by Ronnie Allen
Kyle, a chubby little boy wearing a striped shirt and jeans that were too small for him, just stood there crying.
Barbara had heard enough. She opened the door with caution, not wanting to be a target of books, crayons, and candy that were being thrown about the disheveled room. She surveyed the classroom. There were no colorful bulletin boards in the many possible places for them, or current children’s work on display. The only colors in this classroom were on the painted walls and the alphabet carpet in the reading center at the back left corner of the room, where the children sat on the floor during reading lessons.
The bulletin boards on the closet doors, which spanned the entire left side, had their original brown corkboard showing. The same went for the bulletin boards on the back wall. Everything had come down for the paint job last week. But a week had passed. And nothing had been replaced.
Barbara entered and proceeded to the front of the room. “Good afternoon.” She addressed the children a little louder than she would prefer to speak, clasping her hands in a relaxed manner, low and in front of her. For a moment, nothing. Then one by one, the children noticed her and scrambled to their seats, without her saying another word. She maintained eye contact with them the entire time.
One group, still arguing in the corner, ignored her. She walked over to them with her signature Barbara smile, looking at them eye to eye with a warm and wide smile they couldn’t resist. When they felt her presence, they looked up and realized everyone else was already stationed at their desks.
“Oops,” spilled out of their little mouths as they scurried to their seats. Through a tide of little voices, Barbara heard, “Hurry up! Sit down!” “Move over,” “‘K, bes quiet.” “Beeeeeeeeeeee quiet!”
Six-year-old innocent eyes connected with hers. She smiled from where she stood by the bookcase under the window on the right side of the room. Her right arm rested on the ledge, while her left hand was in her pocket.
“Complements to table two.” All eyes went to the six adorable children sitting at the table postured up in their chairs with their hands folded on their desks. “Complements to table four, table four is joining table two.” Her imaginary magic wand with faerie dust worked every time in every classroom. Each child now paid attention. “My compliments to everyone now. You look wonderful, just like grown up first graders.”
Miss Klein stood in the corner next to her desk with her arms folded across her chest. She tilted up her nose, tightened her mouth into a sliver, and rolled her eyes as she turned to focus her gaze out the window.
Now that all little eyes were on Barbara, she said, “This is the way you’re expected to behave. And you all knew that from last year, right? I know a lot of your mommies and daddies.” She gave them a sincere smile and welcomed precious smiles in response. “I’m going to be visiting for a while so I want you to show me, and Miss Klein, just how wonderful you can be.”
The children, trying to be in unison, answered her with “Yes, Miss M.”
“Now I’m going to sit back here and see who’s paying attention so you can get a compliment.”
She walked to the back of the room. “And Miss Klein is going to take over.”
Miss Klein sucked in her cheeks. “Why can’t you teach the lesson?”
Taken aback, Barbara glared at her. “I’m not here for that today, but perhaps another day we can arrange for that.” Barbara’s signature smile spurted pure malevolence.
Miss Klein trudged to the front of the room. “We’re going to learn the consonant L. Who can tell me words that begin with L?”
As she waited for an answer, Miss Klein kept looking at the door.
Is she waiting for a message from God?
Not soon enough for Miss Klein, another teacher came in to relieve her for her fifty-minute preparation period and Barbara planned to take advantage of the opportunity. She got up from the chair in the back of the room and approached Miss Klein, who grabbed her jacket and worn bag to rush out. Barbara noticed the bag, a very soiled tan leather that had had years of daily wear. Just the antithesis of herself, in her expensive, conservative three-piece navy suit, carrying her Louis Vuitton tote, this woman had no concept of what was the professional attire necessary for a teacher. Or she had never looked in a mirror. And her glasses! They were so dirty, how could she see out of them?
“Where are you planning to go, Miss Klein?”
“Outside for a smoke. Do you mind, Dr. Montgomery?” she asked, imitating Barbara’s tone of superiority.
“We’re not allowed to leave the building on a prep, and I was hoping we could spend the period chatting about this case you sent to me.”
“Can’t we talk next week?”
“No, there’s a specific time frame for the eval and, actually, I wasn’t asking you. My office is 321.” Barbara left the room and vanished into the stairwell.
***
Miss Klein entered the office and slammed her plan book down on the sun-yellowed conference table. She pulled out a plain wooden chair without arms, slumped down into it, and made sucking sounds with her tongue on her teeth.
Barbara glanced at the coffee-stained plan book, then turned her attention to the expression on Miss Klein’s face. She thinks I’m a bitch? Well, surprise, surprise, I am.
Miss Klein sat with arms crossed on her chest, revealing a tear on the right arm of her sweater.
“Glad you made it. Here.” Barbara handed her a spray bottle of eyeglass cleaner and a tissue. “You probably ran out of yours.”
“Thanks.” While she used the cleaner, she glared at Barbara. “Why do I have to call you Dr. Montgomery and the kids call you Miss M? I should be calling you Barbara.”
“Seriously?” Barbara studied her. “Children, not kids. Those are baby goats. The children address me as Miss M. because it’s less threatening to them than calling me doctor. You haven’t earned the right to address me by my first name. Now let’s continue, shall we? I have the five pages you sent to me that I downloaded,” she said, flipping through it. “But it isn’t complete.”
“I don’t have the time to fill out this crap.”
“Well, the Department of Education has specific requirements for referrals, and this is mandatory and it needs to be complete. They also help the state and me to get the child the help they so badly need. I didn’t create these regs. But putting that aside, why are you referring Kyle?”
“I already wrote it in there.”
Finding the page, Barbara scanned it. “You wrote, ‘hits other children.’”
“You saw that today.”
“Yes, I did, and he doesn’t do homework, he curses, and what else?”
“That’s enough.”
“Miss Klein, actually, it’s not enough to refer a child to special education. Okay, teacher interventions. You wrote that you called the parents. But it’s not annotated here when, how many times, what the results were, and the exact verbal responses were that you got from them.”
Miss Klein rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Actually, I’m quite serious. What did his parents say to you when you called? Better yet, what did you say to them?”
“I don’t even remember. I was so pissed, but they told me to fuck off.”
“Did they verbalize that or were they pissed at the way you approached them?”
“What the hell is wrong with you? They didn’t actually say fuck, but they said ‘when he’s in school, he’s your problem,’ then I got more pissed.”
“More pissed? So you began the conversation angry with them, like you’re being angry with me?”
“Well, yeah, I had to call them on my own time at night, since they both work during the day and you’re making me lose my prep.”
Barbara wasn’t the least bit fazed and ignored the prep comment. “That goes with the job. Every successful teacher I know does work at home and a lot of it.”
“I don’t care. I’m not doing anything at home. Once I leave here at three, that’
s it.”
“So, how’s that working for you?”
Miss Klein smirked and rolled her eyes again.
“Look, you have a child who isn’t behaving and, by yelling at the parents, you’ve made enemies so you blew any collaboration you might have had to help this child. And it was clear today that you didn’t have a lesson planned, so you didn’t fool me or even the children, for that matter. And they are very smart, so don’t underestimate them because of their age. Even on the eval, you left out what you’ve done in the classroom to help him.”
“How do you know I didn’t have a lesson planned?”
“In this district, visual aids are mandatory to teach the alphabet and sounds. Where were yours?”
Barbara remained quiet and let it sink in.
“I don’t do lesson plans, anymore, because whenever I do I can’t get my plans through to them, anyway, the way this class behaves.”
“How have you managed to get away without doing plans?”
“We have a choice, to do them on line or in my plan book. I chose the plan book. Then I give Bennett an excuse, and she just walks out of the room.”
“That’s it?”
“I have a few letters in my file, but I don’t care. What can they do?”
“They can do plenty. You can get fired, for one, and leave here with a U rating. No principal will want you after that. And you’re lucky to be here. Mrs. Bennett is the fairest and most caring principal I know, and I’m in a few schools.”
“Well, she can’t hurt me.”
“Why not? You’re not tenured yet.”
“My uncle is the superintendent of schools in Queens, Sherman Greenberg.”
“Sherman? Sherman Greenberg? He’s your uncle?”
Guess I’ll have to become acquainted with Sherman Greenberg.
Her face lit up as if she was now immune. “Yes, he is.”
“I know him very well. I give teacher-training workshops for him. And I speak with him at least once a week.”
The color in her face faded. “You do?”
“And even though he may have gotten you the job, now you have to prove you deserve to keep it.”
Miss Klein rolled her lips together after Barbara’s remark.
“So, what help have you gotten?”
“From whom?”
“Support staff in the school, staff developers, reading teachers.”
“The staff developer said I needed to attend her meetings and that would help me with everything.”
Barbara’s eyes met hers. “And?”
“They’re after school and I just want to get out of here.”
“I’ll ask you again. How’s that working for you?”
She weakened, becoming teary eyed. “Horrible.”
“All right, acknowledged. So why are you really not going?”
After a minute of silence, she caved. “I’m afraid that if I try really hard and commit to doing this job well, I’ll fail anyway, so why bother trying? I’ve failed at most things I’ve tried in my life so I’ve given up.”
“You bother trying because it’s the little lives you’re affecting, not just your own. And you can turn it around. Teaching is a learned skill, and you learn it by practicing it over and over again. Adults need to do repetitions up to twenty one times to make it a habit, so think of how long it can take little ones to grasp a concept. Winging lessons on the fly won’t work. Honestly, start putting some effort in, and you will get results, but you have to want it.” Hell, it took me fourteen kills to get them right--quick and neat. “When is the next meeting?”
“Today.”
“Okay, I’ll make this agreement with you. You go to all of the meetings that are offered after school and on weekends, and I won’t mention to your uncle that you’re not making the grade if Mrs. Bennett hasn’t already.”
“I’ll go. I will, I promise.” Looking at clock on wall, Miss Klein saw that her prep time was almost over. “Got to go. The prep teachers hate it when I’m late. Thanks.”
Barbara nodded in acknowledgment but before she could reflect upon this meeting, a young female colleague charged into the room, bumping into the round children-sized table with kindergarten-height chairs around it.
“Dr. Barbara, Mrs. Bennett needs you downstairs right now. Jeremiah ran out of the building. She called ESU five minutes ago.”
CHAPTER 4
In a bland and cluttered office, in a South Brooklyn precinct, with dull light green walls--and bulletin boards and posters all over them, showing pictures of New York City’s most wanted--NYPD Lieutenant Paul Carlson, sat at his desk with an open file. He picked up the intercom and fingered his overgrown gray beard as he called his secretary.
“Jennifer, get Mandella and Valantino in here now!”
His gruff voice was more impatient than usual. Jennifer had to notice how cranky he’d been lately. He was surprised she hadn’t said anything about it to him. Had she mentioned it to the team? He rubbed his hand over his bald head in frustration, in a vain attempt to stimulate his gray matter. He yawned, closed his eyes, and pictured himself lying in his comfortable bed at home. He really needed sleep, but his day was far from over.
“Right away, Lieutenant.”
Two detective investigators, Tony Mandella and Sal Valantino, sauntered in.
Tony closed the door behind them and tossed his linen khaki sports jacket on the back of a chair. “What’s up, Loo? We just got back from Coney.”
“You mean to tell me you two took the fucking time to go to Nathans?” Carlson bellowed with as much force as he could muster.
Tony flipped his palms up and out. “We were starvin’.”
“Hey, To,” Sal scoffed. “You were starving, stuffing yourself with two pepper and onion dogs and a large cheese fries. That’s over seventeen hundred calories, bro.”
“Hey, how many times I gotta tell ya, it’s To--ny. It’s short enough, man. And I can afford the calories.” Tony swaggered around, pulling in his stomach, showing off his physique, and turned all around. He ran his fingers through his curly dark brown mane, as if he was a stripper beginning his act. “See, I got it, just right. I got it, and, besides, I don’t got no woman at home anymore to care about that shit.” He pulled a chair out from the desk and flipped it around. “But I sure as hell won’t let the boys eat that. You got the Italian babe at home to take care of ya. And you ate pretty damn good, too! A dog, fries. How many calories was that, Mr. Muscles? Don’t play me with ya bullshit.”
“Somewhere around eleven hundred.” Sal flexed his biceps to show off and a New York Ranger’s tattoo pulsated on his left. He then made himself as comfortable as he could on a gray metal chair with his broad shoulders extending beyond it.
Carlson’s raspy voice hindered him from getting the words out. “What--are you two? In fucking junior--high school? Fifteen years together and ya still act like jerks!”
“Just foolin’ around, Loo.” Tony picked up one of the folders on the desk. “Hey, Loo, if ya don’t mind me sayin’, ya need to lay off the smokes.”
“Yeah? Well, I do.” Carlson gulped half a bottle of spring water. “How the fuck do you know how many calories are in that fucking stuff?”
“There are signs all over, Loo. Seriously, you’re not going to be able to talk soon,” Sal added, backing his partner.
“Knock it off! The both of you.” Carlson started to strain and cough. “People pay attention to that fucking crap?”
“He does. How many sit ups do ya have to do to burn that off?”
“A few hours with my Angie should do the trick,” Sal said.
Tony’s thin eyebrows arched, and his hazel eyes popped in disbelief. “A few hours with a teenage girl in the house? You’re taking a big chance.”
“My little girl knows if that bedroom door is closed she doesn’t dare come in unless she’s bleeding to death.”
“You’re beginning to sound like your fucking buddy, Trenton. Where the fuck is he, anyway?”
“He’s at the hospital. So?” Tony asked.
The lieutenant scowled.
“Why? What’s the problem?” Tony continued.
The lieutenant jumped up, ready to throw the files on the floor. “What’s the fucking problem, Tony? I’ll tell you what’s the fuck’s the problem. I got a folder full of cases Trenton has to sign off on, a city full of weirdos he has to profile, and he’s in that hospital trying to save the perps we’ve already caught! They belong where they are and--”
“All right, Loo,” Sal interrupted. “We get the picture. Has he called in?”
“No, Sal. That’s the damn point! And he hasn’t called Vicki either! And that poor woman is even more aggravated than me! When the fuck is he going to follow the rules? Why are you still standing there for cryin’ out loud? Go find him!”
“Right. On it, Loo.”
***
Tony and Sal entered the main lobby of Manhattan Psych. They’d already learned the drill and even though they’d been there numerous times to see Dr. Trenton, and everyone recognized them, they abided by the rules. It was maximum security for everyone the moment they stepped through the front door. Tony and Sal took off their overcoats as well as their sports jackets. They could wear only one layer of clothing inside. They should have left them in their car. The lobby guards sneered at them as if they should have known better. That slight oversight cost them time. They emptied their pockets into a tray--change, wallets, and cell phones.
Tony stopped in his tracks as a thought struck him. He removed chewing gum from his mouth and chucked it into a garbage pail. He remembered an incident years ago, about chewing gum being contraband here. He learned the hard way, when he sounded the alarm on the metal detector three times, not realizing his chewing gum wrapper was the culprit. He had to succumb to a body search, and it took two hours for someone to appear with the consent forms. It was two hours he didn’t have to waste, but it was the law. He made it his business not to allow it to happen again.