Mee Vang’s War

How did that happen?” I asked, actually pointing at it.
“Teacher, I no how splain you.” Mee Vang answered. She was my only level one student. I wasn’t supposed to have any. The class was English as a Second Language, Level II for adults.
“It’s ok. Never mind.” It was a bad question anyway.

She had an explosion of a scar just above her left eyebrow that covered most of her forehead. It was as if someone had thrown a golf ball at her and her head was a car windshield. It made a sizeable spider web with raised yellowish strands. All semester long I had resisted the temptation to ask her about it. I don’t know why I finally asked her. Maybe I figured we were familiar enough with each other that she would be willing to share, and she was, except for her limited English.

It was a nice class. They were mostly Hmong with a few Mexicans and one kid from South Yemen. They were amiable and liked throwing parties. They would buy every food item at Sav-ons — cookies, chips, mixed nuts, beef jerky, packaged pastries, Gatorade — along with home made egg rolls and other less identifiable items, and they ate it all. They loved taking, sharing and posing for pictures. They loved drawing pictures of their former life. They loved telling stories.

There was no text and there were no grades. The idea back then was to engage them in real life situations that required them to speak. I drew scenes on the chalkboard — a picnic, a gas station, a house on fire — and found out what words they wanted to know and then we re-enacted different scenarios and had them play different parts. Everyone participated enthusiastically except for the tiny woman with the huge scar.

Mee Vang wore a house dress with a JJ Walker t-shirt and a black sweater. She wore tennis shoes and always had a grocery bag with her. She was almost five feet, was frail, and looked like she was pretty deep into her 60s, but from the pictures she shared of life in Oregon the year before, it appeared that she had a pre-teen son.

The day I asked her about the scar was the day each one of them had to stand in front of the class and describe in English something that had happened to them. It was a final of sorts. I wish I had recorded them. Tales of crossing the Mekong River while being shot at by the Viet Cong, rescuing American prisoners, or having all their worldly possessions stolen from them while living in the camps in Thailand. Others told culture gap stories of their earliest days in the United States. A few of them didn’t know, for instance, that having a small cooking fire in the middle of the living room was not a good idea. Many of them didn’t know that fireworks were not incoming bombs and had a horrifying first Independence Day. And some of our laws seemed crazy to them. Why would it be illegal to shoot ducks at a park? The last student to speak was Bee Xiong. I wasn’t going to call on Mee Vang because she didn’t have enough English to participate.

Bee stood in front of the class and smiled.
“I am teacher now, ok?”
“Ok, Bee. Go ahead.”
“Oh teacher, last week I went over to San Jose. I saw my friends there. Say hello, hello. Long time.”
“Were they related to you? Were they cousins?”

“Oh yeah, sure, yeah, ok. It was my brother-in-law. His house. He came for Wisconsin.”
“He came from Wisconsin?”
“Yeah, that right.”
“He didn’t like it there?”
“Yeah, he not like. Too cooooold! Snow no good. No snow in Laos. So maaaaany Hmong people come to California. Every day!”
“Oh, yeah snow is cold. So he came to San Jose.”
“Yeah, that right. Happy now.”
“Yes, that’s good. What else?”
“After while I come back Fresno. Laaaaaaaaate nighttime. Door open.”
“When you came back to Fresno it was late at night and the door was open?”
“Maybe robber!”
“Yes, you thought it was a robber.”
“Yeah bring the shotgun!”
“The robber had a shotgun?”
“No teacher. I had a shotgun. I take it out car.”
“True story?”
“Yeah, true story.”
“What happened next?”
“I go in the living room, right?”
“Ok.”
“He say Oh, sorry I come and visit my cousin and wrong apartment number!”
“Did you believe him?”
“No teacher! I say lay on ground! Not move!”
“What did he say?”
“He cry!”
“Then what?”
“I tell my wife call police.”
“She didn’t stay in the car? She came in the house?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Does she speak enough English to talk to the police?”
“No teacher. She dial and then I talk the police.”
“You had the shotgun and the phone?”
“My wife hold the shotgun! I talk the police.”
“Your wife?”
“Yeah sure!”
“What about the robber?”
“Cry, cry, cry. Say from San Francisco visit my cousin, not lie, wrong apartment number.”
“What did you tell the police?”
“Robber in my house! They say, ok we come there maybe half hour, maybe 45 minute.”
“What? 45 minutes? True story?”
“Yeah, sure! True story!”
“How long did you wait?”
“Not wait. I say ok you come my house five minute! Right? You come five minute or I shoot robber right now! Robber cry, cry, cry”
“Did they come in five minutes?”
“Yeah, sure. Come take robber away. True story!”

They all began peppering me with stories of robbers and slow responding police. It was a lively discussion. Finally our time was up. I thanked them and told them that cops weren’t bad, they were just very busy. Then Bee Xiong asked me why Mee Vang hadn’t spoken yet, and the kid from South Yemen said to ask her about her forehead. That’s when I asked her about it and she said she couldn’t explain.

“She doesn’t speak enough English,” I told the class.
“Teacher, we translate her,” Bee said.

Bee and half a dozen other Hmong men surrounded her. An intense conversation followed and the pitch and tone of it kept escalating. I guessed it was a war story; maybe she survived being hit by mortar fragments. After a few minutes, the hubbub subsided.

“What is it? Did it happen during the war?”
“No, teacher.” Bee answered.
“What happened then?”
“She had hammer and hit!”
“Someone attacked her with a hammer?”
“No, teacher,” he laughed, which is what the Hmong do when they feel embarrassed. They talked among themselves, deciding how best to explain. Then Mee Vang put both hands in front of herself and swung them up, hitting herself on the forehead. All the Hmong students laughed.
“She hit herself with a hammer?”
“Yes, teacher. She don’t want live. Her husband say goodbye. He had girlfriend! So many girlfriend!” They laughed again.
“She make the war on her own eh-self!” the kid from South Yemen said, trying to add to what he thought was a humorous occasion.

Everyone was laughing, including Mee Vang who nodded in acknowledgement, knowing only that her story was being translated. She even waved her hand like she was the queen of the parade.

“I am very sad to hear that. I am glad you lived,” I said to Mee Vang after the laughter had subsided. Bee translated for me.
“Thank you, teacher,” she replied.
“See you all tomorrow,” and they filed out the door, ready to face another day in the New World.

Like Coats at the Dry Cleaners

On Memorial Day we stop to remember those would gave their lives serving our country. Today I was also thinking about our veterans who came home and the difficulty of processing multiple losses of friends who died in military action. This is a story of a former colleague of mine who was a very good teacher, who liked kids and cared about their future, and who was amiable and thoughtful. One day just before the school year started, he disclosed to me a little of what was still rolling through his mind. I never forgot that day.

September 1995

Jaime Reyes’ story was different from other stories veterans told me. It wasn’t even a story, it was a dream. One afternoon after three days of dull monotonous faculty meetings we started a conversation in the mail room.
“So, Monday we begin again, huh?” I said, mostly because we were together in a small space.
“Yeah, here we go,” he nodded. He set his briefcase– which he was never without– on the floor, indicating he wanted to chat for a while.
“Did you get the schedule you wanted?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Doesn’t matter a lot; there’s good and bad in every schedule. I take it as it comes.” He shrugged.
“Yeah, that’s true. I’ve have good ones and I’ve had bad ones. I guess it all evens out.”
“It’s all a dream, anyway.”
“Yeah, really. Sure seems like it, huh?”
“No I mean, really.”
“What.”
“I was just thinking the other day, when it came to me.”
“What’s that?”
“I was taking a nap the other day and it occurred to me. What if this is all a dream?”
“You mean you and me standing here?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Never thought of it that way before.”
“None of this ever happened.”
“Ok, but is this my dream or yours?”
“It would be mine,” he said after mulling it over for a while.
“How come?”
“Well, you weren’t in ‘Nam, were you?”
“I got my draft card and a year later they stopped the draft.”
“See, what if the government, like after everyone was drafted or enlisted, gave a shot that put you to sleep? And then you just dreamed the whole thing?”
“That’d be half a million …”
“Yeah, and they put us all in like a huge warehouse.”
He wasn’t smiling, and he’s a fully functional human being. I had to hear the rest of it.
“Well, how would they store everybody?”
“They’d have these straps that go under your arms and they’d hang you up like coats at the dry cleaners. Miles and Miles of us.”
“Ok, but why?”
“They wanted this war,” he said without rancor, “but the people didn’t want it. So they put us to sleep and had us dream it.”
“Hmm.”
“None of it happened. If someone got shot, he felt the pain because he felt it in the dream. But really, he’s all right. He’s just waiting for them to wake him up.”
“I get it.”
“Yeah, so nobody died. Not us and not them. Nobody. It was only a dream, see?”
“How do you wake up?”
“Well they give us a different shot. And we wake up and it’s like oh it was all just a dream.”
“Very cool. Shouldn’t they have given you that shot by now?”
“You would think.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. So that Faculty Club barbecue, is that today or tomorrow?”
“I think it’s tomorrow. You have to pay your dues though.”
“Already did.” He hoisted up his briefcase and sighed, “Already did, man.”

The Yellow Pickup Truck

May 2002

His eyes were always on alert and his eyebrows were always trying to jump off the top of his forehead. Rick was never still, physically or mentally. He was perpetual movement, head and shoulders, arms and hands. And there was that smile — never disingenuous, and bigger than any movie star or politician could even imagine. I liked the kid and I had plans for him; I mean, I gave him lots of advice and I was always nudging him but there was nothing anyone could tell him that he would do, unless it was already in his head to do.

“Ricardo, you could get better grades.”
“Rick.”
“Rick. It’s Ricardo on roll. That’s what I put on the seating chart.”
“We’ve been through this, Chavoor. Then I say, well change your seating chart and you say you wrote it in ink because you couldn’t find a pencil at the time.”
“You’re right.”
“Getting old.”
“No. Maybe.”
“Not maybe,” he said, flashing that grin.

It wasn’t old age. I didn’t want him to give up on his Hispanic name; didn’t want him to use the anglicized version. Contrarily, I was glad when Asian kids switched from Bee or Chue to Steve or Tom. That was different in my mind. It was always easier for me to remember Steve or Tom for some reason.

“Well, Rick, your grades could be better.”
“They’re good. Mostly B’s.”
“They could be As, a lot of them.”
“I guess.”
“I’m telling you, you could go to college. I’ve been telling you that.”
“It’s May already.”
“Yeah well, it’s never too late for City College.”
“Like ten thousand other kids.”
“You got the chops, though. You go two years and then transfer.”
“I already got my plans, Chavoor.”
“Yeah?”
“United States Marine Corps, bub.”

I was ok with kids joining the military. For a lot of them it is better than hanging around the neighborhood, taking dead end jobs, or hustling any way they can for money and getting in and out of trouble. But when a kid had clear alternatives, when a kid could read and write sufficiently or nearly so, I would point out those other choices. Especially if there was a war, or one on the horizon.

“You don’t need the Marines. You can read and write and there are all kinds of scholarships.”
“School’s ok, I don’t have anything against it. My friends are going to college. But that’s the easy way.”
“Easy way?”
“Yeah. Look at your average college student. They’re flabby. Too much sitting around.”
“Hmm.”
“You have to challenge yourself in every way. Not just school stuff.”
“Rick, if you want to be in the military and serve your country, that’s fine. Join the Navy or the Air Force. The Marines, well, they’re… they’re the first in combat.”
“Exactly!”
“Rick, this isn’t GI Joe.”
“What?”
“This isn’t a video game.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Don’t worry about me, Chavoor.”
“Just consider all your options.”
“You sound just like my dad.”
“Yeah? What’s he say?”
“He doesn’t want me to join.”
“Well, Father Knows Best, huh?”
“He said he’d buy me a pickup truck if I didn’t join.”
“Well, ok. I ‘d probably bribe you, too.”

A few weeks passed. I was hoping he would take the bribe and go to city college, and marry his girlfriend who was going to college at San Diego State and who was more oriented toward higher education. Sometimes one sweetheart could influence the other for the good; sometimes it worked the other way around though. I have a tendency to forget that good doesn’t always push back bad; it’s just who pushes hardest. Not that this was a good v. bad contest. It was good v. better, at least in my mind.

I was optimistic in Rick’s case because it was strong in him to be successful. He was going to battle hard against stereotypes of kids from the Eastside, kids of Hispanic descent, kids from certain neighborhoods, and he was even going to battle against the stereotype of how they could optimize their chances for success.He came in after school one day, grinning and cracking his knuckles like he was about to win a weight-lifting contest.

“Wanna see my truck?”
“You got the truck?”
“What’d I just say? Geez Chavoor, going deaf or what?”
“Went to too many concerts when I was a kid. But yeah, of course I wanna see it. What is it?”
“A fully loaded GMC Sierra.”
“Clean?”
“Clean? It’s brand new.”

It was yellow and sparkled like a diamond in a dime store, even in the shade of the Barton Street parking lot. We walked around the truck without a word like we were picking out a Christmas tree and had found one far more magnificent than the world had ever seen.

“Wow,” I said, holding my hand over the front corner of the hood, afraid to touch it. “It’s beautiful.”
“Sure is.”
“Rick, I’m glad you decided not to join the military. Bush is itching to get into it with Iraq. He…”
Rick stood with his hands behind his back, rocking slightly back and forth, grinning.
“Well…” he said slowly.
“Wait a minute, now. That was part of the agreement.”
“I told him I wouldn’t sign up.”
“Right.”
“Because when I told him, I already had.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“Your Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Rick, when the President calls Iraq the axis of evil, you know what’s going to happen next?”
“We’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys. I’m up for it. I’m with the good guys.”

There’s a line that should not be crossed. I don’t comment on student/parent relationships or negotiations, unless a parent or child is in some kind of danger. There was no danger, just a nice kid who tricked his dad. It was as old as the Bible. Rick got his truck and the career path of his choosing.

Rick Valentez became a successful Marine. He did two, maybe three tours of Iraq. I was sure that after the first tour that ebullience would wear off. But when he came back to school to visit me and we went to lunch you might have thought he had visited Adventureland. The whole experience — the physical and emotional rigor — was everything he had hoped for and more. Rick didn’t join the Marines; it was almost as if the Marines had joined Rick. He was whole hog, both feet in, and he was excelling at an astounding pace. His dad though had passed away about a year after his son began his journey.

There was no formal conversation about how we would stay in touch for the rest of our lives. In the beginning he would visit me at school whenever he was on R&R and I let him give a pep talk to my classes in which he scolded them for their aimless, self-indulgent lives and then described the challenges and rewards of being a Marine. At some point I gave him my phone number and he would call whenever he came home to visit his mom, which was usually Christmas and summer. We’d have lunch near his old neighborhood at Castillo’s, right where Kings Canyon changed to Ventura, and I listened to everything he was willing to share: family dynamics; girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, girls in general; staying in the Marines or getting out; and dalliances with debauchery. My listening to advice-giving ratio was around 5 to 1; I didn’t want to assume his father’s role, and Rick was an honest young man who was choosing his own path and was not afraid to tell me about it. He was also capable of making adjustments, changing direction, and making amendments to the philosophical constitution of his life.

For 9 years, at six month intervals, I had the privilege of seeing Rick grow up and slowly, sometimes very slowly, but without backtracking, make better and better choices. The last time I saw him it was for breakfast instead of lunch. I brought Grace with me and we met his wife who is also a Marine, and their two adorable daughters. His love for his daughters and his wife was unabashedly evident. He was proud and he was excited to have the life he was living. It was a wonderful breakfast. We were happy for them. Six months at a time we’re going to see those kids grow up. We’re happy to have them all in our lives.

I came to think of the yellow pickup truck as something that started out as an immature trick that a boy might do that turned into a challenge for Rick to live the life that his father most likely imagined — one with integrity, accomplishment, peace of mind and genuine satisfaction, the life of a fully realized adult. Rick’s father was probably worried, as I was, that this fine young man might have been wounded or otherwise hurt, disillusioned or scarred in some way, or maybe even killed because of his military experience. But by both the grace of God and Rick’s own strong, very strong, will and enthusiasm, he thrived. And I am glad for it, and I know his dad would be very proud of him.

Traveling with Mom

1958

Mom and I roamed all over Burbank in the ’55 Ford Fairlane. That big, steady, plain and comfortable car with the mysterious bucolic smells to it was like our separate house. From King Cole’s grocery store to the Laundromat on Magnolia, where she would– for no apparent reason– buy me a 7up. We on occasion go to Sears and May Company in North Hollywood and there was a smorgasbord out there where we would have lunch but only when Grandma Chavoor was with us. Mom and I never traveled in silence. We never ran out of things to discuss, ponder, imagine or remember. There was never the feeling that either one of us was stuck with the other. Our conservations flowed so naturally that eventually we fell into the habit of finishing each other’s sentences. She was calm and sweet and never judgmental, condescending or irritable. We talked as though we were peers and talked that way for all 39 years.

We always had a good time traveling in the blue Ford, with one exception.We were coming back from Dad’s office. We came up a side street from Alameda heading toward Oak Street. Mom had advised me not to hold the door handle because I might accidentally open the door. I was four years old and ready to set Mom right.
“The door won’t open because the lock is down, see?” I pushed the button, then pulled it up and pushed it down again, over and over to prove my point.
“No” she returned calmly, “that will lock the outside but not the inside.”
Now I was annoyed with her.
Why wouldn’t she believe me?
“No” I declared firmly, “the door won’t open on the inside, too. Watch!”
She was starting a right turn onto Oak Street while I offered her my empirical proof.
The door swung open. I saw the open door, the street, and the curb. “I’m wrong” was my last thought. There was a blank space, then the next thing I knew, I was looking at the sky, then I saw people standing around and I was wondering what are all these people doing here, what’s going on? I was looking at each person when a man very carefully picked me up and set me down on the cool and soothing lawn. I still hadn’t figured out what happened. I tried to get up.
“Just rest there for a while” the man said. It sounded like a good idea. I couldn’t see Mom anywhere. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was sitting on a doctor’s table in a doctor’s office I didn’t recognize, answering questions from a doctor who wasn’t my regular doctor. I saw Mom standing to the side, but I didn’t greet her and she didn’t say anything.

Finally I was home, in my room, on my bed, trying to sleep. It was a bright day with crystal blue sky. I heard the high buzz of a small plane. Mom was in the living room with Reader’s Digest and a bowl of fruit. She was okay and so was I. I closed my eyes.

Nathan, The Window Man

With six weeks left of my 33 year teaching career I was still sticking to my routine. I pulled into Starbuck’s for my green tea a little before 7 a.m. There I saw a homeless man who offered to clean my windows. Sometimes I say yes and sometimes I say no, but in my mind he was a cut above others who put out their hand and said they were down on their luck. This gentleman wasn’t trusting luck and he wasn’t panhandling. He had some Windex and balled up paper from the free auto ads that were available right there between Starbucks and the pizza place. I told him I was only going to be a minute in and right back out but he said he would be finished by then. I doubted because the windows were grimy with dirt and tree debris but I liked his attitude so much I was happy to see there was a bit of a line inside.

When I got my green tea I could see he was still working and had a ways to go so I stood inside looking through the blinds while listening to three men at a table nearby talk about what they were going to pray about and about a minister who uses Twitter as some kind of ministry. It was coming up on 6:50 and I liked being at school right at 7 that year, and he wasn’t quite halfway through. I went out and stood by the car, watching him work.

“How you doin’ today?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m fine thanks. How about you?”
“I’m all right. Getting some cars keeps me going, you know.”
“Yeah?”
“My name’s Nathan.”
“I’m Jack. You do windows, huh?”
“Nathan, the window man. Keep me young, you know? I’m 53. Born in 1959.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m old but I keep on movin’, you know?”
“ Yeah, that’s good.”
“I’s born on Thanksgiving Day.”
“Really?”
“Momma said I interrupted dinner. Thanksgiving!”
“That right?”
“Yeah, and ruint her dress and evah thing.”
“Well, you were in a hurry.”
“That’s right.”
“You were hungry.”
“Now you talkin.”
“You said lemme at that turkey right there.”
“At’s right.”
“That’s good though.”
“My mama took good care of us.”
“Yeah?”
“These kids coming up now, they don’t appreciate. They wanna be talkin all this mess to they own mamas.”
“It’s sad.”
“Sho is. Then when they mama dies they didn’t show her no respect. Then how they gonna feel?”
“You’re right.”
“I loved chocolate. I don’t know, always did and still do. But didn’t matter if it was Thanksgiving, Mama would take me to the store and buy me a chocolate cake.”
“That’s a good memory.”
“She didn’t have a lot. My daddy, he… Well he didn’t stick. He was 40 years old and he took off.”
“Uh-huh.”
“These kids disrespecting their mom, they don’t know what they got til after she die. Then they wish they hadn’t said all that stuff.”
“That’s right.”
My Mama stuck with us. I grew up in LA in some real bad parts in LA. Inglewood. They was some bad dudes back then. Shoot someone just ‘cause they could. Didn’t care.”
“My brother lived over there for a while. Like around 118th I think. Not far from the airport.”
“Then you know what I’m talkin about.”
“All that Bloods and Crips stuff.”
“Bloods and Crips. Ats right. Crazy stuff right there.”
“Yeah.”
“It was everywhere. I stayed out of that though.”
“Yeah, the guy who started it, he was sorry about it. Wrote books against it.”
“Tookie Williams, right. He started all that with his partner Ray Washington. They was robbing a motel and a China man chased after them and got hisself shot.”
“Chased after them?”
“Yeah, you know how them Chinese is. They don’t back down for nothing.”
“Huh.”
“They had already killed his wife and kids.”
“Horrible.”
“That’s why I got outta there.”
“Really.”
“I like Fresno. These kids here think the Bulldogs is bad but they don’t know bad. Them Crips man, they was bad.”
“It’s better here.”
“Sho you right.”
“The weather is nice right now.”
“But you know that hot weather coming.”
“Yeah, it was 94 yesterday.”
“When it get hot, I don’t even come outside ‘till after the sun go down.”
“Yeah, that’s a good strategy.”
“Too hot.”
“Yeah.”
“There. How’s that? I do a good job? Cause if I don’t do a good job, next time you see me you say aw, no. No thanks. I remember what happened last time.”
“No, this looks good. Here you go, man.”

I gave him three bucks. I had found a five in the laundry yesterday and I figured it being money I didn’t know I had, I was giving him three of it and keeping only two. I was of two minds. I wanted to forget about him and leave, and I wanted to stay and hear more about his life.

The front and side windows were clean, but the back window had streaks in it. And the car was dirty but the windows were clean and I didn’t like that too much; that was not the problem of the homeless man though. I had my green tea, cleaner windows, and a glance into the life of a fellow human being who loved his mom and was too proud to beg.

The Sensible World

For years I began the school year with a poem entitled, “Always Begin Where You Are.” The title aptly indicates the not so well veiled message. It also contains a line suggesting that if you want to get anywhere you have to put the oar in the oarlock or as the poet rather awkwardly puts it, “…feel the feel of the oarlock.” Rowing is a given. Then it goes on to change metaphors and suggests that the reader get in the saddle, take command of the horse and ride off to any dream “deserving the sensible world.” And the poem is short. Most of them get it. Many of them have grandiose visions, schemes, plans, or ideas about themselves and all that they might accomplish and they love a poem about rowing or riding to their way to their dream. Some of them are even sensible about it.
For Carlos though, the dream is to daydream, float, skate, or get by. I had him as a junior and he daydreamed himself from a low B to an F. Complete flameout at the end of the semester, and then a shrug of the shoulders and a silly, pathetic grin. I met his parents at Open House. They were migrant workers. I told them that their son’s grade was sinking and they got that “here we go again” look on their faces.
“I told him,” his mother said, “he need to study.”
“I told him he don’t wanna work in the field,” his father said.
“Maybe he should work in the field for one summer,” I said.
“Good idea,” his mother said.
“Yah, si,” his father said, “is a good idea.”
Carlos flunked English his junior year.
When he walked into my room on the first day of school this year, his senior year, loping along, seeing me and offering that grin and the head nod, I went straight to him.
“Carlos, are you a school boy this year?”
“Yep, sure am.”
“Your senior year. You want to be up on that stage with your friends.”
“Yeah, man. Of course.”
“This is like the end of a marathon race, Carlos, a 26 mile race. You don’t want to go 25 miles and then sit down.”
“No way.”
So a few days later I had them read the poem, and I knew I wanted to make it into a mantra for Carlos. At every opportunity, every time we had occasion to speak, every time I greeted him as he and his peers arrived for 4th period, I would say to him, “Carlos, row the boat.” I knew he understood the poem, the meaning of the metaphor and I knew he understood what I meant when I told him to row the boat. I even pantomimed holding the oars and rowing, which he started doing himself after a few days.
This worked. I was convinced that Carlos was living the message of the poem and was a changed man because of it. He attended, participated, and on the occasions when he was absent he would present himself after school and request make up work and actually do it. Then May came.
Maybe it started before May, I don’t know. It wasn’t possible for me to watch him every minute of every day. But at some point for some reason he went into shut down. And then in the middle of May he was absent for a week. When he returned, the “don’t really give a shit,” disease was strong in him.
“Carlos, where you been?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Carlos, row the boat.”
“Yah, I am.”
“Your boat is taking on water, and it looks like you dropped an oar.”
“Yah, ha-ha.”
“Row the boat, Carlos.”
He grinned and shrugged.
With two weeks left his grade dropped to an F. With a week and a half left he came to see me about his grade.
“Well, let’s see,” I said, scanning for his name on the computer screen.
“Yah, what’s up with that?”
“I see some zeroes here.”
“I turned in that essay.”
“Yes, you turned in the benchmark essay. Hand written and incomplete and seven weeks late.”
“Better than nothing.”
“Well 40% is better than zero but had you done it right and turned it in on time we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
“What’s that one there?”
“That? That’s your journal. Ok, I’ll give you some points for it.”
“Some points?”
“It was due two weeks ago. Let me have it though.”
“I don’t have it with me.”
“OK, look Carlos. Bring that journal tomorrow.”
“OK.”
“Don’t forget. It’s very important. There is already a late penalty and every day I don’t have it the penalty increases. So be sure to bring me that journal.”
“I’ll try.”
“I’ll try? Do you want to graduate? Do you want to walk up on that stage? Do you want your mom to cry for happy or for sad?”
“OK, OK.”
But the next time 4th period met Carlos didn’t have the journal. It would have been better to respond in a casual manner that he had one last chance. But I lectured him sternly, trying to scare him. Apparently he had no scare in him. On the day of his last chance we were watching a movie. Most of them were done. I did have a Xeroxed set of newspaper articles with 9 questions on the back for some extra credit, at one point per article each, just in case someone was close. Carlos walked in and stood by his desk. I walked over to him and he stood there.
“You got the journal?”
“Here you go.”
I thumbed through it and found one entry out of 20.
“What is this?”
“The journal.”
“One entry?”
“You said to turn it in.”
I walked to the wastepaper basket and threw it away.
“What’d you do that for?”
“You did one entry? Your grade is on the line and you wait until the day I said you absolutely, positively had to bring me the journal and you did one entry?”
“Yeah.”
“OK Carlos, you have extra credit opportunities today. I don’t know if it will pull your grade up or not. Here, do these two. Write your answers on a separate piece of paper.”
“OK.”
He wrote his name on the paper.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh yeah. You got any paper?”
“No. I’m not supplying you with paper. You came to class unprepared?”
“I ran out.”
“Borrow some.”
He started working and I went back to my desk. I saw that Nino, who sat behind Carlos, was helping him answer the questions. I asked Nino to move back two seats and he complied, but a few minutes later he moved up again.
“Carlos, come here. Bring your stuff.”
“What?”
“Go outside, sit at the picnic table and finish the work. This isn’t a group project.”
“Lookit Chavoor. He’s scared Carlos won’t pass,” Nino shouted.
“Scared? Know what, Nino? I get paid either way. I care more about Carlos graduating than he does. You could say that.”
“Chavoor’s scared,” Nino said again.
“Scared, hah,” Carlos murmured.
“Go, Carlos,” I said.
Fifteen minutes later I looked out the window to check on Carlos. He was gone. With three minutes left to the end of the period he walked in with the two extra credit papers done. I threw them in the trash.
“What? I worked hard on those.”
“I told you to go to the picnic tables. You disappeared.”
“You threw me out.”
The phone rang. I held my hand up to tell him to hang on for a moment.
“Mr. Chavoor? This is Mrs. Lawson? I’m just calling about True Vue? Is this a good time?”
“Sure.”
“I got a return call from CPS and they said they will be interviewing her mother and father and her sisters. They said that even though the incident was five years ago, they are concerned about the younger sisters undergoing the same experiences.”
“Yes, that was our concern in the first place.”
“I don’t know why her mom didn’t take more decisive action, but at least we got something going.”
“Yes.”
“I just wanted to let you know, and thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
“I considered her essay a cry for help.”
“Absolutely.”
“How is True? She was pretty distraught when I had to go back to class.”
“She understands that we had to contact CPS. But now she is afraid of what her father might do if they don’t remove her sisters from the house.”
“Yes.”
“At the same time her older sister his blaming her for breaking up the family.”
“Awful.”
“Thought I’d let you know.”
“I’ll see if she shows up for sixth.”
“Yes, and thank again.”
“No problem.”
I looked at Carlos. He did not know what bad times were. He did not know that a girl with a genuine crisis was getting all A’s.
“I did not throw you out, Carlos. Now you will have to come back to me during sixth period and do two different articles.”
“I did those two,” he said, pointing to the trash can.
“For all I know you could have gone to the library and got some help answering the questions.”
“I didn’t.”
“But I don’t know that. That’s why I wanted you to sit at the picnic table, so I could look out the window and see that you were working alone.”
I had a student last year about this time who was a senior and dropped out because he said that he would rather work in the fields. But not Carlos. Last year I asked him if he wanted a life of working in the fields and he emphatically said no. I asked him if he knew how hard his father worked. He said yes. Then I told him that his mother and father did not expect him to live at home all his life and in fact they actually imagined that he would get a better job, live a better life, and that he would take care of them one day when they got really old. He grinned that grin and shrugged that shrug.
“I can’t come in 6th. I got a class.”
“Well, you better hope your teacher in 6th gives you permission to come over here.”
“But…”
“You either make it or you don’t.”
He walked out muttering something. About 20 minutes into 6th period he pounded on the door. I got up slowly and opened it.
“I’m here.”
“That’s good. Have a seat right there. I’ll get the new articles.”
“Got any paper?”
Just at that moment, the door swung open. It was Mr. Vargas, one of the vice principals. For a second he stood assessing the situation. I was showing a movie and it didn’t seem to have any educational value. Then he realized that these were seniors who were done save for a few points of closing up business.
“There you are, Mr. Chavoor,” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Vargas, how can I help you?”
“Could you step outside for a moment? Just for a minute. It won’t take long.”
“Certainly.”
“This is in regards to Jenna Hinojosa.”
“Wait a minute now.”
“Just let me finish now, Mr. Chavoor.”
“That girl had 11 zeroes. 11 out of 20 graded assignments.”
“We know that.”
“Did you check her attendance? Do you know how many absences she has?”
“We’re with you. I spoke to her counselor, Mrs. Marez, and she and I agree. It’s just that we got a call from Mom and Mom wants a conference.”
“What for? I let her make up seven of those 11 assignments and she still came up short.”
“We agree, like I said. Even Jenna agrees.”
“What? Then why are we having a conference? What’s the point?”
“Well, Mrs. Hinojosa wants to talk to you herself.”
“What in the world for? Do you know, Mr.Vargas, that I have never let anyone make up that many assignments? Never. Those guys from the Migrant Students group came around and I told them I would.”
“I understand.”
“I handed her The Tempest. Shakespeare, ok? I worked every day for 5 or 6 weeks with the students who were here in class, helping them understand what’s going on in the play. She wants to make up the work? Here, go ahead and read it. So then she takes the tests and quizzes and flunks most of them.”
“Impossible situation. Ridiculous. But it’s like this. Mom wants a conference. We’re not going to say no, even if the outcome remains the same. We want to respect her request.”
“Fine.”
“What would a good time be? I’ll call her right back and set it up.”
“Right after this class.”
“Three o’clock then. Remember though, we’re with you. You don’t have to bring the heat.”
“I’m too old for that. I’m not mad, just annoyed. But I will be nice.”
“Great. See you at three then.”
I went back to the classroom. There he sat, still with no paper.
“I don’t have any paper, Carlos. I have paper but I’m not giving out any. Borrow some from one of these students.”
“I don’t know any of them.”
“I guess we’re done here then.”
“But…”
A student who had overheard our conversation handed Carlos some paper. He went to work shaking his head as if he bore all the unfairness in the world. A few minutes before the bell rang he brought me his work. He stood staring at the computer screen as if I were going to grade his papers and enter points for his new grade right on the spot.
“I’ll grade this later. You’d better go back to class.”
“Will you have the grade done like at the end of the period? Can I come back after 6th?”
“No. I’ll let you think about it over the weekend.”
“I’m only like this close from a D. Can’t you give me a like really, really low D?”
“You might end up with a really, really high F. Like if you have 59.4% it’s gonna be summer school for Carlos. See what I’m saying?”
“Man.”
“Have a nice weekend.”
We had a wonderful weekend. My son Greg and Tracie, his fiancée, came to Fresno and so did Tracie’s parents, Bill and Michelle. Not only that but Jeremy, the fiancé of my daughter Kelsey, was in town. So add in Katheen, Jake and Miss Violet and you have everyone all together in the same place. I barbecued tri-tip and Grace made pilaf on Sunday and we all sat around and talked about everything we could think of. I didn’t think about Carlos for a second, not even a half a second. Carlos is a nice kid who has come to believe, understand and think things that are incorrect or inaccurate. He needs to change how he views those things or he will find it very difficult to function in the adult world. I gave him his two lousy points which is all he needed to get to 59.6% for the lowest D- possible. The sad part was I knew he’d be overjoyed to have this grade.
And on Tuesday he came to class with much trepidation; not sure whether or not to look at me and also not sure how to look at me if he did. The silver ball was bouncing merrily on the roulette wheel. He might have bet red and it could come up black, or he might just luck out. That’s what the moment meant to him. I decided not to tell him anything when he got his sign out sheet with his grade written on it. He in turn showed no expression of relieve or joy. When the bell rang to end I stood by the door to say goodbye and good luck to the students. I tried to think of something short and meaningful to say to Carlos but I couldn’t. When he passed he would not look at me.
At the end of the day I was in the library and there was Carlos. I wanted to explain to him that I didn’t think he was stupid but he was foolish and then I would explain the difference to him. I would tell him he had to keep rowing until he arrived at the sensible world.We stood face to face and I was about to speak when he patted me on the shoulder gingerly. I decided I had had enough of him and turned and walked out.