Thursday, July 17, 2003

Employee at Jefferson most likely to die during working hours: me.

A man entered the school through the gate that I guard. I followed after him and I told him politely that he was not allowed to come inside. He wasn’t going to accept that. He kept walking and my hand ended on his body. He said to me, “Don’t touch me!” I repeated to him that he may not come inside. He started yelling obscenities. I told him to please remember that there were students around us. He didn’t care for that either. I reiterated that he was not allowed to come in. He told his son to hold his things — probably a wallet and a cellphone — ’cause he was about to get busy.

I should have been afraid at this point: African-American man, standing much taller than me, muscular, arms thicker than mine, and he had that I-been-in-jail-and-I-am-not-afraid-to-go-back look. He said bad things, and looked at me with anger. I stood in front of him reminding him that he must enter through the main gate. Fear did not come to me. It must have been my ignorance that blocked it, or maybe my youth… whatever is left of it.

He didn’t get busy. I told him that if he didn’t leave, I’d have to call the police. He didn’t care. I walked to the office ahead of him. I encountered the personal assistant of the principal, and explained to him what had taken place. The assistant approached the guy, shook hands with him, and they spoke. I stood next to them.

The man said I had put my hands on him. He exaggerated things. He made it seem as if I had done it to keep him from moving forward, when it was no more than a tap, if that. During the conversation he’d look at me viciously and act as if he was about to jump on me. I stood there motionless. Not a sign of fear. I was wearing my face of indifference.

They walked toward the room where the man said he was being expected. I walked with them. After a few steps in that direction, the assistant turned around and thanked me. I would not have left him alone with the man otherwise, because, as the assistant later told me, “He was pretty big!” I walked back to my regular position.

During the encounter I kept my father in mind. He had recently given me a chit-chat about a man’s natural ability to dominate a beast. He placed his hand in the mouth of the family dog, and played with its teeth. The imagery was perfect, keeping in mind that this man was not too far from being a beast. Fight a man because he’s doing his job by telling him he can’t come in?!

I also recalled my older brother and my grandmother. In my childhood I held the notion that my grandmother was brave. At a time that snakes terrorized me, she used to kill them with a machete without making a big fuss about it. In my teenage years I saw in my brother a man with his mind set not let anybody mess with him. If he’d lose a fist-fight, the next time he’d return with a bat.

But I also kept in mind that I’m not the sort of person who’d jump on another on the slightest provocation. However, Mr. Tough-Guy seemed to be precisely that kind. I wasn’t going to throw the first punch, but I would have tried to land the first good one. I wasn’t planning on standing there and getting beaten up. I’d have bitten his nuts if it would have come to that.

I found it funny that when the man asked his son to hold his things, the son obediently listened to him, without saying anything, as if his dad was about to do something as simple and natural as tying his shoelaces. But that wasn’t as funny to me as hearing a fifth grader say to me aloud, in front of his 30 classmates and his teacher, “You were going to get beaten up this morning, huh Mr. Quiterio?” Heh, there probably was some truth to that. 🙂

The principal had something a little different to say, though. He passed by me swinging his arms like a boxer, smiling, and saying “Heyyy, champion!” Heh, sarcasm at its best.

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