STEPPING BACK INTO THE BLINDSPOTS

There are days where I feel like I’m retelling the same story, but I’m uncertain as to whether I’ve covered all the details, such as the yellow ribbon the state police used to cordon off the crime scene where a coworker had been sexually assaulted. Last week I was reminded of that detail when I attended a “Performance Learning Systems” conference at my previous place of employment. Marygrove College had been kind enough to hold a training session inside the prison; probably as a last ditch effort to drum up more business for their “Master in the Art of Teaching” program. Their sales pitch reminded me of the time a high school principal at Flint Beecher called to see if I’d be interested in teaching at their inner city school. “Recruiting in the prisons are we?” I said, implying that perhaps they couldn’t find anyone crazy enough to consider their offer. I already knew about how they couldn’t keep the laptops they assigned to their students from ending up in the pawnshops, how the media reported that some of the parents were pawning them to support their drug habits.

“This is where it happened,” I told my fellow coworker, showing him the corner room with only one small rectangular window on the door. After the investigation, the puzzle palace called Lansing, Michigan, released their findings. They claimed that the teacher had been negligent for leaving her PPD (Personal Protection Device) in her desk drawer and that custody staff did not make their rounds in a timely manner. Also, they alluded to the fact that the room was too dangerous to work in. I’m willing to bet no one in Lansing caught any flak for approving the design of the building. The blindspots became more evident as I, the outsider, had time to look about.

“When I worked here,” I told my fellow coworker, “administration reassigned this classroom to me. I guess they thought the room had magically become safe again.” I wanted to step back into that classroom and see the storage area where my coworker had been held hostage. I wanted to see if I’d missed any details. The best way to recall something is to be a part of it again, to experience it in your mind, to relive it, if only for a moment. Because of the training, I didn’t have time to go back.

I leave you with the following short story recommendation which was dedicated to the men at the Cotton Correctional Facility: Davy Rothbart’s “First Snow,” in Pieces: A Collection of New Voices. Davy’s come along way since his Ann Arbor days. His short stories continue to get better and better. Now, if only I could say the same for me.