6:00 am. I walk out of the front door, getting ready for my third year as an English teacher at Vacaville High School. I get in the car, and drive over to a place called "Hava Java," in the shopping center at Monte Vista Ave. and Depot St. The place was owned by a couple, husband and wife, who were Jordanian-Christians, who had grown weary of the persecution by the Islamic majority, so they came to the US. By the time I had met them, a couple of years earlier, they had been in the Country long enough for the husband to retire, somehow ending up in Vacaville, and opening a coffee house. I had been a regular during my first two years, and saw no reason to change the routine, they were really wonderful people, living a Christian-lifestyle, as well as the "American Dream". I just wish I could remember their names. About the fourth time I went in there, the wife already had my order, and was ringing me up at the register, and I decided that I wanted to be able to call them by name, so I asked. When school was out for Summer, I wouldn't go there that often, because it wasn't "on-the-way" to Vaca High. I'd stop in a couple of times, and the wife would have my order ready, and be ringing the cash register before I could get to the counter, and we'd joke about memory, and have a quick laugh.
6:10 am: I get to Hava Java, get out of my car, and as I approach the door, it's only the two of them in the store, she is behind the counter, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, and he's yelling at the TV, "They've done it! They've ruined everything!" As I walk by, I look at the TV, and see a tall building on fire, but I don't stop, I just go to the counter, which gets her moving, and in a minute, I am into my car, tuning to news radio to find out what the flock is going on. It's less that a three minute ride from Hava Java to my parking space at the school, but I'm sure it didn't take that long.
6:13 am: I know this time very well, because it was so early, that the custodians hadn't come and turned off the alarm that I set off, and that's what the report said. I grab the TV remote, and turn the TV to FOX News (one of only three classrooms to not use CNN or MSNBC, that I know of), just in time to see the second strike. I slumped into my chair, and worried, for the second time in my 50 years, about my safety (I was old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, and going to bed worried that I'd be woken up by an atomic blast).
Sometime later, a student (not one of mine) stops and asks if he can come in and watch TV with me, and I invite him in. He takes off his backpack, and looks up just as the first tower goes down. "Fuck, did you see that?" he asked. Totally overwhelmed with emotion, it was all I could do to get out, "Uh-huh." And then my mind, kinda, took a break. We both sat in silence, he was probably afraid to say what he was thinking, I was totally numb from the depth of the emotional "brick wall" that had just fallen on me, and then the second tower collapsed.
My first thought was that today's lessons had just been cancelled, and I called the Principal, asking if I could run my TV all day. After a couple of seconds he okayed my idea, with what was happening in New York, I believed that the students might want to talk about what they were thinking and feeling as they got the news. I was right, too, at least for my students.
Normally, on a "Movie Day," or some other break from the norm, my students would pretty much ignore what was on, and talk about BFF's, and how much better life was going to be after they graduated, you know... normal teenage BS... but not this day.
Our routine was for them to read quietly, write in their journals, or even work on late homework, while I took the roll, a period of about 5 minutes. As a group, they were usually pretty good about the roll call, as it were, and were pretty quiet, but this day, there was nothing, no talk, no joking around, they came in, most said "Good," when they saw that the TV was on, and they watched. They watched with eyes wide, some full of anger, some full of sorrow, and more than a few through frightened tears. They waited until five minutes passed, and in every class, someone would raise their hand and ask, "What happens now?" That would become the catalyst for a class discussion in which participation was almost total. A number of them were angry, so we talked about that, we talked about the sorrow, and what would make someone commit such a heinous attack. Most of them wanted to talk about being scared, so we talked about terror, about extremism, and about fanaticism. The one thing I would not allow, and I would tell them that before we really got started, no hate. We were not going to brew hate in my room, because hate is rooted in ignorance, and I didn't allow ignorance to enter my class. I would even go as far as to "cast a spell" on my doorway, to ward off ignorance, which would usually result in someone commenting, "Hey [Bobby/Tommy/Mike, etc] that means you can't come to class any more..." To make it fun, I'd make a "bet" with my TA's as to who would be the first, and who'd be the person made fun of... I usually got one, or the other, right, and twice got both.
By the end of the school day, I was worn out.
On a side note, because the couple that owned Hava Java were of Arabic descent, people stopped going there (except me), and as the days went by, I watched a man, who had never hurt anyone, lose his business. They're gone now. Where? I have no clue. I did, however, finally understand his comment, "They've ruined everything!" It's just so unfair. Yes, I got understanding, but it cost me a friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment