JEWEL (41 page)

I’d given one last look at the classroom, a room that’d been a big storage room for years before we ever came around. Now there was a blackboard on one wall, two big tables set up in the middle, the children all in their appointed chairs and eating, a heavy and huge braided rug under it all. On the walls were pictures of Lincoln and Washington and Eisenhower, circling the top of the walls cards with the alphabet in printed letters. It could have been any classroom, could have been, I saw, the classroom where I’d started teaching back in Columbia, these kids roughly the same mental equivalent as all those ornery children I’d had to deal with so many years ago.

Then Jimmy glanced up at me, him with his crew cut, those ears, and he shivered hard, nearly dropped the banana in his hand for it. He’d seen me looking at him, and turned his back to me, took a bite off the banana, and I knew where I was, in an ex-storeroom, a room with no windows.

But better than no room at all.

“Got the call from Mr. Mooney, the principal at West, ” Mr. White went on. He shook his head, brought a hand from his chest to his chin, and rubbed it, his same old moves. “Doesn’t look good.”

“Of course, ” I started up, “Mr. Mooney’s got all his information from the girls’ PE coach, Mrs. Klausman. That’s his first mistake.”

I stood behind the chair he always kept positioned in front of the desk, he still swooped off that desk edge and stood up, came close to you and started his pacing, all of it, I knew, designed to intimidate, to force into you who was in charge. But he wasn’t a man who I I wanted to be in charge for the thin reason of just having power. No, he wanted in charge because he knew how to get things changed.

“Gym day, ” he said, pacing again, the same man as the first day I met him, “is our foot in the door, our way of making ourselves known to the school board, to the public education system at large. Imagine the burdens lifted from parents, imagine the opportunities afforded our children. Public education for the retarded.”

He stopped then, arms crossed, and said, “But you’ve heard this before, ” and smiled.

I tried to smile, tried hard. I’d heard it all before, knew there was hope for that new way of teaching in California, knew we’d come worlds from where we’d started, knew that there might come some day some day soon, if any of my prayers were answered by the same old God up in Heaven new ways to change her, bring up her learning level.

But there were things to deal with now, today.

I said, “Maybe there’s nothing to this, but… , ” and I paused, waited a moment before I could line up the words I wanted to give.

“There’s always something in everything, ” he said, and circled back to his desk. His office was the opposite of that sun-filled room back up on Adams, the desk was strictly school district issue, gunmetal gray with a slate top, his chair the same color gray with a hard green leather back and seat. May, the receptionist, was still up at the old house, down here was Mrs. Walker, a white woman with hair swirled up high and sprayed into place, lips fire engine red. Who knew what the children thought when they saw her?

“Maybe, maybe not, ” I said, and half-smiled, looked up at him. His own lunch was spread out on the desktop, an apple, two Oreos, a half-eaten sandwich on dark bread. He sat down, leaned over the desktop, picked up the sandwich, bit into it.

“Seems I may’ve caught a couple of the children up to something.” I paused. “Holding hands, namely.”

He looked at me over the tops of his glasses, stopped chewing. He held that look a moment or two, then slowly started to chewing, leaned back.

He swallowed, said, “Well. It’s about time.”

“What? ” I said, and for the first time in years I wanted to sit in that chair, wanted to plant myself there, lean my head over into my hands.

“It’s about time, ” he said again, and now he was dusting off his hands, smiling. “I’ve had to deal with this on more than one occasion, believe you me, ” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the sorts of liaisons that begin to happen once this sort of discovery takes place, especially with this age group. Why I’ve seen ” “It’s my Brenda Kay, ” I said, quick put my hand to my forehead, let it cover my eyes.

He stopped, and I heard him stand right up, come around the desk. Then I felt his hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to make it seem…”

he began, but stopped. “I mean, ” he said, “it’s happened.”

“There’s always something in everything, ” I said, and brought down my hand, tried again to smile at him, still held on with the other hand to the back of the chair.

He said, “It’s bound to happen. And it does. It has. It will. But the only way I’ve found to deal with it is simply to let them know they’re not to behave that way. Now, ” he said, and let go my shoulder. He went to the edge of the desk, stood looking at his food.

He turned his head to me, nodded at the empty chair. He said, “Would you sit down? ” “Only if you promise not to go on the attack like you do, ” I said.

“Promise, ” he said, and looked back at his food.

I sat down, glad for the weight off my feet, glad my legs could ease up, let me relax. Brenda Kay and Dennis.

“Maybe you won’t want to hear this, ” he said, “but holding hands is not the worst thing that could happen. Not at all. But, first, do not give them opportunity. Don’t let them have the chance to hold hands.”

He paused, turned to me. “Who’s the boy? ” “Dennis, ” I said. I looked down at the gray linoleum floor, a far cry from that gleaming hardwood, from when I’d only had to worry on enrolling my daughter, on getting red clay wet enough to work.

“Dennis, ” he said. “He’s responsive. He hears. He’ll listen.” He paused. “But if they carry on, keep holding hands even if we instruct them not to, there’s not much else we can do. Much worse can happen here. Maybe holding hands will be outlet enough.”

I looked up. “Outlet for what? ” I said, but I’d already figured it out, already knew.

He still looked at the desktop. “Growing up, ” he said, matter-of-fact.

He stopped, looked at me once again. He reached up, took off his glasses, crossed his arms. Then he sat on the corner of the desk, the same old perch, and here came my old life, this same series of days that lined themselves up in front of me and told me the same thing again and again and again, take hold of it by the throat, make it work.

Puberty fell on them, that word so filthy gone unspoken, but what I already knew was upon my baby girl. She was already seventeen, her body going through its own motions like there were things it had to do, wild things my daughter’s brain never dreamed of, every night when I gave her her bath, there were new signs, her breasts growing larger, more thin wisps of hair between her legs, all of it a mockery, I knew, sheer spite from God once again. Now here she was holding hands with a boy, their bodies like blind animals making I their way along, searching, not knowing what it was they were looking for.

And one morning some five months ago Leston and I’d both woke up to Brenda Kay hollering out from her bedroom. I’d rolled right out of bed, rushed to her room, alive in my head the memory of her burned legs, the pain of them even as she rolled over of a morning, memories so fresh we might as well have been still back in Mississippi, the house filled with the stink of old and soaked bandages.

I opened her bedroom door, saw her standing next to her bed, a finger pointed at the mattress. “Momma! ” she hollered. “Momma! ” “What’s wrong? ” I’d said, but by that time I already saw what she was pointing at, a bloodstain there on the middle of the sheet, and I’d had to swallow hard, keep myself from crying as I turned to her, looked at the seat of her nightgown, saw more blood there. She’d started her monthlies.

“Jewel? ” Leston’d called from the bedroom. “What’s going on? ” “Nothing, ” I’d said, then went to the bathroom, headed for the box of napkins I’d kept under the sink for the last three or four years, me never certain when this morning might come.

“Morning accident, ” I called out to Leston, and let him think she’d just wet the bed again.

Take hold of it, grab it by the throat, make it work.

Mr. White was right, of course, they’d have to be separated, separated as much as I could make certain. And there’d be much worse could happen, too. But I wasn’t going to let that happen, not at all. I’d been in charge of her all this time, I wasn’t about to surrender to letting that foot in the door. No.

I stood, didn’t need the chair anymore. There were ways to fix this world, and us in it. There were simple ways, keep the two separate.

“You’re right, ” I said. I started for the door. “It’s an outlet, ” I said, and steeled myself for whatever I had in front of me to do.

“Good, ” he said from behind me, and I knew he’d sat back down, had started in on his lunch again. “And gym day does not cease as of today.

Gym day will be on our regular agenda, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from now on.”

I had my hand on the door, turned the knob.

He was chewing, spoke with food in his mouth. “We’re on our way to having our children in the public schools, ” he said.

“Fine by me, ” I said. I pulled the door open, stepped out, pulled it to behind me.

“I’ll be down there in a couple of minutes, ” he called after me, but I already had the door closed.

* Eight years in California. Good enough for a lifetime, I thought as eade down the corridor toward the old storeroom, and knew something d changed inside Mr. White’s office just now. I knew somehow things were different, and suddenly it had to do with him and the fact he’d never had any children of his own, never seen them grow up and away like I’d seen all five of mine. And no matter how much the philanthropist he was, no matter how hard he’d grieved at that spark lost in his brother’s eye, he had no retarded child of his own. No matter how many cases he’d known, they were all still theory, all of them all of us, I thought just ideas played off his owneas. Holding hands wasn’t the worst could happen, he’d said. But I knew it was the door standing wide open for the next thing to come.

Mrs. Walker stood at the desk when I got back, the children quiet still, slowly chewing, eyes of some lifting up from their food to take me in, others’ heads bowed to the task at hand, lunch.

She quick turned to me, flew a hand up to her chest. Her fingernails were long, the same red as her lips. “You scared me to death! ” she said, and smiled, then made her way past me. “They’ve been just like this, she said at the doorway. “Angels, ” she said.

She was gone, and I turned, looked back at them.

Brenda Kay was in her place, her sandwich finished. She held one of the chocolate chip cookies I’d baked last night, held it in her hand and looked at it.

“Dennis! ” she shouted, looked over to him seated across from her at the far left corner of the table. “You want? ” Dennis’ shoulders went up at his name, and he cocked back his head, looked at her through those thick lenses, the glasses far down on his nose. He clutched half a sandwich with both hands, held it there at his chin.

He looked at her a moment, then nodded his head hard But by this time I was already away from the desk, had my hand out and took hold of the cookie as Brenda Kay was standing, leaning over to him. I took it, said, “Now I baked these for you, Brenda Kay, ” and placed a hand on her shoulder, gently pushed her down into her She looked at me, her mouth open. She had a few last bites of the fried egg sandwich there in her mouth, yellow and white and brown “Now if you don’t want this, I’ll go ahead and have it myself, ” I said, and I brought it to my mouth, nibbled it. “Thank you, Brenda Kay, I said, and tried to swallow, tried hard, but couldn’t. I JUST chewed on that small piece of cookie in my mouth.

I glanced over to Dennis. He looked at me, then at Brenda Kay then let his head fall, took the sandwich in his hands.

CHAPTER 30.

THAT NIGHT ANNIE STOOD ON A STOOL IN THE LIVING ROOM IN HER WEDDING gown. Mrs. Zafaris, the seamstress from the wedding shop over on Crenshaw and who lived one block over, tucked here, tucked there, her mouth full of pins. Annie the whole time was lifting a fold of white and lifting, looking at herself and turning, looking and turning, Mrs. Zafaris hollering at her the best she could with those pins in her mouth to hold still.

We were in the kitchen, Leston and Brenda Kay at the table, eating the pork chops and gravy and collards I’d made, me busy at cleaning everything up. We’d gotten the call from Billie Jean last night, her in Phoenix, that she’d be in near seven as best she could figure. It was quarter till now.

I hadn’t seen her in eight years, and knew it to be a crime, knew it way deep down. We’d been so filled with our lives out here, so carried along with just making do, I knew we were the ones heavy at fault. We hadn’t seen our oldest daughter in eight years, had’nt even seen our two grandchildren, what I still called our babies, though Elaine was six now, Matthe four. No longer babies, but children, and as I hurried to wash up the skillet and pans I pictured James and Billie Jean at the same age as Elaine and Matthe , Burton brand-new and still nursing back then. I knew I’d missed worlds of my grandchildren’s lives, knew that at that age they were already gone, James already the independent boy he’d find himself later on, insisting he not work with his father, insisting on joining to fight the war, all of it without his parents’ approval not out of spite, but simply because he knew he could do it on his own.

Once, when James was six, Elaine’s age, he’d come home from a fistfight with one of the Skokum kids at school, the Skokums a family more cracker than we’d ever hope to be. He’d had a black eye and a scrape across his cheek like somebody’d taken heavy sandpaper to his face.

When Leston’d gotten home from the woods and we were all to the table for dinner, Billie Jean barely able to see up over the edge to the food on her plate, Burton suckling away, Leston said, “You going to tell us what happened? ” then acted like it was no matter to him what the answer he got was. He only reached across the table for a biscuit from the basket of them, heaped hominy onto his plate. I’d made a big fuss over it, of course, when he’d walked in the door from school, painted the scrape up with iodine, pressed cold washrags to his face hoped that black eye’d disappear before Sunday church. James’d shrugged, said, “Alton Skokum.”