for days.
teenagers are never joking. when seeking to prove a point, principals and teachers should remember that teenagers are never, ever sarcastic or ironic. if they say, “I wish someone would drop a bomb on this school right now,” that means they have arranged for a nuclear arsenal to be emptied onto the school and should be immediately suspended and ridiculed. if they say they were merely coming up with a joking excuse to postpone a bio test, reply that all jokes are funny, and that since dropping a bomb on a school is not funny, it is therefore
not
a
joke.
there was this woman in Urbana who loved to eat so much that it became her life. the neighbors stopped seeing her. all they would see was a never-ending parade of takeout deliverymen-pizza boys and Chinese box holders and the girls from El Taco Grande who swore the woman left more money for tips than anyone else. they never saw her, though. this went on for years. she left twenties under the front mat and bribed boys from McDonald's to take their breaks delivering her cartons of supersize fries, supersize sodas, supersize burgers. eventually, this one kid John and his friends decided to break in and scare her. but she got them instead, because they found her dead in the kitchen, weighing nearly as much as the bed she'd moved in there just so she could be close to all the things
she loved.
everybody's heard the one about love being easy. it happened once to this boy from Newton. the girl he liked ended up being the girl who liked him. when he saw her in the hall, she brightened and spoke music to him. there was nothing to be afraid of. even though he was white and she was black, blessings rained down from all of their friends and family and even a couple of teachers. they never played games with each other, they never had to worry where they stood, because if either of them had a moment of wavering, the other would say I love you and would mean it and all doubts were forgiven because in this one case it was found that love
conquers all.
all alike families are happy. there was this one family in Sarasota that was even identical. people couldn't tell who the father was, the mother was, the son was. they were all so happy that it didn't matter who they were. eventually a circus bought them and charged admission for people to see them in their natural happy habitat. spectators would come from all across the state to see them eat dinner together, watch the same channels together, talk to each other at length. People called them freaks not because they were identical, but because they were so
damn
happy.
popularity is in fact a democracy. it is a fair and square contest. every month, students vote, and the kindest, most compassionate people are always chosen to be the most popular. just as we always choose the best person in the country to be president, we always pick the most deserving people to be popular. they, in turn, humbly accept and prove to be role models for all the rest of the students, because their position is so much based on worth and not at all on
looks or
cruelty.
there was this girl from Springfield who was asked to the prom by a guy who really, really hated her. he did it on a dare, and the girl was unaware of it. she used all her money to buy a dress and a flower for his jacket. the dress was as white as a cloud in a dream and the flower was a red rose. she waited on prom night for him to pick her up. instead he and his friends drove by over and over while she waited on the curb, holding the rose in her hand. her dress billowed in the wind and sucked up all the dirt from the tires as the boys called her a ferret and honked so all the neighbors would see. she couldn't take it and the next time they drove by she jumped out in front. she went crashing through the windshield and her dress fanned out in the impact, suffocating them all. the rose
was not
damaged.
the town of North Orange is still recovering from the day the students came to biology class and found their teacher lying on a table, his chest cut open, his body dripping with formaldehyde. the window was open and all the frog tanks were
empty.
the kid in the back of the class opening fire into his notebook, ink explosions of thought, is the kid to watch out for, the kid who one day will bring a gun to school and take revenge for not being the person you are, the person you want him to be. if he wears black, he's twice as likely, if he wears headphones at lunch, he's three times as likely. if you look over his shoulder, you will see that everything he writes is
always
about
you.
Gospel
You've got to live the gospel.
I'm not talking practicing what you preach—
there is no practicing here.
I am talking living what you preach.
And to do that, you gotta preach what you live.
I know what I'm here for
and I know what the Lord is here for.
The gospel. I will live and die by the gospel.
I look around me and I see all the problems.
I know people aren't living the gospel.
I know they are too busy.
The world is too loud.
The sounds you hear in the hall are not
the substance of love and kindness.
I hear gossip, I hear spite, I hear fear.
I do not hear the gospel.
I do not feel the gospel.
Except inside me. I can feel it there.
And my friends.
There are not many of us, Lord knows.
But we are there for each other.
The Lord loves things in three, and we are three.
Lanie with her blue-covered Bible,
Tracy with her red-covered Bible,
and me with what I call the Original Black.
It's not that we walk around all buttoned up,
not a part of the world. Don't think that.
We know what's happening, and what's what.
But we also know which end is up.
I have never heard a more beautiful word than
Hallelujah!
When I was a little girl, I looked forward to Sunday.
I would have my dress out by Friday,
my shoes lined up underneath like my legs were already in them.
I would count the ladies in the choir and feel like I was waiting
my turn, practicing my voice for their kind of calling.
As I grew older, I got worried-I learned that, at least in my church,
choir ladies never die. I thought there'd be no opening for me
and felt like the worst sinner for wanting a space so bad.
But when my time came, old Mrs. Hayes decided she'd rather listen,
so I moved on up there and found my songs.
Hallelujah!
School is not like church.
I know a lot of people in my school are happy about this,
but I think that's because they've known the wrong kind
of churches, the ones that hold back instead of lifting up.
I've seen the inside of some of those churches.
Let me tell you, the gospel isn't there.
Like turning on the television and hearing some man
(calls himself a preacher!)
use his cross to hit people over their heads,
spewing all that hate in the name of the Lord.
That is not the gospel.
That is not why we are here.
I would like school to be like church.
I would like it to be a place where we sing to the rafters.
I would like our lives to be illuminated.
I will admit this:
Lanie, Tracy, and I do not speak up as often as we should.
We will get home full of other people's shame—
Did you see how Jimmy made Maria cry in class?
Did you see how Mr. Thomas yelled at Max for not agreeing?
Did you see how lonely that girl looked at lunch?
What we are saying is that we did see.
And what did we do?
We acted blind, and we moved on.
That is not the gospel.
Lanie, Tracy, and I sit in the front of the class.
It is too easy to be ignored in this world,
so you've gotta put yourself up front
if you want to be counted, and to count.
Even if we're not always being illuminated,
we're being given tools to build a house
of the gospel, to make sure our lives are strong.
Lanie's mama never made it this far;
she left school to have Lanie.
If she could do it all again, I know
she wouldn't be sitting in the back.
The boys, however, fight over the back.
Trying to separate themselves,
make their own slouching kingdom.
The ruder the boy, the farther back he sits.
As if that justifies the way he talks too loud.
Thinking so much of himself that he can be
in the back and still be the center of it all.
I have nothing to say to boys like that,
and the things they have to say to me
are nothing I will repeat, not even to myself.
I let their scorn wash over me like water.
But not all of the boys in the back are like this.
There is another, the quiet one watching.
Writing in his notebook like he's composing
his own scripture, making himself something
to believe. I know his name is Anton,
only because our teacher likes to call on him
when he is most far away. Our teacher
is mean like that—he wants to play favorites,
but Lord knows he doesn't like any of us.
That day.
Even though my back is turned,
I can see what's going on.
The sound of their taunting—
I know what that looks like.
Words like freak and loser—
I know what kind of face says them.
Our teacher is ignoring it;
he does not have the strength to deal with it.
Or maybe he agrees with what's being said.
He agrees by talking math as the notebook
is pulled out of Anton's hand.
Even though he sees what's going on,
his back is turned.
I hear Anton pulling against them.
And I know what will happen next.
He does not let go; they tear
it out of his hands.
And then the ripping sounds.
The teacher keeps talking.
One rip after another.
The laughter of the boys.
These boys, who will not go near a book,
begin to read out loud in spiteful voices,
making a mockery of words.
there are alligators in the sewers.
when he saw her in the hall, she brightened
and spoke music to him.
found their teacher lying on a table,
his chest cut open.
That laughter that is not joyous at all.
It is fueled by misery—
someone else's misery.
There is a blast of music, and that is when
I turn around. Anton has put on his headphones.
He is blocking it out. One boy dangles a page
in front of his eyes. He doesn't reach for it.
He closes his eyes.
I have had enough.
That is the only way I can explain it.
As if the Lord himself writes that sentence
across my mind's eye:
I have had enough.
He is turning the music louder and louder
so we can all hear it, even if it can't
drown out the taunting.
The teacher tells him to turn that music off
and that is it.
Enough.
I rise from my seat and point at
those boys in the back.
I take all the air of the gospel into my lungs
and I shout out
How dare you?
I call out
Do unto others.
I yell
You should be ashamed.
I testify to that.
All it takes is one person to speak up.
Sometimes that's not enough,
but in this case it is.
Other kids—Lanie, Tracy,
other girls, a few boys
join the choir, saying
lay off and stop it and
give it back to him.
Anton with his eyes open now,
his ears still covered in noise.
Looking at me
with a mix of surprise and sadness.
Mostly his eyes are dead.
The teacher steps in now and says—
I swear, the man is a fool or worse—
What's going on here? What happened?
And I am now weaker than I aspire to be,
because I do not tell him all that he allowed,
I do not point to the causes and the effects.
These are not questions meant to be answered,
anyway—like all of his questions
that don't involve his mathematics.
He tells the boys to hand back the notebook,
and they present Anton with the pieces,
as if that is some punch line to the joke.
I sit down, and as I do, I think:
Lord, give me the strength to fight unkindness.
I will not abide it. I will not abide.
The bell rings, ending class
and nothing else. One boy pushes the pages over
as he leaves, scattering them on the floor.
I walk back and help Anton re-gather them.
He mumbles thanks and looks away.
And I resolve then and there:
I will be good to this boy.
I tell him he is welcome
and leave before he has to feel like
he must say something else.
It used to be that when Lanie, Tracy, and I
walked in the hallways, we were all there was to it.
We only noticed one another in all that commotion.
I probably passed Anton a thousand times in those halls,
but it's only after that math class that I realize he's there.
I am talking to Lanie two periods later, my heart finally
calming down from what happened, and as we're going
to the library, I stop seeing her and I see him walking
toward me. Headphones on, head-to-toe black clothes.
He is in his own world, and while that world is very private,
it's also not very big. When his looking comes to me,
I raise my hand and he nods back. Our recognition.
He is there again when the next period is over.
Our paths have been made to cross from different directions.
The next morning I add a hello.
He responds with a hello.
We walk into math class together
and he sits next to me, in the front.
That afternoon, I smile with my hello.
He does not smile back, but he does
switch off his headphones.
Lanie and Tracy are amused
in a not-completely-amused way.
They do not ask me about it in school,
but that Sunday after church, they have a litany
of questions about what's going on.
They call him my Dressed in Darkness Boy
and tell me that when I turned down Curtis Stone
after he wanted to take me for a drive,
they had no idea that I was looking for this instead.
I tell them to have a little faith in me.
The Lord is not the only one
who moves in mysteri
ous ways.
Yes, he is dressed in darkness.
But my eyes are getting used to the dark.
I notice the tree of black ink
he's drawn on his black bag.
There is a moment in math class when I knock
my pencil off my desk and we both bend
to get it. His hair does not smell of darkness.
There are flowers underneath the ground.
We begin to speak
after class. Two minutes of talking
about nothing before he retreats.
Lanie and Tracy say maybe he's not
used to talking to other people.
The boys in the back jeer at us
when they walk past, but Anton and I
withstand that, try to talk over their noise.
Secretly I wonder if we'll ever have
more than these two minutes.
Then Anton surprises me and asks me
if I want to come over sometime.
I ask him where, and he says his house.
I'm not sure about that, so I ask him
if he'd want to come to church first.
In some part of my brain, this makes sense.
He says he will, that Sunday.