Punches, pit bulls, strangers, and art

The following is what I wrote one day this week on a stalled subway car on the way back from working an audition for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders for the ballet school for which I work.  It was the longest, most difficult subway ride (or non-ride, as it actually turned out to be) I think I've ever had, and it came at the end of one of the more challenging days of work I've experienced:
~~~~~~~~~~~

I am stuck on a cramped and crowded 4 train in the Bronx, as our audition team attempts to make our way back to Manhattan after a very long and very difficult audition for little kids in a public school here.  The train hasn't moved, nor have there been any announcements, in at least ten minutes.  We haven't even gone one subway stop yet, but we boarded about 15 minutes ago.  There's a four-year-old in a stroller next to me who's getting very squirmy, so his mom (who looks about 18 and like she should probably be in school herself) took out a Capri Sun, stuck a straw in it, let him have a sip... and then announced, "NO! That's IT!" and gulped down the rest while her little boy gaped at her, mouth wide open, eyes big as saucers (really really thirsty saucers).  I feel ya, kid.  I could use a Capri Sun myself right now.

I suspected that today's audition would be difficult as soon as we got off the train and I saw the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, I've found there usually to be a high correlation between the cleanliness of the neighborhood and the behavior of the children in the school.  Today, as we cut through a small park (which mostly consisted of about 500 winding steps among thick brush) behind the school, and my nose was assaulted with the overwhelming stink of feces and urine, I kept my eyes glued to the ground to make sure I didn't step in anything I wouldn't want to traipse home on my pretty pink Keds (not that I would want it on my shoes any more if I were wearing ugly combat boots).  By the time we made it out of the park, I felt like Clarice in Silence of the Lambs viewing her first body, desperately in need of some Vaseline to block the smell.  Emerging from the park did not make our trip any less weird....  Upon reaching the summit of stinky steps, we immediately found ourselves in a caged sidewalk (caging on both sides and above), with three men in lawn chairs at the end of the sidewalk, just this side of the opening of the cage before it spilled out onto school property, a pit bull by their feet.  I couldn't help but think that either I was on my way to see an urban Wizard of Oz or this school had the most unique guard system I've seen.  As we approached -- five ballerina types including a pale redhead and a blonde in a neighborhood where there are no redheads or blondes -- lugging a roller suitcase that noisily announced our arrival with the cluckety-cluckety-cluckety roll of the wheels cutting through the blistering hot morning, the men stopped talking and stared at us, clearly wondering how we could have gotten so far lost. 

***Oh, uh-oh.  That mom really should have given her son the Capri Sun.  He's getting squirmy, so she's yelling at him to stop squirming, even though he's not even making much noise.  Everyone else on the train is silent and she's got headphones in blasting music, so she's unnecessarily yelling over her headphones at her cute kid, and the whole train car is just staring.  "Yo stay STILL.  You're aggravatin' me.  Don't throw that shit at me, what you WANT?!" she just yelled at him out of nowhere.  This kid has the biggest brown eyes.  I think what he wants is a hug.  Or a Capri Sun.  He'd probably take either.  But now she's yelling at him, so he's starting to cry.  Right next to me.  And she's yelling.  In my ear.  And she just rolled his stroller over my foot.  Fun fun.  We're still not moving.***

So anyway, we got by the pit bull guard patrol without incident and went into the school, where a time warp seemed to exist.  Sometimes time here moved slowly, sometimes it moved quickly, but it never seemed to move normally.  There were a number of children out on the sidewalk, which made no sense as school had already started.  As our contact -- a large man who definitely takes his time in life -- slowly said his hello, a mother and her small child walked in the front door, failing to acknowledge either him, the security guard, or the other staff present.  He ceased speaking, scrunched his face, and, turning his head as the duo walked by, followed them with his eyes and an arched brow long after they'd disappeared down the hall.  His disapproval hung in the empty seconds, all activities halted, a bubble of silence seeming to envelop us within the screeching and yelping sounds of children coming from deeper into the school, before he finally said, "What's HER issue?....... She's LATE," slowly shrugged his large shoulders and, languidly returning his attention to us, informed us we would be in the gym today... the fifth floor gym.  There are no elevators.  So we all sauntered up the stairs (also, like the sidewalk, lined in cage chain -- even on the interior side away from the windows, which completely baffled me) following his lead, occasionally stopping abruptly without warning as he questioned a child -- in a manner that somehow managed to be both lackadaisical and sharp -- who ought to be in class but was instead hanging out in the echoey stairwell.

Finally, we reached our audition room destination -- what looked to be an abandoned old gym that now seemed to serve as storage for a couple hundred desks and chairs piled on each other.  As we went about trying to open some windows (all locked and unfortunately impossible to open -- I'm not sure they've been used in the last few decades) to let some air in the horribly hot and stale room, we discovered one little old white lady behind some gym mats that were standing on end to form a type of fort, sitting quietly in the corner painting.  She just looked up from her paints and smiled brightly at us without saying a word, and then returned happily to her paints...  I'm not at all sure that she actually has anything to do with the school....  Looking at her happily painting away, as she acted as if this were the most normal thing in the world to be painting behind a gym-mat fort in a fifth floor abandoned gym, I was struck with the odd notion that she might eternally live in this abandoned room that no one uses.  As I looked around and realized that what once was a basketball hoop backboard was now a pretty painting of flowers and a sun, and other paintings seemingly by the same artist covered objects and wall pieces all around us, I imagined this little old lady had been lost in a magical time warp bubble for decades, happily creating unique art in a room where no one knew she existed, transforming her bubble into a world of undiscovered color. 

Eventually we got set up and were ready for the classes to start auditioning.  Unfortunately for us, the teachers were also ready for a break, and the majority of them simply dumped their classes in the hallway outside the gym and walked away, leaving us with 30 screaming children who clearly weren't used to using indoor voices, following directions, or respecting the authority of adults.  That also meant that when each class's audition was through, we'd have 30 kids with no adult to take them anywhere, so one of our team members had to go up and down the stairs about 15 times taking classes back to their classrooms.  One teacher who had abandoned her kids came back to get them about ten minutes after one of our team members had taken them back to their classroom.  As the teacher got to the gym and saw her class wasn't there, she loudly asked, "Where are my kids? Where's my class?"  When we informed her we'd taken them back because there was no teacher with them, she responded not with concern that apparently her children were in her classroom without her, but with anger that she had had to make the trip up the stairs to check on them.  "Gee thanks for letting me know.  I made this trip for nothing," she said cuttingly.  "I feel you," sweetly replied our team member who had taken her class, and many others, back.  "I've made about 15 of those trips myself today."

The teachers weren't the only ones at the school who were angry.  One boy shuffled to his given spot on the floor with a studied limp and proceeded to fold his arms across his chest and just stand there and stare me down during the entire audition as I went through the various exercises.  Some children I try to encourage to participate.  Not him.

***Our train's still not moving -- "signal problems" -- and screaming-mom is getting more and more antsy.  She's full-on yelling at her kid now (still no one else on the car is talking, and most people have turned their back to the duo, presumably in an attempt to block it out).  The boy keeps squirming, but not yet fully crying or making much noise, and every time he squirms in his stroller she gets more and more angry.  "Stay the f$%k still!  Shut the f$%k up!  I'll f$%king hit you on this train I don't f%&king care. Yo why you cryin'.  Yo you have issues dude...  F$&king worst kid to have on a train..... Shut up shut up shut UP!"   I want to get off this train so badly.  What I really want is to find this kid some solace.  There are no cops on the packed car and nothing to do about it other than watch her emotionally abuse him.  After her screaming at him for 35 minutes, the tears that have been consistently filling his eyes threatening a full-on crying fit that has remarkably not yet manifested finally seem to reach their breaking point, and as he's about to lose it, the woman sitting down next to his carriage reaches over and tickles him.  This gets a giggle, and the tears disappear immediately.  The stranger (a heavily tattooed older lady who looks to be going through some tough times herself and whose outward edge and roughness are in contrast to her extreme softness and sweetness with the boy), puts down her tattered romance novel that has clearly gone through multiple reads, asks him his name, and introduces herself with a handshake (the mom couldn't care less that a stranger is touching and talking to her little kid.  She looks relieved to be rid of him for a bit).  The stranger asks him what some of his favorite things are, tickles him more, and then says, "Are you a good boy?  Your mommy needs you to be a good boy.  Your mommy loves you very much.  She has to work very hard to support you, so you have to be a good boy for her.  She loves you.  She loves you very very much."  The boy is looking at the stranger with big wide eyes, the happiest I've seen him, and while he's clearly bright and responds to everything else she says, her repeated declarations of his mother's love are met with nothing but confused looks.  I wonder if he's ever heard those words from his mom's lips.  Now it's the train station where the stranger has to get off.  She repeats that his mom loves him, gives him a parting tickle, and without even glancing at the boy's mom, reluctantly gets off.  The mom does not move a muscle.***

At the audition, few classes were where they were supposed to be.  Some of the room numbers we'd been told to go to did not exist, two of them were bathrooms, and at least one was in the park.  Yet somehow we were running an hour ahead of schedule.  In search of one class that never showed up, I walked into an art room where I found 30 or so kids yelling and running around.  I found the teacher -- a young man who looked about my age -- in the corner successfully connecting with and teaching a few children who seemed genuinely interested, focused, and intent on their work, despite the lack of discipline of most of the class.  After several failed attempts to be heard over the roar of the class in speaking to him -- resulting in an exchange that seemed quite like an Abbott and Costello routine -- I verified with him that this was indeed our missing class.  When the class came to our room, as they stood in the hallway waiting to go in, at least a dozen of the children simultaneously asked if they could go to the bathroom.  The teacher sighed and, telling me how it's a sport for them to go to the bathroom as much as possible and as a group, admitted he didn't know how the regular homeroom teachers handled it all day.  Dude, neither do I.  "The way you speak to them is good, though.  Calm.  In charge but not yelling," he said.  Yeah... not really working today though.

In the next class, a kid punched another kid.  All the kids saw it but apparently none of them knew what it was about.  It didn't seem like it was a particularly rare occurrence.  A teacher to whom other kids complained asked the alleged puncher if maybe he was stretching and the other kid just walked into his fist.  Yes, he agreed, the other child had indeed walked into his fist while he was stretching.  So that was that.  Stretches are dangerous at this school.

***Things just got even worse after the stranger left.  The mom immediately started screaming at the boy again, so he started full out crying finally, so she started to hit him with the back of her open hand, stopped her hand about half an inch from his nose, and instead squeezed his face really hard with her hand.  So now he's crying even more.  There's a woman in scrubs next to me who shook her head, took a breath in like she might say something, but then sighed and turned her back to the mom and child.  No one else on the car other than our team is watching.  I wish there were something I could do, but by the time I found a police officer she would be long gone, and what is there to report?  A ton of emotional abuse, a threat to hit a child, and a face squeeze... that no one saw.  I hate this subway ride.  I wish that child could get out.  In a few years he'll be one of the unruly kids at this school we just auditioned.  I hope he won't be one of the punchers or one of the kids who stands there belligerently staring me down.  I hope he'll be one of the students in the art class who clusters around the teacher in a determined effort to learn whatever he can despite the circumstances.  I hope he'll be one of the children who does so well he gets accepted to our program.  I hope he'll be one of the children who finds a positive force in his life and the hope to pull himself up.  I hope somehow, maybe against all odds, he makes it.