The desks were arranged in groups of two. Each person was meant to have a partner to work with during class time. The desks faced to the front of the room toward the white board while Mrs. Belich’s desk was strategically placed in a corner where all students were visible to her. She always knew who was doing what at any given time. Across from the green board was a row of windows that streamed in sunlight during the day. The room was situated on the east side of the building where the sun rose, and poured all of its heat into the tiny rectangular hot box. The room reached temperatures of ninety degrees on warm days, where we all sat with sweat pouring out of us. I remembered how the thick and musty air lingered, smothering every breathing thing in the room. When a visitor walked in they got an open-handed sock in the face that stole their last clean breath away.
I was the little girl who never had a partner due to the odd number of students. That seemed to set the tone from the very beginning. I was the little girl who wasn’t black, the little girl who wasn’t white, the little girl who wore dirty clothes to school, and arrived with no food in her hollow snarling belly.
I was the little girl who didn’t need a partner, the little girl who knew all her addition and subtraction, the little girl who already knew how to read, the little girl who wrote entire soliloquies in her journal. From my earliest memory, I knew I had only myself.
It was a temperate September day—in the room, however, we all felt as though we were being slow cooked. Mrs. Belich had the class make s’mores. No oven was needed to melt the chocolate and marshmallow; they were placed in the window on cookie sheets lined with tin foil, and were ready to eat a short thirty minutes later.
I remembered pulling my s'more apart, watching the marshmallow pull like taffy, and licking the chocolate off of my fingers when a woman came into the room. At first I didn’t recognize the woman, who I only saw out of the corner of my eye.
It only took seconds, the woman came into clear view. It was A—. Dressed in cut-off jeans, and a black tank top. Her pale blonde hair pulled back severely into a low ponytail, hair separated itself into greasy threads. She might have been considered pretty if she hadn’t been betrayed by her lifestyle choices. The nacreous contusions formed a half moon underneath her eyes—her red nose, and opaline bruises on the insides of her arms were evidence of a less than clean lifestyle.
In spite of her physical presence, I...I was excited. A—, who had never shown any interest in my schooling was here, to see me! I rushed up to her with an air of anticipation. Mommy was here. I showed her my desk, and my work, and she met my teacher. The happiness overwhelmed my small frame.
It took me a few minutes to realize what Mrs. Belich saw almost immediately. A— was drunk, high, or possibly both. Mother spoke loudly and brashly; her excitement was childlike. She was moving erratically with a sense of urgency and unsteadiness. She stumbled over to my desk and became enthralled with my small chair. Her speech slurred.
The children in the class stared in wide-eyed amazement. Mrs. Belich gently and diplomatically escorted A— into the hall, pretending the need to speak with her privately. An obvious charade since I was the best student in the class. I sat in my seat, beyond mortified. I felt the tears welling up in my pained eyes. I clenched my jaw and forced them to dry out. I would not cry. I would not give anyone a reason to make fun of me. They had enough ammunition as it was.
Mrs. Belich came back into the room alone. I assumed she’d escorted A— out of the building. Not long after the incident, I was sent to meet with the school social worker, Mrs. Donan.
Mrs. Donan was a slight woman, even from the perspective of a six-year-old, where everyone looks tall and old. She was black, and I marveled at the smoothness of her brown skin. It bore a resemblance to glossy melted caramel—the kind you dip an apple into on Halloween. Her cheeks were flushed against her bronzed skin. It looked like rose petals superimposed over luminescent copper. She was bony. Her cheekbones were sharp and sculpted, jutting out over the sides of her face. Her fingers, long and web-like, were adorned with exquisite red lacquered nails.
She pulled me out of class a few days after the incident, and she took me to a private room littered with board games, puppets, and video tapes about bullying and how to show exemplary character. Maybe we were going to play a game.
Like any six-year-old, I felt lucky. Someone wanted to play a game with me.
I get to leave class, and have a juice and play a game! How lucky am I?
My feeling of good fortune was short-lived. I remembered it with a clarity usually reserved for special occasions like birthday parties, of which I had none. We played a game about feelings designed specifically for the purpose of getting children to spill their secrets. It worked.
I wish I had known then what I know to be true now. That was the beginning, the first shot fired, as it were, that defined my nomadic childhood.
Many times I wished I could go backward in time, and refuse to speak. A— was unreliable, but given enough time I would have been able to build up some type of immunity to her highs and lows. There is comfort in the familiar. Even if the familiar is laced with sadness.
After that first meeting with the school’s social worker, a county case worker came to our house. It barely could be considered a house. It was a structure falling down around itself with plastic coverings on the windows, and a front porch that sunk halfway into the soft clay ground. The white paint chips hung from the house like dangling chads from a Florida voter’s ballot.
The social worker was rotund and suspicious looking. She held a tan leather-bound portfolio, where she kept her notes. She moved through the house deliberately inspecting the room as she introduced herself and explained to my mother that this household had been reported to the Family Independence Agency.
Of course the visit was a total surprise, meant to give a parent no time to hide the evidence.
To say the house was a mess was an understatement of epic proportions. Dishes were piled stories high in the sink. The water had been turned off due to failure to pay. Cockroaches had taken up permanent residence in the faraway corners of the room, and took over the entire house at night. It was nothing short of disgusting—plus there was an assortment of drug paraphernalia shoved in a shoebox sitting beside the musty, stained sofa. It didn’t take the social worker long to make her determination—remove the child from the home. That was the first of many times when I’d packed my belongings into a garbage bag and was removed like some unwanted growth.
The social worker’s office in high school was devoid of the games and puppets that were ever present in elementary and middle school, thank GOD! I can’t imagine anything more humiliating than a seventeen-year-old putting on a puppet show with a thirty-five-year old therapist in order to explain why my feelings are hurt.
After waiting what seemed like forever the counsellor, whose name I didn’t bother to remember, finally was ready to begin our first session, and hopefully the last if I played my cards right. As she sat in her ergonomically correct chair with her thick tortoise shell glasses and her helmet-like red hair, she consulted her list of topics. I felt my mind wander, and began to mentally calculate how many lines she had around her eyes as she spoke. I answered her questions with short blunt responses out loud, as I let other more consequential thoughts fully expand in my mind.
I was savvy enough to know by now that there would be no spilling of my guts in these sessions. I had it all figured out. My modus operandi consisted of making an appearance, and weaving together a personality, like one weaves an intricately threaded blanket, that seemed to the outside world as well-adjusted, normal, maybe even happy. I talked about school dances, and the newest trite teen novel that was flying off of the shelf. I carefully constructed what people would call a well-adjusted person—considering all she’s been through.
Some people go through life not knowing who they are. I know exactly who I am, and who I need to pretend to be to get through this life. My family has set me up with nothing,
and I know that is what the future holds for me—nothing!
As the counselor continued to speak sounding more like the teacher from a Peanuts cartoon, I continued to organize my thoughts.
I had already learned not to let my grades drop too far from a C average. Keeping a decent average usually kept everyone from probing into my psyche. I learned early on that even if these counselors and social workers had the best of intentions there was nothing they could do to help, and I didn’t want or need their help. The only thing that could have ever saved me was if I had never born to that woman who cared so little for herself, and brought me into her world as her badge of honor, which later became a burden.
To be unloved is a punishment—an affliction I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. To be unloved is a death sentence, one that eats away at your body and mind slowly and skillfully; eviscerating not only the body, but the mind and spirit bit by bit.
The counselor had moved on to some type of checklist that contained a multitude of seemingly irrelevant questions. As I automatically answered the questions with the right answer, my thoughts turned to Will and his advances. I reminded myself that it was just the teenage boy’s physical urge to capture and own a girl in the only way that a boy knew how—physically. I remembered with a pervasive sick feeling in the pit of my stomach the oldest son of one of my mother’s many boyfriends, and the wrestling matches I’d endured when I was thirteen. I’d spent six months pushing my dresser in front of the door to my bedroom to keep that boy from me until A— finally moved on to another guy. No boy wanted to love me, I was sure on that point. To protect myself from all of them was paramount.
As I listened to the good-natured counselor who continued to ask insipid questions, I wondered if I would give in to the prurient desires that clouded my mind and overwhelmed me when it came to Will. I sat there trying to convince myself it was just lust, not love, and maybe that would be okay if I didn’t expect anymore.
I could have never imagined the day when the things I knew to be true would be challenged.
I left the counselor’s office feeling much the same way as when I’d walked in, aggravated; only now I had to walk in late to fourth period. Drama...Will.
I’d pushed the events with Will to the very corners of my mind, until it almost seemed like a dream. Yesterday seemed to be filled with dramatic events I didn’t wish to repeat anytime soon.
When I walked into the theater, there he sat, in the back row where I usually sat. His golden blondish-brunette hair was twisting every which way. My heart skipped a beat, then I felt as though I couldn’t catch my breath. I was worried how to be around him. Should I pretend as though nothing had almost happened? Technically, nothing did happen, so it wouldn’t be hard to pretend. I suddenly became aware of the tension in my body as I walked into the room.
I made sure that I sat further away from Will today. Luckily, the class was engaged in a dramatic exercise with partners. I presented Mrs. Gooch with my entrance slip. It was considered an excused tardy.
She wrinkled her nose, and as she looked up from her glasses said, “Well dear, we have already partnered up the entire class. Let’s put you with a group of two.” She searched the room for a second, and then pointed to the closest pair grouping up front. “Would you two take Astrid into your group please?” she asked as if the duo had a choice. The two girls, cheerleaders I’d suspected from their super positive attitudes, nodded their heads in hostile agreement. They clearly were discussing some important issue, like world peace.
I joined the group but made no attempt to insert myself into their conversation, which was about what color highlights they wanted to get in their hair. I had never heard highlighting dissected in so many ways, and discussed in such detail. They barely acknowledged I was even alive, which was fine with me. When Mrs. Gooch approached, the cheerleaders stopped their vapid conversation, and began to do the assignment, which they immediately directed at me. “Astrid, what do you think about scene six?” This annoyed me because it supposed that I was paying more attention to the assignment than they were, which I wasn’t. I was equally as disengaged from the exercise as they were, just without the thoughts of hair and pom poms.
Will and his partner (a rather comely looking junior) took up the space where I usually put my things. I felt relieved that I didn’t have to deal with him at the moment. I sat there and tried not to focus on the two of them sitting in the back row. The feeling that began as relief started to twist inside me until it no longer resembled relief, but rather disappointment. I became fixated on this junior girl whose blonde slick straight hair eased down her back. She smiled and flipped her hair at least twenty times.
I felt my gaze continue to intrude upon the duo seated in my spot. I watched Will nervously run his finger through his wild hair as she laughed and playfully tugged at his rumpled shirt. I couldn’t compete with her brand of femininity. Every feeling and thought I had before was erased. I needed to be near him. I wanted him all for myself. Even if my ultimate plan was to reject him, I didn’t want any competition.
During the class I felt my stare intensify, thoughts rippling like ocean waves through my consciousness. First, that feeling of jealousy, then insecurity, then defeat. In one single class period, I had moved from disregard to obsession. In my mind, I’d already lost him. I had squandered the opportunity that was so tangible yesterday. I’d played out the scenario of their conversation in my head Astrid who? Oh yeah, just some girl to do my homework for me.
The bell finally rang in what seemed to be the longest class period I’d ever endured. The two snarky cheerleaders didn’t so much as acknowledge me the entire period, so it seemed fitting they didn’t say goodbye either. I rammed my papers into my bag all the while keeping my eyes on the back of the room. Will must have slipped out for the nanosecond when I looked down to finish haphazardly cramming my things into my bag. What—he was ignoring me? I was supposed to be the one ignoring him. I hated being beaten to the punch. My entire defense mechanism was predicated on the notion of the pre-emptive strike. Do it to them before they do it to you.
I rushed out of the theater feeling dejected. My eyes searched the congested hallways for his tall frame and rumpled perfection.
Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder. There stood Will behind me, looking with a torrid intensity that was bewitching in nature. My blood raced through my body and flooded my cheeks, turning them as red as the flesh of a ruby grapefruit.
Do it to them before they do it to you. The thought was annihilated by the craving that coursed like liquid fire through my body.
“Do you wanna get out a here?” his silken voice beckoned.
I must have said yes—I must have—rational thoughts, murky from my craving, yes. I walked down the winding tunnel that ran from the second floor hallway above the gym and out to the parking lot.
The next thing I knew I was opening my car door. Yes. I must have agreed. My train of thought deadened, my body on automatic, driven by the need to win the competition that had come into existence—within my mind at least.
I started the sputtering Volkswagen as I cleared the fast food bags, CDs, and multitude of receipts collected from various gas stations from the passenger seat. Will sat down in the newly uncluttered seat. His legs were cramped, his knees sat oddly under his chin, and his feet were twisted along the floorboard in order to achieve his awkward position.
His voice deep and hypnotic probed, “Where do you wanna go?”
My voice, squeaky and nervous with my out-of-place southern accent, replied, “I dunno?”
Will suggested, “Hey, if you don’t mind let’s go the Ear-x-tacy. I want to check out some sheet music.”
It didn’t take long to approve his recommendation. I wanted to make another payment on the Big Baby Taylor, only seventy-five dollars left to go. I perked up when the thought wafted amid the carnal thoughts that clouded my mind with insecurity.
Was I in love? Not possible, I thought with a modest degree of denial. M
y body felt contorted from the inside out. My words slipped through my teeth without any propriety. Most of the time I couldn’t remember the last thing I’d said, and had no inclination of what the next thing to pop out of my mouth would be.
We pulled into a prime parking spot directly in front of the music store, of which few remained during weekend business hours when I usually came to make my guitar payments. Most of the time I had to park four or five blocks away and walk until my feet were throbbing and ached with a wicked vigor.
Will unbound himself from the passenger seat and stood statuesque in the cloudy mist. I slammed my door and tripped up onto the curb. I was always tripping up things—stairs and curbs mostly. I think it had something to do with the fact that I’d never quite adjusted to my eight-inch growth spurt in the seventh grade. Unfortunately, before the massive growth spurt my feet extended to a gargantuan size ten. Four-feet-eleven with size ten feet. When it came to grace, I was doomed from the beginning.
Will took confident strides into the store, while I fumbled behind him, probably where I belonged—two steps behind.
Once we swept past the doors, Will headed over to the sheet music aisle, while I went straight to the counter to put down another payment of twenty-five dollars. As I counted out my money, I wondered, why had Will grabbed me? Why were we here? What did he have planned? The clerk gave me a receipt to document my faithful payments, with a word of encouragement, “You’re almost there, just a few more payments.” I smiled at him and tucked the payment receipts inside my front pocket.
I turned around and spotted Will moving through the aisles, combing through stacks of sheet music. I moved behind the soundtracks section and watched. I watched him move back and forth. Each movement easily unclosed me. I watched his hands move through his bronzed airy hair that twisted up from roots to ends. I watched as his mouth twitched upward as he found certain music pleasing, while when he found something he didn’t like he bit his bottom lip. I had never watched anyone so intensively, borderline obsessively. I cringed at the notion that he was someone I wanted to possess me. Grief and confusion overflowed as I contemplated his movements. This couldn’t be love, or even lust. I had always associated those feelings with overwhelming joy for the former, and absolute sexual confidence for the latter. I felt neither of these.
The Idyllic Chaos of My So-Called Life Page 12
