This Is What Constitutes: Disruption/Defiance (D43, X65-69)?
I have just emptied my bladder. Now I am on my way back to my photo class down the hall. I am thinking about the print that should be coming out of the color processor when I see a man on the other side of the hall beckoning me towards him. He is a friendly looking African-American of about five-and-a-half feet. He does not hold a walkie-talkie, nor is he very large. He can’t be a security guard; so my guess is that he must be a black-psychology teacher desiring my point of view on something.
“Hello kind sir, can I help you with anything?”
“Yeah, you got a pass?”
“What?” I respond puzzled at the request.
“Do you have a hall pass, boy?”
“No… I’m sorry I guess I forgot this time. I just went to the bathroom, my photo class is right across the hall.”
“You a senior?”
“Yeah.” I’m a junior, how big a difference could it make? “I’ll take the pass next time, I promise. I just didn’t really think it was that big a deal to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh no, we’re gonna show you how we do things around here.” Please don’t sodomize me. He motions me in to OCS, or On Campus Suspension, and sits me down at a seat, giving me a form to fill out. Name: Joshua Caraco. Age: 18. GPA: 3.5ish. Ethnicity Code…What do they have racial quotas? Did they not get their Jew today?
“What’s this?”
“001.”
“Huh?”
“That’s white, you white, ain’t you?”
I didn’t go through forty years in the desert and nine arduous months of a little class referred to as Identity and Ethnic Studies to be told what my ethnicity code is. “I don’t identify in those terms. What’s the code for other?”
“999.”
“Thank you.”
The strange man who has now been identified as Mr. Brice, the director of OCS, sends me to a seat with a form letter for all seniors to fill out because it happens to be second semester and a lot of them have been caught cutting.
“I’m sorry, did I say I was a senior? Yeah… I’m actually a junior.”
“Lying is wrong. As punishment you now must copy the board down on this scratch paper fifty times as small as you can and then fold the paper in half ten and one-quarter times before handing it to me. At this point you will be permitted to leave. Discipline builds character! Character builds discipline!” So excited by his own speech he produces a whip from inside his desk and beats a near by student senseless.
Thinking I have gotten off easy, I slink back to my desk and place the scratch paper on it, preparing to copy. Mental anguish. The whiteboard is worse than the opening credits to “The Simpsons” in which Bart has to copy a sentence over and over again. It has a math problem on it, which has to do with a triangle, and also happens to be solved for you. It then has a list of what I guess are the ten rules of OCS: I am the one lord, thy God; you shall worship no false idols. On the seventh day you shall observe the Sabbath… wait that’s just the beginning of the Ten Commandments.
“You don’t seriously expect me to copy that?” I say rather loudly.
“You can copy it, or you can just sit until I decide to release you.” Now I’m starting to laugh, loudly. Maybe this really is funny or maybe I’m just annoyed and frustrated and don’t know that else to do but laugh. I turn to the person next to me.
“What are you in for?”
“Oh, I was throwing shit at the person in front of me.” See now he’s not complaining; he knows he should be here. He weighed his options and thought messing with a classmate was worth the risk, next time he’ll have to reevaluate to decide whether or not it’s still worth it.
“I went to the bathroom without a hall pass,” again, loudly.
“Quiet,” says Mr. Brice.
“Hey, can I ask a question?”
“No. Write it down.”
“Oh, ok.” I take the blank paper sitting in front of me, and carefully craft the words, “Do you get paid based on the number of students you detain?” This is something that my dad will later find to be fairly amusing. I hand the note to him. He doesn’t read it right away so I wait.
He reads the note and looks at me. One of those sort of cynical smiles. He stammers some words about how I’m a real joker and how I must think I’m really funny. As a matter a fact I do think I am rather clever. He then beckons me over and looks me up in the computer. The whole time I’m still making comments about how I went to the bathroom and how ridiculous this is. The many proctors are enjoying the situation and making comments to Mr. Brice like, “Oh no he di-n’t. Suspend him. You woulda suspended me fo way less ‘an that.” I get the distinct feeling that they are very serious and are probably here as punishment. To his credit Mr. Brice really does seem to be avoiding suspending me right away. Maybe he senses that I have issues in my life. That my brother died last year and then my mother got cancer and that I don’t really have the patience for bullshit. My parents probably think that this is tied to some of those deep psychological issues. Look, that’s certainly possible. In fact that’s probably what my shrink will say, as that’s what shrinks say about everything. In my opinion however, in this specific case, I think it’s just a character flaw of mine that’s been around for a lot longer than a year: I don’t respond well to authority. In the sixth grade when a teacher told me that she “thought I should stop skateboarding on campus,” I told her that I “thought she should shut up.” It’s not that I want to be some sort of rebel, it’s just a fact. I don’t like bullshit, and I think getting detention for pissing definitely qualifies. When Mr. Brice calls my parents and gets no answer, he sets me up to talk to a dean named Ms. Moraga.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say to her.
“Yes.”
“What am I doing here?”
“You went to the bathroom without a pass.”
“Come on now that’s ridiculous.”
“It’s against the rules.”
“Yeah but—”
“Did you know it was against the rules?”
“I’m not really sure. I mean I’ve been doing that for a while, I wasn’t roaming the halls or anything, just went to the bathroom, and I’ve never had a problem before.”
“You broke a rule, which you definitely knew about after being here for two and a half years. Then you were very rude to Mr. Brice, pulling your little note stunt, and now you’re in here and you’re asking what you’re doing here?”
“Why are you so threatened by me?”
“I’m not threatened by you. You broke a rule. Do you understand? You broke a rule.” Maybe if you take me into the basement with a paddle I’ll understand better.
“I went to the bathroom—”
“Without a pass and you knew that was against the rules.”
“What is so threatening about me? Can we discuss this?”
“Nothing is threatening. You have to understand and admit you broke a rule.” I’ll admit that when you admit that you just want my sexy body for your sick games.
“It’s a stupid rule though.”
“That has no relevance.” No…you’re a fat bitch and I don’t really know you but I definitely don’t like you, has no relevance. If the subject of the conversation (or come yell at me I truly don’t mind session) is a rule, which I broke, than I think that the rule’s validity is probably pretty relevant.
“But—” is all I can stammer before she cuts me off.
“That’s it, I’m going to have to suspend you for a day.” Just a day? But my crime was ever so great.
She sends me back to my good friend the whiteboard ready for a suspension the next day. A day that I use to make ten dollars an hour at my mom’s office. It’s like getting paid not to go to school, every young child’s dream.
Mr. Brice did a few things that pissed me off, but to get suspended essentially for going to the bathroom. I mean I knew that the halls of Berkeley High School were flowing with bureaucratic nonsense…I just thought that only black people had to deal with it. And maybe Mexicans.