Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado
January 2016

Uber picked me up at 4 am. My driver was born in Tehran. He was a teacher. Mathematics. He taught for twenty-six years in Dallas, Texas. He was Persian. He told me that Texas felt like living under Ayatollah Khomeini and while I don’t exactly know what that means, it sounded like an important thing to be able to say.

He told me about the kids in gangs and the kids who were doing sex under the tables and the kids whose parents grew up in dirt villages and walked dirt roads to get to America and how they get pregnant at 13 and run to the bathroom and run to recess and run to lunch and run to anywhere but it takes them two hours to walk to class.

He told me about the ‘motherfucker’ who sued him and the ‘motherfucker’ who deliberately failed his class so he would be punished and the ‘motherfucker’s’ parents who said it was his fault. He told me about a lot of ‘motherfuckers.’ He said ‘motherfucker’ a lot. It is always easier to curse in someone else’s language.

He told me about the kids who went to medical school and to college and how sometimes they came back and they gave him a hug. He said that this was the best part of living in America.

His wife was a teacher too. First she taught anything and then she taught special education. They moved to California and got masters degrees from the University of Southern California and then went back to Texas. They hated Texas but they knew how to live there.

Their daughter was born on August 17th 1986 when they were in California. Their son was born a few years later, in Texas. They taught their kids to read when they were young and they would spend most evenings doing homework.

They moved to Colorado last year. They followed their daughter so they could be near her daughter. He tried to teach but couldn’t do it. He said that being back in a classroom felt like torture. I don’t think Iranians of his generation use that word lightly.

He has a beautiful car with a glass roof. He says the back seat is safer for the passenger but I could sit in the front if I wanted. He wears a neck brace. He still substitutes but only for pre-k, kindergarten and1st grade. He dropped me off at the airport at 5 am and then he went back to Denver to teach mathematics to toddlers.