-AJ.
Marquavius (Mar-kwave-e-ous)
"I want to take that kid and punt him."
-My English Department Chair
This is an actual conversation I had with Marquavius in the parking lot, while oodles of parents were driving past us, picking their kids up at the end of the day. Marquavius was with me because he was in trouble; this was quite normal, one might even say bi-monthly normal. He was always sent to shadow me when he got in trouble, which always seemed like a silly punishment to me, since he liked me, and his "punishment" (so to speak) seemed to only encourage his bad behavior, rather than curve it.
Marquavius' thought pattern, 'If I get in trouble, I hang out with Mr. Stich. I enjoy the company of Mr. Stich. Hence, I should get in trouble!' Nonetheless, once again, Marquavius was shadowing me. We were standing in the parking lot, baking in the Charlotte spring time heat, and he was rattling his mouth, as usual. As soon as the one-sided conversation started, I quickly was entertained by the ridiculousness of it, and so, like any good writer, I whipped out my pocket notepad (I'm oldschool) and started writing what Marquavius was saying, word for word.
Marquavius: Mr. Stich, were you born with six fingers?
Me: No.
Marquavius: Some babies when they're born have a little finger at the bottom of the their hand right here.
He pointed to the place on his hand after the pinky.
Marquavius: It's a knub. It's like a fish nimble. Just so little...
Pause.
Marquavius: Mr Stich, how old are you?
Me: 26.
Marquavius: Ah!
He yelled for a solid three seconds.
Marquavius: You never told me you were 26! Why haven't you told me that?
Marquavius touches my shoulder.
Me: Get out of my bubble.
I endearingly call my personal space "my bubble" because some children have zero concept of such a thing as personal space, and I like to have a kid-friendly way of saying, "get the heck away from me."
Marquavius: What bubble?
Me: My personal space.
Most students, that is any other oxygen-breathing-student-on-this-planet, besides Marquavius, at this point would back off, or, at the very least, apologize for invading my personal terf. Kids are generally very polite creatures when directed appropriately. Marquavius, on the other hand, was a different beast entirely.
Marquavius: I'm going to pop your bubble!
Marquavius said this, then he proceeded to prance around me miming poking holes in my invisible bubble.Marquavius: Ha! I poked it. It's swiss cheese now.
He lifted his index finger in the air as his eyebrows raised in sync with this move.
Marquavius: Ha! That gives me an idea. Since you're swiss cheese, I'm going to eat you!
You can't make up this stuff.
Mind you, there is a half mile long line of parents picking up their kids while Marquavius is doing all this in the middle of parking log. He's running circles around me, poking at the air, then gobbling the air up like a sandwich, all part of his imaginary game. Each parent who drove by Marquavius and I standing there, empathetically shook their head at me; their eyes were saying, "Why does that poor teacher have to babysit that fool of a child?" There's a very definite reason for that.
Eventually his Mother picked him up. Thirty minutes late. His grandmother, a woman probably in her fifties, drove the van and Mom, who looks quite young, rode in the backseat. A lot of my students parents were young: Marquavius' mother was no different. More likely than not, she had Marquavius in her teens, and, along with Grandma's help, raised him up as best as she could. Whether or not they succeeded in raising him, well...the jury is still out on that one.
When she pulled the car up, I motioned for her to roll down the window. I leaned in, and I told his mom what Marquavius had asked me to tell her; that he was well behaved in my class that day (which he was) because it was his Grandpa's birthday. He wanted to make Grandpa proud. She seemed happy. Then she asked why he was sent to my room in the first place. Did he threaten a student again? Did he refuse to do his classwork? Was he yelling and hitting his head in the corner again? No, Ms. Marquavius. Not this time. This time Marquavius was sent to my room because he told his female special ed teacher to suck his balls. Classic Marquavius. She shook her head in disgust and smirked a little. There was no sense in yelling at the kid, since that had already been done several times over. It would be beating an already dead and bludgeoned horse. Instead, she looked at her son and said, "Why would you do that?" She didn't even raise her voice when she said it. She looked back at me and apologized, thanked me for watching him, again.
It was no problem mam. For whatever reason, your son and I get along, and besides carving muscly anime book characters into my desks, he's harmless in my class.
She rolled up the window, shook her head some more to herself, and she, Grandma, Marquavius drove off into the sunset. I stood in the parking lot for a moment, lingering, wondering how long it will be until Marquavius was again sent to my class for suspension.
The Following Day: Mr. P, the fifth grade grade level chair, escorts Marquavius into my classroom at nine in the morning.
"Can Marquavius stay with you again today Mr. Stich?" Mr. P asks me.
I look at Marquavius, gently tucked under Mr. P's arm. Mr. P holds him firmly too since Marquavius could run at any moment. He's a runner when he wants to be. Marquavius' two inch thick bifocal looking glasses are sagging down his nose, he's scowling, and his mouth looks like he's sucking on a handful of sour-patch kids.
I look over at Ms. Meyers, whom I shared a room with at the time, typing away at her computer.
"You want this kid in our class all day?" I ask her.
Without looking up from her computer, she politely shrugs her shoulder as to say, "Fuck no I don't want him in here all day. But my wants don't matter. He will be with us regardless because he's always with us regardless."
Ms. Meyers was right. All we can ever do is shrug our shoulders when he comes around. Marquavius would be with us. He was always with us: sitting in the back of our classroom, in what our charter school generously calls "detention", playing with his fingers as if they were action figures, and etching Dragon Ball Z characters in his desk.
My odd-ball relationship with Marquavius started with a kung-fu movie, as to be expected. In fact, any interest Marquavius has in life in one way or another connects to kung-fu. Although not a student of martial arts himself, he is obsessed with it. If you have the pleasure of running into the kid and having a conversation with him, you will, not matter how you intend to steer the talk, end up listening to a very descriptive narrative about an action sequence in a Bruce Lee movie. It's inevitable. Don't fight it. A conversation with Marquavius is a proverbial quicksand; the more you twist and turn, futilely attempt to talk about something other than martial-arts, the faster you sink into the unavoidable.
That is why Marquavius likes me. On one fateful Saturday, he signed up for my film club class. That was the very Saturday where I decided to show the movie Kung-Fu Kingsbury, the parody kung-fu movie I had made with my film production class in Memphis. The lights went out, the dramatic trumpets blared during the title sequence, and Marquavius was hooked. The television screen reflected off his thick glasses as he sat starry eyed watching every fastmotion chop, kick, and elbow drop. When the lights came back on, I had a new best friend.
That friendship became a real asset around school. As fifth grade teachers caught wind of Marquavius' willingness to do anything I said, I quickly became the go-to-guy for all issues that came up with him. And there was no shortage of those. On one occasion when I was late to school, the powers at be put Marquavius in the hands of Ms. Aseen. Mr. Aseen - an athletically built black man, former desert storm soldier, former Phoenix police officer, and current jujutsu master — could easily maneuver through warzones and urban gang-slums; however, he met his match with Marquavius. When I entered the lunch room, I walked in the middle of a shouting match between the two. Mr. Aseen and Marquavius both fuming, both screaming, both of their brows furrowed in disgust. I quickly stepped in, and used my jedi-master powers to separate Marquavius from him. I made Marquavius sit down at a nearby table, and then I pulled Mr. Aseen aside and asked him if he wouldn't mind if I took Marquavius off his hands for the rest of the day.
"Would I mind?" Mr. Aseen gasped. He continued under hushed tones, "You can take that little shit away from me, because if you don't I may end up slapping the black off of him."
Another time, I saw Mr. P yelling at Marquavius at the end of a school day. We had this thing at KIPP Charlotte where we made students "track the wall". Essentially, it was a polite way of saying, "go put on your dunce cap on and sit in the corner staring at the wall." Although I didn't personally agree with the practice, I reluctantly used it on several occasions because it was one of the behavioral management systems engrained within the school culture. That is to say, the kids responded to it. Marquavius, on the other hand, wasn't. Mr. P was yelling at the child because he was supposed to be tracking the wall, but menacingly refused to do so. Mr. P was railing into the kid, yelling in every tone imaginable to get him to track the wall, but it just wasn't happening. Time for an intervention.
I again entered the scene, and used my powers of the force to separate Marquavius from Mr. P. I took Mr. P aside and said, "Look, I don't understand it because Marquavius is the most anti-subservient kid I've ever met, but he listens to me. I'll handle him if that's ok with you."
"Sure." Mr. P smiled. We then walked over to Marquavius.
"Marquavius, can you come with me and tell me what happened?" I asked.
With that sour patch look on his face, and arms folded across his chest, he said, "Mr. Stich, Mr. P was just sitting here yelling at me! I wasn't doing anything, just sitting here, and he starts yelling at me!"
"Alright," I replied, "you can tell me all about it. Come on, lets go."
Just then Mr. P, as to give the appearance of control, said, "Marquavius, you go with Mr. Stich. And you're lucky he walked in on this conversation, because you wouldn't have liked how this would have ended otherwise."
Mr. P winked at me and whispered, "Nice good cop bad cop routine," as I walked Marquavius out of the gym.
I took him to my classroom, where he, as usual, began to run his fingers along his desk, action figure style, and etch caricatures of Dragon Ball Z people into my desk. All in a days work.
He's maybe four feet tall, has the squat features of Gary Coleman, and has the thickest glasses I've ever seen a child wear, easily a solid three quarters of an inch. And when he gets mad, those glasses scurry down his snoot until they reach the precipice, where they come to a screeching halt like road runner to a cliffs edge. Usually, Marquavius' arms are crossed because he's pouting. About the teachers. About other students making fun of him. About the low grade he scored on a test. About just about anything. He is a very talented pouter.
Along with his sulky disposition, Marquavius is one of the worst students I've come across. He had already failed the fifth grade once, and when I last checked in with him, was well on his way to failing it a second time. His grades and test scores were generally horrendous. And it goes without saying that he was a special ed student, although that did little to help him. His special ed teacher, who worked with him in a one on one setting, could hardly handle his constant pouting. For that matter, nearly every teacher and student in the school could not stand him. His vehemence with other classmates ran so deep that one time he reportedly told another student that he was going to cut his arm off with an axe. An Axe!
Similarly, his personality is palpably polarizing: you either love it, or you hate it. Most hated it, but for whatever reason, God Almighty, in all His wisdom, designed me to find his personality wholly charming. Nearly every thing the kid does, I see the comic value for. This is quite odd for me, since I'm not one to laugh with or cajole students. Normally I'm pretty straight faced at school, even-keeled, mellow-yellow. Interacting with teachers, you often hear them tell stories about a student saying something or doing something in class that makes the teacher laugh our loud in front of everyone. Not so with me. I have heard and seen students do some pretty dumb shit in my class, but I've always managed to keep a pretty good poker-face. Marquavius, however, is the one student who is able to make me crack. For instance, he was, as usual, in "detention" in the back of my class one day, and I was teaching my seventh graders about irony exemplified in a book we just read. Students were raising their hands pointing out ironic anecdotes from the story. Three or so students shared, and then I saw Marquavius' hand pop up. Being that a student in detention is supposed to be isolated and under no circumstances allowed to participate in a lesson, I was about to tell Marquavius to put his hand down. He couldn't participate. He was in "detention". Nonetheless, his winsome mien was too much to resist. His hand was stretched so high. His eyes were wide open, his head flushed back, his hand twitching as he grunted "ohs" and "ahs" in an effort to get called on. This sort of thing broke me down. I knew I shouldn't call on him, but I did.
"Yes Marquavius?" The whole class turned and looked at him. He has this certain look that he gives where he looks like he's entered an ancient coliseum and is admiringly taking it all in. He gave the class that look, then went into his comment.
"I have a connection to make." A connection is when a student can connect something they're learning in school to something else, like another subject, a television program or movie they've seen, things like that. It's a way we teach kids to think synthetically. However, Marquavius had a history of making connections that were completely unintelligible. To Marquavius, all roads lead to Mecca. That is to say, any connection he makes in class leads back to one thing: martial-arts, in various forms and fashions.
"What's your connection Marquavius." I threw him a fucking fastball right down the plate, in front off all these seventh graders too. It was wrong of me.
"Well, I think that connects to this time I watched a Dragon Ball Z show on cartoon network. Goku was transforming into a super saiyan, and fighting this one guy, and they were crashing back and forth into outer space. Bam! Boom!" He made his two little hands smash into one another as to dramatize the sounds effects he was making. "Crash! They just kept fighting and fighting. And that to me is like what we're talking about. Umm..." he put a finger to his mouth and tapped his chin, "what was it again that you were talking about?"
"Irony." I managed to say with just a tiny smirk cracking my lips.
"Yeah! That's it! Irony. That to me is just like irony." He smiled at himself, satisfied with the connection he had just made.
A silent moment hung in the air. The entire class looked at me to see what I was going to do. They gave me a look that said, "If you laugh, we're really going to laugh." I knew that look, and I did everything in my power to hold it in. I bit my lip, thought the most sobering thought I could imagine (my grandmother making love to my grandfather), but no amount of restraint worked. In the most hilarious way, what Marquavius said didn't make any fucking sense, and I couldn't help but laugh. In turn, the entire class laughed with me.
Marquavius lowered his head to his desk in shame. It's one thing to see a lame child who always gets picked on get picked on, because that happens regularly. We're desensitized to that kind of pity. Yet, when a bully, a total-say-whatever-I-want-whenever-the-hell-I-want-to kid gets picked on, my heart goes out. I know he deserves it, as much pain and suffering as he emotionally delivers to others, he deserves a good kick in the crotch every now and then. Yet, it was very sad to see such a spirit as his crushed.
Guiltily, I stepped in and, in an attempt to lift him up, lauded his brave attempt to make connections. It was bullshit, but I had to save him some face. After all, Marquavius, as the Gods had destined, was my buddy. So I complimented his valor in front of everyone and that he seemed to perk him up a bit. Battle haphazardly won by Mr. Stich.
I cannot make sense of my relationship with Marquavius. Like George and Lennie from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, it has that terribly wonderful sense 'je ne sais quoi', that x factor bond that makes what shouldn't be be.
From my experience, it seems that every teacher everywhere has their own Marquavius. My friend Karl, a Spanish teacher at Kingsbury had Raymond, who we endearingly made a Nintendo Wii character of. Mr. Plum, the KIPP Charlotte Math teacher, had Xavier, who was suspended on multiple occasions for texting pictures of girls breasts to other students. My wife, a former Kindergarten teacher, had Kentavius, who once brought in a living animal into her classroom from recess. Every teacher has their own Marquavius - a child that is such a pain in the ass, a child that reeks Godzilla like havoc on the rest of the school school, a child that is disproportionally aggressive, moronic, weird looking, smelly, and devoid of human emotions. Likewise, every teacher has their own Marquavius - a child, for reasons unknown to all but God, that that teacher, and only that teacher, cherishes — kung-fu dialogues and all.
The very last conversation I had with Marquavius before we parted paths, was a memorable one. It was at the end of the last day of school. We had entered the part of the day where we started silent dismissal. My end of school duty was to supervise the parking lot, and I was walking towards the exit when I saw a hand shoot up amongst the otherwise focused and studious crowd. It was Marquavius'. Teachers were not allowed to answer questions during silent dismissal, but how could I resist. On my way out, I stopped by to see what he wanted. He had a huge smile on his face.
"Mr. Stich!" He said in a very loud whisper.
"Sh..."
"Sorry. But I'm excited! I have something to show you." He reached into his backpack, pulled out an envelope addressed to his mother, and handed it to me.
"This envelope was addressed to your Mom. It's from the school. Why did you open it?" I asked. It was a pointless question. Logic and human decency were all but lost on him.
"Open it." He said beaming.
I lifted the already broken seal and took out the paper. It was his scores from the North Carolina state examination.
"Read, read!" he implored.
I scanned the letter and came to the section that detailed his test scores. He didn't pass a single one.
I looked at him questionably.
He was smiling.
I looked at the test scores again to make sure my eyes were seeing straight.
Then I looked back up at Marquavius. Why was he smiling?
"Marquavius, you realize you didn't pass, right?" It was a harsh question, but by the look on his face, it didn't seem to be registering with him, and I wanted to make sure he understood what the scores actually meant.
"I know." He replied.
"Why are you so happy then?" Forgive my frankness.
"Didn't you see my scores? Last year when I took the fifth grade test, I got much lower. This year I improved by two points!" His smile got bigger. He was so damn proud of himself.
I gave him a fist pound, put the letter back in the envelope, and reminded him to give it to his mother when he got home. He assured me he would.
I couldn't help but smile as I walked away from him that day.
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