(See part 1 here)

Friday, 8:36 AM, Somewhere in Southern New Jersey (or South Jersey)

I’m on a bus. Been here before. I’m with a bunch of junior high school kids, but it’s not a school bus, what the kids would call a cheese bus.  It’s a step up from that, probably Peter Pan Bus lines (I say that because that’s the one I remember, there were probably others). I don’t remember for sure and I didn’t right it down, but I was probably slightly overcaffeinated, a little sleepy, and deeply nervous. Not just because of the caffeine, but because I was one of the 6 or 7  “responsible adults” on this trip, and that probably felt like a lot.

Oh by the way it’s May 19, 1995. I’m younger. More naive? Less aware of my shortcomings? Not sure. I do know that if somebody asked me to do something like this now I would most likely decline immediately. Back then? Happy to!

Even though I’m well aware even then (now?) that things can instantly go sideways when you’re out in the world with a bunch of kids (your own, probably- other people’s definitely). 

Like the time I took kids on a trip and two of them got in a fistfight on the street, and one of the two JUST WOULD NOT STOP going after the other one. Screaming, spluttering, howling with rage, me wrapped around her keeping her from attacking this other kid, her relentless, like the fucking Terminator, not stopping, not stopping, wait, maybe- nope, still not stopping- and by the way it doesn’t look cool when you are out on the street in New York City and you are wrapped around and restraining a screaming swearing spitting little girl to whom you have no immediately evident connection (and to be clear “student and homeroom teacher” is not immediately evident). And what were the chances, if something like this happened again, that it would be resolved the way it was that time, by having a riderless, bridleless white horse gallop by just then, up 7th Avenue and then west along 59thStreet next to Central Park, top speed, full gallop, like Seabiscuit  at Pimlico, stunning everyone, even the Terminator, into silence, wonder, awe, and then normalcy?  Not high. Low?

I just heard a story the other day about somebody’s great-grandfather, a World War II veteran, who survived two plane crashes during the war, and that wasn’t even counting the time he was on his way home after the war was over and the emergency exit door next to him popped off the plane and his legs were suddenly dangling out into the open air, and as he struggled to keep from being completely sucked out, seatbelt loosening, another vet sitting behind him, a double amputee, crawled forward and pulled him back in. So yeah, two full-on crashes, and then whatever the fuck that was, all happened to the same guy. A kid in Iowa later found his wallet in a cornfield and mailed it back to him

So something like that could happen again. But not likely. The ending would probably be worse. 

Or there was also the time I took some kids to see a play about Frederick Douglas, and the actor playing the horribly racist white overseer was so good (and, let’s be honest, the part he was playing was less than sympathetic to begin with) that when he came out for a curtain call, one of my students spat on him. That’s a pretty awkward post-show backstage apology conversation.

Or the time I took my students to Dorney Park (a theme park and a water park in Pennsylvania that we went to at the end of every school year, because what could be more fun and less nerve-wracking than making sure you’re watching everybody in the wave pool at once?) and security came to get me because one of my kids had tried to walk out of the gift shop with a bunch of sweatshirts under her sweatshirt. Weirdly, she had no idea how they got there. And it puts you in this weird position where part of you is like “Stealing is wrong, and against the law,” and part of you is like, “This is my kid and she was just stealing sweatshirts, so what? Everybody take a breath.”

Or the time I told my boss that I was gonna go check out the brand new Liberty Science Center in New Jersey, across the Hudson River, and she suggested I open the trip up to any kids who wanted to go, during non-school time, which is how I ended up on a Sunday (a goddam Sunday, for shit’s sake- my day off) taking the ferry over there with about seven 8th grade girls who were clearly nerdy enough to wanna do something like that on a Sunday, and we all had a lovely time at the exhibits, and wandering around all day, learning about science and stuff, and getting lunch, and then finally on the ferry ride home they couldn’t help but give away that one of the girls (the one who I would least have expected it from- the nerdiest, but of course that’s why she did it) had gotten her lunch tray together in the cafeteria and then walked out without paying for anything. And now we were on our way home and there wasn’t really a lot I could do- what, turn the boat around? I could scold her, and make her feel bad, which I did. And of course that’s very effective with a kid like that. But that’s exactly what makes it unsatisfying. 

Or the time I took a bunch of kids over to the park by the river, just a nice afternoon of running around in the spring because why not, and as we were walking back to school a guy on a motorcycle rode by in the other direction, and then I heard the motorcycle get louder again and the guy skidded to a stop in front of me and ripped his helmet off and angrily demanded that action be taken against the kid who had, unbeknownst to me, picked up a chunk of asphalt and thrown it at the guy as he rode by. Didn’t hit him, thank  goodness, so I was able to talk him down and promise repercussions. But...

I’m sure this trip is going to be great! Especially given the kids I’m responsible for. I mean, I’m responsible for all of them, that’s the nature of chaperone- cy? - but I’ve been told to pay particular attention to...

NEXT TIME:

I’ve Got My Eye On YOU