When I Was Five I Killed Myself (14 page)

For the bulletin board I got to use real glue, not
paste, and pointy scissors which could put an eye out. I started on the beard. I made it with cotton that I got from the office in a first-aid kit. But the glue spilled and it went all over me and the desk and the cotton stuck to everything. I started sneezing and everybody looked at me.

The tardy bell rang. Then something happened. Jessica walked in.

She was dressed up, with knee socks and a dress and shiny shoes with windows on the tops. She was tardy but Miss Iris just went like this with her head which meant sit down. On the way to her desk Jessica looked at me. I had cotton on me everywhere.

“Class, today we're going to have a special Show and Tell,” said Miss Iris. “We'll take turns telling what we did over Thanksgiving vacation. It will be fabulous.”

(I felt very weird because I was in a different class and because Jessica was there and because I was covered with cotton and because Miss Iris said fabulous.)

“Andy Debbs, would you like to begin?”

(I started on the nose. It was going to be round like a bowl full of jelly. I made a circle, but it wasn't round, so I trimmed it but it still wasn't, so I trimmed it again and it fell apart. I drew another one on construction paper but I couldn't get it round. I tried again, then I crushed it. I broke my pencil with a karate chop. Andy Debbs told about his Thanksgiving.)

“First off, we all went to chapel to say our prayers with the sisters to thank the Good Lord for seeing us
safe through another Thanksgiving, but Petey Woods wouldn't come because he broke his leg on the swingset two weeks ago and wasn't thankful.

“It was raining outside, so after chapel we got to go to the Commons, where they had some Christmas trees for us to decorate. The older kids had to watch over the little ones, though, so it wasn't much fun because they pick on us. We had two trees this year, one was from Brickman's Hardware and one was from the Torch Drive. We used the same ornaments as last year but some of them was broke. The sisters even helped. Father Birney came down too, it was an honor.

“Then we had Thanksgiving dinner. It was special because they put tablecloths on the tables in the Dining Hall. We had turkey and dressing and dessert. We could get seconds too.

“Then we went back to the Commons and played games. Then we said some prayers and Father Birney talked to us about how we're graced by the grace of God to have such wonderful sisters taking care of us and how he cried because he had no shoes until he met a boy who had no feet, and then we went to bed but I got out of brushing my teeth because I put Parcheesi away.”

(I got it right finally, I took three little circles that I traced from nickels and put them together so it looked like a nose almost and then I glued it and it slipped but I just left it.)

Miss Iris called on Ruth Arnold. She was all smiley, like an idiot. She started to talk only no one could hear
her. She is the ugliest person in America, no lie. When she was born her parents said what a treasure, so they buried her. She has to sneak up on a glass of water, her nose runs from her. (These are jokes.) Eugene Larson yelled, “Turn up the volume switch!” and Miss Iris made Ruth Arnold stop until we settled down.

“For Thanksgiving vacation,” said Ruth Arnold, “we went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to visit my Aunt Greta. Philadelphia is the home of many historic sites.” She reached in her pocket and took out a piece of paper. She started to read.

“There is stately Independence Hall, where our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence back in 1776.”

Eugene Larson started coughing. He fell off his desk and started to roll on the floor like he was going to die, and everybody laughed and Miss Iris went and grabbed his collar and marched him right out of the room. Ruth Arnold kept talking though. You couldn't hear her anyway.

Jessica turned around and looked at me. I saw her. I looked down and pretended like I was making the nose again.

Miss Iris came in and slammed the door and said for everyone to put their heads down until we could control ourselves. Ruth Arnold was still reading off her paper.

“That's enough, Ruth, sit down,” said Miss Iris. “Class, put those heads down and I mean now!”

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if it meant
me. I raised my hand to ask but Miss Iris didn't see me, so I went up to her desk but I stopped halfway and turned around and Jessica was staring at me and then I just stood there.

“Burt, what are you doing? What in the world are you doing?” said Miss Iris.

I walked up to her desk.

“Miss Iris, should I put my head down too?”

“No.”

I went back to my desk and started on the mouth.

“All right, people,” said Miss Iris. “If you think you can control your mouths, you may pick your heads up quietly and we'll continue. Sit down, Ruth, you had your chance.”

Then Jessica raised her hand. Miss Iris saw her but didn't say anything. Jessica stood up anyway and went to the front of the classroom.

She smiled. I thought she was going to sing. She smoothed out her dress and pushed her hair back and stood up very good posture. Then she started to talk, not too loud, not too soft. Just right.

“On Thanksgiving morning I woke up quite early to find a surprise as I looked out my bedroom window. I discovered that I could see all the way to Montana. And I saw my horse, Blacky, running, his mane blew in the wind and there was dust around his hooves. He was running to me.

“I got dressed and went outside. Nobody else was up yet, and the sun was shining like summer. I didn't need wraps. I walked out on our front porch where we
have flowers even in winter and there was a boy on the walk with a raincoat on. I said, ‘Why do you have a raincoat on, boy? It isn't raining.' And he gave me a puppet. Then we went for a walk.

“We went to a long sidewalk and slid down a chute to a place where there were lots of toys. There were dolls and models and Raggedy Anns. Then we went to a place where there were rides and we went on them, we were the only ones. Then we went on a boat.

“We found a car, it had the keys in it and we drove to Florida for three hours. When we came back we put on a play about policemen. Then we were very tired so we went to my house and did magic tricks until we fell asleep and when we woke up we were grown.”

Nobody said anything.

I looked at her with my eyes. I couldn't not look. She stared at the back of the room where there was a bulletin board with turkeys on it that I made. And under my stomach I felt someone twist me like an airplane with rubber bands, tighter and tighter.

Nobody even moved. Miss Iris didn't move. But I stood up all by myself and walked to the front of the room. I looked at Jessica. She looked at me and turned to the door. She opened it. She walked out the door and I followed her.

J
ESSICA WENT OUT THE
M
ARLOWE DOOR RIGHT PAST THE
hall monitors. I could hardly keep up, and she ran across Curtis and started down Marlowe, walking fast toward her house. It was very cold out, but it was a whole block before I remembered we didn't have any wraps on. It still drizzled rain. Ahead of me I saw it on Jessica's hair, it stuck and made like diamonds.

The street was empty. There weren't even any safety boys because they were all still in school. (When they take off their belts they turn into real children again. Once I saw the grease safety from Lauder at Northland with his mother and she yelled at him for picking his nose. It was like he wasn't even him.)

Jessica turned the corner at Margarita. She wasn't going to her house after all, I deduced it.

“We better go back,” I called after her. “We don't have any wraps and this being the flu season, we better.”

But she kept walking faster and faster like she was hurrying somewhere. I didn't know where. Then I thought something. That she was trying to get away from me, because she never asked me to come. So I stopped on the sidewalk, and put my arms around me because it was so cold, and watched her get smaller down the street.

But she stopped. She turned around, and yelled, “Come on, it's freezing!”

I ran. But I tripped and scraped my chin and it was embarrassing because she saw.

“We have to get coats,” she said.

“No lie,” I said.

Then I saw him. The truant officer. He was leaning on a car a block from my house, he had a hat pulled over his eyes and a pad that he was writing on, the names of all the children who play hookey from school and our names were on it. He was waiting near my house to catch us. I took Jessica's arm.

“It's the truant officer, Jessica,” I said. “He'll get us and send us to reform school. What'll we do?”

Jessica looked at him.

“Burt, he's just reading the water meter.”

“Oh.”

We walked toward my house.

El Commandante came to school and tied up Miss Messengeller in the office until she told him where they kept the money from the lunchroom. Then I came in the office because I had a conniption fit in Social Studies and I saw him and socked the
Commandante but the other soldiers captured me but I escaped by ventriloquism and killed El Commandante with my sword so they expelled me for bad citizenship. Jessica helped me.

This is what I was going to tell my mother when she asked me what I was doing home.

“Don't say anything to my mother,” I told Jessica. “She is deaf, so she can't hear you. You have to use sign language.”

But nobody was home. I had to climb through the milk chute to get in, which I do frequent. There was milk in it. No chocolate. I squeezed through. I am good at squeezing. Once my dad said why don't I put myself in an envelope and mail myself to Alaska but I said I didn't have enough stamps. (I didn't.)

I went through the kitchen to the back hall and opened the door for Jessica. She was shivering. She just stood in the back hall and shook all over and suddenly I thought she was going to die, so I ran up to my room and got blankee. I put him on Jessica. He was very glad.

Then I went to the front hall closet. It was very quiet in the house, you could hear the clock tick in the living room, and I got a little afraid because I wasn't supposed to be there then. I opened the hall closet and got Dad's jacket out, the one I wore to the Ford Rotunda to see Santa Claus. I felt a lump in the pocket, it was Monkey Cuddles, he was having lunch in the pocket. Also I took out my mom's coat that she wears shopping. I took them to the back hall and put my
mom's coat on Jessica over blankee and put my dad's coat on me. The sleeves hung over my hands. Monkey Cuddles was singing.

Soon Jessica stopped shivering. She held on to blankee under the coat. He liked it.

I told her we had to go or we'd get in trouble when my mom came home.

We went.

We started walking toward Seven Mile Road, the other way from school. (I thought I would never go to school again. I was right.)

We passed Shrubs' house on the corner next to the car wash. There wasn't any cars in it though, because it was inclement weather, but there were two colored men sitting on the bench outside. They ate potato chips. They had on black aprons that were rubber. One of them I saw before, he is always there, he looks mean because his nose goes like down, but once Shrubs said he was locked out of his house and he went to the car wash and the man let him stay there and gave him potato chips and he didn't even have to help.

We turned this way on Seven Mile. Left. This way is right, this way is left, this way is down, this way is up. If you get lost you should ask a policeman, and if you can't brush after every meal, swish and swallow. I am a fountain of information. My dad said so.

Then we came to Maxwell's. In Maxwell's there are two women who work there. One is young and small with dark hair who is nice to children. The other one is old with gray hair who is mean and Jeffrey calls her
the old battleaxe. She even has her glasses on a chain around her neck so they can't get away. She was the only one in Maxwell's that day.

Maxwell's smells an aroma like new shoes, it is the toys (they all have new shoes on them). Jessica went to the doll part because she is a girl and I went to the cowboys. They are on a special shelf all by themselves where children can't reach. They are in color. I have some of them, even Zorro, but I always look at them in Maxwell's because they have guns and hats on them that come off and I lost them on mine.

There was a new one on the shelf, I recognized him right away, Hopalong Cassidy. I don't like him because he is too old to be a cowboy, he has white hair like Gramps. I feel he should retire to Borman Hall where Gramps lives, it is like a hospital where you stay while you're dying but it's kosher. But I like Hopalong Cassidy's suit, it is black with like nails in it. Jeffrey got a Hopalong Cassidy bike for his birthday. It was black with like nails in it.

The old battleaxe snuck up behind me and said, “May I help you, little boy?”

I jumped a mile.

I said, “I am buying toys for my children. I have two sons, Burt and Don Diego. They are splendid little boys, oh my. They won the Spelling B.”

The old battleaxe wore the same perfume as Mrs Marston the kindergarten teacher who you could smell for a mile, it smells like pie.

I walked over to the baseball part. “Nice mitts,” I
said. Then a man walked into Maxwell's and the old battleaxe went to see him.

It was the truant officer. I ducked under the bats.

“You'll have to bring them around the back, I can't have you tracking up the floor, the girl just waxed,” said the old battleaxe to the truant officer. He went out the front door to come around the back. He was bringing the cages around the back and they'd chase us into them.

I picked up a bat.

The old battleaxe came back to the baseball part looking for me but I wasn't there, I was behind the balsawood counter where they sell Boy Scout projects. I sat on the floor with my bat. I couldn't let them take us, I couldn't let them take Jessica.