by Howard Buten
“Yes. I like to receive things.”
“Receive,” said Jessica. “M P X L Y H H O. Receive.”
Nobody said anything, they just stared. Jessica just stood there. Then very quiet Miss Krepnik said, “Go to the office, young lady.”
Jessica got her book out from under the desk and walked out the door.
Dave Sutton went “Dum de dum dum.” (It is the music from “Dragnet,” on tv.) “That was not a signal to talk,” said Krepnik.
Then the words got hard. The students couldn’t spell them and they went down. Helen Tressler went down on cellophane. So did Audrey Burnstein, who has braces, and five students went down on yacht until Ruth Arnold spelled it. She also got nausea and incriminate. I spelled decorum and hospitable. Then there were only four of us left. Nancy Kelton went down on fertilizer and so did Sidney Weiss. But Ruth Arnold got it. Then it was just her and me.
Miss Iris asked me gratitude.
“Could you use it in a sentence, please?”
“Yes. I have a lot of gratitude.”
“Gratitude. G R A T A T U D E. Gratitude.”
“Ruth Arnold,” said Miss Iris. “Gratitude.” And I knew I spelled it wrong. Suddenly I felt like I was going to fall down. I had lost the Spelling B.
Ruth Arnold said, “Gratitude. G R A T T I T U D E. Gratitude.” She spelled it wrong too. I almost laughed.
Miss Krepnik asked me aisle.
“Aisle. A I S L E. Aisle.” I guessed but I was right. Then Miss Iris asked Ruth Arnold conniption.
“Conniption. C O N I P T I O N. Conniption,” said Ruth Arnold.
But I knew it. I knew it because my mom says that I have them, so one day I looked it up in the dictionary and I knew how to spell it. I spelled it. Then Miss Krepnik asked me necessary.
“Necessary. N E C E S S A R Y. Necessary.”
Miss Iris started clapping. Krepnik looked at her, but I had won the Spelling B for the whole third grade and I started clapping too. I clapped for me. Miss Krepnik said it wasn’t called for but I clapped and clapped. I clapped until all the other children were gone. Miss Iris kissed me on the forehead and said, “Why don’t you go down to the office and collect your prize. Here’s a pass.”
I did.
Outside the office somebody was sitting on the bench in the hall where the bad kids sit when they wait to get yelled at by the principal. It was Jessica. I went past her, into the office, I didn’t say anything to her because she didn’t see me because she was reading her book. I asked the secretary with red hair about my prize. It was a dictionary. She said to wait outside on the bench. So I did. Jessica was still reading. I saw the book, it was The Black Stallion’s Sulky Colt.
The bell rang for classes to pass. Everyone went in their lockers. They saw me sitting on the bench. I said, “I’m not bad, I just won the Spelling B,” so they wouldn’t think I was bad. But Jessica didn’t say anything, she just read. After a while she put the book down and looked out in the hall, but not at anybody. At nobody. And she said, “By now I bet he’s in Wyoming. He started in Montana with the whole herd, he is the leader because he is the biggest and the wildest, no one can ride him except me. But now he is coming alone.”
“Who’s coming?” I said.
She turned around and looked at me on my face, and I saw her eyes. They are giants, man, green with brown pieces inside.
“Blacky,” she said. “My horse.”
I said, “Oh.”
Then we didn’t say anything for a long time. The classes stopped passing and the lockers stopped slamming and then it was quiet in the hall at school.
Then Jessica said something.
“You know, I let you win the Spelling B, Burt,” she said. “Because you wanted to.”
[11]
ONCE I WAS FIVE. I RODE IN THE CAR FREQUENT. I SAT next to Daddy in the front seat on the hump. The hump went down the front seat where there wasn’t any sewing. It raised me up so I could see. It was my special place. Once we drove all the way to Frankfort, Michigan, and I sat on the hump all the way.
Then one day my dad took Jeffrey and me to Hanley-Dawson Chevrolet to buy a new car. We went in our old car, I sat on the hump. Then we got in the new car. It smelled funny. Daddy got in and started it. Then we went. I looked out the back window and waved to our old car. I said, “What about our old car, Dad?” And he said, “That hunk of tin, who cares?”
I looked in the front seat. There wasn’t any hump. My dad said, “That’s because this baby has the engine in the back, see all the extra room it gives us?”
I put my chin on the back of the back seat and watched our old car out the back window. I cried maybe. Jeffrey said, “What are you crying about now, baby?” And I said, “I don’t have anywhere to sit.”
[12]
I HAVE BEEN AT THE CHILDREN’S TRUST RESIDENCE Center for two and a half weeks now. Every day the mailman comes but I don’t get any letters from Jessica. And every day I ask Dr Nevele if any letters come for me and he says no.
This morning I was sitting at the table in our wing where we have games sometimes. I was making Mr Potato Head. He is plastic, not a real potato like at home. I was putting a nose in him when Mrs Cochrane came in and said she had an announcement to make.
“I have very good news this morning,” she said smiling very phony baloney. “The new swimming pool is finished. As of today, all the children here at CTRC may begin using it, when their turn comes. They have made up a schedule, and would you believe it? We are the very first group. Right after breakfast we can go swimming.”
All the children shouted “Oh boy!”
Except one. Me. I sat and made my Mr Potato Head. I put another nose on him, a big one like Dr Nevele’s only it didn’t have hair inside it like his, which makes me sick, to be candid.
The first day at The Children’s Trust Residence Center they told me about the new pool they were building and sometimes I could hear them, it is way in the basement. Before, they used to take the children to the YMCA in a bus for swimming. But they stopped before I got here and I am glad because I hate the YMCA, I would like to kill it. (Once Shrubs’ uncle paid for me and Shrubs to join the YMCA for a year. He is goy. So is Shrubs’ mom. I only went to the YMCA once because it scared me, there were crosses all over the walls and pictures of Jesus Christ and I saw in the shower part all the men had penises with long sleeves.)
“Of course we must all be on our very best behavior,” said Mrs Cochrane. “If we want to keep our swimming privileges. We can’t let behavior problems go swimming, can we? It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the children.”
I put another nose on Mr Potato Head.
Manny said that he didn’t want to go swimming because he didn’t have a suit, and Mrs Cochrane said that bathing attire would be provided. That means suits. All the children shouted Hooray! except Howie, who was picking his nose. I saw him. (I like to pick my nose sometimes because I like boogers. I fling them. At school sometimes I sit next to Marty Polaski and he picks his nose and then he shows it to me and says, “This is a 1956 Chevrolet booger.” Then he picks it again and says, “This is a 1954 Oldsmobile booger.” He is good at funny jokes but he is a behavior problem.)
By then all the children in our wing were jumping up and down singing, “We’re going swimming! We’re going swimming!”
Except me. Then Mrs Cochrane saw and she walked over to me and looked at Mr Potato Head. He was all noses.
When everyone was dressed we went to breakfast which was eggs with eyeballs in them, sunnyside up. I sat next to Robert. He cries all the time. So I said, “Hey, Robert, watch this. Let’s say this egg is your eyeball, ok?” He said ok, and I stuck my knife in it and the yolk started running all over the plate. And he started crying. So I socked him in the mouth and his cereal sprayed all over Mrs Cochrane. She got real mad and grabbed my hand across the table, which was a fist, but I pulled it away and smashed it onto my plate and it broke and part of it hit Robert in the face and he started screaming.
Everyone in the dining room turned to look. So I stood up on my chair and started walking on the table and stepped in everybody’s plate and tipped over the water. I kicked my glass of orange juice and it went all the way across the room and hit Rudyard in the back, he turned around and saw me but he didn’t say anything.
Mrs Cochrane got up and grabbed me around the waist and yelled for an attendant at the next table to help her and he got up and came and picked me up and I kicked him in the stomach so he grabbed my arms and wrapped them around me so I couldn’t move and pulled them real hard. He carried me out of the dining hall. Mrs Cochrane came too.
When we got to Dr Nevele’s office there was someone else in there, the door was closed, so the attendant sat me down on the bench and held me. Mrs Cochrane knocked on his door and went inside. I tried to bite the attendant but he pulled my arms real hard and it felt like he was breaking them. I couldn’t move. Then Mrs Cochrane came out of the office and her face was red. Right behind her was a woman. I stopped trying to bite the attendant. I just stared at her and she stared at me. I didn’t know what to do. It was Jessica’s mother.
She looked at me like she was frozen, like I was a monster. Then she looked away and didn’t say any words and I saw she was shaking.
Dr Nevele came out, he put his hand on her back and she looked at him and looked at me and then he nodded and she left the office. I didn’t do anything. The attendant let go of me and Dr Nevele said to come into his office.
“All right,” he said. “What is it this time?”
“Nothing.”
He took a stack of papers out of his drawer, but they slipped out of his hands and went on the floor.
“Shit,” he said.
“You aren’t supposed to swear, Dr Nevele,” I said. He picked up the papers one at a time, but a couple clipped together were still there, under the desk. He didn’t see them, but I did. I touched them with my shoe.
“All right,” he said. “Who started it this time?”
“Me,” I said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Can I go to the Quiet Room?”
“No, Burt,” he said, “you can’t. Every time you get a little upset you run off to the Quiet Room to write on that damn wall instead of talking to me. I want you to talk to me, Burt. Please.”
“Dr Nevele,” I said. “I will never talk to you,” and I stood up and went to his bookcase and put my hand on it like I was going to tip it over again. But he pushed me back in the chair and got out the seatbelt. He put it around me himself this time and pulled it tight. I tried to loosen it, it was pinching me.
“Just you sit there, Buster,” he said. “And think things over for a while.” And he walked out of the office. And I was alone.
I thought about once I was in Frankfort, Michigan, with my family and we went to Crystal Lake for swimming only I didn’t want to because I didn’t know how, but they took me anyway. My dad put a life preserver on me that was cold and wet because somebody used it before, it was orange with buckles that pinched my tummy when he put it on. I cried and cried. He picked me up and said, “Stop that, Son. Do you want everyone to know you can’t swim?” And he made me ashamed. My father carried me into the water. He took me all the way out to the deep part, it was over my head. I screamed, “Don’t drop me, please don’t drop me,” and he said, “I’m not going to drop you.” “Take me back, please,” I screamed. “Please!” But he wouldn’t, he just carried me out further. Then he started to put me in the water. “No!” I screamed, but he started to let go of me. He said, “What are you worried about, you have a life preserver on.” And he put me in. I tried to hold on to him, I grabbed at him. “Hey, watch your fingernails,” he said. “Don’t, Daddy!” I yelled. “Don’t, I will drowned!” But he did. He let go of me and suddenly I couldn’t see, it went over my head and I started sinking and it was freezing cold inside my ears and everything was dark and I couldn’t hear. I tried to breathe but only water came inside and I started to choke. Then he picked me up. I coughed and coughed. I hit him with my fists and cried. I screamed so hard I couldn’t hear anything else. “You’re all right, Son,” he said. “You’re all right.” But I wasn’t. He took me back then, but I said something to myself. I will never go swimming again.
Dr Nevele came back into the room. I had took off the seatbelt. I did it myself. He didn’t see.
“You know, Burt,” he said. “We have the new pool all finished here. But if you continue to disrupt in this manner I will suspend your swimming privileges. You won’t be allowed to go swimming.”
So I walked up to his desk and took all the papers and threw them in his face and ran over to the window and smashed it with my fists.
“I want to go home!” I screamed. “I want to go home, I want to go home!”
Dr Nevele grabbed me.
“That’s it,” he said. “All right, go to the damn Quiet Room.”
I reached under the desk and took the papers that fell off. I quickly put them in my pocket and went to the Quiet Room.
I sat in the corner and sharpened my pencil to write, with my teeth, it makes my tongue black like “I Love Lucy” when she does her teeth like they fell out.
The door opened. It was Rudyard, he looked at me in the corner and put his finger against his mouth which means shush. He came in and sat down on the floor across from me, facing the wall.
“High Sign,” he whispered, and put his hand under his chin and wiggled his fingers.
I looked at him.
“High Sign,” he said, and did it again. Then he like breathed and said, “This is the High Sign, Burt,” and did it again. “Just so you’ll know.”
He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes and opened them. He looked over me, at the wall.
“Excellent penmanship,” he said. “Very straight lines too.”
I jumped up and stood in front of the wall.
“No!” I yelled. “You aren’t supposed to look at it, Rudyard, it is private property.”
“Not even a little look?”
“No!”
He turned around and faced the other way and said, “Ok, Burt. It’s a deal.”
“And don’t write on it anymore either,” I said. “It’s only for me to write on, Dr Nevele said.”
He turned back around.
“Write what? What do mean don’t write on it?”
I pointed to the place where it wasn’t my writing, where he had wrote He wanted to see time fly. “I didn’t write that,” he said.
He was lying though, because he wrote it, I knew he did. Then I saw he had something on the back of his belt and I asked him what it was. He told me it was hot sauce that you put in the mouths of the crazy children when they bite to teach them not to bite. I have seen it at The Children’s Trust Residence Center. It is like on a little sponge and it makes the children’s mouths burn so they don’t bite anymore. They scream. But I never saw Rudyard use it. I asked him why he doesn’t use it.
“I don’t like spicy food,” he said.
Then he didn’t say anything and neither did I. We both sat just, on the floor. Then he got up and started to leave.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“Nowhere,” he said.
And he walked across the hall to a special room they have. It is the Play Therapy Room, they take children in it and doctors watch them play with items and write things down. I had never been in it though. I followed Rudyard.
He left the door open and I walked in. He sat down in a chair in the middle of the room and all around him was things to play with, only they didn’t look right. There was a big doll house with wooden people inside, there was a Mommy and a Daddy and even a doggy. There was a box with other wooden people in it, there was a doctor and a nurse and a policeman and a postman. Rudyard folded his hands in his lap and sat just. He didn’t say anything.
I took the little wooden postman out of the box and put him on my knee and he told me that Jessica was going to write me le
tters real soon and that he would bring them to me so don’t worry. “Ok,” I said. “I’m not worried.”
“I am,” said Rudyard.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“Me,” said Rudyard, and he put his fingers up to his eyes and wiggled them.
“Don’t do that,” I said, because it made me nervous, he acts like a spaz sometimes and I don’t like it. But he didn’t stop. He did it more. I put down the postman and walked over to him and grabbed his hands to make them stop wiggling. “Don’t do that.”
“Oh,” he said. “Were you talking to me?”
I walked over to the doll house and picked up the Mommy. Then I put her down and picked up the little boy. He was me. He went into the bathroom. He had pleurodynia, because he didn’t want to go swimming.
Then Rudyard said, “I think I need a favor, Burt.”
“What?” I said. The little wooden boy left the bathroom and went into the den, only he couldn’t watch television because he didn’t take his bath before Popeye.
“I was wondering if you’d help me. I have to go swimming today and I’m a little afraid is all.”
“You’re a sissy,” I said.
“Thanks,” said Rudyard. “Actually I am scared of several things. Death and swimming. That’s why I’m here. I’m supposed to be in the pool now, dying.”
“You are not,” I said. He was lying, man. He is a grown-up so he wasn’t scared. He was lying.
“I am,” he said.
I threw the little wooden boy at him and shouted, “You are not, you are not! You lie, man! Sissies are afraid of swimming, only sissies are!”
But Rudyard didn’t say anything. He just got up and picked the little wooden boy off the floor and held him in his hand. He held him in both hands.
First you go into the locker room. The lockers are smaller than the ones at school, but they are louder when they get slammed, like guns in my head. All the children run around and scream and hit each other and it makes me very afraid. They give you a towel but it isn’t soft like at home, it scratches me. You have to undress in front of everybody. They give you a bathing suit, but it isn’t yours, and they make you go to the showers which is a big room that is very hot and full of other children that you don’t know and the spray is so hard it stings when it hits you and the room smells like naked people.
