fear. While they settled themselves I stood quietly, trying to get centered, to focus on them, not on my own frustrations. They watched me wide-eyed, for once completely silent.
Finally, I said, “You all know that if I report this fight to your principal, Theresa, Josie, Celine, and April will be suspended not just from the team but from school. All four were fighting, and”—I held up a hand as Celine started to protest that April jumped her—“I do not give a rat’s tail-bone about who started it. We’re not here to talk about blame, but about responsibility. Do any of you want to play basketball? Or do you want me to tell the school that I’m too busy to coach a bunch of girls who only want to fight?”
That started an uproar; they wanted to play; if Celine and April were going to fight, they shouldn’t be on the team. Someone else pointed out that if Celine and April were thrown out, they wouldn’t have much of a team.
“Then they just be selfish,” another girl shouted. “If all they care about is their head games, they should stay out of the gym.”
One of the girls who usually never spoke up suggested I punish the two for fighting, but not take them off the team. That idea brought a wide murmur of support.
“And what do you suggest by way of punishment?” I asked.
There was a lot of bickering and snickering over possible penalties, until Laetisha said the two should wash the floor. “We can’t play today until that floor get mopped up, anyway. They clean the floor today, then we have practice tomorrow.”
“What’s been going on here?”
I turned, as startled as my team to see an adult standing behind me. It was Natalie Gault, the assistant principal who couldn’t remember my name.
“Oh, Ms. Gault, these two—”
“Delia, did I ask you to report?” I cut off the tattletale. “The team has had a little friction, but we’ve sorted it out. They’re going home now, except for four who are staying to wash the floor. Which, although there is a mop and a bucket in the equipment room, and a janitor drawing a paycheck, seems to have been building up dirt since my graduation back in the Stone Age. April, Celine, Josie, and Theresa here are going to build team skills by cleaning off the grime. We’d like to use the gym tomorrow for a makeup practice.”
Ms. Gault measured me with the same look the principal’s staff used to give me when I was a student all those years back. I felt myself wilting as I used to back then; it was all I could do to keep my glib patter going to the end.
Gault waited long enough to let me know she knew I was covering up a serious problem—which the blood trickling down Celine’s leg and on April’s face testified to, anyway—but finally said she would sort things out with the boys’ coach: if we were going to clean the gym, we should have the right to use it first. She said she’d get the janitor to bring in additional mops and a new box of cleaning solution.
Building teamwork through scrubbing floors turned out to be a successful exercise: by the end of the afternoon, the four malefactors were united in their anger against me. It was after six when I finally let them go. Their uniforms were soaked and they were limp with fatigue, but the floor gleamed as it hadn’t since—well, a day twenty-seven years ago when my own teammates and I had scrubbed it. After a far worse episode than a mere gang fight. It wasn’t an episode in my life I liked to dwell on, and even now—even now I wouldn’t think about it.
I followed them into the locker room while they changed. Mold made little furry patches along the showers and the lockers, some of the toilet seats were missing, some of the toilets were filled with used napkins and other bloody detritus. Maybe I could get Ms. Gault to pressure the janitor into scrubbing this now that the team had cleaned the gym. I held my nose and called to Josie that I would wait for her in the equipment room.
7
Close Quarters
J
Finally, I said, “You all know that if I report this fight to your principal, Theresa, Josie, Celine, and April will be suspended not just from the team but from school. All four were fighting, and”—I held up a hand as Celine started to protest that April jumped her—“I do not give a rat’s tail-bone about who started it. We’re not here to talk about blame, but about responsibility. Do any of you want to play basketball? Or do you want me to tell the school that I’m too busy to coach a bunch of girls who only want to fight?”
That started an uproar; they wanted to play; if Celine and April were going to fight, they shouldn’t be on the team. Someone else pointed out that if Celine and April were thrown out, they wouldn’t have much of a team.
“Then they just be selfish,” another girl shouted. “If all they care about is their head games, they should stay out of the gym.”
One of the girls who usually never spoke up suggested I punish the two for fighting, but not take them off the team. That idea brought a wide murmur of support.
“And what do you suggest by way of punishment?” I asked.
There was a lot of bickering and snickering over possible penalties, until Laetisha said the two should wash the floor. “We can’t play today until that floor get mopped up, anyway. They clean the floor today, then we have practice tomorrow.”
“What’s been going on here?”
I turned, as startled as my team to see an adult standing behind me. It was Natalie Gault, the assistant principal who couldn’t remember my name.
“Oh, Ms. Gault, these two—”
“Delia, did I ask you to report?” I cut off the tattletale. “The team has had a little friction, but we’ve sorted it out. They’re going home now, except for four who are staying to wash the floor. Which, although there is a mop and a bucket in the equipment room, and a janitor drawing a paycheck, seems to have been building up dirt since my graduation back in the Stone Age. April, Celine, Josie, and Theresa here are going to build team skills by cleaning off the grime. We’d like to use the gym tomorrow for a makeup practice.”
Ms. Gault measured me with the same look the principal’s staff used to give me when I was a student all those years back. I felt myself wilting as I used to back then; it was all I could do to keep my glib patter going to the end.
Gault waited long enough to let me know she knew I was covering up a serious problem—which the blood trickling down Celine’s leg and on April’s face testified to, anyway—but finally said she would sort things out with the boys’ coach: if we were going to clean the gym, we should have the right to use it first. She said she’d get the janitor to bring in additional mops and a new box of cleaning solution.
Building teamwork through scrubbing floors turned out to be a successful exercise: by the end of the afternoon, the four malefactors were united in their anger against me. It was after six when I finally let them go. Their uniforms were soaked and they were limp with fatigue, but the floor gleamed as it hadn’t since—well, a day twenty-seven years ago when my own teammates and I had scrubbed it. After a far worse episode than a mere gang fight. It wasn’t an episode in my life I liked to dwell on, and even now—even now I wouldn’t think about it.
I followed them into the locker room while they changed. Mold made little furry patches along the showers and the lockers, some of the toilet seats were missing, some of the toilets were filled with used napkins and other bloody detritus. Maybe I could get Ms. Gault to pressure the janitor into scrubbing this now that the team had cleaned the gym. I held my nose and called to Josie that I would wait for her in the equipment room.
7
Close Quarters
J
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