Day 31

So the fellation craze continues at school. Another young woman was caught "servicing" (the assistant principal's verb, not mine) a hoard of young men in the stairwell. I walked into the 2nd floor boy's room to do my daily check on the Crips v. Bloods graffiti and found instead two seventh graders in flagrant delicto by the urinals.

"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!" I screamed, and they took off running. And turned the lights out on me for revenge. I guess I'd be pissed too.

TJ, back from suspension number 4 and en route to Student of the Week honors in Language Arts, announced before class today that Taymon had porno in his backpack. A magazine was produced and quickly shredded in the hallway as young girls and boys tore off pictures to their liking.

Taymon swore at TJ. "Man, now I lost all them sweeeeet booty pix." He turned the adjective "sweet" into a most dolorous lament. It sounded almost like prayer, the way he stretched it out into a painful moan.

Again, no fights. Presumably stairwell* blow jobs are keeping the young toughs otherwise occupied. Fisticuffs are losing their glamor. Make love, not war.

Nat Turner, who rarely comes to school, showed up today two hours late. He was in the hallway with a seriously bloodied right eyeball. Other students told me that Nat and his brothers were throwing rocks and bottles at cars on McCulloh Street. Somebody returned fire and nailed Nat in the eye. He always looks a bit scary, but now he looks like something out of a Clive Barker film. I told him he had the second highest score on the test yesterday, which was true. He said he would come to school more often if it challenged him. It does not surprise me that some of the toughest, most violent, and most likely to drop out kids happen to be the smartest. They know they're not going to learn anything in that environment every day. They can at least be entrepreneurs and innovators out on the streets.

And poor Cody, who desperately needs an IEP so we can get him a special ed assistant, has begun wearing his winter coat to school. It has teddy bears on it. The other students were teasing him for wearing a girl's coat, and he defended himself by saying "Boys can have teddy bears too." He's 13, likely has a substantial learning disability, and has no understanding of the social norms or cues other kids pick up naturally. He's a charming young man, and we worry about him daily after first period. Some of our hoodlums are starting to steer Cody to do their dirty work.

*I hear other middle schools are having trouble with library or media center blow jobs. We don't have that problem at Booker T, because we keep the library locked at all times.