Singing the Sky

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“Oh, Cedrick called and said he was running late today,” Mrs. D, Secretary and Mistress of the Universe informed me yesterday morning as I walked into the office.

“He’s coming? I might as well turn around and go home right now.” After a morning spent rushing to get to work because I was running late due to stopping at the store for a feminine product and some Advil, I just really wasn’t in the mood for Cedrick’s antics.

Cedrick does not want to come to school. He is thinking about joining Job Corps instead. However, he is scared to join Job Corps. But, he doesn’t want to come to school. This leaves him in a quandry. We have discussed how he needs to make this decision himself, as opposed to setting me up to make it for him. If he gets enough suspensions, he will be expelled for good and that will be that.

After our discussion, he pondered what I had said, agreed, and behaved in a tolerable fashion for one day. The next day, it was like the conversation had never happened, and it was back to, “Miss, I ain’t gonna sit here and wait for Mr. R to take me to the bathroom,” or “Miss, I tol’ you I felt sick. I ain’t gonna say it again.”

“Cedrick, if you want to go to the bathroom, I will not stop you. I will, however, write you up for leaving class without permission.” And so on. Usually he holds out a couple of times and then eventually leaves class. When I write him up, he tells the administrator that I don’t like him.

This is not true. However, I really don’t like waiting to see what he is going to pull in class everyday in order to get out of it. I worry about fights being picked; the disruption his attempts to argue with me causes. Like most students, mine are easily entertained and distracted by any drama.

One of our aides, Miz F, gets the brunt of my complaints. At the end of the day, she told me, “See, I told you Cedrick wasn’t gonna come. I can tell what he be gettin’ up to before I leave my house in the morning.”

She had probably already told me, but I had forgotten that they are neighbors in the same rundown apartment complex.

“That boy, he was settin’ a fire next to the apartment building last week,” she said, holding her hands apart to indicate just how close to the building the fire was. “He was hauling pine needles and just pilin’ them on this old log. It was a’really blazin’! I told him he wasn’t gonna burn down these apartments, because I don’t have no money to be moving.”

“So what’s going on with his mom?” I asked. “Is she just out of it or what?”

“I don’t like to be telliing people’s business and all, but I want to tell you this one thing,” Miz F said, looking down at the floor. “That child, he ain’t never been loved. Things been hard for him since the day he was born.”

One advantage of living in a small town, or disadvantage, depending on your perspective, is that everyone knows everybody else’s business. For example, my boss read in the paper that I had filed for divorce. I’m grateful to have this bit of intelligence on Cedrick though, because anytime I can change the lense through which I view a troublesome child is a good thing.

Now, if I can just manage cramps and Cedrick in the same day. Thank God it’s Friday!

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