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Death Protects

Nick Gregorio

    It was on the news.
    No one was named.
    Nothing was solved.
    People were dead and it was back to Sheena Parveen for the weather report—it was going to feel like Christmas should’ve.

***

    “Motherfucker from his block did it,” Derrick said before first period. “Put three in him.”
    I almost said, “Derrick. Language.” But didn’t.
    A bell. Chairs scraping against linoleum. Whispers of James’ death before I got started.
    I’d prepped a Powerpoint. Held a discussion about Lennie Small’s brains getting blown out. Why George would do that. How death protects from pain.
    Marcy excused herself without a pass.
    I said nothing, sat down. Wiped a coffee ring off my desk, filed stray papers.

***

    Over the PA, a senior assembly in place of fourth.
    Principal Adler talked about James. Used words like Senseless, and Future, and Cope.
    There were tears from students, other teachers.
    People signed up for sessions with the grief councilors brought in for the day.
    We’d pick back up with Of Mice and Men tomorrow.

***

    The English department offices were filled with sniffling, stories, comments about James’ papers—insightful for his age.
    Matt said, “You had him, right?”
    Sue said, “Good kid, wasn’t he?”
    Chris said, “What are you thinking?”
    I answered the questions. Told the truth. All good things.
    Then, in his office, I told Chris that once this sort of thing happens enough it’s just cloudiness. Hypersensitive ears. Waiting for everyone to go back to normal.

***

    The students were dismissed early.
    We were asked to stay.
    Figured I’d leave before I was allowed.
    I smoked out back where the cameras had been ripped from the walls. Watched trash tumble down the filthy street. Homeless rummaging through mounds of garbage. People collecting on corners, handing things off, moving along.
    All concrete, brick, and cinderblock. Chain link fences and caution tape.
    Gray, cold, everything amplified by the squalor.
    James got three put in him.
    He was the third since September.

***

    I had to Xerox a quiz.
    I left anyway.
    Walked over the glass in the parking lot. Kicked a syringe into a pile of dead leaves. Crushed a beer can as it rolled my way with the wind.
    I’d go home. Work through my DVR. Drink coffee. Go to sleep with Nick at Nite casting a blue glow onto my bedroom walls in the dark. Then I’d wake up in the morning, go to work, and give a lecture on death and what it means and how sometimes it means nothing and how sometimes it loses meaning.
    Alone in front of my car, my reflection in the window, I showed myself my teeth, arched the corners of my lips and turned my mouth into an inverted U, made a face people make when they cry—a face I never used to have to think about making.
    Then I got in the car, started it up.
    I drove home listening to the tires’ white noise on the road.

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