I had my back to the students and class hadn’t started yet when a hand tapped my shoulder. An actual hand, or maybe just a finger or two on the fabric of my shirt. They shouldn’t touch me; it wasn’t on the syllabus as a rule or anything, but it was really something that shouldn’t be done. It was a tall black kid behind me when I turned around. He was skinny. Really nice shoes. “I’ve got something,” he said. “What?” “I got to miss class,” he said, “because I’ve got something. Something came up. I can’t be here.” “Do what you need to do,” I told him. It was something I said on the first day of class—they got four absences, whatever reason; they were adults with personal situations that I didn’t need to know about. He said okay and adjusted his bag on his back and turned away from me. I watched him rushing down the aisle of desks. The rest of the class watched, following him out of the room. When he exited the door and shut it, the sound was kind of loud. Fifteen minutes into class, the students were working and I was wandering around the room when the black kid opened the door and motioned me out to the hallway. I left the door open a crack when I walked out there. “I really did have something,” he said. “I can’t stay. I have to get back again.” “Go,” I said. “If you have something, just go. Really. Go. I’m not stopping you.” “No, I’ve got to show you,” he said. “It doesn’t sit well with me to miss class. And for you to think I’m just offering an excuse.” I didn’t know the kid’s name. I wouldn’t have known he wasn’t there. I always made a show about checking off attendance and then lost the sheets. He started fumbling in his big pants pockets and pulled out his cell phone. His was one of the thin ones, all silver with some kind of blue glowing screen. I didn’t have one and didn’t know how they worked or why people seemed to care so much about them. “Will you just go?” I said and looked down the green flyered hallway. “Just hold on,” he said. He had the cell phone open like he was going to call someone, and he was clicking the buttons, holding the phone far away from his eyes like he was near-sighted. “Just put that away and go to your thing, or whatever. Your emergency. I’m not stopping you.” He was using the buttons on his phone to scroll through some images. It was one of those camera phones. “There,” he said and stopped his clicking. “There.” He held his phone out to me. “Look,” he said. I didn’t take the phone from him; I let him hold it in front of my face. I could make out the photo pretty wellit was a girl lying on the street. She looked dead or injured or passed out or something. A paramedic bent over her. I could see just the feet of a group of people who must have been hanging back, watching. The girl had blood covering half her face like a mask, and it puddled on the concrete around her head. I think part of her leg was missing. “Do you see?” the kid said. I didn’t know if the girl was dead. I didn’t know if she was his sister or his girlfriend or just a friend or a neighbor or something. I thought she might have been just outside the building, that he might have rushed back to the scene and taken the picture just for me. I knew she was someone terribly important, but I didn’t want to know, exactly, who she was or what had happened to her or why he needed to take a picture of her with his cell phone and then come back to show it to me. I wanted this fucking kid out of my fucking face. I wanted him to stop unburdening himself on me. “Jesus, will you just go?” I said. “I already told you to go. I told you. You didn’t have to come back. I didn’t need this.” But he still stood there, like he needed me to say something about the girl. “I wanted you to see this so you’d know I wasn’t just goofing off. I really did have something. I had an emergency.” I wanted to take a push-pin from the bulletin board and ram it into his eye. “Will you go?” I said. “As long as you know,” he said. “It’s not just an excuse.” “Please,” I begged him. “Go to her. And don’t come back. She needs you more than I need you in this class.” When he left, I leaned against the bulletin board and watched him head toward the stairwell. I considered canceling class for the semester. I considered everything I could possibly do to make sure I never have to see this kid again.