Wire Mesh Mothers

4

It was the urine on the floor that threw everything over the edge, a small puddle, intentionally leaked there by Willie Harrold, a fine, upstanding student in the fourth grade. Willie was short, with black hair, blue eyes and groping hands. He had quite the history, little Willie. He explored the forms beneath the shirts of every fourth grade female who happened to wander within his reach. Willie bit kindergarteners on the playground then said he didn’t. He cussed and stole anything small enough to fit into his book bag or pockets. And to keep Willie free to continue his antics, his father swore a lawsuit every time Willie was removed from the mainstream of the classroom and put into a study carrel or seated on the bench outside the principal’s office.

“Look what Willie did!” Marion Kiddel shouted from her desk. Kate McDolen, who had been standing at the front of the room in her peach sweater and gray wool skirt, writing on the chalk board, fine, yellow chalk dust coating her hands, showing once again that adjectives described things, adjectives like “happy” and “sunny” and “snowy” and “soft” made writing stories much more FUN! spun about on her toe. She stared where Marion was pointing.

Some of the students were in their seats, also staring. Most of the students were up and giggling, glancing between the teacher and culprit. Jenny Wise, slumped in her desk near the door, had actually looked up from the fingernail polish she’d been picking at and was paying attention.

“He went on the floor, just standing there like a dog and went on the floor!” This was Christopher May. He was Willie’s best friend. His prime pleasure in life was heralding Willie’s accomplishments.

Willie himself had his arms crossed and his mouth open in a wide grin, revealing the crooked teeth his daddy didn’t have time to have fixed at the free dental clinic because he was too busy with lawyers, working up law suits against the school system.

Happy. Sunny.

Insane.

Kate felt her fingers crush around the stub of yellow chalk.

Impotent.

The arthritic spot in her jaw clicked. She said, “Sit down, everyone. Right now.”

Most everyone slid into seats. A few students on the periphery of the classroom remained standing. They didn’t want to miss the view. Christopher dropped into his seat, not taking his gaze off Willie.

Standard question, coming up. Standard, worthless teacher question. “Willie,” Kate asked. “Why did you do that?”

And Willie’s standard, broken-record response. “Do what?”

Jaws clenched, as tightly as her fingers on the chalk. Fuzzy, furious stars rising in the corner of her vision. Her sweater no longer keeping out the chill of the classroom air in December. “I asked you a question.”

Willie grinned. “I didn’t do nothin’. Why you always picking on me?”

Jenny scrunched her eyebrows. Another girl giggled then put her hand over her mouth. Christopher popped his lips and bounced the heel of his shoe off the floor, enthralled with the diversion. The showdown rarely varied from its usual choreography. It was an old movie known well by the students. The ending never changed. Willie did whatever he pleased. Ms. McDolen kept her cool and sent Willie to the office after a heated argument. Show over. Willie one. Ms. McDolen zip.

Hopeless. Impotent.

Kate took ten slow breaths. A routine that was supposed to work. Take a few moments, breathe slowly, and you can put things into perspective. Things need to be in perspective. Teachers were patient, understanding. Teachers always knew how to maintain control, regardless of the circumstances. Teachers were good with perspectives. It’s what they were paid for; it’s what they were trained for. God bless teachers.

God bless us, every one.

Willie looked at Christopher and grinned.

“Go to the office, Willie,” said Kate. The veins in the backs of her hands tingled the way they did when she took three cold tablets instead of two. I hate this. This is wrong. It’s always wrong.

Willie licked his finger off then wiped it on his jeans leg. “Can’t make me,” he said. “My daddy said you couldn’t make me leave ’cause it’s against my rights. I gotta get my education.”

“Go to the office now.”

“You can’t make me.”

What is wrong with me? Why can’t I ever get this right? He’s a child, for heaven’s sake, a little delinquent, but I’m the adult here.

“’Gainst my rights. You can’t boss me, you can’t touch me, neither.”

This is insane.

“Can’t touch me! Can’t touch me!”

I can’t do this anymore. I’ve tried, God, for three years I’ve tried and I just can’t do it anymore.

Kate McDolen, trained professional, patient teacher, leader and guide to young minds, felt the snap in her neck. Felt the electric clotting behind her eyes, static and immense. The chalk dropped from her fingers and bounced, once, on the floor by her Easy Spirit pumps.

Willie sniffed, a harsh, challenging sound.

When she spoke this time, her heartbeat was in her mouth. Her tongue tasted of metal. “Willie. Go. Now.”

Here’s your last chance, Willie. Here it is. Take it.

Please, just this once, Willie.

Willie, grinning, “I’m sick of you trying to tell me what to do. Call my daddy and see what he says.”

“Go.”

“Ain’t going.” The smile given to Christopher, the nasal snicker.

You little shit, just go!

“Ain’t going ain’t going ain’t going ain’t going!” A shrug.

Maybe it was the shrug more than it was the pee.

But in that second Kate was rushing from her desk in a whirl of sweater and skirt and chalky fingers and she was slamming her fist against little Willie Harrold’s grinning face and sending that little grinning face with the body to which it was attached to the floor like a roped calf in a rodeo. The boy fell on his butt, crumpled onto his back, and slid several feet, thumping into a couple of the nearby desks on his way. When he gasped and looked up, there was a streak of blood on his face.

A slight alteration in the usual Willie-Kate dance. Just a minor change of routine.

“Whoa!” shouted Christopher.

“Mrs. McDolen!” screamed Marion Kiddel.

Kate stared at the boy on the floor. She was panting as if she’d just run a mile. The teacher in her said she should offer him her hand and help him up and then proceed to figure out how the hell to remedy this situation. To apologize, to do some quick double-talk to gloss over the situation. But she couldn’t.

Not this time.

Her heart drove against her ribs like the gloves of a prizefighter hammering home his final blows.

Kate turned on her heel, walked back to her desk and said, “Marion, go to the office and tell Mr. Byron that I need him immediately.” Her voice was steeled and far away in her ear.

And as she returned to the chalkboard and picked up a nice, new stick of chalk, to continue her lesson on adjectives, the only one she could think of was “fucked.”