A THUG IN NO-MAN’S-LAND
IT HAPPENS IN MS. CASSIDY’S TENTH-GRADE ENGLISH CLASS.
“Scholars to the ready!”
Aw, shit.
It’s one of Cassidy’s spring-in-her-step days.
“I’m sooo excited about this poetry unit, people! Seriously!”
She bounces around talking about metaphor and the senses and the end-of-the-unit poetry slam. “Poetry is meant to be spoken and heard,” she says. “So we’re going to have to trust each other.”
I look around at my “trusted peers,” and I know I’m not gonna write a fucking thing for this woman.
“For today’s assignment, we’re talkin’ personification. When might one choose to personify?”
Cassidy’s voice melts into the never-ending drone of jumbo jets skimming Puget High School’s rooftops. I figure I’m home free for the period, so I pull my hood over my head and tight around my face and lean onto my desk.
Then the door to the class opens and he walks through it.
A Mexican gangster with a shaved head and a linebacker’s body, he saunters on in and everyone—everyone—shifts their focus. All eyes are on this kid.
It’s like you can hear the shift. Like you can feel it. Like a bunch of tipsy, whale-watching tourists scrambling from one side of the ship deck to the other to catch a glimpse of a breaching orca and they almost tip the boat over.
He’s one of those types. The type that every girl wants to do and every boy wants to be. The boys all wanna be him ’cuz the girls all wanna do him. The girls all wanna do him ’cuz he’s a bad boy and girls love bad boys. Or maybe it’s that he’s six feet tall and good-looking.
He hands Cassidy his transfer slip. What does she do?
She looks right at me.
Damn!
It’s the seat!
The seat next to mine. No-Man’s-Land. The empty seat I fight to keep clear in every class. So no one bugs me. No partners. No one to turn and talk to like they’re always telling us to do. That empty seat means teachers forget I exist. It means I don’t have to act like a fake-ass dumbshit like everybody else. And when the bell rings and class starts, I can lay my head down and disappear under my coat and under my hood and escape from everything.
But right now, that seat is the only empty spot in the whole class.
Cassidy starts walking him my way and they’re all looking.
Looking at him.
Looking at me.
I feel the glares pelt my skin. My heart thumps hard. The blood rushes to my brain and the red to my face. Cassidy and the kid keep on coming my way and I’m like, Do not sit there. DO NOT SIT DOWN! The words ricochet inside my head. I glare at Cassidy with all I got, hoping I can change her mind.
She ignores me and the thug does it. He sits in No-Man’s-Land.
“Sam, this is Luis Cárdenas,” Ms. Cassidy says fake sweetly.
I don’t say hi. I don’t say anything to him.
And he doesn’t say anything to me.
He just turns away, in slow motion. It’s like an action movie where you see a creepy dude for the first time, and you just know he’s gonna end up being the bad guy. And he’s gonna do something awful to someone before it’s over.
He sits there and looks straight ahead without a word.
I look straight ahead too.
To show him I don’t care he’s there.
We go almost the whole period without even looking at each other.
Until I sneak a quick one.
And I see it.
Holy crap!
He’s got the gnarliest, sickest scar on his neck—the side of his neck facing me. Four inches long, just beneath his jawline. It’s one of those thick ones that puffs up like a mini mountain range.
I space out and visualize Luis getting his neck slashed in so many ways.
A rival gang member stabs him in a dark back alley.
A bunch of his cholo homies jump him and cut him for his initiation.
He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and coldly does the deed himself because he knows it’s gonna make him look like a badass.
The pictures keep on coming until … “What are you looking at?” One mighty vein pops red from his forehead. He clenches his jaw, glaring at me like I’m a complete idiot. Like he’s about to kill me.
“Nothin’, man.” I turn away, trembling.
He huffs and shakes his head.
I see kids tap one another on the shoulder, pointing. Whispers are firing from all directions. Their eyes are accusing me, wondering what I did to him, what I said to him to piss him off. And I know they’re all wondering what method Luis is gonna choose to kick my ass.
I plant my head back on my desk and throw my hood over it. I try to block out all the eyes. All the whispers.
I fight hard to breathe.
In.
Out.
I plead with my heart to slow its massive pounding.
In.
Out.
I wait for the blood to flow from my face and make a pact with myself: No staring. No peeks. No glances.
I’m not looking his way ever again.
Poetry Unit: PERSONIFICATION |
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Name Luis |
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Date / / |
Dearest Poets of Room 108,
We’ve read and discussed examples of personification in the poems of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and William Carlos Williams. Soon we’ll discuss examples of personification in your poetry. Write about an item from your daily life. Give that “thing” human characteristics. This will shed light on both the human experience and the subject of your poem. Deep stuff, poets. You’re deep kids, so I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, make me proud. Make me weep, laugh, think.… Make me happy I went into teaching. Please! Now get to it!
Sincerely,
Ms. Cassidy
Your brilliant ideas:
My Scar: An Old Man in the Community Pool
My scar is old man Pyle
Floating alone in the Highline Pool
The shriveled viejito grandpa
Smiling in his tiny Speedo
With skin like prune fruit leather
That sags and folds and droops
You stare at Mr. Pyle in his microscopic trunks
Your jaw drops
Your eyebrows scrunch
You don’t want to look
But no matter how hard you try
You just can’t stop looking
—Luis Cárdenas