3Souls: Chapters XXIII & XXIV

Death Awaits Us All & A Million Strong

CHAPTER XXIII: Death Awaits Us All

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The eviction notice came. It came in person, but oddly enough it came from a city council member, a high-profile man named Ray Carver. Somehow he’d come to know about Raphaella and her little shelter. It seems that he was an old friend of Mitkin’s father, Martin, and that he owed the family a few leftover favors. This was one of them, requested by Mitkin on behalf of Raphaella, a genuine act of love.

Raphie and the councilman talked in the living room. Carver was forthright and his plan was simple. Raphaella could avoid eviction by moving her makeshift shelter into a new city building where she would work as chief coordinator. Ray Carver would receive credit for finding her and her boarders and saving them from the streets, not to mention rewarding her with a job she would surely love. It was a snug fit. I was stunned. It seemed that Raphaella’s new god was shining on her. As if in biblical times, I told myself, the sea had parted, the lame walked. I was impressed, but she wasn’t. She told me she wouldn’t take the job, said it wasn’t blessed. I was confused.

“It’s everything you wanted,” I told her as we stood in the foyer of her place, waiting for Dana to get ready for our weekly visit. “It makes perfect sense.”

“It’s too much. It’s got too many dangers.”

“For who?”

She was calm, but in her eyes was a look of loneliness. I could see that she thought I’d never understand, that it would just be more of the same silliness—demon talk, more demon talk. “Forget it,” she said.

I shook my head and escorted Dana down the stairs muttering. “It just gets weirder and weirder.” In typical fashion, Dana put on her mother’s mood. She hung her head. She walked solemnly to the car, a barefoot tenderness in her stride. We kept silent all the way downtown, the sway and jog of the moving car the only thing between us. Finally I spoke up.

“Mom’s real sad, huh?” She nodded, but still didn’t look at me. “She doesn’t want to quit her old job, huh?” She didn’t respond. “Is that why she’s so sad about the new job? She likes it, but wants to be nice to Doctor Ferrare?”

Dana furrowed her brow and looked at me sternly. “That’s not it, Daddy. Father Seraphim says she shouldn’t. That’s why.”

Of course, I thought. My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “He said she can’t take the job?”

“Sort of, uh huh.”

“Oh boy,” I pined. “Why would he say that?”

“Mommy says she’s too proud for the job.”

“Mommy said that or the priest said that?”

“Mommy said that herself.”

I slowed the car and pulled crookedly into a parking spot. We had come to the Lower East Side for a birthday party, though rage now blocked my ability to remember just whose. I went inside with Dana and she immediately fell headlong into the party, swallowed up by her friends, their mothers, and music. I simpered and thanked the hostess, got the pick-up time, and left.

The damn priest. I sped uptown. The freeway led me up the East Side where the city rose like iron cliffs to my left. Rows and rows of rust-brown buildings lined the freeway and pushed me against the steely East River. One by one, the fat, concrete viaducts passed overhead and marked my ascent. Fourteenth Street. Thirty-fourth Street. Forty-second Street. Midtown Tunnel. Seventy-second Street. I threw my car into the fast lane and fixed my eyes on the car ahead.

Like this, I slipped into conversation with the bearded bane of my existence. I shouted and he argued back, my tack wholly logical, foreseeable, clean, convincing. We battled over Raphaella. I told him to stop controlling her and he said he didn’t. I told her he should let her take the job, and he said she could if she wanted. He looked into my eyes and saw my love for her. He saw how serious I was. It was easy, he’d understand. But then the shadows of Dana’s school crept over me like a canopy of confusion. I remembered Raphaella as she was, an enslaved believer and one filled with an impractical conviction about right and wrong, good and bad, truth.

There was the real problem: truth. I couldn’t avoid it. I’d have to battle the monk over truth. So I did, at top speed, in my head, in my car. He told me Raphaella needed to find truth on her own. I told him truth was happiness, and that she would be happy if he advised her to work at the shelter. He said perhaps, and then nodded, and I knew what he meant. He wanted me to convince her, he wanted us to work it out and then I realized that this was all part of his plan. He wanted us to be together, and hoped I would make it happen. Indeed, it was a stunning plan. He was an amazing man. I saw why she would love him and his ideas.

Raphaella was right, he was wise. I envisioned it all. He would advise us to marry and run the shelter together. I would write about the lives of the women and we’d be in love and I’d love good things. That was what the monk wanted, and it was my insistence, my sheer devotion to her, this speeding car, this frenetic romantic energy that had convinced him that we should be together. I was a love bullet and I was going to be rewarded.

My conversation with the simulacrum ended just as I slipped onto the ramp of the 125th Street Bridge. Emotional, I pounded the gas pedal and the car jerked ahead. In and out of traffic I went, shoving my way back and forth, faster and slower until, finally, I dipped into blotchy Harlem traffic. A hollow, breezeless air enveloped me there and I rolled down the windows. I checked my watch and then surveyed the neighborhood. It was barren. A long, craggy, concrete parking lot sat astride a run-down and abandoned warehouse. Next to the warehouse was a school. The school blended in with the other buildings, all of them lifeless. A tall, yellow, revolving sign read LIQUOR. The monastery was just two blocks up and a few blocks north.

But I couldn’t move. The only things moving in this jam were the waves of sound carrying bleating horns. I sighed and wagged my head in disgust and then, out of the corner of my eye I caught the illusive image of a man in black robes seemingly skimming along the sidewalk, hovering really, alongside my car. I focused and sure enough it was the old man, surreal and like a wraith in his robes, striding sternly beneath his black sauterne which covered his feet and dragged slightly on the ground. His beard blew in the wind and he held his round black hat to his head with his hand. I watched, ferociously interested and intensely amused. He walked ahead, moving faster than my car, until he came to a stop under a tree. There were two men there, disheveled men, both of them selling peanuts out of a big burlap bag. Their gaunt black faces told stories of despair. The priest bent over and slid a tiny stool beneath him, tucked his robe between his legs and sat. Together they cooled in the shade, three old men shelling peanuts, hawking peanuts and munching peanuts. I pulled slowly alongside and yelled out the window.

“Hello.” I coughed to clear my throat and said again, “Yes, hello, it’s David, Raphaella’s friend. Do you have a minute?”

One of the old black men straightened his neck and strained to identify me. I smiled.

“Who’s Raphaella?” he said. At that, the priest looked at him and then at me. I yelled again.

“Father Seraphim, it’s me, David, Raphaella’s friend. Do you have a minute?” He got up and came gently to the car. His mouth was full of peanuts. “I just wanted to talk to you about Raphaella and the homeless shelter.”

He squinted. “David?” He leaned over into the driver’s side window. “Oh yeah, hey. Hello. How are you?” I nodded my head. He paused and said, “She’s got you thinking some more, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. Can we talk?”

A horn blared behind us, and right away the priest straightened up and shouted with an outstretched hand, “How ‘bout we all just relax, huh?” The horn blared again and Father Seraphim laughed an, “Ah, come on buddy,” and then hopped into my car. “Wow, the mean streets, huh? Probably on his way to get an emergency coffee and donuts.” He looked at me. “So, you want to talk?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do. I’ve been thinking about something that I found out today. About Raphie and the shelter.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s just that you told her she shouldn’t take the job with the city, the shelter job.”

“The shelter job?” he said. I nodded and then he pointed. “Here, take a right.” The car moseyed up Madison Avenue. “Oh yeah, sure, the shelter job with the city.” He shook his head. “That’s no good for her. But she can take it if she wants it.” We pulled in front of the monastery but there were no parking spots. We idled.

“She’s not going to take it,” I said, flatly.

“That’s a good decision. But you don’t think so, and that’s why you’re here. You zoomed up here to let me know, and you’re angry, and I don’t blame you really. I can see why you’re angry, but you should know anger won’t serve you. Ever.” He reached out and drummed on the dashboard. “How about some focaccia? You like focaccia?” Before I could answer he opened the door and crawled out. “You’ll love this place. Great focaccia. Just double-park it, nobody’ll bother you for a while. Here.” He unlocked an old blue station wagon and pulled out a dashboard sign that read CLERGY. He flipped it onto my dash. “There you go. Focaccia.”

We walked about a block and a half and found a busy pizza parlor. Everyone turned and stared at us as we came in, and then, as if hypnotized by his familiar presence, they all went back to their food. I stood uneasily at his side. “Hello, Liberty, could you give me that piece right there?” He got on his tiptoes and pointed. “Yep, perfect. Thanks, Liberty.” As I ordered he turned to me and said, “Her name’s Liberty, how about that? Great name, huh?” I nodded and thought that his name was Seraphim and how about that, but I didn’t share my thoughts with him. Turns out I didn’t need to. Still waiting for our order, he turned again and said, “She thinks my name is odd too. Don’t worry, David. I’m a regular.”

The pizza joint was small with little wooden parlor chairs and tiny, round, wooden tables. A few booths filled the back of the shop, but they were currently being used as storage for cases of soft drinks. We scrunched in and before I could even reach for a napkin, he had waved his hand over our food in the shape of a cross. He smiled at me and then took a hearty bite. While chewing, he rearranged his seat and tucked his robes up under him, out of the way. “Those two guys I was selling peanuts with, they are both dying. They sell peanuts for the monastery, and for themselves. I get the peanuts donated to me by some downtown vendors.” He chewed. “They don’t have long. Death is coming for them. It awaits us all.”

Not another story, I thought.

“I knew this monk once, on Mount Athos. He slept in a box that had a lid on it. On the top of the lid there was a painting of a skeleton. Neat huh?” He wiped his mouth with a crumpled napkin. “He got into that thing every night after his evening prayers and went to sleep. Then, in the morning he’d get out, turn around and shut the lid, say his morning prayers and guess what? Even we monks thought he was crazy.” He reached and shook some Parmesan cheese over his focaccia. “But he used to say to us, ‘Who’s really crazy? Each day I am resurrected and given the gift of life! Look,’ he’d say, pounding his chest, ‘I am alive, I can repent! One day the box will claim me and when that day comes, I am finished on this earth, Fathers, my soul will be all I have. This day, every day is for the preparation of my soul for death.’ I used to say to myself, you sleep in a coffin, you crazy old coot! But of course, he wasn’t so crazy was he?”

I hoped this was a rhetorical question.

“Remember death, David. Remember death.”

I listened as best I could, but we were surrounded on all sides by Harlemites on lunch break, crammed together and eating pizza, subjected, I thought, to this priest’s unbridled voice, and of course, to his beard. I searched his waterfall of whiskers for food bits, but found none. I stole glances side to side. A cement-faced man with a bandana chewed with his mouth open, surely grinning at me, snickering a little, intrigued. A woman with tight jeans and long beaded braids squeezed passed with her pizza on a plate and her hand high in the air like a waitress. She glanced at us and I mugged a smile of discomfort. She smiled back breezily. I had maybe a foot or two on either side of me, and there was Father Seraphim going on in a none-too-subtle way about death and naps in coffins. Suddenly, my wonderfully crafted car conversation about Raphaella and living together and marriage, well, it all sort of caved in like a bad angel food cake, crumpled up and sticky. I nodded to the “death awaits” comment, and I managed to realize that he was right, at least about death.

“But you didn’t come here to hear about death did you, David?”

“No,” I said.

“So?”

I paused, wearily. “So… I really don’t see why Raphaella shouldn’t take the city job. The job makes sense for her.”

“To you, sure. But what about for Raphaella?”

“I think she thinks it’s good too, at least until she spoke to you.”

“Do you really think it’s that easy, David? I just talk and she listens and then she marches off and delivers?”

“Well, it seems like it sometimes.”

“Things aren’t always what they seem, David.” He leaned over, closer to me, and with a theatrical whisper said, “She has been invited to perfection, armed as it were with the truth, invited to live in Christ, in the Church, and not live for this world. See, she isn’t living to get promotions anymore, David, she’s not interested in choice apartments, job promotions and 401(k)s. She’s living to acquire choice bits of humility, meekness, love.” He smiled and still leaning, addressed the man with the bandana. “How’s your slice, brother?”

The man grinned and chewed.

Soberly, Father Seraphim wiped his hands, finger by finger cleaning himself, neatly, patiently. “The reason she won’t take the shelter job is because she fears pride and ego like you fear unemployment and life without sex.”

“Unemployment and sex, huh?” I said angering, and on the verge of becoming rude. “That’s what you think I care about?”

“Don’t be angry, David, the glass you see through is not hers.”

“Maybe, but her daughter doesn’t see it her way either.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Dana and Raphaella are growing together, seeing things together, just as mothers and daughters are prone to do. How could it be any different?”

The pizza shop, the pizza eaters, the close quarters, the girl named Liberty, the smell of pepperoni, the beard, all of it, faded into the background, away from us. I thought how nothing had come off as I had hoped, nothing was said that needed to be said, no one had heard me as I needed to be heard. Instead, I had been given death and coffins and worlds to come, and I had been given embarrassment and confusion and a sense of emptiness, no matter what he said about newness and joy. He had imparted nothing but a sense of emptiness, actually. The words the end came to mind. I was distraught.

“She loves you, David, at least she tells me she loves you. But you, you David, need to look into what love is. It’s as profound a reality as we long for it to be. It is everything that we hope it is, and that means it doesn’t come easy and it ain’t about sex.”

“Sex?” I said, my eyes narrowing. “Why do you keep bringing it up, sex, why!” I stopped and stared at my pizza, shaking my head. “You know what,” I said slinging an open hand, “you can have her. Forget you and her and all this bullshit.” I stood up. “Whatever. Go and get her killed with your otherworldly advice because that’s what’s going to happen. One of these bums is going to do something crazy.” I pointed demonstratively to within an inch of his face. “And her blood will be on your hands.”

The big priest remained seated in his chair, looking up at me, his blue eyes still and serious. “It looks like we’ve returned to the starting point, David. Death. Death awaits us all.”

I left him, seething, and as I marched out I realized the entire pizza parlor was watching me go. I didn’t care. I mean was this guy a frickin’ lunatic? Sure death awaits us all, but what about a little fun along the way? I don’t know, how ‘bout a goddamned ball game or maybe a dance around the maypole, asshole. I wasn’t some idiot, some hedonist sex addict who couldn’t keep his pants on. Plus, I had been trying to figure this all out. I had made an effort. Hadn’t I grown closer to her of late? Hadn’t I started to see things as she did, spiritually, otherworldly? I’d had little revelations. I’d been trying. But now the monk spoke so candidly of death, death and the end of things, consumption and destruction. The end of all, end all to be all, end, over, darkness, death. I hit the accelerator.

Death awaits us all.

I couldn’t shake it. His words were gummy and uncomfortable, and they got in the way of my driving. The copious rows of oaks which line 5th Avenue all along Central Park’s east side were alive and well, but I imagined them withered and dead, leafless and hollow. The new sods of Bermuda grass, verdant and rich, beautified the park, but I imagined it pale and weak, sick and dying. The people on the lawn were dead too—on their backs, arms folded, staring vainly at a barren sky which wasn’t a sky at all, but rather a putrid, beige-brown ceiling, the top of a rented funeral parlor where the carpet smelled like damp fruit and the people maundered beside decapitated flowers, the flowers themselves cut from their roots, suffocating and in the throes of death. A smutty film of despair covered me. Everything nettled and piqued me. I was physically uncomfortable.

I grew despondent about Raphaella. Pure, crystal-clear capitulation shuddered inside of me. There was simply nothing to do to get her back—nothing. I was overcome by the reality. Our relationship was over. All of my imagined needs, to be a father, to be a husband, to be a friend and mate, to be a teacher to my daughter, to be there, in the lives of the ones I thought I loved, all of these needs were needs no longer. They all got swallowed up in his words, “Death awaits us all.” Life became meaningless and I drove on without sense. The skin on my jowls hung heavy on my face and I felt my lips sag into a frown. My eyes saw hazily, and my shoulders hunched. This was the end; I would leave again. Maybe this time I’d go down south and stay with my father’s side of the family and I wouldn’t send money, I wouldn’t send pictures and I wouldn’t feel guilty. I would feel nothing, simply nothing. We were dead. The monk had won.

I retrieved Dana and we drove in silence.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, honey.”

“You look sad.”

We slowed gently at a stoplight and a big truck let out a hydraulic sigh. My hands sat limply on the steering wheel, and the smile on my face sagged.

“Everything is fine, Dana, really.”

Raphaella was out on the stoop, sitting with Kitty, both of them wearing baking aprons. Kitty saw us first and smiled, then Raphaella. Dana smiled back. I got out and let Dana out of the car. She bounded to her mother and they embraced. Before much could be said, I got back in the car and put it into drive. As I drove off I turned to meet Raphaella’s eyes. Staring like that, I drove slowly, saying nothing, just watching her watch me and wonder.

CHAPTER XXIV: A Million Strong

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Two days later, Mitkin showed up at my school. He met me outside my classroom after the final bell, his expression all soft and sugary, his stride airy.

“David, you look good. How have you been?” I was wary. Mitchell Mitkin never greeted me like this before. “I’m not teaching full time anymore,” he said. “Did you know that?”

“Yes, Raphaella told me.”

“Yeah, we don’t talk much anymore, me and her. I’m real busy now, got a job as a full-time substitute right next door.”

“LaFollete?” I asked.

“Yes, exactly. See I’m up here for the rest of the year, just one more week now. I was wondering if I could come by one lunch and talk to some students of yours, your toughest students preferably. Maybe you’d like a day off, huh?” He stared directly into my eyes. “Maybe?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But why?”

“Of course. I am involved with a citywide program for students. It’s called the Student Coalition. We are a student advocacy group. We are into empowerment, like when you worked at The Plateau.”

“You’re the spokesperson?”

“See that’s the most salient aspect of the entire program,” he said sounding like the old Mitkin. “I just watch mostly. We have a small cadre of dedicated students who make presentations to other students. Students teaching students, like Stop the Violence.”

“Oh yeah,” I said simply.

“Yes, we are a bit like them, though more academic. You’d really like it.”

I asked him if Raphaella had ever seen this new project of his and he grew dark. “No. She wouldn’t get it. She wouldn’t like it. She’s too closed-minded.” I nodded and suggested lunch, but really I just wanted him to leave.

“When exactly? You know, for lunch.” Before I could answer he said straight-faced, “Tomorrow? We could have lunch tomorrow?”

“I…”

“Too soon? Day after tomorrow then, I’ll meet you in front of LaFollete. Twelve sharp.”

“Why don’t you call me,” I said. Becoming quiet and moving deliberately, he handed me a pen and the back of an old business card. I gave him my telephone number and left. I left him even though this was my school, my place of employment. I walked around the halls for ten minutes and thought that surely he would call.

And he did, that same night. I listened as he spoke commandingly to my answering machine. “Again, I think your students would truly benefit from our presentation and I think you would too. I hope that you won’t be like other pig-headed teachers on this one, David. Pick up the phone please.” He didn’t hang up but stayed on listening. “Pick it up David, you’re there, I know it, you said you’d be.” He silently waited some more and then hung up with a clang. I never called him back, mostly because I loathed the idea of trying to deflect his sales job. He left another message on Thursday evening, the last Thursday of the school year, four days after he’d shown up at my classroom. An understated contemptuousness broke through an otherwise polite voice as he told me that his Student Coalition was holding a “campfire” at Luther High the very next day. “It doesn’t matter that you never called back,” he said. “Go. You must go.”

I went this time, afraid not to.

The sun was high and bright and I was impressed by the turnout. There had been a buzz all day concerning the meeting, and three of my most combustible students had even urged me to go and “see this wild guy speak.” I wondered if “this guy” could be Mitkin. I walked from the dingy school hallway into a courtyard gleaming white from the rays of a hot sun. A thin boy was speaking rhythmically into a microphone.

“You ever asked yourself why these buildings exist, yo? Look at ‘em.” The young man pointed at the school and shouted, “Why is this building here, why?” He pointed again, shading his eyes with his other hand like an army general in battle. “They here because the older generation needs us, they need us to be a certain way, to think a certain way, to act and believe a certain way. And if you look ‘round, especially when you look ‘round Manhattan, you see the way. They want us to buy things yo, consume some shit. Let me break it down for you.” He surveyed his crowd. No less than fifty kids had come out to the meeting. I looked and found Mitkin sitting dispassionately and inconspicuously against the far wall. He was flanked by two students; one, a young man, was staid and serious, the other, a thin girl, sat content, a wry smile curling her lips. To the side sat a folding table with a sign affixed, reading MLHS STUDENT COALITION.

The speaker, the boy I’d one day come to know as Richie Rovers, went on: “I’ll break it down like this, y’all. Everybody wants a piece of you. I mean everybody: teachers, parents, the po-po, politicians, moviemakers, advertisers, all of ‘em, every one of ‘em. They looking out for themselves by looking out for your desires. It’s the same with the Board downtown, and it’s the same with this administration right here.” He pointed again. “They want a piece of you, the piece that makes you free.” He paused for a spattering of applause. “You know what I’m saying?” He nodded big, heavy-chinned nods. “You know, you can feel it when you wanna take a class about something you love, African-American culture maybe, but it ain’t on the list.” He raised an angry eyebrow. “You can feel it while you stand in line to get scanned in the morning like common criminals.”

Rover’s nod kept pace with his words, up and down, louder and louder. “You can feel it when you are trapped in a class with a teacher who wants one damn thing, a paycheck. You can feel it! Why don’t they get ridda that teacher, you wonder. Why don’t they offer that class, you say. Why don’t they care about you and what you want in life? And the answer is the same every damn time. Because they don’t care about what you want, about what you want you to be. What this administration wants, what the chancellor of the schools wants, what society wants, is us acting like little robots yo, little bitty parts in the great big American machine. And am I lying?” He looked wildly around the courtyard as kids slowly made their way out of class and passed his raw voice. The crowd swelled and among them I saw three of my three students, three difficult kids whom on this day sat so still they appeared desperate to hear.

“Am I lying?” Rovers shouted, and then again, louder, as loud as I imagined he could: “Am I lying to y’all?” Then his voice grew soft, and the speaker system pushed out his whisper. “Why do we have bells at the end of class, ringing, all day long?” He turned up his palms and feigned not knowing. “Why bells?”

“Tell us,” two thick girls yelled out.

“Because our school is a factory and guess who the product is, nigga?”

The girls yelled, “Us!”

He pointed and looked right at the lonely voices. “That’s right. We go from room to room all day just like cars pass from spot to spot on an assembly line. At each station they add a part, here some math, there some English, here some bullshit history. One by one, bell by bell, we get fixed up ‘til finally, after four years of fine-tuning we s’posed to be fine-oiled machines ready to enter the world and consume our little asses off, we s’posed to be ready to produce and consume until we drop. And that’s exactly what we foolish people do. Drop. Dead. But death ain’t the worst part, yo. The worst part is that we think that this cycle is good. That this is natural. We think that we need shit, the right shoes, the right jeans, Pampers, we programmed and we think it’s all good. But that ain’t living, I hate to say. That’s slavery, yo, that’s death. That ain’t freedom.” He wiped his brow. Like a Pentecostal preacher Richie Rovers was unaware of his silver tongue, but once he got started, it was like a geyser of words spilling wildly onto the courtyard and warmly into the ears of kids just like himself. Those who stayed watched him closely and those who passed by did too. Mitkin did not, however. He watched the watchers.

“So basically I just wanna say I’m tired of all this ramming in. I’m tired of shit being stuck onto me as if I didn’t have no voice of my own. Millions and millions of dollars go every year so that they can ram shit down my throat, shit that I didn’t even ask for. So,” he took a big breath, a dramatic breath. “What to do?”

“Yeah, so what you gonna do about it?” came a voice. “What you gonna do, nigga?” shouted another.

“I’m gonna do what my teachers always tell me to do—I’m gonna rewrite this mother! Nobody says it has to be like this, yo, there is one million of us in this system. One million! Now that’s power! We need to practice what was given to us, what belongs to each of us, what is our right. We need to act free to be free.

“Let’s rewrite this system, totally, all of us, together. Let’s have students choose teachers, and principals, and school boards. Hell, let’s get rid of the school boards altogether. Let’s write our own budgets, create our own classes, set our own standards, elect our own chancellor. And why not, yo? Why not? What, we don’t know what’s good for us? That’s what the slave masters said about their slaves, yo! Niggers couldn’t take care of themselves, they said. But that’s a lie. Freedom, yo. That’s the whole point of this country right? Getting yours, right? Isn’t that what they teach us? Hell, yes, look around. The only class of people who don’t have equal rights is us young people, and forget about young black people. We ain’t got shit. And by the way, I’m not talking about holding little mock elections where everybody smiles and acts real cute about ‘what the little nigger kids want.’ I’m talking about a system by the niggers, for the niggers, right here at nigger high! Isn’t that the whole idea anyway? Isn’t that what all the really slick principals say they want anyway? Isn’t freedom for individuals what the old white men who founded this country wanted?”

Richie Rovers was sweating a great deal. He stopped and pulled a bandana out of his pocket and wiped his brow. “You know what I’m saying about being in charge because you live it. How many of you have to make decisions all day everyday about your life because you got parents who are all fucked up? Yeah,” he slowed down, “that’s right, moms that are all fucked up, I said that shit. Yep. And don’t give me any of this ‘don’t talk about my momma’ shit. It’s true what I’m saying. They all messed up ‘cause they just like we’re gonna be; slaves to a system that deep down we know is wrong. See, that’s why black and brown folks never seem to get it right in America, it’s why they always think we acting crazy, it’s why we poor and never run nothing. See, we deep down refuse to just give in and be a part of their corrupt system, their bankrupt ideas. We refuse to be their slaves, but that refusal comes unknown by us, it just happens in us because we understand deep down, see.

“But now I’m telling you that you can change everything, the system and your life included. See, your runaway pop was trying to get free, but he just did it all wrong. See, he didn’t know how to fight correctly, he only sensed how fucked up everything was and didn’t have any way to cope with it so he left you, out of anger and frustration, and like that, alone, it got worse for you and him. See, he left and made everything worse. But it doesn’t have to be like this. There is another way to fight, another way to make things better. And so I ask you a question, is this system doing anything good for you?”

“No,” came an earnest cry from the crowd. “Hell no!” A boy started to laugh at his friend’s involuntary show of support but stopped when a crew of gangbangers stared him down. The crowd of malcontents waxed and waned between giddy and aggressive. With his wiry body and hairbrush voice, Rovers continued.

“Hell no, this system ain’t helping us,” he blared. “This system is out to destroy us. We gotta be responsible for ourselves now, we gotta create a system that we run, that we fix and that we like. And forget society out there somewhere.” He waved his arms. “They don’t care about us, haven’t thought about us, provided for us in three hundred years, so stop calling on society or government, whatever that means. They don’t care, they don’t give a damn. So, I’m almost finished. But check it out. Take a flier. Think about why you get up every morning and come to this place.” He pointed at the school again. “Just ask yourself that, and then come and help us get the monkey off your back, yo. Good things ‘bout to happen y’all.” Rovers pounded his chest twice and took a quick bow.

Cheers broke out in bunches as Richie Rovers made his way down from the podium. The thin girl at Mitkin’s side got up and mounted the makeshift stage.

“My name is Alysha Cooper and I’m the presiding officer for the MLHS chapter of Students for Students.” She proceeded to list a set of upcoming activities. In her hand she clutched a pamphlet and asked everyone to take one—many did including me. I flipped through it as I walked toward Mitkin and saw a cartoon with many childish faces and big mustachioed men holding long lists. Mitkin’s art had been reworked by a student, and now the imposing gun became a flag with the slogan, OUR TURN.

I rolled the pamphlet in my hand like a morning newspaper and tapped Mitkin on the knee. He looked at me and held out a welcoming hand. As he did so, he laughed.

“Phone working yet?”

His grip was as gritty as his grin. I tried to ignore his gibe and said, “That kid’s pretty good with words.”

Mitkin glanced and winked. “Sure. Just like a preacher.”

“Is he one of your students?”

“Yes.”

“Is he like that in class?”

“Yep, yep, he’s just like that.”

“Does he get good grades?” I asked.

Richie Rovers was suddenly alongside me and I felt his breath. “When I want to,” he said, and then looking sharply at Mitkin he asked, “Who this?”

“A friend of a former friend. He teaches here. He’s the one I told you about, the one who was going to get us some class time.” Mitkin slung a glance my way, even as he spoke to Richie. “He’s no problem, Rich.” Behind us all droned the proficient Alysha Cooper.

“So get involved. Be ready to commit. And thank you for coming.” A smattering of applause went up.

“Is he with us?” asked Richie pointing at me. Mitkin did not respond but rather deftly allowed a blighted pall of silence to fall wholly on me. Apoplectic, I was unable to reply right away.

“So?” said Richie, “are you?”

“No, no, not me. I’m real busy,” I said.

“Real busy doing what?”

“Teaching.”

“Oh yeah? What do you teach?”

“History. I heard what you said up there about history. You’ve got some good things to say.”

“And so?” he said suspiciously.

“And well, I don’t think so. No, I’m not ‘in.’ It’s not for me just yet.”

“Change is a bitch, huh?” said Richie, while Mitkin just sat there on the ledge taking notes in his threshing-machine mind.

“How old are you?” I asked Rovers.

“Why do you ask?”

Like a dog owner calling off his hounds, Mitkin interrupted, “He’s nineteen.”

“Do you still go to school here?” I asked.

Mitkin again intervened. “Richie speaks for the students of New York City, that’s all. But forget all of that, David,” he said unwinding a bit, “I’m glad to see you here. I thought you’d find it interesting, maybe a bit of what he said could start a good discussion in your history class, huh? Rights and freedom are fuel for good discussion.”

I did not move.

“We’ve got a lot of support here at Luther. Your kids are very active and bright. I could see them needing some guidance when the going gets real tough, you know, prepare them a little. Maybe try using this pamphlet as a starting point. Make some waves.”

I nodded, but inside I stewed uncomfortably, afraid of the intensity of this so-called advocacy group. I also wondered how long it would be before this group found itself disbanded and outlawed. I blurted out, “You want our kids to give up everything and put their futures on the line? Might not go so well.”

Richie spat in disgust and turned and walked away. Mitkin got up off the ledge. “Yes, David, you’re right. Our coalition asks students to take a chance, we ask them to trade slavery for freedom. That much is absolutely true. It’s a risk. So what?”

“Well, for one thing they might just get police attention.”

“So?” said Alysha. She had finished packing up the podium and now stood alongside Mitkin, joined by a very quiet kid with exceptionally dark skin.

“So,” I said, “the kids who want to get their education will have a harder time.”

“You mean the five percent who actually want one of these bullshit diplomas,” said Richie, again back in the mix. I noticed that there was no one left in the courtyard but Mitkin, his coalition, and me.

“That number’s a little low, don’t you think?”

“Not really. That’s about all that actually believe in this place. The rest, and I’m talking about some good students, the rest have this crazy doubt way down deep just like I said. It keeps telling them they ain’t getting what they deserve.”

I almost groaned. “Nobody gets what they deserve, even in the suburbs. You have to work with what you’ve got. Starting a riot isn’t going to help. Besides Mitchell, this doesn’t sound like you at all. It’s not what you believed in before, what’s going on with you?”

From behind a wall of students the dark-skinned boy called out, “What you believe in, Mister?” He held his chin up and waited for me to answer. I looked at Mitkin who was doing the same.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“What do I mean? I believe in being free, what you believe in?” The thin girl snickered.

I thought how this whole conversation was dubious. Teenagers don’t act like this. “You don’t care what I believe, you just want me on your side. This whole thing is like a brainwashing, and you Mitchell, you should stop teaching them this. It won’t serve them.”

Mitkin did not render an emotion. He just looked at me and with a distinct arrogance said, “You didn’t answer the question, David.”

Just like the monastery, I thought. Here I was, with the abbot and his monks, life and death and the big ideas again. “This is ridiculous,” I said between clenched teeth, barely audible. I frowned and looked back at the boy. “I believe in living a good life, okay, I don’t hurt anybody and they don’t hurt me. That’s about it. Sorry, no big ideas from me, and besides, it doesn’t matter what I believe, this is a school, a place for academics and that means we need order.” I said what sounded right and then ended by unrolling the pamphlet in my hands and sticking it straight out. “Give it to someone who cares.”

As I walked away I heard Mitkin saying, “You’ve bought their lies too, David. Don’t bury your head in the sand.” His words harried me as I ducked into the school.

***

“And that was the last time we spoke until this week?”

“Yep, think so,” replies Mitkin.

“Do you remember what came next?”

He closes his eyes meditatively.

“I do.”

I wait for him to elaborate, but he does not continue. He blushes a rose hue and looks down. He persists with his rope, turning it faster and faster through his fingers. I wonder if we are done for the day, so I ask.

“No,” he says, “I think we should continue. It’s early still.”

I pick up my pen and press it to my dull yellow