Danny never had a chance at a happy childhood. His parents were only 15 when he was born and he was their second child. His mother committed suicide before Danny's second birthday and he and his sister ended up living with his paternal grandmother. The grandmother was a sweet old lady who could have raised a sweet little child, like Danny's sister, just fine, but not a child as angry and especially as hurt as Danny was. Danny's father, Danny Sr., was around for him in the vaguest way possible. He had gone on to have more male children with other women, all the subsequent boys were also named Danny Jr.. This hurt my Danny more than anything. He wouldn't discuss these other Danny 1/2 brothers with anyone. Danny Sr. was a big drug dealer in the neighborhood, so despite living in this poor neighborhood, my Danny always had fresh new clothes and gold chains to wear. This was in 1989 when the oversized clothes first became in style for the criminal element, and hadn't gone mainstream yet. So, when Danny would show up at school with pants that were 4 sizes too big for his tiny little body the statement he made was "I'm bad" and not "I'm a trendy little kid".
Danny was always a minimum of 15 minutes late for school in the morning or was just as often absent. The rest of the class would wait, holding their collective breath until the clock showed 20 or 25 minutes after the last bell before they began to relax in the idea of a Danny free day. They were terrified of Danny, and rightfully so. Danny cold be explosive. He was angry and let every one and anyone know that they better not stand in his way. He was ready for a fight over anything at any time.
On his birthday that year Danny came in to school all happy carrying a big sheet cake. I put it aside for an afternoon celebration. At some point during the morning hours Danny became upset over something, went to the cake and pulled out the steak knife that unbeknown to me his grandmother had slipped into the tin foil. She put it there so we could cut the cake. Danny sidled up to one of the storage units in the room and began slowly sawing away at a wooden shelf. He kept his eyes on me as he did this, sawing slowly back and forth through the wood while looking up and staring at me with his big brown full of hurt eyes. I asked him to give me the knife. He just stared. I explained that if he didn't just hand it over I'd have to call down to the office and that they would make a big deal out of it. He just sawed and stared some more, knowing that the office was worthless and that even if I called them for help in a way I was just bluffing. All the kids knew that teachers weren't supposed to touch kids, not for a hug or an aggressive move, so I was at Danny's mercy. He was in control of the situation. The other children were sitting in their seats towards the front of the room while this was going on in the back of the room. Since Danny was unresponsive, and I had to protect the other kids, I picked up the intercom, called down to tell the office that Danny had a steak knife and was sawing on the furniture. By the time an administrator wandered their way upstairs 5 minutes later, Danny had given me the knife, I had locked it in my teacher's closet, and the class and I were in the middle of our regular lesson. The administrator acted as if I had over reacted despite the presence of a 6 inch serrated blade and a pile of wood shavings in my third grade classroom.
I didn't know what to expect when parent teacher conferences came around, and I never knew at all who would be coming in, if anyone to discuss each child. When Danny Sr. came in to speak to me about my Danny I almost fell off of my seat. All I knew about Danny Sr. was how he made his money in drugs and his reputation as a ladies man. I never thought I would see him in person. He came in was handsome, (now I knew where my Danny got his good looks) well dressed, charismatic and articulate.
Despite being incredibly nervous I told Danny Sr. the truth about my Danny, and how he was smart and sharp but mostly too angry or sad to learn. I told him how Danny didn't always come to school, and how the other kids were afraid of him. Then Danny Sr. got on his knees in front of his angry little boy took Danny Jr.'s hands in his own and while choking back his tears gave the most impassioned "don't walk in my footsteps" speech ever. He outlined every mistake he had ever made, admitting to everything from being criminal to being promiscuous and begged my Danny to apply himself in school, trust in his teachers and understand that school and an education could get him out of the neighborhood and into a decent good happy life. I was fighting back the tears myself. And for a few weeks after that Danny really tried hard. He befriended another bright boy, Rudy who was also in need of a friend, and they would sit by side completing their work together. SOmetimes Danny and Rudy would compete and sometimes they would help each other out. It was a beautiful thing to watch these two becoming friends and supporting each other. The kids in the class were amazed, I was amazed, and we got so much good learning in during those few weeks. The whole class took the gift and ran with it. We all felt successful, for a while.
Then one day my Danny was walking down the street with his father and a rival drug dealer walked up to Danny Sr. and shot and killed him. Danny Sr. died on the sidewalk right in front of my Danny.
Danny was out of school for a month after that. He came back occasionally during the rest of the spring but never attempted to learn anything again. Instead of being either sad or angry he was always angry. He'd look at me through his narrowed eyes, like I had caused all the pain in his life. No amount of compassion and understanding from me could undo the hatred that my Danny carried with him now. At that time we had some seedlings growing in the classroom, I had made a big deal out of them, and was using the seedlings to teach the kids how to care for something as well as for their science lesson. One day I turned around and our plants had been pulled from the dirt and ground into the floor. Shocked I looked up to see my Danny with flecks of brown dirt on his finger tips and an evil grin across his face. I knew at that instant that he would never let me in. He would never allow me care about him. He would never take what I had to offer and use it to find the strength to find another way to live. When I tried to get him some help from the school, I was pretty much told to go back to my classroom and mind my own business. That is how they did it at that school. They didn't want to evaluate the kids, They didn't want to know who was in trouble and who couldn't read, they just wanted me to close the classroom door and keep the kids calm and quiet. I turned to my union rep for help, but all she told me to do was keep a journal of all of Danny's threatening behaviors to protect myself in case of an incident. By the end of the school year, I had an entire book outlining this poor little suffering kid's desperate unanswered cries for help.
That summer I got a job at a different school (different neighborhood, same situation) where a friend of mine worked. I threw my behavior logs (there were other kids who had one too) away. A few months into the next school year my old mentor called me to ask if I had that log for Danny. They were finally trying to get him some help. I couldn't help him with my log, it was long gone. I heard that eventually he was put on home instruction because he became too violent to go to school with other kids, and that later he had gone into hiding after being caught by the police for breaking and entering too many times. Eventually he ended up in a facility somewhere. I always hoped that the person Danny needed in his life showed up to save him and that Danny realized there was another way.
