The Meltdown

So I've got school security that can't secure a Ziploc bag, a principal who tries the sensitive approach with hard-rocks in training, a co-teacher who doesn't seem to want to be a team player, two attitudinal Brooklyn girls, a 40-percent sector of students who don't speak my language, a vacancy in the supervising position above me and a boss who's spread so thin that I'm sure she often forgets her name.

Yesterday's warm-up for the quiz questions today that come with pizza today went nowhere. I've got other kids parents calling my students via cellphone, truants still running the halls and hour after school's over and forcing their way into my room whenever I'm not looking, and a complicated manuscript I need to finish ASAP to hold me over until I get my first check. I should have let out some sort of primal scream and then collapsed. But I settled for a bitch session with my Mom in the middle of the street post-work and by the time I was home I was calling parents and trying to figure out some kind of way to get through the rest of this school year.

Now if this were someone else's blog, all my readers would tell me to pack it up and get the hell out of there, but for some reason or another there's this assumption that I'm some kind of Superman that's supposed to be able to deal with everything. And it's not just this. It's been this way my whole life. Some other guy, with the same demographic and experiential attributes as me, gets posted at some facility with leather lined chairs and massages for all the teachers.

But here I am in Brooklyn, trying to wrangle these kids because if nothing else I need to be reminded of what the world is like outside of my relatively insular circles. And maybe I feel like I can make some kind of a difference for just a few specs of sand on the beach of a generation that's underparented, over-exposed and defines their own ethnic identity in terms of poverty, crime and what they see on television. All I had to do was write a letter of resignation and hit the want ads. I'd have a check for two weeks by month's end and could write the whole thing off as life experience.

But of course I wake up this morning with a brand new set of ideas and approaches. I request permissions slips and Electronic Monopoly and Scrabble. I'm going to try a new approach that will at least get the rugrats out of the prison they call a school for a few minutes a day while still adhering to the established curriculum. The week after that it's photo projects. The week after that maybe it will be yoga and pilates. Who knows?

My anger in recent months is generally directed at myself for not deciding to keep it simple long ago. I should have abandoned the nationalistic agenda I was raised with. I should have gone to a white school and turned out like that certain kind of Black Ivy leaguer who only seems to feel comfortable when they're the only negro in the room.

At the end of the day it's this kind of shit that's going to kill me. That's why I never wanted to dedicate my life to it the way my Mom did. But these are the cards so I just have to play them. One more day and I get three off (even if I'll be working through them all).

Late into the night I was reminded by friends of mine who are currently in the midst of the same debacle that the whole deal is for these kids to try me to see if I'll break. But unfortunately I don't break. There's nothing I want more now than to shatter into a million little pieces and be swept up by whatever family member, institution or correctional outfit took first interest. But that ain't gonna happen. I've already been through richer and poorer, sickness and health, better in my dedication to my two lifelong careers than I have been in anything else. But even when it came to my deepest personal matters I wasn't the one to throw the towel in. Were I more ignorant I'd curse whomever in my bloodline gave me these traits. But I ain't the dude to do that, as I need everyone that I can get in my corner these days.

Even as I went to sleep last night I could feel the spirits telling me to press on, whispering suggestions in my ear that popped into my consciousness the next morning. Even last night, as I was at work on this manuscript my urge to hit up my homeboy Byron, get a fifth of Jameson and toss the night away was eclipsed by the practicality of the work that had to get done, not only to keep me alive, but so that on a karmic level I might sooner than later escape the semi-hell I've been living in for the past few years. According to the Bible: "It is better for a man to bear the yoke in his youth."

The truth of all truths is that the things that have made me a success in the eyes of so many are the things that I dislike the most about myself. I was always the youngest, always the most awkward and yet when it came down to it I was the one that hit the target dead-center each time I pulled the trigger. This has haunted me my whole adult life. I make my dreams happen more often than not (Kelis, Lucy Liu about 100 other women excluded) It is only my higher self's understanding that gets me through.

A while back I had this dream that I was trapped in a cube that was like a prison. As I raced from cell to cell CO snipers took aim at me. But I always dodged the shots. I never got hit, even when I was out of breath and out of room. But I got out, knowing that my enemies were still coming for me, and knowing that I would have to face and defeat them one by one.

It was as much a metaphor for then as it is for now, the trials that come with the pursuit of any crown in any kingdom. The world sure doesn't look like the way I dreamed it to be when I was in the sixth grade. But I don't think it ever does for anyone. Out.