The Flock

by Joan Frances Casey

  One hand raised; a finger waved from the next desk; one guy grinned and nudged his neighbor, who nodded his answer to me; and so on around the room, until ten kids grinned sheepishly at me.

  “And how about last night?” had most of their classmates joining in the nods and hand gestures. I nodded back in mock dismay, enjoying their conspiratorial confessions and their trust in me.

  “Well, here’s the point,” I continued in a more serious tone. “If you come here under the effects of THC, we cannot share and grow and talk in a way that can make this experience learning and fun. I’ll end up spending the semester talking at you, and we’ll all be frustrated and bored.

  “Now, I’m not going to tell you that marijuana will make your eyes fall out, but I will ask you not to smoke dope for eight hours prior to coming to my class. So, your homework assignment is to stay straight tonight and tomorrow morning. What you do after class tomorrow is your own business. By the way, I’ll be checking to see that you did your homework.”

  The bell rang on cue and the students drifted out, laughing at my bizarre homework assignment and whispering among themselves about this unteacherly conduct. I knew they weren’t sure what to make of me, but I also knew that I’d have a brighter, more alert group in the morning. I waited until the last student left before depositing in the trash can a joint that someone had left on the corner of my desk. No one would know what had become of the gift, and I didn’t have to know the identity of the giver to perceive the thought behind it. Someone had acknowledged what I gave to the class—my trust, my understanding, my respect—and I accepted the gift as a token of appreciation and connection, although I was pretty sure my supervisor wouldn’t have interpreted it in the same way.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Lynn this latest victory. Being with kids made me feel so good about myself, and sharing my school day with her had become an important part of the experience. She appreciated my motivations, applauded my attempts, and suggested alternatives to problems that had me stumped. But, most important, I knew that Lynn agreed with me that even the most damaged and disenchanted teenager was only waiting for someone to see the real person beneath the defense and respond with genuine caring. Lynn supported my feeling that I was a natural teacher, eager for the opportunity to show what I could do.

  I strolled happily into the mental-health clinic that afternoon, not worrying about the session that was to come. After I talked with Lynn about my teaching, the treatment hour was not my concern. I was celebrating the day and thinking about the restaurant where Steve and I would have a birthday dinner. I swapped favorite restaurants with the receptionist while I waited for Lynn to finish with her earlier patient.

  “Happy birthday!” Lynn said and greeted me with a hug. I hugged her back and thanked her, but reminded her that it really wasn’t my birthday. Jo was twenty-six today. I was quite happy to remain nineteen or twenty, thank you. That’s the nice thing about having a lot of personalities, I mused: no one inside seems to care much about age. Missy was five no matter how old the body got, and I was always right around twenty.

  When I walked into Lynn’s office, my smile faltered and finally slipped. A birthday cake sat on the little table next to the patient’s chair. I knew that Lynn had thought this would be a nice gesture, like the bouquet of dried flowers she had given to Missy. I hated to hurt her feelings, but I knew that Jo wasn’t going to handle this well.

  “Lynn,” I said, “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I think it was really sweet of you to bake the cake. But Jo hates birthdays. I’ve been celebrating them for her for years.”

  With that, I slipped inside so that Jo could come out and receive her present. Within a few seconds, Jo came out, registered where she was, saw the cake, realized that Lynn had baked it for her, blushed deeply, and raced deep inside our collective mind. I came back, shrugged “told you” to Lynn, and accepted her offer of birthday cake and tea.

  Not surprisingly, Lynn’s choice of conversation was Jo’s problem with birthdays. “Well, you know Jo hates being the center of attention,” I began, “so I’m sure that that’s part of it. But there’s something more. Jo felt that the only reason her parents loved her or ever gave her anything was out of a sense of duty. They were stuck with her and had no choice. When other people are nice to her, Jo feels guilty, sure that she must have manipulated them into responding to her. She’s sure no person would come to love her or want to give her something out of genuine affection.”

  Lynn became thoughtful. “The dried flowers recognized no special day, only a special feeling that Jo could not have manipulated into being,” she proposed, “but birthdays are different. Birthdays are something that Jo thinks people have to respond to.”

  “Bingo,” I said.

  Lynn sighed and smiled wearily. “Oh, Renee, how am I ever going to break through all of Jo’s defenses?”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that now,” I reassured her. “Jo won’t be back this afternoon. Let me tell you what happened today at school!”

  Jo didn’t reappear during the hour, but Missy popped out, as she often did, for a few minutes with her friend. Missy spied the cake and fled from the chair to a corner in Lynn’s office as soon as she realized it was her birthday. Refusing to talk, she huddled in the corner to suck her thumb and rock, eyes closed, somewhere far beyond Lynn’s touch.

  All of us felt uneasy about birthdays. If it weren’t for the social expectations, I would have given up the birthday altogether, but I knew that that reaction would have been harder to explain than my pretending for the people around me that the day had some special meaning.

  When Jo returned—at the next appointment, with all traces of the birthday fiasco gone—it was clear that Lynn considered Jo’s inward flight more than just a social faux pas.

  “Jo, we’ve got to talk about this,” Lynn said firmly, and Jo realized that she was probably right. “Let’s talk about some of the birthdays you remember.”

  Jo took a deep breath and thought back. Talking about birthdays past would probably be easier than finding out how she had manipulated Lynn into doing something nice for her.

  “When I was a child,” Jo said, “I did have one positive feeling about birthdays. Each birthday meant I was getting closer to being an adult. I really was a terrible flop at being a child. I was never the kind of child people expected me to be. I was too sensitive, too smart, too something. I never lost hope that I’d do better at being a grown-up.”

  “Do you remember any specific birthdays?” Lynn prodded. Jo said yes and then was silent. “Jo?” Lynn said gently, but with a touch of warning in her voice.

  Often when her memories were too painful for her to want to discuss, Jo slipped away and another personality came out. “It’s still me,” Jo said, “I’m just afraid that if I tell you the truth, you’ll laugh at me.”

  “Why should I laugh?” Lynn asked.

  “Sometimes,” Jo faltered. She bit her lip and tried again. “Sometimes I remember things too well. I can’t help it. Maybe it’s because I’ve lost so much time in my life, but I have some very early memories. I really do.”

  “I won’t laugh,” Lynn promised again. “When is the first birthday you remember?”

  Lynn didn’t look surprised when Jo confessed, “My first.”

  Jo remembered the scratchy dress and high white shoes her mother dressed her in for her first birthday party. She remembered the feeling of all those people—aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends—staring at her. “My mother—her hair was long and brown then—held a cake with one candle. Her mouth smiled for all the people, but her eyes warned me to behave. I screamed and cried and twisted in my high chair, wanting only to get away, to hide myself.”

  “Hide yourself from what, sweetie?” Lynn asked.

  “The people, all the people,” Jo murmured, lost in memory. Then she looked up, at Lynn. “You see, I’ve never been able to filter out the images and emotions that come from being in a crowd of people. The more peo
ple, the more constant the outpouring of vibration and energy of thoughts and feelings from them. That first birthday, I wanted only to get away from the people. Since my mother couldn’t tolerate my crankiness, I soon got my wish.”

  “Go on,” coached Lynn.

  “I remember my second birthday too—not the celebration, just the accident. You might have noticed my scar.” Jo touched her left eyebrow, which was split by a small piece of scar tissue. “I got that the day I was two. It was all because of those horrid little plastic-covered bells that people put on babies’ shoes. I didn’t have a name for them, of course, but I hated the noise the bells made whenever I moved my feet.

  “My mother put those bells on my feet and then moved away from me. She crouched down by a chair and called me over. I moved my feet, and the bells made noise. I stamped my feet as an experiment, trying to make the jingling stop. I remember that my mother and sister thought my attempts were all pretty funny. But I was so busy concentrating on preventing the noise and walking at the same time that I lost my balance and hit the sharp wooden leg of a chair. I spent my second birthday having my forehead sutured.

  “I don’t remember my third birthday,” Jo said with a rare grin. “I don’t have perfect memory, you know,” she added, teasing. Lynn smiled back. “But I do remember my fourth.”

  Lynn chuckled at Jo’s playful manner and replied grandly, “Well, please go on.”

  “My parents took my sister and me to a restaurant for my fourth birthday. They said that I could have anything I wanted since it was my birthday. I wanted a hot dog. But for some reason that was impossible in this restaurant. I felt betrayed, and must have made quite a scene.

  “On the way home, I sat in a corner of the back seat, listening to my mother tell me that I was a selfish, greedy little girl and that I had ruined the evening for everyone. I wasn’t troubled by my mother’s scolding. I wanted to figure out what had gone wrong.

  “I thought carefully about the events of the evening and decided that there must be limitations on desires. It wasn’t true that I could have anything I wanted. Not all restaurants served hot dogs. I felt good about understanding that, but I still didn’t know how people figured out what it was safe to want. I did know, from my mother’s scolding, that ‘wanting’ was a problem. If the desire could not be filled, then I was greedy and selfish. Since I couldn’t figure out how to judge the possibility of fulfilling a desire, I decided on my fourth birthday that it was safer not to want anything at all.”

  Jo paused. “You know, I really wish I had been better then at making sense of things. I mean, I had been reading for almost a year by my fourth birthday. If I had thought it all through a little more carefully, I would have figured out that the restaurant menus tell people what is possible to want and what is not.

  “My sixth birthday also stands out for me, because it was then that I figured out why my mother always opened gifts on my birthday. Her birthday was the same day as mine.

  “About a week before my sixth birthday, my father showed me the gift I was to give to my mother. This was new, and I felt very grown up. I watched him wrap the gift and didn’t think about it again until the night when my mother and I opened our presents.

  “My father handed her the package and said, ‘This is from Jo.’ I smiled proudly, feeling very wise. My knowing what was in that box made the gift really from me.

  “My mother fingered the package and then began to unwrap it. She said, ‘I bet I know what this is. I bet it’s a record album to go with my hi-fi.’ I nodded and smiled with pleasure that she had guessed my gift.

  “My sister, who was fourteen at the time, was horrified by what I had done. ‘You told! You’re not supposed to tell, you little brat!’ Carol yelled, and ran from the room.

  “ ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ my mother said, and went after my sister to comfort her. The special record lay forgotten on the floor, and I looked at my father with tears in my eyes. ‘You ruined her surprise.’ He sighed and gave me a hug. He didn’t know how to please her either,” Jo added as an aside.

  “My seventh birthday was very special,” she said, “and I’m just now beginning to understand how special it was. Although I didn’t interpret it correctly then, it was around that birthday that I knew that time was different for me.”

  “Time?” Lynn shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean, time was different?”

  “I had wanted a watch ever since I was five years old, but for two years my father said I was too young. Watches were not toys.” Jo looked up, and her face showed little-girl disgust. “I knew watches weren’t toys, and I thought my father was putting me down when he implied I didn’t know that. I knew watches, clocks were powerful and important. That’s why I wanted one.

  “My father was right in saying when I was five that I ‘couldn’t even tell time yet.’ So I learned. And once I had learned, clocks began to tell me how many blank hours had passed. They counted off the agonizingly slow minutes until my father came home from work. Finally, two years later, on my seventh birthday, my father gave me a watch.

  “I remember being astonished, overwhelmed by the power I had been handed. I know that sounds silly, but I completely misinterpreted the concept of time. When I was seven, I reasoned that if I owned a watch I could make the time move slowly or quickly at my command.”

  Lynn shook her head again. “Wait, Jo, I’m not following.”

  “OK,” Jo said slowly, “let’s try an analogy.” She wanted to go slowly enough to make Lynn understand, but was trembling with excitement as she sorted out this childhood experience.

  “Let’s say you worked on an assembly line. The movement of the line would control how quickly you would have to move to do your job. Now, if you suddenly had the switch at hand to slow down or speed it up, the line would be in your control, right?” Lynn nodded. “Well, that’s how I felt about time!” Jo said. “I thought that if I owned a watch I could control the speed at which time passed. If I wanted to slow time down, I could set my watch back. If I wanted time to move quicker, I’d set it forward.”

  Lynn was silent, so Jo returned to her memory. “I exercised my new power cautiously. When I couldn’t wait for my father to get home, I set the watch a little forward—no more than fifteen minutes. When I wanted more time for reading before bed, I gave myself no more than thirty extra minutes. My parents’ annoyance that I wasn’t yet asleep didn’t bother me. When they asked, I looked at my watch and dutifully read off the time.”

  Jo grinned. “It took my father weeks to realize that the watch wasn’t slowing down or speeding up of its own accord. He was furious and took the watch away from me, angry that I had treated my watch as ‘a toy.’ I kept trying to explain how subtly and carefully I controlled time—I never moved it impulsively—and he grew more and more bewildered, until I finally stopped, a new recognition blossoming in my mind. I felt stupid and humiliated by my ignorance.”

  Lynn waited, looking puzzled. “I know differently now, of course,” Jo said, “but in that agonizing talk with my father I realized that I was wrong in thinking that people controlled time. People didn’t control time by owning a watch any more than they controlled the seasonal cycle of leaves by owning a tree. I knew suddenly that I had had the metaphor all wrong.

  “So I started thinking that time controlled people. Time seemed to me to be like an untamed horse—galloping crazily ahead when it desired, or grazing quietly at will. Sometimes it moved fast and sometimes very slow. When I had wanted a watch so desperately, I had thought that timepieces were like bridles, controlling time’s passage. Then I thought I understood that clocks were only flecks on time’s back, recording its erratic movements.”

  Jo looked at Lynn. She was surprised at how sensible all of this seemed and felt a little triumphant that her understanding of its significance preceded that of her therapist. “I guess I knew even then that I still hadn’t quite gotten the concept right,” Jo said, “and maybe I’m still confused about its seemingl
y relative nature. I mean, if you think about it, time really is longer for a child than it is for an adult.”

  “Slow down, Jo, I’m not following,” Lynn said again.

  “A day is a much larger percentage of a child’s life than it is of an adult’s life, right?” said Jo. Lynn nodded. “The only sense we have of time is in relation to the amount of time we’ve experienced, so it’s always relative to the individual,” Jo finished. She chuckled both at her own understanding and at Lynn’s confusion. “I think I’ll take a course in the philosophy of physics and see if I can do a better job of clarifying the concept of time.”

  “Let me know if you do,” Lynn responded. “I never thought of time as so complex before.”

  “There’s more,” Jo said excitedly, then looked to Lynn in an aside. “I only remember one more childhood birthday, but I think it provides some evidence that I was losing time even when I was young.”

  “Tell me about it,” Lynn said, listening with new interest.

  “On my tenth birthday, I suddenly ‘woke up’ in my family room. There were lots of girls there, girls that I recognized from my class at school, girls who hated me. They teased me, threatened me, and even blackmailed me—in exchange for my lunch money, they wouldn’t tell the teacher that I had been talking when she was out of the room. They terrorized me so much that I paid up even when I had done nothing wrong.

  “These were the girls who threw the ball especially hard to hurt me when I dared to play with them at recess. These were the girls who taunted me when I didn’t. Even Courtney Myers, the ringleader of the gang, was there, controlling the other girls with a twitch of her innocent-looking smile or with a swish of her long blond braids.”