Unbelievable though it seems to me now, it’s been nearly 25 years. And I still lose sleep.
I served as a principal of an elementary school. I’d been doing this long enough to know that if, whenever possible, I could spend time on the yard at recess, I could minimize the number of second-hand disciplinary accounts I needed to wade through after recesses. Plus, shooting baskets with kids – particularly as poorly as I shot baskets – always served as a positive.
A new fifth grade boy named Ricky presented a particular uniqueness almost from the moment he walked on campus that fall. Handsome as a kid could be, but big and intimidating. Intellectually very, very sharp, but, unable – or, perhaps, unwilling – to be a friend. My goal was to make him mine by interacting, shooting a few hoops and making eye contact whenever possible. It didn’t work. I think he knew I was looking but for some reason, he wouldn’t look back.
After a string of questionable behaviors – running through jump rope games, being overly physical on the court or while in touch football, ‘getting into the face’ of another student – the kid eclipsed my patience when he approached a fourth grader who was playing basketball, grabbed the ball and kicked it across the yard. The littler kid puffed out his chest and said, “Go get that!” at which point Ricky put the kid in a headlock and punched his face not once, not twice but three times. That earned the big boy a three day suspension from school, even though an assault charge and a report to the police might easily have been in order.
Suspensions – the very few that I issued – always required a student-parent conference upon reentry to campus. The conversation at this one was particularly memorable.
Me: I’m glad you’re back at school. This place isn’t complete unless all my students are here.
Mother and child both likely viewed this as condescending. Perhaps it was.
Mom: Ricky has something to ask you.
Me: Go ahead.
Ricky: Why are you always picking one me?
Flabbergasted, I didn’t know quite how to respond. I wasn’t going to argue with the child, I wasn’t going to mention the criminal assault I’d witnessed, though should have. Instead, I just sat there with my mouth hanging open until I released him back to class.
His mom then spent a good five minutes excoriating me for singling out her son. “He comes home and tells me how he’s being bullied all the damned time! And you, you who’s supposed to be in charge, you turn out to be just another male who lets him down!”
Quite the tirade, I thought. The school secretary, having heard the commotion from outside my closed door, agreed.
Later that afternoon, I received an unsolicited phone call from Ricky’s grandfather. He apologized for the behavior of his daughter’s son and for that of his daughter. “The boy’s had a rough time since his father abandoned him and his brother. Really left my daughter in the lurch.” I thanked him for his concern, but he continued. “I’ve decided I need to take a stronger hand in teaching him some respect and responsibility so I’ve decided to take him and his brother up to the ranch an learn ‘em both how to work the animals and maybe learn’ em how to fire a rifle.”
“Fire a rifle?” I don’t think I stammered, but I might have.
“Yeah. Target shooting. Cleaning the thing afterward. I think that’ll help teach ‘em how to be respectful and responsible. Deep down, I know he’s a really good kid.”
My heart had always told me that deep down, they’re all really good kids. But in this case, I didn’t understand the logic. Here was an angry kid, one who had become an expert at posing as the victim when he was the victimizer. Indeed, he was a bully – but one whose behavior was always accepted by his parent. What the hell was learning him how to use a rifle really going to do for him?
I didn’t respond with that question. Instead, I thanked Grandpa for his concern but as I hung up the phone, a distinct chill coursed through my body. This kid potentially could bring a firearm to school and, instead of punching someone his junior, he could pull it out and shoot him. Or he could storm into my office and shoot me.
That sleepless night, I found myself thinking not so much about my own mortality, but that if I were somehow incapacitated, how would I be able to protect my kids out on the yard or in their classrooms? The thought didn’t leave me, even when I transferred from that school site position to an administrative slot in the neighboring district office. Ricky knew where to find me, I was sure.
Retired now some fifteen years, that eerie chill revisits every time some kid gains access to a weapon and makes his way onto a school campus. If I were there, I’d throw myself in front of the kid if I thought it might save the life of another.
That urgent, weird feeling of regard and disregard returned on a recent Monday when news broke of a 14-year-old who took out two fellow students and two math teachers at a high school in Georgia. The kid’s dad reportedly bought him an AR as a birthday gift.
I didn’t sleep well that Monday night. I kept thinking of my boy, Ricky, Even though he could no longer be a threat to me.
About twenty years ago, over a holiday break – several years after Ricky left my elementary school campus – as a junior or senior in high school, his mom found her son hanging from a closet rod in his bedroom with his Sunday-best tie looped around his neck and knotted over the dowel.
Over the course of my 35-plus years in education, I lost five – maybe six – students to early deaths. One with a congenital heart defect. Another slipped over a waterfall. With each, I found myself burrowing into a quiet room where I could shut the door, turn down the lights and simply cry.
Ricky would be no exception.
But I still lose sleep.
© 2024
Church of the Open Road Press
