Quitting

I quit my job today.

I quit a bar-back job when Talayna couldn’t support the restaurant anymore. I quit Casa Gallardo when my hair grew too long. I quit Forest Hills Country Club twice. Once to make a point (which I was rehired upon making) and again when I went to college. I quit Turveys on the Green when I crashed my car. I quit the ditch-digging job out in Estes Park when I got tired of digging a sewer line for $7 a day. I quit Pagliai’s Pizza when there was a party one Saturday night in college. I quit bill collecting when a teaching job at an alternative school came along. And now, five years later, I am quitting that alternative school. I used to have nothing to lose. Quitting used to be easy.

I’ve never been locked onto the steps of a career ladder, so I’ve never really had to worry about how far I’ve climbed, or what lay above. I’ve never felt bad about quitting. I’ve always ended up some place better. However, this job wasn’t just a job. It wasn’t a career, but it was more important than the row of numbers that qualified as just compensation for the last two weeks of traded life.

Riverview was where I broke up my first fight. One of the kids was this little crack head named Deandre. He was always looking for trouble, cash, a good drug deal, and a new high. The other, John, was a quiet kid. He never picked any fights. He came in and did what his mom and brother wanted him to do. He read at a 3rd grade level, was stoned most of the time, and had no idea how to talk to girls. Once in the back office, he told me about how he and his brother showed up to a fight at the park a month ago, where dozens of guys were jumping out of vans with baseball bats and busting into each other. He wasn’t really sure what the fight was supposed to settle, he just knew the colors of which side he was on.

Deandre dashed across the room. It only took a look and a couple of words. Apparently, Deandre’s boys had tangled with John’s brother and come up short. It was up to Deandre to rebalance things by punishing the little brother who had nothing to do with the original altercation. So it goes in the feudalistic mentality that is clan warfare. Guilt by association. Guilt by blood. I grabbed them both. I heard Deandre’s shirt rip as I grabbed it, twisted it and slung him sideways. He stumbled to his knees. He was surprised and off-balance. I stiff-armed John and held my arm crooked. He leaned against it, but didn’t try to get around it. As much as these kids called each other “motherfucker,” they didn’t really want to fight. They never really do at first, unless they are really cold-blooded and have it all planned out. But once they have squared off and have an audience, they have no choice but to fight. After yelling at John to sit down, I dragged Deandre to the front door and literally threw him on his ass. As he sat there on the sidewalk, I went back into the center, picked up his hat, walked back to the door, threw it at his face and told him, “Don’t come back.” And he didn’t.

That is just one story of what must be a hundred. There was Martin, who had impregnated one of the girls in the center, had several other girlfriends, and another baby by another girlfriend. There was also the time that two of my students were pulled over by the cops in front of Walgreens and thrown on the ground, pistols waving. After the roughing-up it was determined to be a case of mistaken identity… but I started to understand why black kids had an “us-vs-them” mentality when it came to white cops.

Kevin and Kent made it through HVAC school. They visited to tell me about how Anthony had wrecked his car doing 100 mph on the highway, jacked up on all sorts of “stuff he shouldn’t been doing,” and killed himself.

You remember the successes because you can’t forget the tragedies.

I used to play chess every Friday with Vince. He had spent nine months in jail. He never told me what for, but from what I pieced together, it was probably a weapon used in a car-jacking. Jail had actually mellowed the kid out. He was twenty, came in stoned all the time, but had evolved beyond violence. He’d done his time. He had his badge. I guess the neighborhood didn’t mess with him anymore. He was a pretty good chess player after those nine months. He never beat me, but he came close a few times. The kids used to gather around and watch. I told them if he ever beat me, I would let them leave a half-hour early.

I have aged considerably since the early days in Riverview. Maybe I will get to all the stories in all the school districts eventually. But when you are dealing with the currency of children, rather than corporation, it becomes hard to leave. Today I left. It was probably the best bunch of kids I’ve ever abandoned, but most of them will be alright. There are only a few that I fear will end up like Anthony. One of them almost did. I gave him his diploma in a physical rehabilitation hospital. He had tubes in him, scars where tubes had been, and I am not sure he still had his feet. He had been that way for 5 months. In bed for five months. All because he and a friend had taken a high joy ride when an ice storm had hit. They were being stupid, sure. But some stupidity carries a life sentence, others get off easy.

Whatever the next horizon holds, the stories of hundreds of these children are coming with me, like a flock of birds. Some of them are lost, some of them have landed in pleasant lands, and some of them are yet to die. I have done what I can. All there is left to do is tell some of their stories I haven’t yet gotten to. There isn’t anyone else doing it.