The Cheer Leader (2 page)

This is a B. J. that is out of line but I can't help thinking about it. It is a picture of my mother's mother, the same picture from the wedding except this time, she has been cut away from the group shot and blown up. Her dark hair is pulled back in a tight bun, and there is a slight smile on her face, her hand still raised in a wave. This is the only way that I know her and I have always felt slighted that she died before she saw me, that this is the only picture I can get of her. Every time that I have ever been to her grave, I see this face, beneath the dirt, inside that box, and it is a frightening thought because I know deep down that there is no trace of resemblance, that that slight smile that I have always wished had been smiled at me has long ago slipped into decay.

It is a very famous holiday but no one had taken the time to tell me about the historical figure that I came to admire so much. I am in Tiny Tots and I am afraid. This was my debut into social circles and although I did not know what I was feeling, I was feeling the need to be accepted and liked by the other children. I sat on a big red fire truck so as to call attention to myself in the picture but then a boy knocked me off and handed me the tambourine that he had been playing with. I did not know how to use it because I have never been musically inclined, so it was just as well when a girl that I did not know from Adam's housecat took it away from me. It was in this very scene that I was introduced into Survival of the Fittest but I did not feel very fit so I wandered onto the floor and started spinning with some other people to this song called “I'm spinning, spinning like a top,” but I got dizzy and had to sit down at one of those little tables. I was sitting across from a girl who wore glasses and she was doing something that Bobby had just taught me to do. She was crossing her eyes and I realized that for the first time I had found someone who shared an interest with me. “Hey, I can do that, too,” I told her and crossed mine. The teacher saw me and slapped my hand, pulled me away from the girl and told me that what I had done was not nice at all. I cried the rest of the day, because I felt guilty, because I was worried that my eyes were going to cross and get stuck as punishment for what I had done.

This is my Kindergarten class. The only difference between Kindergarten and Tiny Tots was that we had a different teacher and it was called Kindergarten instead of Tiny Tots. We did the same things such as dance to “I'm spinning, spinning like a top” and shake tambourines (which I had mastered). I had learned that Killing with Kindness is a good way to combat Survival of the Fittest (a method that I clung to for years); I could get anything that I wanted and maintain a sense of moral superiority. I was becoming fitter all the time. I also learned that the girl who had caused me to get into trouble way back in Tiny Tots had a name, Beatrice, and often, I would try to make up with her by telling her that I liked her dress even when I didn't (a tactful lie which should be distinguished from damn lies and bald-faced ones). Beatrice would have nothing to do with me when I gave these compliments. This made me feel worse and I would try even harder to make her forgive me. In the very second of this picture (we are all lined up in front of the jungle gym) I whispered to Beatrice that I liked her shoes (a tactful lie, they are hideous brown patent leather orthopedic looking shoes) and she would not even say thank you. I decided that if Beatrice did not want to be popular, that was her red wagon.

This picture documents a holiday, the day that would determine the weather for the next six weeks of 1963.
Everyone kept talking about the groundhog and I thought that I would like to meet this pig because we shared similar interests. Like the groundhog, I wanted very much to live in a nice dark hole where no one could see me and forecast the weather. I felt like everyone was watching me and spying on me and that is why, here, I am dressed as an old lady with a scarf on my head, Mama's high heels and a red bathrobe. Daddy thought that I was playing dress-up which is why he took the picture. I could not explain to him the very serious reasons that led me to adopt this costume. It was my disguise and it made me think wonderful poetic thoughts that I could not think at Kindergarten for fear that someone would hear me. Beatrice was a prime suspect because she was always so intent on whatever she was doing. When she shook the tambourine, she watched every single silver jingle (rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia) and when she finger-painted, she studied her hands very carefully. Beatrice had new glasses that made her eyes unstick and I was convinced that if she chose to see what I was thinking, that she could do it. I wanted to make friends with Beatrice so that she would not do this to me, but she still was not interested in being popular. I was popular at Kindergarten but when I dressed in my old lady suit, I had a lot in common with Beatrice because I had very intense thoughts. I can't remember when I outgrew the red bathrobe and replaced it with a blue one. I can't remember when Beatrice decided that she wanted to be popular, can't remember when her eyes lost all semblance of intensity, can't remember if the groundhog saw
his shadow in 1963, can't remember if he saw it this past year or not, but I can understand why he hides when he does see it.

I am at Lisa Helms' birthday party and we are all in the first grade. She is the one in the center with the thin bird face, sticking out her tongue. This is a symbol of the future, for at her next party, when we are all in the sixth grade, she will bring out an egg timer to see who can French kiss the longest. The boy on the far right, back row, with the black crew cut and simian features is Ralph Craig. He will win the future contest first with Lisa and then with Tricia McNair who will not move to Blue Springs until the third grade. (She will be a knockout with lots of sex appeal.) The girl standing beside me with long dark hair (she's the one doing horns over Lisa Helms) is my best friend, Cindy Adams. When we all leave the party, Lisa will give out the favors (which was usually the best part of a party). The boys will get plastic army tanks and the girls will get toilet water. I will pour mine into the commode that night only to discover that Lisa gave us rip-off favors; after one flush, it is gone.

Looking back on that event, I cringe at my ignorance. Beatrice never would have made such an error but then again, Beatrice didn't have the chance; she was not invited to that party. All of the other girls were coming to school with Lisa's toilet water behind their ears and for weeks, I was afraid that someone was going to ask me
why I wasn't wearing some of mine. My Daddy thought the whole situation was very funny; my mother offered to buy me a whole Tussy kit so that I could get some more toilet water and still, it bothered me. It seemed that Beatrice and I were the only girls in first grade who smelled only of soap, clothes detergent and whatever we had for breakfast.

Here we all are back in the front yard. It is Bobby's tenth birthday and we all have on hats with yellow streamers coming off the top. Bobby is standing beside his new red bike and he is holding up both hands for ten. I hold up seven fingers; Daddy doesn't have enough fingers to hold up so he just smiles, and Mama (with a look of discomfort on her face) holds up little Andrew who cannot even hold up his head and therefore, cannot keep his hat on. It keeps sliding forward and he looks like a little slobbering aardvark. Mr. Monroe (who still lives next door and is even fatter than before) takes the picture and catches little Andrew's spittle right before it hits Mama's blouse.

Looking back, I can remember seeing that slobber hit Mama's blouse and run down her left bosom. She squealed and again got a look of discomfort. I realize now that this look did not come solely from the slobbered upon blouse but just from little Andrew in general. You see, (unlike me) Andrew was not planned or on the up and up. It was like playing Bingo and not really concentrating; covering
all four corners and not even realizing; meekly yelling “bingo” as an echo to another bingoer and even though you have bingo, you lose. Mama was not prepared; when I am a Girl Scout some years in the future, I learn that that is something you must always be. Like me, Mama has changed her mind on a few occasions. In the future she claims that little Andrew (Andy) is a “blessing,” “the sunshine of her life.” And like Mama, I can honestly say that I, too (though it may be hard to believe), have screwed up once or twice.

This is the second grade class. I am circled on the front row where the short people stand. I look a little disturbed because Ralph Craig had just asked, “Why do cherry trees stink?” He did not even give anyone time to think of an answer before he said, “George Washington cut one.” That was the worst joke that I had ever heard and it upset me that I had actually heard a “bad” and nasty joke, and especially about the father of the country. In due time, however, the joke did not bother me, because I had heard far worse, because I had suddenly realized that George was a person and naturally he had cut one; he had cut several. What has bothered me from time to time is that cherry tree in general and that whole little story about “I cannot tell a lie, it was I.” I tend to think that the story itself is a lie. There is no proof, no picture of him standing there, guiltily, with his little hatchet. It is merely a way to provide insight into the father of our country.
I have heard another story about him that is shunned in the schoolroom. I have heard that he died of syphilis and pneumonia, the former which he got from someone other than Martha and the latter which he got on his way to see the carrier of the former. It seems to me that that is more historical than the cherry tree or the euphemistic approach that he caught his cold (and nothing more) while standing in that horrid little icy boat crossing the Delaware; yet, people just don't want to discover or accept a change in history, because it is easier to believe what everyone else believes. It is why there is religion, songs hit the charts, skirts rise and fall, the emperor made such an ass of himself strutting around in his underwear. It is why at one point in my life, those people close to me wore kid gloves, went out of their way to abnormally make everything seem so normal. No one had the guts to tell me that I was hanging by a thread, not for fear of my reaction as much as their own fear of an inconsistency, a change. It was far easier to say that I had had a “little upset,” was “going through a phase.” And so it goes, truth sacrificed for ease, which is why George will forever be the honest, truthful father of our country and why I was May Queen. It's all relevant. “I cannot tell a lie” is important and fucking out on Martha is not. “Little problems” are acceptable and so on.

It was a very important day but we still had to go to school. This is a picture that I drew myself. There is the
Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Marie (just like in the song). The good-looking man in the navy London Fog (he's on top of the Nina) is Chris and the woman on the other side of the ocean is the queen. Her little balloon of speech says, “Way to go, Chris!” and his says, “I have discovered America.” I have discovered that I was not artistically inclined. However, when I drew the picture, I thought that I had done an excellent representation. The teacher said so, too (a polite encouraging lie). Now, I see that the entire picture is rather flat when the whole point was to prove roundness. Chris' arms are much too long (for this is not a picture of evolution, another favorite topic) and he should probably have a beard after being on that ship so long. The man most definitely deserves some sexy feature, a cleft in his chin, narrowed tempting eyes, or even a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He deserves something but it is too late to rectify my past ignorance. Then, I spent much of my time wondering where the New World would be if Chris hadn't found it. Even now, sometimes, I think about all of that. Right out of the blue, I will think, “Columbus had balls” because he took a chance, because he did not base his beliefs on what other people thought, because he discovered the truth. I admire that because chances are hard to take, the truth is often difficult to face, because somewhere in the back of his mind, there must have been a slight doubt, a slight fear of finding himself clinging to the edge of the world, dropping into that pit of darkness that everyone else “knew” was there. And yet, he kept
going after the bit of proof that was necessary for his beliefs.

Cindy is having a Halloween party and I am the one at the back with the white sheet on. I knew that my costume was not original but I liked the way that it felt inside of the sheet; I felt like I was in bed and dreaming the party. Tricia McNair, the new girl in the third grade, was one of four black cats. She is the cute black cat lying down in front of the group with her long black tail held up for all to see. For a new person, she was not the least bit shy and had been immediately accepted. Beatrice was an old person (she is the black cat wearing glasses) and yet, she still was not fully accepted. I have always thought that there should be some logical theorem behind all of that, some correlation between new people and old people, but I have never figured it out. Ralph Craig, whom you will recognize by now, claimed to be a stoplight which is why he has a red dot painted on his forehead. Tricia McNair, right after the picture was made, won the prize for the best costume which really wasn't fair to the other three black cats, but I didn't voice my concern. It was much easier to stay in my sheet and not call attention to myself. Besides, being a ghost was so unoriginal that I felt by doing it, I had been original. I suppose that deep down, I felt that I deserved the prize, not the physical prize, for what did I care for a tacky little plastic jack-o'-lantern, but the title, the recognition that
went along with it. I consoled myself throughout the party first by congratulating Tricia McNair and then by telling myself that my turn would come. Besides, I was not yet ready to expose myself.