Why I Don't Write Children's Literature (13 page)

THE BUST OF A POET

In the spring of 1989, hustling along the second floor of Dwinelle Hall at
UC
Berkeley, I noticed the bust of a poet on a tall pedestal. Like a troublesome child, it had been assigned to a corner. The quality of the veined and milky marble (imported from Italy?) was anyone's educated guess, but the level of workmanship was evident. Here was the work of an artisan handy with chisel and hammer, with the muscular assignment of capturing a poet for eternity. I stopped because of the sculpture's desecration: a piece of gum was stuck to the bridge of the poet's nose.

As I was on the teaching faculty, I had strode past this bust many times, but had never paused to view it as art, or to read the bronze caption, or to pay homage. How had the sculpture ended up on the second floor? Why not the first floor, or near the English Department in Wheeler Hall? Moreover, who was this poet? Had he studied here and made the institution proud? Had he once taught classics? Had he bequeathed bags of silver dollars to the university? This last was unlikely, I'll admit — most poets live by their wits. They are inept at handling money and dispense
IOU
s that are seldom recouped.

That spring day, as I beheld the lump of gum on the poet's slender nose, I figured that some wisenheimer had been at work, a sophomore living up to his name. The crudeness of the act made me grimace. Still, I didn't bother to peel off the wad — or to reflect on my own chewing gum, exercising my back molars. Instead, I seized upon the irony of the moment: weren't poets supposed to be seers and anarchists of sorts, drunken troublemakers, wild as bramble? But with gum on his nose, this poet had become a clown. Moreover, I began to question
him
. If you were such a hotshot, I asked, why are you here in a corner and not the centerpiece of some world-renowned think tank or writing center set on a leafy hill? For a few seconds — little ticks of an angry clock — I was delighted by this childish prank. This poet of minor rank deserved that lump on his snout! He should have written better!

I swung through a glass door bearing student and faculty fingerprints, all of us guilty of inaction. Why should we have cared about this wordsmith? We had things to do and, like Frost, miles to go before we slept.

* * *

Twenty-three years later I woke from a deep sleep, regretting my inaction. An unpleasant feeling had caught up with me, and it was breathing from exhaustion. Perhaps he had not been a great poet or even a nice person. But why hadn't I done my duty in 1989 and, with a vigorous finger, scratched that gum off? I wasn't happy with myself —
hateful, so hateful!

I padded to the kitchen, slightly hungover, and poured myself a mug of coffee. Then I returned to bed, propped two pillows against the headboard, and reviewed my failings.
Shameful,
I brooded.
Shameful! Shamefully high-and-mighty!

Birds scolded loudly in our yard while the neighbor's dog barked — minor punishments at the start of a new day. I looked out the window: our cat was staring up a tree. I did my own scolding through the window, telling my cat to go away. He looked over at me, blinked indifferently, then continued staring up the tree.

I closed the window, sipped my coffee, and began to wonder about the forgotten poet. I could imagine his personal history: twice married, twice loved, twice a widower. A blue blood, he survived on the legacy of a deceased great aunt from New England. No, he was a panhandler who worked the wharf . . . no, an architect who favored the oriental style at the turn of the century . . . no, a doctor who wrote his verse at night, by the trembling glow of candlelight. He published five slender books of poetry and two on his travels to Formosa and Siam — two countries that actually existed in his roving days. He also wrote a play, but this creation failed to attract an audience beyond family and friends. He once rode a buffalo for all of ten seconds, and managed to climb the coldest shadows of Mount Shasta. He died with both hands in his pockets, as if searching for a pencil.

When these conjectures didn't help, I returned to the kitchen.

Fortified by a second cup of coffee, I remembered my particular shame when Sister Guadalupe caught me chewing gum in third grade, gliding up to my desk and scolding, “Let's see!” I was so scared that I nearly wet my pants. I opened my mouth and displayed the wad — oh why hadn't I spat it out after recess, when the sweetness was all gone?

“I knew it!” the nun exclaimed. Her eyes grew huge, and her jaw set. She pushed at me with a long, veined finger, translucent as marble. She had skinny wrists, a skinny neck, and a skinny waist cinched by black beads. Prodded by her finger, I walked to the front of the class while my classmates watched in fright, some with crayons in their hands, ready to draw this humbling moment. None snickered at me. All knew well, I believe, that it could have been them. Catholic school was no fun. To entertain ourselves, we clapped erasers of chalk dust and pretended we were in limbo. That was all the fun we got.

With everyone watching, I spat my gum into my palm and momentarily examined its ugly, wet shape. Then Sister Guadalupe made me stick that putty on my nose. When it dropped dishonorably to the floor, I had to pick it up and, like a punch, smash it on my nose again.

This memory prompted me to get dressed and drive to
UC
Berkeley where, twenty years ago, I had boxed up my books, written a brief letter of resignation, and left to begin my happy life. I parked, strained up a hill, then descended into a valley of construction. The campus had grown. Even the students seemed bigger — or perhaps I, now in my sixties, was beginning to shrink.

I went into Dwinelle Hall, climbed the steps, and pulled open the glass door. There I faced the poet, who was still in the corner. I kept my distance for a respectable moment before approaching him. This time, there was no defacing wad of gum stuck to his nose. Perhaps a historian with a bigger heart than mine had taken care of it. Or maybe a female professor of Portuguese had used a small stepladder, climbing carefully up to remove the gum with a dainty hanky.

I approached the poet's bust as if it were an altar, a place of worship, or a monument that no one else visits. Close up, I could see that he had been handsome, ruggedly so, with the face of a laborer more than a wordsmith. Maybe he had worked with wood or stone. For sure, he was marble now. With the gum gone, he looked dignified. The only honor I could pay him was to lift a hand and wipe the dust of neglect from his farseeing eyes. He was no Milton, no Blake, no Whitman. He had disappeared during the 1930s, overtaken by a new generation. Still, he was poet who had traveled his own poor journey. I cleaned him up as best I could, even ran my hand over his dusty marble hair. Then I took a few steps backward and saw a gum wrapper at the base of the pedestal. I picked it up and squeezed it with all my might.

BUSINESS CALLS

I picked up the phone on the third ring. Before I could say brightly, “Soto and Friends,” our company name, the boy on the other end said flatly, “I farted.” I held the phone away from my ear; as it was 8:40 a.m. Pacific time, the little stinker was probably calling from two time zones away. He would already have been in school for several periods, long enough to get sent to the principal's office for spitting a mouthful of water at a classmate — or some such goofy behavior. I could hear laughter and the scrape of chairs: Tom Sawyer with a cell phone, pestering the world with juvenile pranks.

But why call me? Because I'm a fairly well-known writer of poetry, short stories, and novels for kids; therefore, I am a phone target. Also, because kids can't reach Justin Bieber or Selena Gomez. But for pennies on the minute, a boy can connect with me, or at least try. Perhaps he made the call on a dare, or to impress a girl standing at his side. And why is it always boys who annoy the public? Just because, just because . . .

I slowly lowered the phone as the boy laughed and repeated that he had farted. I pictured him in an oversize Dallas Cowboy's T-shirt, freckled, splay-eared, hair buzzed, smiling like a jack-o-lantern as he annoyed others anonymously. I also pictured him white. Black and Latino kids are beyond this sort of joke by the time they're eleven, while Asians, invariably with better grades, ask, “Why do that?”

I stared momentarily at the phone, our primary instrument of business, then gazed out my office window. On the lake below, the ducks formed a V-shape, gliding effortlessly across the surface. A bicyclist — and suddenly two more — whizzed dangerously along Wild Cat Canyon Road. A stand of eucalyptus moved in unison, as the wind moved through them. I reflected that I had no complaints in life — and then the phone rang again. This time my prankster was breathing like Darth Vader. When he laughed, a sidekick chimed in with, “Fuck.” The third time he called, I let the machine take it; he didn't leave a message. It was boring without me on the other end, telling him to go jump off a bridge.

So, dear reader, this is the sound of commerce in the middle of the week. I offer my books by Internet and by phone, and will sell to school districts by way of institutional purchase orders. When teachers call, I find them nice. They often want me to visit their schools and do some storytelling. Sometimes, for a modest fee, I tank up my Saturn and drive two or three hours, the sun climbing above the eastern horizon. I sign in at the front desk and wear a sticker on my chest that says “Visitor.” I visit with youth and smile from the time I arrive until the time I leave.

I recall one school in the San Joaquin Valley, where the kids sat on the cafeteria floor. I was struggling to be heard over an ice machine in the corner and the huge industrial refrigerator in the kitchen. The janitor was mopping the hallway, whistling “Cielito Lindo.” I was shiny from embarrassment — these words of mine, golden on the page, sounded plain boring when recited over the low rumble of a mower cruising a distant lawn. I ad-libbed and stuttered, but like the mower, I kept going.

Above all this noise, I heard a kid burp — loudly and without much shame. I stopped my reading, relieved that something had occurred beyond my failure to connect. The kid looked at me looking at him. His face was freckled, white, and plain as bread. We kept a long silence before he explained with some politeness, “Soda, not you.”

THE SEAL OF APPROVAL

How was it possible for me to anger my first-grade teacher, Miss Yamamoto? I must have pushed her buttons somehow — or perhaps, with a dirty finger, I had actually pressed a button on her dress. In any event, she yanked my right arm, then my left arm, and began to haul me judiciously to the front of the class. I did my best to slow our wiggly scuffle up the aisle. When I grabbed the edge of a desk, however, she pried my fingers loose. I grabbed another desk, and again she unbuckled my fingers. I cried for her to stop, then dragged my shoes, drawing black marks on the wooden floor. At the front of the room, she lifted me up and swiftly turned me around to face my classmates, all twenty or so. Some of them I liked very much, like my best friend Darrell, and the ponytailed girl I'd chosen as my girlfriend. She had lost her front baby teeth the week before, and her smile was precious.

Miss Yamamoto, I thought you were the nicest lady in the whole world — so tall and so pretty! Once a week you honored one student with the “Seal of Approval” for the tidiest desk. The seal was a stuffed one, black and white with a red bowtie — and fuzzy. Every Thursday morning we rushed into class and excitedly lifted the tops of our desks to see if we had earned the prize. The lucky winner would hug the seal and pet its fuzzy head.

A sloppy boy, I would glare jealously, with the wings of my shoulders slouched. I yearned to spit on the winners and step on their shoes. My best friend got it, and my girlfriend got it, and a stupid boy on our block got it. By springtime, the seal had been hugged to death; after the bowtie fell off, it resembled a rat. Why wasn't the Seal of Approval ever mine, Miss Yamamoto? I tried to arrange my books nice, one book facing this way, the other that way; I even blew all the eraser rubbings from the tub of my metal desk. Was my finger painting warped from erratic scrubbing? Were my pencils blunt and tooth-marked?

Miss Yamamoto, I pressed the button that sparked your anger. At the front of the class you shook me, you held my struggling arms, you yelled at me to
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
Then, breathing hard, you brushed your hair behind your ears and asked, “How many want Gary to go the principal's office?” I relaxed my arms and stood open-mouthed, watching the entire class raise their hands. I looked at Darrell with his hand up, then lowered halfway, and then pushed up again. And my girlfriend? Her hand was among the first to be raised, as if she knew the answer before the teacher had asked the question. She was even wiggling her fingers.

Out the door I went. This was before recess, this was before lunch, this was a Wednesday — just one day before the Seal of Approval would be placed, so nicely, inside a tidy child's desk. I walked myself down the hallway, stopping at a drinking fountain that offered only a dribble — was another nice teacher flushing the toilet on the other side of the brick wall? I continued down the hallway. Familiar with this routine, I sat in the office and placed my hands in my lap. I swung my legs, slowly at first and then fast and high, until the secretary behind her fortress of a desk told me to knock it off.

Then I remembered: I had torn a page from a picture book. I stood up and took the page from my back pocket. I looked at it:
Green Eggs and Ham
. It meant nothing to me, but now it was another page in my big book of childhood mistakes. The week before, I'd thrown mud at a girl. The week before that, my error had involved a kickball — that's right, I'd kicked it over the fence when the stupid boy on third didn't score when he'd had the chance. I'd walked off the school grounds then, spent some time in an alley.

The secretary stood up, came around the counter, and loomed over me. For a moment, I expected her to shake me — just like nice Miss Yamamoto. But when she saw that my shirt buttons were in the wrong holes, she re-buttoned them, combed my hair, then led me into the principal's office. The door closed behind me with them click of a cocked rifle.

I never got the Seal of Approval in all of first grade and I don't expect it's going to happen now, so to hell with that ugly thing anyway. Just last week, a radio reporter, noticing the list of ten favorite writers on my website, shook me herself, asking why not one black writer had been included. Was I going to stand in front of the class again, without defending myself? I kicked that question over the fence: let the arguing begin.