Chapter Forty-Six: Nightmares and Dreams Deferred

Chapter 46: Nightmares and Dreams Deferred

It isn’t the most creative of assignments: “Think about Dr.King’s I have a Dream speech and write down your dreams for the future.” I grudgingly give Jana and RitaMae credit for at least acknowledging the holiday. Last week I printed up, discussed and distributed MLK celebration lesson plans from a few web sites to generate some enthusiasm for the holiday. Unfortunately my staff was more focused on the fact that MLK day is a day off from work. I know I should be happy that at least Jana and RitaMae are devoting some class time to Dr. King.

Aeron misbehaves during the writing assignment and is sent to my office. Aeron is a white fifteen-year-old boy the height of a nine-year-old with a mouth full of decaying, twisted teeth. He could be a poster child for the effects of poor nutrition and lack of medical care both pre and post natal. First Aeron tells me he acted up because he was bored and this is his second time in eighth grade and he already did this assignment last year. Then, after some discussion he says the real reason he is upset is because his dream is wrecked. He won’t divulge his dream to me or tell me what “wrecked” it, but I make a guess since I know his house burned down last week. Aeron tearfully admits fire is what wrecked his dream. I talk to him about Dr. King and how at times he felt his dreams were wrecked but he kept going. After a while Aeron returns to class and writes about his dream of becoming a cab driver.

RitaMae sends Ian, a white fourteen-year-old blond boy, to my office to share his essay about his dream. Actually Ian chose to illustrate his dream rather than write an essay. He drew a headstone bearing his name with the caption: “For my dream to come true I’ll have to be dead.” When RitaMae asks him about the drawing all Ian says is that he wants to make everyone happy and that to accomplish this he must die. RitaMae tells me when she saw his drawing she immediately called Ian’s mother. Ian has a history of depression and has been prescribed drugs for his condition. Has he been taking them? His Mom doesn’t know and told RitaMae that recently Ian has been living with the neighbors since he gets along better with them than with her. I ask our Deputy to Baker Act Ian and radio for counselor Rusty. If Rusty has a favorite student, it’s Ian.

When Ian first arrived at Prospect, he used to go AWOL several times from every class. It was not unusual to see Ian standing outside a classroom, fists clenched starring at his feet muttering “I’m not going back in there and you can’t make me.” Then Rusty began to meet with him regularly and Ian thrived. Ian began to make phone calls to Rusty every evening, “just to talk.” He began to stay in class and even to participate. When I tell Rusty Ian’s dream is to die, Rusty is crushed. He sits and talks with Ian until the deputy arrives to take Ian to the hospital.

Mookie refuses to write an essay about his “dream” and asks Jana if he can be sent to my office. Looking at Mookie sitting across the desk from me, I remember the last time he was in my office. It was the morning he created a major disturbance during a talk by one of our Career Day speakers who annoyed Mookie by repeated references to the future.

Today when I ask him why he won’t write about a dream, he replies with a question: can anyone make dead people come back alive? He tells me his only dream is to have his mother and father alive again and he knows it can’t happen so why write about it? I radio for Rosie telling her we could use her counseling expertise.

Julio, a quiet, Hispanic fourteen-year-old boy who lives with his father and is frequently absent for minor maladies, writes about his dream. Julio writes about how he wants to become a lawyer and sue the people who sent him to Prospect.

Now Darnell is in my office telling me he has no dreams. Darnell is a fourteen-year-old black boy who mostly wears his face frozen in an expressionless mask. He is very good looking and many of the girls flirt with him, but Darnell shows as little interest in them as he does in his assignment – Darnell is the picture of apathy. In the beginning of our school year, Darnell’s mother came to our open house with Darnell and his younger sister. His sister has cerebral palsy and Mom was pushing her in a wheelchair/stroller. Darnell gets his good looks from his mother. She came to the open house straight from work and was professionally dressed, her face calm and wrinkle-free, not revealing one iota of the heartache and turmoil I now know has rocked her life.

Last June, after I came to Prospect but before I met Darnell, he had been living with his sister, mother and step-father. For over a year his step-father had been physically abusing Darnell (in relaying this story, his mother says, by way of an explanation, “I didn’t know until after how bad the beatings were, but he put food on the table and paid the rent.”) However, the beating he gave Darnell last June was the worst ever. He beat Darnell until he lost consciousness. His mother witnessed the beating but even when she tells the story it is unclear how hard, if at all, she tried to intervene. She didn’t call the police for two weeks. Her call was the catalyst that ultimately landed step-father, now also ex-husband, in prison. Since June, Darnell has been angry at, and unforgiving of, his mother for allowing him to be beaten. He has openly stated his goal: to get his mother arrested so she too can go to jail. His method – be so bad she beats him then call 911 about the abuse.

Darnell’s plan is partially effective: he can usually inspire his mother to beat him with a belt. We have counseled Mom saying especially given Darnell’s history of beatings, she should never resort to physical punishment with him. We’ve offered suggestions for sanctions and revoking privileges but when Darnell provokes her, she instinctively goes for the belt. Part two of Darnell’s plan hasn’t worked as well – when he dials 911 the police only sometimes come and when they do and see this mother with a handicapped girl and stone-faced Darnell, they usually lecture Darnell and threaten next time they’ll give him a whuppin themselves.

But today Darnell is sitting in my office saying he doesn’t have a dream. I think of Langston Hughes poem about what happens to a dream deferred, but I share a different Langston Hughes poem with Darnell: Mother-to-Son that begins “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Darnell and I read and reread the poem talking about what Langston Hughes meant and how he wasn’t really describing a staircase. When we’re done, Darnell still says he doesn’t have a dream to write about but if nothing else, he got a language arts lesson from me although I’m fairly certain our analysis of the poem was more than an academic exercise.

A few nights later, about 8:00 pm, I’m working late when Darnell phones to say he wants me to call the police on his mother because they won’t listen to him. He tells me how he intentionally disobeyed his mother and refused to wash the dishes and start dinner so that when she came home from work and from picking up his sister at day care, the kitchen was filthy and there was nothing to eat and Darnell goaded his mother saying he didn’t feel like cooking and cleaning and what was she going to do about it? She beat him with the belt, then went out with her daughter to McDonalds leaving Darnell home alone. He asks me again to please to call the police to arrest her. I do make a phone call for Darnell, but not to the police. I call Cressler House.

I later learn that the staff at Cressler counseled both Darnell and his mother by phone that night and then had Darnell stay at Cressler House for a week and got him and his mother enrolled in a group counseling for parents and adolescents.

Life for Darnell, Aeron, Ian, Mookie and even Julio, ain’t been no crystal stair, and I can only hope they keep climbing.