Jack takes us through several more weeks with his middle school students.

“Do not speak harshly to anyone; those who are spoken to will answer in the same way.” Buddha




Moments of Awakening : Chapter-Eleven

What a week, I tell myself as I sit in my back yard and breath in the beauty of this California sky on this mid November morning of my sixty ninth year. On Tuesday it was Mr. S’ ELD classes. I had subbed for him earlier in the year and his eighth graders had given me a really hard time, making animal noises, laughing and coughing as I mispronounced their Spanish names. I let them know that I was really disappointed in them. “I’ve known some of you guys since sixth grade and it really makes me sad to see that you’re less mature now than you were back then. Remember, I’m here to keep the learning going while your teacher is away….” And I realized that they were bunching up on me, “the enemy” in their identity as a “minority.” One reason to not group students with language difficulties together. Many of our born English speakers are reading and writing at just as low a level as the ELD kids. How come there are no white kids in the ELD classes?

Anyhow, Tuesday they gave me a little less trouble, but still they are not putting forth their best effort. During the social studies lesson, we are reading as a group. Half the students are not following along. Several times I stop the reading and explain to them that if they don’t read along they are just wasting their time. “You might as well stay home, if you’re not going to read along. You know, you not only pick up historical information, but you can improve your vocabulary and your reading skills….” I tell them. We struggle through four or five pages with most students just pretending to read.

“You guys don’t know how important reading is. I know you have difficultly reading. It’s not your fault that you’re behind grade level. But, it is your fault if you stay behind. You have to make super effort to catch up. No one else is going to learn to read for you. This is something you have to do for yourself. How are you going to get a job if you don’t know how to read?”

“I can get a job in construction. My uncle works in construction. He don’t know how to read. I can get a job in construction,” Eddie tells me.

“Yea sure, as a laborer. I have a friend who doesn’t know how to read. He’s an excellent carpenter. He’s been promoted to foreman several different times. Each time he had to give up the foreman job because he couldn’t fill out the paper work. And, what happens when you have children and your little boy or girl says daddy read me a story? You’re not a man if you can’t read,” I tell him.

Wednesday it’s Mrs. Boulder’s class. The first two periods are not too bad. Then I get a group of remedial students for three periods straight. Mrs. Boulder has left new seating charts and I tell the students that they better be in their assigned seats are they’ll get detention. As I take roll, I discover that Arturo is sitting in the wrong seat. “You belong here, up front. Move,” I tell him pointing to his seat.

“Mrs. B. changed my seat yesterday,” he tells me.

“That might be, but today we’re going by this seating chart. So, move,” I say and write his name on the board.

“What’s that for? I’m moving. How come you wrote my name? I don’ believe you,” Arturo whines as he makes his way to his assigned seat. When he gets there he slams his book on the desk.

I put a check by his name.

“Now what? I moved didn’t I?” he screams. This gets a big laugh from his classmates. I add another check to his name.

“Score one for Mr. D.!” Brandon shouts. I write his name on the board. “Oh Mr. D. come on bro. If I get in trouble today I’m gonna get suspended. Come on Bro!” Brandon tells me. “You gonna rap for us today, Mr. D?” from another student. “You be here all day?” “I don’t believe you gave me two checks. I didn’t do nothing….”

I have to write up three referrals before the class finally settles down. With the three main trouble makers gone and several of the worst students absent, the rest of the day goes by fairly easy.

Thursday I sub for Mr. Z. The first two periods go by pretty easy. Then, I get his remedial kids for three periods in a row. Again, they want to play hassle the substitute. There are the usual kids not sitting in their assigned seats and the effort of getting them to move. Several students don’t have their English books, and I have to switch them around to share books. Then there is the student who yells we already did this page. I write names and add checks and finally get the lesson started. It’s a difficult lesson where they have to identify independent and subordinate clauses. As we read the rules and examples together, I notice that Jeff doesn’t have his book open. “Why aren’t you following along?” I ask him.

“I already did this page,” he tells me.

“Good, open your book, follow along, and you can help us learn the rules.”

“No, Mr. Z doesn’t make us do the same page twice. I’m working ahead,” he says.

I write his name and put a check beside it. “What the hell was that for?” he asks. This draws a big laugh from the class. I put a second check beside his name. “I don’t believe you!” he shouts.

I add a third check and tell the class to copy sentences one though ten from their books and we’ll work them out together after I write up Jeff’s referral. On the referral, I write refusing to do work, and disturbing entire class. I hand the referral to Jeff. He reads it over and starts for the door. “Liar,” he says and slams the door behind him. Another big laugh from the class.

“O.K. lets take a little time off lunch,” I tell the class and write a one on the white board.

“You can’t do that.” “We have to have time to eat.” “I’m telling my mom.” from the class.

“I can take five minutes off your lunch,” I tell them and add another minute. There are muffled complaints but they continue to copy the sentences. As I write the first sentence on the board, a piece of eraser flies through the air and hits a student in front.

“Who threw that?” Sammy screams. This draws another big laugh. I change the two to a four, and write Sammy’s name on the board.

“For what? I’m the one who got hit. Why don’t you write up the one who threw it?” from Sammy.

“Tell me who threw it and I’ll write a referral,” I say as I add a check to Sammy’s name.

“Jennifer, Jennifer,” several students say pointing to a quiet girl who sits in the middle of the room.

I change the four to a five.

“Can we earn our time back?” asks one of the students.

“We can earn our time back if we start working on the assignment,” I tell them and go back to the white board. We do the first and second sentence together.
The phone rings. “You want me to answer it?” from a student in back.

“No, thanks. All right, copy the rest of the sentences and we’ll correct them together,” I tell the class and go to the phone.

“Mr. Daley, I’m putting on the speaker phone. Can you tell me what Jeff did to get this referral?” Ms. Holdon asks. At least half of the students have stopped copying the sentences, and turned to watch me on the phone. There are numerous giggles and grunts.

“He was sitting in the wrong seat. He refused to do his work. He was arguing and disrupting the entire class,” I tell Ms. Holdon.

“Liar!” “Liar!” “Liar” from several students.

“You know, this is a really difficult class. They’re chanting liar, liar, liar right now. I wish you could come over and see them. I sent Jeff to the office because he was disrupting the whole class. He’s doing it again over the telephone. I can’t talk to you on the phone and teach this class.”

“I know Mr. Daley. I know, but this is Jeff’s sixth referral. He has a right to question this referral because he will be suspended if it goes through. He wants you to send Jason to the office to testify to what he did….”

“Well, naturally, Jason will lie for him. Jason is just one check away from getting a referral himself.”

“Do you think all eighth graders are liars, Mr. Daley?”

“Well, all in this class.”

“Jeff has a right to have someone to testify to what he did. You can send someone else from the class to verify your charges,” Ms. Holden tells me and hangs up.

“Liar, Liar, Liar….” From a number of students through out the room.

“O.K. Jason. Ms. Holden wants you in the office,” I tell him. “Tell her he’s a liar,” from a student in the back.

I’m trying to figure whom to send to testify in my behalf. There are several really quiet hard working students in the room, but I figure they may be too frightened to tell the truth, or that they may get picked on by the other kids. I select a kind of rowdy girl who doesn’t seem like she will be completely swayed by the others, and write her a pass. A couple more chants of “liar, liar,” as she walks from the room.

“You do know that I am leaving a note for Mr. Z. about your behavior. He’s not going to be very happy,” I tell them and the students quiet down a little. We do a couple sentences together with most of the students participating. Then, the new counselor walks in and takes a seat in the back of the room. Most students snap to attention. I ask them to read off the sentences as they wrote them and identify the independent and subordinate clauses. As we correct sentences, I ‘m surprised to see that the volunteers really know their grammar. We go through the lesson with ease and I’m a little proud of how well I have presented it.
The bell rings for fourth period to end. “Do we get our break?” “Do we get our break, now?”
several students ask.

“No, you earned five minutes off your lunch. I’ll take the four minutes off your break, and only one minute off lunch if you start behaving,” I tell them erasing the five and writing a one. The new counselor gets up to leave for early lunch duty.

“Thanks for stopping in,” I tell him. He nods goodbye and takes his leave. I have a couple students pass out the grammar worksheets that Mr. Z prepared for the class. “O.K. these worksheets are more of what we did on the board. If you don’t get them done in class, they’re homework,” I tell them. Most of the students either begin the worksheets, pretend to do them, or work on something else without too much commotion. Several of the brighter students finish up early. I check their papers and seeing that they are done correctly hand them a copy of my short stories that Mr. Z. stores in his room. “Pick a story, read it, and then rate it from one to ten and explain why you rated it at that level,” I tell them. The clock ticks slowly. I walk around the room helping students, putting out little squabbles, and writing names and checks where necessary. Several students ask if they can read from my short stories. I check their work and give them a booklet if it is mostly correct.

With twenty minutes to go until lunch, most students are either finishing up their worksheets or growing very bored with them. “Alright! For the last twenty minutes we’ll do silent reading. If everybody reads, you get your minute back,” I tell them and pass out my short stories.

I’m surprised that most of them do some reading. More than half read for the entire twenty minutes. I give them their minute back and dismiss them for lunch. “One more period,” I tell myself as I collect the booklets.

On my way to lunch, Ms. Holdon stops me and explains that both Jason and Veronica supported my charges. She apologizes for interrupting my class, and explains that when a student is up for suspension he has the right to question his referral.

Back in the classroom after lunch, I tell the students that they are the losers when they misbehave with a substitute. “You know, we subs are human too. We have feelings. When you hurt our feelings how do you think that we will react? I’ve been around for a long time. I have a lot that I could tell you about. If we finished most of Mr. Z’s work, I could discuss some of my experiences in the forties, fifties and sixties….”

“Like you do in math class?” from one of the quiet students.

“Yea, like in math class. We could discuss your human machine and how it works. There are a lot of things that you could learn from an older person like me if you treated me with a little respect….”

I let the students go back to their worksheets and see a definite change in their behavior for the next twenty minutes or so. Several students raise their hands and apologize for their earlier behavior when I come to their desks. They begin to get a little rowdy as the period progresses, but they are much better than they were before lunch. I let them know that I will tell Mr. Z how much their behavior improved after lunch.

It’s a couple days later, I’m sitting on my second story front porch with a couple neighbors. We’re making small talk and looking across at a high mountain range several miles away. “Don has been starting up his pick up at midnight every night for the past few weeks. Just like clock work he starts it up at midnight and takes off,” one of the neighbors tells us.

At that moment, we see Don’s pick up drive to the edge of the mountain. It pauses for a moment and then goes over. “Oh, no!” I shout. There is a loud boom and a vast explosion. In a second or two there is a vast landslide and the whole mountain comes tumbling down. “Oh, no!” I shout expecting the rocks to start hitting us at any moment.

Several neighbors come walking down the street with dishes of food. One reaches up a big bowl of salad and a bottle of Chianti to me. I hurry into the kitchen thinking that I’ll open the wine and get a quick drink before it is all gone.

Next morning, I’m in my computer room on the fiftieth floor of a high-rise apartment building. My son, Stoke, emails me that he is on his way over. He is going to materialize at my front door. The first four attempts fail. On the fifth, I hear the doorbell ring. Stoke is standing there. We shake hands and I invite him in.

The computer buzzes. I hurry back to the monitor and see that Stoke is going to make a sixth attempt to transport himself. Instead of a message from Stoke, a wave of water comes through the screen. I know he’s O.K. though ‘cause I can see him in the front room. I tell myself that it must be spam, and head back to the front.

It’s a week later. I’m walking on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I’m looking for my father. “He use to box out’a Atlantic City back in the nineteen twenties,” I tell an older store clerk. “Yea, they called him ‘the boxing baker….’”

The guy says he never heard of him, but that he’ll keep an eye out.

“Yea, Charlie Daley… Charley Daley….” I tell the man.

“Did someone say Jack Daley,” I hear in the distance.

“Yea, that’s right. He changed his name from Sentitius to Daley because Dempsey was a popular champ. Maybe he did fight under Jack. I tell myself.

I look to see who is calling Jack Daley and see Ida, an old friend from my sixth grade teaching days. She’s wearing a pale blue suit and looking old and haggard. “Jack Daley. How the hell you doing?” she asks.

“I’m looking for my father,” I say returning her smile and waving good-bye.

I’m trying to find my way out of the park. I think that I’m heading in the right direction when I pass a ride that I’ve walked by before.

Another week goes by. I’m in a tent in Afghanistan. A little barefoot boy gives me a tiny cracker with a piece of salami on top. I pop it into my mouth and thank him. I bend down to kiss a little girl. “I might as well give you a kiss too while I’m down here,” I tell the girl next to her. The little girls giggle and cover their faces with tiny hands.

The phone rings. I answer it and the first sergeant tells me that I missed the battle call that was given two hours ago. Oh no, I tell myself hoping that no one was killed or injured because I did not fill my station.

“You were supposed to mop the mess hall floor. Now, the men will have to eat off a dirty floor,” the sergeant roars.

“It won’t happen again, Sir,” I tell him.

“It better not. You know, court martial!”

“Yes sir,” I answer.

It’s a week later. I’m an eight -grade student at a Middle School dance talking to my teacher, a beautiful black haired woman. I tell her if she takes a walk with me after the dance that I’ll wait until morning to leave for my trip. She asks where I’m going. I tell her that I’m hitching to North Dakota to meet my father. As the words come out of my mouth, I change into a 69-year-old substitute teacher. I know that I’m lying to the black haired woman because my father passed more than twenty years ago.

I change back into an eighth grader. The dance is over and I’m walking toward the workout room. I’m telling myself that I’d better loosen up a little as I’ll be awake all night hitching to North Dakota. I climb onto the thread mill and strap myself into a shoulder harness. As I look into the full-length mirror in front, I see a fourteen-year-old boy who is dressed in an army fatigue jacket, sweatshirt, and Levi’s. I smile back at my face though I have never seen it before. I like the face and body, but I don’t like the spike haircut of the boy.

Several weeks go by. I’m walking to a baseball field with a group of six graders. When we get to the field, we find that it is already occupied by another school group. The recreation director tells us that he will take us to another field several miles away.

We board the bus carrying our bags and equipment. I’m sitting in the back with two little six-grade girls who are jumping up and down with excitement. I try to get into their excitement, but I’m drawn to the bags at my feet. One of them contains a portable bed and a change of clothes the other contains my equipment. I figure I’ll throw the big bag on the empty seat behind me. I pull an old wooden bat out of the equipment bag. I look at the big chip off the front of it, and wonder if I wouldn’t be better off using one of the metal bats that the school provides.

We are flying above city streets just inches above the tallest buildings. “They say that a white man from New York City keeps sixteen rooms at the Radisson,” one of the passengers tells another, pointing to the tallest building beneath us.

“That’s o.k. As long as the minorities have equal access,” says another passenger pointing to a large mansion where a black family lives. I’m more interested in how close we are to the buildings as we speed above nearly touching the rooftops.

Back on the ground, we walk toward the playing field. As we approach the field, a guy in sport shirt and slacks walks up to me. “You’re a writer aren’t you?” he asks.

“Well, I have a couple novels published,” I answer.

“Yea, I read one of them,” he tells me.

“Oh, which one?”

Tasting the White Water.

“How’d you like it?”

“It’s good writing, but a little too complicated,” he says and walks toward the field building.

I follow him and say, “Why don’t you give me your name and phone number and I’ll give you a call. We could get together and discuss the novel. I’ll bring you a copy of Sunday Mornings. You can read it just for the enjoyment.”

The guy takes a card from his shirt pocket and begins to write on it. A phone rings. He answers it, cradles it between his neck and shoulder and continues to write. “Here,” he tells me.

I stick it in my shirt pocket without looking at it. The guy finishes his phone conversation and follows me back to the field. “What do you teach?” I ask.

“Oh, I’m not a teacher. I’m a writer,” he tells me.

“What, you actually earn your living as a writer?”

“It’s not that hard. You set aside a five-day period and do nothing but write. You can knock off a hundred pages. That’s rough draft of course.”

“Yea, that’s my dream. To earn my living as a writer. You know, teaching is hard work. Even aside from the discipline, what you have to do it is hard work.”

“Well, give me a call. I get down here just about every Thursday. Spend a couple hours at the mall. Give me a call,” he says.

I nod good-bye and hurry toward the field wondering if the game has started yet, and hoping I won’t lose my ups.

Next morning, I ‘m with a group of sixth grade students at my foster parents old farm in Newtown, Pennsylvania. We’re searching the front yard and out buildings for burial shrouds that we are to sleep in when we stay over tonight. Most of the kids are using chicken wire to fashion their shrouds into oval six-foot coffins. I want to find something different and search along the fence line where I find a steel John Deere tire. I roll it back to the front yard thinking that with a little help it will make an excellent bed.

The grass in the front yard is about three feet high. There must’a been a warm spell since the last time it was mowed, I tell myself and try to remember where the weed eater is kept. I picture myself swinging into the damp grass and splashing the water.

I’m in the front seat of a Piper J-3 cub. The foreman is showing me how to fly over the orchards. He cuts power and glides between the brown dried branches of an old apple tree. The wings slip between branches barley touching. “Lower your stick to pick up air speed,” he says and backs away from the tree trunk. We do this several more times as I gasp in amazement.

Back on the ground, I’m talking to one of the field workers. She’s a middle-aged woman from South America. “You know, the cannery up the street from Heinz is looking for help. They need someone to sort on the fruit line. We sent another girl up, but she didn’t make it. It might give you a chance to make an extra buck,” I tell the woman.

“Thank you, senor,” She says and walks to the shed to put away her hoe.

Several weeks go by. I’m walking on Broad Street in Philadelphia. It’s a little passed seven P.M. just starting to get dark. I remember that as I left the house, Anne said, “Why don’t you take in a movie? You deserve a night out on your own.” I’m thinking that it might be really enjoyable to sit in on a movie all by myself.

I come up on a theater on my right hand side. I’m thinking that the Bluebird was at block farther up on the other side of Susquehanna. As I peek into the lobby, I see Will Sanders, a guy that I taught with in the late seventies, and another man walking out. Will is wearing an usher’s uniform. “No…. No, you can’t come in. It’s too late, Jack. The last show has already started. Try the other place up the street,” he tells me.

“Let’s make it around the corner. There’s a really hip flick showing there,” he tells his friend.

I told you no one wants to be your friend. That’s the second one that’s turned you down in the last half hour, an ‘I’ tells me. I feel just like a friendless high school kid as I watch Will and the other guy walk away.

When I reach he next corner, I see the Uptown across the street. I’m thinking that I really don’t want to waste my night at the movies. You can tell Anne that they wouldn’t let you inside with Bo, I tell myself and see now that I have my dog, Bo, on a leash.

I turn back toward Berks Street with my granddaughter, Natsie, at my side. We start into an apartment building that will lead to an alley that runs toward Berks. There’s an old man entering the building ahead of us. “Hey! Hey,” I yell hurrying to catch up. “Is it safe to take the alley to Berks?”

“No way. There’s no way you want to go through that alley after dark,” the old man tells me.

I take Natsie’s hand and return to Broad. “There’s a lot of beautiful buildings on this street,” I tell her as we stop to admire a nineteenth century stone church. A couple of buildings from the church, a contractor is getting an old red brick building ready for a new front.

“We take off the old brick, and put the new synthetic brick on in just one sheet,” he tells me.

“Yea, I saw a whole block of buildings like that when we drove down Thirteenth Street. They looked really nice,” I tell him.

“It goes up in less than a day,” he returns.

“What, they staple it right to the old wood?” I ask thinking that the buildings won’t be nearly as sturdy as the real brick.

“This building use to be a candy store. I worked here when I was a kid. My job was to search the kids who were leaving to see if they had stolen any candy. You wouldn’t believe it. Every single kid that I searched had stolen candy in his pocket. And, it’s not as if they didn’t have money to pay for it….”

“Is it still a candy store?” I ask thinking that I could take Natsie in to buy some candy.

“No, it’s an electronic shop now,” he answers.

I turn around and find that Natsie is no longer with me. I tell the contractor that I enjoyed talking with him, and rush back to look for my granddaughter. Right behind me is a wooden newspaper stand. I hurry to it and peek inside. There are a half dozen or more kids inside reading comic books. “Natsie! Natsie!” I call. The newspaperman gets off his stool to help me look. I spot her on the floor eating candy from a small bowl. He face is splotched with dirt.

“I’m reading a joke book, Grandpa,” she tells me.

“Come on. Come on, you can read it at home,” I tell her and take her hand. As the night grows darker, I grow very frightened. I’m wondering how safe we will be when we leave the lights of Broad and head down Thirteenth for Berks.