By Sally Toner
That other teacher said you don’t have a soul. I can’t be so blunt. I remind myself you’re still a child. But you grate on all of us–you cocky, self-important little Trumper. You sit in the front, a head taller than me, your mind so tiny in the tiniest room at the end of the tiniest hall in the building. You look smaller when you disregard the opinions of others, when you pull your dog-eared copy of The Art of the Deal from your L.L. Bean backpack and pontificate:
He’s a keen businessman.
He’s beaten the odds by wiping the floor
with the other ones.
He’s a winner.
I remind myself you’re still a child when you smirk, a shaggy dandelion amid bluebells. You’re a weed. Your classmates, polite, roll their eyes, mutter under their breath whenever you open your mouth. I call on you as little as possible. Teachers are not supposed to play favorites. Teachers are not supposed to reveal their political views. The literature speaks for itself–but you make it so hard.
You’d never wear the hat–the red clashes with your Abercrombie sweater, musses the brand-new haircut—the fade as sharp and hard as your views.
You’re still a child. A teacher reminds everyone to vet sources when they quote FOX News. A teacher emphasizes the culture of mutual respect she has built in this space of unreliable narrators. I hold my breath when I can’t ignore your raised hand anymore, knowing you’ll defend his vitriol.
You stare down the English language learners who congregate at the entrance to my hallway. They stop their chatter in Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Vietnamese, and part the waters. You nod, walk through, offering a curt “thank you.” You might be able to say that to one of them in their native tongue. Not that you’d try. Then you sit down in English class and prattle on about the American Dream.
On November 9, they aren’t standing at the entrance. The halls are granite thick with a mourning quiet. That’s the first thing you notice. I walk into school about fifteen minutes before the bell, hung over. The night before, as the election returns came in, I doused my grief in Glenlivet, sat on our neighbor’s patio, and smoked the last cigarette of my life. A teacher doesn’t tell any of her students that.
The doorway to the ELA classroom is to the right of mine. Before I walk into first period, I stand there for a minute and look in. About fifteen students huddle in the far corner of the room, arms around each other, sobbing. Their teacher hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t envy her. I stand there, my own eyes welling up. But these children gain nothing from seeing my tears. I turn around to walk into my own room, and you’re standing right behind me.
You don’t say a word. You just hang that head of perfect hair and walk into room 308 after me. And, even though your guy has won, for the rest of the year, you will never mention his name again. A teacher hopes that’s because you grew up a bit that morning–gained some empathy from seeing the negative impact of your hero on your flesh and blood peers. A teacher hopes their reality hit you harder than any lesson she could deliver. But I’m not so sure. Our memories are short when we need them to be.
Sally Toner is a writer and high school English teacher who has lived in the DMV for over 25 years. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Northern Virginia Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, Watershed Review, and other publications.
