I’ve been accused of a lot of things, some worse than others, but this here? Hiding a gun near the school? This is beyond me. It’s criminal. It’s hard enough to go to school with the idea that a shooting could happen. Grown folks only whisper about it because it terrifies them and that fear’s like a virus they know is easy to pass on so they try to vaccinate us. But no matter how hard they avoid bringing it up, we hear about it. On TV. On the radio. On the internet. And we try not to think about it, like we do all the other big things that are out of our control.

Then I get accused of this.

That crosses a line. That’s an attack on me, who I am at my core. I may do some knucklehead stuff, but accusing me of that leaves a stain on a person. They’re trying to do me dirty.

The more I think about it, the more heated I get.

I understand that folks have a job to do and all, and things would be different if I’d actually done something. I have done plenty I could be busted on. But I can’t stand being blamed for stuff I didn’t do. Which happens all the time. I hate living under a cloud of constantly being accused. It just gets so frustrating, all I can do is act out. I guess if I’ve got impulse control issues, I just can’t help myself. I wish I had a distraction, like planning my next move with my boys, but I can’t because our schedules have separated us for our noncore classes, so I need a target to vent my frustration on.

Luckily we have that same sub for World Music today.

The substitute music teacher has the stink of being an easy mark all over him. His pin-striped black suit over a red vest makes him look like he is dressed to impress at a board meeting. A newbie sub, he reads and rereads the lesson plan, studying it as if trying to commit Scripture to memory. The man has probably never even been to a music session in his life, yet here he staggers about, playing at being a music teacher for the day. Walking to the front of the class, he hesitates with the dry erase marker at the whiteboard as if struggling to remember how to spell his own name. As far as I am concerned, he’s a new chew toy whose name I wouldn’t bother remembering.

Rows of chairs arranged in a semicircle face the raised stage. The students begin to whisper, low at first, one eye kept on the sub to see what noise level would draw his attention and cause him to try to quiet us.

“What goes around the world but stays in a corner?” Squinting as if under a spotlight, and sweating in the same way, the sub wears a desperate grin. “A stamp.”