A Head Full of Long Thin Braids

He stands in the same place every day at break in that group of boys who lounge lazily against the far wall of the cafeteria. They get the full human experience that way. Half the kids in the school pass that way, right by them, on their way to load up on sugary junk food and drinks.

This kid is a little different, though. Instead of the academically apathetic boys who walk through the day under guises of disinterest in the goings on, this kid is more willing to smile, more willing to work for a good grade. He does look a little like they do with his head full of long thin braids, oversized pants, T-shirts long enough to be dresses, flashy hooded winter jackets worn even in August, but while the others along that wall scrape by with just-good-enough grades to get passed in the low-level classes (or not), he pulls in As and Bs in the college prep classes. While his path is sure to lead him to college and away from this small town and toward a better future, his friends are mostly fated to peak in high school and spend the rest of their lives working assorted dead-end and low-paying jobs.

I met his mother once at an open house when I taught him a couple of years ago and I was a little taken aback when she walked through my classroom door. Her clothes had that thinned, worn look of clothes that had been washed many times more than they had ever intended to be. There were swooping cursive tattoos on her neck and her mouth gleamed with gold teeth. She had that lean look that you expect from the homeless or the denizens of crack houses, people whose diet of psychoactive chemicals leaves them looking not so much old as dry and used up.

I don't know if her appearances were due to past indiscretions, current ones, or just a byproduct of subculture and genes. For all I knew, or cared, she just happened to have a taste for gold teeth and tattoos and was genitically predisposed to being lean and having bad skin. Whatever the cause, her appearance didn't match the behavior and intellect of her son. People who look like that don't usually have kids who make class discussions on literature more enjoyable or kids whose papers are actually a joy to read.

The difference between her and many of the other kids I've taught from very poor families was that this was an evening at the high school for open house and she was there, asking about her son's progress. It wasn't such a surprise that this was the mother of one of my best students after all.