Day 54

I've seen some crazy shit at Booker T., but never expected to see Hassan's bare ass in the hallway.

Hassan is about six-foot-three in height, and likely weighs 300 pounds. He's not only the largest student in the building, he's the largest human being. He may, in fact, be one of the largest mammals in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

I have seen Hassan walking calmly down the hall with six of his classmates on his back. I have seen him in a fit of pique reduce a row of lockers to rubble. Hassan is a good-natured kid, and often helps teachers get rowdy classmates under control. But he is severely emotionally disturbed, and has blown a fuse from time-to-time. I often wonder what would happen if Hassan snapped.

Why did I see his bare ass? Because of Will. Will is the school's number-one ladies' man. He's always asking about my shirts: where I bought them, how much they cost, do I have to iron them, etc. "You get that at L.L. Bean?" he'll ask, or "Yo, that shit tight. You buy that at Banana Republic?" Yesterday he saw me wearing a jacket: "My man working the blazer today. Where you get that?" I told him the Target sale rack and he said "naw, naw, my man better than that." I wasn't lying. This morning Will told me I had to stop walking around teacher-style with my hands on my hips. "You gots to stop that. You needs a swagger."

Will said he was going to drop Hassan like a rock. "I can do it. Nobody else here can do it, but I'm gonna drop that muthafucka." Sure enough, as I was trying to keep my third period kids in line on our way to the cafeteria I saw Hassan stroll by. The floor shook, the lights blinked. Sixth graders fled in terror. Just as he was turning his bulk to the side to fit through a door, Will flew through the air and landed on Hassan's back near the shoulders. Hassan toppled like a cut giant sequoia, and both boys went down hard on the deck. Because everyone at Booker T. wears their pants baggy as a circus clown's, Hassan's insane big top drawers came all the way down and he was lying on the hallway floor with his bare ass in the air. Forget keeping kids in line at that point. There was mass hilarity. Will, who'd ridden the great beast to its doom, had fallen hard on his own family jewels. It took them both a while to get up.

"I told you I could do it, Mr. G." Will gasped, clutching his wounded self. And then, reverting immediately to form: "Where you get them pants?"