I’ve reached that age when your grandkids come and visit to interview you for a family history project. My eldest grandson David came earlier this week with a camcorder. But when I saw the bottle of Johnnie Walker tucked in his shoulder, I knew he wasn’t here to talk about how his great-great-grandpappy immigrated from Scotland.
He wanted to talk about “The Incident.”
The only person I had the guts to tell this story to was my wife Linda, who passed over a decade ago. My children tried to coax it out of me but soon learned not to pry after my patience would wear thin, and I would explode with rage. They would tell their own children not to ask PopPop about his scars.
But I’m getting too old for secrets, and David is admittedly my favorite grandchild. After telling him my story and finishing half the bottle of Johnnie, he encouraged me to tell it here. He said y’all were empathetic and could maybe provide some new perspectives. To be honest, I think I’d like some inner peace.
So here it goes. I apologize in advance if I go on too long
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson came to my alma mater and gave a rousing speech about the importance of education and equity. From that moment on, I wanted to be a teacher. I graduated the next year and joined the newly-formed TeacherCorps, excited to help change the world. I was assigned to a small border town called Santa Cruz, Texas.
Even back then, Santa Cruz was a disaster. I grew up on a failing chicken farm, but that didn’t hold a candle to the poverty I witnessed in the town. It was a sweltering hot parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Most of the folk were undocumented immigrants, and I often wondered how much better Santa Cruz was than Tamaulipas. It just didn’t have the necessities for survival.
But it did have a school.
The school was a two-story red brick cube at the end of a mile-long dirt road. It had three windows, no A/C, and an outhouse in the backfield. At the end of the field was a hill with a statue of Jesus on the Cross.
I was one of two teachers. The other teacher was Ms. Varela, a middle-aged local woman. She had no formal training but did have the distinction of being one of the few literate adults in the town.
Ms. Varela taught English and History. I taught Math and Science. We kept grades 1-5 on the first floor and put the older kids who would pop in after working the fields on the second. After lunch, we would switch. It wasn’t a sound system, but we made the most of it.
And my god, were those kids so on fire to learn! They were enthusiastic, recognizing that education was the best way to leave Santa Cruz for good. I decided to give them everything I had until my contract expired. I didn’t have a salary, just room and board, but I had the best students in the world.
Except for one.
His name was Leoberto. I didn’t know his last name. He showed up one day with a note from his mother safety pinned to his shirt. The letter simply said in Spanish, “Please teach Leoberto.” It was a little unorthodox, but what could we do?
I called him “Leo the Lion” because he had a massive main of unkept black hair on the top of his head, like one of those troll dolls. We didn’t know how old he was and initially put him with the older kids since he had no baby teeth. However, Ms. Varela discovered he couldn’t read and sent him back down with the youngins’.
I wasn’t sure Leo could even talk. He mostly stared off into space and didn’t engage in any of my lessons. But occasionally, he would announce his presence with a verbal tic or a nervous fit. Sometimes, he would clack his tongue or whistle like a character from the Looney Tunes. Other times, he would bang on his desk and try to talk. He was also incredibly fidgety and couldn’t sit still. It was like he had fire ants in his pockets. On Leo’s bad days, he would scratch himself raw. We inspected him for fleas, lice, or mosquito bites but found nothing out of the ordinary.
The other students paid him no mind, but Ms. Varela and I were heartbroken for him. Back then, there weren’t a lot of options for special needs children, and I doubted that Leo’s mom could get him the care he needed.
We could never track her down, though. Ms. Varela would try and follow Leo home, but he would vanish before she discovered where he lived. One time she held his hand and tried to walk him back, but he wouldn’t budge until she let go. The other parents knew about Leo from their children but didn’t know where he lived or who his mother was. It was so strange.
Things came to a head one Spring morning. I was teaching the older kids when Ms. Varela came huffing up the stairs. It was Leo. He wouldn’t stop crying.
I rushed down to check on him and saw Leo sobbing uncontrollably in the corner, snot running down his nose. The other students, for once, looked concerned for him. Elisa Sanchez was huddled next to him and rubbing his back. “He just started crying, Mr. Bill,” she said with wide eyes. I checked him all over but again found nothing. “Maybe he needs some outside time?” Raul Medina proposed, eager to get back to Ms. Varela’s lesson.
Ms. Varela and I took him outside to settle him down, but he couldn’t stop crying. I wasn’t even sure he could breathe, so I did the only thing that made sense. I smacked him on his backside. He fell silent, looked up at me, and then started laughing. Though it didn’t sound like a happy laugh. It was just as incessant as his sobs and sounded almost maniacal, his eyes wide with fear. He then began gagging and collapsed in exhaustion. I carried him back outside, where he slept the rest of the day.
Fed up, I had an idea and drafted a detailed letter requesting a meeting with Leo’s mom. Ms. Varela translated it into Spanish and saftey pinned it to Leo’s shirt. We sent him off and watched him vanish at the end of the dirt road.
As expected, Leo came to school the next day with a new note taped to his shirt. “My son is blessed by God.” the letter simply said. I sat dejected at my desk, and Ms. Varela exasperatedly called Child Welfare Services, not knowing what else to do.
A man from Welfare Services came at the end of the week. I don’t recall his name, but I remember not caring for him one bit. I could tell he was a racist by the sneers and off-handed comments about the townfolk he made to me, thinking I would agree. He also spoke to Ms. Varela with thinly-veiled contempt. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that we made a mistake.
But If I had known what would happen, I would’ve stopped it. I need you to know that. I would have died before I let it happen.
I gave my statement to the man from Welfare Services, but my journey stopped there. I couldn’t speak Spanish or track down Leo’s mom, so I couldn’t assist further. Ms. Varela had to take the lead. I don’t know all the details of what happened next, but I do know the essential parts.
I know that Ms. Varela and Mr. Welfare Services were finally able to track down Leo’s mom in an adobe hut on the outskirts of town. I know the meeting didn’t go well, and Leo was removed from his mother’s care. She became violent and was subdued violently by the Sheriff’s office. Leo was then taken to a facility in McCallen, Texas. The doctors at that facility elected to give him a lobotomy, though the procedure began falling out of favor earlier in the decade. There were complications and Leo…..
Leo died on the operating table.
I held classes for two weeks while a despondent Ms. Varela mourned at home. She attended the procedure since Leo’s mother was still locked in the county jail. When Ms. Varela called sobbing to tell me what had happened, she said Leo called out for his mother before he passed. It was the first time she had heard him speak at all.
The children asked about Leo, though Ms. Varela and I lied and said he moved to another school. Ms. Varela returned to teach, and our situation became somewhat stable, though Leo’s demise loomed darkly over our heads.
Then…Leo’s mother was released from jail.
She came straight to the school, screaming obscenities in Spanish and dressed in all black like a funeralgoer. I watched her sprint toward the school with fire in her eyes as she hurled a brick through the first-floor window. The children screamed.
I grabbed the dusty discipline paddle from the closet and bolted downstairs to protect the little ones. The students huddled in the corner, watching in horror as Leo’s mother struggled to get in the window. She had cut herself on the broken glass, and blood poured from her wrists onto the floor. She didn’t stop screaming, hurling curses at myself and Ms. Varela, who was on the phone with the police. I rushed over and thwacked Leo’s mother with the paddle, but she seemed to be unaffected, like she was in a trance.
“YOU KILLED MY SON!” she finally screamed in broken English before collapsing again from the loss of blood.
Ms. Varela hurried the children out of the room as one of the older kids helped me try to stop the bleeding. A police officer finally arrived and dragged Leo’s mother out of the school despite our protests. I never saw her again.
We patched up the window, and the students returned to school after a few days, eager to learn as always. They were the only reason I didn’t resign, though the system left a permanent, bitter taste in my mouth. Slowly but surely, everything went back to normal.
But not for long.
God, I remember it so vividly. It was about two weeks before school was let out for the summer. I was teaching timetables to the fourth graders and subtraction to the first and second graders. We were having trouble with 9x9. I was drawing a diagram on the chalkboard when I heard a sound that made my blood run cold. It sounded exactly like the whistle Leo used to make.
I whipped around to see Raul Medina with a sheepish grin on his face. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bill. I don’t know what happened!” The other students giggled, and I returned to my lesson. When my chalk hit the board, someone made a sound like they were clicking their tongue. It sounded like Leo was in the damn room!
“Can we cut that out, please?” I said firmly. Elisa Sanchez was covering her mouth with her hands and shut her eyes tightly. “Lo Siento, Mr. Bill!” I sighed and returned to my lesson, but then Pablo Verona started banging on his desk and groaning like he was trying to push something out of his throat. Raul whistled again, but it was like something else was controlling his body.
More students followed, either whistling or clicking their tongues. Some joined Pablo and slammed the desk with their hands, grunting noisily. Each student appeared unable to control their actions, and most of them looked confused. Their antics grew louder until Ms. Varela came down to check on me. I nervously shrugged, and Ms. Varela took out her yardstick and slammed it on my table. The students went silent.
“I think we need some outside time,” I said with my voice quivering.
Like drones, the students hopped out of their desks and followed each other in line outside. As soon as they left the room, they returned to their usual selves and played in the backfield. Ms. Varela and I sat down on the steps and shared a cigarette. “Things will get back to normal soon,” she sighed.
They didn’t.
The following morning, Marla Vasquez began crying uncontrollably during Ms. Varela’s history lesson. We couldn’t find out why or get her to stop. She was genuinely hysterical, screaming and sobbing into the void. She refused to look at us, staring straight ahead like a zombie with a tired expression on her face. Ms. Varela hurried her outside, but we could hear her muffled cries from the first floor.
Then all the kids began to cry. Some fell out of their chairs and rolled around on the floor. Raul Medina looked up at the ceiling like he was praying, with snot spewing out of his nose. “Perdoname!” he cried out loud. I sat crouched in the corner, trying to cover my ears, but then I felt this overwhelming feeling of emotion, and I began to cry too.
I couldn’t stop. Every time I seemed to calm down, another jolt would rip through my spine, and I would sob again. But when I heard Ms. Varela jostle at the stubborn school door, the children immediately went silent. The vibe of the room completely changed. I remember it was somewhat…. hostile.
The children seemed either indifferent to Ms. Varela, while some glared at her behind puffy eyes. Ms. Varela said she was going upstairs to teach the older students, and like a worker ant on a mission, I began my math lesson. To this day, I don’t know why.
The children were fine for the rest of the day, though there would be an occasional outburst of verbal tics. I returned to my shack emotionally drained but stared at the cracked ceiling, unable to fall asleep. I thought about leaving and taking over my father’s chicken farm or working on an oil rig. But I drifted into an uneasy sleep, where I dreamt of Leo The Lion.
I walked the dirt road up to school the next morning. It was a cloudy day and oddly chilly for the middle of May. I remember I smoked a cigarette to calm down since I started the day with the young ones. But to my surprise, they were fine. Although, looking back now, they seemed to be more fidgety than usual. I don’t remember the lesson for the day, but I do know that none of the students seemed interested in it. Their minds were elsewhere.
I concluded the lesson, and we all broke for lunch. The older kids were still working the fields, so I went upstairs for a quick nap before my lesson. Then chaos ensued.
At first, all we heard were the sounds of metal desks scraping together from below us. I heard the muffled sounds of children laughing, which wasn’t odd because Ms. Varela was known to make funny jokes in her lessons. But then the muffled laughter turned into screaming, followed by banging.
I rushed down to see what was happening, and to my horror, I saw all the children on top of Ms. Varela, clawing at her face and body. “HELP!” Ms. Varela screamed. I tried to pry some of the kids off of her, but their bodies felt like stones. Pablo Verona knocked me to the ground, and I watched helplessly as the students tore Ms. Varela to shreds. She screamed and kicked until her strength ran out, and she moaned like a wounded animal.
I jumped up and tried again to get the kids to stop, but then they turned on me and sliced my face with their tiny, stubby fingers. I kicked two of them off me before I was swarmed by the rest. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Ms. Varela’s body twitching on the floor. The last thing I heard was the maniacal laughter of a child.
I awoke in a McCallen hospital with a splitting headache, hearing only the dull hum of old hospital lights. The right side of my face was bandaged, as was my left arm. My entire body was in pain.
A concerned doctor came in along with the Sheriff of Santa Cruz. The Sheriff was carrying a bottle of Johnnie Walker and tipped it to me for a swig. I had been out for a whole week.
The Sheriff took off his hat and gave me the whole story of what happened. An older student who finished his farm work saw what had happened and fetched the police, who broke up the fight. Ms. Varela was already dead by the time police got to the school. Her eyes had been gouged out of their sockets. I barely had a pulse but was resuscitated and placed in a medically induced coma after refusing treatment for my wounds.
The twelve children involved in the attack were placed in the facility in McCallen. The same facility that killed Leo. My protests fell on deaf ears. I’ve never heard from them since, and I wonder if they’re still alive.
The school was shuttered, and the remaining students were sent to a school in Jim Wells County. Pretty soon, their parents followed, and the town slowly starved to death. All that’s left is that statue of Jesus on the cross and two cemeteries of weary souls, Ms. Varela among them.
After my recovery, I left the town for good, carrying jagged scars on my face and arm. I worked on an oil rig for a year before volunteering in Vietnam for the same President who inspired me to be a teacher. Truth be told, I hoped it would get me killed.
But I survived and fell into a stable job as an actuary. I never taught again. I married Linda and reluctantly had three children with her. I’m not sure I was ever a good father. After all, what sick bastard doesn’t like the sound of his kids laughing?
I’m still obsessed about what happened in Santa Cruz. The doctors I talked to were convinced it was a “mass hysteria” phenomenon. But of all my research, nothing compares to what I saw. There are no police files, news clippings, or psychology reports to comb through. It was like it never happened, though I have the scars to prove it.
Leo’s mother told us he was blessed by God. I’m not religious, I still attend church every now and then. One day, the preacher talked about how we often won’t recognize the miracles that God gives to us. We didn’t recognize that Leo was a gift and were punished when we refused him.
I decided recently to return to Santa Cruz one final time before I croak. The school is still there, though it’s missing a roof and is covered in dead vines. I entered through the doorway and sat at the dusty desk, reliving my time here. I feel the wind’s breeze surging through the open window and carrying the laughter of children and the sound of a loud whistle.
I do not feel alone.