Somebody Else’s Kids (34 page)

Ariadne Boom fingered her chin and walked away from me. My silence had been long enough that she became distracted and I escaped that question once more.

One of the women, a young woman perhaps not much older than I, spoke. “We were over at that special class for the profoundly retarded this morning.”

“Oh, you mean Betsy Kerry’s class?” I asked.

Dr. Boom nodded. “Quite a group of children she has. And Birk tells me she comes straight from the regular classroom to teach those children.”

I had to smile to myself. Betsy was one of our special people. Younger than I, no experience in special education at all, she was the only teacher in the district who was game enough to volunteer for that class after repeated advertisements had failed to turn up any interested applicants and the class was in danger of closing. She had eight kids all under ten, none of them toilet trained, few of them speaking, some of them not even able to walk. She and her two aides lived in a sort of controlled chaos six hours a day. Yet it was one of the best classrooms I had ever observed. Betsy loved those kids and they loved her. What she lacked in training and experience, she made up in sheer guts. And I knew that Betsy, like I, would never go back to the regular classroom if she had the choice.

I said this to Dr. Boom.

Dr. Boom shook her head. “I don’t know though. I couldn’t follow her methods too well. For the most part it seemed to me that she was just going around coping the best she could.”

I mentioned that she must have noticed that that was pretty much what I had been doing all afternoon too.

“Ah no, Torey,” she replied in a confidential tone. She then went on to explain that I, with my master’s degree and doctoral training in special education, had been given the expertise Betsy did not have. I, she said, like she herself, functioned within the framework of our knowledge. “We have the training, the background. We are not merely coping. We know.”

I stared at her. Maybe that was it. Maybe she
did
know. Maybe that was why she oozed such incredible confidence. But as for me in here with my children, I sure as hell didn’t know. And what a price I would have paid for such knowledge. To straighten out the circuitry of Lori’s brain, to open up the world of people and feelings and words to Boo, to give Claudia happiness or release Tomaso from his father’s grave, I would gladly have gotten ten more degrees. But I was no better than Betsy and her idiots. My days, day in, day out, were one ceaseless string of copings. Coping and hoping and getting along the best we could. The university education, the experience, the training had answered few, if any, questions. Indeed, they only magnified for me how little I knew. And how little I probably ever would.

Dr. Boom had walked away from me, over to the bulletin board with Boo’s, Lori’s and my picture of the flower garden with blue birds. Thoughtfully she examined it. “You still haven’t told me what model you operate under, Torey.”

“That’s because I don’t know.”

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Oh, come on now. You have to have some model for treating these children. Of deciding what to change and how to do it.”

I shrugged. “I change what I surmise I have a chance at changing. The rest I accept, at least until I can figure out what to do about it. That’s all. Nothing fancy.”

“But what are your goals?”

“To make them humane. And strong enough to survive.”

She smiled. A knowing smile. “You’re young still. And still an idealist, aren’t you?”

“I hope so.”

The children returned and we resumed our activities. My outlook had changed entirely from the one I had had before recess. I was filled with a sadness I could not identify. I caught myself watching Ariadne Boom and wondering how it was she came to be the way she was. Was it a wearing down? Did all this pathos finally overpower a person? Had she been too long in too many classrooms? I knew she did not see any blue birds here in my garden. They did not sing to her as they did to me. I felt morbid fear. Could I too become like that, a woman immersed in things which did not fully kiss her?

The remainder of the day went quietly. Only Boo remained edgy. He sat on my lap as we worked. The others were shy but well behaved. After the bell rang and I had seen everybody out, I returned to Dr. Boom and her companions.

“I want to thank you for letting us come,” she said. “Birk was right about you. This is a remarkable classroom.”

I made muffled, embarrassed sounds.

“But I want to ask you something. And I want your honest feelings.”

“Yes?”

“You are a gifted teacher, you know that. Why are you wasting yourself here?”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Here with these children who’ll never amount to anything. I was sitting over there earlier and watching you with the autistic boy. And I was thinking, how
depressing
. There isn’t one of them you’re going to save. You ought to get yourself into university teaching or some other place where you can do some real good. You shouldn’t waste yourself here.”

I did not answer. Civilized behavior, I believe, is more often measured by what a person restrains himself from doing than by what he does.

M
ay is the month for special programs. Mother’s Day programs, May Day programs, end-of-the-year programs. The fifth grade was putting on a play. The entire school was sponsoring a talent show. The kindergarteners and first graders were presenting a special performance of songs and poems for mothers. Dozens of little heads adorned with paper flowers bobbed up and down outside our door for weeks.

We were doing nothing. In previous years when I had had a self-contained class, we had always arranged a special program for the parents. This year I could not manage it. With just four children, two of whom could not read, one who would not talk and one who was eight months pregnant, I could not think of anything for them to do. In the end I decided to do nothing because I did not have enough time or enough help or enough ideas.

This was fine with three of the children. Lori, of course, was outraged. If she had remained in Edna’s class she would have gotten to be a woodland flower, wear paper tulips in her hair and sing “Now Merry Little Daisy Faces Say Hello to Spring.” Libby had brought home her headgear and had taught Lori all the words to the songs. We were mercilessly plagued with Lori’s rather inglorious singing voice as she serenaded us. Worse, she hauled in Libby’s paper tulips. When she would not let up on the business, I finally became angry with her and told her if she wanted to go back to Edna’s room and be a stupid flower, for pete’s sake, go, but quit bothering us because we just could not manage a May program. That evoked tears and a lot of pouting, lower lip pushed out an inch. I felt very evil for having gotten impatient and tried to apologize, but Lori was in no mood to be placated.

The issue would not die. One Friday afternoon I had brought in my guitar. That in itself was not novel. We had no other way of making music. But this occasion sparked ideas.

“Hey, I know what we can do!” Lori cried. She had been at my feet on the floor but leaped up in a burst of excitement. “I know, I know! We can be in the talent show. Us four. And you can play the guitar.”

My gut crinkled. I am no performer and the mere thought gave me stage fright.

“Oh, that’s a dumb idea,” Tomaso said. “What would we do?”

“Sing, stupid,” Lori replied.

“I’m not stupid, you are. If you think we’re going to get up and sing at some crappy talent show, you’re crazy. We don’t got no talent, for one thing.”

A crestfallen expression. She looked sad so successfully that Tomaso weakened.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t a
really
stupid idea. Just a little stupid.”

Lori sat down and braced her cheeks with both fists. No words to any of us.

“Lor,” I said, “I know you really want to do something. It would be exciting to have a program. But right now we aren’t in very good shape for it. Boo only knows one song and I don’t think they’d like to hear “Bingo” at the talent show. Claudia’s almost ready to have her baby. And that leaves just Tomaso, you and me.”

“And
I
sure don’t want to do it!” Tomaso said.

“And Tomaso doesn’t want to do it, so that leaves just you and me, Lor. I don’t think that’s enough for an act. Besides, I don’t even play the guitar very well. Just sort of good enough for us in here.”

Her head was still down, lower lip out. No reasoning her out of this one. “We don’t sing that bad,” she muttered. “It’s just nobody wants to do it.” A resentful glare. “And we coulda put tulips in our hair and everything.”

Tomaso made a face but I gave him the evil eye.

“If I’da been in the real first grade, I woulda got to
be
in a play. I woulda got my own flowers and everything. If I coulda stayed in real first grade.” Abruptly there were tears over her cheeks. “But you made me come in this stupid kid’s class and now I’m not ever gonna be in a play. And it’s your fault.” Trembling with her distress, she turned and stomped off across the room. On the far side by the closet, she hid her face in her hands against the wall and wept.

We all watched her in surprise. Nothing in the situation had caused me to believe she was so upset. Bewilderment kept us all immobilized an overlong moment.

It must have been hard. Hard being seven and relegated to the never-never land of a class like this. Hard wanting to be like everyone else and never quite understanding why you couldn’t be. I had underestimated Lori. I had believed that if I could get her away from all the pressure of things she was incapable of, away from the abuse and humiliation, that was all she needed. I was wrong. This was not where she wanted to be. My room was safer, easier, but it was second choice. If she had had her way – if she could have managed it – Lori would have been a “real” first grader. Even Edna was worth bearing for that. And I guess that was the way it should have been, normalcy winning out over exceptionality. She could never grow, wanting anything less. Yet for me it was painful. The agony came from knowing that my real job was to put myself out of business. The sadness came from realizing that as the custodian of never-never land, I, like my room, would always have to be willingly left behind.

I started up on the guitar again, strumming a few chords. Tomaso asked if we could sing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Tom liked that song because we had made up verses with each child’s name in it.

“He’s got the itty bitty baby in His hands,” we sang.

“He’s got you and me, brother, in His hands.”

Lori came back wet cheeked and sat down next to my feet.

“He’s got our little fellow, Boo, in His hands.”

Tomaso, Claudia and Boo were holding hands and swaying back and forth to the music.

“He’s got big, strong Tomaso in His hands.”

“He’s got our friend, Lori, in His hands.”

Lori smiled weakly up to me. I smiled back.

“He’s got Claudia and her baby in His hands.”

“Torey?” Lori tugged at my pants leg.

I stopped playing the guitar.

“Can we sing ‘He’s got this little class in His hands’?”

I nodded, and we sang. It was a good verse; we all liked it and so we sang it again. All four of them had their arms linked now and were swaying in time to the music. Tomaso started us in again on the first verse.

As they sang I watched them. Boo, impossible, imprisoned Boo, his ethereal appearance making him all the more unreal in this everyday world. Lori, whose dark eyes reflected the other children’s smiles even as the tears were still drying on her cheeks. Tomaso, whom I loved as much as I had ever loved any child, with his poignant, reckless vulnerability. Claudia, shy, earnest, unhappy, bulging Claudia. They were so beautiful to me, so far beyond anything for which I could find words.

Unexpectedly, tears blurred my vision. They were so beautiful and I was so helpless. There was too much to do here. At least for one person. And perhaps there always would be. Perhaps if I had an army of aides, an eternity of time and a university of scholars, it would never be enough for Boo or Lori, or even Tom or Claudia. I think I knew that. But it did not matter. Whatever Ariadne Boom might think, it did not matter. They were the world to me. Yet, as I sat strumming the guitar and watching them, I was overcome. I worked only for the moments of the day, the aches and grinds and brutal beauty of being human. That was enough for me; it was all I ever wanted. I was never troubled by the future. But them – they deserved more. And I was filled with immense sorrow because I knew I could never give it to them.

Sometimes this happened. Not often and never at times I would expect it. But little moments still possessed the power to break my heart. I could not sing.

Lori rose up on her knees and touched my arm. “How come you’re crying, Torey?”

“I’m not crying, love, my eyes just sting.”

She shook her head. “No sir. You’re crying. How come?”

I smiled. “I’m feeling sad because you can’t be in the first-grade program. You ought to be. And I wish there were just some way I could make it so you were.”

“Oh Torey, don’t cry about it. I don’t feel so awful bad, really. It doesn’t matter that much. I don’t really care.”