“Dang it. Sorry. Imagine I used a better example.”
“Well, my friend did tell me to stop dating her, and I ignored him, because it was none of his business.”
I put my hand to my ear. “It was what?”
“None of his business.”
“Oh. So youdoknow how to handle someone else’s dating preferences.”
He smiled. “That’s a good point. Hey, you’re actually kind of a good teacher.”
“Thanks, I think. Look, this is what I know about being on a team: If you let one person act like a jerk, it impacts everyone. If you hold the jerks accountable, then you’ve got a good team. And the best teams are the ones where everybody is allowed to be their full selves.” I paused. “Unless they’re jerks. Then you have to go back to rule one.”
Tate chuckled. “Okay, Teach. I’ll keep that in mind. See you this afternoon in shop class.”
“And Tate?”
“Yeah, Teach?”
“It’s Mr. Walker.”
Grinning, he sent me a salute. “Okay, Mr. Walker,” he said as he made his way down the hall.
* * *
I switched into my Guadalupe County High T-shirt for shop class, having learned last year that multiple tragedies could befall a nice piece of clothing. I asked the class about their summers and told them about the things we’d decided to change in terms of class projects. Leo stood in the back, smiling proudly.
“Since our prototypes went so well, we’ve decided to build the rest of the bunk beds for the kids at Lupe, and if we have time, closet organizers. What do you think we’ll need for those projects?”
The class got into it, naming off the various supplies, getting most of them right.
Tate called out, “Good measurements, Teach! I mean, Mr. Walker.”
“Thanks, Tate. And you’re right. If we’ve got all these supplies and sloppy measurements, it’ll get ugly, fast.”
“Won’t this be complicated?” one of the girls up front asked.
I gave her a “so-so” gesture. “I teach geometry, so my measure of what’s complicated might be off. But I know that just because something is complicated, like geometry, doesn’t mean it’s not doable.”
“I have faith in us,” Leo called from the back.
The class found that funny, because teenagers love to meet sincerity with sarcasm at every turn. When I gave them a small project to tackle before the period ended, though, their eyes all shone with pride as they completed it.
I glanced at the carpenter’s square that Mr. Paige had willed to me and sent him a small prayer of thanks. He knew what he was doing, putting me in this classroom.
As I was cleaning up for the day, a freshman girl approached me. “Hi, Mr. Walker.”
“Hi… Mena, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, her smile nervous.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Tate from the football team?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know Tate.”
“He said something about you being gay?”
