At least I had a warning that he was coming. He had been enrolled several days before I ever saw his face. Calls home only gave vague insight into his absences, but his parent assured me he would be in any day. When he walked in on his first day, my shock could not have been any more apparent. His parents walked him to class, escorted by the principal. She made her introductions and made a hasty departure. Before me stood the boy’s father, a lanky man, weathered and hardened by time. He bore the tattooed arms of an ex-con. His wife wavered beside him, speaking too quickly for her seemingly intoxicated state. I guessed methamphetamines based on the smell, thinly disguised by the pungent odor of cigarette smoke. 286 They were fresh transplants from the north, having moved here with the promise of a manufacturing job in a local automotive plant. He was sick. They’d all been sick. They had trouble finding their way around town. Their excuses for their son’s absences were different now than they had been on the phone.
