by Mike Morris
Karma Redirected
Copyright © 2019 by Mike Morris
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN (Print Edition): 978-1-54398-859-8
ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-1-54398-860-4
“ … when we change our karma into mission, we transform our destiny from playing a negative role to a positive one. Those who change their karma into their mission have ‘voluntarily assumed the appropriate karma’” (August 2003 Living Buddhism, p. 50).
Daisaku Ikeda
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Retribution
A Classroom Moment
A Buddhist Story
Mo Origin - 1951 - Alabama
Baby Chicks
True Colors
Frogs
Breaches
Lost Doodle
Brother Leo and Little Boy Stupid
The Making of a Bad Dream
Fish Eyes, Paper Wads, and Paddling
Fishing and Slingshots
Dads’ Derby and Little League
Gone Astray
Temple Hills
Opening Fall
Rat’s Rout
Shrouded Emotions
Tubby, Camp, and Strayler
Tooray’s Torture
Nightmares
Awakening
Wild Ponies
The First Day
I Am Swined
Stealing Cars
Barbie Riskey
Hallway Rumble
Corner Combat
A Bubba Story
Howdy Doody
Payback
Chewowitz
Foxy
It Gets Nasty
Tears
The Petition
Divide and Conquer
Purpy
In the Shadow of Big Hellincrest
Protection From Demons
Straybone
Herding Cowards
A Father’s Pride
The Poetry of Love
Fractured
Jacksonville
Jock Versus Geek
Striking Out
Melody Rules
Holy Guerilla and Holy Dating
Snaky
Gigging and Hunting
Ripley and Wilt
Students Teaching the Teacher
The Southerners
Second String
Fiery Pits
Baby Buddhist
Uprising
Present
Acknowledgements
I deeply appreciate each and every one of my students at Owen Brown and Hammond Middle Schools for their kind and encouraging support. This book would never have happened without our partnership.
Thank you to Guy McCloskey. His guidance led me into the teaching profession. He also offered invaluable editing and content suggestions.
This book would have completely stalled if Jerry Hicks had not given me a clear path forward.
Many family and friends offered suggestions that contributed to this story. I especially want to thank my mother Arvis, my sister Katy, my brother Lee, my best friend Jeff and my wife Mary. My father Everett, younger sister Melanie, and younger brother Riley are no longer with us, but I deeply appreciate their impact on my story.
At one point, this book had disappeared into the universe. Bobby Akinsehinwa used his genius and persistence to somehow find it and return it to me.
Foreword
At the beginning of each school year, I modelled a writing activity for the students called “The Rest of the Story.” I generated six statements about myself, four true and two false. Students would ask questions, discuss among themselves, and then vote on which four they believed to be true. After revealing the four true statements, I asked students to vote on the true statement for which they most wanted to hear the rest of the story. Their choice became a written narrative for me that I shared a few days later. Over the years, I wrote and shared many stories with them in the form of these personal narratives.
During our writers workshop activities, students often asked more questions and made suggestions. They often encouraged me to write more. The more I wrote, the more my young students became somewhat horrified at what a terrible and clueless kid I had been. Almost every year their most common question was “How did they let you become a teacher?”
My answer usually was, “Well, I changed.”
What I could not explain to them was that the inner transformation that had taken place in my life was the result of a religious practice. To explain that would have included talking religion, and talking religion in school was not cool. I respected that then, and I respect that now.
However, I did wonder about the answer to that question, “How did they let you become a teacher?”
This book not only includes many of the stories I did share and many I did not; it also attempts to solve the mystery, “How did they let Mo Mickus become a teacher?”
1
Retribution
Mushrooming from the reckoning of my own past deeds and featured deviously within a cosmic reparation settlement that sentenced me to teach middle school; a most concentrated ache, cruelly coiled – a realization, an awakening, the stirring of the karmic pot. Community service is a happening some people are invited to experience as punishment for breaking society’s laws. In fact, regardless of having broken any laws, but possibly to serve as a spanking for something they probably just didn’t get caught doing, or something they might do in the future, many public school students are now required to complete a certain number of community service hours before graduating from high school. Yet, these are not the types of community service in which I participated. My community service was much more brutally authentic; it was a direct result of having broken laws of the universe, and its intensity had been measured and dished out accordingly.
Back in the “old days,” before there were middle schools and special education, there were only junior high schools and bad kids – like me. How many teachers I made cry or made physically ill, or made mentally ill, or made to quit teaching is painful to ponder. But what goes around comes around, and here I arrived, a middle school teacher, facing those same frightening life forms that I once was.
Powered by midlife crises and justified because I heard life begins at 40, when 40 happened I hazarded into my new career as a classroom teacher. My lifetime friend, Yakov Mordicai ben Gabriel, who has known me since junior high school, and tried to save me from myself by introducing me to Buddhism almost 20 years before my plunge into teaching, was shaken and dazed when he heard that I was becoming a middle school teacher. He stamped the universe’s unkind ruling upon me with one word: “Retribution.”
2
A Classroom Moment
Payback can feel cruel, even when it is true and just. A painful case in point is an exceptional memory – brutally carved into my brain – of an extraordinary 9th period class.
Having already taught five periods and participated in conferences with parents or other teachers for two, I stood before this pinnacle of madness with painfully raw fatigue. I feared this marvel – a middle school English class – a herd of raging hormones with whom I ended every brutal, self-inflicted community service day. Clearly a class of the future – a forecast. We were a phenomenon only slightly ahead of our time.
A can of muddled nuts with a few raisins thrown in the mix showcased such VIP’s as C.J. – a sweet, plump raisin, ready and willing to be plucked. C. J. would ecstatically lose control and joyously gush laughter anytime anyone told him a joke. It didn’t have
to be funny. In fact, you could tell C. J. a tragedy, and then tell him it was a joke and he would spew giggles endlessly. Even worse, you could just say the word “joke” and C. J. would come close to death chuckling. You could even say “yoke,” and C.J. would think you said “joke” and die laughing.
C.J. had what is called an IEP. At least half of the students in this 9th period class had IEP’s – Individual Education Plans. Each IEP was ambiguous and complicated enough so that there was no way all the modifications for that particular student could be met while all the modifications for all the other students were also accomplished. This was especially true when the majority of students in a particular class had IEP’s. If those students’ IEP’s were not thoroughly pulled off by me – the teacher – then they could do whatever they desired. Awarded to my students by the powers that be in education was a license to break glass, pull their pants down, spit, piss or worse.
Also confined in our 9th period classroom was Benny. Benny was often assailed with brilliant ideas. They could hit at any time. Whenever one lit up his gray matter his arms flailed about above his head, his body jerked, his legs kicked, his eyes glossed over, and a chortle eructed from somewhere. It appeared to come from his mouth, but it sounded like it came from the walls.
Behind Benny, juicy Jon squirmed and swayed. I suspected Jon was plugged in, but closer examination revealed he was merely Motley’s puppet, controlled by invisible strings. Motley, a bull in a china shop, didn’t possess a clue about how to behave in school, but he did have total control over squirming Jon. Whenever I glared at Motley for saying or doing something inappropriate – which was at least a half dozen times in a period – he immediately raised his hand and unsuccessfully tried to say something that sounded sincere and intelligent. This instigated a tornado of foppish fuddle. While Jon began squirming, C.J. giggled and shook, Benny’s eyes wildly searched some unknown zone for understanding. I felt so sad, and like many of the students without IEP’s, I was bewildered and believed I also must need an IEP.
However, Little Scampi earned the mark of distinction as the most troubling of all. Sad, haunted, bloodshot, puppy-dog eyes looked as though they had never been closed to sleep. He followed me around the room whining in the voice of a three-year old, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.” After the first couple of weeks I stopped trying to explain anything to Little Scampi, because no matter what I said, Little Scampi incessantly proclaimed, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.” Occasionally, Little Scampi replaced his “I don’t understand” speech with his question: “Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me?” Sometimes, I just stopped and stared down at Little Scampi with a look that must have wavered between sober concern, intense consternation, and outright fear.
Often, times found me desperately trying to run away; however, there was no escape; Little Scampi always seemed to be right under my armpit. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me?” Whenever attempting this futile escape, I usually successfully avoided passing near C.J., but occasionally, when I began to panic, I passed too closely, and then the madness blossomed in full, foolhardy splendor. C.J. jumped up and began chasing Little Scampi throughout the classroom, giggling uncontrollably. Eyes rolling, Benny flailed the air, eructing chortles that vibrated the walls. Jon squirmed like a fat worm, swaying in his juices. Motley pounced upon his desk, hands on hips, head held high, hovering like an evil ruler over his kingdom. The rest of the students waited for the storm to pass, and after I searched the room for the special education teacher who never seemed to be present, I often held my poker face in place, but on the inside I think I wept.
Most of the students didn’t seem to mind the zanies. If they did, their parents immediately pulled them out of the class and appealed them into the Gifted and Talented classes – the only safe haven from the zanies. Kids with IEP’s weren’t allowed in the Gifted and Talented classes; that might slow the class down and that would be an injustice to those gifted and talented students. However, the system found no problem in slowing down the regular classes. But anyway, students in this inclusion class probably didn’t tell their parents because it was 9th period and they were tired and found this nut house an opportunity to relax. Because I was too busy with the trail mix of nuts and raisins to worry about them, they didn’t have to do much work.
The nuts and raisins as well made the class way too easy to disrupt. So even though it was not much of a challenge, there were always certain entertainers among the secret scholars who felt like 9th period was “show time.” With little effort, an entertainer could take over the collective farm and present schoolroom laugh-in. Somersaulting into the room, going into hiding under a desk, parking one’s butt in the trash can – all these antics brought guffaws and mouth-foaming as the inmates expressed amusement. Of course they learned little in this class, and I am sure they would pay for it later, but even high school was in a distant future for them – many lifetimes away. Nevertheless, retribution will come; I can guarantee it.
3
A Buddhist Story
A Japanese priest in the 13th century, Nichiren Daishonin, who is respected as the true Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law – the latter day being the time in which we are living, and the law being Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, wrote a letter known as “Letter to The Sage Nichimyo.” In this letter, Nichiren tells a story about a boy called Snow Mountains who heard a terrifying demon recite half a verse of a great teaching. “All is changeable, nothing is constant. This is the law of birth and death.”
The boy was searching for the truth and was determined to have it. When he asked the demon for the second half of the verse, the demon explained to the boy that he couldn’t give it to him because he was too weak from hunger. It turned out that like most menacing mythological monsters, this demon lived on human flesh. After much effort, the boy finally convinced the demon that it could eat him if the demon would share with him the other half of the verse. Eventually, the demon shared the verse. “Extinguishing the cycle of birth and death, one enters the joy of nirvana.”
Keeping his word, after having written the teaching on rocks and trees for the benefit of others, the boy cast himself into the demon’s mouth. However, it turned out the demon was really the heavenly lord Shakra veiled in the guise of a demon. Shakra praised the boy, who made his appearance in a later life as Shakyamuni – the historical Buddha.
Snow Mountains had a clear goal and did not begrudge any effort, even giving his life, to attain his goal. I was not like that boy – Snow Mountains. I was a person who meandered through life. In other words, I usually took the path of least resistance. Dwelling in a world of anger, I was a person easily maddened by anything that got in my way while I meandered.
What follows is the convoluted story, full of twists and turns, of how an exceptionally simple boy, I – Mo Mickus, came to craft, construct, and thoroughly deserve this cutting comeback – this sardonic scolding – from the cosmos. It is also a story of how this simple boy – Mo Mickus, jumped into the demon’s mouth and found this karmic scolding to be a heavenly garden of sublime mission.
4
Mo Origin - 1951 - Alabama
First of all, I was born wrong. My mom went into delivery expecting twins and all she got was my placenta and me – in that order. My placenta was clearly not my twin, and in the proper chain of events, the fact that my placenta arrived before me was way out of order and made for a remarkably menacing state of affairs for my mother.
Since I was her third little one, Mom’s attention focused on my siblings, Arcadia and Leo, and she turned me over to Mama and Ma, my grandmother and great-grandmother for rearing.
Regardless of what grandmothers say about not having a favorite grandchild, they always have one. Being my grandmother’s favorite was something that I always just took for granted. When I was way little, Mama gave me a special nickname – Doodle-bug, or just Doodle. My mom had explained to me that Mama had give
n me the nickname because, like a doodle bug, I was very small, could not hold still, and constantly wiggled into a curly ball. Although some of my cousins and possibly some of my siblings contended otherwise, most of my relatives knew Doodle-bug was Mama’s favorite. My cousins would good-naturedly complain and tease me about it, but that just added to my pride in being her favorite. My sisters, Melody and Arcadia, who were clearly my dad’s darlings, would categorically claim that I was Mama’s favorite like it was just a basic fact of life.
An event that helped to plainly confirm that I was indeed the favorite, as well as demonstrate my dazzlingly dull understanding of all things was an Easter gift...
5
Baby Chicks
My grandmother gave me two baby chicks for Easter. That was more special than I realized at the time. Among all my siblings and cousins, I was the only one who received such a gift. “Wow, Mama really thinks you are special,” my mom assured me.
Yeah, wow! I was getting used to being her favorite. I took the baby chicks home and played with them until it started to get dark. I began to feel concern for them as night approached. How would they stay warm? I knew that usually the mother hen would sit on them to keep them warm. I started to strain my young, undeveloped brain. What could I do? Being a very kinesthetic boy, I began moving – searching for something. The more I searched the more determined I felt to find something to replace their mother. Then I spotted it! Pure genius erupted! A rock ... but, not just any old rock, this rock was not only about the size of a mother hen, it was even shaped like a hen – with a head and tail, and fluffy breast – it was perfect. I bent over and using the strength in my little legs, picked it up and lugged it over to where the baby chicks were waiting. I was so inspired that I didn’t even hesitate. I carefully laid the large hen-shaped rock atop one of the chicks and “spleesh!”