Chapter 41

2:30 p.m. Tuesday

Lupe opened her water bottle and took a small sip as Anita situated herself in the chair again.

"Would you like to continue, Lupe?" Anita asked.

Lupe turned in her seat to look at Andy. He only gave her a small smile before she turned around.

"OK," she said. "I think I was talking about the bus."

"You were," Elizabeth said, patting Lupe on the arm gently.

"The bus is filled with kids from different blocks – and different gangs – from our neighborhood," Lupe said in a firm voice. "That fact alone leads to problems, particularly with the kids who get on at the high school. At the middle school, many of the kids aren't fully integrated into the gang life yet. They're either on the fringes or they are – apprenticing, I suppose is the right word. The middle school kids are muling and selling drugs, either at school or after school. The kids at the high school are fully integrated by ninth or tenth grade. They've moved from carrying the drugs to running the younger kids selling the drugs."

"And you know this to be a fact?" Anita cut in.

"Common sense tells you it's a fact," Lupe countered. "The gang life is short. Andy and Elizabeth could tell you more but I'll bet there have been at least 10 deaths in the high school this year. One or two might be from accidents or illness, the rest have been murdered or overdosed."

Anita's eyes shifted to Elizabeth.

"Thirteen," she said. "And she's right, almost all of them are from grades nine and ten. It was the same when Andy and I were that age."

"By the end of ninth grade – or no later than tenth – most of the bangers have left school or quit if they're 18," Andy said. "Eisenhower has a 36 percent dropout rate. These kids aren't going to the workforce. They're going to the street corner – either as dealers or as prostitutes. If you don't believe it, drive down 22nd Street some afternoon and see for yourself."

Anita looked back to Lupe, who was staring directly at her.

"So, as I was saying," Lupe continued. "The middle school years are for apprenticeships – either as drug dealers or as prostitutes. The evaluations of those apprenticeships are done on the school bus. The situation I told Andy about is typical of what you can see each day. We have a high school kid, I don't know his real name but his street name is T-Dog."

"Tashon Dawson," Elizabeth supplied. "He's in 10th grade, I think. I know he lives somewhere near Andy but I don't know exactly where."

Anita nodded and jotted a note to pull his file when she got back to the administration building.

"T-Dog sits in the back of the bus," Lupe continued. "I don't know what happens on the way to the middle school from the senior high. There are three males and two females who sit back there with him. Once they reach this school, I can give you firsthand statements."

"Please do," Anita said.

Lupe took another drink of water and steeled herself to violate every ethical code that she'd learned in her young life.

"The first girl on the bus is a girl who gets off at the same stop as T-Dog," she said in a voice that was less confident than before. "It's three stops before mine."

"That would be... 22nd Street and Rex Avenue," Andy supplied.

"That sounds right," Lupe agreed. "The girl is in sixth grade. She's called Poppy at school but I don't know her real name. Her street name, I suppose, is..."

Lupe's voice went soft and she lowered her head. The word of her sentence was unintelligible.

"Did you say, 'Slut'?" Anita asked.

"Slit," Lupe said, looking up again. "I said the boys on the bus call her 'Slit.'"

It took a second for the connotation to dawn on Anita Lopez. Her face turned red and she looked away.

"Each day since sometime in February, Poppy gets on the bus first at this school," Lupe added. "For the first month or so, she permitted any African-American boy on the bus to touch her wherever they wanted when she passed by. Some would touch her breasts; others would put their hands on her backside; others would touch her ... vaginal region. When the boys had finished, she would walk to the back of the bus and sit with the older females. The sexual touching happened when she got on the bus and when she exited. She would stop at each row and permit the boys to do this."

"Good god," Anita mumbled.

"Since Spring Break in March, she no longer stops at each row when she boards the bus of the evening," Lupe said, ignoring the interruption. "Now she goes directly to the back seat where she – performs oral sex on T-Dog. Although I have no direct knowledge, it is my impression that she must..."

Lupe paused while searching for a way to continue.

"She must ... T-Dog must ejaculate before they reach their stop," Lupe finally decided. "I got that impression because the black girls at the back of the bus taunt her by saying things like, 'You need to hurry, Slit, we're at the overpass.' Once, about two weeks ago, T-Dog did not ... ejaculate ... by the time we reached the stop. When Poppy walked off the bus, one of the older girls punched her in the face. I saw T-Dog grab her by the arm and pull her into an alley beside the stop. I saw him push her face against the wall and pull down her jeans and underwear to her knees. The bus pulled away before I saw what happened next but Poppy missed school for two days and had several bruises on her face and neck when she returned. Since then, she has completed her task each day – to the best of my knowledge."

"And this girl is in sixth grade?" Anita asked, looking first at Andy and then at Elizabeth with a pained expression.

"I would put her age at 12 or 13," Lupe said. Anita's daughter would be 12 in August and she cringed.

"She will most likely work the corners this summer," Andy supplied. "Public humiliation is often used by certain gangs to bring females into ... let's call it their auxiliary organization."

"She's going to be a gang bitch," Lupe said simply. "When they get tired of her, they'll turn her out. It happens all the time so don't look so shocked."

Indeed, Anita had put her hands to her forehead in horror.

"If you take a look at the girls in this school from our neighborhood and then look again in a year or two, very few of them won't be affiliated with a gang in some capacity," Andy said. "Some will be street corner workers; others will be girlfriends of gang members. Many girls in our area are sexually active – either by choice or by compulsion – by age 11. There have been numerous studies that you can find pretty easily if you look."

"And you don't know Poppy's last name?" Anita asked.

"She wouldn't talk to you if you found her," Lupe told her. "She's a willing participant in this. She's been told what she needs to do in order to get in and she's doing it. No one held a gun to her head."

Anita looked up at Andy helplessly.

"Is there any way I can confirm this?" she asked.

"Check the surveillance tapes on the bus," Andy suggested. "I know they had them the last time I rode one."

Again, Anita just looked away but this time, Elizabeth pressed the point.

"Do you mean to say that there are no surveillance cameras at this school or on the busses?" she asked angrily. "I counted six cameras just on our way to this office!"

"They don't work," Anita confessed. "They haven't for several years. We simply don't have the money to purchase new ones. We have counted on their visibility to stop situations like this from happening."

"Jesus Christ," Andy muttered. "Let me guess, the ones at the high school are just for show, too."

"Most of them," Anita said. "There are a few that work there. The ones in the parking area are still active and so are a few in the hallways. There is only one video camera in this building that works and that is by the security entrance."

"So you protect the teachers and let the kids fend for themselves," Elizabeth said with disgust. "Isn't that a great plan?"

"We expected the teachers to protect the students," Anita countered.

"Oh, please," Lupe said, entering the argument. "You don't put the idiots we have here in place to protect or to educate. You put them here to hide them. Don't think we're dumb enough to let you tell us anything different. So you're saying I snitched out people and there is nothing you can do about it. That's just fucking great, Lady. Every person in this school knows I got called in here today. You might as well just painted a target on my pussy because every banger wannabe is going to take a shot at fucking me by the end of the week!"

"Lupe," Andy said in a calm voice but she spun to face him with her finger out.

"You got me into this, Andy!" she screamed. "I trusted you to know what to do! Instead, you bring this woman in whose had her head buried in the sand for years and expect her to take action. Thanks for nothing!"

Lupe tried to leave but Elizabeth grabbed her arm none too gently and sat her back down.

"Think about what's he done to protect you so far, you ungrateful little shit!" she yelled.

"It's OK, Elizabeth," Andy said. "I understand her point of view. I concur with a lot of what she just said."

"It's not OK," Elizabeth retorted. She turned back to Lupe and shook a finger in her face. "You'd have been bent over the back of a bus seat yesterday afternoon if it wasn't for him. He was willing to risk getting shot this morning for you. For you! He risked dying for a stuck-up, arrogant little shit like you."

Andy had stood and he took Elizabeth gently by the shoulders and moved her away from Lupe, who was sitting there with tears in her eyes.

"Mrs. Lopez, you should have been honest with us from the outset," Andy said, putting a comforting hand on Lupe's bony shoulder. "There is nothing you can do to punish the teachers or administrators without more evidence than the word of a student. You can't take Lupe's word or my word over the little bastards who were harassing her. You pulled us into this to satisfy an agenda that I can't see. You're absolutely powerless – and now you've made Lupe a pariah here. What did you hope to accomplish?"

Anita had been trying to formulate an answer in her mind to Lupe's assertions.

"I have enough information to suspend Douglas Leary," she said.

"Which accomplishes absolutely nothing," Andy pointed out. "Who do you plan to run the school? You'll promote one of his assistant principals who are just as culpable as he is. That's no plan at all."

Anita let out a long breath.

"I have two identical accounts of what happened yesterday morning," she said, looking at her notes. "That will be enough to suspend the seven students who have been causing Miss Fuentes trouble. If you can identify the teachers who permitted it happen, I can suspend them without pay pending further investigation. That should induce at least one of them to talk to me about this. Could you point them out?"

"You say the camera works by the security door," Elizabeth said. "You should be able to identify them yourself. You told me when I talked to you that you would take care of this. Now it looks like you're counting on Andy and Lupe to take care of it for you."

Anita looked down at her notepad again.

"Lupe, is it possible for you to home school for the rest of the semester?" she asked hopefully.

"Get real," Lupe said, rolling her eyes. "My mother has a seventh-grade education and I don't know a single person in our building with Internet access. Hell, Lady, I don't know a single person on our block with Internet access."

Anita looked up at Andy, who still stood with his hand on Lupe's shoulder.

"My mother and I moved out the building this afternoon," he said. "Besides, I work two evenings a week until late at night. I can't do it."

Anita closed her eyes and nodded to herself.

"I'll pick you up of the mornings and you can have your lessons at the administration building until this situation is better under control," she decided. "I'll proctor your exams. Our director has a doctorate in education so I'll put him to work answering any questions you have. Will that suffice for a few days?"

Lupe looked up at Andy, who was looking at Anita with pursed lips. He eventually looked down at Lupe.

"It's better than coming back to this shithole," he said.

"Do you want to go to the tennis courts after dinner?" Regan asked Joy as they walked back to the door after their last class.

"Sure," Joy answered. "It'll help me tone up my buns before Saturday."

"We should ask Ruth if she wants to play," Regan added. Joy broke out in laughter.

"Can you see those melons flopping around when she ran?" Joy asked. "Christ, I doubt she can even hit a decent backhand through those things."

Regan thought about it for a moment before nodding her agreement.

"I guess we could go to the indoor pool," she proposed. "Swimming would be just as good for your buns as tennis."

"It's a shame we have to study later," Joy said. "We could all go to the golf course and play nine holes before dark."

"We need to do that before we leave here," Regan agreed.

"Does Andy play golf or tennis?" Joy asked.

"I ... I don't think so," Regan answered. "I know he played baseball and basketball before he started to work."

"Yeah," Joy said, nodding. "I doubt Eisenhower even has golf or tennis teams."