I start this story wondering if I’ll get through it as it dredges up the worst memory of my life, let alone my teaching career. The scene is at the Catholic High School where I got my first job, Pater Noster, no longer in existence; teaching Biology and Psychology. Down the line, I will go into some neat memories while there, but this one dang near drove me away from teaching all together, but for the strangest of all endings.
As we were responsible for counseling our homeroom students, one sophomore boy stopped in after school very concerned that he was “homosexual”; now called “gay?”. When he explained why (which is not important here), I assured him he was not. Leaving unconvinced, he was back in my room after classes the next day where I delved even deeper into what I knew from my psychology classes in college.
Still, nothing I could say would assure him and he hung around longer and longer each day, becoming more anxious and more attached(?) to me; to the point I was getting nowhere and more and more frustrated with his visits. Finally, I went to the Principal who belonged to the Order of St. Patrick; Brothers, fresh out of Ireland. There, I was more than wordless with his response: “Stay out of it, it’s a family matter!” When I went: “But…..”, he again held up a hand and said: “It’s a family matter.”
I don’t recall if I had after school contact with Steve after that, but shortly afterwards, in the morning when I was getting ready to leave for school, the phone rang. It was Steve (and, this is still really/really hard for me to write). He told me he was going to kill himself. Although I’m sure I talked fast and hard, I’m blank as to my reply, but I still hear that gunshot and what was probably his body or telephone hitting the floor.
I have no recall for what happened after that; whether I went to school or not. I do recall talking to a “shrink” at one point who chastised me for trying to counsel the kid. I’ll not forget his words when I told him about all the psychology classes I had in college (why I was 5 years working on my B.S. degree): “….this all may be true, but, you are still not a Psychiatrist!” In other words, I was out of my league. Although I never saw the suicide coming, I was caught between failing Steve and the Principal’s edict: It’s a family matter! To this day, I still don’t know what I shoulda/coulda done. I do know I never finished the school year and took a job with the U.S. Forest Service. I was a mess.
On a positive note; and, a rather dumbfounding one, I recall when the Forest Service position became seasonal, I needed a job, so I went to the State Employment Agency in downtown Los Angeles. When I went to turn in the application, the clerk saw that I was a college graduate and told me I needed to go upstairs to the professional department.
Now, for the kicker: When I explained why I wanted a general labor job because I couldn’t face walking back into a classroom, she thought a bit and then said emphatically : “Young man, you are going to take another teaching job. Then, if you don’t like it, you can give it up; but you certainly are not going to run from it because of fear.” Then, she rustled through some papers and sent me off to an interview at Alhambra High School.
Can you imagine a government employed clerk telling an applicant that, this day and age? Yep, how can one teach how to deal with fear when they haven’t gone through it? Was that clerk Heaven sent? I can’t help but to wonder about those explanations of running into angels in the dangdest places.
Now, Alhambra was my first experience in the public system, and wow that was a shock. You’ll see why in my next post.