The day before the trip Charlie had it all memorized. “See, we’ll walk to the bus stop, everybody’s going to have a buddy and we’ll walk in pairs, and each class will take a different bus across the bridge. Then we’re going to take the express – that’s what the subway’s called – to One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street, and then change to the local and take that to Eightieth Street, and then walk to the museum. It’s only a couple of blocks.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Charlie was so excited. “You certainly sound like you’re ready.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, “we’ve been studying it at school. I just hope I don’t get carsick or get a girl for a buddy.”
“How’d it go, Charlie? Did you have fun?” I asked when he came in after the trip.
“You wouldn’t believe. Wait’ll I tell you what happened.” Charlie’s eyes were shining through his glasses, and a cowlick of hair stood straight up at the crest of his head.
“First of all, I drew Rick Tower for a buddy and he’s practically the most popular kid in our class, and he even said it was interesting when I was telling him about Mr. Ammann, you know, the guy who designed the bridge. Dad and I had just finished reading an article about him.
“And the subway was cool. There was this man who’d made the bottom of his shoes out of newspaper, and one girl had her hair cut like an Indian and coloured pink.”
“Sounds different, anyway,” I said, loving it, especially reading about Mr. Ammann with his dad.
“Yeah. Well, and then we got to the museum. I’d already been there with Mom and Dad. But the dinosaurs are really neat, especially that Riceratrops.”
“Triceratops?”
“Yeah, that’s the one – and the other one with the little front legs and great big head. Tyrasoranus Rex – something like that. You know.”
I nodded.
“The Indian room was pretty neat, too. Then we had lunch in a special lunchroom and afterward got to buy stuff in the gift shop. I got some postcards of Africa and some stamps for Dad’s collection and a little pink stone for Mom.”
“That was thoughtful of you, Charlie. Buying presents.”
“Yeah. Well, wait till you hear the bad part. I guess Rick got tired of walking with me, and on the way back to the subway he just moved up and started walking along with these two other kids who are really his friends.
“I felt really bad, so I just sort of took Mom’s present out to look at while I was walking. I knew she’d really like it and that made me feel better, but then this big kid knocked into me and I dropped the stone and I couldn’t find it.”
“Oh, Charlie. What happened?”
“Well, I kept on looking for it, and then all of a sudden I realized that I was all alone. Well, not alone exactly. There were lots of people – but my class was gone.
“I started running. It was only supposed to be a couple of blocks to the subway, and I thought I could catch up, but I guess I must’ve made a wrong turn or something and boy, did I ever begin to sweat.”
“I don’t blame you, Charlie,” I said. “All alone in New York City in the afternoon, night coming up.”
Charlie nodded. “But you know. I just decided I had to get a plan. And once I decided that, it kinda calmed me down. My first plan was to get directions to the local at Eightieth, but I ran into this creepy guy when I went into a store to ask for help, so I just decided, man, I better get out of there. I found a phone booth and the operator called Mom, but nobody was home. That was because Mrs. Yager had called her, and she and Dad and the police were out looking for me. I didn’t know that then.
“Anyway, I didn’t know Dad’s work number, but I remembered the name – Cartan Chemicals – and the operator got it. And I asked for Dad and his secretary told me how Dad was already out looking for me and to stay where I was. I had to go out and look at the street signs – Amsterdam Avenue and Seventy-fifth Street – so I could tell her where I was. Boy, was I glad I knew how to figure out Amsterdam. Anyway, she said Dad was calling in every twenty minutes for news and for me to just stay there and he’d come get me. And he did. He and Mom drove right up to the phone booth in our station wagon. Mom was all upset and crying, but you know what Dad said? He said I’d handled myself well.”
Charlie sat up a little straighter behind the desk. “I got this feeling that he was really kind of proud of me.”
“I bet he was, Charlie. Getting lost can happen to anyone. What you do about it is what’s important,” I said. I had a very clear feeling that Mr. Hammond didn’t need lists anymore.
Jim Hammond figured more and more prominently in Charlie’s conversations. Their latest project was videotaping. They’d gone together to buy a VCR and a video camera, and they were out taping something every weekend – animals at the zoo, kids skateboarding. It turned out that Rick Tower was really into video, too, and now Charlie and Rick were figuring out how to make a space movie using his Lego people.
Most important of all, Charlie told me that his dad had talked to him about Jason.
“See,” Charlie said, “I always thought the reason Dad acted so mad at me was because he wished I’d died instead of Jason. He was only four, but they have all these pictures of him and only a couple of me and he looks so good, and I’m such a … well, I used to be such a mess … anybody’d rather have Jason than me. But Dad said no, it wasn’t like that. He wished he could have us both and he’d probably seemed mad, but anyway, he said I’m more important to him and Mom than ever now that they don’t have Jason. It’s like they still miss him some, but they love me, too.”
The fourth-grade science fair was coming up. It was a big deal at Chapel. The fifth grade had a social studies exhibit; the sixth grade had an academic Olympic decathlon; but the fourth grades capped their school year with an all-day science fair.
The fourth grades, sixty boys and girls in all, took over the whole gymnasium. The two janitors and groundsmen carried in sixty desks and arranged them in a U in the middle of the gym, and then covered them with red cloths that grew a little more faded with each year. I had attended a half dozen or more science fairs, and the setup was always the same.
But it was all new to Charlie. Each fourth grader created a project for the fair. It had to be related to something that had been studied during the year. Originality was stressed, and Mrs. Yager stretched the limits of science to accommodate enthusiasm as much as she could.
Charlie knew from the beginning what his project was going to be. No event during the year meant more to him or had a bigger impact on his life than the trip to the museum, so Charlie was going to make a model of a dinosaur. Mrs. Yager approved the project, and Charlie agonized over which species to select, finally settling on the huge Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Charlie worked fervently on his dinosaur, racing through his homework to get to the basement, where he was fashioning “Rex” out of coat hangers and wire and green plastic garbage bags, with touches of leather from an old purse of his mom’s to add reality.
“How’s he coming, Charlie?” I asked a week before the science fair.
“Good. Real good.” Charlie’s eyes shone, his cowlick zinged up from his head. “It’s almost done. He’s almost three feet high and Mom and Dad both helped me last night and we even got his head fixed on so that it will sort of wobble back and forth. And now we’re going into the museum and I’m going to take pictures of lots of different kinds of dinosaurs, and then I’m going to make this tape about them that plays over and over for people to listen to if they want to. I really wanted to do a videotape, but Mrs. Yager said that was too complicated. I guess she’s right. We got a big enough problem just getting ole Rex set up.”
I arrived at the science fair at about ten thirty. Nothing had changed since I’d been to the science fair two years ago. Rosebushes still surrounded the parking lot, matching the pinky red of the low brick buildings. Boys in navy blue blazers, girls in coloured cotton dresses, mothers looking much the same as the girls, fathers in business suits, and te
achers in skirts, blouses, and low-heeled shoes filled the slate walkways and the gym itself.
The desks had been covered with the rose-red cloth and set in the usual U, with approximately sixty fourth-graders sitting or standing behind their exhibits as teachers led the other classes past and parents talked in little knots around the room after going through the line.
I leaned against one wall, soaking it all in, liking the school. Despite or maybe even because of the formality and rules and dress code, creativity flourished amid respect for learning.
I couldn’t actually see Charlie, but it was easy to tell where he was. At the far end of the exhibits, Rex waggled his huge green plastic head above a constant crowd of gawking children and parents. Obviously, Charlie’s exhibit was the hit of the show.
I knew I should just get in line, go shake Charlie’s hand, and then get back to work, but I put it off, taking pleasure in looking at all those people admiring Charlie and something he’d done.
A hand touched my arm, and I turned to see June Hammond beaming at me. “Aren’t you nice to come,” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful? Have you talked to Charlie yet?”
“No, but I will. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”
Jim Hammond had been talking to a group of parents; now he turned toward me and I stretched out my hand. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Hammond said, smiling. “You know, Charlie did most of it himself. He drew a plan first, and then made a small-scale model. I mainly helped getting the big one assembled.” His strong hand closed around mine, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing.
June Hammond turned as more parents stopped to say how proud she must be. Jim Hammond released my hand, but his black eyes were still intent on mine. “I’ve wanted to tell you … thank you, I mean,” he continued, “and to apologize. You were right about Charlie. I don’t know how I could have missed it all these years. He’s incredible when it comes to building things. You know, I’m beginning to think he could actually be an architect or an engineer someday.”
I nodded agreement.
Jim Hammond reached out and pulled June toward us. “And it’s not just Charlie. June made another big sale, and now they’re hinting at a partnership. She’s the best salesperson they have.”
“And you?” I asked. “How are you doing?”
“Fine. Just fine,” he said. “I’m still not adept at understanding people, but June’s good enough at that for both of us and I get a lot of satisfaction from my work.” He smiled at me. “Like you. But the main thing is, you were right about my getting to know Charlie – and June. I’m glad I didn’t miss either of them.”
“Me too,” I said, and went off in search of Charlie.
As I worked my way around the exhibits, I thought about how one thing leads unexpectedly to another. June Hammond was blooming like the proverbial rose now that Jim had joined the support team for Charlie.
Finally I got to Charlie and reached across the faded-red-covered desk to shake his hand. “That’s one terrific dinosaur,” I said.
Charlie thanked me, but it was obvious he really didn’t have time to talk.
“Good-bye, Charlie. See you later,” and I grinned at him as I left. “There sure seem to be a lot of somebodies who want to know you now.”
A Safe Place
I had thought when we first bought our house that I needed a separate entrance and waiting room for my office. But any structural change would require a re-evaluation of the entire house with an accompanying increase in taxes, and Cal advised waiting. Maybe he suspected something more as well. In any case, it turned out to be good advice. I wouldn’t even consider a separate waiting room now.
Our side door opens directly into the kitchen, and from there it’s only a few steps to the stairs that lead to my office. The kitchen is ours during the morning and evening hours, but in the afternoon it belongs to the kids. From after school on, there’s an ever-changing flow of children through the kitchen. They open the door for each other; they drape their coats across the chairs; they pile their book bags, their boots, and sometimes their shoes on the floor or cellar landing; they make the popcorn if I haven’t had time; they debate the virtues of various television shows or turn the television off entirely if somebody has a paper that’s due or a test coming up. Some children walk straight from school and wait in the kitchen for an hour or more before their appointment. The big ones help the little ones with their homework, and they share their prizes while they wait for their parents or taxis to come and pick them up. I have never heard an argument or seen a mean act in the kitchen. The kids have made it a very safe place for themselves.
Nan, my youngest daughter, works with me now. She’s a learning specialist herself and a superior grower of children. She has the little upstairs room right next to mine. So now the kitchen is twice as full, and deliverymen and unexpected visitors do double takes when they view our crop of children.
They let each other in, but Nan or I let each child out, and the children that are waiting call to us as we pass through the kitchen.
“My turn now?” David asks.
“Almost,” I say.
“What day is it, anyway?” Bob inquires. “I gotta put it on my homework here.”
“Friday,” David answers. “Are we going to write today like usual, Mary?”
Upstairs, David settles himself behind the big old desk, and I sit beside him in a smaller chair.
“Anything good or bad happen since I last saw you, David?” I begin our ritual.
“Two goods. One bad.”
“Which first?” I ask.
“The bad. John whacked me on the head in school today.”
I wrote it down in David’s book.
“But I didn’t whack him back. That’s one good, and the other is that it’s the weekend and tomorrow I got karate.”
“Pay yourself one hundred and seventy-five for your goods and bad, and add an extra bonus of fifty. It took control not to hit back, and that’s not easy.”
David bent his handsome seven-year-old head over the chip box and deftly extracted the chips. He was in second grade and had been coming to us twice a week for a year and a half, so he knew the ropes. He had arrived as an angry, acting-out, nonreading first grader. He lied; he hit; he cried as well.
But now I was about to cut his two sessions a week to one. He was a natural athlete, his math had always been good, and now he was on grade level in reading and getting good grades on the weekly spelling tests, if he studied hard. But he still had a lot of trouble with spontaneous writing, so every Friday we worked on this.
David passed me a pad of paper and my favourite pen and did the same for himself.
“I already know what I’m writing about,” he said.
“Well, you’re ahead of me, then.”
“Yup.”
David already had the first word down, but I wasn’t in any hurry to start. I liked looking at him – I liked the vibes in the room. David exuded confidence and grace, and I thought about child expert Urie Bronfenbrenner’s statement that every child should spend part of each day with someone who loves him and whom he loves in return. David was lucky. He had both a father and a mother who loved him a lot. Theirs was a busy, hectic family that included two other boys besides David, one older, one younger. Both parents worked and loved their jobs, but they also loved their kids and took time to show them that they did.
I could hear Bob reading softly to Nan in the next room. A light glowed under their door, and I thought how lucky we were to be able to work in such a good place. Happiness was almost visible.
“Aren’t you even starting yet?” David asked, emphasizing the last word.
“I’ve almost got it,” I said, referring more to what I was thinking than to what I was about to write. David had the loving and also help from us while he was still young, and we all tried to give him a safe place where he could practice and not get down on himself if he made a mistake. Love, specialized help, a
nd a safe place. That seemed to do it.
David put his pencil down. “I’m waiting for you now,” he said.
“Okay. I’m ready. What are you writing about?”
“Karate. That’s what I’m working on. I’m going to take my brown-belt test tomorrow. And that’s what I’m writing about.”
Karate – that’s what David was working on. Children and my book – that’s what I was working on.
I picked up my pen and wrote. “I’m having a lot of trouble finishing this book I’m trying to write.”
David was busy writing again, too. He paused for a minute. “We’ll trade and read them when we’re done, okay? What’s yours about?”
I read my first sentence to him out loud.
David nodded. “That sounds pretty good. ’Member to print so I can read it.
“Okay,” David announced a few minutes later. “Let’s switch. I’m done and yours is long enough. You go first. Read mine out loud, okay?”
“I like karate,” I read. “You have to know weaponry, martial arts, fighting, and karate. I hope I get my brown belt tomorrow. Mary, I will show you how to do karate when we’re done writing. This is a picture of me fighting.”
David had to help me decipher some of the words, but his paragraph was over forty words long. It hung together and made sense, and the illustration was clear and full of action.
“Good,” I said. “Pay four hundred and twenty.”
David counted out the chips quickly and then bounced out from behind the desk to demonstrate karate blows, leaps, and vicious kicks.
“There,” he said with satisfaction. “Now I’ll read yours.” He read my two paragraphs out loud and then turned to me. “Is your book about us? I mean about kids like me?”
I nodded.
“Well, I know what you ought to call it, then.”
I studied David carefully. “You do?”
His turn to nod. “See, you just draw a big bubble like this.” David demonstrated on the pad of paper. “And inside the bubble you write HELP! – like in capital letters with a ’splanation thing. Now you draw a line down to this kid at the bottom of the page so you can tell he’s saying it. This will be like on the cover.”
A Safe Place for Joey Page 25
