Her portable radio soon fuzzily belched, “ALL CLEAR!” and she stood. I placed my belongings on her desk, and my finger markings revealed my nerves. Gum?” she smiled, thrusting a pack at me. “The local police called and asked that we “shelter in place” because a convict escaped from a patrol car nearby, and he was seen headed our way." “I am not joking,” she continued to type. “Geriatric gang members,” I half-joked, hoping to turn her around. She busied herself with computer work, and I continued to watch the scene just outside our door unfold. “Some of our students have grandparents who are active gang members,” she announced incongruently, the back of her head given to me as an obvious response to my no longer looking her way. My fingers moistened against the faux leather. In my hands sat portfolios of past student work and lesson plans. I felt my tie, dress shirt, pants, and belt all at once betray whatever comfort a newly-minted credentialed teacher was allowed to feel at his first interview with a school’s principal. “You know, SWAT.” An industrial gravel seal could be heard crunching beneath hard steps, and when I peered out her office window, black shapes bent along campus rooftops to better gain position. “Special Weapons And Tactics,” she said before she paused, sitting straighter in her executive chair, studying my immediate reaction.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |