DONOVAN
It is entirely too cold today. You have to take it on faith, or by the calendar, that spring is almost here. Cade drops me off in the circle before the school, and it’s nice to be back at a sane place. I kiss him quickly, and he grasps my hands.
“What are you doing for lunch?” I ask.
“Quitting,” Cade says.
I blink. I’m thinking about laughing, but he nods and says, “Seriously. Quitting.”
“I have lunch at twelve, so could you quit by eleven thirty?”
We eat soup and sandwiches in the empty classroom.
“Never underestimate the joy of hot soup in a warm room while you watch the cold world outside,” Cade says as he lifts the thermos to his lips.
He sings, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way…”
“This is an ongoing theme, and I feel like where you are going is Harrison. If you don’t mind working with me.”
“Can I tell you something?” Cade says.
“Please.”
“That was my fantasy. You and me. A little kindergarten. You’d be the teacher, I would be your assistant. Or vice versa, or we’d be co teachers. I dunno. Something. And I would sing songs to the kids and we’d pass out cookies and juice and everyone would talk about how the two probably gay guys down the hall had the best classroom, and then at lunch we’d climb in the car and get high. Possibly fuck, and then go back and get the kids.”
“We’d be the happiest teachers in the school.”
“Exactly.”
“What the hell is that?”
I follow Cade’s gaze out to the hall where two women and a man are quickly marching out tiny children to cars and buses
“That, my dear Cademon, may be your destiny.”
“This is where someone else who liked to give me advice would tell me we should go to the office and ask about a job.”
“I don’t believe in giving advice.”
“I know you don’t.”
“But we are stopping by the main office, right?”
The halls are carpeted, quiet, and empty. I look around the corner, and then open a little door to a side bathroom, pull Cade in, and kiss him quickly, pulling his face to mine, pressing my fingers through his hair. I press Cade’s forehead to my own.
“Together?” I ask.
“Always,” says Cade.
Cade looks around the very clean bathroom. “School bathrooms are so nice and accommodating.
“Do you remember?” he says.
“A series of poor choices that led to us right now? Yes, I remember.”
Why are people like that? Cold? Unloving? Selfish?
Not all people.
No, but many.
Because people are afraid.
Let’s never be afraid again.
That is a tall order.
Of each other.
Still a tall order.
But we can try.
Oh, yes. We can always try.
Will you sing me songs?
All the time. For the rest of you life.
What kind of songs?
Oh…oh, my love, all sorts of songs.
DONOVAN
This is the first day when it has warmed up, when you do not freeze standing outside. This morning, I have been with the children, and it is time for a lunch that is going to last far too long. I wander down the steps and down the long hall past the third grades and the second grades, to the first grades and even past the kindergartens to the preschool. I am hearing his singing I see him sitting in the chair, cradling the guitar he plays and singing:
Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack
All dressed in black, black, black
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons
All down her back, back, back.
The first time I heard it, Ella Jenkins sang it, and I always assumed Mary Mack was Black. I still do. So assumed it, I was surprised when it came out of Cade’s mouth for the first time, and he was surprised that I knew it. We sang it together, and even now I sing it outside of the door, as he looks up at me and smiles, and they keep singing.
She asked her mother, mother, mother
For 50 cents, cents, cents
To see the elephants, elephants, elephants
Jump over the fence, fence, fence.
They jumped so high, high, high
They reached the sky, sky, sky
And they didn't come back, back, back
'Til the 4th of July, ly, ly!
“Time for lunch!” Cade stands up and sings, and the kids wail, “No. No!”
“I’m going to walk you to lunch, but if you guys aren’t quiet, you won’t hear my song. Don’t you want to hear my song?”
They do, and as Cade lines them up, he sings:
“Love each other.
Love each other
The world’ll be better
If we love each other
all the time!”
Cade walks at the head of little children, and I walk beside him, and we drop them off in the cafeteria and then turn around, heading back down the empty hall to the empty classroom.
“This,” I say, facing him, “is always exactly what I pictured.”
Cademon Richards wraps his arm about my waist, and presses his head to mine.
He whisper sings:
“We should all love each other.
Love each other
The world’ll be better
If we love each other all the time!”
He kisses me lightly.
“All the time,” I reply. “All the time.”
