by K. G. Duncan
“Nerd.” She quickly categorized him. Only that didn’t seem to do justice at all to what Bobby was or could be. “Nerd” seemed somewhat one-dimensional. In Bobbie, you’ve got the Nerd, which we are all familiar with, and this unfortunate child, like most nerds, was pretty good on the academic side of things, but Bobbie lacked social skills and had yet to master the elusive wiles of the popular clique of students (cheerleaders, football quarterbacks, ASB presidents and school annual editors). Bobbie wasn’t helped by his choice of wardrobe (mom-bought and at least two generations behind the times), and he was doomed to a life that must suffer the aspersions and ridicule of others.
Abby took a deep breath as another sudden image of Balt and sand came into her mind—only this one involved Balt holding down Bobbie in the schoolyard sand box and funneling sand into the squealing Bobbie’s open mouth. She had to quickly repress that image and force it out of her head. She had to think of Bobbie and his future pathways.
Bobbie would not be considered as “cool,” nor would he be invited to join in any reindeer games until that magical moment, sometime near the end of high school or later in college, when the Nerd label suddenly didn’t matter anymore, and somehow, some way, he would manage to rise above his nerd-like demeanor and suddenly be considered as “cool.” This of course would be accompanied by the fact that a nerd like Bobbie actually belonged to a subset of nerds known as “the Brainiacs.” He would be accepted to an Ivy League school and is clearly on the path to becoming an engineer (MIT), attorney (Harvard) or doctor (Harvard again—all three of these were high probabilities—Abby just wasn’t sure which path would be the one he would follow). Ka-ching! Money has a way of smoothing out things and obscuring clearly defined labels. Or at least make it so they don’t seem to matter that much anymore. Bobbie would be set for his life, and he would get it all together sooner than most.
But 11-year-old Bobbie was a big hot mess. Like most Brainiacs, being super smart in middle school doesn’t release you from the legions of nerds, and in this case, Bobbie is prone to suffer from a lack of emotional and/or interpersonal intelligence—he’s just not very good around other people. But he more than makes up for this with mathematical, logical, and linguistic intelligence. Still, he was not a really well-adjusted human being, for the most part, and he was at some risk of falling into the sociopathic sphere. The pathways don’t lie, however. Wait for the end of high school. Hello Harvard, M.I.T, and Stanford. It wasn’t his choice, exactly, but being the nerd was his habit and weirdly enough, it was his own sense of order and fulfillment to provide others with the satisfaction of meeting their expectations of him. So, to the point at hand: We all strive to belong—well most of us anyway—and that is true even for a complicated nerd like Bobby Penske. There was a certain order beneath the chaotic dance of life. That’s what the universe seemed to be telling us. Julia was the Princess, Olivia the Clown, and Balt was the Bully.
But what category did Abby belong too?
She quickly moved on as others filed past. Billy Dawes. “Dork.” This was another one of the nerdy subsets. The dork, unfortunately, is just a nerd without any smarts. Billy was pretty good at video and computer games, however, and by middle school he had crossed over into the “Gamer” category. Good for his street cred, anyway. More students brushed past her. Jenna Baptiste: musically talented, but struggling with low self-esteem, so she had joined the “band geeks.” Arianna Denard, god forbid, another “Thespian.” She was very annoying and narcissistic. The entire world was a stage for her to work out her issues. Very high maintenance.
Abby stepped aside as a whole phalanx of rowdy, cocky boys made their way noisily down the hall. In the vanguard was Rudy Massey, who walked with the quiet confidence and grace of a powerful athlete. “Jocks,” of course, were omnipresent in every school, for it was the one archetype that allowed alpha-males to keep acting out in physically aggressive ways that the teachers and adults around them continued to praise and encourage. Rudy strode past Abby and smiled at her. It wasn’t a mean smile, just one that told her that she was insignificant in his world, but she should count herself lucky that he chose to acknowledge her. Maybe she could do something useful for him down the line. At any rate, such a smile was totally ego-driven and brimming with a type of smug, self-satisfaction (what most other girls inexplicably considered “adorable” and “cute.”) that for all effective purposes was telling the rest of the world: “Here I am, your elite special person. Don’t you want to have me as your friend? How would you like to accommodate me?” He was a star, and it was hard not to like him.
Now, Rudy could have easily been a bully, but he wasn’t really scarred or emotionally unstable. Quite the opposite, actually: he had the world on his own little silver platter. Most Jocks do, at least until they finish school. But Rudy also happened to be gracious and nice, even to someone like Abby. Perhaps that was a little bit of humility (good job to Rudy’s mom and dad). But on the field of play, watch out! Between the lines, he was a beast, and he played to win at all costs, which might include knocking your block off. Well, that was Rudy anyway. The Jock is the individual who excels at sports and all things athletic. They are not necessarily poor academic students, but most jocks quickly learn how to leverage their superior physical prowess into popularity (like ASB office and homecoming King or the Princesses Court), and most definitely they discover that they have special status among the aforementioned crooning adults. Jocks are tribal and hierarchical, and that simply means that loyalty to the group is tantamount to one’s identity, and there is a tight-knit pecking order, and everyone knows their place in it. It’s kind of like the army—a regimented and all disciplined routine. And because they are afforded special status among the adults who surround them, they tend to coast through school and make everything look easy. Do not cross the alpha male jock. He is bigger, faster, and stronger than you, and he usually has minions to carry out lower order deeds and dirty work. And, as mentioned before, they are often exempt from punishment because they are elite members of the team. Don’t ask Abby to explain it—it’s just the way it is. Unfortunately, if they have an ultra-competitive nature, or—to simplify it—a mean streak, they can also become bullies, especially if they’re not up to snuff in their academics or when things are tough at home. However, and this seems to be connected to the aforementioned special status among adults, Jocks seem to get a free pass when they violate the policies and the regulations—transgressions that would carry significant repercussions for the rest of us. Call it unfair, call it favoritism or call it a double standard—you can call it whatever you want. But because Rudy can catch and throw a ball, he gets a free pass. And he knows it.
The boys loudly moved on, leaving the hallway nearly empty. Abby drifted over to her locker. Beside her was Delores Multaney, who awkwardly fiddled with her lock while nervously casting her glance around. She spotted Abby and grinned a grin that quickly transformed into a grimace as she continued to struggle to open the locker. She had on braces, which didn’t help her overcome her natural shyness or sense of lower self-worth. She was pretty but didn’t know it. She was a “Wallflower.” “Wallflowers” are worthy of mention because they feature prominently in Abby’s first year of middle school. Wallflowers are those sad individuals who lack assertiveness and imagination, who always linger in the background or in the shadows watching others. The “Wallflower” is usually a term reserved for girls in this gender-discriminating world of ours, for flowers are forever metaphorically an aspect of the feminine. A male wallflower is usually referred to as a “beta” as opposed to the “alpha,” for boys are often gender-discriminated in terms of a hierarchy of power and status; therefore, we are more likely to turn to Latin words and more scientific sounding nomenclature when describing the world of boys, for didn’t you know that the male half of the species is infinitely more rational and linear than their female counterparts? (And yes, that is sarcasm.)
Experience will bust that myth s
ooner or later, even for the most ardent creator of stereotypes, but one of the benefits of being a dragon is that by entering other people’s dreams and seeing their past, present, and all possible future paths, well, one soon realizes that we are all constructed of the same neuroses. And insecurity and neurosis are the human condition. Hence, the preponderance of “Wallflowers” like Delores. Sadly, many people fall into this category, for they do indeed suffer from low self-esteem, which seems to be a very common human condition. But trust me—it is one that can and should be overcome, and it is the only way to reach one’s full potential as a human being. Delores would figure it out one day. Abby was sure of this as she saw all the multiple ways that her life burned brightly and happily. More than most, in fact.
Abby leaned over and gave Delores’ locker a sharp tap with the flat of her hand, and the door swung open. “Mine does it, too,” she said. “I have the touch!” Abby displayed her hand, turning it slowly, majestically, and then she grinned.
Delores returned her smile and murmured her thanks, before cramming her books into the locker, grabbing her PE clothes and darting off.
Abby watched her go. There were many sub-categories of Wallflowers. Booger-eaters, Goths, and Automatons just to name a few…luckily, for her sake, Delores was none of them. She, like thousands and thousands of other kids, just hadn’t found any purpose in her life, so she muddled through as best she could, trying not to be noticed.
“Look sharp, Miss Rubideaux!” The big voice of Ms. Trudy Greenwood startled Abby. “Class resumes at 1:00 PM, sharp! On the hop, now, on the hop!” Abby watched as Ms. Trudy (as all the children called her) filed by, leading a line of the “special ed” kids. Ms. Trudy Greenwood was the remedial education teacher who handled all the children with learning disabilities of one sort or the other. She was also the PE instructor and, by virtue of her reputation and consistent daily demeanor, part-time Nazi drill sergeant. A large, muscular woman with thick lips, thick bones, and basically thick everything, Ms. Trudy was not to be trifled with. Abby watched as she rounded the corner, leading the line of five students along to their afternoon “therapy session” with the school counselor. Abby would see Ms. Trudy in just a few minutes out in the field, whistle and sharp voice ready for any stragglers or mischief-makers. Tardy students would be punished by being made to run laps. Abby needed to hurry up and change into her gym clothes—or maybe not, running laps as punishment was often more pleasurable than the silly games they played which passed for “sport.”
As she rushed to put her books in order and grab her gym clothes, she heard a meek squeak, and then a flurry of books thumping on the floor.
“March of the Retards!” That would be the unmistakable voice of Balt the Bully, once again making his presence known.
Abby was able to catch a glimpse of him as he sauntered off down the hall, disappearing amid the sea of scurrying children, unflappably leaving the scene of his crime.
The last special ed girl in the line was Fina Lee Bentley, and she was a large girl who was probably a few years older and should have been in high school by now, but she was somewhere pretty high up on the autism spectrum, which meant her brain was organized differently from most folks, so she didn’t learn or relate to others the same way as most people do. The rumor was that her momma named her “Fina Lee” because she had wanted a baby for many years before her daughter was “finally” born, and well, you get the picture. Not exactly the kind of name you would want to give your child if you knew what other children would do with it. Abby had heard Princess Julia once loudly proclaiming to her entourage as Fina Lee walked by that some folks had better be careful what they wish for, cuz Fina Lee’s momma sure got a bad bargain for all of her hopes and dreams. Abby thought that was just a cruel thing to say, but it got the desired giggles from the other girls. And not for the first time, Abby wondered why people took such delight in being mean to those less fortunate than themselves.
Well, anyway, Fina Lee was autistic, but Abby had heard Ms. Trudy explaining to another adult that she was “still functional,” and “capable of sophisticated and meaningful conversations,” of which Abby had engaged her in a few, but it was Abby’s observation that Fina Lee was emotionally in no way, shape, or form cut out to handle the unexpected terrains and hidden pitfalls of middle school. And she was certainly not capable of dealing with the targeted malice of Balthazar Luster.
Abby could see Fina Lee standing in the hallway, her right hand held motionless above her as her papers fluttered all down around her, her books and heavier objects already on the floor. She looked as if her face were about to contort into a wild visage of horror mixed with the saddest empty-eyed stare of incomprehension. Abby figured out what had happened in an instant. Balt had been waiting for Ms. Trudy to round the corner and go out of sight before he knocked all of Fina Lee’s books and school supplies out of her hands. Then he disappeared quickly, leaving Fina Lee all alone. Mission accomplished.
Abby closed her locker as Fina Lee was starting to whimper, a frightened mewling sound like a terrified kitten, and Abby had to act quickly or this would turn into a major scene.
“Here let me help you with that, Fina Lee!” Abby rushed over and began to scoop up books, and school supplies, quickly and deftly putting them back inside of Fina Lee’s backpack. “What a mess!” She said gently, as Fina Lee continued to whimper. “Some people are just full of piss and vinegar, I guess. Old Balt Luster ain’t worth a darn to think about.” She gently took Fina Lee’s still raised hand, and the stunned girl started in surprise, but she stopped mewling as Abby slowly lowered her hand. Abby was one of the few people who actually bothered to touch Fina Lee, which might have been the case because Fina Lee didn’t like to be touched by just about everyone, and physical contact of any kind often brought about wild tantrums and histrionic fits. But Abby was different, somehow. Ms. Trudy called her “the Fina Lee Whisperer.”
Abby pointed at all of the papers on the ground.
“Here Fina Lee, let’s get these all in order.” That seemed to do the trick, for Fina Lee clutched Abby’s hand tighter, and they both went down on their knees. Order. If there was one thing Abby knew about Fina Lee and her special mind, then it was certainly that all things must be done in their proper place and in their proper order. It wasn’t so strange after all, it seemed to Abby, to want all things done in a certain way. But unfortunately, Fina Lee couldn’t control all things around her all the time, and it must have been very frustrating indeed to constantly be at odds with the inherent chaos of the middle school universe. In any case, Abby could always find the right frequency for someone like Fina Lee, and they got along just fine. You just needed to “tap in” and be fully present. There wasn’t any special trick. It was called being nice.
With her left hand, Abby picked up the papers one by one, and there were a lot of them. After a few moments, Fina Lee began to pick up the remaining papers as well, and Abby passed them over to her. As she looked down at them, Abby could see that they were some sort of written journal, with neat and precise handwriting. Actually, there was beautifully scripted handwriting filling each page. Abby caught her breath as suddenly a wave of images swept through her. Images of an illuminated manuscript leapt into her mind like the one she had seen on some school field trip to the museum in New Orleans. That’s what these pages reminded her of, for the words were so carefully and perfectly sculpted in a tiny script. Fina Lee must have spent hours of painstaking work on this.
As she passed the pages over, another wave washed over Abby, and this time it was coming from Fina Lee. Like a jolt of electricity thrilling through her entire being, Abby recognized the flood of mind and dream images that filled her mind. These were the jumbled pieces of Fina Lee’s life—her past, present, and potential futures. It was happening again. She had learned to put up a continual screen of sorts to keep it blocked out—otherwise the clamor of voices and images would overwhelm her. But this time, it ha
ppened so fast and so powerfully, that Abby just let it come. She released all resistance.
Immediately, like magic, there was clarity and purpose. The illuminated manuscript pages were memories from Fina Lee’s childhood—a trip to the Smithsonian when she was eight, to be precise. She had made her mother return to the Museum three days in a row, for she had been so enraptured by the pages of the manuscripts. A flicker of light, and some tingling vibration shot through Abby’s body. The manuscript images were gone, and it was replaced by a muted, shadowy image: Fina Lee sitting in a dark room as voices raised in anger argued in the next room—her mother and father talking about her again. The scene merged and revolved, turning into another dark room, but this time her father, whose foul whiskey-soaked breath was now muttering things in Fina Lee’s ear, was standing above her bed. In the dark room, his voice was amplified and clear, only this time Fina Lee was pretending to be asleep as he hoarsely sputtered words of her uselessness, how she had become such a heavy burden, the futility of her existence…
With a jolt, the dark images were gone. Fina Lee was now walking down the school hallway, painful tension in her slumped shoulders, as she stutter-stepped awkwardly in the line of children. A quick blur of images flash by in a sequence: Fina Lee’s gaze locked on to the red and black sport shoes of the child walking in front of her; Balt’s leering face among the gallery of countless other children, and their voices, repeating over and over: “Retard!” “Retard!” “Retard!” Sudden silence, and a feeling of calm delight, as Ms. Trudy’s smiling face replaces the sea of taunting faces. Fina Lee peeks over the dark reddish-brown leather-bound notebook as Ms. Trudy extends it, a cherished gift of words yet to be written; then, amazingly, flashes of brilliant light as page after page of neatly written script zip by, one after another. Abby clutches tightly on to Fina Lee as she is nearly lost in a swirl of vertigo. Another image: An adult, Fina Lee, maybe twenty years from now, standing on a stage beneath bright lights—there is a thunder of applause as a woman at the microphone intones proudly, “…in recognition for literary excellence for the field of Adult Fiction, the Pulitzer prize goes to…” Last, there is only silence and an immense feeling of warmth, as a much older Fina Lee, maybe in her eighties, sits by a window, watching several grandchildren play in the garden outside the window near her writing desk. Somewhere in the house, a bird softly twitters. Future Grandma Fina Lee smiles as she flexes the stiffness out of her fingers and picks up the pen and resumes writing in her journal.
