by Ilana Garon
I told myself maybe he got his black Mustang and left the city for good.
During my first week teaching the thirty-three-person, all male, Special Education Inclusion kids class, the Super Bowl incited such a fervor that an Eagles fan got his jacket vandalized. Specifically, the word “Patriots” (the rival team) was written all over his jacket in permanent marker, except that it was spelled “Patroits.” The poor kid was incredibly upset. “Miss, I paid for this jacket. I don’t do anything to them. Why do they do this to me?” he asked. It would be bad enough without the fact that this kid is a Special Education student, and this is his first inclusion experience. I was ready to bust some tenth-grade rear end, but security beat me to it. They came bursting into the class and hauled out six kids who were allegedly responsible for the vandalism. I didn’t even get to make the call.
However, one of the kids who was hauled out apparently decided it was my fault that he was blamed for the stupid incident. “Yo, Miss, I got two days suspension ’cause of you,” he said menacingly in the stairwell. “I got somethin’ for you in class.” This kid is just barely five-feet, and your usual gangly fifteen-year-old. So I said, “Hey, guess what? I’ve got something for you, as well!” and slapped him with two more days of suspension for threatening a teacher. Then I called in his father, and we all had a meeting in which his father threatened to “have problems with him” if he didn’t start behaving better. I was like, “Great, this kid’s dad is Mr. Tough Guy on him!” As they were walking out, the kid says, “Hey Dad, I need a hundred dollars.” Uh-huh. So much for Mr. Tough Guy. But the kid has behaved better since, so maybe something was accomplished.
The thirty-three-boy class keeps fighting all the time. Mostly it’s play fighting, but it’s a little disconcerting when they keep ending up upside-down with their shirts off, heads in each other’s laps. I’m serious. For some reason, beating each other up has to involve pulling your victim’s shirt over his head and flipping him completely upside-down over your knees. I’m not even going to guess on this. I keep turning around and see them all piled up in the corner half naked, and I’m thinking, “Oh, good grief.” Then they say, “Chill, we’re just playing, Miss!” and laugh hysterically.
Most of the time their fighting is during tenth-period advisory (which is like study hall), by which point they’re exhausted and wild and the special education teacher isn’t with them anymore because it’s not an academic course. I bought them all journals, markers, and pens to use during advisory. I said they could decorate whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t decorate each other or each other’s property. It sort of interests them, and they can sometimes spend quite a while drawing intricate gang symbols all over their journals. Problems begin when they throw the markers (always behind my back), and then it ends up being a full-scale war where they start jumping off the desks and tackling each other against the chalkboard.
Some teacher made the mistake of leaving a VCR in the room after her class period ended, so it was still there when my group came in. At the end of my class, once the bell rang and everyone left, these three kids started walking out of the room with the VCR, a mischievous glint in their eyes. I yelled, “Guys! Don’t steal the VCR!” which of course sent them into gales of laughter, although, thankfully, they returned it and became preoccupied hitting me up for chewing gum and bus fare.
In English class, I wish they liked To Kill a Mockingbird better. They don’t understand irony at all, and so most of the subtle humor of the book is lost on them. Plus, they don’t get the distinction (despite my having explained it every way I could think of) between a book being “racist” and a book dealing with characters that are racist. So every time the word “Negro” comes up, they say, “Oh my god! This book is racist!” and start throwing it across the room and talking of book-burnings and it takes forever to calm them down. I suspect there’s a certain element of trying to get my goat here; with this crowd, I’m never quite sure if I’ve just set myself up to be the straight man.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jonah
“You can’t go in there,” the female security guard said. Her voice was tinged with irritation at the argument she no doubt expected. She stood, blocking the doorway to stairwell 11, arms outstretched to prevent me from passing.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I told her. I’d seen what I wanted to. Behind her, there was a visible spattering of blood—some still running down the walls, most pooled on the floor. I briefly considered that it didn’t look like enough blood for someone to be dead—but then again, what did I know about these things? I turned and walked off, ignoring the irritation of the guard, as well as the slew of NYPD officers who were wandering the hallways talking in monotones on their walkie-talkies.
In high schools, there are no secrets. Everyone knew within the hour. A Bloods member had stabbed a DDP member with an ice pick.
This was a declaration of war. Bloods versus DDP. Bones, Crips, and Latin Kings were no doubt waiting on the sidelines, watching to see who would fall, and what alliances could be made or broken from this. Vito Corleone himself couldn’t have imagined a more involved turf war.
“Wait a minute. Their gang is really called DDP?” I asked the kids.
“It stands for ‘Dominicans Don’t Play,’” they said.
“What?!?! That’s the stupidest gang name I ever heard! I could make up a better gang name than that,” I told them.
A few of them looked nervous. “Don’t say that, Miss.”
Whatever—I knew all the gang members in my class. There were no DDPs in here.
“Okay, so I have a new gang I’m starting. And it’s just for teachers. It’s called ‘Teachas Don’t Play’: TDP. What do you guys think of that?”
Groans of “Yo, that’s mad corny,” and “Miss, why you beastin’?” filled the room.
I looked towards the back of the room, where Jonah Tejado sat. He smiled at me. Or, more accurately, he smirked. I don’t think I ever saw him smile all the way. He was about sixteen and already a high-ranking member of the Bloods—not quite an O.G. (or Original Gangsta) yet, but he certainly had several stars. Black was the new color for the Bloods, because red had been banned as the catalyst for too many hallway fights. Jonah sported his black t-shirt oversized, with his pants hanging down past his boxers. A red bandana was just visible sticking out of his pocket. This was intentional.
“You got anything to add?” I asked him.
“Nah.” He grinned. I liked Jonah. He didn’t show up all that often, and rarely turned in homework, but he was smart and analytical. I knew he read on his own. Also, when the kids were acting crazy, he’d inevitably get sick of it and yell, “Yo, shut up n—s! Let her teach!” Out of either respect or fear—I wasn’t sure which—they always did exactly as he asked.
“Does your mom know you’re in a gang?” I’d asked him once, while the other kids were occupied with group work.
“No Miss, and don’t tell her—she’ll kick me out if she finds out.”
So we had Jonah, Bloods rising star, sitting in our classroom. And the latest battle in an ongoing rivalry with DDP was taking place outside. Most of the fighting was off school grounds, but there was certainly a lot of orchestration when the guards weren’t looking.
These random kids, some of them gang members, not all actually enrolled in our school, would sneak in through the back entrances, which were supposed to be guarded at all times, but patently were not, despite the extra security forces and metal detectors at the four main doors. It was hard to identify interlopers, since the school was so large, it was impossible to know every kid by face. But gang members had signs, if you knew what to look for: The telltale handkerchief hanging out of the pocket. Colored bead necklaces in intricate patterns that the kids told me had some gang meaning.
Naturally, security was oblivious to this. Or maybe they just had bigger things to worry about.
We were sitting in class a couple of days after the ice-pick incident when we noticed some
kids in hoods at the doorway. They were looking into our class, clearly checking to see if someone was there. One of them pointed towards the back.
Jonah.
He seemed to be maintaining his composure. He stared them down. After a minute they left.
“Jonah, who were they?” I asked after class. But I already knew the answer.
“DDP, Miss.”
“Are they looking for you?”
“Yeah. Whatever. It’s fine.”
Of course, they came back. Over the next couple of weeks, there were several incidents wherein someone looked through the window of our classroom door with interest, their gaze generally settling on Jonah.
I started locking the door after the kids came in.
“What do they want with you, Jonah?” I asked him. He looked at me and said, “You know.” And he wouldn’t elaborate.
To say the situation was making me nervous was putting it mildly. I’d told security I wanted someone stationed outside my classroom door. They always swore they’d put someone there, and yet somehow, I could never find a single guard when I needed one. And without an overtly violent incident, it was hard to make a case that such a presence was needed.
But the kids and I all knew what was going on. One way or another, the turf war was headed for our classroom door. Jonah’s already spotty attendance record started developing gaping holes.
They came again. The visitors stopped outside our door, looking in with their usual combination of interest and malevolence. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to communicate some sort of message to Jonah—something like, “You’re f—ed—meet us after class in the parking lot,” or if they were just trying to keep tabs on him.
Whatever it was, the class fell silent. I tried feebly to ignore the figures at the doorway and engage the students’ interest in To Kill a Mockingbird, but it was to no avail. I thought about confronting them then and there, but I didn’t. I was stuck on something that had happened to me in the previous year—something which, in retrospect, I’d often (incorrectly) conflated with this incident. It took me a while to understand why.
______
It was my first semester of teaching ninth grade. The kids were working collaboratively. I was in the back of the room, bent over the joined desks of some students, when the room fell silent. I looked up to see a hooded figure—male, definitely—standing in the front of my classroom. Because of the way his head was angled, I couldn’t see any of his facial features. He wore a black-hooded sweatshirt, which shadowed most of his face, and a pair of baggy jeans. He was taller than I was.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer, but slowly gazed around the room, slamming is fist rhythmically into his palm. Smack. Smack. I gathered that he was looking for someone, though I had no idea whom. Casting a quick glance at my students’ faces, I could tell they were confused, as well.
“Give me your ID,” I said to him. I still couldn’t see his face.
“F— off,” he growled.
“What! Give me your ID! Now!”
The intruder ignored me. He turned and headed for the door. Mortified at having lost face in front of the ninth-graders by allowing a student to disobey me, I jumped in front of him and blocked the doorway with my body, trying to block his exit. He shoved me out of the way, knocking me against the doorway hard enough to leave a bruise. In desperation, I grabbed his sweatshirt, but he tore free and ran into the stairwell. He headed down.
I sprinted after him. I was furious and embarrassed; it seemed imperative to catch him. Looking back, I have no idea what I would have done if I had caught him, but I doubt that occurred to me at the time. I was heading down my third flight of stairs when I heard my ninth-graders above me yell, “Miss! Come back! Don’t go after him! He’s Bloods!”
I stopped in my tracks. I knew I had no hope of catching him anyway—I could no longer even hear the clump of his steps on the stairwell. Defeated, I headed back upstairs. I was crying, though I couldn’t have said exactly why.
“Miss, it’s okay to cry,” the kids said when I reentered the classroom. My clothes were wrinkled, and I was sweating. They handed me tissues, and patted me on the shoulders uncertainly. One boy, Carlos, put his arm around my shoulder.
“I’m not crying, I’m just pissed off,” I snarled, as I wiped my eyes.
Later, when security came in, the students offered that the intruder had been either black or Hispanic, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and “mad gangsta.” When pressed for further information, including how they had known he was “Bloods,” they fell silent, nervously picking at their desks.
And I think that was what freaked me out the most. It was not just the loss of power, my obvious lack of meaningful authority; it was the fact that, whether due to loyalty or fear, the kids wouldn’t give up the name of a dangerous intruder. And no matter how close I felt to them, ultimately I was alone.
______
So when the intruders were coming to Jonah’s and my class, I remembered this incident. I suppose it would be accurate to say that I felt as though it was not Jonah, or the Bloods, but I who was having a turf war with DDP. I was angry, frustrated, and a little scared, but I had learned my lesson the first time. I wasn’t going after them.
But by some act of fate, the problem solved itself. Perhaps the involved parties worked out their differences off school grounds; whatever the reason, the hoodlums did not return, at least not in a fashion that was apparent from the inside of my classroom. In a non sequitur that no one understood, it was not ice picks, but CD players that were banned by security after the fact.
Jonah came to class less and less often, and eventually failed, though not for lack of intelligence. I worried about him being jumped or shot outside of my classroom, but in the end, it was not Jonah, but Joel, one of the Crips, who took a bullet. Two actually. One grazed his head, and another grazed his pelvis, but he survived, and reemerged a couple of months later, with a cane and a lot of bravado to show for it.
I wondered who it was who shot him, and if perhaps the Bloods, or even Jonah, were involved. You never knew when the alliances might suddenly shift on you.
I think I have a tendency to mainly write emails when I’ve processed things and can sort of make neat little tales out of them. Here, I’m utterly bewildered. I lost it in front of my class today, and I really have no idea how everything got so out of control.
From the time they came in to the end of the ninety-minute double period, all they were interested in doing was arguing with one another. I tried so many times to teach the lesson, but I couldn’t talk over everyone, so I eventually gave up and tried to wait them out silently, which usually works—only today, it didn’t. It seemed like they were all way too interested in throwing each other’s notebooks and calling each other vulgar names. The fighting had no apparent cause or reason. . . . Basically, it was just thirty kids screaming at each other for an hour. Occasionally one of them would start yelling at the others to be quiet, but it was usually done in such a condescending fashion that it resulted in the kid trying to police everyone becoming the newly attacked person. They just wouldn’t stop.
I sent out four kids. I moved people around. I changed the lesson. I called in a dean. I waited silently again and again. Nothing worked. Eventually, as these events sometimes do when the kids get sick of arguing amongst themselves (mostly because they realize I’m not about to jump in), it turned into an attack on me: “Why would you want to teach high school if you can’t control the class?” I retorted, “Because this kind of behavior has no place in a high school. No teacher would expect such immaturity in a tenth-grade class. . . . I signed up for high school so I could teach . . . not babysit.” (This was followed by cheers of “Oooh! Smackdown!” while the girl who made the comment got up and stormed furiously out of the room.)
So this went on for about an hour more, and eventually I gave up waiting on them and trying to answer their snaps and did something I never do: I
screamed at them. The reason I never do this is because it inevitably leads to me breaking down and crying. In my nearly two-year career, I have never until today broken down in front of a class (Although they tell you that you can’t consider yourself a veteran teacher unless it’s happened at least once, because it’s everyone’s worst nightmare.) And so here I am, sitting in front of thirty kids, just sobbing. “I just don’t know what to do with you guys,” I told them. “I’m here, trying every which way to teach you, prepare you for Regents, whatever, and you just don’t want to listen. And I can’t scream over you, and I can’t fight you, and I can’t scare you. What exactly do you want me to do here? I may not be your favorite teacher, and this may not be your favorite class, but I believe I am a good teacher and you could learn a lot from me . . . and then I see you wasting time like this, screaming and calling each other names and challenging me and throwing each other’s stuff . . . and I don’t know what to do. It just fills me with sadness and hopelessness.”
I think they were stunned. Several kids apologized off the bat, a couple of the boys ran up and hugged me, some of the girls started crying, and then of course a few of them acted like total losers and just laughed. I guess I didn’t have the heart to care much anymore. . . . I just felt tired and dazed. I wrote the assignment on the board, told them anyone who cared could muddle through it, but that really it was up to them to write it down; I wasn’t going to get down their throats about it. I had nothing left in me.
I did, however, manage to call all of their parents, which was somewhat of a panacea for me. Plus, as I told them, they have a special guest tomorrow! They don’t know it’s the dean. They’re in for a rude surprise.
I was “excessed”—meaning my position was eliminated—from Explorers yesterday afternoon, for budgetary reasons and my lack of seniority in the system. I was hired before noon today by a small school in the building.2 I accepted because they’re giving me a really sweet program: for this coming semester, I have three classes of eleventh-grade English, a study hall and an elective of my choosing, a course I will call “Creative Nonfiction and the Personal Narrative.”