When the children got to school the following Monday, they had a surprise. Linkston was always the first to arrive, much earlier than everyone else. He used to stand on the 2C line outside by the tree, until one rainy day Colleen invited him in to wait. From that day on, he always opened the door to the trailer, looking for Mrs. Rodriguez. She was always at her desk, right by the door.
“Miz Rodriguez! What are you doing way back there?” he asked today.
Colleen had placed her desk right under the air conditioner in the back of the room. She reasoned that it was better there because she rarely sat at it, and she gained a few feet by pushing it back into the corner. The previous Friday afternoon, she had rearranged the student desks and the reading center and had created a bulletin board on the long side of the room.
“Where’s my desk, Miz Rodriguez? The classroom is upside down!”
Colleen laughed and stood to show Linkston his new place. She had placed the desks in five clusters of six, with three desks facing three others. She had created “tables” like the ones she had used in New Jersey.
“Look, Linkston, everyone’s name is on their desk. When the children come in today, can you help me?”
“Yes, ma’am! I can read everyone’s name!” He adjusted his glasses as he walked around the desks to read the bright yellow index card attached to each one. He stood up just a bit taller and straighter. Or had he grown? His big smile lit up his eyes and revealed some missing teeth. She hadn’t seen that smile in some time. Linkston was always so serious. The transition had hit him harder than the others. He and Cynthia had been the last ones to go on a Saturday library trip.
“Let’s go meet the class, Linkston. It’s time.”
As Colleen walked toward her post, she saw the lines of children waiting for their teachers. Four lines were all Negroes. Why did they call this integration? It wasn’t, not really. The lines for the other classes had all the white children at the front and the Negro children in line behind them. Was it better or worse for the black children in the “integrated” classrooms? At least her children weren’t treated like second-class citizens.
As usual, Cynthia claimed the first position, with Jarrod right behind her, nudging her to move as soon as Colleen appeared. Cynthia stood her ground. Colleen knew that the child never wanted to disappoint her teacher.
“Good morning, chickadees!” As Colleen greeted her class, she did a quick head count. “Looks like everyone’s here. Okay, Cynthia, lead the class. I have a surprise for all of you.”
Colleen and Linkston helped the students find their new places. When the children were set, Colleen realized she would need to go over some rules.
Questions peppered the air: “Why do I have to sit next to her?”
And then complaints: “My mama says not to talk to him.”
“Children, let’s try it out. Which table is ready? Who can get their math work out first?”
Praising the children, table by table, for pulling out their books, pencils, and rulers worked to stop the chatter and begin the day. The change would take time and patience. Now the children didn’t have to pass their chairs through the narrow aisles because Colleen had placed them by their reading groups and would take her chair to them.
But by lunchtime, she questioned the rearrangement of the desks. The students never left their seats for the entire morning. The new desk placement caused a lot of snickering and face making that she hadn’t anticipated. The children were used to looking at the back of someone’s head, not at one other. The narrow rows were gone. They had served as a place for the students to line up so that she could take them to lunch in the expected orderly manner.
“Stand up and push in your chairs. I’ll call one table at a time to line up by the door.”
The first twelve students assembled across the back of the room. Colleen could see that that wasn’t going to work because they crowded into the space. After sitting all morning, the children were bursting with energy.
Just get them outside!
Walking to the lunchroom with the sun warming their heads and shoulders calmed them. Colleen was relieved to deliver them to the lunch aides. She needed to be out of that tincan classroom as much as her students did.
The afternoon was worse. Colleen tried everything. She had them stand in their places and play Simon Says, she let them march around the room to play Follow the Leader, and she praised them. Nothing worked. Then she remembered what Evelyn had told her back at West Hill months earlier: “Did you see the black strap in your middle drawer?”
Colleen remembered her surprise when she’d realized that the thick black belt was in her desk for a purpose.
“You better use it from time to time; otherwise, they won’t respect you, and they’ll get the upper hand.”
Colleen had promised herself that she would never use the belt. How could she hit a child with it? It was two or three inches wide, soft and flexible, and could encircle her waist almost twice. Every time she opened the drawer, she could smell the leather. It was a good smell, like new shoes, but it provoked some terrible thoughts: images from TV news, white faces full of rage, angry racist chants.
A ruckus from the back of the room drew her out of the memory.
“Jarrod. Sit down.”
He was still unhappy about losing Simon Says, and he had grabbed Linkston’s glasses. The two boys were struggling.
“Give me my glasses back. Don’t break them.”
Colleen rushed over and reached between them to get the glasses.
“Jarrod. Stop.”
Colleen saw a look she didn’t recognize from Jarrod. He clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes tightly, then pulled away from her. Linkston looked ready to cry, Jarrod ready to run.
Colleen rushed to her desk and opened the drawer. The smell of leather wafted up like a warning.
“Jarrod, come here.”
His anger turned to fear as he dragged himself to her desk. He knew what was in that drawer. She remembered him asking if she would use it when they were still at West Hill School.
Colleen took out the belt and hit the desk with a whack that echoed in the trailer.
“Do you want me to hit you?” She heard her words as if someone else had said them.
He shook his head from side to side so fast that some of the kids giggled.
“Then sit down.” He did. So did she.
The rest of the afternoon was quiet, but it wasn’t a good type of quiet. Shame filled her up. She had crossed the line. She couldn’t control the circumstances that had put her in this tincan classroom, but she must control her response.