by Pat Conroy
I once asked Mrs. Brown if the California boys could come into the schoolhouse and work with some of the kids on remedial reading. It seemed natural that two juniors in college would be moderately qualified to help out in the scholarly environs of Yamacraw School. Not that I disparaged their field work, for they were becoming so proficient in shit-house building that they completed these structures with remarkable speed. But both of them felt that they could accomplish far more if they could help the children in school. I agreed. It was funny how we thought education to be the great gilded key which would solve all problems, eliminate all poverty and disease, eradicate differences between social classes, and bring the children of okra-planters up to par with the children of emperors. A trinity of white-toothed white boys, Joe, Jim, and I, entered into the stream of Yamacraw life-style and felt all that was needed was a meteoric reading level, a couple of shots of new math, and a high score on the college entrance exams. So the guys wanted me to approach the unapproachable Mrs. Brown to see if she would put her approval on their apprenticeship within the schoolhouse walls.
“Mr. Conroy, do you realize that these boys have no credentials? The state requires all of its teachers to have the proper credentials. What if the man from the state department comes walkin’ into this here school, carrying his badge, and askin’ to see everybody’s credentials? Now what we gonna do with these California boys? Hide ’em in the ladies’ room? No, Mr. Conroy, we must abide by the rules of the state.”
“Mrs. Brown, all these guys want to do is come in during the day and help us out. Nothing else. It cannot hurt a single thing.”
“It will hurt the reputation and cree-dentials of this school.”
“This ain’t Harvard, Mrs. Brown.”
“Rules are rules, Mr. Conroy. The state makes the rules.”
“There are no rules which say these guys cannot come and help us every day.”
“I am the principal.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
So Joe and Jim remained the grand officiators of the recreation program. I explained to them that I was relatively powerless to cope with Mrs. Brown when she so adamantly refused to listen to reason. White guilt, that nasty little creature who rested on my left shoulder, prevented me from challenging Mrs. Brown on this or any other point. At this time of my life a black man could probably have handed me a bucket of cow piss, commanded me to drink it in order that I might rid my soul of the stench of racism, and I would have only asked for a straw. Blacks who have gone through the civil rights struggle have met a hundred white boys and girls who would dive head first in a septic tank to prove their liberation from the sins of their fathers. I thought Mrs. Brown was wrong, but did not have the moral courage to tell her so. In the fantasy of the races conceived in my mind, all blacks were noble people who had struggled against a repressive social order for years and who were finally reaping the tangible rewards of this struggle. All whites, especially myself, were guilty of heinous, extraordinarily brutal crimes against humanity. It dawned on me that I came to Yamacraw for a fallacious reason: I needed to be cleansed, born again, resurrected by good works and suffering, purified of the dark cankers that grew like toadstools in my past. I was on the island for expiation, and I think I liked to watch Joe and Jim struggle so patiently because I saw in them a reflection of myself.
The word had passed. The California boys were banned from the classroom. I thought credentials constituted the primary reason why they were not allowed to enter the school. Then one day Mrs. Brown told me conspiratorially, “We can’t let white boys and colored girls rub elbows too much. Them boys are young bulls with no cows on this island ’cept them colored cows. We can’t afford to have no half-breed cows on this island.”
I had borrowed a tape recorder from Mrs. Brown that I had noticed sitting in a corner of her room, virginal and unused. She let me have it reluctantly, telling me some crap that it was too valuable a piece of equipment to use with my “babies” around. I swore by the whiskers of Jehovah that I would treat the priceless machine as I would a tiara from Tiffany’s. Then I carried it into my room. Tape recorders are great instruments, I knew this intuitively, though I had never used one in a classroom environment and had no idea, at that particular moment, how exactly I would utilize one in this class.
Since I am a virtual idiot when it comes to machines of any kind, it took a good fifteen minutes to figure out how to operate this box full of hidden levers and submerged screws. Finally, after incredible fumbling on my part, the tape recorder whirred proudly and efficiently into action.
Mary told me the machine had sat idle the year before and that Mrs. Brown had not played it at all. “Fine,” I said, “we are going to play the hell out of it.”
I told everyone to come up to the tape recorder and give name, address, and grade. Big C was first. He rolled his eyes, lowered his head, then mumbled, “My name Charles Graves. I am in the seventh grade. I live on Yamacraw.”
Then I replayed his performance. When Big C’s voice came back into the room, I think I gained some insight into a magician’s feeling of power when he pulls a rabbit from his hat before a roomful of children. Lincoln yelled “God Almighty. Good gracious.” Whoops and giggles spread around the room as each succeeding voice came stuttering magically from the tape. Poor Prophet caught hell from the rest of the class when his own version of the language rolled incomprehensibly forth, and his brother Fred was so self-conscious about his inability to articulate that he merely grunted into the microphone. Oscar, however, the completion of the Simmons trinity, was so proud of the sound of his voice that he volunteered to tell the story of the book he had just finished reading. So he launched into a lengthy monologue about Moolak, an Eskimo salmon fisherman. Since Oscar was not a proponent of brevity, he described in intricate detail how Moolak caught what seemed to be a few million salmon. But while Oscar was droning on, a burst of noise arose spontaneously around Top Cat.
“Top Cat gonna sing,” Mary trilled.
“That right. He sound better than Brother James Brown,” Saul added.
Top Cat strutted and shimmied to the center of the room as if possessed by an orchestra of demons. His whole body danced and shook, and the class deferred to his assumption of an inalienable right to the microphone. Something had moved Top Cat.
“Do you need any music. Top Cat?” I asked.
“All I need is that there mike,” he said, his eyes closed and his lips already moving.
I gave him that there mike and sat down to enjoy the show. Top Cat was a great showman. He threw his head back, threw out his arms, wrinkled his face like an old raisin, and burst into a classic Otis Redding number, “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” The kid I had thought nearly illiterate had memorized the words of a fairly complicated song and developed a diction and sense of timing that was almost perfect. The class sat respectfully silent while Top Cat performed. When he finished, they applauded vigorously. Then came the flood.
Richard, who I knew damn well was illiterate, who could not string the twenty-six letters of the alphabet together, who could not add two and two, and who could not write his name, came striding manfully to the microphone. Richard was terribly bashful in class and would hide his face in his hands if I even looked in his direction. He also had developed an infallible escape mechanism; if it looked as though I was going to involve him in some class activity, Richard would raise his hand and ask to go to the bathroom. On one day he had gone to the land of pee eleven times. I followed him into the bathroom the last time and watched as Richard looked out the window at the forest surrounding the school. He almost hemorrhaged when he saw me looking at him. So Richard, striding to the microphone, smiling shyly and mumbling incoherently to himself, was kind of a big thing. And old Richard could sing like hell. His voice was high and clear, almost bell-like. He sang a spiritual with style and emotion.
“Will the circle
Be unbroken?
By and by, Lord,
By and by.”
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nbsp; His brother Jasper grabbed the microphone from Richard as soon as possible and launched into a song notable primarily for its epic length. It was called “Alabama Moonshine.” The song went on and on, an endless song not enhanced or flattered by Jasper’s flat, monotonic voice or his uninspired delivery. He sang it like a Trappist chant without life or humor, just a long, long ballad with piles and piles of verses—like Moolak with piles and piles of salmon.
Lincoln quit crapping around long enough to sing “The Birds and the Bees.” He was awful, but he enjoyed singing so much I remained silent and appreciative. The class unanimously declared him to be a lousy singer.
“Lincoln, you so bad,” shouted Big C.
“He sound like shee-t,” Saul said in a whisper, but of course, every time Saul whispered, everyone within three miles heard it.
“Saul cuss,” said Ethel.
“Shut up, girl,” Saul said murderously.
“I pinch your head, little man,” Ethel said back.
“Don’t you call me little man,” Saul warned.
“I call you little man, little man,” she answered.
Saul started to cry. He was extremely sensitive about his height and any mention of it would make him cry. Naturally, his classmates taunted him unmercifully and with unrestrained cruelty.
“Little man crying.”
“Cry, little man.”
“Shut up, punks,” I yelled.
“You a punk, big man,” Samuel told me.
“Sam, I am going to pinch your head like a pimple.” Sam talking was such a rare event that I would almost have let him tell me to lunch on manure.
“Sam call Conrack a punk,” someone yelled.
“Sam die now.”
“Sam no die. Sam live,” said Sam, for some reason. Meanwhile, Lincoln had not skipped a note and was finishing up his mauled rendition of “The Birds and the Bees.”
“Want me sing ’nother one, Conrack?”
“No, Lincoln, I can take only so much pure pleasure in one day.”
“Pretty good, huh?”
“Great stuff, kid.”
Top Cat then gyrated to the center of the room again and belted out another one called “Cloud Nine.” When he sat down, Ethel and Anna teamed up for what was probably the worst duet in history. It was so bad, and they knew it was so bad, that I did not even replay it when they were finished. Then back to Richard, who sang eight brief words, then forgot the rest of the song he was singing.
“You sing, Conrack?” Lincoln said.
“Doggone right, I sing. I’m a great singer. I once worked my way through college dancing in a go-go cage and singing rock and roll.”
“No,” the class yelled.
“Yeh,” I yelled back. “I’m such a good singer, in fact, that I only sing for money.”
“How much?” Oscar asked.
“How much you got?” I answered.
“Three nickels,” he said.
“That ain’t enough, son. I’m used to singing for hundreds of dollars.””
“You lie.”
“Darn right I lie.” I have a voice that sounds like a flushing commode, and it is only under optimum circumstances that I allow myself to be pilloried by the world for my lousy voice.
After school, Mrs. Brown rushed to my room and delivered a long sermon.
“Singing is a waste of time, Mr. Conroy. Just a waste of good school time. Those children love to sing. Lord, they’d sing all day if you’d let them. They need readin’, writin’, and arithmetic. The state requires it. If some big man from the state department comes over here and finds your class singing, they gonna run you clean off this island. They got textbooks. Otherwise, nobody in your room can be promoted. Lord knows. Singing! Next thing, they’ll be dancin’ and cuttin’ up and drinking wine in school just like their parents. They gonna be just like their parents if you don’t watch out. Drinkin’ and singin’ and sinnin’ on Saturday night. Not going to visit the Lord on Sunday morning. We run this school here for education’s sake. Give them seat work. Keep them busy. We not here to have fun. We’re here to educate. We got rules to follow.”
A major theme of mine during the year resulted from observing the manner in which my students treated their pets and animals in general. I was labeled squeamish when I found a toad minus his two back legs crawling painfully along the front steps. One of the twins had removed his back legs with two quick strokes of a knife before he entered the school after recess. The portrait of the toad, trailing blood behind him on the gritty steps, crawling off to die under the schoolhouse, made me mad as hell.
“What d’you do that for, Sam?” I yelled.
“Kill ’im dead. Hee, hee, hee,” Sam replied.
“How’d you feel if I ripped your legs off?”
“I shoot you dead. Hee, hee, hee.”
“Man, you guys treat animals like crap. I have never seen a bunch of people treat animals any worse in my whole life. I swear I wouldn’t give you kids a dead flounder for a pet. You kick your dogs around, you starve your cats, you torture squirrels, shoot songbirds, and maim turtles. You treat animals with kindness or leave them the hell alone. If you kill them to eat them that is fine. Killing an animal for fun is not right and if I see it again there’s gonna be a fist fight.”
“Jes’ an ol’ frog,” someone mumbled.
“You are jes’ an ol’ person,” I shouted back.
“Frog ain’t good for nuttin’.”
“They’re good for eating insects,” I said. “All animals are good for something.”
“Oscar shoot my pet dog daid,” Saul whispered suddenly.
“No, boy. You lie.”
“No, you shoot ’im.”
“You shaddup, boy.”
“Oscar get his gun and put hole in that ol’ dog’s haid.”
“That one nasty ol’ dog.”
“Dog daid now.”
“That my dog,” cried Saul.
“That dog daid now. Ain’t nobody’s dog,” Lincoln cackled.
“Oscar, that is a rotten, lousy thing to do. Shoot someone’s dog.”
“Dog bad. He try to bite me.”
“I wish he’d bitten you on the throat.”
“Someone shoot all Oscar’s dogs too,” Ethel said.
“Yeh. Two man dogs. One woman dog,” Prophet piped up. “One dog, red dog. That my dog.”
“Who shot them, Prophet?”
“Someone shot ’im daid in the head. Dog rot up in the woods when Poppa find ’im. Ain’t got no dogs now.”
“And you shot Saul’s dog after someone shot your dog, Oscar. That’s terrible.”
Oscar was feeling persecuted, refused to discuss the subject further, and lowered his head as a sign that he had ended his participation in the discussion. But this was not the only conversation I had with the kids about their treatment of animals. Their overall treatment of animals was deplorable or worse. Big C once picked up a large, bloated toad and smashed it against the schoolhouse wall. One day some of the smaller kids in Mrs. Brown’s class scoured the entire playground for insects. Whenever they found a beetle or captured a dragonfly or grasshopper, they tore its wings off and watched it buzz convulsively and helplessly on the ground.
I would launch into long-winded diatribes condemning senseless violence perpetrated against helpless creatures while the class nodded in solemn agreement. Then they would go home, chastened by the sharp barbs of my logic, and kick the hell out of their dogs. The dogs of Yamacraw were a special breed. Without question, they were the gauntest, mangiest, slinkiest and most oppressed group I had ever laid eyes on. They had bred and interbred time and again and the net result was an animal so lacking in character or nobility that a possum looked like a racehorse in comparison. At some houses the dogs were so drained of energy that they would bark at strangers without lifting their heads. They were emaciated, undernourished, and listless refuse who were alternately loved and abused by their masters. Only Edna Graves’ dogs showed signs of enthusiasm and that w
as when the pack decided to rend an unsuspecting visitor to shreds.
“You have to take better care of your dogs, gang. Most of your dogs look like walking skeletons. You gotta fatten them up. Make them happy. Make these miserable, wretched dogs proud and healthy.”
“My dog look a lot better than your dog, that ol’ ugly Beau,” Cindy Lou said indignantly. “Gawd, that a funny-lookin’ dog.” She was referring to my pet dachshund I had brought to school for a visit.
“Beau is a beautiful beast of great nobility, Cindy,” I retorted.
“Gawd, Mr. Conrack, that dawg so skinny and long. That dawg make me sick.”
“Beau is supposed to be skinny and long. Beau is a dachshund.”
“I don’t know what that dawg is but he shore is ugly.”
“You look like a dawg,” Jasper yelled at Cindy Lou.
“Watch what you say, boy.”
“She look like dawg.” Sidney giggled.
“Watch yo’ mout’, boy.”
“Who you tell to watch yo’ mout’, girl.”
“I tell you, that’s who, boy. You ain’t deef.”
“Children, children, children. We must show love, compassion, and understanding for each other,” I intoned.
“What that man say,” said Big C.
My be-kind-to-mongrel addresses usually degenerated into these backbiting arguments with Cindy Lou making deprecating remarks about the much-maligned Beau. I never could quite convince her that Beau was supposed to look the way he did and was not a victim of abuse or starvation. It was Zeke Skimberry who finally provided the means for me to carry out an experiment in the proper treatment of pets. Two of his dogs gave birth almost simultaneously and Zeke suddenly found himself the proud owner of not four, but sixteen dogs. He asked me if any of my students would be interested in acquiring a new pet. I told him I would check the following day.
