“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”
― Guy de Maupassant
“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
About 15 years ago, our building received an extraordinarily rare (decadal) delivery of some 800 brand new student desks, as heartily announced by an assistant principal.
The staff appreciated the overdue order, replacing many tattered and graffiti carved desktops (subtle vandalism sometimes expressed during sub teacher coverage).
Soon we noticed one little problem: the desks were all the same (medium) size.
So, most of us hung on to our larger desks, the ones in decent condition, to better accommodate the student diversity we were much later directed to better accommodate. Although some larger students still struggle to squeeze into uniformly smaller seats, years later, I’m now down to one surviving full-sized throne.
It actually arrived some year ahead of me. In my strange fall of 1999, when I finally plunged into my full-time urban high school adventure, 32 desks in fair condition greeted me in a room designed for 20.
It’s also where I last remember Frank sitting, before he skipped out and off the roster permanently.
When the listed junior used to wander into to my sociology class, Frank often seemed distant — when not trying to put his head down. Perhaps, he wondered (hoped?) I would be one of those less demanding teachers who’d just let him sleep any day he happened to show up.1
“Hot date last night, Frank?”
He might have chuckled before mumbling how he wasn’t feelin’ it.
Two dozen years later, I understandably cannot remember many details about this alienated young man, one of my initial drop-in, drop-out visitors, back when there were fewer such weekly phenomena. Frank stood out mainly because he seemed to be reaching out, usually in the last few minutes of class, before the relentless period-ending ringing bongs, when student chatter took over the ending of another diligent lesson attempt.
Some time before our Christmas break, he wanted to quietly say goodbye. “Mr. B, I can’t stand it here anymore, so this is my last day.”
“Huh? Frank, you’re doing well whenever you participate, whenever you join our class discussion—”
“You, this class, are all right. I just gotta get out of here.”
“Frank, trust me, life gets better after high school.”
“I know, that’s why I’m getting out now.”
“But you’re only an year away from graduation, right? Like, a year and a semester after this—”
“Nah. It’s just time for me to go on my own.”
“I could help him crack a smile, but not a book.”
For the rest of the year, his subsequent empty seat would periodically nudge me out a few delusions, including the crumbling faith I could inspire any teenager with a few well-timed jokes, maybe a great movie screening or a recommended novel they might actually attempt to read. Regretfully, I could help Frank crack open a smile, but not a book.
My naiveté also included the delusion he might one day return to class.
Late that spring, during our high school’s now defunct social studies elective2 called Contemporary World Issues, his name appeared in a brief two-paragraph Detroit Free Press newspaper article. A few sentences tumbled out, from the back of the local news section (we occasionally enjoyed access to class sets of free dailies, years before the Internet made the printed paper an endangered species).
Horribly, a gun-shot homicide victim in an abandoned vehicle was identified as Frank. As soon as the period bell tones rang, I stumbled down the hall to try to process this grim news with Joel, another close colleague, once Frank’s ELA teacher.
Since few kids remembered Frank, the school-wide reaction remained quite muted. He also had been deleted many weeks earlier from every teacher roster.
Frank was the first, yet hardly the last of such way too young fatalities. Over my next 25 years, similar tragedies would reoccur, an average of one every two to three years, to teens more well known than Frank, equally calamitous.
The devastating occurrences sometimes included other former students shot dead in a car seat, as a discarded injustice, within the backstreets of cities like Detroit.
Typically, this unsettling, brutal violence will remain unsolved, long after the end of another school year, shattering deep assumptions about every student outliving their teachers, about always festive graduations, or even an empty desk still waiting for their return.
The larger, 25-year old desk temporarily moved into a corner, next to the teacher’s docking area, in the shadows following the final afternoon bell.
Exception: If a student says they don’t feel well, they can put their head down. They may simply need to rest with no option to see a nurse or get a ride home.
The long shadow of the standardized testing industry has unfortunately prompted the reduction of many once-available electives for students and teachers alike, particularly in under supported urban districts.
Bill,
Thanks for the harsh reminder of reality for young folks today.
MK
It says alot that Frank took the time to say goodbye to you. You meant something to him. When the rest of the world was crashing down on him, he still up felt he could reach out to you. I'm sure that made a difference in his life. We would all like to see a different outcome than the overwhelming sadness of losing someone to violence, especially when it appears their life was spiraling out of control. But I hope you take comfort that he knew you cared. You can never know what someone is going through but you can always reach out and let them know you are there.
Thank you for continuing to reach out, over and over, despite the frustrations and heartache. It makes a difference.
I also hold to certain beliefs that we continue on after this life. Still learning and growing as we continue on to the next adventure. This isn't the end of Frank's story. We see a tiny piece of the pie and and make a conclusion. We don't have access to the multi-dimensional existence that is...and continues to be.