The Fight May 2023

It was a fight, your students tell you later. 

He is late but stays standing as if scanning the horizon. You call his name, trying to get his attention, but you’re still sitting down, talking with another student about their work at the concrete picnic tables. There aren’t enough laptops, anyway, even though you had brought extra, and the wifi is patchy on the senior patio; his turn can wait. You had taken your class outside today, and some of them are still ambling over, thirty minutes after the bell, waving their printed, green, tardy passes. A golf cart pauses nearby, the uniformed security guard frowns into your collection of students. His eyes antennae for an adult to lock onto to legitimize the teens’ presence, so you wave and smile. 

“I’m here, they’re with me.” You pass for a student at first glance sometimes; messy bun and jeans. Satisfied, the cart gently buzzes onward.  

You count quickly and turn to one of the girls, holding out your rainbow keychain, asking her to bring more laptops from your locked classroom: “If security asks, you didn’t see this key, you’ve never held this key, this key doesn’t exist for you.” 

She grins, golden apple-cheeks against her poker-long braids. “I know, Miss.”

She’s a good kid. You trust her. 

It’s his turn now, you stand up, ask him about his essay but his brown eyes stare intently over your right shoulder, towards the locked front gate. You glance, nothing there, you try again; you move on. He’s a good kid, too. You’ve taught him for three years, everyone has an off day, it’s okay. It’s Friday, almost 9 am, getting too warm to be outside, anyway. The electric blue sun umbrellas have been taken in from breakfast, or not put out yet for lunch. Heat ripples from the hard surfaces; concrete and metal. It’s getting hard to see the laptop screens, with or without your sunglasses. 

“Miss, can you help me?” 

“Miss, come to me next.” 

“Miss?” 

“Miss! Where’s the assignment?” 

She returns with the laptops, your keys discreetly travel back to your wrist. 

You see another of your students, grinning widely, walking the wrong side of the fence, away from the gate. Your shoulders sag in relief; he must have been sent home after this morning’s fight.

Later, you recall a tension in the air, like when the air pressure changes before a hurricane, but you’re not sure if you’re confusing that with hindsight. 

When the intercom interrupts your warm-up in period three, you sigh audibly to your creative writing class. Only it’s not a drill. You hear running in the hallway. Another lockdown has started - you can’t open the door, even to students. Untying the black ribbon, the door blind drops. You whisper and gesticulate your students into the far corner of the room. Phones should be off, but you let them use them on silent. You want them to be distracted. 

You wait. You hear the whispers. You remind them not to pass on rumors. You reassure. You wait. You don’t want to remember last October when a senior left his class and jumped from the third-floor balcony. 

Another fight, your students tell you. A big fight, a hundred kids, maybe knives, perhaps a gun. Security guards, and police. Arrests. You don’t know? They seem puzzled by this. 

When the names are sent to you over the weekend, he is on the list of expulsions. The good kid. The one who was staring into the near future.