I am so sick of petty high school mess. I can’t wait to graduate and meet some legitimate men. Heck, and women. This place is just so insignificant. It’s like a prison of immaturity with no chance of rehabilitation for any of the frickin’ inmates. I want out!
Blu and I leave Starbucks, and we’re on our way to school.
“I don’t know if I can do this, girl. I’ve never been this embarrassed in my life. He made me look like a two-dollar fool.”
“Speaking of that, you still owe me two dollars from last month.”
“Really? I’m all distraught and whatnot, and you’re cracking jokes?”
“Get over it already. You cried for like three days straight. Stop playing the frickin’ victim. Be a woman.”
“Thanks for being so sensitive, Blu.”
“Uggghh! You act like you still love him.” I take a sip of my chai latte and keep my eyes on the road. “If you do, trick, then talk to him.”
“Nothing to say. It’s gonna take a long time for me to talk to him, and even longer to trust another guy on the planet.”
“I heard Uranus had some good guys.”
“You’re stupid.” And we both laugh like we used to, before all the madness started. “As long as I don’t have to see him today, ya know.”
“I hear ya, girl. But just in case we do, I got my pepper spray.”
The first person I see when I walk into school is Omar Smalls. He looks different. It’s not like I forgot what he looked like, but I don’t see the guy who gave me the best birthday celebration ever. I see the ho. The playa. The guy who bet his friends a hundred fifty dollars that he could sleep with me. I immediately turn and walk down the stairs, past the band room, along the “detention” hallway that goes under the school, and come up the stairs near my government class. Mr. Washington is sitting at his desk.
“We missed you in class on Friday, Ms. Clarke.”
“Sorry about that. Rough day. I heard we had a quiz.”
“We did, but it was really to make sure everybody’s been doing the reading. I know I don’t have to worry about you doing the reading.” He didn’t, normally. But ever since I’ve been all up in Omar’s mix, I haven’t been as diligent with all my reading assignments as I should have been. I’ll catch up next weekend. Nothing to distract me now.
The bell rings.
On the way to my seat, I get all kinds of sympathy remarks from the students.
“Girl, you okay?”
“That was some messed up ish, Claudia.”
“T-Diddy did the same thing to my cousin last year. He’s a good football player, but he don’t know how to be good to no girls.”
When I hear this last comment, I want to come to his defense. Tell her how he came and changed my tire in the middle of the cold night. How he volunteers for Lucky Dog. How he made me a five-course dinner. How he learned French for me. How he introduced me to Pat Conroy.
“Play with fire, and you get burned. I tried to tell you, this here is a big-girl game. Know the rules, bish.” I turn around and see Eve walking toward my desk, gritting on me like a pit bull. I sit down and try to ignore her. Don’t worry, Claudia. She’s not going to touch you; Mr. Washington is right there, up front. She’s crazy, but she can’t be that stupid.
Turns out she is.
The palm of her hand feels like a hardcover book when it slams against the back of my head. When I hear it hit the floor, I realize it was a book. U.S. history. No she didn’t.
I jump up, forgetting the pain momentarily, and instead focus on protecting myself if she tries to come at me.
“Girl, what’s your problem. Are you crazy?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m crazy a’ight,” she screams, waving her hands all willy-nilly. Where is Mr. Washington? He’s got to see this! When Eve steps out of her sandals, a collective “ohhhhhh,” fills the class. “Claudia Clarke is about to get a beatdown,” somebody hollers.
She comes at me fierce and fast, her long and flaming-red-fingernailed hands flailing in the air, and before I know it, I’m back in tae kwon do camp. Sixth grade. I only made it to yellow belt, and the only thing I learned was how to block and punch. I’ve never tried it outside of the white uniform. Until today. I’m Claudia Clarke, the good girl. So when I block her wild blow with my left arm, and my right fist connects with her face like a hammer, everyone is in shock. Especially me. She slides to the floor like a holy roller in church. I drop my books, ready to do it again once she gets up.
“Who’s burned now, bish?” I scream at her, feeling like I’ve discovered the Pam Grier in me. It feels kinda great. But before I can stomp on her, or whatever two years of martial arts and six years of pent-up, raw, unadulterated, pure hatred of her was dictating me to do, Mr. Washington separates us. Now he shows up.
“Stop it this minute, both of you.”
“Both of us?” Eve says, standing up. “She’s the one who punched me.” I see blood dripping from her hand, which is covering her eye, and I feel a little bad. Only a little.
Mr. Washington instructs a couple of students to take Eve to the nurse’s office—before he realizes that there is no nurse’s office. It got cut in last year’s budget deficit.
I run and get the first-aid kit and give it to Mr. W.
“Even a prison has a nurse,” he screams. “This damn school is worse than a prison. Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“Well, it’s a good thing you don’t have to be locked up in here anymore,” says a voice behind us. Standing in the doorway is Principal Jackson, aka Cruella, and some young white dude in a corduroy suit who none of us recognize.
“Uh, Dr. Jackson, we’re all just a little discombobulated. What can I help you with?” Mr. Washington asks, still treating Eve, who is, justifiably, still gritting on me.
“Actually, there is nothing you can help me with. Is that blood? Was someone fighting in here, Mr. Washington?” The room grows quieter than it was before.
“There was no fight. Eve just, um, stumbled on her way to her desk and hit the corner of the desk. It was ugly.” Eve looks at me and I know she won’t say anything, because Cru has a rule that fighting is an automatic one-week suspension, whether you’re the fighter or the fightee. So we both keep quiet.
“She fell on her eye?” Dr. Jackson asks suspiciously. “Oh, never mind, just have some of your students get it cleaned up.”
“Will do.”
“In the meantime, can you step out in the hallway for a minute, Mr. Washington? There is something we need to discuss.” The entire class stares at Dr. Jackson and then at Mr. Washington.
“I’m a little busy here. As soon as I finish, I’ll come down to your office,” he responds.
“Unacceptable. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I need to speak with you this moment.” Mr. W ignores her, still tending to evil Eve’s busted eye.
“Fine. Someone get some ice from the cafeteria,” he says to no one in particular, while shooting me a disappointed look. He hands the first-aid kit to another student. I head for the cafeteria, and he follows Cruella into the hallway. While I’m walking away, I can hear snippets of their conversation: “. . . insubordination . . . the school board voted . . . so many complaints about you . . .”
I do hear Mr. Washington’s response loud and clear.
“Bullshit,” he yells. Something’s going down, and it’s not good. I grab the ice and run back to class. I see Cruella talking to another teacher, and the white guy in the corduroy suit standing outside the door. Inside, Mr. Washington is talking to the class:
“I’m being laid off. A substitute will take over class until they reassign one of the existing teachers to this class.”
“No way, Mr. W,” says one student.
“That’s ill—how long before you leave?” asks another.
“I have fifteen minutes to exit the building. The guy standing in the hall is my escort.”
I run outside and see Dr. Jackson walking away. “This isn’t fair,” I yell. She whips her head around so fast, it takes a second for her body to catch up.
“Ms. Clarke, I’ve had about enough of you and your antics these past few weeks. If I were you, I’d keep quiet.”
“I will not,” I say defiantly. This is not the best week, and it’s the worst frickin’ day to try to silence me. Oh hells no!
“Well then, you can pack your proverbial bags also, because you’re suspended for the day. Want to try for two?”
Before I tell her hell yeah, I hear a loud commotion from Mr. Washington’s room. I rush back inside.
“Hey, check this out. Kids are leaving.” Leaving?
“Yeah, they’re all walking onto the lawn.”
Cruella apparently followed me, because she rushes over to the window. Several students follow. Mr. Washington and I, and the rest of the class, go over as well, and sure enough, there’s got to be a hundred students outside, and more are coming. What’s going on?
“Oh, snap, y’all, I just checked FB on my phone,” Tami hollers. “Listen to this: ‘The governor and her flunkies on the school board didn’t take us serious. They just fired a bunch of our favorite teachers. Let’s show them how we do. Meet me on the lawn. Not later. Not tomorrow. Now. ASAP. Oh, it’s going down. Speak up now!’”
“Who wrote that, Ms. Hill?” Cru asks with a stern look.
But Tami doesn’t need to answer, because everybody knows who wrote it. And when we look out the window at the guy standing on top of a picnic bench, it’s confirmed. There he is, looking like Dr. Martin frickin’ Luther King in jeans and Timberlands, standing on the mountaintop. Within seconds, our class is empty.
Damn you, Omar Smalls.