Ms. Denise, with nothing but good intentions, is watching and listening with intense restraint. Now he finishes and it’s her time to impart some positive words to him, although she has a strange feelings that he is on the edge of total despair by the glazing over of his usually twinkling eyes. At first she apologizes to him for what he has to go through because, as she points out often in these talks with Tyree, as an African American male of his age in America, he will have it harder than most. She tells him that it hurts that he hustles in the streets when his mother’s away to anonymously help his family survive, letting his own education suffer because he just can’t manage to raise his younger sisters and himself too. She explains that people like Mr. Clark will never see him for the bright, gifted young man that he is because of the way that America has institutionalized racism, and that he should forgive him because he doesn’t know better. Tyree blinks back angry tears and Ms. Denise, taking note of this, tries another direction. She assures him that that is no justification for injustice, and it’s not Tyree’s fault, but his life experiences have affected him in a way that may have disrupted his perception of reality and that he can overcome this if he doesn’t let it stop him. Tyree’s eyes close and don’t open back up for the rest of her piece. She lets him know that she prays for him and students like him every night, she knows what he is capable of when he invests his intelligence in his work and she reassures him that if he could just see that everything would get better. She knows that his love for chemistry isn’t only attributed to his involvement with narcotics, and with a college education he could become a forensic toxicologist or something great like that. She sees that he is only trying to beat the odds with a disadvantaged start, but if he seeks the help that he needs, he’ll find his way out of that struggle. She offers him the time she has free after school to get him started on improving his grades and suggests that maybe, if they ask for help from the school’s administration, they can get help for his mother.
Tyree trying to listen with discernment but this last comment causes him to furrow his brow and open the windows to his wounded soul and the gates holding in his true emotions burst open and a flood of depression follows. His pride has him interrupting her now, saying that as an old white woman she would never fully understand how dangerous that breach of confidence would be for the preservation of his family and pursing a degree eight plus years away would be all for naught if he didn’t see the light of tomorrow, because people his age were dropping like flies in his city, whether they participated in his line of work or not.
He was overwhelmed at this point, angry at his predicament. Who could he turn to? Who would save him from this path of destruction before it was too late? Himself, that’s who. He leaves her classroom without another word, proceeding to pull out his 9mm from his backpack as he charges down the hall and turns the corner to face his old pal, weapon raised. Tyree’s best friend turned enemy’s remorseless smirk forces into a distressed grimace as Ms. Denise screams helplessly and Tyree takes the only way out of his pain that ever made sense to him. ~