my gunshot wound is itchy

Whoopi showed me her gunshot wound yesterday. She needed to go to the nurse to replace the bandages on her back; she said it was itchy. It's a miracle she's alive; one of the bullets went in by her lung and luckily bounced off her rib and ended in her arm, where it still is. She was at her cousin's birthday party during a drive by. I couldn't stop hugging her. She got either embarassed or annoyed ("Ms. A!"), but I think she understands. She's probably gotten enough of it from her family lately.

BJ was here today. LJ made me promise yesterday I would take him to resource with me, so I told him if he brought BJ so I could do his IEP testing he could come too. Talk about awkward. On the way out of class, LJ started telling me how BJ was absent yesterday because he was arrested for stealing a motorcycle.

"I didn't know it was stolen! I just bought this four wheeler off this guy for like, four hundred bucks. I didn't know it was stolen until the cops were like, 'Got licencse and registration?'"

He had to leave early to go to court over it.

An hour with those two was enough to make me want to sample their various products... For whatever reason they decided to trust me enough to tell me about all their various exploits today, including their drug dealing. I tried to talk to them about it, but it's sort of a losing battle. Go to college, like me, so you can take a paycut! Really, it's worth your while... you won't get the cars, or the girls, or the new clothes, or the wads of cash... actually, it's a paycut... but, um, it's worth it, because...

The threat of prison is far enough off that it's not real enough; they're still kids, consequences like that are just not real to them. And I know some people reading this might think that the answer is to treat them like adults and charge them that way, but really, they're just kids, and that wouldn't help the problem, particularly in the overall community. That's the hard part. The threat of being inadvertently made gay while in prison might help. I didn't want to bring that up quite so blatantly, but it's coming. Probably tomorrow. They're about to kick BJ out of the school- that's as close as the consequences are real, so far. He really doesn't want to go. He tried to convince me today that he would be good and that I should try to convince everyone else to let him stay. I'm actually getting almost attachd to him, starting to like him in spite of myself. I don't really want him to get kicked out. And he's good, for me, anyway...

I had to give BJ a math diagnostic. LJ wanted to help. I was waiting for my vice principal to walk in in the middle...

"BJ, what's five times eight?"
"I don't know, man. I'm retarded in math. I don't go to math class. I didn't go last year. I liked Ms. Champion, in sixth grade... I don't even know who my math teacher is... oh yeah, Ms. M... "

LJ looked exhasperated.

"Come on, man. You sell eight nics, how much money do you get?"

A light bulb went on. BJ brightened.

"Forty!"

Math instruction through drug dealing. Hey, differentiated instruction, right? Meeting kids where they're at? I know more than I want to know, now. They told me about the various stuff they've gotten locked up for, showed me their wads of cash, tried to bribe me to fill in the test for them... At one point, LJ asked BJ if he had coke on him.

"Please tell me you didn't bring coke to school... If you did, I don't want to know, please don't bring it to my class. I don't want to know. Just please don't be so stupid as to bring it to school!"

BJ looked insulted. "No, I didn't bring coke to school! I don't deal with that shit. Oops, sorry miss, I mean stuff. Just weed. But coke, no!" He started emptying his pockets to prove it to me. Keys, money (a lot), wallet, condoms. I doubt the kid's touched a pencil this whole year, but he has condoms. *Sigh*. At least they're using protection... And hey, no drugs.

It got even better when LJ decided to start really hitting on me. He's gotten pretty flirty before. Calling me sweetie was just the beginning. Yesterday when I went to look for BJ, he reached up for a big hug (in class, although there wasn't exactly a great deal of instruction going on).
"How are you, Miss? You look wonderful. Amaaazing. Did you lose a few pounds? You look absolutely beautiful. Your eyes are dazzling. Can I come with you? You're so beautiful."
The thing is with LJ that he's a really charismatic, endearing, articulate kind of kid, with just that extra tinge of goof. So no matter how inappropriate he gets (and he does) it's hard to be mad at him. BJ doesn't have that kind of charisma, so he keeps it a little more under wraps. He still apologizes when he curses in front of me, and the most personal he's gotten is to ask if I'm married. LJ, on the other hand...

While I was testing them, LJ looked through one of my filing cabinets for the computer mouse. I told him to get out the candy I kept hidden in there. He pulled out some twizzlers and tootsie rolls.
"Want some?" he asked BJ.
"Nah, I don't eat candy unless it's bangin'. I only eat really good candy. I don't really eat much candy."
"I know what BJ eats..." LJ singsonged. I cringed.
"Don't..." I started, knowing what was coming.
"He eats girls out!" LJ sang. "You just don't eat candy cause you don't know what to do with it, like with girls. You gotta use it..."

He asked what I would do if a student, being younger than me, asked me out or flirted with me.
"Would you have them locked up?"
"Well, what do you mean by flirting? If they tried to do anything, yes, I would have them locked up. That's harassment or assault, and absolutely, I would have them arrested and locked up. If they just said something flirty or asked me out on a date, I'd just think they were being silly," I fudged. Can't say I was really prepared for the question.
"But you wouldn't have them locked up for asking you out."
"For flirting? That's just stupid. They would know that, too..."
"But you wouldn't have them locked up..." He looked me up and down. "Ha-ay..."

So yeah, weird. Then, an abrupt return to the candy topic...

"So BJ, you gotta do like this. Or Miss, with your boyfriend, this is what you gotta do," with a twizzler, licking it all the way up and down and sucking it suggestively, "tell your boyfriend to do like this, and then you do it..."

I gave up on testing soon after that.