Language Arts

by Stephanie Kallos

  Dana seemed to sense this, and he began bringing a new fervency to their noontime lessons. “Let’s make loopuhzzz!” he suggested. And by loopuhzzz he meant any kind of writing.

  “Okay. Try this.” Charles demonstrated. “Start to make a regular loop, so go up, but then stop at the top, and when you come back down, don’t let the loop be fat. Make it skinny.”

  “Ha! Not fat,” Dana stage-whispered, “like Mrs. Braxton.”

  “Then put a dot up here, like … a cherry on a sundae.”

  “Or a sun.”

  “Son?”

  “Sun!” Dana repeated happily. He added a series of jagged lines. “See?”

  “Oh, right,” Charles replied, but he wasn’t seeing the sun. The addition of Dana’s zigzags emanating from the dot instead reminded him of the RKO radio tower at the start of one of his favorite horror movies, The Thing. Donnie Bothwell was the person who’d informed him that the weird clicking noise accompanying the image of the radio tower wasn’t part of the movie soundtrack but Morse code spelling out An RKO Radio Picture. Donnie had a merit badge in Signaling.

  “I’ll try now!” Dana proclaimed.

  He inscribed his version of a lowercase i, going slowly and smoothly through the up-down part, and then executing the dot by stabbing at the paper as if wielding an épée. His aim wasn’t perfect, but he had the right idea. He practiced making more i’s, soon filling another page in his Big Chief drawing tablet. Charles made a mental note to bring another one to school soon; Dana went through them so quickly.

  Dana had come a long way with his penmanship—but he only demonstrated this when the two of them were alone together in the cafeteria. Charles always wondered why Dana never revealed to Mrs. Braxton, or the rest of the children in room 104, how good he could be.

  To keep himself busy while Dana practiced, Charles started making a list: it, is, in, if, ill …

  “What you do?” Dana asked. Simple dots had become too boring; he’d taken to topping his i’s with energetically scribbled orbs that were the size of dimes.

  Inch, itch … “Huh?”

  Dana continued. “In that class. What you do in that class when you go away with Ass-trid?”

  IQ, idea, Iron Man …

  “You mean Language Arts?”

  “Yes, that place you go with the other smart kids.”

  “I’m not smart,” Charles replied. Invisible, instant, insane …

  “Yes you are smart, Char-Lee. You best at loopuhz. Better than Brax the Ax!”

  Invincible, interior, interrupt … Charles thought about telling Dana that just because he could make loops didn’t mean he was smart, but he had a feeling it would hurt Dana’s feelings.

  Intelligence.

  “We’re supposed to write a story.”

  “Supposed to write a story. Supposed to write a story about what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem. A hero. Somebody special. Somebody you root for … I can’t think of anything good to write about.”

  “You’ll think of something, Char-Lee,” Dana said, giving a final spiraling flourish to a dot that was the size of a half-dollar. “You’ll think of something good to write about for your story. I root for you.”

  •♦•

  The collaborators do not speak to each other; they do not look each other in the eye; their time together is limited to thirty minutes twice a week. They sit side by side behind a white trifold screen that will gradually be transformed through their efforts. Sometimes they finish a particular section in only two sessions; sometimes it takes longer.

  Mrs. D’Amati arrives. She might gesture to Romy, in which case Romy delivers magazines, scissors, and adhesives; she might prefer solitude, and on those occasions Giorgia busies herself inscribing long rows of loops, up-down, and bedspring ovals on any of the many textures and colors of plain paper made available to her. She might do a little of both activities during the hour she works alone. By her choice of pictures, Mrs. D’Amati determines the theme of these constructions.

  When Cody arrives, he walks quickly to Mrs. D’Amati’s table, sits next to her at a distance of about four feet, and starts tearing whatever is available: magazines, Mrs. D’Amati’s practice pages. Romy is there to help; she glues the scissored bits and torn strips to the screen as directed.

  At some point in every class, Mrs. D’Amati makes at least one attempt to get Cody to take up a pen or pencil and write; he refuses these overtures.

  Mrs. D’Amati leaves. Cody keeps going.

  The end result: large triptych collages jam-packed with alternating stripes of color and text—irregularly shaped images and bits of handwriting.

  Babies and mothers, fathers and daughters, baked goods, flowers, churches, fields, teachers and students, soldiers, sisters, and all things bridal: dresses, gloves, veils, ribbons, shoes, bouquets, and kissing couples.

  Anyone who looks closely begins to suspect that buried within this visual cacophony are heroes and villains; comedies; tragedies; commingled mysteries waiting to be solved.

  Things Like Fingers

  The Youngs, the Gurnees, and Charles and Alison gathered at the Pinehurst house at eight o’clock in the morning; the plan for the weekend was to put in two ten-hour days.

  As soon as everyone arrived, Alison presented them all with copies of her SUGGESTED DIVISION OF LABOR list. There were three major tasks that needed doing in advance of the upcoming deliveries: repainting all the rooms with zero–volatile-organic-compound paint, pulling up the old stained and mildewed carpeting throughout the house, and deep cleaning with an assortment of nontoxic products.

  It turned out that Ted Gurnee was a handy sort of fellow with a varied skill set. He seemed to know a little about everything related to construction: electricity, plumbing, carpentry. He was also meticulous and detail-minded, someone who obviously thrived on sweating the small stuff and so was forever finding small, noncritical, but still (in his mind at least) important tasks—none of which were on Alison’s list.

  Within a few hours, it was obvious that Ted’s preoccupations with things like polishing door hardware to a high gloss and acquiring matching switch-plate covers were driving Alison crazy. Ted, she kept saying, I think it’s more important right now that we focus on accomplishing the large, overarching jobs; there will be plenty of time later for small projects, to which Ted always replied, Oh, absolutely, I agree, this won’t take long at all, I’ll be done in ten minutes, a sure indication that whatever it was would take at least an hour and a half and involve several unscheduled trips to Home Depot.

  Ted’s affable cluelessness when it came to Alison’s management style caused Charles to develop a certain fondness for him; he began acting as Ted’s ad hoc apprentice, accompanying him on his hardware-store jaunts, pairing up with him once they returned, taking lessons in Wiring and Plumbing 101, often in direct violation of Alison’s work assignments. In addition to enjoying Ted’s company, Charles found it perversely rewarding, thwarting Alison in this way, seeing the look on her face every time he made his own decision about what to do and when to do it.

  Although Charles had written a brief note of apology—

  Dear Alison, I’m sorry if my comments about your conversion activities upset you and/or seemed insensitive. I hope becoming a Jew brings you every happiness. Mazel tov. Sincerely, C.

  —she hadn’t responded, and he could tell that she was still angry. Her phony cordiality in front of the others riled him, inciting what he knew to be a completely immature desire to aggravate, but in Charles’s opinion he had as much of a right to immaturity in this situation as she did.

  Of course, they’d have plenty of time to argue over the coming week, if they chose: the Youngs and the Gurnees had traditional jobs, but Charles (on vacation) and Alison (self-employed) could work at the house from eight to five Monday through Friday, adding to their labors the roles of contractor managers and shipment-receiving clerks.

  On Monday, Charles made a point of arriving half
an hour early. Alison wasn’t the only one who had a key. He was already pulling up staples in the living-room floor when she arrived. They did not greet each other.

  The house was large; it was easy enough to stay separated as the week wore on. The delivery people and contractors came and went; Charles let Alison handle them.

  Midweek, Charles started to wonder where Alison’s beau was during all this. If he was such an important character in her life, why the hell wasn’t he here, helping?

  He decided to ask.

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “My friend?”

  “That guy you’ve been seeing.”

  “You mean my fiancé?”

  “Yes. Him.”

  “You’re asking now? After all this time?”

  About an hour later, she sought him out in the basement, where he was scrubbing down the concrete floor, and added, “He’s in California, teaching a weeklong aikido intensive.”

  Charles wondered why Steven/Jackie/Jean-Claude had to go all the way to California; it was plenty intense right here.

  They worked every day, holding space and silence between them, until around four o’clock, when some combination of the Young/Gurnees arrived, there was a discussion of what had been done, what still needed doing, and then Charles went home, exhausted, too tired even for Merchant Ivory.

  “What are you doing in here?” Alison asked toward the end of the week, finding Charles in Cody’s room opening up a recently purchased can of paint that was not part of the supply Alison had selected (although it was zero–VOC). After spending years in various room whose walls were inevitably some shade of dingy white, Cody could tolerate a little color, Charles felt, something soothing; he’d selected a deep powdery blue that he thought would go nicely with Pam’s mustang picture.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” He didn’t mean to sound snippy, but this unending assault, this tension between them—it was exhausting.

  He expected some witty and/or cutting rejoinder; instead, she slunk off to another corner of the house. Charles was still painting Cody’s room when he heard her leave.

  Alison had brought a radio and kept it constantly tuned to a local NPR affiliate, one that was light on music and heavy on conversation. After she left, he switched to the Best Hits of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s and, experiencing a surge of energy, worked through the night and well into the wee hours of Sunday morning.

  •♦•

  Biographers make informed, factual, well-researched connections between their subjects’ lives and work: The writing of So-and-So during this period took a dark turn, likely because of the cataclysmic occurrences within the family circle … and so on.

  My father cannot provide a subjective biography of his own life; he has designed his memories, built them into a structure that supports the whole.

  Memory—uncorrected, uncorroborated, and (by its very nature) unreliable—is what allows us to retroactively create the blueprints of our lives, because it is often impossible to make sense of our lives when we’re inside them, when the narratives are still unfolding: This can’t be happening. Why is this happening? Why is this happening now?

  Only by looking backward are we able answer those questions, only through the assist of memory. And who knows how memory will answer? Who will it blame? Who will it forgive?

  Perhaps the most important character in everyone’s life—and the one with whom we have the most ambiguous relationship—is memory itself.

  In my father’s mind, all the most significant elements of his fourth-grade year were irreversibly grafted together in a single night and the next morning.

  A weeknight? A weekend?

  Let’s make it a Saturday.

  •♦•

  The Marlows were fighting. Charles took up his flashlight and tried to distract himself with images of more benevolent-looking monsters: the sweet-faced children in Life magazine with Janet Leigh and the eleven red fezzes.

  THE FULL STORY OF THE DRUG THALIDOMIDE

  Outside his door, muttered, guttural incomprehensibilities alternated with articulate savageries:

  … fucking selfish …

  … turning him against me …

  A thump, a slam, a gasp, a grunt …

  THE 5,000 DEFORMED BABIES

  He pulled his blanket closer, resettled his crucifix over his heart.

  Although he’d survived countless other monstrosities—vampires, werewolves, giant mutant ants, radioactive blobs, pod people, creatures risen from black lagoons and Japanese seas—they’d been viewed from a safe distance.

  A TRAIL OF HEARTBREAK

  Charles didn’t dare come out of his room; if the sounds were terrifying, what he might see was too horrifying to contemplate.

  In Arizona, Mrs. Sherri Finkbine discovered suddenly that her unborn child would be cheated of its arms and legs.

  If he needed to go to the bathroom, he was prepared: he’d appropriated a Tupperware container and placed it under his bed.

  Thalidomide, deformity, phocomelia, seal limbs, stumps …

  When his mother removed her shoes before she tiptoed down the hall and closed his door, she wasn’t just quieting her footsteps; it was the beginning of a skin-shedding …

  Some think the babies should be mercifully killed.

  The sounds were a symphony played over and over; its structure never varied.

  YOU CAN’T KEEP YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH SHUT

  YOU CAN’T KEEP YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF

  Charles turned the pages, studied the photos illuminated by the bilious, quavering glow of his plastic flashlight.

  Things like fingers extrude from odd places …

  It was easy to tell when the war was over—it ended not with atomic explosions or bloodcurdling screams but with the sounds of his father storming into the night and his mother weeping as she went to bed.

  The final pages of the August 10, 1962, issue of Life featured an especially odd pairing.

  On the left: a two-year-old German girl fitted with a vestlike contraption with two steel arms capped with mittenlike appendages. (Looking closely, Charles saw them: the things like fingers, just beneath her armpit.)

  On the right: a smiling, aproned mother, arms and hands intact, bracing the sides of a box of Albers New Deluxe Flapjack Mix: Like No Other! And in small print beneath: Visit the Carnation Exhibit at Century 21 Exposition, Seattle World’s Fair/April 21 to October 21, 1962.

  •♦•

  Sunday morning, Charles awoke to the smells of coffee and buttered toast. He padded down the hall and found his father standing at the kitchen stove, squinting through the smoke from his cigarette, cooking an army breakfast special: canned corned-beef hash topped with two fried eggs.

  “Morning, Chuck. Hope you’re hungry.”

  Aside from being unshaven and looking tired, Garrett Marlow appeared the same as always. His feet were bare; he wore pajama bottoms and a sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his arm muscles and the tattoo he’d gotten in Korea. There was no trace of whatever he had transformed into the night before.

  “There you go.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  His father poured a cup of coffee, lit another cigarette, sat down at the table, and opened up the Sunday paper.

  “You want the funnies?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  Charles listened for any indication that his mother was up and about. But aside from the dead-leaf sounds of his father turning newspaper pages, the house was eerily still.

  “Your mother’s not feeling well,” Garrett Marlow finally said. “Touch of the flu, so it’ll be just you and me at Mass.”

  “Okay.”

  Charles was used to this deception; he understood that, behind the door of his parents’ room, his mother had not yet changed back into human form.

  •♦•

  Around five in the morning, Charles finished painting Cody’s room. Too tired to drive, he lay down on the living-room sofa and slept for a few hours. Th
en he headed home—but not before making a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up Cody’s housewarming gift of noodles and magazines.

  He stopped at the curb to collect yesterday’s mail. There was the usual array of bills and non-Cody-approved catalogs, but among these items was a card, addressed by hand, originally sent to him at City Prana and presumably forwarded to him here at home by the school secretary. The return address bore the name S. McGucken.

  Charles’s knees began to tremble; he sat down on the curb. His hands were shaking as well. Eventually, using one of his keys as a letter opener, he carefully razored around the edge of the envelope flap.

  Dear Charles,

  I hope this letter finds you, and finds you well.

  I was delighted to see your name and photograph in the recent Seattle Times article about the students of Nellie Goodhue School.

  I’m not sure if you will remember my son, Dana, but he was a classmate of yours, and at the time, the two of you struck up a friendship.

  I’ve thought of you often over the years and wanted to say how pleased I was to learn of your success as a teacher. I remember well how very patient you were with Dana; it is no surprise that you ended up finding your calling in the teaching profession.

  I’m sure your life is very full, but if you would ever care to meet, I live at the Foss Home in North Seattle and would be delighted to offer you coffee or tea some afternoon at your convenience.

  Again, Charles, I send my congratulations to you and wish you and yours all the very best.

  Sincerely yours,

  Sylvie McGucken

  How could anyone not remember Dana? It seemed inconceivable.

  Did Bradley and Mitch remember him? Provided they were still alive, which somehow seemed doubtful. Charles imagined that they’d graduated to criminal careers and then met with violent ends, but perhaps that wasn’t their fate. Perhaps they’d become insurance salesmen, upstanding members of the Rotary Club, toiling away to end malaria; maybe they even belonged to the country club where Charles had bartended.

  Charles’s attention was redirected by the sound of a truck coming up the street: it was his next-door neighbor Gil Bjornson. He got up, stiffly, and waved.