Kevin

Could it be?  A friend request on FB from a Kevin Johnson*, boat captain offering private cruises out of Virginia Beach.  

Only one Kevin Johnson crossed my life path, in Drama class thirty years ago, in the beat up trailer called a classroom behind a rural high school. 

My entry into public education as an English teacher had required my acceptance as a drama teacher and coach.  “We need an English teacher who will also take the drama classes and direct the plays.  Will you do it?” Asked the assistant principal at my interview.  

I needed a job quickly.  I didn’t hesitate.  “Sure!”  Little did I know how dramatic this acceptance would unfold with characters like Kevin whom I would remember forever.

Kevin, handsome with dark curly hair and twinkling brown eyes, had a perpetual mischievous smile above a strong cleft chin.  His glib style followed him right over the threshold into the classroom where he continued wooing his classmates with his endless charm.  On the first day of class, I waited quietly for him to settle down.  

Eventually everyone turned toward me, everyone but Kevin who continued with an outrageous story about a weekend keg party in the woods and sheriff’s deputies and getaways.  Everyday would begin the same, unless I could challenge Kevin immediately.  He obviously had leadership potential, and he certainly understood dramatic story lines.

Within a few days the students formed three drama casts, each with a student director. Obviously Kevin had to be one of the directors.  He could memorize lines and deliver them in character.  He was a natural with body language and understood blocking.

And then one day, he arrived looking disheveled and depressed.  His ebullience faded.  He refused to participate.  He became like a disruptive three year old, hell bent on earning negative attention.  Usually, mildly disruptive behavior can be ignored until the student self-corrects.  But Kevin’s behavior worsened.  He deliberately interfered with presentations by his classmates. Once he threw a book across the room.

I removed him from class for two days.  Maybe a cooling off would work.  When he returned, he was sullen.  “That makes sense,” I thought.  “He is going to pout. But for how long?”  Passive resistance can be just as disturbing as manic disruptions.

Was he using?  Pot? Uppers? Downers?  Alcohol?  His behavior was erratic and unpredictable.  He began to hang around, sometimes apologizing, sometimes scapegoating.  

His behavioral record on file showed disciplinary actions from alternative in school and out of school suspensions, truancy violations, and substance abuse suspicions.  Yet, he was utterly charming and appealing.  

He had little respect for authority and a weak moral compass; that was obvious.  He craved attention.  He was narcissistic to the core, lying for personal advantage, inventing stories, contradicting facts, deliberately flaunting school rules.

Our class occurred during lunch.  That is, half the hour was scheduled prior to a thirty-five minute lunch break, the other half afterwards.  I decided Kevin needed more attention from me.  With the Principal’s approval, I kept Kevin with me during lunch.  On sunny days, Kevin and I walked around the football field’s perimeter.  

At first, he was quiet. Then curious.  In time he stopped telling me outrageous stories about a  dysfunctional broken home, where he and his brother were victims, locked out, or forced to drink with his mom.  I figured a small percentage of his tales were true, the rest meant to shock  and gain sympathy.  I said very little during his era of tall tales, my goal being the reduction of misbehavior in his classes.  

Because Kevin could act and had a strong baritone voice, I cast him as the lead in Grease.  A wanna be mix of James Dean and John Travolta, he fit the part. 

“Now, Kevin, understand this.  You have a lead role. You have responsibilities, parts to memorize, practice schedules, etcetera....We are entrusting you with an important role. I’m backing you over the objections of my colleagues because I believe in you.”

“I get it.  I won’t disappoint you.”

And he didn’t, although I watched him like a hawk, keeping him busy as a director’s aide.

He didn’t come apart until after the performance, when he went on a bad behavior binge for a few days, as if he couldn’t stand the self-discipline one more day.  

For his Senior year, Kevin was allowed to take a second year of drama after I requested him, to the relief of his counselor.  I no longer had to keep him in at lunchtime, though he would hang around sometimes.  As a senior, he began to express concern about his younger brother, a sophomore who had a worst disciplinary record than he.  I learned about how the boys helped their dad with a business mowing the right-aways along state highways.  Their dad took them to ball games, had them over for barbecues, fixed their cars, was active in their lives.  The mother drank; she would be fine then not.  The boys adored her and helped her.  She frustrated them.  She was lonely then happy then lonely.  The family break up had been difficult on her.  Kevin’s moods were tied to her well being.  He felt responsible; too often he wanted more than his share of relief and attention, more than any of us actually receive on any given day, as if accumulated deprivation entitled him.

His situation invited trouble for teenagers in broken homes, with unsteady parenting, especially when alcohol abuse is involved and weak permissions blur decision lines. While attending the local university, he was picked up for possession of drugs.  

I wrote him a letter while he was in jail.  I was sad.  I believed in him.  He could, if he willed it, overcome his situation but it would be more than difficult.  I wasn’t exactly sure I believed my own words.  If he was using and selling cocaine, he was headed for deep trouble.

Afterwards he came to see me at home.  Sitting across from me on a sofa, he sorted through the lead up to consequences he hadn’t imagined.  He wanted to do better.  He wasn’t sure he was capable.  What should he do?

He was receiving addiction treatment as part of his sentence, parole with community service.  He had withdrawn from the university, was working, and living with his mother.  

Within the year I saw he had been indicted for theft.  He came to see me again.  He had stolen from a relative in order to buy drugs.  He was ashamed.  We repeated the previous conversation, except this time, I asked, “What do you want from me, Kevin?”

“I want a normal family like yours.”

“Kevin, what you think is so wonderful here hasn’t been gained easily.  Let me tell you a story or two...”. When I finished, he had learned how my mother had died when I was one week from turning thirteen, my children’s father and I had divorced, I held two jobs to pay the mortgage and cover college expenses, and so on.  What came easily was love.  That was the glue in our life.  Love and faith.  

“Kevin, you can do that too when you are ready.  I don’t know when that will be.  Some people have to lose everything, to find love, to experience faith. I want it to be easier for you, but I can’t promise you it will be.”

“I guess this means I can’t date your daughters.”  He half-joked.

Kevin was sentenced and served his time.  He came to see me after his parole release, after the birth of his little girl. This time, he talked about his baby girl, how he wanted to be a good father.

A year later I saw he had been charged with theft and fraud.  Third time.  Persistent felon.  Oh, oh, this was going to be serious.  

He showed up at the backdoor.  “I’m in serious trouble.  I stole my girlfriend’s credit cards, emptied her bank account, and wrote bad checks.”

“What about your child?”

“I’m not allowed to see her.”

He cried.  “I think I have finally lost everything.”

When I asked him why he had stolen from the child’s mother, he said, “I was so angry with her.  She wouldn’t let me see our baby girl.  So stupid.”

I listened while my husband hovered around the deck, making up yard chores just so Kevin could see him nearby.

Finally, Kevin rose to leave.  He hugged me.  “Thank you for all the love you have shown me.  I want you to know I would never steal from you.”

Kevin was sentenced to federal prison as a persistent felon.  I never saw him again until he showed up on FB last year.  A yacht captain.  Still handsome with some middle aged heft.  His photos are of gorgeous seascapes; pictures of him, his brother, and dad; a blurry I love you, Mom photo; a photo of his mother with a newborn, presumably Kevin; “loving and blessed” photos of Kevin with a pretty, smiling woman; a house in the woods; yachts; sailboats; artwork; barbecues; even a high school photo —everything positive, creative, kind, blessed.    

His profile lists university studies, a nearby county residence, his profession as sea boat captain.  I think he righted himself, don’t you?  It took awhile but he got there.  In 2014 he sold his boat Whiskey Jack so he could buy a sailing yacht and take his dad on a last cruise. I like the sound of that.  

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* I use pseudonyms for names in my 2018 blog posts and disguise places.  In the case of this particular story, I created conversations and timelines true to the situation.  It was impossible to remember every detail exactly.  The frame, however, is truthful.  

Sandra

She sat against the wall, three rows back from the teacher’s desk, with the windows at her back. Her short blonde hair formed a ragged frame around her thin face. Dressed in worn jeans and a faded tee, she could have blended innocuously into the mix of juniors lined up in tight rows in the dilapidated trailer masquerading as my classroom, except for her eyes. Her eyes held a determined gaze, keen and steady.

I passed around a seating chart. Her name was Sandra.*  Later I checked the roster for her address. Trailer Park. The one nearby with the abandoned vehicles and muddy lanes. 

In classroom discussions Sandra showed she had prepared for class. She read the books we discussed.She did well on multiple  choice tests but dismally with short essays or personal journals. Sandra couldn’t complete a sentence. She wrote single words or phrases in patterns meaningful only to her.

In exercises, Sandra could identify which sentences were complete and correct, and which ones were not, but could not write a logical, complete sentence.  She could argue fluently out loud but not on paper.   Puzzling, I thought. 

She agreed to work privately with me twice a week during a study period. We can fix this, I believed. We would do sentence exercises. Combine parts of sentences. Analyze sentences for parts of speech. Use sentence exercises with prepositional phrases, adverb and adjective clauses. Determine sentence types. She mastered the exercises. 

But in her classroom journal her opinions, reflections, and narratives persisted as ragged words and phrases separated by periods and sometimes by blank spaces. 

Tell me what you mean here, I’d ask.  She couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me. 

Our classroom had once been a trailer on a construction site.**  It was thin and long, not a double wide. The school district at the time was underfunded while the population had quickly grown beyond the physical capacity of its facilities. As a temporary solution, the district had purchased used trailers and parked them behind schools. Students walked out into the elements to get to literature and language classes. 

On rainy days the roof leaked so badly in our classroom that I kept a mop and bucket handy. When I complained about leaks, the janitor brought me big coffee cans to catch the leaks. The floor had soft spots, rotted flooring.  Fiberglass insulation fluffed from holes in the back wall. Students sometimes picked at the insulation, pulling it out further or stuffing it back. In August and September a window air conditioner hummed noisily and often had to be reset. In December and January, the heater either roasted us or failed to warm us. 

One grey winter day as the rain pummeled the metal roof and the wind rocked the trailer, Sandra spoke up, “You’d think that our government would provide us with classrooms better than what I live in!”  Water was once again dripping into cans on the floor. I was mopping up puddles walked in by students entering from the broken sidewalk outside. 

“That’s right!” echoed her classmates. 

“What’s wrong with the leaders that they are sending us to learn in junky trailers like this?”

“What would you like to do about it?”  I asked. 

“Let’s write a letter.  Can we?  To the school board!”

“And the superintendent,”  chimed others. 

“Okay, what do you want to say?”  I shelved the lesson and opened a brainstorming session until all their grievances about the trailer were listed on the blackboard. 

Sandra took over. She couldn’t write the letter but she could direct its composition, which took three days of negotiations between the students and the selection of a best writer. The students signed the letter, made copies, and mailed them.  Our principal was bemused by their audacity. I didn’t have tenure yet. I felt vulnerable. Within the month, maintenance repaired the roof and secured metal plates over rotted flooring.  The assistant principal directed a janitor to cover the holes in the walls and delivered to me a desk with drawers that opened and a rolling chair. 

Sandra’s weekly journal began to make more sense. The daffodils were blooming. Redbuds and pear trees flowered. It must have been late March when I opened her journal on a Sunday afternoon and read, “My stepfather abuses my sisters and me while my mother watches.”  A complete sentence, not just one complete sentence but one after another detailing years of sexual and emotional abuse of three terrified girls. Anguish in complete sentences. And finally the last sentence:  “...promise not to tell anyone. He might kill us.”

State law requires teachers to report such information to school authorities. I met with a school counselor and the principal. Protocols are in place to protect children victimized by parents or guardians. I didn’t need to determine if Sandra was lying or if I should protect her privacy. The safety of the girls was primary. 

Sandra, on the Monday after I shared her journal with school authorities, had been called to the front office and then disappeared off my roster. “Transferred.”

The ensuing scenario was revealed in snippets. A police car. A thank you from the counselor. A wordless pat on the back by the principal. Headlines in the local newspaper: Parents arrested on multiple counts; Step-father pleads not guilty; Mother accepts plea bargain. Until one day, I saw that the step-father had been severely  sentenced, the mother receiving a lesser sentence but one that would remove her from her daughter’s’ lives for years. 

Sandra eventually graduated with honors from the local university. She was active in university life and worked in programs to assist students like herself. I would see her on campus during my summer work in Upward Bound. We never talked about her journal or that fateful day when social services swept in to protect the three girls.

The fragmented sentences?  They were a symptom immune to book exercises and communication drills. The subtext had been fear of disclosure and discovery, the fragments a code for “Help us.”  

_______________

• Not her real name.  The name “Sandra” means warrior.  In every story of my 2018 blog posts, I do not use real names of people and avoid specific references to school names and actual years.  

** The state of Kentucky eventually revised and improved funding for school districts.  The high school was renovated and expanded, the trailers hauled off.