J Is For Jeremy

 

Jeremy was my student back in about 1987. He was part of an English 10B class, or sophomore basic English. In that level of English, students were not college-bound; they could have mild to serious reading deficiencies; they were often discipline problems; their attendance could range from perfect to chronic absenteeism, and coaches loved it for athletes. Teachers were urged to make each day a complete lesson so that any kid coming in on any day wouldn't feel like he had missed anything. He could pick right up and get to work, completing it in class and turning it in for a grade.

I found quickly that a routine worked well. Mondays were vocabulary days; Tuesdays were reading and answering question days; Wednesdays were grammar days, etc. The students loved knowing ahead of time what to expect, and they thrived. The class that Jeremy was in was a nice group of kids who got along well and liked each other and me. We had a mutual respect.

Jeremy asked me on the first day of class if he could sit in the front row. He explained that his father and he felt it kept him attentive, and I obliged. He was tall, with long legs and a basketball player's body. I often had to navigate those outstretched legs as I wrote on the board at the front of the class and talked. "If those legs get any longer, I'm going to put you by the door and watch you trip people in the hallway," I used to say. He'd grin and blush a little under his freckles.

He was a good-looking kid, mixed race, his skin the colour of coffee with too much milk, brown eyes, an impeccable fade, and the kind of lanky, loose body that was born to be athletic. His smile was wide, winning, yet shy-looking somehow. He was a hard worker who could have a short fuse if he got frustrated.

One day a new student was added to the class. He arrived late, and I could see by his swagger and demeanour that he was going to upset our community, or at least try. Nonetheless, I greeted him warmly, accepted his pass, and assigned him a seat. Immediately, the rest of the class began to react to him, and not very positively, by rolling their eyes and mumbling under their breath.

"Here's what we're doing," I said, handing him a book and a copy of the worksheet. "If you need anything, just let me know."

"Shit, I don't need nothin'. I just got out of Indian River. This is my class now. You--" 

Quick as anything, Jeremy was up and out of his seat. "This is Ms. D's class. You're gonna treat her with respect. I don't care about where you were or why you were in prison. If you're in here, it's Ms. D's class, period. You don't like it, you can leave. And there's lots of us can help you."

I'd like to say that I immediately took charge of the situation, but I stood there, open-mouthed and stunned for a moment. The whole class had turned toward the offender, staring him down. Jeremy was still standing. After a moment I grabbed an incident report and started writing and said to the new student, "I think you'd better head down to the office. That's enough for today." 

He stood up, remarked that he was just about to leave anyway, and walked out the door. Another student took the incident report to the office, and I never saw that kid again.

In the aftermath Jeremy apologized for standing up and speaking out of turn. "But no way was I gonna let him disrespect you!" Others spoke up indignantly as well. The best thing was that they all wanted to keep our class dynamic as it was. 

Jeremy tried out for basketball and made the JV team and went on to play Varsity as well. His dad was a fixture in our school. He was an involved parent, making sure Jeremy was doing well and keeping the grades up, staying out of trouble. 

For many kids like Jeremy at our high school, it's tough to get into college. Passing the ACT and/or the SAT is a huge barrier. Then, affording college is another hurdle. Athletic scholarships help, but even then, they're often to small, faraway colleges that take them a long way from their families. That's often an insurmountable obstacle, especially when the colleges aren't very diverse.

I lost track of Jeremy after his senior year. I had my second baby, and life got so busy. The next thing I knew, I was reading his name in the newspaper (June 27,1991), but not for basketball. He was arrested for the death of a man at a gas station. The man had been beaten so brutally that he had died from his injuries; the newspaper said that it was a drug deal gone wrong. He was twenty years old.

Jeremy, I later found out from someone who had been in that English class, had gotten involved with drug dealers. It was the easiest and fastest way to make money. He was twenty years old. He's fifty now, and he's in prison for the rest of his life. 

My heart broke when I read that story in the newspaper. How could he? I wondered. What happened to him? What went so terribly wrong?

Sometimes I think that what I did for thirty years of my life didn't make a damn bit of difference. But I realize that I'm a tiny part of a huge environment. Jeremy deserves punishment, of course, but I mourn for him nonetheless.