William Wilkerson

In the back of room 405, just below the bulletin board, Willy Wilkerson was sitting all by himself, doodling what was supposed to be a golden retriever but resembled a furry dinosaur. Of course. To anything I assigned, Little Willy had to add a twist; last week it had been the pair of horns on the poor eagle’s head and the week before, on Valentine’s Day, I had received a sketch of a heart bursting with metal spikes. “Very creative,” I would say, following the advice of Brenda, a head teacher with more than ten years of experience (as she happily reminded anyone who dared to speak their mind). God knows, however, that I wanted to scream. Oh dear, did I want to tear those sketches apart and yell. Where’d you leave your motor skills for God’s sake? That lining is hideous. Why can’t you just follow the fucking instructions?! Unfortunately, nobody hired substitute art teachers for their truth-telling ability. You just had to show up on time, pass blank sheets around, and accept mediocre ‘expressions of personality’. 

Today there was something eerie about Mr. Creative. Willy was shuffling around as if the chair burned his seven-year-old butt and every time our eyes met, he looked away, covering his mouth. “Is everything okay, Willy?” I had asked twice already and that little dork would simply nod. But everything was not okay; I could tell by the giggles. First, it was Ryan Morrison, who, as I walked past Willy’s desk, chuckled and whispered something to Lucy Parker. Then I noticed Jake Harris, an unusually tall boy in the third row, open his mouth, suck his lips in, and breathe straight into the face of Daniel Bailey. The son of headmaster Bailey did not mind the attack of Jake’s gastric fumes, in fact, he only pulled his collar up to silence the laughter that was, slowly but inevitably, creeping from his throat. The final straw was the attendance sheet. There must have been a reason why, when I recited the names, none resulted in the same reaction as that of William Wilkerson. Not even Alejandro Manuel Garcia Lopez Lopez, the usual target of sneers, triggered a wave of cackles that began in the first row by the whiteboard, traveled through the middle—Ryan and Daniel letting out piggy snorts, holding their piggy bellies—until it reached the second-to-last row, where even Nerdy Katy and Shy Suzie couldn’t help but lift the corners of their mouths. Yes, things were off.

By the time the bell rang, a pile of golden retrievers (and their mutations) sat on my desk, and Willy occupied the chair right across, aloof and quiet, tapping his foot. The rest had finally left.

“How are you, Willy?” 

“Good,” the boy said without hesitation.

Damn kids and their three favorite activities: yelling like baboons, salivating like hungry mastiffs, and lying like their pointless lives depended on it. They couldn’t just tell you what was wrong; no, they wanted you to beg for it, to dig it from the depths of their dysfunctional brains, all while risking that it had been buried for no apparent reason. Not long ago, I had spent an hour questioning Henry Lawrence, with Brenda’s useless manual playing in my head, only to find out that the source of the kid’s new-found appreciation for silence lay in his pants, in the form of four ounces of fresh warm shit. Needless to say, I had never been closer to filing the resignation letter that had been waiting in the drafts, sufficiently polished. With a sigh, I prepared myself for round two, relaxed my jaw, and began digging.

“I liked your drawing.” I pointed to one of the scribbles, hoping it was his.

“Thank you.” The answer carried a few droplets of saliva that flew three inches and landed right between my pencil case and a pair of scissors. Fuck. 

“What would you like to draw next week?” I wondered, although part of me was already in a nearby CVS, buying the cheapest alcohol-free sanitizer. 

“A cat,” he said after a while. 

“We did a cat recently. You drew one with laser eyes, remember?” Again, I believed it had been him. Who knew for sure? As far as I was concerned, the drawings were just a distraction, one that the kids needed to not die of boredom, and one that I needed to not die of hunger. Still, it was temporary, it must have been. Soon enough, the Visual Arts Academy would respond, with apologies for delay in the subject and a big fat CONGRATULATIONS on the first line. Until then, I just had to push through. 

Willy rubbed the back of his head. “How about a snake?”

I was not sure what kind of game he was playing but I was sure that his rainbow winged snake had flown straight to the decaying mass of my composter the night before. “What’s your favorite animal, Willy?”

For a moment, the boy looked like he was about to cry. Bowed down, Willy hypnotized his trembling hands, which were still covered with yellow marker lines. He only looked up for a second, but it was enough; I saw his eyes, glistening way too much.

“Whawe,” he muttered eventually.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, leaning forward.

“Bwue . . . whawe.” I managed to back away in time to dodge another gush of saliva.

“Blue whale?”

He nodded, first tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Why are you crying, Willy?” What the hell is wrong with you?

No matter how high-pitched my voice got or how wide a smile I forced, the boy did not answer. I found myself with a crying baby doll, desperately searching for the switch. Willy shrieked, a stream of snot escaping his nostril, and I checked out his jeans, sniffing for a herald of my future resignation. Then his quivering lips separated, revealing a pink throat and a gap where his incisors were meant to be.

“Your teeth have fallen out,” I stated the obvious, “did the tooth fairy come for a visit?”

Somewhere in Willy’s wailing, there was a ‘yes’.

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

The boy drew in gulps of air, his voice still breaking after each word. “The . . . kids . . . caww . . . me . . . Wee-wee-am . . . Weewkewson.”

In college, they never taught you how to suppress laughter. Like rage control or origami, it was one of those skills you learned on the job. All of a sudden, I could relate to the mortal struggles of Daniel Bailey, shaking my head as one should, instead of letting the howl of pure amusement out. After a bunch of idiots, occasional bitches, and a motherfucker here and there, the kids had come up with something original. Wee-wee-am. I pictured the jokes. Wee-wee did a wee-wee, didn’t he? Say ‘legalistically’, Willy! Or ‘extracurricular’ . . . Speech impairment, though temporary, is a real problem, Brenda would probably say and later that day, I would stumble upon a list of recommended child-psychology literature in my inbox. Because at Uptown Elementary, fun was prohibited.

“Willy, you’re not the only one whose teeth will fall out, you know that, right?”

“Weawwy?” Willy’s tooth-deprived mouth fell open again and his eyebrows slid under his fringe.

“Sure. All your classmates are going to have the same problem, sooner or later. Don’t be surprised if one day, you bump into Wyan Mowwison or Jake Hawwis.” I might have smirked, possibly even winked.

Maybe it was the news about human tooth development, maybe the delivery. One thing was clear; no more tears moistened Willy’s face. He blew his nose in a tissue I had more than willingly provided, and deeply exhaled. The doll had been turned off. 

“Now let’s get you ready. Your Mom will be here any minute.” I stood up and made for the door, gesturing for Willy to follow. 

There was a sense of urgency in the way Little Willy sprinted from the desk and wrapped his arms around me. “I wove you,” he said, hugging my leg.

Somewhat teary and ashamed, with the boy paralyzing me from the waist down, I was the one looking away.