Every teacher has had a Jimmy.

Might actually be a kid named Jimmy, might be a kid who acts like a Jimmy.

The Jimmy’s of the world walk around your local high school campuses, waiting for you to piss them off.

I met my Jimmy the first day I started teaching high school, eleven years ago.  I’d been around the block of course.  I’d taught kids before.  I knew how to handle kids.  I thought I knew what made kids tick.

Without going into too much detail about all the craziness that accompanied my introductory week of orientation to the world of high school, suffice it to say by Day One I was ready to go.  I had my lessons planned, and my classroom organized.  I had my rosters ready and organized, and I was prepared to greet all my student personally as they walked in.  I was eager to meet the twelve special education students in my first period Environmental Science class, and I was excited to be teaching Science for the first time in my career.

Side note (which may or may not be incredibly relevant): I am NOT a Science guy.  I enjoyed Biology, but that’s about it.  I found Chemistry to be incomprehensible and subsequently boring.  I blame this squarely on my high school Chemistry teacher.

The first bell rang promptly at 7:30am, and students began to make haste to their respective classes.  In the human crossfire I fully expected a student or two to extricate themselves from the throng and walk towards my room.  I waited, and watched students make their way into room adjoining mine and across campus.  I waited, and the footsteps and sounds of the student body began to slowly fade.  The second bell rang indicating the start of class at 7:35, and within seconds doors were closing and teachers were beginning their lessons.  Still I waited, thinking that maybe because my room was all the way on the other side of the school that perhaps students were lost, or got caught in the heavy first day of school traffic.  I waited until the only one still standing outside, student or teacher, was me.

I checked my roster again.  Did I really have a first period class?  Was I missing something?  Maybe someone in the office messed up.  Maybe they thought I had a first period but it really was a second period class.  I mean, this was weird.

My classroom at that time really did occupy a unique spot on campus.  Before new construction obstructed the view, you could stand at my door and look all the way through to the front of the school and on into the hills beyond.  I used to enjoy looking out after students cleared out for the day, imagining that the view hadn’t changed much since the school came into being 50 years prior.  It felt intimate, almost like a middle school.  Considering where I’d taught previously, that was somehow comforting to me those first couple of years.

I went inside, shuffled some papers idly around and checked the clock.

7:40 and still no sign of anyone.  Not a single student.

At 7:45 I went to the door again and cracked it ever so slightly to see if perhaps a group of twelve confused students were being escorted to my room by an assistant principal.  It would all be a mild misunderstanding.  Their schedules would be wrong and we’d all have a laugh and say something about the first day of school being so crazy and confusing and whatnot.

Nothing.  Nobody.

I looked at my roster again.  First period – twelve students. I checked it again.

As I looked up I saw a figure emerge from the fuzziness at the front of the school.  As the figure approached I could tell it was a boy from the way he sauntered from side to side, walking slowly with a self-assured manner that said to anyone who might have noticed: “That’s right…I’m back.”

I chuckled inside as I watched him.  Who does this guy think he is?  He passed multiples of closed doors as he walked.  Surely he will pause, pull out his schedule from his pocket and go either left or right to his classroom, I thought.  How stupid to be late like that on your first day, I thought again.  What a way to start a year.

He passed more rooms.  As he got closer, I could make out his features.  He was wearing white shoes, high tops maybe.  Very baggy dark blue jeans and a red and white checked button down shirt, each of which were at least ten sizes too big. Right below where his shirt ended (almost at his knees) I could make out the slight edge of a red bandana, presumably tucked into his pocket but placed just so.  I hadn’t had much if any exposure to gang or pseudo-gang activity before, but I was pretty sure that he was a walking violation of our dress code.

Even with the baggy, ill-fitting clothes I could tell he was a well-built kid.  Football player perhaps?  Or a wrestler.  He had a shaved head, so short as to be bald on the sides with a little more up top.

Side note: This hairstyle has a name, apparently.  A “Fade”? Back in the day we called it a Buzz.

He looked as if he’d not seen an ounce of sun all summer. Lilly-white. And, more incredibly, STILL coming!

What are the odds this kid is coming to my class, I thought.  There’s no way.

I checked my watch – 7:50am.

Suddenly he is standing before me, arms at his sides, his blue eyes staring at me.  On his shoulder his thin black Jansport hung limply, not a thing in it.

Side note: There is a sub-set of the student population who believes that it is terribly uncool to appear to carry school materials from class to class.  They have backpacks, but they generally carry only a few pieces of paper and perhaps a writing utensil.  Binders, even one-inchers, are too thick and cumbersome.  Homework and important notes are nowhere to be found in the pristine nebulae of their interiors.  Nor will there be cell phone chargers, which cause much consternation when battery power begins to wane shortly before mid-morning.  I call these students the “Casual Day-Trekkers”.  Its as if they left their house for a six-hour, lazy, unplanned sightseeing tour of the city, carrying only a street map and a granola bar, drinking it all in but taking careful note of little.

He looked me up and down, and then up and down again.  With absolutely zero expression on his face, he spoke…

“Who the fuck are you?”