Free Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z. Z. Packer Page A

from its defeated position on her desk and found a pair of eyes staring at her, as though she were a problem Sheba was trying to solve.
    “Miz Davis, I got to talk to you.”
    “Yes,” Lynnea said, glancing at the clock.
    “We can’t go on like this. I mean, nobody want to learn about no metaphors and symbolisms and—I don’t know what all.”
    “Well, that’s what we have to learn for exams.”
    “ You don’t have to learn nothing. We the ones—”
    “Anything,” Lynnea corrected.
    “What?”
    “Go on.” Lynnea sneaked another glance at the clock.
    “Maybe we can learn it, but not by you just yapping at us. Nobody wanna hear nobody else talk for no hour. It just get boring. Maybe we could act out some of the book, like a soap opera or something. Or when people wanna say their opinions, like a talk show.”
    So they tried the soap operas and talk shows in class.
    “I still think Myrtle is a ho and Daisy—” Jerron searched the ceiling for words. “If she tried that shit—I mean stuff—where I live, some guy woulda clocked her long ago.”
    “But you gotta understand,” Ramona said, “them was white folks, back in the twenties, when they just had invented cars. Daisy didn’t even know she’d run Myrtle over. They just did stupid shit like that.”
    “All right,” Lynnea said. “Could you quit it with the cursing? We’re not on the streets.”
    “I don’t live on no street!” an anonymous voice piped up.
    In return, Sheba glared at the class and said, “If you don’t live in no street, then don’t act like you live in no street !”
    The class was absolutely silent. Lynnea felt awkward and feeble breaking the silence. “Thank you, Sheba. Very well put.”
    The rest of the class they discussed The Great Gatsby with the quiet reserve of golf commentators describing a stroke. When the bell rang, they shambled out of the room quietly, but Sheba stayed.
    Though class had ended well, it had still been a long day. Lynnea slumped over her desk, forehead resting on a pile of ungraded homework.
    “Well,” Sheba finally said, “they read the book. They understand. That’s what you gotta keep in mind.”
    Lynnea raised her head and slowly nodded in reply, though Sheba was gone.
    For a few weeks things went well. She was finally finishing her copying and lesson planning early enough to leave when the other teachers left; she was finally able to pack up her lessons and leave the building before the janitors kicked her out. Before Sheba, she used to spend at least an hour at her desk, paralyzed, recovering from her day. Now when she passed the school basketball court, she smiled and waved.
        
    T HEN S HEBA stopped coming to class regularly. When she did come, she would smack her lips, occasionally casting a feeble glance Lynnea’s way. One day when Lynnea was trying to explain etymologies to the class, the class grew noisier and noisier, books scattered on the students’ desks, wads of papers strewn about the floor. Lynnea couldn’t even hear herself speaking; the room sounded like a football arena, everyone talking—all save Sheba, who’d come to class after three weeks of spotty attendance. Sheba sat in her chair, the cuffs of her too-small rabbit fur jacket starting way past her wrists. In themidst of the noise and confusion, Sheba surveyed the scene, arms folded like a cigar-store Indian.
    Lynnea heard a girl yell, “He pushed his thang up against my jeans and whooo !”
    “All right, April,” Lynnea said. “Out! Now!”
    April stood, and for a moment looked as if she was going to say something, but shook her head, furiously, as though what she would have said would have been too foulmouthed even for her.
    “Hurry up, April,” Lynnea said. “We don’t have all day.”
    Sheba stood up from her chair so suddenly the chair nearly toppled backward. She glared at Lynnea. “Now, everybody else in here talking. Why you gone call on April? If you had your act together you’da