He sauntered into the classroom, nose in the air, bobbing his head, eyes gazing over other students, expecting me to sign an add slip, which I did since it was a small class I feared might be cancelled. As a writer, I needed the work as an adjunct instructor.
He didn’t seem a hipster per se, although he did sport a bleached dreadlock bun, oversized square glasses, drooping pants. I figured him for one of the theater majors who often enrolled in the course attracted by dramatic monologues and performance as part of the syllabus. Budding poetry and prose writers alike were drawn to the Asian and European forms of poetry, sudden fiction, and memoir.
Just as I was passing out the day’s activity sheet and about to introduce the process of peer review, the students were all abuzz, so much so that I turned to one and quietly asked: “What’s up with all the fuss?”
She whispered back: “He’s a local rapper. He’s even been part of the lineup at Paramount Theatre for Oakland’s Hip HopAthon.”
That’s when I instead distributed the survey, “My Expectations for This Class” to be filled out, shared, discussed.
He called himself B-Bluzee or something like that. I couldn’t wrap my head around having been outspoken against rap lyrics demeaning women. During discussion, theater folk predictably revealed they wanted to be performative in class and that this and their other classes could enrich each other. The emerging poets were open to just about everything as were the storytellers.
The rapper I came to call Blue announced that he had enrolled to practice his act and make new rhymes, punctuated by “You feelin’ me?” as he looked past me and to the class as if an audience.
Some students chimed in with “Yeah. alright, I’m feelin’ you,” looking forward to, I imagined, some free entertainment.
Determined not to let Blue run the room, after class I handed him the syllabus and some rules of order: “Having entered late, your assignments are nearly overdue, and your allowable absences for the term are practically used up.” Following his deadpan stare, I went on: “You, like everyone else, are expected to participate in aspects of creative writing meant not so much for the stage but more for the page, including being open to the work of established writers as well as to other students’ work.”
Blue said little, or maybe he said nothing. What I remember best are the wings on his jacket, back to me, as he drifted out of the room. I figured he had no intention to return.
Return he did, but at his leisure. After I said: “Blue,” to get his attention, he corrected in a snappy head turn: “B-Bluzee.” “Blue,” I continued, “this signature on the attendance sheet is artistic,” but not without landing an off-the-cuff remark, “just like tags I see each morning, on the campus pedestrian tunnel wall sprayed in silver huffer paint.”
He never turned in assignments or responded in workshops to other students after that. Even the MMA fighter never missed a day despite late nights, black eyes, split lips. Nor did the single mother struggling with childcare, or others facing life’s ongoing challenges.
And then came time for final presentations of what students chose as their best writing to present as their portfolio in self-published chapbooks to exchange with each other and to turn in for a grade. This time I hoped Blue would finally participate, come to the front of the class and perform as others had, performance supposedly being his thing. I coaxed him cajoling: “C’mon Blue. Your’ve got a captive audience here.”
He just shook it off with a shoulder shrug, pulling his hoodie up over his head and eyes, and slouching at his desk. At the end of that last class, I distributed a final survey titled “The Grade I Deserve and Why” that students could pick up at my office the next day for my written response.
As I read them at home later that night, I was touched by the thoughtfulness in their narratives about their own work and working with others. Then came B-Bluzee’s, a reply written in graffiti-style lettering with a thick silver marker: “Fuck It. Gimme an F.”
And at that, really feelin’ blue, I wrote heavy-handedly in blood red: “OK—you got it.”
