Jimmy

I had forgotten about this one until I told my brother the other day.

I taught Jimmy starting 4 years ago when he was in 6th grade. He was just good enough and just bad enough to be one of my favorites then. When he was in 7th grade, I no longer taught him. He turned into the bully of the school. Kids were scared of him; he was the leader of one of the kid gangs. He never went to class, just wandered around the building giving people dirty looks and fighting. It was really bad. I would still always talk to him and he was still always great to me, but it's hard to convince a child something different than what their father is telling them to do.

Jimmy was the kind of kid I always found interesting. He was really into the gang stuff, but he never seemed to take it as seriously as everyone else. I think it was a game to him, to see how many kids he could get to follow him or be scared of him. Being successful didn't make him feel better about himself, it made him feel worse about everybody else. I think he was disappointed that everyone fell so easily in line with his bullying.

He has also told me more than once that if anyone ever threatened me or hurt me, he would kill them.

Jimmy got put out at the end of 7th grade. He was in and out of alternative schools, but I still occasionally saw him hanging out outside the building after school.

Earlier this year, I was at one of Taurus' football games. It was an away game across town. I see this kid, who looks just like Jimmy. Except he can't be Jimmy, because he has on a school uniform with his shirt tucked in. He's leaving school at 3:30 and he has...a backpack. With books in it.

He sees me and comes up. He gives me a hug and tells me he just got out of detention...for chewing gum in class. "You stayed for detention? You have on a uniform? Who ARE you?"

He laughed and told me his mother had been in a car accident a few years before. She got a large settlement. Her and Jimmy got a nice house in the county. He got away from all those kids, that nasty environment around my school.

"Screw that gangster shi--stuff. I'm getting my education now. I don't have time for those clowns and their dumb games. I know it's time to grow up now."