Darius and the Vanilla Funk Read online

  opportunity but made him suffer when I thought he wasn’t paying enough attention to me.

  Mr. Cohen said to us often “When you sit down to take this test, I want you attack it. I have found when you walk into a test and you’re afraid, you have no chance to succeed. Failure always comes to people that look for it; we are all winners in this class. There is no reason to fear a simple test—I will give you the tools to succeed and all you have to do is listen and execute the plan. I was a poor test taker most in my life because I wasn’t focused. You will be focused because nobody outside of this classroom thinks you can do this.” It was a classic us against the world speech that hit home for a group of cast-offs that were used to finishing second best.

  Partners in Crime

  It seemed the closer Mr. C. and I became, the more I tried to push him away. It usually didn’t take this much effort to separate myself from the average adult. However, as

  disappointed as Mr. Cohen was at my attempts, he kept coming back stronger and stronger every day. That was, until I joined forces with my new buddy Javon Trumane.

  Javon wasn’t your average fifth grade student. In fact, his diminutive size put him closer to the average height of a second or third grader. But, what J Bug lacked in height he made up for in guts. He was the toughest kid in our school but that didn’t stop other stronger, bigger kids from beating him up every day.

  It was natural for Javon and me to be friends. He had a special talent of getting under people’s skin and I could look into anyone’s eyes and influence their judgment. I remember this one time when I was called down to the Vice Principal’s office. Mrs. Daniels was a large, Nubian princess who was the main authority figure in our school; Principal Lewis was the white figurehead, while Mrs. D did all of the dirty work and kept all of his hoodlums in line.

  Mr. Cohen was in Mrs. Daniels’ office talking to her about his unruly mob. Mrs. D. asked him, “Who is this boy named Darius Mitchell in your class? You’re not going to

  believe this, but I had four girls in my office the other day because they were fighting. I asked them why they were fighting and they said, ‘Darius Mitchell.’ I have to see this for myself.” Mrs. Daniels picked up the phone and called the gym and had me sent down to her office.

  I walked into the small office and looked at Mr. C, who put his head down and smiled. While my pearly-white smile and riveting hazel eyes might have cast a spell on every female within a 30-mile radius, it did little to make my teacher’s legs weak. Mrs. Daniels took one look at me and told me to go back to the gym. She waited a few seconds, changed her work voice to a more casual tone and said, “That boy’s has gorgeous eyes.” I think I even saw Mrs. D. fighting with a few of those girls the next day on the playground.

  Rumor had it that my man Javon had a chemical imbalance. We always knew he was a bit volatile, but none of us thought that it would go as far as him needing medication to level off his brain waves. Javon lived with his grandmother, who was in a wheel chair, and his little brother.

  Dispensing medication wasn’t the first thing that crossed Mrs. Horton’s mind every morning. It took her at least ten minutes to get out of bed and climb into her chair. By the time she emerged from her room in the morning, Javon had already eaten a donut and was well on his way to school.

  Medicine that was previously distributed twice daily by the school’s nurse was now given first thing in the morning in a time-released formula. Forgetting to take the medicine each morning slowed the release of the feel good formula to non-existent.

  We all knew each morning whether Javon had remembered to take the medication before he left his house. I could tell by the look in his eyes whether I could leverage his instability for my own pleasure and gain. Javon and I were literally partners in crime, leaving destruction and devastation in our path. Mr. C decided to separate us from the rest of the class, but all he did was give me the chance to create even more havoc.

  With J Bug directly in front of me, my thoughts were focused on directing him toward the most unusual of stunts.

  There was this one morning when we finished a lesson and Mr. Cohen had us work in groups. The activity was a little slow, so I told Javon to do a flip on to the carpet in the middle of the class. Before I knew it my words were quickly turned into action; Javon had jumped onto a chair and quickly bent his knees and then headed airborne into the thin air of the classroom.

  The thud of Javon landing flat on his back resonated through the class like an earthquake. He had every intention of doing a flip but only made about three-quarters of the way around. Mr. C looked at Javon in amazement as he jumped up off the carpet as quickly as he had hurled himself into the air. We all had a good laugh at flying J Bug’s expense, and then quickly got back to business. We had become so used to his zany antics and didn’t let any of his moments last any longer than were necessary.

  Most of my ideas about stirring up trouble were pretty tame; that was until I came up with the mother of all pranks. I was pretty disturbed at Mr. Cohen for not agreeing with me in class the previous day. He asked the class, “If

  you could go out to eat with anyone who would it be?” We were doing a history lesson, but the answers were anything but historical. He probably expected answers like “Harriet Tubman” or “George Washington,” but what we heard was more like “50 Cent” and “B2K.” My answer was sweet and simple; “I would go out to dinner with my dad.” I then asked Mr. C who he would go out with and when he hesitated, I said “Wouldn’t you want to go out with your wife?” He tried to avoid the issue but I pressed him for an answer, “Don’t you miss your wife?” Mr. Cohen had talked about getting remarried and he even had a picture of his new wife on his desk. Since I hadn’t moved on, why had he? I didn’t think he ever gave me an answer and it was one of the rare occasions when he didn’t have an opinion.

  Mr. Cohen’s silence fed my lack of clarity of my own situation. I figured that it was better to have a wallowing partner than one who could so easily move on from tragedy. I was in rare form the next morning and was planning to do something big to get Mr. C’s attention. With Javon as my

  vehicle, and rage as my ally, it would be a day that none of us in Room 232 would ever forget.

  We were in the middle of another long, slow Social Studies lesson, when I looked across at Javon and noticed something shiny sticking out of his pocket. From the looks of Javon’s wild eyes, it had been days since he had taken a hit of that mood-softening medicine. I motioned to him to show me what he had in his pocket and he pulled at a metal protractor. When the metal glistened from the fluorescent classroom lights, I flashed back to the summer and the way Beast was able to turn virtually any item into a weapon. I have regretted what happened next ever since it occurred.

  Mr. Cohen was up at the board with his back to us, writing down a few things for us to focus on in the chapter. I smiled and motioned to Javon to get up and stab Mr. C with the protractor. He got to his feet quickly—Javon did everything quickly—and stabbed Mr. Cohen in the right side of his lower back. Javon removed the pointy end of the protractor and dropped it on the floor. He ran back to his seat and started crying as Mr. C gently grabbed his back.

  He walked over to his phone and quietly called the main office, so that the Vice Principal and the nurse could come to our class.

  Mrs. Daniels came to get Javon and check on Mr. Cohen. It was time for recess so the class filed out to the playground and Mr. C. and some of my classmates quickly told Mrs. Daniels what had happened and he then walked to his car to go to a nearby clinic.

  That was the longest lunch hour of all time! I felt so guilty at first that I couldn’t focus; about midway through recess, the guilt was replaced by sadness. I asked one of the aides if I could go to the bathroom, and I then proceeded to cry in the bathroom for the next ten minutes.

  Why did I want to hurt someone I had such strong feelings for? Did I get rid of the one perso
n that actually cared about me? I made sure that no one knew that I was crying before returning to recess. The whole class was depressed at lunch and Mrs. Daniels ushered all of us into the vacant gym to have a talk. We all couldn’t believe what had happened, but nobody knew that I was just as much to

  blame as Javon. Mrs. Daniels told us that Principal Lewis had suspended Javon indefinitely, pending a hearing on whether he would be sent to an alternative school.

  We all wanted to know if Mr. Cohen would be our teacher for the rest of the year. Mrs. Daniels did not know Mr. C’s status and if he would be healthy enough to return. By the end of lunch, we were picked up by one of the aides and brought back to our classroom. As we walked into our classroom we were shocked at what we saw; Mr. Cohen was in front of the classroom writing the afternoon’s lesson on the board. He was wearing the same white dress shirt and there was a bloodstain over the spot where Javon had stabbed him. I’m sure he could have changed his shirt but knowing Mr. Cohen, he was wearing the shirt to prove a point.

  The weapon’s point missed puncturing Mr. Cohen’s kidney by a fraction of an inch. He got patched up, got a few tetanus shots and was back fighting the good fight within the hour. I walked up to the front of the class, gave him a hug, and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Mr. Cohen bent down and

  whispered in my ear, “Next time we both might not be so lucky.”

  I remember that I ran and ran for miles through the streets of my neighborhood that afternoon. Not only wasn’t I sure what I was running from, I also had no idea where I was going. I was completely lost in my own backyard but had no idea how to get home.

  I saw Mr. Cohen’s familiar PT Cruiser rolling down toward me and I waved my hands for him to stop. The car came to a stop and the driver-side window gradually rolled down. Mr. Cohen smirked at me and I slowly stuck my head in his car until my forehead connected with his; we banged fists and I then punched my hand to my chest, put my head down and walked away. That man did care for me but I wasn’t sure how to return the favor. What if something happened to him just like it did to my dad? It frightened me to see blood on his shirt – I’ll never forget the image of my dad’s bloodied body on our front lawn. The image comes to me almost every time I close my eyes at night, or I see blood.

  I wish I could have jumped into Mr. C’s car that day and escaped from that place, even if it was for a few minutes, or an hour, or for a few days. What I’ve learned is that you can’t run from your past because it will hunt you down like an angry mob. No matter how fast I ran, my inner demons would always be a few steps ahead of me.

  Mr. Cohen Can Play

  I love basketball more than anything else in the whole world. The only things that can deflect my attention away from playing ball are girls. Girls and basketball must have been ingrained in my head at an early age, because my dad used to point out both the finer points of the game and the finest cheerleaders. The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.

  It was plain to see that Mr. Cohen was a tall, white man. The way I saw it was not only can’t white men jump they also have no basketball skills. I also thought that girls were put on this earth to drive me crazy. All right, that

  second one was right but Mr. C put that first one to rest one afternoon in the gym.

  Mr. Cohen never missed an opportunity to make our day more interesting. Simple things such as a few extra minutes on the playground or going to gym class while the previous class was still outside, gave us additional chances to blow some steam off. Mr. C was walking over to the sidelines when I called out his name and threw him a basketball. Without hesitation, he turned and shot the ball through the hoop and then sat down on a stack of gym mats. One lucky shot didn’t convince me that Mr. C could play basketball. I called him out to play one-on-one with me and he happily obliged.

  I have never played against someone who knew my every thought before I had chance to react. I tried to embarrass Mr. C by dribbling through his legs on the first move but he stole the ball before I had a chance to collect the ball behind him. He said, “You didn’t just try to put the ball though my legs.” Then he talked as he shot the ball, “You’re gonna’ have to come out here and play me.” The

  ball swished through the net as he finished talking. For a change, I was speechless. Mr. Cohen had proved his point, but I knew he’d let me score a bunch of times. I really can’t remember who won the game; in fact, I don’t think our game was about keeping score. It was so much fun competing against somebody who knew how to play, and Mr. Cohen could play.

  The other kids in the class smiled at the sight of their teacher playing with them. I took his participation to a completely higher level. This was a man who got me, who felt my pain and did everything in his power to ease my brain burden.

  Mr. Cohen would usually let us out five or ten minutes early for recess. Sometimes he would follow us to the basketball court on the playground and even up the sides a bit. The funny thing was that Mr. C and I never played on the same team. He very rarely shot the ball, preferring to give kids a chance to shoot that rarely could create their own shots. The more we played with Mr. C, the more I felt my game changing. Before we met, my game consisted of

  breaking down the defense with my Allen Iverson-inspired crossovers. As the weeks went by I found new joy in passing and bringing my teammates along for the ride. As long as the ball was in my hands it was my choice to lead, not just take for myself. It was easy to get what was mine; Mr. Cohen taught me that it was all there for me if I took what my opponent gave me. The game and life were so much easier when I let things come to me, instead of forcing the action.

  Mr. Cohen kept telling us that he had no favorites among the 24 kids in his class. However, he and I shared a connection that went beyond the average student-teacher relationship. The class used to go to Computer Lab every Friday after lunch. Mr. Cohen initially resisted the temptation of letting us go on the Internet and play our favorite games. He always went through the motions and gave us some lame educational assignment, only to give us at least 30 minutes of playtime. It only took a matter of minutes before Mr. C would pull up a chair and sit next to me. A few minutes later we were locked up in an epic battle of Slam

  Dunk! I was always the brother and Mr. Cohen was always the vertically challenged white dude given wings for the day.

  The action of Slam Dunk! got so intense that we often lost track of time. It was a good thing that Mr. C wasn’t a scheduling freak or he would have really cared if we missed a science lesson, or two. For Mr. Cohen, school was more about real-life lessons than facts listed in a textbook.

  For me to say that my teacher spent all of his free time with me would be a false statement. There were many times that Mr. Cohen circulated throughout the computer lab and played games against other kids. It was plain to see how much he enjoyed the interaction with all of us. We seemed to have our best moments outside of the limiting confines of the classroom. Maybe Mr. C felt as uncomfortable as we did in that class. He often talked about how much he disliked school and said he was “here to make the experience more pleasant for you.” None of us could have argued with that.

  Breakfast in Desk

  To say that my mother was not a morning person would be a complete understatement. Come to think of it, she didn’t smile much in the afternoon and evenings, too. I’m sure part of my mother died along with the passing of my dad; a part of all of us was taken when I heard those thugs barreling down the street toward our house. I spent at least five years looking for a reason to carry on and it took me even longer to stop beating myself up over not being able to save him.

  I was constantly disturbed by the memories that hovered around our house. For most kids, the smile on their face would mask the pain that was gnawing away at their insides. My smile was certainly genuine—too bad for me that it was genuinely a disguise. I rarely hung around my house, using it only as a place to sle
ep and stay out of bad weather. I use to wake up at least an hour before school started and bolt out of the house as soon as I was showered and dressed. Eating breakfast at home was not an option for any of us—that was dad’s favorite meal to eat with us.

  He was always so busy running around during the day that he often ate lunch and dinner on the road or grabbed a bite to eat when he came home late at night. None of us could stomach sitting at that kitchen table and facing each other every morning. It became a lot easier to skip breakfast or grab something quick at either the 7-Eleven or Dunkin Donuts.

  Even though I wasn’t a big fan of the learning part of school, I loved being in school. I used to get there early and sit on my favorite stoop in front of the class. One morning I even fell asleep waiting for Mr. Cohen to show up. I was so small and he was so big that he scooped me up off the ground and carried me in the classroom. Good thing no one else was there to see that. A few minutes later I awoke at my desk with the blurry sight of Mr. Cohen at the board preparing our lessons for the day.

  Before I could even speak I looked down into my desk and picked out a box of breakfast cereal with my right hand. I felt like thanking Mr. C but he played it cool and went about his business and the other kids started filtering into the