The Complete Roderick (26 page)

Roll me ooooover

In the cloooover

Miss Borden unreeled a gold chain with a tiny ballpoint pen at the end. ‘Okay Bill, spit it out.’

‘Shouldn’t you see the boy yourself first?’

‘He’s off today. Mr Wood’s taking him to the city I guess for some eye tests, anyway you have observed him?’

‘Yes, well no not in a direct observational, more in a peripherally informalized situ –’

‘You’ve seen him in the hall, I know. Go on.’

‘Yes, contacted him a few times in the hall and elicited a response or two, nothing def –’

‘How’s his reading?’

‘Reading skills, yes he did say he was having trouble with this new reader Mrs Dorano assigned.’

She marked on the yellow form. ‘Reading problem. I was afraid of that, now how does he get along with other kids?’

‘Socially he’s, there seems to be a nomenclatural mixup there, some difficulty with meaningful involvement in the cultural mainstream … maybe an identity crisis even; other kids keep calling him a robot you know? And when I asked him why, he said, “Because I am a robot.”’

She shook her head. ‘All too familiar these days, schizoid pattern: usually parents both work, kid’s alone too much –’

‘Divisive destructuring of the ego conceptualiza –’

‘That’s right. I ought to send him to George for a battery, I mean a battery of reassessment tests, only right now George has a pretty full case-load over at the junior high, you know what with that Russian roulette club –’

‘I imagine. How is the Vulich boy by the way?’

‘As well as can be expected, understand his parents are seeking a court order to have the machine turned off – where were we?’

‘Think we ought to do something, this Wood boy told me he dreams of skulls and scissor trees …’

‘Well sure, I’ll try to get George to fit him in, otherwise we’ll just have to let him go on thinking he’s a Martian – yes, at least we can send him to Ms Beek for some remedial, hand me one of those green forms will you, Bill? No, the
leaf green
ones …’

The new eye cost Pa and Ma a lot of money, but at least he could go right back to school. The other kids seemed glad to see him, even Chauncey.

Roderick couldn’t figure Chauncey out at all. Whenever they were alone, the bigger boy called him ‘Rick’, treated him like a pal, and even shared stuff with him, as now:

‘Hey Rick, wanna see some real dirty pitchers?’

‘Dirty?’

‘Yeah I found ’em in old Festy’s desk. And these really neat binoculars too, only Billy keeps ’em at home, me and him take turns with ’em. Here, take a look.’

He pulled up his sweater and fished out a dog-eared magazine,
Stud Ranch
. Hiding behind Ogilvy’s security hut in the corner of the playground (Ogilvy was never in it) they turned the pages and stared at pictures of people without clothes.

‘Hey looka that, wow!’

‘Yeah wow, but how come –’

‘Look, looka
that
! Boy they sure do weird stuff out West.’

A pair of people were wrestling like Bax and Indica. ‘Hey is it dirty because like this they wrestle on the ground or –?’

‘Naw, dirty is
dirty
, you know like sexy. Dincha never play doctors or nothing?’

Roderick said, ‘Sure, plenty of times. Once.’

‘Okay then. See this is how they get babies.’

‘
This?
With all this, these whips and spurs, this barb wire –?’

Chauncey hesitated. ‘Well sure. Must be, look it probably tells all about it here –’

‘Lemme see.’

Whoa there! While Calamity Jayne shucks her buckskins to saddle up for some bunkhouse fun, Miss Kitti is ‘bound’ to please some
lonesome cowpoke. But what’s Brazos gonna do with thet there branding iron?

‘They don’t get babies like that.’

‘Sure they do, ask anybody, ask Billy, when his old man’s cow had a calf, they tied a rope around her neck and look here at this one, this “necktie party girl” she’s got –’

‘Yeah but hey wait a minute why do they have to wear all this stuft?’

Chauncey said, ‘Look stupid, it’s called Stud Ranch so they all gotta wear these belts with studs, boy, when my little brother was born my old lady had to wear all kinds of stuff to keep the baby from coming out her belly button too soon I guess – hey wow, looka that rattlesnake – men don’t have babies because they take pills I guess – looka that, “Bathtime at the Rocking 69” – see we had all about it last year, these little tadpoles inside and the Vast Difference –’

‘Hahaha, looka that, he thinks this other guys a girl, look it says “When a gay cabaleero …” What’s a cabaleero anyway?’

‘Just some word, who knows. Wow! Looka that pair!’

‘Yeah, Colt .45 Peacemakers, the sheriffs got one like that only not so fancy … Hey but Chauncey, what about the tadpoles?’

‘Aw who cares, sex is too complicated. Let’s play guns, okay?’

But whenever he was with the gang, Chauncey called him ‘freaky’ and threatened to take a can-opener and rip his guts out. You just couldn’t figure out some people.

Roderick couldn’t figure out Mrs Dorano either. She was always telling the other kids to be especially nice to him because of his handy cap, and then when they passed out the readers she gave him a different one, real hard and no pictures at all, and all long words. He had to spend hours every night at home going through the dictionary, and it still didn’t make sense.

Billy agreed, it wasn’t fair. ‘Heck my reader’s okay. All about this here Dick and Jane and how their mother works hard at the car factory, and like how they get helped by Big Joe the social worker. How come yours is different, boy, I’d make a stink about that.’

‘Yeah, listen to this, it don’t make sense: “The actualization of catalyzing factors in inter-personal relationships is provided first
by the furtherance of participatory options within the framework of an unstructured data base of conceptual parameters, notwithstanding the counter-productive and often marginal motivational mix inducing affectual restructuring of the –” Shit man, this doesn’t even tell a story. I mean it’s supposed to be about this girl, a doll-scent girl, only here I am on page twenty one and they don’t even have her name down here yet.’

‘Boy, I’d make a stink –’

‘Yeah I guess it don’t matter now they’re switching me to Miz Beek for redeemial anyway, I got this other reader where they spell everything like it sounds …’

Jump. Jump. Jump.

See Bob jump.

Bob jumps on a fast wagon.

Bob gøz fastr ðan a skūl bus.

The hour started off well, with Miz Beek cheerful and pleasant. She sat with Roderick and two other kids around a little table. While they read aloud, she nodded and smiled and occasionally swallowed another of her little white pills.

But towards the end of the hour she no longer seemed to be listening. After making a quick note in her Teacher’s Manual, she got up and left the room.

‘I bet thee’th going wee-wee,’ said one of the kids. ‘Thee hath to go wee-wee.’

The other said, ‘L-let’s g-g-get outa here hey.’

‘But thee might come back after thee taketh a pith.’

The door opened, but it was only Mr Fest, telling them he knew all of their names and not to try anything just because Miz Beek was out of the room, understand?

‘Yethir, Mithter Fetht.’

‘Y-y-y – sure.’

‘I’m glad you know my name,’ said Roderick, ‘because everybody else around here keeps calling me –’

‘At ease! At ease! I don’t want to hear another peep outa this room.’

He went away. They waited.

‘Look, thee forgot her pillth. Let’th get high, come on.’

‘H-he-hell with that. I’m g-g-gonna s-sell these up in the eighth-graders’ c-c-c – toilet.’ The stammerer grabbed the pill bottle and ran out, chased by the lisper. Roderick waited until the bell rang, then leaned over and read Miz Beek’s note.

‘ðu īdeea uv kumbīniNg speeCh Thayrupee wiTh ree-meedyul reediNg iz just wun mōr exampul ov ðu braykdown ov ðu hōl godawful sistum HwiCh ðay keep erjiNg mee tu joyn (az ðō peepul wur glū …’

Nat walked him home from school. ‘I feel safer,’ he explained. ‘Not that I’m really afraid of Chauncey and his gang but heck, two of us got a lot better chance than one, right?’

‘Right.’ said Roderick. ‘I was just wondering you know, how come I read all right at home only at school everything goes wrong?’

‘Yeah? Hey, we could become blood brothers, pledge ourselves to fight to the death, back to back in case Chaun –’

‘Look, I ain’t got any blood.’

‘We could use oil then, you got oil.’

So Roderick tapped a few drops of hydraulic fluid and Nat took a drop of blood from his thumb, and they mixed them.

‘We both swear, right? To defend ourselfs against anybody even Chaunce, we swear on my blood and your oil. Brothers.’

‘Brothers.’

‘To the death.’

‘To the death.’ Roderick walked him to his door. ‘See you tomorrow ’

‘Not tomorrow, hey remember? We got the day off on account of Miz Beek drowning herself in the swimming pool.’

‘See you the day after, then. Brother.’

‘Okay brother.’

‘Settle down, all of you,’ said the principal. ‘I’m not even going to start until you’re quiet. What’s more, no one goes home until we finish here, understood?’

They shifted uneasily, and one or two who had been glancing through the pages of
Educationalist Today
sat up straight.

‘That’s better. Now you all know why I’ve called this special
meeting. But in case anyone hasn’t seen today’s
Herald
, let me read it out to you.’

‘ROBOT’ BOY AT NEWER SCHOOL: MORE INSANITY?

Following the alleged suicide of a teacher at Newer Public School (Stubbs Cty) come rumours of serious mental disturbances among the pupils. Teachers have confirmed that at least one boy thinks he is a mechanical robot.

The boy, Robert Wool, ‘acts just like a little machine,’ according to second-grade teacher Mrs Delia Dorano. He believes he has mechanical grappling hooks for hands, and tank tracks in place of feet. ‘Robert doesn’t even answer to his name,’ she said. ‘No wonder, what with the constant harping on sex and filth everywhere you look. We must protect our children from the sex-merchants of the state educational system.’

‘George George, school psychologist, blamed the computerizing of modern society, including our schools. ‘We have teaching machines, testing machines, magnetic report cards,’ he said. ‘Where do we stop?’ According to another source, books in the school library have been keypunched on to IBM cards which are unreadable. Said George, ‘It’s getting like Brig Bother around here.’ Mr George is the brother of Hal George, prominent hog auctioneer.

Russian Roulette Club

Newer Junior High, like Newer P.S., has had its share of tragedies. Last year Beanie Vulich, 16, became the first tragic victim of the school’s ‘Russian roulette club’, whose members made use of a school computer to select a duelling pistol at random from a number …

‘It goes on,’ she said, ‘to mention drugs sold openly in the eighth-grade washroom, thefts and vandalism, and a security man with a drink problem. Any comments?’

Ogilvy was the first to speak. ‘Not fair,’ he said. ‘Buncha lies and distortions. Like sure I take a drink now and then, but they make it sound like I spend all day lying in an alley somewheres with a bottle of Tokay in a paper bag.’

‘What really bothers me,’ said Miss Borden, ‘is the way certain
people are using this tragic suicide as an excuse to whine about their own pet peeves.’ She looked at Mrs Dorano. ‘Certain people are going to be sorry they ever opened their big –’

‘The truth will out,’ said Mrs Dorano. ‘You can’t suppress –’

Mr Goun jumped to his feet. ‘Suppress, who the hell are you to talk about –?’

At the same time Mr George said, ‘How did I know they were going to print it that way? I didn’t think you’d take my criticism in a personalized way, rather than in a societally –’

‘Filth and corruption driving that young woman to –’

Captain Fest said, ‘Self-discipline, a hard line, lest we forget, moulding Americans, shaping the future –’

‘– nothing but plain murder, no better than abor –’

‘– catalyzing factors –’

‘– easy way out, no backbone, no self-discip –’

‘– building a bridge –’

‘
Quiet.
’ Miss Borden looked at George. ‘You all disappoint me, you especially, George. Whining to the papers behind my back instead of getting down to work – My God, you’re the school psychologist. We pay you to fix these kids.’

‘Fix? Fix? You talk as if they were a bunch of machines! What do you suggest, I get out the old tool-kit and maybe tighten up a few loose screws here and there?’

Mrs Dorano clapped her hands over her ears. ‘I won’t listen to that filth – I won’t!’

Captain Fest muttered, ‘Like to fix that little Robert whatsis-name myself. Hear he refuses to pledge allegiance to his country’s flag. You give him to me for a week, I’ll knock the robot crap out of him.’

George turned on him. ‘Knock the crap out of him, all you can think of, right? If you had the slightest understanding Look, what you ought to be doing is using his problem, making it work for us, for him. I mean, if he thinks he’s a robot maybe he should be on a teaching machine or –’

‘Good idea,’ said Miss Borden. ‘That’s it, then. Captain, you take charge of this boy and set up a teaching machine program.’ She checked something off on a form. ‘What 1 like to see, people forgetting their little individual differences and all pulling together. So much for one child’s problem. Now how about some
of these bigger issues? Dope-pushing, theft, vandalism – any suggestions?’

One of the younger teachers murmured something and Miss Borden took it up. ‘Did you say bridge-building, Ms Russo? That’s the first sensible suggestion I’ve heard so far. Isn’t that our job, after all, building bridges? Reaching out –’

Ms Russo blushed. ‘No, what I shaid was –’

‘– reaching out to isolated, disadvantaged children who –’