chance with me so I got to ride a motherfucking desk for fifty-four months, put on an average of six pounds a year, got my gold shield, but everybody knew how I got it, what I did, didn’t do for it. And to this day I get little or no respect from other detectives because of it, no matter, no matter what I’ve done on the Job since. I’m just some high-profile black female desk jockey got the shield to make the department look good, so fuck this greatest-show-on-earth bullshit . . .” Nerese gulped some air. “Did I mention to you I’m retiring in a few months?”
“Yeah, well, still . . . You know what I really hated about teaching?” Ray just getting back into his own thing. “I hated the idea of getting older every year while the students stayed the same age or, you know, when they graduated, they were like ships sailing off for adventure and there I am waving bye-bye, stuck on the dock . . .”
Despite her awareness of his altered state, Nerese felt surprisingly wounded by Ray’s lack of response to her fifty-four-month sob story—wounded enough that she had to remind herself that what she was doing here, was working.
“Plus one other small thing?” he said. “Towards the end of my teaching career? Like, the last year or two? I was an up-and-coming cokehead. Not every day, not every night, but enough, and occasionally I’d go into class high, have a half-gram in my wallet, standing in front of thirty kids at a clip, I’m either skying or crashing, paranoid out of my ass, like, Why are they
looking
at me? Because you’re the teacher, schmuck . . . And as embarrassing as it is to tell you this? Understand, Nerese, and this in no way exonerates me or mitigates what I did, but I was also very ashamed of myself. I mean I never got caught, but I never got away with it, either.”
“But so, I don’t understand,” Nerese said. “If you hated teaching so much, why’d you go back and volunteer for more?”
“I had four really bad years on coke—teaching, driving a cab, doing polygraphs . . . I mean if someone had hooked me up to one of those machines when I was a polygrapher? The fucking stylus would have shot off into the wall. And I didn’t really stop until I got the writing deal on that TV show; then I cleaned up for good. Then about two years ago, I got nominated for an Emmy. Well, one-fifth of an Emmy, since there were four other writers of that episode. And a week after that, I get this call from one of my old teachers at the Hook, Mr. Mufson, remember him? Asks me would I like to address the graduating class, you know, local boy makes good, comes home to talk, hail the conquering hero and, Tweetie, I swear I was such a nothing student at that school, so it’s . . . How could I not?”
Tweetie again.
“So, I show up at the assembly, all the kids are in cap and gown, nine-tenths are like, ‘Who the hell’s
this
clown?’ but the teachers knew, my old bitch-ass teachers and, I’m up on the podium, I look out and there’s not one white face, you know Paulus Hook now, and because all I see are minority kids and because I’m haunted by my own drug history, I just toss my speech and go into this confessional thing about drugs, how they almost destroyed me, don’t let them destroy you, you’ve got your whole life in front of, et cetera, the world’s your oyster, et cetera. It was a pretty damn good speech, the only thing was, the school didn’t have a drug problem. I mean yeah, there’s always some kids who want to break bad, get cash money paid, but those kids are strictly interested in the business end of things. I mean, who sitting there wearing a cap and gown in that auditorium would be contemplating a career as a drug addict? These kids are graduating. Half are headed for college. My whole address was a class-action insult. But still, parents are coming up to me afterwards shaking my hand, asking me if I had written copies of what I said, my own parents are in
“Yeah, well, still . . . You know what I really hated about teaching?” Ray just getting back into his own thing. “I hated the idea of getting older every year while the students stayed the same age or, you know, when they graduated, they were like ships sailing off for adventure and there I am waving bye-bye, stuck on the dock . . .”
Despite her awareness of his altered state, Nerese felt surprisingly wounded by Ray’s lack of response to her fifty-four-month sob story—wounded enough that she had to remind herself that what she was doing here, was working.
“Plus one other small thing?” he said. “Towards the end of my teaching career? Like, the last year or two? I was an up-and-coming cokehead. Not every day, not every night, but enough, and occasionally I’d go into class high, have a half-gram in my wallet, standing in front of thirty kids at a clip, I’m either skying or crashing, paranoid out of my ass, like, Why are they
looking
at me? Because you’re the teacher, schmuck . . . And as embarrassing as it is to tell you this? Understand, Nerese, and this in no way exonerates me or mitigates what I did, but I was also very ashamed of myself. I mean I never got caught, but I never got away with it, either.”
“But so, I don’t understand,” Nerese said. “If you hated teaching so much, why’d you go back and volunteer for more?”
“I had four really bad years on coke—teaching, driving a cab, doing polygraphs . . . I mean if someone had hooked me up to one of those machines when I was a polygrapher? The fucking stylus would have shot off into the wall. And I didn’t really stop until I got the writing deal on that TV show; then I cleaned up for good. Then about two years ago, I got nominated for an Emmy. Well, one-fifth of an Emmy, since there were four other writers of that episode. And a week after that, I get this call from one of my old teachers at the Hook, Mr. Mufson, remember him? Asks me would I like to address the graduating class, you know, local boy makes good, comes home to talk, hail the conquering hero and, Tweetie, I swear I was such a nothing student at that school, so it’s . . . How could I not?”
Tweetie again.
“So, I show up at the assembly, all the kids are in cap and gown, nine-tenths are like, ‘Who the hell’s
this
clown?’ but the teachers knew, my old bitch-ass teachers and, I’m up on the podium, I look out and there’s not one white face, you know Paulus Hook now, and because all I see are minority kids and because I’m haunted by my own drug history, I just toss my speech and go into this confessional thing about drugs, how they almost destroyed me, don’t let them destroy you, you’ve got your whole life in front of, et cetera, the world’s your oyster, et cetera. It was a pretty damn good speech, the only thing was, the school didn’t have a drug problem. I mean yeah, there’s always some kids who want to break bad, get cash money paid, but those kids are strictly interested in the business end of things. I mean, who sitting there wearing a cap and gown in that auditorium would be contemplating a career as a drug addict? These kids are graduating. Half are headed for college. My whole address was a class-action insult. But still, parents are coming up to me afterwards shaking my hand, asking me if I had written copies of what I said, my own parents are in
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