by Michelle Kuo
As I picked through Food Giant’s yellowing spinach and molding blueberries, I sensed a man staring at me. He was white, middle-aged, well dressed—nobody I knew. Being Asian in the Delta meant getting stared at, so I ignored him.
Now the stranger approached. A woman and man accompanied him, forming a small circle around me that blocked my access to the tomatoes.
“Weren’t you in that movie about Helena?” the stranger asked, referring to Richard Wormser’s documentary. “I used that in a workshop,” he said, “and I got hell for it.
“But it was a striking movie,” he continued, “and you were the heart of it.” He nodded to himself, remembering. He had led a professional workshop for teachers, the man said, and he was a paid consultant. I could tell that he was not from Helena. If he had led a workshop of any kind, likely he was from Little Rock or Fayetteville, the more urban areas of Arkansas.
“You have a gift for children, a real gift. For speaking with them. And speaking about them.”
He paused, waiting for me to respond. I said thank you, inwardly hoping that the other teachers in Helena, especially those who knew that I left, had not seen it.
“I showed it to teachers in a workshop and used it as an example of the key of keys—care. The student in the movie, he used that word to talk about you, to explain why you made an impact on him. I told them a teacher’s care could change someone.”
At this, his friends nodded gravely, as if this were an original thought. I nervously guessed at what was to come next: What kind of consultant session involves showing some film and telling teachers to care? Few teachers like to be told that other teachers care more than they do. And I didn’t care more; I had left.
“So then one teacher got offended; she thought I was saying something about her.” Now the man grew agitated, the conflict surging in his memory. “She said that kid didn’t change at all. She said he murdered someone and is in jail now. Then she got up and left the room.”
Expectantly, the three faces turned to look at me. They were waiting, I realized, for me to confirm or deny that disgruntled teacher’s account. This is what it came down to—true or false. Patrick had either killed someone or he hadn’t. Caring could change a person or it couldn’t. I thought they were naïve, yet maybe I was no different.
I had not intended to talk or even think about anything that mattered to me this morning. Now, in my gym shorts and silly sweatband, I’d been ambushed in a fluorescent aisle of Food Giant by a stranger who wanted to know what happened. What happened was just facts; it was nothing of the inner life, nothing of a person’s complex regrets or intentions. But for them, what happened was a shorthand for understanding who he was.
It is destabilizing to think of a person as X—incapable of killing someone—and then be told he is Y—a killer.
But it wasn’t about being right or wrong about a person. This wasn’t some final reveal in a story where the violence represents internal evil, a crux to a person’s character. This was just life. Anybody exposed to fighting knows it’s a matter of degrees. A knife instead of a belt; a fatal cut instead of a shallow one.
I looked straight at the man and said it was true. It was true that the student in the documentary had killed someone and was in jail now. The man’s face fell; the others’, as well. Now I knew: They weren’t from around here. Nobody from here, even the mild and kind elderly folks who fed me pie at the Presbyterian church, would be so shocked, so overtaken by pity.
“It was a fight late at night, you know,” I said. “The man who”—I paused, choosing my words carefully—“died, he was older, drunk on his porch, with Patrick’s sister. Patrick got scared.”
The three shared the same face: stricken and curious, as if they had never heard of a fight gone bad.
I wanted to tell them how Patrick was doing, that he was in pain, indeed agonized by what he had done. And I wanted to tell them Patrick had read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, tell them about his fondness for Lucy, his forgiveness of Edmund. These were ethereal, precious gains.
But it was clear that little of what I wanted to say mattered to them, for they wanted to hear that Patrick hadn’t killed anyone. I had nearly forgotten—in fact, I had been glad to forget. Hadn’t forgetting been the very point of reading together? Hadn’t it been a way of detaching us from the past?
I started to panic. No matter what he did for the rest of his life, Patrick would never escape that question: What happened? The question of his inner life would always be overshadowed by fact. I thought of the lines concentrated around Patrick’s jaw as he wrote, his eyes squinting as he searched for a word: the way you could see on his face the silence, the private labor, the proof of feeling, the evidence of thinking.
“It’s been a pleasure,” I said, and pushed my cart of dismal produce away from them.
—
“YOU PASS THAT test?” Patrick greeted me.
“The test?” I said. “Oh! The bar. Yes!”
He had remembered that my results had come out over the weekend.
“I was in Memphis with Danny and Lucy when I found out. They took me out to celebrate.”
He grinned, happy for me. “That’s great, Ms. Kuo. Really, I ain’t surprised, you real smart. Where you go to eat?” I said Mexican food.
He wanted to know about Mexican food, or he was trying to procrastinate. Obligingly, I explained the tortilla and the enchilada.
Then we returned to poetry. His eyes got wide at the sight of my Norton Anthology of Poetry: “Ms. Kuo, that be bigger than the Bible.”
I found the Tennyson poem I wanted to talk about: He clasps the crag with crooked hands; / Close to the sun in lonely lands, / Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
“What words sound alike? Don’t worry about what they mean.”
Patrick repeated the lines to himself, trying to hear their sound.
“Maybe crooked and crag.”
“Good. You’ve already got the heart of this lesson, and we haven’t even started. Any other sounds that sound alike?”
“Clasps and crag,” he concluded, after some thinking and muttering to himself.
“Exactly. Do you remember what vowels are?” At once I cringed at my wording: Do you remember. Bad pedagogy: It framed learning in terms of what he had failed to retain.
“A,” I said hastily.
Patrick blurted out, “E, I, O, U.”
He learned assonance quickly. “Could be close and lonely,” he said. And consonance, as well. “Lonely lands,” he said.
And then meter.
“Syllables. How many syllables are in your name? Patrick.”
He looked at me questioningly—he was about to apologize. “Patrick,” I interrupted, cutting him off. “Two. Pat”—I put up my thumb to indicate the first syllable—“and rick.” Now both my thumb and index finger were in the air. “See, two syllables.”
For an hour we practiced trochees and iambs. Trochees were long–short, I explained; iambs were short–long. I spouted off a list of arbitrary words and names. Patrick, Pam, tiger, belong. “Iamb or trochee?” His answers were sometimes haphazard, pure guesses. “Say it to yourself,” I advised. “Tiger, tiger,” he’d repeat. Eventually he got the hang of it. “That be long–short, ain’t it.”
Now I leafed through the Norton and found a poem by Yeats, “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,” Patrick began.“Enwrought,” he said next. I hadn’t taught enwrought, not seeing a point, and so his forehead now settled into quizzical lines. But
the lines vanished when he reached the colors, golden and silver, which came so effortlessly that these words seemed like a reprieve, an oasis.
Patrick’s voice now relaxed. “Of night and light and the half-light.”
“What’s your favorite line?” I asked him. I didn’t want to bludgeon him with questions about theme or meaning.
He clasped his hands, thinking carefully.
I said, “There’s no right answer.”
His eyes followed the lines. Finally he decided. “The blue and the dim and the dark cloths.”
I was surprised. I realized I had expected that he would choose But I, being poor, have only my dreams. How stupid. Which line he loved—what moved him—I couldn’t know.
I asked, “Why is this your favorite line?”
“I don’t know, Ms. Kuo.”
I waited.
“Because it make me think about the sky. How it looks at night.”
“That’s lovely.”
He was squinting now.
“Yeah. Before it get dark.”
“See what the last words of each line are?”
“Feet,” he muttered. “Dreams,” he continued. “Feet…” Then, suddenly realizing the pattern, he laughed to himself.
“Why do you think he chooses to repeat those words?”
“ ’Cause it’s all he has.”
It was a wonderful answer. I simply nodded.
“Okay,” I announced. “I think you’re ready.”
Patrick looked up, expectant.
“Let’s memorize this.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
“Ms. Kuo, you crazy.”
For the next hour we practiced. “Of night and light and half-light,” he tried, not looking at the page. I said, “You’re missing a little word, one little syllable,” and he counted on his fingers. Yes, he’d forgotten: the half-light. Then he said, “I would spread the cloth,” and I stopped him and said, “Just one cloth?” And swiftly he corrected himself and said, “Cloths.”
—
AFTER JAIL IN the morning, I drove straight to KIPP and taught. By the time I got back to Danny and Lucy’s house, I was exhausted. On their couch, I read Patrick’s homework. I had run out of time during jail that day to read it. (“Can I take this home?” I asked, holding his notebook. “Does that mean I don’t have homework tonight?” he responded.)
To my beautiful baby Cherish. I remember when you were born you weighted only four pounds an three ounces. So tiny I was afraid of holding you. Danielle told me how fragile you would be. Also this look you gave me of a constant stare. When ever you was awake. More like the same mezmorized sensation I had for you. The humble smile you had at first. Im picturing it laughs whenever I hear you over the phone. Now that you’re a year an Five months old. Missing you crawl an take yo first steps. Has been a disappointment for the both of us I know…See you soon. We will catch up. Love yo Daddy.
It was better, wasn’t it? So tiny I was afraid of holding you. The word fragile. The same mezmorized sensation. I knew exactly, I thought, where he had picked up the word sensation—from the line Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror—but he had improved its context. And I loved how he pictured her laughing; we had talked about picturing people, picturing mountains, picturing oceans. There was the allusion to his disappointment—but at least it was spelled correctly.
It was already time for bed, but I still needed to grade my pile of Spanish tests—there were sixty in total, on verb conjugations of estudiar and hablar. Why in the world had I agreed to teach a language I didn’t know? I wished I had more time in jail to talk to Patrick about his work. What I really wanted to do in the Delta was becoming clear: teach Patrick. It was a utilitarian’s nightmare—Patrick was one, the KIPP kids were many. The likelihood of improving the odds of the younger, motivated, fresh-faced students at an institution hell-bent on getting them to college far eclipsed that of reversing the fate of a lone adult in a county jail.
I switched back to Patrick’s letter. I marked it up. I circled the an and wrote and. I wrote, Sweet, tender detail!
—
MY EMAIL TO Jordan looked like a breakup note: I have something I need to talk to you about.
I felt like I’d written a lot of these notes lately. I was turning into a real flake.
Jordan was nice about it. Who knows what he really thought.
Soon the only student I would have left was Patrick.
—
BY MID-DECEMBER, PATRICK and I had a ritual: We began each morning by reciting a poem.
“You go first, Ms. Kuo,” he’d say, teasing, gesturing with his hands, as if permitting me to walk through a door first. This was part of the ritual, too—neither of us wanted to go first.
“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths…” I’d begin.
Patrick would turn serious, assuming a grave air, nodding encouragingly, as if I were a child. He knew this poem almost by heart, and he’d wait anxiously for each right word.
“Enwrought with silver and golden light—no.” I’d furrow my brow, I’d stop, I’d search…“Golden,” I’d try, mangling the line. “Golden and silver?”
I’d check Patrick’s expression for assurance: Now his brow was yanking inward; he didn’t want me to fail.
I’d continue: “Of night and light and the half-light,” I’d say. “I would spread the cloths…”
Patrick would shake his head, interrupting me in a mild voice. “You be skipping a line, Ms. Kuo.”
“Are you sure?” I was buying time.
He’d wait.
“Give me a hint.” Stumped, I’d give him my best expression of mock despair.
Another student would have burst out loud with the answer, showing off the fact that he knew. Perhaps I was that kind of student. Patrick was quiet; he hoped I would figure it out.
“Oh!” I’d remember. He was right; I had skipped a line. “The dim and the blue and the dark cloths,” I’d try.
“Closer,” he would say. He didn’t want me to win by cheating.
I’d look at him blankly.
Finally, he would relent. “The blue come before the dim,” he’d say. “Like life.”
8
* * *
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
What’s a brook?
A little river.
Meadows parching—if parch means dried up, what will happen?
No more brook.
So what will happen?
No more peace inside.
He likes these lines of Yusef K. (my favorite, too!) This man / who stole roses and hyacinth / for his yard, would stand there / with eyes closed & fists balled
His assonance homework, lovely:
long, strong, bone
bee, tree, leaf
when we memorize he always gets this line right: And like a thunderbolt he falls
—Notes about Patrick from my journal, 2009
WHEN I DECIDED TO COME back to the Delta, I wanted to do what I viewed as the moral opposite of publishing a piece of writing about my past experiences in The New York Times Magazine. Instead of remembering the Delta inside my room at a far remove, I would talk to people. Instead of fixing Patrick to the page, mourning him as if his life were over, I would help get his life started again. If I did continue writing, I would permit it under certain conditions: It would not be a “personal essay”—personal meant indulgent—but rather a sweeping history or sociology, which had scope and ambition. These were the books I read in college that had equipped me with an understanding of race and poverty and pushed me to come to the Delta in the first place.
But the contents of my notebook betrayed me. It told me what I really cared about. It was about Patrick, just Patrick: about his handwriting, about the crazy way it looked at first; about how he stared at the picture of the Faun crying; about memorizing poems and why it seemed to mean so much; about how hard it was teach, how easy it was to regress, what it was like t
o learn. My relationship with Patrick—wasn’t this the core of it all? Until I saw him in jail, it had never occurred to me that a student could regress or that we could resurrect roles in which we’d previously failed.
—
“THINK OF IT as a very little guy,” I said.
I was speaking about the apostrophe. “It’s not nice to forget him just because he’s so little. Don’t be a mean friend.”
Patrick laughed.
“Ms. Kuo, I bet you got a lot of friends.”
“I have a few good ones,” I said carefully, “which is all you need.” This was a lie. I had more than a few.
“Danny and Lucy, you know them from college?”
“No, from teaching. Danny was my first friend here.”
“He be a good teacher?”
“The best.” Then I asked, “What about you?”
His mood shifted. “Friend,” he said, emphasizing the word with an ironic tone. “Are they friends if they get you killed?”
We were quiet.
“I got you,” he said. “And I got my mama and my sisters. That all I need.
“Ms. Kuo,” he said suddenly—something else was on his mind. “Do me a favor and get me some more cigarettes from my daddy today?”
Even though I wanted to be there for him, I was feeling pressed. I had told Jordan I would finish out the semester at KIPP, so I still had packed days. “I have work.”
“When you get off work?” he asked.
“Six,” I said, though it was five.
—
I WENT TO Patrick’s house later that evening to get the cigarettes. Patrick’s mother came to the door and knew at once who I was. She waved for me to come in. I’d hoped she would be home. I was filled with curiosity about her, because Patrick loved her most of all. In a letter he had written to her, he’d said: I miss you too much to keep writing.
In her arms was a child: Patrick’s daughter. Cherish. It had to be her. She had big cheeks, a big jaw, and resembled Patrick. Her braids dangled prettily, framing her face, tied at the ends with pink and blue beads.
