First Day at My New School

Dispatch: 911 - What's your emergency?

Me: We were just robbed at gun point.  We - my husband and I.

Dispatch: Are you hurt, do I need to send an ambulance?

Me: No, we're not hurt.  They took our money, took Chris's money.

Dispatch: Where are you now?

Me: We're at the liquor store across the street.

The liquor store across the street from the school.  The new school.  Where I just took the new job.  The place where I am going to go every work day for at least the next year.  That school.  That's where it happened.

I thought maybe I could be a bike commuter.  The new school is only 5 miles away from our house.  Not many hills.  It'd be a great way to get more exercise, arrive at school alert, ready to go.  The destination is West Oakland, the neighborhood home to the new school, Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School.  I'd have to to take a red route through Berkeley to get to an even redder route through Oakland.  But we have friends who live in that neighborhood, one of the bridesmaids in our wedding has taught at MLK for 2 years and loves it there.


We got up on Saturday morning, Chris fixed my bike while I made sandwiches.  We were going to time the route and take pictures of my new classroom to send home to my parents. We left after lunch, helmets on, fighting traffic headed toward the Berkeley kite festival.  The traffic slowed in Oakland; there were more people sitting on front steps and standing on street corners, a man in ratted clothes asked for money as we rode by.

Pulling up to the school, we stopped so I could show Chris the mural on the front of the building.  I fumbled around in my bike basket, looking for my phone to take a "Look Mom, I got a new job!" picture.   Finding it, I said to Chris, "Here, will you take this?"  He didn't reach for the phone so I looked up at him.

His hands were up in the air, making the sign of surrender.  He looked at me only briefly before directing his eyes forward.  I turned, slowly, confused at first.  There was a teenage boy standing there, a young African American man wearing a hoodie.  Then I saw it, his hand on the gun in the pocket of his sweatshirt.  Once I had turned so that I was fully facing him, he pulled the gun out and pointed at me.

Give me all your money.

Looking down, I blurted out "I don't have any money."  I held my phone toward him.

He waved the gun toward Chris.

Give me all your money.

Louder this time.  More real.

Chris reached for his wallet and extended all his cash toward the boy, the gun still pointed at us as we stood under the portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the school's namesake.

It was then I noticed that the boy wasn't alone.  An older guy, in his early twenties and dressed similarly, was standing behind the teenager.  After the boy took the money from Chris, he stuck the gun in his pocket and fist bumped his friend on the shoulder.  They turned and ran together.

Stunned, we hugged briefly, Chris and I.  We stumbled onto our bikes and began riding the in opposite direction of the young men.  I noticed kids playing in front of a house and a young girl walking alone on the same street with a shopping bag.  Her street, probably.  Those kids' street.  The street where I will go to work this fall, teaching kids with significant disabilities how to read in my special education classroom.

We rode 2 blocks, stopping at the first business we saw, a liquor store.  Usually riding a bike feels so free, so healthy, so windblown.  But riding away from the school, I felt scared and vulnerable.  There were young men with a gun behind me, what if they came back?  We had no protection, no car, no gate, no house to keep us safe.

I called 911.  They took our location and a description and told us someone was on the way.  "I'm going to teach there," I told the Dispatcher. "I just wanted to take a picture."

After hanging up with 911, I began to sob.  The kind men in liquor store, 3 Arab men of varying ages, gave me a bottle of water and some tissues.  The older one rubbed my back and said "You're safe.  It's okay."

When the police arrived, they took our statement.  Did we remember what kind of shoes he was wearing?  Did he have facial hair?  Did we get a picture of them?  

I'm not sure.
I don't remember.
No.

I told the cop that I had just taken a new job to start teaching there in the fall.  His reply: "I don't know what they told you when they hired you, but this neighborhood's no joke.  And it's only gotten worse since the economy started to tank.  There's dealers on every corner on Market Street, if you ride your bike again, I'd come a different route."

No joke.

The cop drove us home, bikes hanging out the back of his cruiser.  "All in all," he said, "I'm glad things turned out the way they did for you guys.  It could have been worse."

It could have been worse.  Chris and some friends from work went out to eat on Thursday.  He paid on his credit card and collected their cash, which he doesn't always carry in his wallet.  But that day he had cash to trade for our lives.

It could have been worse.  I could have been alone, cornered without Chris to help me.

It could have been worse.  We could have been shot, injured, our bikes taken, violated in some way.

In the end, $120 seems like getting off cheap.

I called my mom that night, told her the story.  She asked if I would still take the job.  The new job.  The thought had crossed my mind more than once that day.  Would I still take the job, would I go back there every day to that street, to line up my students as they get off the bus in the same spot where that boy pointed his gun at my husband and me?

I feel scared.  I feel angry.  I feel sad, for that boy who uses a gun to get what he needs, for that neighborhood where the police come every day on calls like ours, for Chris and me and the not-quite-safe feeling we've had since Saturday.  But I'm a teacher because I beleive that everyone should have a quality education, even students with disabilities, even students in West Oakland.

I found myself telling my mom that of course I would still take the job.  And that prayers would be much appreciated.