Earnest

Hello! T exclaims as I walk through the door and stroll across the classroom to the podium.

My spirits soar. He’s sincere, and earnest, and the world is going to eat him alive. The other students calculate their coolness, and carefully construct their apathy. It’s as if they’ve finished a large dinner and pushed back their chairs from the table with nothing left to say or do. Their laughs are easy, never uproarious, and I like most of them. But this kid is different. He’s been propelled into a different culture and has no idea that he’s got an easy mark on his back. At night I pray that good things happen to him, for him.

So how did you do on the test? I ask, before the others arrive. He is always punctual.

I got a C, he says, perhaps too loudly. He has styled his red hair across to one side of his freckled face and looks downward as he replies. Innocence is usually buried at this age.

Really, a C? I joke. You’re here every day, and you’ve never missed a class. You know, you can do better on the next exam. Seriously.

Well, maybe. He pauses in thought and rubs his nose, taps his fingers on the tiny desk and purses his lips. I’m going to hit the books hard on Sunday after band practice.

Band? Sigh. Correct what I said. They’re going to swallow him whole.

He’s visibly sweating. It’s always hot in this classroom. T wears a university-emblazoned tee and purposefully fans his notebook across his face. The others arrive and fall silent, almost bovine in the dry heat of this claustrophobic room. He glances around and says hello to one or two classmates. A girl in brown suede boots. A high achieving skater boy with the white ear buds.

I eavesdrop as I shuffle random papers and boot up the computer for class. The screen rolls down and kids pull out pens and notebooks while others shoot off a critically time sensitive text. T attempts to chat with another kid who sits directly in front of him, a boy with brown curly hair and rosy cheeks. He wears a hooded sweatshirt, and flip-flops, an incongruous scene anywhere else but Colorado. He’s a nice kid, but is aloof to the redheaded boy from the university band. He distractedly tap-tap-taps away on his computer keyboard answering T’s questions as if responding to a child or an invisible younger brother.

So are you on Facebook? T asks the young man.

Yes. Succinct.

Me, too! T waits, perhaps for an invite of sorts, but nothing is shared.

He tries a new tack. So did you watch last week’s football game?

I did.

We did pretty good, huh? T’s enthusiasm does not waver despite the silence.

I cringe.

I dim the lights, show slides of Kuwait, field questions. The projector screen rises and the hour is complete.

I gather heaping piles of paperwork as students scatter and jerk out cell phones and make for the exit.

Halfway through the door, T bellows, Have a nice weekend, Professor!

He catches my eye and waves his hand. He is pure kindness. I gesture back.

The skater flirts with the girl in suede boots and the classroom empties out.

I know, I know. They are angling to navigate their way in this maze of young adulthood, where unbridled enthusiasm and overt kindness are seen as acts of sedition. It’s their own generational battle.

But I can still root for the kid who talks too loudly.