Chicken Soup For The Teachers’ Soul

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Castroville, California is a tiny burg of a place.  It’s mostly a Latino, worker-breeder-feeder for the wealthier communities nearby, like Monterey and Carmel.  And the Castroville elementary school where I teach is well…as we say in the lexicon “challenged.”  Challenged is a polite, politically correct way of saying “hosed” and we can’t talk about specifics.  But what it really means is the kids have family members in gangs, many families are on public assistance, the kids don’t come to school on time or regularly, and homework is an abstraction. That “challenged” appellation is why my fellow teacher, Mr. Frost, and I skedaddle ASAP during lunches.

    When the clock’s hands hit lunch time we shoot out like a sniper’s .50 caliber shot straight to target. There isn’t much that can slow us down. We have learned over the years that if we stay at school, things will find us. Things like problematic parents, crazy kids, saddened secretaries, testy teachers, prickly principals, and saturated superintendents, or a combination of any of the afore described with any variety of the descriptor before the noun. Translation: we boogie. Not that we have time to go far, just across the street, behind the Super Max store.

      Mr. Frost drove, as he usually did. He parked in front of Subway while I ran in and ordered one of my three favorite choices, a foot-long, five dollar tuna, meatball, or Italian sandwich. I B.S.’ed with the former students working there. While Mr. Frost stayed in his car and gnawed halfway through his own home-made sandwich before I rushed back.  He drove us the few remaining feet to our lunch spot.  This we have done for many years like clockwork. We parked under a stand of sky-grabbing, peeling eucalyptus trees.

      We dug into our sandwiches and bitched about the kids, their parents, or, more likely, the current guardians, the kids’ dismal lack of performance, and all the inputs of poverty which make our school “challenged”.  And every day we sat beneath our trees parallel to highway 156, and tried to have a brief respite to detox, to breathe kid-free fresh air, to indulge in a few minutes of relative quiet without the pressing immediate needs of students. 

       But some days no respite existed, even in our shady refuge.  Like last Wednesday.   Many days we had company, other parked vehicles, containing Latinos on their lunch break. They eyed us, assumed we were undercover cops, or with Immigration, and most left with their worried eyes focused in their rear view mirrors.  But we were still rarely alone. A homeless encampment supported the even more desperate. We usually ate and kept our eyes on them and they on us, as they walked near the car. Rarely did we acknowledge each other.  A mutual unspoken treaty of indifference reigned.

       Mr. Frost and I started complaining.  “Man… oh man!” I said, “Never thought I could say I’d have a worse class than last year. But these guys. Jesus H.”

       Mr. Frost laughed. “Hey, I warned you. I suffered with those kids all last year. Now they’re yours.” Mr. Frost stopped chewing, “There’s a first.” He pointed at the homeless encampment.

        “What?” I said as I tried to chew through my honey oat bread.

        “Anglo female down there. She’s coming our way, too.”

        “Holy, Holy Cow!” I said as I rolled down my window.

        “What are you doing?”  Mr. Frost looked worried.

        The young woman smiled and stopped two feet from me.

        “Mr. Karrer?”

       “Chelsey? Chelsey Morgan?”

        She smiled then looked down at the encampment, waved and yelled, “John! Come here!”

         “Who’s John?” I asked.

         “My hubby.” She yelled again, “John! Come here, bring the cat. It’s my fifth-grade teacher.”

        “Chelsey, this is Mr. Frost.” I pointed at him. “He teaches fourth-grade at your old school “ She bent at the knees to look in and waved at him.

        Mr. Frost’s eyes got bigger right in front of me.  We were getting way out of his comfort zone. 

        “Hi,” he replied.

        Her hubby John showed up, cradling a gorgeous black cat in his arms. Chelsey chimed in, “Our friend Roberto got thrown in jail. Nobody’s watching his cat so we’re here on a rescue mission.  John came up to the window. Chelsey chuckled. “So what do you think of my husband? Not too many teeth, but he’s still pretty good looking. Lot older than me, but I’ll keep him.”

        John spoke, “Hey, fourty-one isn’t so old.” 

         They both laughed.

         “Chelsey, how old are you now?”

      “Twenty-four.”

      “Wow. That means I had you fourteen years ago. Hey, do you still have ten brothers and sisters?”

     “Nope.” She flashed the inner side of her right forearm. A blue tattoo with the name Sarah covered most of it.  “Used to be ten of us, Mr. Karrer. You remember Sarah. Her husband killed her about four years ago. Only nine of us now.”

      I didn’t dare look at Mr. Frost. We had just oozed way out of my comfort zone too.  “Oh... Mr. Karrer. Remember Sun Kim in our class?”

      “Sure do. What’s he up to?”

      “We were in the hospital last year. Somebody shot Roberto and Sun was there trying to get drugs. He changed since you had him.  Well, we have to go feed the cats. Great to see you Mr. Karrer.”

       “Thanks, Chelsey.” I said and added, “Nice to meet you, John.”

       He nodded, bent his neck and head down to rub it on the cat. The two of them turned, walked down the embankment and I hit the switch to roll up my window. 

        Mr. Frost and I just looked at each other.  “You want the rest of it?” I asked.

        “More? There’s more? I can’t process what I just heard. How can there be more?” Mr. Frost shook his head in disbelief.

        “The kid she talked about, Sun Kim. His family came from Korea that year. The school put him in my class because of the basic Korean my wife taught me.  His mom and my wife became friends. One Thanksgiving Day his family went to Big Sur and Sun saw his mom and dad get swept out to sea by a rogue wave.  His mom died. His dad lost everything, including his mind. Sun’s been on his own ever since.  Poor kid.”

       We drove back to school in silence.  Sometimes it was hard to get away from school, even at lunch.