All Day

by Liza Jessie Peterson

  There was a time when one of my other disruptive rug rats, William (Shahteik’s best buddy, of course), acted out so bad I had to sic King on him. Most of the time when I see kids sleeping in class I use the huge silver stone ring I wear on my index finger to tap ever so lightly but continuously on the desk until the snoozing gremlin wakes up. Sometimes, when William is sleeping I let him nap because on the days he actually decides to come to school (which is rare), he’s worse than Shahteik, with nonstop disruptions. And it makes matter worse that he and Shahteik are best buddies; together they are the Tasmanian devil terror duo, like two little Chucky demon dolls. It’s sheer pandemonium. So I let him sleep. Sleep, my little pretty, sleep.

  After Shahteik told me that William is facing a fifteen-year sentence, I tried my best to cut him some slack and give him a compassion coupon. I tried talking to him privately; maybe I can reason with him, negotiate with him, connect with him, anything. He’d “yes, ma’am” me to death and “I’mma get it together, miss” and “I’mma do my work, miss.” Not once has he ever called me Ms. P, just “miss”—a slightly underhanded but slick way of minimizing me by not fully acknowledging me. I was on to him. Immediately after getting up from our umpteenth one-on-one conference, he’d be back at his desk carrying on like he was at the honeycomb hideout trap house, talking ’bout nothing, wheeling and dealing, running the spot like I bet he did back on the town. He’s a ringleader who corrals the Bosses in gossip, blatant vulgarity, and manipulation schemes. He runs the crew when he’s here, so he’s the one I have to pop. He the bad seed; the weed in my wild garden. Today is the final straw. I am officially done. Done talking to him, done asking him to take his feet off the desk, done letting him sleep, done sending him out of class for the day, done asking him to keep his voice down, done asking him to watch his mouth. Done. He is up out of his seat, again, and commences to lean his dusty ass in the doorway like he’s leaning on a Cadillac Escalade kicking game to some chick, arms and feet crossed, talking shit, talking loud, holding court, disrupting my class in the most brass-balls, audacious manner. Homie is t-to-the-ri-double-p… tripping!

  “William, please get out the doorway and take your seat.” One. He gives me a contemptuous nod and continues his conversation, shamelessly ignoring me. “William, I’m not going to ask you again. Get out of the doorway and take your seat!” Two. My octave is escalating toward going banshee.

  William turns from talking to his buddies, locks venomous eyes with me, and spits, “Yo, who the hell you talking to?”

  My head rears back. I feel the acceleration of her, a whirling dervish of thug mamma flying out the lamp with nunchuks. “Who the hell are you talking to like that?! You clearly have it twisted, son! I am an adult; I give respect and demand respect! And you are way out of line!” Three. She explodes out the lamp. A shouting match ensues.

  “Look, miss, I don’t fucking care or wanna hear what you have to say. Really, I don’t! So go somewhere with all that noise, miss.”

  “Oh really; okay, I got something for you!” I yell as I stomp back to my desk and pull out the infamous orange infraction slip.

  “You think I give a damn about that? You ain’t doing nothing!”

  Unbeknownst to William, as he is popping mad shit to me in the doorway, Captain Blackwell is standing behind him the whole time, letting him twist himself up into a guaranteed infraction. Then, with the timing of an eagle swooping down on a flapping fish, she snatches him up by the collar and whirls him around. William’s eyes nearly pop out his head. All the kids sit up straight in military attention and murmur, “Oh shit, oh snap, I ain’t even see her there, yo, captain ’bout to make it hot.”

  “Captain Blackwell! I’m sorry, Ms. P—” William starts stuttering and folding.

  Captain Blackwell crumples his bravado like a paper ball. “Ms. P nothing! I heard your disrespectful mouth. Come with me!” Captain Blackwell asks me if I want him out of class for the day or for good. “I can sign him out for good if you want me to, Ms. P.”

  I hesitate and cough. Sign the kid out for good? As angry as I am in this moment, I still can’t bring myself to take away his learning for good. Maybe for a day, even for a week, but not for good. I’m a punk with wolf tickets. I choke. Captain Blackwell picks up on my trepidation and graciously leaves me a way out. “Think about it and let me know what you want to do. In the meantime, fill out the infraction report and give it to Officer King.” At this point, King is in the room standing with his arms akimbo, scowling at William, who is in a state of puppy-eyed surrender, eyes begging for mercy, transformed from his grown-man pomp faster than the magic click of Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Good. As the old folks say, “That’ll learn him.”

  The class was in the midst of a social studies assignment just before William turned it up. We were studying the Middle Passage, and William interfered with my Black history flow, which pissed me off even more. “Y’all answer the questions on the handout and we’ll go over the answers together in a minute,” I say, sitting at my desk filling out the orange spank-slip on William.

  The rug rats are quiet and doing their work, or at least looking like they are. They know the temperature is hot and Captain Blackwell’s on the floor. Shahteik gets up and slides into the conference seat next to me. He’s up to something.

  “Hey, Ms. P, can I sit here and keep you company?”

  “No, Shahteik, go back to your seat.”

  “Okay, no problem, I just… Ms. P, you gonna really write William up? You know you don’t really have to do that, right?”

  “Shahteik—” He cuts me off, jumps out of his seat, and runs to grab a piece of paper from his desk before barreling back over to me holding out a piece of evidence.

  “Look, Ms. P, see, William did his work, look.”

  I look at the worksheet, which has a few questions answered but no name on it.

  “Shahteik, just because there’s no name on the paper doesn’t mean I can’t tell it’s your handwriting and your work!”

  “Okay, okay, Ms. P, you got me, but I’m saying, don’t write him up. Please, Ms. P, lemme talk to him. I can fix this.” Shahteik is working hard to throw a lifeline for his friend. I’m impressed by the brotherly love, actually.

  “Shahteik, I appreciate you advocating for William. You’re a true friend. But it’s too late, I already started the process. The form is being filled out… you see me, right?”

  “But Ms. P, you can fill it out, but you don’t have to turn it in.” Shahteik knows the loopholes and ropes around this place better than me, and he is not letting it go. He’s negotiating relentlessly for his comrade, trying to pull me to his will. I dig my heels in.

  “Shahteik, I have given William chance after chance. I gave him a time-out last week and you told me back then that you were going to talk to him, so obviously your little talking didn’t work. Sometimes people and things just don’t mix no matter what. Roaches don’t mix with Raid, milk don’t mix with vinegar, perfume don’t mix with funk, and William and I just don’t mix; it happens and that’s okay. But I have a job to do, and my job is to teach, and anybody who gets in the way of what I have to do, they gotta go.”

  I feel my pastor-preachah-deaconess ready to raise her finger in the air and thump with the good word again. “And just because you’re in jail doesn’t mean you can’t learn, and it’s my job to teach. I don’t see you all as criminals. I see young men who made a mistake and still have a chance to turn your life around. And my job is to bring knowledge. I show you all respect, and he thinks he can come in here and come out his face and disrespect me like that? Oh no, no, no no, no siree, no baby, he’s got it twisted, and I’m not a pretzel,” I fuss, sounding like my auntie Julia. “Everybody has their breaking point when enough is enough, and today is my breaking point. Enough. Done. Finito. A wrap. Closed for business. Liquidation. Everything must go. Nada. No more. Marshal’s at the door. Bye. Bye. My cup runneth over. That’s it on that. Like the setting sun. Scratch the needle on the record.
Party’s over, son. I’m sure you understand that, don’t you?” His tongue’s too short to box with a pissed-off poet. I keep my clip loaded.

  “All right all right all right, damn, Ms. P, I hear you. I tried, Lord knows I tried to help my boy out.” Shahteik humbly offers defeat. “But, yo, you did that straight off the dome like that? You kinda nice wit’ it, Ms. P. Lemme find out you can freestyle. Word.”

  For lunch I usually convene in the teachers’ lounge with other staff to watch whatever blood-curdling scary movie Mr. Wilcox, aka Trinidad, has brought in for lunchtime entertainment. It’s always a horror movie. Always. Crazy how we all seem to unwind by watching the goriest, bloodiest, most heinous chop-’em-up flicks in a place filled with darkness and violence. We sit around the table with just the sunlight beaming through the windows, slightly illuminating the dismal gray room. We scream and yell and talk back to the TV screen like we’re at the movies. It’s twisted and fun.

  Today I’ve skipped the Night of the Living Dead movie feature to have some quiet time and sit at my desk to eat lunch, alone. I unwrap my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and squeeze a pack of honey into my hot tea.

  Officer King pops his head in. “Ms. P, no scary movie today?”

  “No, not today, King. I need to clear my mind and be still for a minute.”

  “We all need that every now and then,” he says as he approaches my desk. “I see you had a rough time with William today.”

  My mouth is full of peanut butter and jelly so I just “mmhmm” him.

  “Why you ain’t come get me? I told you let me know anytime any one of them gives you a problem. And then when I saw it was William—that’s my favorite knucklehead, right there—I was like, man, why she ain’t just come get me? I had to give him the business last year, so he knows what time it is with me. Me and him have an understanding and I can reason with that kid. You should have called me, I coulda fixed it.” It felt like King must have said “me” about ten times. I think he’s a little upset I didn’t ring my damsel-in-distress bell for him to come save me and fix the problem. My older sister once told me that alpha males like to play the role of rescuer and fixer-upper.

  I hand King the orange slip. “Lemme see what this jughead did,” King says as he reads out loud what I wrote on the report. “‘Who the hell you talking to?’” King gives me a blank stare that makes me feel like the incredible shrinking woman. It sounds petty now. “That’s what he said to you?” King asks a simple question, but the subtext, mixed with the dumb look he gives me, is more like, “You’re writing him up for this trivial bullshit? Really? You can’t be serious.”

  I feel silly. I try to put it in context for him. “I know that’s not a big deal and it’s hardly a threat, and it probably sounds like I’m being dramatic, but King, this boy never does work and whenever he actually comes here, he disturbs the class all the time, all day, worse than Shahteik. If you can even imagine anybody worse than Shahteik… it’s William. And today was the last straw for me. It’s not so much what he said but how he said it. His tone was so cocky and in-your-face with it, it was too much.” I’m trying to convince King the offense was more egregious than what I wrote.

  He puts the orange slip in his pocket. “I’mma talk to him, Ms. P. You won’t have no more problems out of him.”

  I’m sure that slip will be shredded in the trash.

  “Please talk to him because the next step is I’m going to have him signed out for good. I don’t want to do that, but he’s pushing me.”

  “I got you, sis. I’mma get him straightened out. That’s my son.”

  King is Houdini. Whatever he said to William works like magic. Badass comes back to class eating humble pie.

  “Ms. P, can I talk to you for a minute out in the hallway, in private?”

  The Bosses look as surprised as I do. “Of course, William,” I calmly reply.

  We stand right outside the doorway for some semblance of privacy, but I know the Bosses, who sit near the door anyway, are ear-hustling like a mug. William looks me in the eye, then shifts his gaze to the floor, then back up at me. This is uncomfortable for him. “I truly apologize for my behavior and for disrespecting you yesterday. You didn’t deserve that. I was just really angry about a lot of things going on in my life right now and I took it out on you and that wasn’t fair. I know you probably still mad and all, but I am truly sorry and hope someday you will accept my apology.”

  King is a wizard too. He gave that boy a heart.

  “William, I accept your apology and thank you for coming to me like this. Today is a new slate.”

  William smiles a sincere smile. “Thank you, Ms. P.”

  Hmph, ain’t that something. Today I’m Ms. P, not just “miss.” And, just like that, William comes back into class, buries his head in the workbook, and does work, quiet as a church mouse. King’s methodology, whatever it was, worked like a charm and saved William from receiving an infraction.

  This isn’t the first time King has come to a kid’s defense and managed to sway me, like the time when he intercepted one of my many multiple attempts to Poof Shahteik. And then it dawned on me—of course the adult alpha would know how to corral and connect with the alpha rug rats.

  “Ms. P, you fucking irking me! You stay irking me… Why don’t you Poof your damn self? I can’t stand this lady, son. Everybody in here talking, but who name she call out? Mine!” Shahteik’s having a tantrum.

  “Because your voice was the one heard over top of everyone, meaning you were being the most obnoxious and the loudest, Shahteik!” I yell back as I walk over to my desk to get the orange slip.

  “Go ’head and write me up. You think I give a fuck?”

  They always bluff, pretending like they don’t care, but deep down they know that enough of those orange slips could take away their good days, and none of them want that. They all want to go home sooner than later. Infractions hurt. Shahteik is fronting; he does give a fuck.

  I shift gears, ending the yelling match, and serve him a snarky pleasantry.

  “Shahteik, abracadabra.”

  Upon hearing the commotion coming from my room, King pops his head in to check on me. “Ay yo, Officer King, will you please put me behind the gate. I gotta get out of here. I’m asking you please, ’cause I already know what kind of mood I’m in and I don’t want to make it worse with this lady. Please, Officer King, put me behind the gate now, I’m begging you!” Shahteik’s half-pleading, half-commanding.

  By now I am sitting behind my desk, calmly humming to myself in an effort to keep my veneer of being unaffected while I write up Shahteik’s orange slip.

  King motions for Shahteik to follow him, calling him by his last name, “Come on, Jackson, let’s go.” He escorts him out of my room, down the hall, and behind the gate. Moments later, Officer King pops back in and asks to speak with me, motioning for me to step outside the classroom and out of earshot from nosy rug rats who love to ear-hustle. I leave the rug rats briefly unattended. They know better than to cut up and act a fool with King standing right outside the door, and besides, he’s got supersonic hearing and they know it. I have the orange slip already filled out in one hand, with the other hand resting on my hip. All attitude.

  King starts in. “You know if you go through with the infraction, he might get some good days taken away from him and be permanently removed from your class. It’s totally your call, Ms. P. You really want me to go through with it?” He’s totally using some reverse-Jedi mind-trick psychology on me and knows I bark like a Rottweiler with no teeth. I’m soft.

  Shahteik pisses me off and gets on my fucking nerves worse than a buzzing mosquito in my face when I’m trying to sleep. But do I loathe him enough to add suffering to his incarceration? He’s a pest, not a creep like Christopher, the frog boy. And if I’m really honest with myself, Lil’ Rumbles and I have our good days and he has been helpful in the class at times, so I really don’t want him out altogether.

  King presses me. “You want me to g
ive this ticket to the captain? ’Cause if you say yes, I will, Ms. P.”

  I cross my arms, suck my teeth, and let out a deep sigh of defeat. “No.”

  I’m such a sucker. As mad as the rug rats get me, the thought of putting them out for good never sits well with me and I almost always fold.

  King chuckles and reaches for the orange slip. “Let me get rid of that for you. I’ll straighten out Shahteik. He just needs a lil’ time-out with me.”

  Officer King is smooth. I appreciate his compassion. Watching him intervene on behalf of yet another one of my foulmouthed rug rats, intercepting another infraction, is refreshing; I see him as their protective big brother, their understanding uncle, and loving father. He’s great at what he does. He might have a heavy hand, which is needed with adolescent boys in jail, but he definitely doesn’t have a mean spirit and the guys respect him for it.

  A new teacher came on staff a couple of weeks ago and teaches in the classroom two doors down from me. She doesn’t look any older than twenty-two or twenty-three, fresh out of college. Her skin is pale and creamy like a perfect Lladró figurine. She’s a timid, mousy-looking lady; I get a really bad vibe from her. She walks with her chin way up, with an air of superiority. She has to pass by my classroom every morning to get to hers but she never speaks or says, “Good morning.” I have an unnaturally strong aversion to this woman and don’t know why. So what, she doesn’t speak to me. Not every teacher on the school floor speaks to me, and it’s not because they’re being rude; it’s because they’re preoccupied with a host of bureaucratic bullshit on their minds. But with her, it’s the energy she emanates.