All Day

by Liza Jessie Peterson

  Mekhai sucks his teeth, making Tyquan respond in defense, “Ms. P talking that real talk, my man, ’cause part of me still be wilding out but another part of me know I’mma do great things one day; it’s like I’m caught between the devil and God,” Tyquan exclaims.

  “Africa, that’s you talking like that?” Tyrone says, turning to face Tyquan. The Bosses gave Tyquan the nickname “Africa,” referring to his blackberry velvet skin and tribal-looking scar under his left eye. Tyquan is a short and wiry good-looking kid who probably doesn’t know it. Kids rich in melanin, kissed deeply by the sun, catch hell from other kids who think dark and ugly are synonyms. Racism–white supremacy did a number on us and on our self-image. It’s been imbedded in our psyche for hundreds of years, passed down from generation to generation, and has been on autopilot for a very long time. Over time, we internalized the lie and now tell it to ourselves. Dark skin. Ugly. Nappy hair. Bad. Broad nose. Curse. Thick lips. Undesirable. We’ve been infected from centuries ago and are still sick with self-hate. There is so much to deprogram and teach the babies.

  The Bosses have embraced Tyquan because he’s Blood and their pop-off dummy. Tyquan willingly accepted their jailhouse term of endearment: Africa. I love that they call him that. I know they meant it as a dig, so when I first heard it I flipped it back and did alchemy. “Africa is the most mineral-rich continent on the planet. So much beauty comes from the motherland. Black is beautiful and Africa is the cradle of civilization. That’s a strong name, Africa.”

  Tyquan goes on, “Yo, don’t sometime you be feeling like, you’ve been handling your business the way you’ve handled it for so long that you don’t know no other way, but yet and still you know God don’t want that from you. That’s what I mean between God and the devil, my G.”

  Tyrone is clearly impressed with Tyquan’s interpretation. “Africa, yo, my dude, I’m feeling that. That shit be true. God on one shoulder; the devil on the other.”

  Tyquan puffs up with pride. “Word up my G, ya feel me?”

  I chime in, “I know each and every one of you has a long story to tell. I can look at you and tell that you have climbed the rough side of the mountain and survived a lot. Am I right or wrong?”

  The class is all nodding in agreement with a cacophony of: “Word!” “Hell, yeah.” “My life is a movie, son.” “My shit is a trilogy.” “I’m surprised I’m still here.”

  I continue with the lesson. “So, just like Malcolm had five different evolutions or major phases in his life that were represented by a different name, I want you to think about yourself and what names represent the major phases in your life so far. Who were you at birth and what did your mother name you; who were you when you started running the street and who are you right now in jail… do you have different names? Think about it. You all have a story to tell… so tell it.”

  “Yo, Ms. P, I’mma need a lot of paper for this one, ya heard!” Tyquan excitedly exclaims.

  This lesson seems to engage the entire class. They all have long stories riddled with urban drama, and they all want to tell it. They want to be seen, heard, and recognized.

  “Can we curse?” Mekhai asks, totally shocking me because he’s always so unenthused.

  “Within reason, but don’t go overboard with it. Profanity should be used like an exclamation point, not randomly used every other word like you talk in the street. And remember where you are, gentlemen; don’t write anything that would incriminate you. Keep it real, but be wise.”

  “Word, don’t snitch on yourself, nigga, ya heard, Harlem!” Mekhai says with a smirk on his face. He’s stirring the pot.

  Raheim, one of the Harlemites in the back, falls for it and quips, “Yo, what? I know that’s not missy snitchy over there talking.”

  “Yeah right,” Mekhai shoots back. “Fuck Harlem.”

  “Fuck Brooklyn!”

  “Hey-hey-hey, watch ya mouth when it comes to Brooklyn, ease up,” Tyrone chimes in, aiming his comment toward Raheim.

  I have to nip it quick. “All right, all right. Stop throwing batteries,* Mekhai. Ignore him, Raheim. Stay focused… Mekhai. Start writing. Please! And all of you please watch your mouth; this is not the pool hall or the barbershop.”

  I walk over to Mekhai to give him the attention he is clearly crying out for. I need to get him focused on the assignment before he finds another target to stir up. He has nothing on his paper.

  “Mekhai, you haven’t even started.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” he says nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Well, let’s start with: What did your mother name you? Were you the only child? Were you spoiled? What kind of son were you and at what point did you get pulled into the street life? I’m sure what your mother calls you and what your boys in the street call you is not the same, right?”

  “Naw, they call me Killa Khai, the wavy one.” Even Mekhai has to laugh at his own inflated ego.

  I chuckle. “So, write how you went from being Mekhai, the apple of your mother’s eye, to Killa Khai, the wavy one. What’s your story? What was the journey? Come on, get started.”

  “I got you, I got you, Ms. P,” Mekhai relents as he begins to write, “I was born September 28th, 1991, a bouncing baby boy in Brooklyn…”

  I walk up and down the aisle commenting on their stories, encouraging them as they begin to write their mini-autobiographies.

  “Can I have a piece of paper?” Danny asks.

  Without even looking at him, I calmly reply, “No, you may not.”

  I’m unwilling to completely let him off the hook for coming out his face and spitting a Molotov cocktail at me earlier, so I choose a mild spank… no paper. I’m not giving him anything he asks me for, especially since I haven’t received an apology. Letting him back in my class, rescuing him from the wrath of the CO, was about enough of an olive branch I’m willing to extend.

  Danny softly replies, “Miss, I was going to do your work.”

  I keep walking the aisle.

  “I got you, scrap,”* Tyquan says, handing Danny a piece of paper from his personal stack.

  “I appreciate that, Tyquan,” I comment, recognizing Tyquan’s goodwill in a place where kindness can be interpreted as weakness and preyed upon. Tyquan is a loose cannon with a wild look in his eye and at the same time a tender, wounded heart that I will later learn more about. He responds to positive acknowledgment, like most kids who want to feel smart and be recognized for their achievements. The more I point out Tyquan’s progress with each assignment, the harder he works. He’s a kid who was probably ignored during most of his schooling, like most inner-city kids who attend overcrowded, underserved, failing public schools. On my class roster, he is labeled as “special education,” having a learning disability, but while in my class, I observe that his reading and writing ability proves otherwise. And during math, when the math teacher pushes his cart into my class to teach, Tyquan is fully focused and does the work finishing the algebra equations with pride.

  He, like many special education children, is given that label because of behavior rather than academic proficiency. If a child is deemed special needs, they are eligible for Social Security benefits, and the amount of money a parent receives from Social Security is more than what they’d get from welfare for the child. So rarely do poor, uneducated parents object or investigate the label that erroneously stigmatizes their children. Therapists play a role as well. In some cases, if a therapist hikes up the diagnosis from an adjustment-reaction disorder (a low-level short-term diagnosis) to something more chronic, they get unlimited sessions with a long-term client and pharmaceuticals profit from ongoing prescriptions that can follow a kid well into his adult life and potentially create an unnecessary dependency.

  I have witnessed that if you label a child as “slow,” they will eventually believe it and live up to the label; they will prove it to you. A label garners attention. A label is an identity; an identity in a world that otherwise deems Black and Latino children to
be invisible.

  I remember when I was growing up, kids would hide their special education labels for fear of being teased. Nowadays these labels are so commonplace that kids discuss and trade their labels and diagnoses like baseball cards. “I’m ADD.” “Yeah, well, I’m bipolar.” “I have a learning disability.” “I’ve been in special ed since third grade; I have to have a teacher’s aide with me at all times.” “I’m dyslexic.” “I can’t control my temper.” “I have a personality disorder.” And on and on, casually, like that. The more I encourage Tyquan, the more he works to please me to receive the positive recognition he so desperately craves and clearly never got in school.

  As I walk the aisles, reading over my students’ shoulders, giving brief feedback and asking questions prompting them to go a little deeper, I pause when I see “The Life and Times of Danny Gunz” written at the top of Danny’s paper. He is already at the bottom of the page, writing furiously in a stream of consciousness. I hand him more paper and say, “Wow, Danny, you are really going in. I’m impressed.”

  Danny responds, “I wrote a book.”

  “I see. You are certainly on your way.”

  “No, not this, this ain’t nothing,” he says. “I wrote a book when I was upstate in juvie.* The counselors said I couldn’t write it because it had curses in it so I tore it up. I had two whole notebooks, over five hundred pages.”

  “Danny, are you serious?” I ask with pointed focus and inquiry designed to engage conversation. We are verbally shaking hands; he is apologizing and I’m accepting, all done through subtext and tone. Like when I used to get spanked by my mother as a child, then soon after she’d come in my room offering Dinner’s ready, ladybug, you hungry, sweetie? in a truce-like tone.

  “You have to write your story again, Danny. You wrote five hundred pages? You’re a writer, Mr. Gunz, and I know you have a compelling story to tell.” I call him by his street name, Mr. Gunz, to pull a smile from him, and it works.

  “Yeah, I guess I should, huh? I been through a lot, miss. When I read The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah, I really liked it and was inspired to write a story like that, but more so what I experienced.”

  “Everybody has a story to tell,” I reply, “but the difference is, not everyone has the gift to write it. Out of all the urban hood books out there, I have yet to see one written by an adolescent from a teenager’s perspective. Why can’t you be the first, Danny?”

  His eyes are intensely fixed on me, deeply contemplating the seed I’m planting, which appears to be resonating in his spirit.

  “True, true,” he replies.

  I think I have activated something in that young man. I go over to my desk and give him a photocopy of several chapters from Hill Harper’s book Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny and tell Danny, “You could write a response, a book called Letter to an OG.”

  “Word. Thank you, miss. Today’s my last day here too; I’m going home tomorrow. I’m not supposed to be here. That’s why I was so upset earlier. I apologize for my behavior.”

  “Apology accepted. And congratulations!” I exclaim with excitement. “Go home and stay home, Danny. You have a book to write and I want to read it. I want to walk into Barnes and Noble one day and see The Life and Times of Danny Gunz on the bestseller shelf.” Danny laughs and blushes as I hand him a composition book. “Here’s a fresh, new notebook to start writing your story in. You are a writer. Never forget that.”

  “Thank you, thank you, miss! It was nice to meet you,” he says, standing taller than when he first walked in. Just then a CO comes in, calling Danny by his last name, and says, “Let’s go, Nelson, you’re packing up,” and gives him a friendly smack on the back of his head like a coach would do to a player done good.

  Tyquan yells out to Danny, “Yo, scrap, don’t forget.”

  Danny reassures him. “I got you, son, no doubt.”

  He clicked his pumpkin seeds three times and is really going home. Danny Gunz and I came full circle, all in a day. I reached him and planted a seed I pray will take root and grow. As I inhale a deep breath of accomplishment and relish in the moment of the joy of teaching, my nemesis pops his head back into the room.

  “Ms. P, wait, don’t put me out. I’mma do work, really, I ain’t gonna act up. I wanna learn, Ms. P.”

  “No, Shahteik! I was born at night, not last night. I know a swindle when I hear one!”

  Tyrone chimes in: “Yo, Ms. P, you mad funny,” and then turns to Shahteik to say, “You gotta respect the Black Nubian queen, son.”

  Tyrone snatches a smile from me with that one. They’re tag-teaming me, hitting me with the cultural reference, my weak spot, wearing me down. They’re good.

  Taking a cue from Tyrone, Shahteik adds, “I apologize, my Black queen,” and he bows, gesturing as if he is rolling out a red carpet for me to walk on. “Want me to dust off your crown?”

  I fall for the swindle. “Shahteik, if I have to speak to you one time—”

  “Not at all, Ms. P. I promise,” he says as he does another overexaggerated bow. Then he asks, “Ms. P?”

  “What, Shahteik?”

  “You forgot to tuck one of your lil’ nigga naps in the back of your dusty crown.”

  “Shahteik, get out!” I yell.

  The class falls out like hyenas and even I can’t hide my laughter. That was a good one. He’s going to be a problem all year, I can already tell. The boy is rude and funny. That’s gonna be a tough one to handle.

  A CO pops his head inside my class and barks a single-word command, “Bathroom!” All the kids jump up out of their seats and line up in the hallway for their group bathroom trip. If a kid has to go before or after the loosely scheduled field trip to urinate… tough luck. On several occasions, I’ve had to plead with an officer to make an exception with one of my kids, who would squirm and chair-dance in desperation for me to advocate for him to be granted individual bathroom time. It doesn’t sit well with me when a CO denies a kid a trip to the bathroom. Watching him do the pee-pee dance—shaking and hopping from leg to leg—is enough to get me to step in. The male COs are the ones who do bathroom call, so I employ my soft feminine stroking tone to get the officer to relent. Let the kid pee, for Christ sake is what I’m thinking, but it comes out more like, “He can’t concentrate on the lesson, and he’s truly about to pee in his seat. This one is legit, Officer; he really really has to go. I wouldn’t come out here and call you if it wasn’t serious, and Lord knows I don’t want to deal with piss on my floor.”

  That line always works.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  One, Two, Poof

  Thought for the Day: If the mountain was smooth, you wouldn’t be able to climb it. Challenges and obstacles are meant to build character and strength.

  —MS. P

  The schedule is wearing on me. I’m fatigued… very fatigued. It’s raining today and my favorite sneakers, the green patent leather Bathing Apes, are separating at the seam and the pink ones have a tear at the toe. My day-to-day favorite Italian boots have a gaping hole in the sole. I am behind in my bills, student loan officers are calling, rent is due next week, my cell phone is about to get cut off if I don’t pay this week, my paycheck is already spent before I get it, and I need dental work but don’t have health insurance.

  I am officially low-income working class, living check to check and one pay stub away from compromising my integrity. Up at 4:30 a.m. every day, I’m busting a huffing, puffing sweat to get to work, doggie-paddling my ass off to keep from financially drowning, but the water is rising faster than my limbs can move. I’m stuck on this hamster wheel of survival. I understand how poverty produces rage, which can trigger violence and be the linchpin for desperate crimes against poverty. I get it. Hell, I’m living it.

  When this rage is turned inward, depression sets in and my body gets heavy, weighted down with sadness, making it difficult to even walk. It feels like the earth’s gravitational pull is working against me. I cling to the bed and sleep b
ecomes my refuge. But when there is no more space in my body to contain my pain, when my cup runneth over with frustration and self-hatred and I still have to move throughout the world in order to “earn” my place on the planet, the rage has to be released. Sometimes my rage gets unleashed on a random soul who bumps me, stares too long, jumps in front of me in line at the store, or happens to be the rude bus driver on that day… anyone and any offense will do. I could easily be sitting where my kids are in a split-second act of misdirected fury. I’ve always been a punch-you-in-the-face, knuckle-rumbling, pretty-tooth chipper from West Philly anyway. So it doesn’t take much for me to revert back, like a Black girl’s press-and-curl hairdo does in the rain. When I’m angry at myself and circumstance, my dormant her, the she-beast, is easily triggered.

  I have worked very hard at keeping her tucked away in my hornet’s nest of around-the-way-girl-fists-of-fury antisocial behavior. I’ve worked hard at managing her and learned how not to stir her up. It took years of self-reflection, acknowledging my wounds and my bullshit, along with years of doing various types of holistic, spiritual self-therapy. Iyanla Vanzant books, Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Your Word Is Your Wand by Florence Scovel Shinn, Sacred Woman by Queen Afua, A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne all gave me the tools and language to talk myself out of dark, unhealthy places that I periodically crawled into. They offered me enlightened perspective. I have become much more skilled at tempering my rage toward others than I am at managing my sadness and self-judgment, which can overwhelm me. This morning, like many mornings, I pray myself out of bed, out the house, on the train, and back to jail.

  “I am not in the mood for y’all’s shit today! Git the fuck back in line before I fuck you up!” yells Ms. Jouju (pronounced “Ju-Ju”), an older CO with more salt than pepper in her two-toned hair. Standing at five foot three and big-boned, she’s a dark brown thick munchkin of a woman with a couple of front teeth missing who walks with a slow, commanding gait. Don’t let her height and gray hair fool you; Officer Jouju is sandpaper rough and does not p-l-a-y play! A sailor-mouth saloon type of broad with absolutely no filter, she serves it to the kids straight no chaser, rugged and raw. The sharp, symmetrical features of her beautiful face are a stark contrast to her snaggletooth gangster grill and profane tongue. Her densely silver-lined hair has earned her the moniker Grandma.