Where's My Wand?: One Boy's Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting (25 page)

Bonehead had it coming, I rationalized. But a thought continued to nag at the back of my mind: Miss Plotnick didn’t.

It was the afternoon of our last day before Easter break. After the bell rang and my classmates performed their ritualistic dash for the door as though the trailer was a grenade whose pin had just been pulled, I lingered at my desk, ostensibly finishing up some notes in my blue spiral notebook. When everyone had gone, and before any sixth-period students could wander in, I slipped up to Miss Plotnick’s desk.

“Miss Plotnick?” My voice came out as a hoarse whisper. I cleared my throat nervously. “Miss Plotnick?”

She was grading a paper and didn’t look up. “What, Eric?” she said flatly.

“If you’re too busy, I can—”

She set her pen down with a sigh, but still didn’t look up at me. “What is it?”

“Ummm,” I began, “you probably don’t even remember this, but a few weeks back I said this stupid thing about you, and—”

“I remember.” She looked up at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Was she angry? Disappointed? Annoyed? “You know, Eric . . . I’ve come to expect mean words from the other kids. But you—you’re better than that.”

I looked down. “I’m sorry.”

“Why would you do that to me?”

I stared at my feet. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, I suspect you do,” she said. “And it would behoove you to think about whether what you’ve gained is real or illusory.”

“What’s ‘illusory’?”

“Look it up.”

 

 

AS I PACED around the basement, I opened my dictionary.

“Illusory . . .” I read to myself. “Deceptive. False. Not real.”

Did she mean that what I got by hurting her was fake? That was, quite simply, absurd. I was now somewhat popular, almost looked up to. I had
never
meant to hurt her, but the results of that mistake were nothing short of a miracle. I had gotten a taste of the good life.

How can I make Miss Plotnick feel better, I wondered, but still maintain my Bad Boy image?

Magic didn’t seem like a really viable option. I no longer had my bedspread, and God and I were barely on speaking terms.

But I had nowhere else to turn. And nothing to lose.

I sat down in the elderly rocking chair in which I had spent most of my basement-bound life, and closed my eyes. I began to envision the teacher that I used to know—the smiling, animated Miss Plotnick, the teacher who tried to engage us, who tried to make learning fun.

“Umm, God . . .” I said silently. “After everything that’s happened, I don’t really expect anything magical from you. But maybe if you could just listen.”

 

 

AN IDEA WASN’T long in coming.

That night, I knelt over my bed and took out a piece of the engraved stationery that Mother and Dad had given to me as a birthday present. Laying it across a Carpenters album as my writing tablet, I began to compose.

“Dear Miss Plotnick,” I wrote in my best cursive, “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun of you. I just wanted to be liked. I’m sure you can understand this, being somebody who probably wasn’t liked, either. But I know how it feels to have your feelings hurt, and it sure isn’t fun. I hope you will forgive me. Your admirer, Eric Poole.”

 

 

MISS PLOTNICK NEVER acknowledged the note, which I slipped into her desk drawer the next afternoon when no one was looking. But it didn’t matter. It worked. Slowly but surely, she began to smile at me again in class.

My heart filled with hope. Had God actually answered my plea?

Then, Miss Plotnick began to call on me. There seemed to be
something
otherworldly at work, here.

Then, somewhat disturbingly, she began to treat me as though I were her most beloved, star pupil, taking pains to single me out in almost every situation.

If this was God’s handiwork, it wasn’t funny.

Kenny was the first to notice. (I had dropped the “Black” as part of my rebel campaign, calling him simply “Kenny” to indicate our brotherhood, which, for reasons that eluded me, he had actually seemed to like.) He immediately reinstated his book removal activities, knocking my textbooks out of my hands with set-your-watch regularity.

Doreen once again began to forget that anyone sat behind her, rediscovering my existence only when she had a question about why her brother wanted ballet slippers for his birthday.

Then Willy returned to his name calling—but rather than “CessPoole” or “ ’ Tard,” he developed a new name, one that spoke to my new role as Miss Plotnick’s lapdog.

“Hey,
Pet
,” he sneered, exhibiting his astonishingly marginal creativity, “meet me behind the school at three. I’m gonna beat the living crap out of you.”

When the bell rang that afternoon, I hung back, waiting for the last of my classmates to clear out. Miss Plotnick noticed my reluctance to leave.

“Is something wrong, Eric?”

“Sort of,” I said hesitantly, unsure how to broach the subject. She walked down the row and sat down at Doreen’s desk.

“What’s up?”

“Well,” I began, “I’ll probably be dead by nightfall, so this might not matter . . .”

“But you want me to stop calling on you so much.”

I looked up at her, startled.

“You don’t want the kids thinking you’re teacher’s pet. Am I right?”

I nodded. How on earth had she figured this out? Since she wasn’t beautiful, were her other senses heightened?

“Eric,” she said quietly, “do you see what I meant now? You were only popular because you were pretending to be someone you’re not. The minute you became who you really are once again, the popularity you thought you had disappeared.”

She looked me in the eye.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be popular, because you do. Just don’t bother trying to earn it with these idiots. Be yourself. Let the people who appreciate that find
you
. And they will.”

She squeezed my hand and got up and returned to her desk.

 

 

IF GOD WAS INVOLVED in this, he had decided to teach me a lesson. Perfect. Because I hadn’t had enough of those. I was grateful that Miss Plotnick was no longer hurt, but what was the point of forgiveness if I was dead?

Sure, I could sneak off campus and evade Willy today, but it was pointless to try—sooner or later, I’d have to pay the piper.

“Dear God,” I whispered as I walked the last mile to our three-o’clock showdown. “I sure don’t understand why you grant some magical requests and not others . . . but if you were in the mood to save a life right now, I wouldn’t mind if it were mine.”

As I turned the corner of the building, I stopped short. A fist was aimed directly at my face. I gasped.

“
Gotcha
, Pet,” Willy laughed.

I chuckled weakly. Was this how death would come? A single blow to the brain? I really should have written down some songs for my funeral service, I thought, like “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” and “Alone Again, Naturally,” so Mother and Dad would know what songs to play to make people cry.

“You’re probably wondering why I called this meeting,” he said casually, chewing a big wad of Dubble Bubble.

“Not really,” I replied. “It was pretty clear.”

“I’m a busy guy,” he said, obviously referring to his full schedule of intimidation and shakedowns. “And I’m offering you the chance to do all my Social Studies homework. Isn’t that great?”

Pinch me, I thought.

He stared at me, smiling. What was he waiting for? I closed my eyes and thought back to Tim, my grade-school bully, and how I had overcome him. Why didn’t I have the courage to overcome Willy? Please, God, I begged silently, let death come swiftly.

“Don’t you get it?”

I opened my eyes. Willy was still smiling, his fist by his side.

“If you’re doing my homework,” Willy said, “you’re still alive.”

 

 

THAT AFTERNOON, a deal was struck. And Willy began to protect me. In exchange for doing his homework, he was willing to be seen with me, at least occasionally. And he kept Kenny off my back.

The combination of Miss Plotnick’s heralding of my intellectual abilities and my no longer being the bull’s-eye in the bullies’ target began to draw a few other kids to me. And very slowly, I started to make a friend or two. It was no sea change in my status like I had experienced before, but it was something. And this time, it was honestly earned. Other than the passing-my-work-off-as-Willy’s part.

And I began to think that there might just be a method to God’s magic. Maybe he was still with me. Maybe he did grant requests. And maybe I should accept the magic he did grant with the knowledge that something larger was at work.

But it sure would be easier if I’d just been born an Elite.

H
ey, Cafeteria Queer.”

I don’t know what I’d been thinking. Throughout much of my freshman year at Hazelwood Central Senior High, I had eaten my noontime meal in the band room or at home—safe havens where I could avoid giving the bully brigade the opportunity to exercise a level of creativity that they justifiably considered far too precious and fleeting to waste on homework assignments.

On this day, however, I had decided to test the theory that, as a sophomore who’d proven myself as a committed member of several of the school’s bands—bands that supported the football team and backed the performers of the spring musical, for God’s sake—surely I was now viewed as integral to the fabric of the school. Perhaps even a sparkling rhinestone in that fabric.

“We don’t allow queers in the cafeteria.”

Tony Tropler and his gang of made men stood next to the table at which I sat with my friend Mitch McKirby, a bandmate whose hobbies of playing the clarinet and stamp collecting should, by all rights, have had Tony virtually calling dibs on him.

Without missing a beat, Mitch waved at someone in the distance who wasn’t there, picked up his tray and scurried off. I couldn’t blame him.

“I’m no queer,” I said, laughing with him at this ridiculous label.

“Wait, I got another one,” Tony said to his friends, obviously auditioning material for a new stand-up routine. “Hey, Lunch Lady. Where’s your hairnet?”

The friends snickered and elbowed one another with the easy camaraderie of men who killed for a living. Then, with a subtle push designed to be undetectable to the cafeteria monitor, Tony sent my lunch tray clattering to the floor.

“Whoops.”

“Oh, no problem,” I gushed, as I leaned over to pick up the dishes. Food was smeared across the floor. “Accidents happen.” I stood up. “Be right back. Gotta get some fresh dog barf!”

I rushed across the cafeteria to the food line and, when Tony turned away, slipped through the door leading to the band room.

Sophomore year was not exactly beginning with a bang.

My parents were, fortunately, clueless about this persecution. At home, I chose to suffer in silence—a sort of Gandhi with platform shoes—highlighting only the positive aspects of my school experience by showing my parents the caveat-laden praise of my junior high band director, who had written in my eighth-grade yearbook, “Stick with it, Eric. You’re
finally
starting to show
signs
of
becoming
a good trumpet player.” (He included the italics.)

Val, on the other hand—as a recent graduate of the school and a member of the popular set—knew the truth, and was gracious enough to discuss it with me at length.

“Well, of
course
people hate you,” she said patiently as she applied extra-strength Sun-In to her hair. “I mean, you’re in the marching band, for God’s sake. That’s right up there with understanding algebra or crying in gym class.”

“Well, what do I do?” I said plaintively.

She gazed at herself thoughtfully in the mirror. “Good question. I don’t exactly see you punching people out.”

“ ‘Peace cannot be achieved through violence,’ ” I replied haughtily, “ ‘it can only be achieved through understanding.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

“Yeah, well, every now and then a good slug can do wonders.” She plugged in Mother’s portable suntan lamp. “But if you
have
to be a band geek—”

“Oh, I do,” I assured her.

“Then maybe you should try getting into the stage band.” She flipped on the sunlamp. “At least they’re a little cooler. I mean, they play music from this century.”

AS VAL BUSIED HERSELF frying her hair to a golden brown, I slipped down to the basement. I no longer had my Endora bedspread and, of course, as a nearly sixteen-year-old, considered the costumed conjuring I had once performed to be the silly ministrations of a child.

I was, however, becoming a bit more confident in my magical connection to God. And I now found myself in rather desperate need of his help, since the stage band—a group that played jazz and rock hits, and
was
rumored to have a measure of cool—was difficult to get into.