Day #26

So my gigantic last period class has been drained of all but 2 brainiacs, and then refilled with lunatics. Before I had 30 kids with 8 brainiacs and 7 lunatics; now I have 26 kids with 2 brainiacs and 9 lunatics. Said lunatics already started off strong on their first day, bashing a boy in the face with a hard-bound dictionary. The principal poked her head in my room and asked T to tuck in his shirt: he cussed her out and told her to mind her business. She flew into a rage and he didn't even know she was the principal. Ha, ha. She can see what we deal with every day while she sits in the office writing down how we can't handle the kids.

I drove a boy across town to his grandma's house after school today. She lives in my hood and after he asked I talked to his mom to clear it with her first. He said his grandmother wanted to meet me so I went inside, though the men hanging on the corner held out their fists with one knuckle curled around an imaginary trigger pointed at me. "Blop blop blop," they said and laughed.

His grandma's house wasn't the worst I've seen, but it was pretty bad. Clothes piled to the ceiling in each room on top of boxes, trash in the corridor, greasy walls and ceilings and floors, dangling wires and lots of flaked paint and plaster. All this in a turn-of-the century brownstone facing Druid Hill Park--a once grand house. I didn't get to meet grandma. Turns out she was at the doctor's. I got to meet a couple shifty cousins instead, who obviously thought I was some freaky ass white dude to be in their part of town.

Two more days, and I am seriously wiped already.

Lots of shots around the 'hood last night. There was a shooting in the alley behind our house and one block up a couple days ago--some kid on a bike got plucked. A couple weeks back a high-velocity police chase ended with a dead dude in an overturned vehicle in the alley behind us. Getting hairy around here as the economy continues to struggle.