CREATIVE NONFICTION-HEALING- INSPIRATIOn

She Put Gum in my Hair!

Hard knocks, High-school and Healing. The Bronx, NYC

It was 9:30am, well into second period when she entered the building. She burst into the front office, smelling of cigarettes and perfume, loudly snapping her gum. She walked over to the secretary’s desk, leaned her body all the way across to pick up the receiver, dialed, then jumped off the desk and started whispering “hey baby,” “It’s Franchesca!” giggle giggle. “whatcha doin?” I’m ah-iiight” giggle.

There were four adults in the tiny school office. The secretary, who was on her cell phone, the attendance teacher[1], another therapist and me. The other therapist and I used the office to record our notes, call parents and organize support services for kids and families. Our therapy sessions took place in stairwells, in the back of the auditorium and sometimes, if we were lucky and both the teacher and the substitute called in sick, we could find an empty classroom to meet our students. It’s 2007 in The South Bronx, NYC.

“Shut up!” Franchesca laughed loudly into the phone. Nobody in the office was saying anything to her. I hated being yet another adult who tried to discipline the kids, and she had recently joined my creative arts girls group, so I wanted to keep the therapist/client safe space but I couldn’t just watch this, “Franchesca, get off the phone.” I said calming. She sneered at me, smacked her gum “baby baby,…” whisper whisper “Franchesca, get off the phone and go to class.” she sucked her teeth… “I love you too..” “Franchesca?…” I’m getting pissed “ I’M TALKING TO MY MOM!” she spits. I shot up out of my chair, walked over and hung up the phone with a finger on the base. “FUCK YOU!” she yelled, threw down the receiver and stormed out of the room. The other adults rolled their eyes, and shrugged. My heart was racing.

The bell rang, the hallway rush began, yelling, shoving, laughing kids, teachers also yelling, sometimes to punish, other times to seem cool, pushing through the throngs of students to get to their next classes. The (white) art teacher would often yell to his favorite kids “hey homie!” “brothaaaa.” All of us adults sometimes forgot we weren’t actually in high-school.

Teachers didn’t have their own classrooms, they had to wheel books, papers and supplies around on carts and share the very limited space. While one teacher went to lunch, wheeling her stuff to the lounge, another teacher came in to use the classroom. The kids, when they showed up to school, would often just roam the halls, hang out in stairwells, the gym or in the bathrooms. 2007 was before they started bringing security guards for each hallway. The guards at the time, just manned the metal detectors at the entrance and were only called upstairs for the fights.

Mine was one of four schools in the building. Each floor had its own school, its own principal and vice and its own vibe. Besides the street gangs within each school, there were often school to school rivalries which could ensue violence. Anything could start a brawl, truly. It was safer for kids to fight in the schools than on the streets. They would be way less likely to wind up in jail or worse, with a teacher or a guard, instead of a cop, breaking up a fight.

And they had a lot to fight about. Even the “good” kids had crazy struggles on top of the hormones, the crapp-ass school, tired, underpaid, over extended teachers, no supplies, no tablets, no theatre department, no music, no sports teams except baseball (and you could only play if you had great attendance so most could not), no after school programs, no student counsel, ONE fine art class (and only for those who kept a B average and above- so for like seven kids) no care, no trust, no fun.

Students were not allowed to bring crutches to school (weapons) so if they broke or strained something, it usually meant they didn’t come for a while, and often meant they’d fall behind and get held back, which sometimes meant they’d drop out completely. Umbrellas also could not go through the metal detectors, so when it rained NO ONE came to school. This is just the tip of one of the many debilitating (devastating) icebergs in the lives of these children.

I waited until the halls quieted before heading out to my next session. Third period, Wednesdays I saw Maria. She was a poet, so we would write together during her therapy sessions. After she shared, we picked a topic to write about. I would write in my own voice, but also voiced what I felt was hard for her to say. We would read our poems to each other and sometimes she asked if she could have the ones I wrote. I’d give them to her. Later that year, just before her fifteenth birthday Maria got pregnant[3]. She said that after having five girls, her Mom always wanted a boy, so her Mom gets to name him, but she gets to spell it.

On this day, the only “private” place Maria and I could find was in the stairwell leading to the gym. Gym was one of those “No-class” classes where kids just ran around the room or skulked in corners or giggled and teased. Sometimes the gym teacher wasn’t even there so the vice principal stood in the room on his phone.

Maria and I sat down on the steps and started our session and a small group of girls gathered a bit too close to us. Franchesca was holding court. She spoke loudly in Spanish, shooting looks my way, lots of teeth sucking, and hip jutting, the posse of girls were enraptured. Most kids (and many of the adults) were scared of Franchesca. She was pretty, smart, loud, popular and mean. Her boyfriend was in his twenties and lived in her Mom’s house with her and her siblings. He went to our school too, but dropped out after sophomore year. Rumor had it he was in the same gang as Franchesca’s Mom and uncles.

Just before the bell rang Franchesca walked over to me, opened her mouth and took out a huge wad of gum, stuck it in my hair and quietly spit “white bitch” in my ear. All her girls screamed with laughter as they ran off. I kept my composure to finish with Maria. Then, I went up to the next floor to the girls room ran into the last stall and cried. There were no adult bathrooms in my school, the best I could do for “privacy” was to go upstairs to another school's girls room.

I’m sitting on the toilet seat in the bathroom stall, sixteen again. I was mortified and alone, stricken and angry. I smelled like sweat and sweet strawberry. Luckily, I had the next period off from sessions so I went outside to get some air. When I came back in, I went to the guidance counselor’s office. The counselors were bogged down with so much administrative work, they didn’t get to counsel or guide students much, which was one reason why I worked at the school[2]. But one really cool thing the counselors did was mediation. Whenever there was a fight (that didn’t end the kids in detention, juvie, or at the hospital) the principal sent the kids to the counselors to try and talk it out. I asked a counselor, Mrs. B, if she would mediate a session with me and Franchesca.

As we waited for her to arrive, Mrs. B told me more about Francesca’s home life. Her Mom was single with six kids and she’s the oldest. Mom had stage four cervical cancer, and was not expected to live much longer. This was common knowledge in school, but the first I heard of it. Franchesca missed class and was late a lot because she was the main caregiver for her younger siblings (very typical for girls that I worked with). Her boyfriend financially supported the family. The counselor was privy to some other horrific early childhood traumas that Franchesca suffered. Some things I wished I could unhear.

I was ready for mediation.

When Franchesca arrived, she was still flippin mad, talking fast, telling her side of the story, “she ripped the phone out of my hand, screamed all up in my face as I was trying to talk to my Mommy” etc. The counselor and I let her speak. When she finished, I said, “Ok. I want to start by shifting gears a minute to say I am really glad you joined my girls group. You are a leader (true) and the girls all look up to you (also true). And you are a good artist (true again). While we have yet to get to know one another very well, I can see your strength, and I can see your stress. When people are stressed out and hurting, they can go quicker to anger. Today, both of us obviously felt stressed out. While I don’t support you using the office phone during class and without permission, I lost my patience with you. And for that I am sorry.”

Then I did something very uncharacteristic and shared something personal with her. “You may remember, I was out all last week. I had to spend the week in the hospital with my Mother in law who is dying of cancer. Mrs B told me about your Mom. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. You and I have more in common than we were aware of, I think.” Franchesca burst into tears. “So I think this happened for a reason,” I continued, “I think this happened to help us see that we don’t always know what others are going through, and we need to be better listeners.” She said she was sorry and asked if she could hug me, then quickly shifted bright and bubbly, wiping her face with her sleeve, “Miss Michelle, I gave that drawing I made in group to my uncle, like you said, and he loves it, keeps telling me I could be famous and asking me how I did it. I told him he shoulda stayed in high-school. Ha! Oh! And sometimes at night, when I can’t sleep I try that meditation thing you taught us and Miss! it totally works!”

Before leaving the office she turned back to me, “Can I give you some advice?” “Sure” “You’ll wanna put some ice on the gum clump to get it out of your hair and if that doesn’t work, try peanut butter. And if that doesn’t work, you may just have to cut it out, but don’t worry, it’ll grow back.”

©March 2023 Michelle Lovett all rights reserved

Some notes:

[1] Some of the public schools in Brooklyn and the Bronx actually have full time employees called attendance teachers who sit in the office all day calling kids' homes to see why they aren’t in school.

[2] I was hired by a nonprofit agency who employed young social workers like me to work in underserved schools in NYC. A couple of years later, I started writing my own grants to fund my work. I was always grateful not to be involved with the Board of Education or actually employed by the school. This helped me to set my own hours, boundaries, work the way I wanted to, and not have to crouch under archaic, sometimes random rules and policies that many DOE employees needed to follow. In my next high-school in Brooklyn, I had my own office.

[3] After Maria had her baby, she came back to school and against all odds graduated! At the time, the graduation rate at our school was under 25% There were no statistics of girls who had babies coming back to graduate, but it was rare. Our poetry sessions turned to songwriting and while Maria didn’t sing, she asked me to sing for her and would close her eyes, like the child that she was, as if I was singing her a lullaby. For her graduation gift I went into the studio and recorded her favorite song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and gave it to her.

This story was inspired by Nitin Dangwal awesome story about his high-school “romance”