I nearly dialed 911 on the tattooed teenager holding a screaming baby inside an empty 1 AM laundromat. Then his bag tore open, and my stomach sank with utter shame.

dark, jagged tattoos running along his arms and up his neck.

He paced wildly, glancing over his shoulder with desperate, bloodshot eyes. Clutched awkwardly to his chest was a small, red-faced infant, wailing at full volume.

I am sixty-eight years old. I taught middle school in Ohio for forty years. I believed I recognized trouble, and every instinct continue reading …