Diamonds & Wood: The Yearbook

Image via Complex Original

From a tiny kid with a lot of teeth and a seemingly endless supply of laser pens. One of my ESL kids, obvs. Basically, his note says that he thinks I’m a badass. I’m not certain why he’d write that. I assume it has something to do with me telling my students everyday that I’m the baddest man that’s ever walked the planet. I told them this story once about how I broke a black bear’s neck with my bare hands because it was trying to attack a small child. One of the kids asked., “Is that why people say they did something with their bear hands?” To which I replied, “…That’s exactly why.” Were you to question kids in South Houston, you’d almost certainly find that every single turn of phrase that’s ever been is somehow attributed to me fighting some sort of man-eating animal.

This is a fairly typical message, save for one note: Right at the end of it, underneath the signature, you see that “te chingo”? That’s like saying you’re going to fight a dude, except it’s closer to “Fuck you!” The best part: It’s from a small Vietnamese girl. She learned three things in Spanish this year from the other students. That’s one of them. And she says that shit to people ALL THE TIME in the hallways now. It’s never not adorable. She asked permission to write it in her note beforehand. That’s even more adorable.

Again, anytime you see the word “chingon” in there, know that it’s a compliment. (If you can’t translate these yourself, you need more Mexican friends.)

This page was actually an addition to the yearbook. It was made by Tall Boy, easily the most devastatingly imposing student on campus, and Mendoza, who is basically a field mouse with a mohawk. Tall Boy drew the picture of me and Mendoza drew the name (at the beginning of the year I tell the students they can call me “Mr. Serrano,” “Sir,” or “El Jefe”) and the background coloring. Mendoza brought the drawn name up to me and handed it over. I grabbed it, handed him the picture of me that Tall Boy drew, then said, “Here, take this, cut it out, then glue it down on there so it’s one awesome picture.” He said okay. Then, after I’d told him he could, he still walked over to Tall Boy and asked permission to cut it out. I kept thinking of that part in A Bronx Tale where the priest is trying to get the little boy to tell him about a murder he saw. He tells the boy something like, “Don’t be afraid, son. Nobody is more powerful than God.” And the little boy responds back with, “I don’t know about that, father. Your guy may be bigger than my guy up there, but my guy is bigger than your guy down here.” Tall Boy is that dude.

I mean, THIS IS REALLY REAL.