Chapter 12: The teacher chronicles part II

'Yo, mista Davis are those chocolate milk cows?'

Our school bus, cheddar cheese yellow and three blocks long, bounced and jolted across the Whitestone bridge on our way to another strenuous field trip. Our sixth graders, semi-belted into their seats, wavered between abject fear and awe as we made our way closer to the Queens Meadow Farm. Half of them had never been over water, most had never touched a body of water, and zero of them had been in Queens, NYC. Oh, I nearly forgot. They lived in the Bronx, a ten minute drive from Queens. Nevertheless, passing a pasture of forgotten cows, Terrell's comment about the origin of chocolate milk easily passed into the realm of unforgettable. Now normally I would never smile at these over-aged, pimply, bumbling sixth graders that could simultaneously break my heart and make me see shades of red that don't yet exist. Yet, Terrell got me by surprise, and turning to my good friend Mercedes, I instantly passed along his words of wisdom while attempting not to lose control entirely of my face and its upstart smile.

'Ummm, no Terrell, those are regular cows, which provide regular milk.'

'Yu mean the 2 percent stuff my momma buys to make me bigger?'

'That sounds about right...', turning towards Mercedes to avoid showing my upper lip pressed closely around my mouth in stifled laughter.

The teacher chronicles are jammed with memories such as these, and I'm convinced that if a dozen teachers from a dozen different schools got together and shared their stories, it would be on the bestseller list for years to come. Here are another priceless few moments.

1. A co-worker of mine called me over to her first grade classroom because her student Glymer (pronounced Glimmer: "There's a y in there mista  becuz he a boy, not no girl glimma") had just eaten a small fluorescent bulb. According to what he said, he had just wanted "a snack." Cue ambulance, frenzied assistant principal, mom saying "s'all right, he jus craaazy," and a one-way ticket to Children's Village. Yes, this place exists, and no you do not want to teach there.

2. Mariela, my little kindergarten angel, looking up at me during a math lesson where we were writing numbers with marker on white-boards, and saying, "Senor Davis, I think I just felt the lightbulb you always talk about in my brain turning on."

3. My little Alejandro in 3rd grade - For our living things unit we had been observing the egg-hatching process of chickens, which fascinated all save Alejandro. On the day we finally saw a chicken hatching, my class, normally strictly in line with classroom expectations, went berserk. Rushing over to our incubator, we all peered over the top and watched the tiny little miracle occur. I hadn't realized, in my happiness of seeing the students open-mouthed, thrilled and whispering in frantic voices to each other, that Alejandro was tugging my sleeve from behind, serious eyes turned up at me. I looked down and asked him what was wrong. "Senor Davis, si tu quieres, mi mama se puede quitar las plumas, limpiar y cocinar esas gallinas 'pa una fiesta." (Mr. Davis, my mom can clean, pluck and cook those chickens for our end of the year party if you want)

4. Teaching 4th grade, I had brought some small bones in for fossilization. A few I had purchased at a specialty shop, such as the owl bones I began showing them. It took me a few minutes to realize where some of the wing bones had gone. Raymond, my student with a one-on-one paraprofessional (for some reason she had chosen that lesson to step out), was busy cracking and sucking on them in the corner.

5. Joshua: Height - 4'11''. Weight: App 85 lbs. Occupation: Extreme Tormentor Student, highest order. Angel: Height - 5'8''. Weight: App 150 lbs. Occupation: Quiet female student prone to violent rages.
Joshua to Angel: "Yo, you maaaaaad ugly."
Angel to Joshua: "Quiet, small kid, I'll punch you."
Joshua to Angel: "Did you make that weave yourself? It's maaaaad ugly."
Angel: Calmly walking over to Joshua, picking him up about four inches off the ground and throwing him into the class door. Walking over, holding his shoulder with one hand, and punching him with the other. "I saiiid, shut. the. fuck. up."
At last, a superintendent suspension. :)

6. 4'2'' boy, skinny as a rail, big front teeth, shaved head. In the middle of an English lesson: "Yo mista, I had a dream las night that in another life I wuz a stripper named Candy Cane."

7. Big unit test. Rubin leaned over and looked at his neighbor's test.
Mr. Davis: "Rubin, that's cheating."
Rubin: "Naw Mista, I'm not cheating I'm just reading his paper."
Mr. Davis: "By definition, that's cheating Rubin."

8. Laurent walking into class: "Mr. Davis, can I bring some guns to class?"
Mr. Davis: "Ummm, absolutely not."
Laurent: "Then why did you let me bring these?" (Pointing at his skinny 6th grade arms)

9. Teaching 6th grade literacy one day...Under my breath.."What the??" (dog barking sounds coming from somewhere in the room) Glancing under one of the tables. "Luis, why are barking like a dog and under your table?"
Luis: "I'm practicing being a dog. See, ruff! ruff!"
---
On the second day of teaching 6th grade literacy, I began lining up my class outside in the hallway in order to go to lunch. Lines, or order in general, were very foreign things for my students, yet that day we filed out, 33 strong, and stood in line for a brief moment until I asked out loud to no one in particular, "Where's Arius?"
"Ooooh, I'll go get him Mr. Davis!!!" shrieked Chadia, a short, Jamaican version of a cherry bomb firework. "Uhh, no, don't wor..." my words lost in the heads turning of every student as they watched Chadia sprint down the hallway, all quietly whispering, "oooooooooooh, now he's gunna get it."
"Me too! I'll help" replied Andy, turning out of the line and beginning to unfasten a hitherto hidden fluorescent orange belt. "I'll teach Arius to get in line on time for you Mr. Davis, don't worry."
At this point I felt something akin to a vein of panic, though to be fair, the feeling of panic is rare after 6 years of teaching in the Bronx.
"Hold here please, I'll take care of it," exuding all the confidence I could muster, and marching towards my classroom door. By some miracle the class stayed where they were, and did not witness Chadia hopping on one foot while grabbing her shoe and hurtling it at Arius yelling, "I'm gunna teach you how my momma taught me to listen!" Nor did they see Andy whip his belt from the loops. "You listen to Mr. Davis when he says line up Arius!"
"Oh shiiiiiit!" yelled Arius, (6'2'' in 6th grade) ducking, swerving and jumping from the room in efforts to get away from Chadia's second shoe which missed him by inches.
Laughing, giggling, shaking their heads, Chadia and Andy came over to me and said, "Don't worry, it's all right Mr. Davis, we don't mean no disrespect. He'll be alright now."
I could only say thank you and head the class downwards towards their deep fried mozzarella sticks and dead-lettuce salad.

Jazz Woman (Poem)

No wonder Chicago kicks ass.

Just follow women on Monroe and Michigan,

just watch the sweet swishing of hips and lips –

smooth curved skin through seamless pride. 

At blue room or Clark the jazz woman sings –

At tap town or Halsted she croons to the night– 

Drifting...

cigar smoked bars just following the stars, tripping on curbs 

all for the jazz woman's song.

fun-filled farce (Poem)

fun-filled farce 

Fear forces:

fast frowns,

frantic faces,

fickle fingers. 

Frontiers foster:

frigid feet

fetid fountains

fantastic frenzies. 

Failure forges:

false fascination.

Failure flips, fizzles falls, flounders. 

Forget flags. Forget fights. Forget fun. Find falsehood fitting.

Fulfill founding father's farce.

Untitled (Poem)

one soggy afternoon I saw an old woman –

she beat a small beige dog – it didn’t argue or yelp,

and when she broke down in tears,

asking the dog to forgive her –

all it could do was stand and lick tears off her hand.

An evening with the clouds (Poem for Robert)

My ears cracked and popped,
like an LP skipping its threads.
Clouds soft like my mother's hand when I was sick
rolled endlessly, unerringly towards all points
while I sat behind plastic, rivets and sheet-metal
waiting for that moment,
that break in the ululating pattern,
that hole punched in a tremendous comforter of gray and bone-white hills

like pencil through paper.

I waited two hours, two hours while my stomach, ignored, complained its boredom of my company.
My eyes sparkled with a desire to see the vapor mountains reveal their false peaks in a ten thousand foot smile.
At last, in a moment when the hills and valleys shifted slightly in a moment of atmospheric weakness,
I had my moment.
A vertiginous, dizzying glimpse of my small world 30,000 feet below,
Steady in a snow globe way,
Inviting me to shake it and free-fall into its open arms.

Little monsters in my head (Poem)

Whisper in any direction
And I'll come,
Summoned by the little monsters in my head
I'll race the sunrise to her post
I'll torment the moon into tears
I'll quicken my pace to a setting horizon.

...A horizon which glows a vampire glow
A horizon which starts at my ending,
A horizon that can discern between monster
And kiss
Between hellogoodbye
Between myself, pitcher plants and their waxy lures.

Miles, perhaps inches or feet apart the planets collide,
And everything disappears like a bottle rocket
Or like villages to an inching Sahara.
The planets collide because you're too weak, 

like myself, 

an elephant ear flapping like a bed sheet on a line to an invisible wind's tempo.

Yet perhaps moments and more miles down the road,
This collision will put me back together somehow,
It will whisper a tangled mess of vines into sense,
It will explode debris to astonishing lengths into my four corners,
And then perhaps I'll be free.

Maps and Me (Poem)

There are enormous white spots on the map in my head.

Who will fill them? Who will wander over their shadowy glare,

where strangely enough light and dark combine?

I myself stomp around this topographical oddity,

glancing side to side in amusement

as I hear in my mind a symphony hall in full concert,

where a conductor lost in frenzied action

sizzles his electric energy to his players,

knowing only too well the soundtrack 

accompanying my never-ending map

requires at once a violent and blissfully serene soundtrack

with no skips,

no splices that the jigsaw life brings with it,

and certainly no faltering in the virtuoso`s fingers

dancing across my days like bumblebees.

And so I stomp and strut on my map,

peering into faraway corners,

fleeing others that loom too quickly

dripping with unexpected ocean-water at their edges speckled in starlight.

A honeybee sound (Poem)

I remember telling her:

`You've lost me.'

I remember the soft shape of her lips

when they opened halfway in

curiosity and wonder of knowing me,

the way they reached for me and pulled me inwards.

I remember telling him:

'You've left me'

as he drifted into a woman's arms never to return

leaving me bereft,

knowing I would never have a friend like that again

tiny shards of me littered on the pavement outside my apartment.

I remember the pain of ink being pressed into skin

and the whys of such pain

made me immune to the buzzing needle

like a contented honeybee.

I remember being suffused by memories

at a bus stop bench,

where pine cones littered the landscape around me

like discarded toys

and

how I learned to warm myself to sadness.

Tarçın (Poem)

What if life were cinnamon flavored?
I would probably lie down in the raw dough my mom and I kneaded for cinnamon bread, and roll around in the tiny flecks and grains of cane sugar. Certainly I would not care if I were pressed into the side of the bread, after all, what's left after baking other than melted sugar, butter and cinnamon?
Then again, I just might dip myself into a barrel of cinnamon spiced apple cider. Swim around in there for a few minutes, in hopes I might ferment and create yummy goodness. Don't cut a hole please.
Or even better, baked inside an apple or pumpkin pie, crushed from stick shape, melded together with cloves. Who knows?

What about the dark-chocolate colored powder sprinkled on top of coffee? Would I stoop to mixing myself with the whipped cream, or sink quickly to the bottom in anticipation of that slurping slush swish of a straw grasping at the last remnants of a drink?

Or perhaps the trick to a cinnamon flavored life is to be what I've always wanted to be. A ginger cookie. Just mix me right, and don't forget the cloves.