Raising Blaze (27 page)

I explained my situation to Dr. Jean and told her that I didn’t think Blaze was in the right school but I didn’t know which one would be better. Dr. Jean said she would request a copy of Blaze’s file and have a look. Take notes, she said. Don’t sign anything you’re not comfortable with. Document everything. I’m going to give it one last shot on my own, I told her. We’ve got a meeting coming up and I’m going to request a full-time aide for Blaze. I told Dr. Jean that I didn’t think she needed to be at the meeting, but that I would call her afterward and let her know how it went.

It was supposed to be a short meeting. I was supposed to go in, ask for an aide, and receive a yes or no answer. That was all I was prepared for. My father came with me, but said he could stay less than an hour.

“Hopefully, it won’t take that long,” I told him.

There was not one friendly face in the conference room. I could understand why Blaze found it so difficult to stay in class. My father and I sat at one end of an oval table and everybody else sat clustered at the other. What would you call a group like this, I wondered. A band, as in gypsies? Definitely not. A swarm, as in insects? Maybe. A murder, as in crows? Closer.

There was Mrs. M. facing me with a large and frankly false smile. Clark sat next to her, rustling a pile of papers. The vice principal sat next to Clark, her walkie-talkie at the ready. Blaze had been taking drama as his general-education elective (and, really, it was the only class he seemed to get any enjoyment out of at all), so the drama teacher was there as well. The district administrator for special education was a woman I met for the first time at that meeting. I recognized her name from one of the answering machines I had left messages on the previous spring. She was tall, thin, and sharp in every respect.

The meeting began calmly enough. I said I felt that Blaze needed an aide because he was clearly having difficulty in class. Mrs. M. followed this up by reciting the litany of Blaze’s behavior problems and
how she had no idea how to handle them. The vice principal confirmed that Blaze wandered around campus and often had to be reeled back in. The administrator said that it was very difficult to find aides and, besides, it was a directive of special education that a child learn “in the least restrictive environment” possible. An aide was restrictive, apparently. I told the administrator that I had applied for a position as an aide at this very school and had been told that it was all full. The administrator replied, lips pursed, that she knew nothing about that. Clark piped in that Blaze heard voices. My father tried to explain what I already had; that Blaze was associating and that he didn’t hear voices in the way that Clark thought. Clark remained unconvinced. The drama teacher said that Blaze was disruptive in her class, that perhaps drama wasn’t the right elective for him.

“But he loves drama,” I told her.

“Well, I can’t tell that from having him in my class,” she said. “I don’t think he knows the difference between fiction and reality. I have over thirty kids in my class, so I can’t spend every class period dealing with Blaze. The aide who comes in with him doesn’t seem to have much control over him.”

“You know,” I said, “I’ve worked with many different kinds of children and I’ve found that sometimes there’s just a personality conflict between a teacher and a child. I understand it can happen and it’s not anybody’s fault. Drama is the one class that makes Blaze happy. But if
you
don’t think he should be there, then it will never work.”

“I’m happy to have him in my class,” she said, indicating, by her tone, that she’d probably rather be boiled in hot oil, “if
you
think it’s the right place for him. I just wonder if drama is the right placement for somebody like him.”

She stared at me, stone-faced, barely civil, without so much as an attempt to mask her distaste of the whole situation. I responded with a look of naked hatred.

“I’m not taking him out of drama,” I told her.
And fuck you
and
the high horse you rode in on
, I added silently.

“Fine,” she said.

“I think what we’re missing here is the sensory piece,” the administrator said. “Blaze is a child who has sensory issues and needs a defined schedule.”

“How do you know that?” I asked her. “You’ve never even met him.”

“I have observed him and his behavior,” she said.

“Yes, she has,” Clark said.

The administrator went on some more about the sensory piece and said that she couldn’t promise an aide until Blaze had further evaluation. Somewhere in the middle of that discussion, my father apologized and left. All my instincts told me to follow him, but I overrode them, thinking that this abortive meeting was almost over anyway and I’d just tell them that we could work it all out with my advocate and be done with it. That, it turned out, was a bad miscalculation, because the minute my father left the building, the group at the other end of the table descended on me like a pack of wolves (yes, a pack, that was what they were) and tore me to pieces with their words.

“You know there is a safety issue here that we are not addressing,” Clark said.

“What do you mean? Blaze’s safety?”

“Well, actually, the safety of others. Blaze can be violent.”

“What?”

“He has attempted to push Mrs. M. when she stands in his way and he has grabbed the arm of the aide who goes with him to drama. She has told me that she’s afraid of him.” Mrs. M. nodded her head up and down in vigorous agreement.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard this before. I see that girl every morning and she’s never said anything of the kind.”

“Well, she wouldn’t. She’s not supposed to.”

“But she did tell me,” Mrs. M. said. “I have heard that.”

“He jumped out of the electrical closet at me,” the drama teacher said. “I was coming in from lunch and he was in there and startled me. I’m concerned about the safety of the other students.”

“What are you talking about? Blaze has never, ever, been violent in his entire life. If anything, he’s reacting out of fear.”

“He may be changing now,” the administrator said. “Middle school is a different world.”

“There’s something else,” Clark said. “Blaze has been touching himself and exposing himself in class.”

“What?”

The aide has reported that, in science, Blaze has been touching his pants and opening his pants. Have you noticed that at home? Has he started to take an interest in—that kind of stimulation?”

“Is this a serious question? No, of course not. He would never do a thing like that. Blaze is playing with his
zipper.
It’s a nervous habit he’s picked up and I’ve spoken to him about it. He is not exposing himself. Did the aide say she saw him actually expose himself to her?”

“She said he opened his pants.”

“You know, boys this age are beginning to discover themselves,” the administrator said, eyebrows raised.

“No, that is not what is going on. And if this aide is so terrified to work with Blaze, why is she still with him?”

“Try not to get defensive,” Clark said. “We’re trying to help.”

“I really think we need to address the sensory piece, guys,” said the administrator.

“I’ll be honest with you. I really don’t know who this child is that you’re describing. This is not my child.”

And then they all started talking at once. I heard bits and pieces, as if their words were shards of broken glass falling around my head.

“—could use professional help—”

“—can provide you with a referral to the county mental health offices. You just need to sign—”

“—medications that have been very effective in cases like this—”

“—affects the other students—”

“—can’t promise a full-time aide at this point—”

“—referral to the regional center. They provide respite care and—”

“—to address the sensory piece—”

“—referral to L.A. diagnostic center. If you sign—”

“—medication for his anxiety—”

“—too much stimuli for him in drama—”

“—and, then, with medication—”

“—have you given any more thought to medication?”

I stood up. “I can’t do this,” I said and I could hear my voice was full of tears. “I can’t have this meeting. I need my advocate.”

They kept talking, but I could no longer make sense of anything that was being said.

“No,” I interrupted, “you don’t understand. This meeting has to end now. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know the child you’re talking about, so I don’t have anything else to say. I want my advocate present.”

“Can you sign the team meeting notes?” the administrator asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m not signing anything until I talk to my advocate. And I want you to know, in eight years, this is the first IEP meeting I’ve left without signing. This is the worst meeting I’ve ever had.” My eyes were brimming.

“We’re sorry if this is upsetting to you,” somebody said. “Can you stay for another minute and look these forms over?” I looked in the direction of the voice. It was the vice principal. She had been quiet for almost the entire meeting and she was now looking at me with something approaching compassion. It was that brief hint of understanding that undid me.

“I have to go,” I whispered, and tripped, half walking, half running
out the door. I had a ten-minute walk home and I cried all the way, sobbing, out loud and in pain, in the middle of the street. I felt eviscerated, as if I were leaving my guts in a trail behind me as I walked. It wasn’t so much the attack (by then, I was sure that
attack
was the only word for it) that had me contorted with pain and anger. Nor was it the fact that I would clearly never have a decent relationship with anybody at the school or even that I was
surprised
that they had pulled out a long list of complaints. What had destroyed me so completely this time was the nature of those complaints and my own helpless, agonizing fear.

What if they are right? What if that kid really is my kid? What do I do?

And if it wasn’t my child now, exactly, how long would it take before Blaze became the child they were describing? He was certainly in distress, that much was evident. But what about the violence they were describing—the absolutely crazy behavior? How long would it take for him to mold himself into the profile they were creating for him? And then what would I do and where would I take my son? An institution? A juvenile detention center? I saw Blaze disappearing into a dismal future and I was terrified. I lost my way on that walk home and I lost my faith—in myself and in Blaze. I hated myself for my faithlessness and I hated the group in the classroom who had brought me to it. It was late October then. I didn’t stop crying until the end of January.

Hang tight, Dr. Jean told me, after I’d calmed down enough to tell her about the meeting. Do your best to write down everything they tell you and every phone call you get from them. If Mrs. M. calls you or if Clark calls you, write it down. You must have records of everything, she told me, and while you’re doing that, we’ll investigate some nonpublic schools and other programs in the district and see what we’ve got.

It was easy to keep records. After the meeting, I told Mrs. M. that
I’d rather not talk to her without Dr. Jean present unless we were talking about basics like homework, tests, or assignments. This suited Mrs. M. fine since she didn’t particularly enjoy talking to me, either, and preferred to communicate via e-mail and handwritten notes. Together, the e-mails and notes made quite an impressive record of her feelings for Blaze.

Getting Blaze through school every day soon became very much like trying to keep a bad marriage together. All the players were unhappy and every morning was a struggle. In eight years, despite all his troubles, Blaze had never told me he didn’t want to go to school, had never faced the day as if he’d been condemned to a life in prison.
But now he told me, “Mom, you have to help me. I don’t know how to be good in school. I don’t know how to do it.” He hated school, he told me. He hated Mrs. M. I told him and that he had to keep trying, that I was looking for another school for him and that somehow we would work it out. And, every morning, to his credit, Blaze did try. He put on his backpack like Atlas shouldering the world and trudged off to school. But every afternoon, I got a fresh disaster report. He wouldn’t stay in class, wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t participate.

At night, I couldn’t fall asleep. I lay in bed for hours, creating escape fantasies in my imagination. We’d move to an island. We’d fly away, fall down a rabbit hole, take a balloon to Oz. When I did fall asleep, I had recurring nightmares. In the worst one, Blaze was lost and I couldn’t find him no matter how hard I looked. In the dream, the landscape was divided into many different levels, which I had to climb up and down. One was dry, one was snowy, one was wet. On each level were people who’d had contact with Blaze in some fashion. There were old teachers and new teachers, neighbors, psychologists. Mr. Davidson was there on one level, surrounded by the parents of his students. My family was nowhere to be found. I kept trying to get these people to help me find Blaze, but everyone sort of gave up after looking only a short while. Some even tried to distract me so that I wouldn’t think about him anymore. I felt betrayed by all of them, but especially by Mr. Davidson. “Wasn’t he with you last?” I asked. “Didn’t you see where he went?” Mr. Davidson turned around and walked away. My panic escalated as the dream wore on and I woke up, my heart pounding, my eyes dry and painful.