"I hacked my middle school records so I could get into your school."

How To Raise A Hacker; Chapter V - The Underground Railroad {Excerpt II}

Dedicated to Willow. Yep, I was 14 too. Love, Pops.

Hunger strike? Is that what it’s called? “I won. They got more books, and they gave me permission to go to the library and museum. I met a member of the sangha there, a monastic. She overheard me talking to Savalas.”

“Savalas?”

“Just another kid from the group home. He came with me to the library but wanted to go to the park and kept making lots of noises. I told him I’d skip school before I’d skip the library,” I folded my arms to accentuate my seriousness.

“Not my school, Mr. Lormand,” she quipped, “but continue.”

Is she letting me back into her school? I wondered to myself as I told her more, “This Buddhist nun overheard us and, well, I told her everything...about my mother, not eating to get more books, and getting special permission to go to the library and the museum.”

“Why would you tell a complete stranger everything?”

“Like I’m doing now?” I replied with a wily smirk. Hope she doesn’t think I’m talking back, even though I kinda am. I was chuckling inside.

“So, this Buddhist nun adopted you?”

“No Ma’am, no one did. I didn’t want that. They taught me how to be a monk.”

The skeptical look on her face was warranted, given the unfolding events that led to my expulsion.

“My training was—is—incomplete. I don’t know. I’m not with them anymore.” Embarrassed by this admission, I sank a bit in my chair.

As the hallway bell rang, the rumbling patter of feet gave way to loud chatter that reminded me that an hour must have gone by, but when I looked up towards the dial on the far wall, It’s been two hours already? Why is this lady taking all this time to hear about me?

Dr. Monroe peeped at her leather and gold-trimmed wristwatch, “What exactly did they teach you?”

“Just some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“I don’t know. Religion. Comparative religion stuff. Philosophy. Debate. Calligraphy,” taking deep breaths, pausing between each subject topic, my right leg bounced up and down. A stream of tears ran down my cheek. At that moment, my pain surfaced. Pain that I’d been ignoring by turning to distant cultures and world views. I felt like an imposter that couldn’t be saved from the reality of growing up in foster care.

“Were they hard on you?” Dr. Monroe seemed concerned for my well-being.

I rendered a smile before my eyes veered off into the distance, avoiding eye-contact. Summoning memories of past traumas, my biggest fear was getting stuck in those recollections - unable to leave. Trapped in unending loops of watching my own brutalization at the hands of a deranged mother, I chanted Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha in my head to maintain a calm composure in front of Dr. Monroe. It was just one of many trainings the monastics provided me, but not without a substantial cost to my self-esteem.

The monastics may have saved me from total absorption into the chaotic streets that seized the lives of my peers, but they also cultivated feelings of rejection. I learned to save face by smiling my way through pain.

I looked into Dr. Monroe’s eyes with a deepened sensation that the talk we were having would be the most important conversation of my lifetime, so I opened myself up further - like the lotus flowers I had come to revere.

“You know how you can listen to a song that’s in a different language and it’s so beautiful and good, but you still don’t know the meaning? That is what it felt like to learn with them, to be with them. The hardest part of it all...I knew that was how they felt about me too. They wanted to understand me so much and I wanted to be them...” I paused to fortify my emotional dams, “...no one wants to be someone like me.” Poor. Black. Alone.

She handed me a tissue; my hand trembled as I timidly accepted it. With another sip of water, I disrupted the deep silence, “Mandarin classes. Meditation. Ballroom dancing. Wing Chun. Mr. Carroll was the only person I felt like I could be myself with.”

“He’s a teacher?”

“My computer teacher. He let me use the computers as much as I wanted to.”

“Looking through your second set of records: your attendance is erratic, and there’s even a suspension to boot,” her tone hardened and my posture shifted to match.

I cocked my head in anticipation of persecution, bracing myself for a war of words. My mind retreated into darkness as I felt the need to lash out at her with hostility. It wasn’t just the harmful memories that created pain, but endearing ones like savoring the last precious moments I spent with my first love before she was killed.

How can I keep going, take another step, without bringing them with me? It’s so unfair. I don’t deserve a second chance. Holding on to the pain may have anchored me to the past, but it was my burden to bear if it meant not abandoning those I cared for, even if they were no longer around and my thoughts were turning against me. I deserve everything that happened to me.

She pointed at a stack of documents tucked into a manilla folder labeled with my name and asked: “Why do I have two sets of paperwork, similar but different?”

Breathing through my nose, chest tightening with fiery anxiety, jaws clenched, I opened my mouth to fend her off, “I—”

“Before you answer me, you ought to know that this change in you I’m seeing right now is unnecessary.”

How did she know I was going to - never-mind, none of this matters. My obstinance wanted to see past her rather than at her. However, she chose to see through me and spoke to the inner child I was protecting.

“I’m giving you the chance to change your life, Karl. It’s not something I offer to anyone, but you seem extremely bright, on both sets of records and from what you have told me, you have every reason to be brokenhearted about your mother.”

My eyes widened with shock.

“You think you’re the first kid I’ve come across that feels weighed down by their background?”

Concealed toes curled against the soles of my shoes, I was intensely self-aware of my shortcomings.

The Buddhists tried to convince me I was special too, but here I am - a 9th grade dropout.

“You are a thinker, very well-learned, but you are also a fighter. You can’t stop fighting, can you?”

“I—”

Holding up a hand she stopped me with, “That wasn’t meant for you to answer. Just listen.”

“Okay.”

“You haven’t the foggiest clue how to fight.”

Huh?

“You come into my school and granted, some of the boys are threatened by you.

But guess what, Mr. Lormand? That is going to be happening, wherever you go and for the rest of your life, people will be threatened. Does that mean you raise your hands to fight every time until you lose and lose badly? What a waste of potential. Now that I know you have a beautiful brain, use it...”

Dr. Monroe leans in, dauntingly closer to my face, “Some of these kids that come to my school and act like fools don’t belong here. Yeah, I figured that out a long time ago as an English teacher. I have a brain too, Mr. Lormand, and I didn’t need a doctorate to figure out I had one or prove it to others without people being threatened by what’s in here.” She tapped her temple twice.

She reclines, “I know I’m probably one of the few adults you have met in your life that has one. Am I right? I can tell. I can tell when you are pretending to be a knucklehead and when you are actually being a fool. I know it because I’m good at my job, and you kids need someone who is great at their job and knows it.”

Damn. She’s gangsta.

“This is not the environment to hide your brilliance. If you are going to fight for something, fight for growing that beautiful brain of yours.”

“I hide it because of what I can do. I changed my records, Dr. Monroe. I hacked my middle school records so I could get into your school.” I can’t believe I said that out loud. Now, I’m going to jail. Why am I telling her any of this?

She gave me a perplexed expression and glanced over the paperwork again, “You did? I thought it was this: Mr. Carroll at Junior High School ‘57, Whitelaw Reid. My bet was on Carroll, but it was you? How? Never mind, I don’t understand these things, so don’t bother explaining. Is that it? You hacked a computer? You were serious about the whole hacking thing?”

Leaning against the right side of my chair, I felt the boldness of youth burgeoning. I think she ought to know the truth. Forget protecting myself, “It was ‘57. I mean, is it my fault that it’s so easy to hack into middle school records?”

The disapproving look on her face made it clear: Dr. Monroe was not amused by my flippancy so I quickly snapped out of it, “I wanted to get into this school. It looked so good in the catalog, but I didn’t qualify because of my absences and suspensions. When you grow up in the group home, the staff can decide if they want you to go to school that day. All it takes is one stabbing and everyone is under house arrest. The suspensions? I got it from fighting back against the school bully that the entire school was afraid of. I wouldn’t let him bully me like he did all my friends. So I fought back. I ain’t no herb.”

“Herb?”

“Like a punk. A coward.”

“I see. Is that why you had a fight with my boys?”

“James, Boodah, Noel, none of those varsity boys would leave me alone because I was the new kid. Noel said I was talking to his girlfriend, the other Noelle. I mean, Noel and Noelle. Seriously? I don’t want to get caught in the middle of Sweet Valley High with them,” I was joking yet serious, but as I looked away, I caught a crack in the corner of Dr. Monroe tight lipped smile as if she were restraining herself from a chuckle.

She cleared her throat, “But what about Ms. Turner Stevens? She told me about the altercation you had with her.”

“Okay, that was kind of my fault. I didn’t know about the school uniform and she corrected me in the hallway. I was cool, until she told me to stand up straight, so I told her that maybe she’s the one that’s crooked.”

“Karl!” That was it. Dr. Monroe couldn’t stop herself from laughing, but managed to follow up with, “You can’t speak to one of my teachers like that. Not my teachers, and especially not Ms. Turner-Stevens. Are we clear? Dear God of heaven, it’s like I’m looking into the mirror.”

Huh? What does she mean by that? I nodded my head in agreement.

“And not knowing about the uniform, that isn’t squarely on you. Your uncle should have looked into it before your first day.”

I released a sigh thinking of the stress I was bringing to Uncle Joslin who allowed me to stay with him because he lived in Harlem, not far from my new school.

Thinking back to the fisticuffs with the varsity boys, “I don’t know. It’s just different here. I’m not like them and they don’t like it.”

“So what?”

“So…what?”

“I know there’s probably a lot you haven’t told me about your past and what brought your journey here to me, but are you here for them or for you?”

“For me.”

“Then why get kicked out because of them? A lot of these kids put on a good show, and some come from broken homes, broken parents too - but they aren’t broken. You’re not broken. That is the purpose of this school - to remind you of that. When they forget that, they bring the streets through my double doors. I won’t have that. From you or from them. Do you want them to have that kind of dominion over your life? The breadth of your destiny?”

“No ma’am.”

“See that, right there,” she wags her right index finger at me, “You clearly know how to properly address an adult. And would you look at that--you know how to hack computers! Just be sure to stay away from my computers. I don’t want you hackin’ anythin’ up-in-here. Trying to get me in trouble with the Board of Ed, the Pentagon, and NASA.” Her finger was comically wagging in every direction which encouraged me to laugh.

Is that what you want to do in your life? To work with computers?”

“I don’t know. I really like computers. Sometimes, it’s like I think in computer code, but I kinda like writing too.”

“We’re alike in that way too. We always think about the future, sometimes to the detriment of the present. It’s a curse and a blessing.”

What other ways are we alike? I wondered.

Dr. Monroe lifted a writing tool from her desk. A pencil or pen--it’s one of the few details that still escapes me, but she began scribbling notes. Silent and inert, I was powerless to predict what would happen next. I decided against interrupting her to ask for more water.

As the writing stopped, slamming against the notepad, she peered into my eyes, “If this is going to work, you’re going to need friends.”