as her skin.
“Are you married?” she asks, taking my hand to hold it up.
This kid scares me. Every time I look at her, I think of Caroline from the movie Poltergeist, and at any moment she’s going to say, “Mommy, where are you?” And then I shiver as the child with gray eyes stares at me. “No, why.”
“Asking for a friend.”
Look at her. She’s not asking for a friend. And then she goes on to tell me what she did last night, like I care what she did.
Have you ever listened to a child under ten tell you a story? I should rephrase that. Have you ever tried to understand a story a child under ten is telling you?
It’s damn near painful at times.
All I get from the story is that she has a pet pig and Draven told her poltergeists are real.
Are your eyes wide given what I just told you about her? I shit you not, she said that.
I motion for her to back up a foot because she doesn’t seem to understand personal space.
“He also said the stock market is going to crash soon.”
“Who did?”
“Draven.”
I sigh, out loud. “Well, he eats paper so I wouldn’t put too much weight on Draven’s theories on the stock market.” I can’t believe I’m actually talking about this with a child.
Two months ago I was working with mentally challenged kids with behavioral issues, getting stoned, and fucking nameless women while pretending to use my college education. Now look at me.
Luna goes back to her desk while I sneeze.
“One of you little germs gave me a cold.” I point to Brennan in the back row. “I’m lookin’ at you, B.”
He rubs his nose with the sleeve of his shirt right about then and smiles. “Sorry?”
“Don’t be. I’m tough, but. . . now you’ve gotta hear a story about how germs work that’ll make you wash your hands.” I point to the whiteboard behind me at a random photograph of fish on the wall. “Remember how we talked about parasites yesterday?”
They nod. This is probably not the best story to tell a bunch of second graders but fuck it. They need to know this because I can’t look at a fish the same way. “There’s this parasite called a cymothoa exigua. It’s also known as the tongue-eating louse.”
Brennan raises his hand. “Am I the parasite in this story?”
See? They’re starting to get my stories and teaching methods, and we’re only a few days into the school year. I’m doing something right. “Yep. You’re the tongue-eating parasite in this story so listen up you little freeloader.” The kids laugh and wiggle in their seats, all eyes on me. “All right, so we got the fish, right?” I grab a dry erase marker and draw a picture of what looks like a fish and then a bug beside it. “The parasite. . . I mean, Brennan. . . he enters the fish through the gills and attaches himself to the fish’s tongue. Like he did to me and gave me this stupid cold.”
“You can’t say stupid!” Arrow points out, correcting me.
“Yes, I can. I’m the teacher. I can say what I want. You can’t say stupid.” I don’t need to look at the little pigtailed brat to know she’s glaring at me. I look at the chalkboard instead and my art illustration of a fish and its parasite friend. “Where was I? Oh, right. So Brennan bores his way into the tongue, my tongue, and then drinks the fish’s blood until the tongue falls off. Once it does, Brennan becomes the fish’s tongue until the fish dies.”
I’m not sure about the twenty-two pairs of wide eyes staring back at me. The boys are fascinated. . . the girls. . . not so much. Do you think that story was appropriate for them?
Cash’s hand shoots up, and I’m happy he’s participating today. “Did Brennan take your tongue?”
I laugh. “Well, no, but the moral of this story is by just passing by Brennan, who hadn’t washed his hands all day yesterday.” I point at him. “Don’t think I didn’t see that, dude. But because of that, I got sick.”
Arrow raises her hand. Fuck me. “For one, it would take longer than a day for you to get sick. The average incubation period of the common cold is five days. . . and what does that story have to do with you getting a cold?”
You know, I hope Arrow’s parents show up at the parent-teacher conference next month so I can punch her dad in the face. “Actually you’re wrong, Arrow.” I love saying that. It’s so goddamn gratifying. Mostly because she didn’t bring me a Twinkie today. “The incubation period of a cold is twenty-four to seventy-two hours. And this story has nothing to do with my cold. But. . . we’re gonna study fish this week, and I just thought you needed to know the next time you eat fish, don’t eat the tongue. Could be a parasite in there.”
I guarantee you none of the girls in the class will ever eat fish again, and forgive me if I’m silently hoping Arrow has nightmares about her tongue falling off.
“Okay.” I clap my hands together. “Today we’re supposed to work on a family tree.”
At the time, I didn’t think anything of this particular project, but just wait, as with most things, it comes back to bite my ass. Or does it?
I hand out paper to all the kids, and they’re cutting out their trees when I notice Brennan’s paper. I glance at his paper that’s jumbled with letters that should be his name, and clearly aren’t. “That’s not how you spell your name, germs.”
Wide eyes meet mine. “I don’t know how to spell it.”
His name is Brennan Zimmerman. His parents should be ashamed of themselves giving him such a long name. His middle name is Nathaniel. Pretty sure this kid has the longest name in history.
Actually, he doesn’t. Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff has the longest name. Don’t believe me?
Google it.
And if you ask me, that’s not a name. That’s a bunch of fucking letters thrown together.
“Why can’t you spell your name?”
Brennan shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I kneel. “Okay, let’s try this. Write your first name.”
He does, but instead of an N on the end, he leaves it off. I grin. “Nice to meet you, Brenna.”
He frowns. “That’s not my name.”
I point to the paper. “Then learn how to spell it because I’m calling you whatever’s on your paper.” Just before he appears to be in tears, I nudge him with my elbow. “Relax, B.” I point to his name tag on his desk. “Copy that for now and we’ll work on it every day.”
It’s then my attention is drawn to the front of the classroom where Grady had finished his family tree and Cash has ripped it up and is yelling at him, “That’s not your family anymore. We don’t have one!”
I rush to the front of the classroom to separate them, because the boys are actually throwing punches at one another. I see the tree, well, half of it, and Grady has written the name Brie in the corner next to his dad’s name.
Shit.
Yeah, I’d be pissed too, but it was an honest attempt on Grady’s part. He was just doing the assignment. I’d like to point out, this wasn’t my choice in assignments. I was given a lesson plan by Burke and told to follow it. Don’t blame me here.
Back to the boys. I look at both of them, both hurting, both angry at the circumstances they find themselves in, together. I want to tell them they need to stick together and not hit one another, but should I get involved? Would it even make a difference?
I glance at Cash, red-faced and breathing heavy. My chest hurts, a pain I recognize stabbing at me. I remember where this little boy’s mind is at. He’s hurting because he feels let down by his father. I took my anger out on my mother because she left, but with Cash, his fucking hero left him and his brother. He’s eight. He shouldn’t have to deal with any of this but he is, and he’s taking it out on paper and his brother.
I’ve been here in the same mindset he’s in. My relationship with my mother was irrevocably damaged after she cheated on my dad.
Separating the boys, the bell rings for their first recess, and I make them stay inside for a minute. Grady’s crying and Cash is angry, arms crossed over his chest. “I want to go outside,” he tells me, glaring.
Fuck, he looks just like Austin when he scowls. “I know you do, but not until you calm down and apologize to your brother.”
Grady drops his eyes to the floor. “He doesn’t have to.”
“Yes, he does.” I turn to Cash. “I get it. I know you’re angry that your parents aren’t together now. I totally understand the frustration and confusion you’re both experiencing, but we can’t go around displaying that anger at school.”
Cash doesn’t want to listen to me. Actually, he’s not. In his mind, no one can possibly understand what he’s going through. I thought that too. Grady, he just wants everyone to be happy.
I nod to Grady. “Grady, you can go out to recess.” He hesitates, looking to Cash, then me. I wave my hand. “Go. I need to talk to Cash, alone.”
Cash watches Grady leave the classroom and then snaps his raging blue eyes back to mine. The muscles in my arms ache, yearn to comfort him.
“I want to go outside,” he repeats.
“Why’d you do that to your brother’s tree?”
“Because he drew it wrong. She’s not our family. She’s my dad’s girlfriend. It doesn’t mean she’s part of our family!” he shouts, and then takes off running outside.
I don’t stop him.
After my parents divorced, I was forced to see a therapist. I went to two sessions and then never again. I didn’t want people telling me it was okay to be angry or that it wasn’t my fault that my parents divorced.
I knew it was okay to be angry.
And I certainly didn’t need anyone telling me that just because they wanted to make a difference in my life. What I needed was someone to understand that I was fucking pissed. I was angry they couldn’t get their shit together, and they brought me into it. I was angry they brought me into the fucking world in the first place.
I think that’s why I let Cash run outside. I can’t force him to understand any of this, but I can help understand it’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to lash out. I know that’s not what I should be saying as a teacher, but the only thing that made me feel any relief as a kid was being able to lash out as a kid.
You know who always took the brunt of it?
Aly. She listened and understood and never tried to control my outbursts that were unfortunately displayed in ways that essentially hurt her. God, I was a fucking dick back then.
Look at the bright side here, if there is one. I get to call Aly again. As far as I’m concerned, Cash can be as bad as he wants because I get to see his mother that way.