Cracks

Author’s note: I wrote this piece, a blend of nonfiction and fiction, between 2013-14 for a Teach For America Story Slam. Though many of the teaching details were taken from experiences I had, I’ve also borrowed liberally (and without permission) from teacher friends. Furthermore, the student is entirely fictional, yet many mannerisms and interactions were based on my experiences.

ONE

He awakens. The room, dark and dusty, is unchanged. Apart from his spilled clothes the space is largely barren, even dull in the early light. Twisting to shut off his alarm, he bemoans the harsh reality before him: Tuesday. No Mayan Apocalypse; no disastrous night time event; no overnight illness. No easy out. He slides his feet off his bed and onto the cold floor.

The darkness of the room betrays the business within. He moves nimbly – knowingly – about, aware of his mess' eccentricities and patterns. The dirtiest in his family, yes, but also the boldest. He knew he must begin the day with compunction or purpose – else he would certainly perish.

The middle in a family of 5, he was hardly ever a standout. Shadowed by medical school elders and overachieving youngers, he was, by all family and friend accounts, perfectly perfunctory in the big picture. Not normal, per se, but a certainty of a man. Fringe tastes in music, art, and culture hardly betrayed the comfort and ease with which he interacted with the world; in a word...yes, normal.

Yet he always went into school. Under his circumstances, there was hardly anything normal about that. Fights. Drugs. Alcohol. Disillusionment. Apathy. Agony. Like a battle royale of baby tigers.  Few have done so much for so little in return. Surely, normal would have walked away. Comfortable would have quit. So, no, not comfortable or normal, though history and appearances beg such words. Bold and daring, unquestionably.

The air in the kitchen is stale, cold. His movements are swift and familiar. Grab the cereal. Reach for the bowl. Unleash the spoon. Splash the milk. Devour the early morning delicacy. He savors the routine, the normalcy, as he transmutes the average to the allusive hyperbolic average. He does this, yes, else he would he fade away or disappear entirely.

Not an option. Not today.

He gets in his car and drives to work.

...

He awakens. The room, dark and dusty, is unchanged. Apart from his spilled clothes the space is largely barren, even dull in the early light. Twisting to shut off his alarm, he bemoans the harsh reality before him: Tuesday. No Mayan Apocalypse; no disastrous night time event; no overnight illness. No easy out. He slides his feet off his bed and onto the cold floor.

The piles that hold his possessions are neither organized nor planned. His existence is muted chaos. Unplanned movements. Unfinished thoughts. He is, at times, the unquestionable center around which teenage realities shift back and forth; at other times, he is violently jerked – slammed – belted back into the orbit of harsher truths. Older truths. Realities so intimidating that few could comprehend them and this boy was trapped, suffocating, for 12 years.

The hallway is filthy. Odors so forcefully detestable they cut across his taste buds and pervade the entire house; he breathes in normalcy. The boy's morning movements erratic, he shuffles down toward the kitchen.

A bastion of chemical sustenance – a graveyard for Bojangle's containers. Meals planned with far less intensity than their boisterous colors would indicate. This the temple of famine. Neglect.

A man rests on the couch. It is not one of his brothers, and it rarely is. A road stop for weary travelers. His face is painted with indescribable exhaustion. The truest defeat. Not for a lack of success, pride – money. No. Awash with genuine lifelessness. The boy bathes in the horror and walks out the door.

Few possessions provide the comfort of the dual serpents. Slithering, tangling, they penetrate to his mind's deepest recesses; welcome invaders with the gifted tongue. They pulsate – untamed – while they guide the boy's brief walk to school. Steps coincide with wondrous rhythm. Serenity as the dull transforms. The moment passes all too quickly.

TWO

The road is refreshing in a way that sleep is not. Radiohead soothes, inspires. It's a quick drive to school, but the roadway inspiration is critical. Morning music remains a bulwark for 1st block weariness; it deflects distractions, nuisances, disrespect. The fading internal rhythms – while only mere leftovers from this hazy commute – mean morning survival.

He slams the car door. Deep breaths – in/out – follow. The steps quicken as he approaches the front door; busy houses and dilapidated realities fade as the front door closes. He passes doorways quickly, surveying the disappointments contained within. Half-finished bulletin boards; dangling posters; disingenuous catch phrases. Bullshit. Monuments to lethargy and the unrealized yet grandiose. This is teaching.

There are other teachers. He genuinely likes most of them. Accurately summed up as hardened yet flaccid; paradoxes abound in this building.

He steps forward into his room. “Beware, ye who enter here.” In it, he is the unstable dictator who rests uneasily on his throne of crumbling pencils. The room strikes him with its usual pungent musk. At least it doesn't smell like the kids yet, he thinks jokingly. It will by the day's end.

...

He peeks, wincing, and sees the truth. Rust-colored doorways, filthy frames, floors, tried and tired eyes; the dilapidation is exhausting.

Surrounded by frauds and enemies, he approaches his first block. Here, in the comfort of history, will he find his first reprieve – sleep. Sheets are passed, words spoken, papers thrown, consequences issued. But he does not care. Self-sequestered in a dream, and he knows Mr./Mrs./Ms. ------ won't mind.

“Boy, you had better pick up your pencil and begin your worksheet on...”

The boy looks down. An indescribable mystery appears and taunts him. Years of failure. Not an enigma wrapped in a mystery, but rather an impossible puzzle covered in mental barbed wire. Each cut is deeper than the last; incisions from which failure floods. Years of building it all up. It is too much.

“I ain't doin' this bullshit work. Git away from me.”

He knows the route. He counts his steps, but he cannot hear them – the hallway reeks of mischief.

The office reminds him of home – all tatters and pathetic. Students pass back and forth readily; the space is not the authoritative threshold its weary rulers hoped it would be. It cannot withstand their overwhelming numbers. “We are legion.” He cannot help but mock it all.

Hours pass before they can waste their time with him.

“Frankly, Tyrell, we cannot send you home. You've missed so much school already. It's a miracle you've it to the 7th grade, son, considering your background. But that doesn't excuse your behav...”

THREE

Block, in the most classic sense of the word, hints at something immutable, concrete, solid. Yet they meld and bleed with surprising quickness as the day passes.

1st to 2nd to 3rd to 4th to 5th to...always a pause before the final block. Unstable pressure builds within; his heartbeat quickens intensely as the hour approaches. No war metaphor suffices. 6th block is no battlefield, no bloodbath, no gladiatorial arena. No – it is more. Much more. Waning, battered optimism blindly defends bastions of pathetic knowledge against its immortal enemy – youth. Indifference and poverty rush to aid the aimless and...well, 6th block. A timeless conflict with measurable consequences on him alone, it seems.

The boy enters last, late. He surprises no one with his bravado. He approaches the boy slowly, cautiously; this is not his first time. He wonders quietly how long the boy will last in class today. It will not be long.

“Tyrell, you need to remove your hood. The warm up activity is on the front board.” He turns away in futility, hiding his shaking hands. Like a wilting tree facing a pathetic breeze. The boy responds.

“Fuck off, Mr. Wood.”

The decision is not difficult. Forgone, even. Learning comes and goes. Plans, the delicate paper butterflies, passed from pathetic breeze to pathetic breeze. The boy is not missed. The butterfly amuses itself only; the tree supports it, gives it slight meaning.

...

He stares up at the man in front of him. Utter exhaustion stains his entire expression. He finds the man pathetic and child-like. He sees himself in the man’s translucent color; he did not realize that helplessness could cross the racial divide.

The boy sees him off with a typical and sour insult. It means nothing.

As he walks out of the building, a sorrow overtakes him. He is a tree – rotting, and firm, but his destruction is indescribably slow. During his collapse, he clings to the others surrounding him. His branches grasp at every opportunity. The reprieves are brief and fleeting. No other growth can bear his immense weight; he carries much – a history of neglect. He crumbles and cries out.

The tree cries alone in the woods. No one hears him.

END

He rests his head on a lumpy pillow. The ultimate satisfaction is slightly less pleasing tonight. The ceiling cracks tell infinite stories - his story. Grey, pulsing, and exposed. They have a desperate appearance, fading away to the room’s corners. The cracks allow a whimpering, a breeze from outside. Yet he is asleep. He does not hear it.