6
Social Interaction
DOMINIQUE
UNH-UNH. Can’t let her cut into me like that. Through my space. Through me. Can’t let that slide. She has to know, she can’t do that.
What? She didn’t see me? Do I look invisible to you? Do I?
I can’t let it slide. Can’t let it slide.
It’s all right. I’ll handle it. Handle it. Set her straight. She’ll learn.
“’Nique, are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I’m not but I’m cool for now and take my seat.
Fenster, boy. She’s always watching. Even when she’s teaching, she’s watching.
Social Interaction is for kids with problems. Kids who don’t know how to act. Kids with stuff going on. Kids who need to be watched.
I’m not one of them.
They think I am. Say I am. Have it on my record: watch Dominique Duncan. She’s got problems. A temper. Put her in Social Interaction for life. Block that shot.
Fenster’s got these posters up on both sides of the classroom. Ten rules for Social Interaction. I can see them. All ten. I read them every class. They’re in my face. I can’t not read them. I understand what they’re saying. I get the rules. They’re just not my rules. My rules make sense:
I’m not in your face, don’t be in mine. It’s when you mess with my stuff—my minutes, my space, my girls, my guy, my peace of mind—that I have to respond. Correct you. Let you know you can’t do that. Mess with my stuff, my people, my frame of mind. My rules are simple. Don’t mess with me, I don’t mess with you. I’m a yard with a big-ass sign: DO NOT TRESPASS. It’s that simple.
If you don’t like me, that’s fine. Just keep your Dominique-hating self on your side of the lane. Then we don’t have problems. No contact, no foul. Simple. You see me coming down B, find A. Just don’t rub up against me. Don’t say my name. Don’t point when you’re with your girls. Not with your fingers, not with your eyes. Don’t whisper, don’t laugh. Don’t Dominique nothing.
See, I don’t have a temper. A temper’s like having freckles or being bowlegged. A person with a temper is set off by anything. But I don’t have a temper. I’m not what they say. What they write. I’m not a problem child.
I just care about my stuff. Take a shot at me or to me and I block it. It’s reflex. Instinct. Natural. I just don’t back down. And it—BOOM!—happens quick. That’s different than having a temper. A dog has a temper, hear what I’m saying? Stay away from that pit bull because that dog’s foaming for no reason. I’m not like that. I don’t bother no one. I don’t. I’m all peace. Just leave me alone, all right? Read the sign in the yard.
Go ahead. Say what you want to say about me and let me catch you. You better mean what you say like it’s word. Do what you want to do. Take what you want to take from me. Take it like it’s yours. You better be happy with it because I won’t let it slide when I respond. That’s not a temper. That’s me responding. Correcting. Setting things straight.
Response is up there on Fenster’s posters. Appropriate response. Inappropriate response. I apply that to my rules. If you come out inappropriate, I come back, appropriate. One takes care of the other.
If anyone needs Social Interaction it’s those girls from last year. Do they still go here? Anyway, they should be taking notes on how to get along. They came out inappropriate, not me. They shouldn’t have been in my face. They were sophomores and I just got here. They should have had better things to do than to be talking about my jersey, my sneakers. Oh, right. I’m supposed to stand there like a big dumb bitch and pretend I don’t hear them speak my name? I’m supposed to walk by like it’s all right for them to laugh at me? I’m supposed to be their joke? Their girlie gossip of the day? Well, they opened their mouths and I responded. Corrected them. Simple as that. But when the dust cleared, no one saw three against one. They just saw the one still standing and three down.
“Come on, ’Nique. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Fenster is like Coach blowing the whistle during laps. Let’s go. Get those knees up.
I’m all right with Fenster and she’s all right with me. She gave me an 80 last term. She’s not trying to hold me back. Keep me sidelined. She knows I need those points.
After the suspension last year, they sent me to her and she worked out the plea bargain: “Dominique has skills on the court. A team sport will help her interact socially and learn to cooperate with others.” That’s also on the poster. Cooperation.
AP Shelton said two conditions: “Social Interaction and keep a clean nose for the next three years.”
Coach said, “Keep your grades up, do what I tell you, and you’ll be starting at guard by junior year.”
I go along with it. I do my time. As long as I can be on the team. Get some minutes on the court. So two days a week, I got SI. Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, SI. Rules for Social Interaction. Surrounded by kids with real problems, real stories about their real problems. Sick-ass stories. After each one, Fenster asks, “What did you learn?” and “How is this different from the last time?” Me? I don’t have no stories. So don’t ask me what I learned. But I show up. I’m here. I hold up my end of the deal.
The Do Now is to come up with three priorities.
“Not everything is a level-one priority,” Fenster says.
That’s what we’re learning. How to prioritize, figure out what’s important. How to stack them in order of importance.
I got my three and I arrange them in order. What I’ll say is most important and what I’ll say is least important. So, when Fenster asks me why aren’t I writing, I point to my head and say, “It’s up here.”
“Okay, ’Nique. Let’s hear them.” Fenster tests me because she doubts me. That’s her thing. I’ve been around. I’m wise to the game.
That’s cool. I’m ready. I say, “Get back my minutes on the court.” That’s number one. Level one.
She nods and holds up one finger.
“Up my grades.” Yeah. I’m gonna squeeze that little brown mouse when I get up to the third floor.
She nods, two fingers. Big smile. I’m getting a “plus” in the book of pluses and minuses. That’s how she scores us. Too many minuses and we get a one-on-one. The intervention.
“Improve my D” is the last one I give her. The fake-out. She should know better but holds up a third finger. She should know improving my defense is like breathing or eating. Everyday stuff. See, the real priority is as important as the first. Dealing with the third priority last doesn’t make it a level-three priority. It’s just the order that it will go down in, at 2:45. It’s a top priority. A personal priority. It’s not that I want to respond to it, I have to respond to it. I can’t let that slide.
7
Imaginary or Not
LETICIA
CLASS IS IN FULL SWING WHEN I ARRIVE. Mr. Walsh doesn’t bother to ask for the late pass. It’s not the first time I’ve strolled in after the second bell. He figures, why waste valuable class time asking for a pass he knows I don’t have? So I shock him, uncrumple the bathroom pass with Miss Palenka’s signature and smooth it out on his desk so he can see it’s legitimate.
“A long bathroom break, Miss Moore.”
“A long dump, Mr. Walsh.”
Now isn’t he sorry? He upset his morning coffee and McBiscuit commenting when he should have nodded and kept teaching. A lesson for you, Mr. Walsh. Stick with your classics. Stick with what you know.
I sashay s-l-o-w because I want to freeze the moment for him like we’re on a TV show where the funny black girl puts a cap on the scene. I take my seat, dig out A Separate Peace, a sheet of paper, and a pen.
You know, life is unfair. Bea’s class has Push and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for winter-break reading. They’re reading true-to-life dramas. Stuff that makes your eyes run right, left, right like feet on fire. Our class has Black Boy, The Stranger, and Mr. Walsh’s favorite, A Separate Peace. “A book every high school student must read,” according to Walsh. I s
ee his point. One day I might transfer to an elite military school, befriend a bunch of losers, climb a tree, and watch a classmate fall and break his leg. That’s right. Pushed or fell, the classmate breaks a leg and dies. He doesn’t die on the spot. Dying drags out over time so the so-called friend can Hamletize over to tell or not to tell that he’s responsible for the broken leg and his classmate’s death. So yeah. I see how it all relates to my life because every other day I’m up a tree pushing some loser to his eventual death, then breaking out into a soliloquy. Don’t you just love the classics?
I read the book. Every page, even when I wanted to skim. I already have zero-period math. I don’t need to rise at an ungodly hour for zero-period English next semester.
I look around. Unlike everyone else’s book, mine is brand-new, no cracks, no creases down the spine. Each page corner as sharp as when I bought it. Not a highlighter or pen mark to be found between the covers. You can’t get your money back from the store if it looks used. It’s not easy to read a book you don’t crack open all the way but I’ve mastered the art of keeping the book brand-new. Black Boy, The Stranger, and A Separate Peace are all crisp and clean. Ready to be returned along with the receipt.
Can’t say that about Bea’s books. Both Push and Caged Bird been through the war with Bea. Their spines broken, their covers like arms forced back in surrender. “Ease up, Bea. Don’t hurt a book,” I’d say, trying to grab her attention. It didn’t do any good. I lost Bea for two weeks during her Push, Caged Bird phase. She read both books twice. First time was for class; the second, she said, was for her. And that was all she wanted to talk about. Marguerite this, Precious that. I would have read her novels too if I could have gotten credit for it. Instead I had my hands full with Black Boy, The Stranger, and A Separate Peace. The sophomore classics.
“And what do you suppose ‘Maginot Lines’ refers to at the end of the novel?”
I can’t be mad at Mr. Walsh. He can’t help himself. He loves English. Look at how he throws out questions, like a pitcher eager to throw the first pitch of the season. He’s like Bea, all filled up with a book and can’t wait to talk about it. If Bea read her books twice, Mr. Walsh read his twenty times. Come on, now. Only paste is whiter than Mr. Walsh’s face. You know that’s what he does all day. Stays indoors and reads his classics. And now he’s bursting. Bursting like we’re an honors class and we’re all fighting each other to talk about Gene and Finny and Leper and Quackenbush.
I throw my hand up. I usually hang back, but if I answer his question now, I can spend the rest of the class taking notes uncalled on. Minimum effort goes a long way, which is where I went wrong with Mr. Jiang last semester. I didn’t go up to the board or raise my hand at least once a day to give that one answer I knew. Had I done that, Jiang would have scraped up thirteen points for me. But it’s all right. I have my hand up now because I plan to sleep late next semester.
Just hold it together, Mr. Walsh. Don’t be like Mr. Yerkewicz, having a heart attack in the middle of class. Don’t let the sight of my hand waving in the air hit you, because that would make two shocks in a row. A legitimate bathroom pass and an answer from Leticia, not five minutes apart.
“Yes, Leticia. Maginot Lines.”
So what if he says Magino and I read Maginot with the full not. I swear, the French language is there to trip you up. Silent t’s and x’s and l’s. Every class I go, there is French, making trouble. I focus on “Maginot Lines” and minimum effort. I’ll deal with French later.
I say, “‘Maginot Lines’ either means imaginary lines or not imaginary lines. It depends how you look at it.” I could have Googled it on the internet like the syllabus suggested but Maginot is one of those words you don’t have to look up because it sounds like its meaning even if it’s spelled inside out. Dang French. I’m positive “imaginary” is the English translation of Maginot. It sounds right. Besides, at Bridgette and Bernie’s the computer room is way down in the cold basement, too long a trek from my warm and toasty room just to Google “Maginot Lines.”
Mr. Walsh rocks back and forth in his brown teacher’s snow shoes. “Hmm. Imaginary lines,” he sings, ponders, nods, and says, “Or not imaginary lines. Okay. Let’s go with imaginary lines. That’s a good place to start.”
I nod also. It wasn’t on the money but it wasn’t wrong. He didn’t say, “Shut the hell up, Miss Moore, sashaying into my class with your ‘imaginary lines or not.’” He didn’t cap the scene in our TV show while the audience laughed in the background.
I can relax. I’ve done my job for the day. I got the discussion rolling and Mr. Walsh even uses “imaginary lines” in his next question. Turns out Lorna and half the class Googled “Maginot Lines.” She starts out, “Like Leticia was saying”—already I like Lorna, Jamaican girl with her “tick” accent, talking about how the French set up imaginary lines of defense to protect themselves from the Germans. That’s right, Lorna. Show some unity. Show some solidarity. Don’t make my answer wrong.
Herman couldn’t wait to announce that it was in our global history book. He actually lugged that seven-pound (I weighed it) textbook into class just to show the cartoon of greedy Germany camped out on the borders of France, salivating. I’m copying notes, so I can’t plaster a proper L for “big loser” against my forehead for Herman’s benefit.
I almost ask Mr. Walsh what does Germany ganging up on poor little France have to do with Gene and Finny and Leper and Quackenbush, but I’ve already done my part. I got the ball rolling. Besides. Look at Mr. Walsh’s pale white face. He can’t wait to tell us.
8
Polypeptide Jam
TRINA
“HONEST, MISS WOMACK. I don’t mean to be late. I’m handing in my gorgeous artwork to Mr. Sebastian for Black History Month—check it out. C Corridor. And while I’m rushing to get here, AP Shelton stops me in the hall. We had a discussion. You know AP Shelton. He loves chatting with me.”
I don’t know why she casts those blue flecks of doubt at me but she does.
“Serious, Miss W. I have an alibi. Check with the AP.”
I slide down in my seat. The metal bottom is cold so I shimmy it warm and pull out my colored pens and my Biology notebook. I take the scenic route through pages of diagrams in my fully color-coordinated notebook. Apple green, baby blue, maroon, hot pink, naranja for the diagrams, Bic black for the info. Soft brown for the first diagram, the monkey-to-man page. (Can’t show that to Mami—it upsets her.) Apple greens, deep greens for the plant world. Maroons, hot pinks, and dark blue for the molecules. Get back, Picassa! I air-kiss a perfect water molecule, wet smack.
Me? Settle down? Am I disturbing things?
“Sorry, Miss Womack.” The pages flapping, the chair legs rocking, all mess with her teaching flow. She gets really bothered when she’s interrupted so I quickly find the right spot in my notebook. A blank page, ready for more Cell World.
I write, Subject: Polypeptides and Proteins, then Today’s Aim: Forming Bonds. Dang! Miss Womack has the full diagram up already. Five minutes with AP Shelton cost me a choice of greens, blues, naranja (which sounds better, orange or naranja? Naranja, right? Prettier). No color coordinating. Just go for it. Catch up. Dang, Miss Womack talks fast.
I lean toward Eduardo’s paper to see what’s been said so far. I’m his leafy plant, leaning to his open notebook like it’s the warm, gold sun. Eduardo leans away, digging the plant biology. He inches his notebook to the right, coaxing, Trina, lean closer, my way. Closer. We both think, Anything for a peek. Only, I want the cell words, he wants more Trina. I smile but Eduardo fakes being undercover.
Doesn’t matter how old they are—fifty-five or fifteen. They can be so shy. I completely make his day.
Word for word, I copy everything on Eduardo’s page. What they are, what they mean, and what they do. Whatever I don’t know I’ll look up later. For now, I’m done with Eduardo and flip my lovely locks as I face front. Eduardo can live on what I just gave him until the end of semester.
&nb
sp; I still want to make my page pretty. I want to get the diagram as good as I can. So what if I can’t coordinate like I want to. I can fix it up later.
With the maroon, I draw the big bean, the nucleus. Blue spaghetti strands wrapped with naranja, looping like a jump rope in full swing, the wrapping and twining. Bic black for transcription, translation—what?—no matter. I’ll catch it later.
I giggle when I get to the ribosome. What? You can’t see what she has on the board? I think I’m giggling to myself but—
“Trina.”
Again. “Sorry, miss.”
Okay, Trina. Chill.
I mean to listen and write but I can’t keep still. I peek over at Eduardo’s diagram. Then over to Nilda, on my left, but Nilda is giving me back a glare, so whatever. I don’t dare turn to Krystal, behind me. Miss Womack is bothered enough as it is. Between Eduardo and Al’liah, I’m not the only one to see Miss Womack has drawn a lopsided, goose-bumped boy sac under the bean. The DNA ribbon runs between the big one and the small one but that doesn’t disguise a thing. I draw my boy sacs like Miss Womack’s, the upper one bigger than the lower. I laugh to myself. Ding, dong, dang, boy. How’s it hanging?
“Problem, Trina?”
I can’t believe everyone holds their faces together. Don’t they want to bust out?
“Nothing, miss. I’m just drawing.” I give her innocence. Nothing but innocence. What?
Miss Womack revs up. She talks really fast, yo! Her words race together but you hear each one crisp and clear. So fast, so crisp and clear, I want to dance to the quickness. It’s like a jam. The peptide jam. Then a polypeptide jam. With the polypeptide bond. Check out how fast she spits that: amino acids, proteins, polypeptide bonds. Miss W dates a DJ, for sure. They flip syllables back and forth, fast, fast, fast. I’m picturing it right now.
Jumped Page 3