Torey Hayden - Somebody Else’s Kids

Her lower lip went out. “I’m no baby. I’m almost eight. So there!”

“Shit. I’m not staying in here.” Tomaso straightened his shoulders and raised one hand up in a fist. “You get out of my way; I’m going. And I’ll smack you right in the boobies if you try to stop me.”

My stomach cringed involuntarily at the very thought of him doing that. I said nothing. There was not much to say that would not be incendiary at this point. Anger had flared up in his dark eyes like sparks from a green-wood fire.

As we stood there sizing one another up, Mrs. Franklin opened the door behind me and shoved Boo through. Click, the door went shut again.

“Nigger! There’s a nigger in here! Let me out,” Tomaso shouted. “I ain’t staying in no place with a shitty nigger in it.”

Lori was indignant. “He’s no nigger. That’s Boo. And you shouldn’t oughta call him names like that.” She came over to take Boo’s hand.

I turned to latch the hook and eye.

“That ain’t gonna keep me in,” he said. “I can bust that easy. You won’t keep me in here with no locks.”

“It isn’t for you,” I replied. “It’s for him.” I indicated Boo. “He gets lost sometimes and this helps to remind him to stay in the room.”

Tomaso glared. His shoulders pulled up under the black jacket. “You hate me, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t hate you. We don’t even know one another.”

Abruptly Tomaso jerked around and grabbed a chair. Twirling it briefly above his head, he then let loose and sent it flying across the room and into the finches’ cage. The birds fluttered as the cage swayed wildly, but it did not tip over. Lori squealed in surprise. Boo dove under the table.

This reaction seemed to please Tomaso. He set off on a rampage. Tearing from one side of the room to the other before I even had a chance to move from the door, he flung books off the shelves, cleared the top of my desk with a swoop of his arm, ripped Lori’s work folder into quarters and threw it into the air like confetti. Another chair went flying. Luckily it only grazed the west wall of windows and fell harmlessly to the floor. Once he started, I remained against the door and did not move. I was fearful of inciting him further. Or letting him get loose outside the room.

Tomaso stopped and turned back to me. “There. Now you hate me, don’t you?”

“I’m not precisely in love with you for doing that, if that’s what you mean,” I replied. “But I don’t hate you and I don’t like your working so hard to make me do so.”

“But you’re mad, aren’t you? I made you mad, didn’t I?”

Cripes, what did this kid want? I had no idea what to say to him. I was not mad. I did not hate him. Terror was more along the lines of what I was feeling right then, but I was not going to admit that either. My palms had gotten cold and damp and I wiped them on my jeans. Birk did not prepare me at all for this one.

“I bet you think I feel sorry I done that,” he said. “Well, I don’t. Here, let me show you.” He grabbed a potted geranium off the counter and crashed it to the floor. “There.”

Still with my back to the door to keep him contained in the room, I did not move. My mind was going at the speed of light, trying desperately to sort out viable alternatives before the kid wrecked my entire room. Or worse, decided to hurt someone. My inaction was not so much from indecision as it was from fear of consequences if I made the wrong move. I did not reckon this boy gave much opportunity for replay.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” he said. “Cat got your tongue? Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you get mad? Aren’t you normal or something? Are you some fucking kind of crazy teacher?”

“I’m not going to let you make me angry, Tomaso. I don’t want to feel that way.”

“You don’t? You don’t?” he sounded outraged. “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you go ahead and hate me like everybody else does? What makes you think you’re so special?”

“Tomaso, sit down. Take off your jacket and sit down. It’s time we got started on the afternoon’s work.”

Reaching down for a piece of the broken pot, he lofted it at me. Not a serious throw in my opinion. I imagine if he had meant it, he would have hit me. We were not that far apart, and I doubted that he missed when he aimed.

“What are you going to do about me? Are you going to suspend me? Are you going to get the principal?”

“No. I’m just going to wait until you decide it’s time to work.”

“Hey man, I ain’t never gonna decide that, so you might as well just give up.”

I waited. Sweat was running down along my sides and I pressed my arms tight against my body to stop it.

“At my other school they called the police. They took me to juvie. So you can’t scare me.”

“I’m not trying to scare you, Tomaso.”

“I don’t care what you’re trying to do. I don’t care about anything.”

“I’m just waiting, that’s all.”

“You can send me to the principal, if you want. And he can give me whacks. You think I haven’t had whacks before? I’ve had a million of them. And you think I care?”

I waited without saying anything. My stomach reminded me of the price I was paying for a calm exterior.

“I could bite your titties off.”

My back against the coolness of the glass in the door, I waited.

“Hmmf. Mmmmmph. Pphuh.” Tomaso was full of noises when I would not talk back to him. He was not ready to give in yet. Still too much pride at stake. And God only knows what else.

My gut feeling was that Tomaso did not really want to leave. No single thing I could put a finger on told me that, but I felt it. I studied him carefully.

Sometimes I think I missed my calling. I should have been a swindler. In the end, my best defense always seemed to come down to the good con game I play. My gut told me this boy was hot air. That was enough to go on. I pushed myself off the door and walked by him to the other side of the room. Righting chairs and slinging papers back on my desk, I sat down at the worktable. Reaching under, I pulled Boo out and sat him down in a chair. Then I beckoned Lori over and took her L and O flash cards. My stomach was doing the chacha, a surefire clue to me of the extent of my concern for winning this game of psychological bunco. If he chose to walk out the door I would have no alternative but to go out and physically drag him back in. That would be a really lousy way to start any relationship. All I was operating on was a hunch. A hunch about a kid I did not even know.

Boo was upset by the disruption in our routine. He rocked his chair back and forth and twiddled fingers before his eyes. I reached over to reorient him and he grabbed my arm. With noisy sniffs, he smelled up the length of my exposed skin.

Tomaso approached us. He stood behind my chair as I prepared the flash cards and struggled with Boo. I could hear him but not see him.

“Do you speak Spanish?” he asked.

“No. Not very well.”

“Hmmph. White honky. I don’t want to go to no room with a white honky teacher in it.”

“You wish I spoke Spanish?”

“I could kick you in the ass.”

I swallowed. “Do you speak Spanish?”

“Of course I do. I am Spanish. What’s the matter with you? You blind or something? My father, my real father, his grandpa came from Madrid. In real Spain, not Mexico. My father’s grandpa, he fought bulls.”

“Is that right?”

“It’s true. I ain’t lying. My father’s grandpa fought real live bulls.”

“He must have been brave.”

“He was. He coulda got killed, but he wasn’t. He was real, real brave. Braver than anyone here.” A pause. “Braver than you.”