Gettin’ Merry

by CATHY L. CLAMP; FRANCIS RAY; BEVERLY JENKINS; MONICA JACKSON; GERI GUILLAUME

  “In a heartbeat. As long as you know that your heart’s mine.”

  Slowly, hardly noticeable at first, Kirby’s hand reached out to mine. She clasped her hand over mine. Palm to palm, the warmth of her hand fused with mine. When she took her hand away, I almost moaned in despair.

  Until I realized that my palm really was empty. She’d taken the ring. Then, with all the deliberateness and confidence I’d known Kirby to have, she slid the ring on her finger.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “I’ll marry you, Paul Barrett.”

  Chapter 9

  By the time students made their way grudgingly to first period, Kirby had already placed several colorful displays around the school. Each display focused on a single Kwanzaa symbol or principle. But a full-blown display was set up at the front entrance of the school. She’d talked me out of letting a student raise a bendara along with our other school flags. Instead, she tacked the red, black, and green flag against the wall as a backdrop to the table with all of the other symbols.

  Mr. Percy, who ran the local Farmers’ Market fruit and vegetable stand, always willing to help, donated the vibunzi and mazao samples. If I could have, I would have placed an ear of corn for every student in the school. In some way, I felt like they were all my kids. Again, Kirby said that was going overboard.

  “What do you want to do, start a riot?” she’d challenged me. “I thought that’s what we were trying to avoid. You put this much food out for the students to snack on, especially those overgrown football players on your team, and that’s exactly what you’ll have on your hands.”

  Mama gave us the three red candles, three green, and one black for the kinara—but threatened bodily harm if I let anything happen to her candleholder. And, as a special gesture, she also gave back to Kirby the kente cloth that she’d once cried buckets over in place of the mkeka when I suggested that Kirby could use one of the red mats from the girl’s gym instead of the traditional straw one.

  “One more,” Kirby threatened me. “You have just one more flaky idea and then I’m going to deck you!”

  I leaned close and whispered, “OK. You can knock me out, but this time, you’re on top.”

  I ducked, but not fast enough. The book that Mrs. Melanie had loaned us from the library on the history of Kwanzaa clipped me on the ear when Kirby launched it at my head.

  “Hey, be careful with that!” I exclaimed. “That’s very valuable merchandise.”

  “Oh, stop your whining, Bear. I barely nicked you.”

  “I’m not talking about my head, Kirby. That’s hard as a rock.”

  I was referring to that book. I had it on an extended loan from Ms. Melanie. That book had to get back to her in mint condition. I didn’t want her coming after me twenty years later, or after my kids, trying to collect book fines.

  That morning, Kirby and I walked the halls together, herding the students on to class. At the same time, we noted their reaction to our displays. I watched their expressions. Some of them twisted in confusion. Others lit up with delight. While others still had expressions that bordered on disgust. I just knew that I could expect a phone call or two from their parents. Let them call. We were finally getting a reaction from them. Something to start the dialogue going again.

  On Monday, a few students did trickle into Kirby’s office. On Tuesday, a few more. By Wednesday, Kirby had a steady stream. She’d started accepting early-morning and after-school sessions as well.

  Thursday afternoon, I walked Kirby back from lunch. She went on and on about some of the ideas the students had suggested themselves about how to increase the atmosphere of cultural tolerance and diversity.

  “They are the living embodiment of Kuumba,” Kirby said proudly. “Creativity is flowing out of their mouths where curses used to be.”

  “Uh-huh. Curses,” I echoed.

  “You know that sweet little Angie Pickard? She suggested that the students paint a mural on the cafeteria wall. Peace leaders, past and present. Each year, the students will suggest an addition to the mural and have a vote.”

  “Cafeteria,” I responded. “Vote.”

  “And then she suggested that Ms. Gilbert dance naked in the music hall. Tap dancing and reciting the lyrics to ‘Dixie,’” Kirby continued.

  “Uh-huh. Naked tap dancing.”

  “You’re not even listening to me!” Kirby exclaimed, pinching me on the arm.

  I have to admit that I had only been half-listening to her. My attention was split between listening to Kirby and keeping an eye on Mara Jackson, a freshman, and Phillip Xavier, a senior. The rumor mill had it that those two had been cutting third-period class, sneaking off campus. It wouldn’t surprise me if the rumors were true. Phillip was wearing his hormones on his sleeves. And Mara, eager to prove that she was just as popular as her senior junior sister Lara, was more than willing to give Phillip a hand—literally.

  “Hold that thought,” I interrupted Kirby. I stopped in the middle of the corridor, made an abrupt turn, and followed them to the row of junior lockers.

  I found them there, locked in a kiss so intense that the other students around them had started hooting and hollering in encouragement. I stopped in midstride, memories of my weekend with Kirby flooding back. And, I hate to admit it, a foolish grin came over my face. I had to catch myself. These were not two consenting adults. Whether their feelings for each other were as intense as Kirby’s and mine at that age, I couldn’t say. But since I’d stumbled up on them, I couldn’t let them get away without a token chastisement.

  “All right! All right!” I tapped Phillip on the back of the head. He never even heard me coming. “Break it up. For heaven’s sake, Mr. Xavier, give the girl some air.”

  Phillip pulled back, wiping berry-scented lip gloss from his mouth and cheek.

  “Miss Jackson, don’t you have a science class you should be in right about now?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mara replied. She popped her retainer back into her mouth, grabbed a book from Phillip’s locker, and scurried around me. “Later, Phillip!”

  Phillip started to leave, too, but I held up my arm—blocking his path. “Hold up there a minute, Mr. Xavier. Give your . . . er . . . emotions a chance to settle down before walking out of here.”

  I kept him waiting until the halls had cleared, when most of the students had gotten to class and the individual classroom doors had closed.

  “Oh . . . sorry, Mr. B.” He looked up at me and grinned. “I guess I got a little carried away.”

  “Uh-huh. Son, we need to talk.”

  “Since I’m late for class, will you give me a pass?”

  “We’ll talk about that later.”

  “Does that mean we’re finished?” Phillip started to walk away. “I gotta jet. If I’m late again for Mr. Turner’s class, he’ll put me in detention.”

  Again I stopped him. “Wait a minute now. Let me finish. How old are you, Mr. Xavier?”

  “Uh . . . I’ll be seventeen in April.” He tapped his foot, obviously in a hurry to get out of there.

  Ah! Sweet seventeen. If my memory served me correctly, it was just about that time when Kirby and I walked these halls. But we were hand-in-hand out in the open. Not lip-to-lip.

  “You’re just sixteen years old. Mr. Xavier, do you realize that Mara Jackson is only fourteen?”

  “She’s almost fifteen,” Phillip insisted, staring longingly down the hall where the girl had gone.

  I snapped my fingers, getting his attention again. I wasn’t even sure if he was listening to me. “Next year you’ll be eighteen. And do you know what that makes Mara?”

  “Ummmm? Sixteen?” He looked up at me as if wondering whether I was quizzing him on a new kind of math.

  “That’s right, son. Sixteen and, according to some folks who might not take kindly to you hanging around her, jail-bait. You do know what that word means, don’t you?”

  He shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “Think about it this way. It�
��s a very ugly word that means six-to-ten as a guest of the state, even for first-time offenders when—and I do mean when—her parents decide to file sexual assault charges against you. Make no mistake about it. They will do it. Now do you understand?”

  “You’re saying that I shouldn’t screw around with Mara but go after her older sister instead? Cool! I can handle that. Lara’s the hotter sister anyway.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all, Phillip! Listen to me. Trust me. I’m speaking from experience. I’m telling you to zip it. I’m only telling you this because you two have your whole lives ahead of you. Your entire future. Don’t rush into it.”

  “We didn’t rush, Mr. B! I swear she made me wait two weeks before giving it up.”

  “Son, I don’t think you’re getting my meaning. Who do you have for fourth period?” I’m sure the weariness showed in the strain on my face and in my voice.

  “Coach Spann for drivers’ ed.”

  “OK, Mr. Xavier. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take this note to Coach Spann.” I pulled out a small notepad from my jacket pocket.

  “What’s it say?” he asked, craning his neck to see the pad as I wrote a few lines.

  “I’m changing your class assignment just for today. I want you to go to the school nurse, Mrs. Campitelli, and tell her that I said to pull the video on STDs. Watch the entire video. Front to back. Twice if you have to, until you understand what abstinence means. You’ve got that?”

  “STDs. Got it, Mr. B.”

  I shook my head and said sarcastically, “For your sake, Xavier, I hope you don’t ever get it.”

  “What about that pass, Mr. B?” Phillip pressed me.

  I wrote another note, dated it, and handed it over to him.

  By the time I’d made it back to the main hall where I’d left Kirby, the hallway was completely cleared. I supposed she was in her office, so I started back to mine. I’d just settled back at my desk staring out the window when Norah Gilbert knocked on my door. Rather, she pounded with a kind of urgency that I’d come to recognize.

  “Come in!” I called, even as I was heading for the door.

  “I’m not going to tell you how to run your school,” Norah began breathlessly.

  “Who’s fighting again?” I asked.

  “No one. Not yet.” She led me down several corridors to Mr. Rappaport’s classroom. Even though the door was closed, I could hear commotion echoing from several yards away.

  “What the—” I censored myself. By now, several other teachers had stepped out into the halls, curious as well. I waved them back inside.

  When I reached Mr. Rappaport’s door, I grasped the door handle.

  “Wait a minute!” Norah whispered harshly, clamping her hand on my wrist. “You can’t go charging in there. You don’t know what’s going on inside.”

  “I’m certainly not going to find out skulking around out here,” I insisted. But I took her advice to heart and took a quick peek inside before going in.

  Mr. Rappaport, a slight, soft-spoken man of indeterminate age, stood at the back of the room with his arms folded stubbornly across his chest.

  The students had divided into two sides of the room, mostly along racial lines, yelling at each other—hurling insults, sometimes wads of paper. In the middle of it all, standing on top of a desk, was Kirby. She was waving her arms and calling for silence. Gesturing emphatically at the chalkboard, she pointed to her hastily scrawled notes, some of the same insults the students were using on each other.

  I flung the door open wide. The impact of it slamming against the far wall cracked the viewing glass.

  The room went instantly silent, as if the vocal cords of each student had suddenly become frozen. My footsteps echoed on the linoleum floor. Then I turned to Kirby, my eyes as hard as agates. Hadn’t I just told her that I would support her in anything she did? But this? What the hell was this? This wasn’t keeping the peace. This was gasoline and a match.

  “What is going on here?” I asked, making a concerted effort to sound even, controlled.

  “We were just talking, Mr. Barrett,” Kirby said, as casually as if I’d just found them all blandly discussing the weather.

  “Talking?” I echoed, my tone clearly sarcastic.

  “Debating, actually, whether or not words have as much power to heal as they can hurt.”

  “I see.”

  “Actually, no, you don’t. You walked in before we got the second half of the experiment.” She stepped off of the desk and strode to the blackboard. With large, sweeping strokes Kirby erased the racial slurs and epithets.

  “Now,” she said dramatically. “Let’s try this again, this time with a different focus. I want you guys to yell these words with as much enthusiasm as you screamed the former.”

  She wrote the words Umoja, unity, Ujamaa, responsibility, and Imani, faith.

  “You have thirty seconds.” She held up her hand. “Get ready in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. . . . Go!” Her hand fell in an abrupt slashing motion.

  The same students who’d looked a moment ago as if they were ready to tear one another apart stood staring furtively at one another in utter silence. Not a word. Not a peep. They looked at one another, looked at me, and then looked as if they’d rather be anywhere but there. Some of them scuttled to their seats and opened their textbooks as if they’ve been studying all along.

  One student called out weakly, “Unity!” but was quickly shushed by the others.

  “Oh, come on now,” Kirby urged. “I know you can do better than that! Come on; let me hear you!”

  She glanced over at me, indicating with a flick of her head that I should leave the room. My presence was killing their spontaneity.

  I wasn’t budging. The students knew by now why Kirby was there and what she was trying to accomplish. I had promised her my support and wasn’t about to withdraw it now just because her methods were a little unorthodox.

  I stepped to the front of the room, staring at Kirby. There was a murmur from the students, as if they sensed that trouble was brewing.

  “Busted,” Zane Donovan whispered loudly from the back of the room. I ignored him. Kept walking until I stood almost toe-to-toe with her. Then I opened my mouth and shouted, “Imani!”

  Kirby jumped, visibly startled, covered her ears, and shouted back, “Faith!”

  With the ice broken, the classroom suddenly erupted in more shouting. But the energy, the tone, had changed. It was hard to ball up your fist or twist your face in anger when shouting words like unity and responsibility. I ought to know. I tried.

  For the sake of playing the devil’s advocate, I tried to keep a scowl on my face. I couldn’t. By the time Kirby called, “Time’s up!” we were all laughing so hard that we barely heard her.

  Kirby was in her element as several students surrounded her, demanding to know more about the principles, symbols, and artifacts that she’d placed strategically around the school.

  By Friday, I felt confident that my school was well on the way to healing itself.

  Chapter 10

  What a difference a weekend makes. I was standing outside, watching the school buses unload, when I saw a battered gray Suburban pulling up into the drive where only buses should park. I stepped off the curb, waving the Suburban on, but the driver ignored me and pulled up behind the last bus. I looked through the cracked windshield and saw the tense face of Eddie Lee Pickard glaring back at me.

  He shut off the engine, stepped out at me, and hollered, “Where is she?”

  I walked up to Eddie Lee, keeping my expression neutral. “Angie’s on her way to first period right now, Mr. Pickard. If you’ll hold on a minute, I’ll have one of the students go in, pull her file, and find out where she is exactly.” I was stalling for time, giving the appearance of cooperating to give me more time to control the situation.

  “I’m not talkin’ about Angie, Mr. Barrett,” he snapped.

  “Then who are you talking about?”<
br />
  “I’m talking about that mongrel bitch who had the audacity to sit up in a classroom and call my boy a stupid redneck. Is that what you call handling this situation, Barrett? Huh? Bringing in more of your kind, more reinforcements?” He looked over my shoulder, to someone behind me. I didn’t have to guess who it was. By the way my hairs were standing up on the back of my neck, I knew who it was.

  “I’m sure that you’re mistaken, Mr. Pickard. Why don’t we go inside, sit down, have a cup of coffee, and straighten this all out?” I had lowered my voice to nearly a whisper, hoping that it would help to calm him. When I reached out to grasp his elbow to lead him inside, he jerked away from me.

  “Stay out of this, Barrett! This is between me and the mongrel.”

  “You will lower your voice, calm yourself down, or I’ll have you escorted off the school premises. Do you understand me?” If niceties didn’t work with Eddie Lee . . .

  I think I got his attention. He glared but turned toward the school entrance just the same. Long, angry strides stopped short when he came upon the Kwanzaa display set up at the front of the school. Eddie Lee whirled on me.

  “Barrett, I’ve had about all I can take of this ‘back to Africa’ crap. If you people want to sit around banging drums and singing ‘Kum-bah-yah,’ then have at it. But I ain’t gonna sit by and let you insult my family. I just ain’t. No parent, white or black, is going to sit by and let you do it.”

  “Inside,” I insisted, pointing toward my office.

  Kirby was still trailing us. She threw me a puzzled look, so I motioned for her to join us. Once everyone was seated in my office, behind closed doors, the floodgates opened.

  “Where do you get off talking to me like that, Barrett?” Pickard began. “I ought to break my foot off in your ass.”

  “Have you lost your friggin’ mind! Don’t you ever, ever, ever come up here endangering my students! What’s up with you driving like a maniac, Pickard?”