City Kid

by Mary MacCracken

  “What’s the matter with a little door?” Hud asked. “I bet I’d put a little door on a house if I drew one. I’d probably draw my camping tent with a very little door.”

  “I doubt it,” Jerry said. “In any case, don’t put too much weight on any single drawing. But still, studies do show that a door like this one often means the child is reluctant to share his thoughts and tries to keep a lot inside.”

  “That certainly fits Luke,” I said.

  “Notice how small his picture of a person is?” Jerry continued. “How over in the family picture there is no father, the mother is positioned a great distance from the three children, who are huddled together?” Jerry talked further, pointing out evidence of anxiety, depression, and hostility.

  “Are there three children?” I asked.

  Jerry nodded. “Luke has a younger brother and sister, The parents are divorced. His mother was described by the clinic social worker two years ago as having physical and emotional problems, and much of the care of the two younger children was left to Luke, but the social worker added that it was hard to get much information as Mrs. Brauer was very guarded.”

  I sat silently, trying to put together all Jerry had said. What did it mean? How would it help Luke? Finally, I asked the last question out loud.

  Jerry shook his head. “Tests can only give so much information. The rest you have to get from personal interviews and interaction. Let me ask you about that, Mary. What’s your impression of Luke?”

  Again I sat without speaking, thoughts tumbling through my head. Impression of Luke? I shook my head, trying to answer.

  “I don’t know, Jerry. I guess the main thing is he just doesn’t seem that bad to me. He is not spitting or biting himself, or talking in weird gibberish, or refusing to eat.

  Besides, the way he acts in the music room just doesn’t fit with the boy described in the folder.”

  “Well, don’t let him fool you,” Jerry interrupted. “Remember the fires, remember the thefts. Those weren’t accidents. Those were planned destructive acts.”

  I nodded. “I’ll remember. But why? Why did Luke do those things? And how can we help him not do them?”

  Jerry shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Remember he spent six months at the clinic without making any progress and he was a year younger then and supposedly more reachable.”

  “Listen,” I said, “I know he can be reached. Sure, he’s reticent and suspicious, but you give him half an opening and he’s off and running. My God, Jerry, he can walk, he can talk, he can even read. Maybe he doesn’t use what he’s got, but maybe he’s never seen anyone use words effectively, so he hasn’t bothered to try. If his mother’s ‘guarded’ and his father’s not there, maybe he’s never learned that you don’t have to set fires to show how you feel. Maybe he’s never had anyone he could trust.”

  I stopped abruptly, realizing I had been speaking with too much emotion. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound off.”

  Jerry smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe that’s one thing nobody’s tried. Just caring about the kid.”

  I collected all the tests carefully and put them back in Luke’s folder. I would return to them many times in the next months, remembering, studying, searching for clues that would help me reach Luke. But usually it was not until I was with him that I had a real feel for what we should do that day.

  Lisa Eckhardt made my times with Luke successful. She was far from a model teacher; she might not be able to keep thirty seven-year-olds in perfect order; she might yell and scream in frustration; she might not always be sensitive to an individual child’s problem; but she loved the kids and set me up for success with Luke, and I blessed her for it.

  Each time I arrived in her second grade she would great me with “Hello, Mary. Okay, Luke. No more work for you for a while. You get to go with Mary now.” And Luke came with increasing eagerness as his classmates shouted, “That’s not fair, Miss Eckhardt! Luke went last time.” “He always gets to go.” “When’s it gonna be my turn?”

  How smart of you, Lisa. Finally, Luke had something that the others wanted, even if it was only an out from work.

  Chapter 7

  I arrived at school one Tuesday in March and even though it was still cold, the sun was so bright that the air seemed warm, and as I walked up the gray stone steps, I knew it was ridiculous to stay inside on a day like this. Luke and I had been working together for several weeks, gradually building rapport, but we had not moved outside of School 23. It was time to expand our world.

  Mrs. Karras gave immediate permission for Luke and me to go out for a walk. The groans and complaints from the other second graders were louder than ever as I told Luke to bring his jacket.

  “Hey, Mary. I wanna go. Why don’t you ever take me?” A small bevy of second graders crowded around us. I smiled down at them and then at Lisa. Thanks to her, we at least didn’t have to worry about stigma.

  Down the hall and out the door. The white dog set up his uproar, throwing himself against the fence, as if to tear holes in the wire links.

  Luke picked up a small stone and threw it at the dog. Instinctively, my hand went out and pulled his hand down so that the stone fell short and landed on the sidewalk.

  Luke looked up at me inquiringly.

  “It must be hard to be fenced in like that,” I said.

  “Ah, Luke. That’s the first time I’ve touched you. I wouldn’t have planned it like that. Never mind. Let it go.” I jogged out into the sunlight. Luke ran beside me.

  I didn’t know the town very well. Where should we go? What would be the right thing to do? Easy. Ask Luke.

  “Where’ll we go, Luke? We have forty minutes.”

  Luke knew. “The doughnut shop,” he said without hesitation.

  I nodded. “Okay, you show me.”

  Luke quickened his pace so that he was slightly in the lead. Down the side street to one that was a little wider, but still quiet in the early morning. A grocer was piling grapefruit and oranges in the front window of his store and he waved to Luke as we went by. Luke waved back and I thought, this is what I need. A feel of Luke’s world.

  He slowed down as we went by the five-and-ten. Was this the one where he had stolen jewelry and toys? Probably. He stopped and stared at a red fire engine. I moved away a little and studied a sale of wicker baskets. Nobody likes to be rushed when they’re window-shopping.

  In a few minutes Luke was back, nosing around like a small puppy, his body urging me down the street. We waited for a light at the corner and then stopped in front of a shabby-looking movie theater.

  Luke read the coming attractions out loud to me. “Godzilla and the Hairy Monster; Big Foot and Dracula.”

  “Scary,” I said.

  “Yup. I saw Big Foot. His foot’s as big as that whole building.” Luke pointed to the bar and grill we were passing. “He could step on you and just like that you’d be dead.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I’d like that.”

  “It’s okay, it’s just a movie.”

  We rounded a corner and there was Dunkin’ Donuts. Luke stood close to the window and inspected everything going on inside, his breath making steamy patches on the window. “See,” he said, pointing to the waitresses in their white uniforms, the shiny steel coffee maker, the rows and rows of doughnuts lining the wall.

  “Let’s go in,” I said.

  Luke hesitated. He obviously hadn’t planned on this, but he followed me through the door – Counter or table? Counter. Better view of the doughnuts. Luke and I sat silently admiring them.

  A waitress swished a wet rag in front of us. “What’ll it be?” she asked.

  Should I go first? Had Luke ever ordered?

  “Do you have a menu?” I asked. That would give us a little time.

  “A menu? Uh – yeah, I guess so.” She was back in a minute and handed me a pink and white cardboard menu.

  “Thank you.” I spread it out between Luke and myself. We read in silence the
information inside. TETE HEARTY WESTERN (two eggs any style, bacon, hash browns, and muffins), THE PICK ME UP (tomato juice, one egg, cottage cheese), THE CONTINENTAL (orange juice, Danish, and coffee).

  “Where are the doughnuts?” Luke whispered.

  “There I guess.” I pointed to the bottom. DONUTS – 35¢.

  “Oh,” was all he said, but I could hear disappointment behind his voice.

  Suddenly I remembered Howard Johnson’s, and how I had loved hearing the flavors of ice cream.

  I looked at the waitress. “Could you tell us what kind of doughnuts you have?”

  “Cinnamon, sugared, raised, potato, chocolate, jelly, cheese, or plain.”

  It was wonderful. Almost like a litany. I wished she’d do it again.

  “Cinnamon, chocolate, raspberry …” I said, making the mistakes easily, purposely.

  “Cinnamon, sugar, raised, potato, chocolate, jelly, cheese, or plain.”

  Wonderful, wonderful.

  I looked at Luke. He was smiling. I had never seen him smile before.

  “Jelly for me,” I said, “and coffee.”

  “Me too,” said Luke.

  “Two jellies. Two coffees. Be right back.”

  Luke poured two containers of cream and four spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee and held it between his two hands. Nutrition experts would have a stroke, but sometimes there are more important things than too much sugar.

  It was nice, sitting there in the sunlight, sipping our coffee, nibbling at our doughnuts, and licking jelly from our fingers. I wished we could have stayed all morning, but the wall clock said 10:00. We had already used up thirty-five minutes and I wanted to be back on time so we could get out again.

  On the last block before school, Luke stopped beside a telephone pole and dug deep in his pocket. He brought up his fist closed tight. He looked up at me and then opened his hand. A shiny gold shell lay in the center of his palm. My stomach lurched. A bullet shell?

  But Luke was talking to me. “See? I got it at the factory and shined it. You can see your face if you want.”

  “The factory?” I asked.

  “Yup. The lipstick factory. I go by it on my way home. I got a secret place there.”

  An empty lipstick tube. Not a bullet after all. But I still couldn’t find my voice.

  Luke touched me this time. He put his hand into mine and turned it upside down. “It’s a secret place. But you can keep this one if you won’t tell. I got more. Look. See if you can see your face.”

  I peered at the gleaming shell, and sure enough, there I was, distorted and oval around the empty tube.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It’s nice. Lucky, too. I can tell.”

  “Yup,” said Luke. “It’s luckier than anything.”

  Chapter 8

  March meant midterms at college. Background of Mathematics II. Not too bad. We were studying probability.

  Current Methods of Teaching Mentally Challenged Adolescents was easy. A take-home exam, plus an interview with someone who was willing to hire a mentally challenged person. I interviewed Cal. He had several people, good people, in his plant with IQ’s in the seventies.

  Counseling and Guidance. Even easier. Lunch with Norm Foster to report on the Special Education Independent Study Project. My project, of course, was Luke.

  Reading practicum. The exam read, “Discuss causes of reading disability in four categories.” I knew those. I even knew five. Meeps: mental, emotional, educational, physical and social.

  But Statistics and Orientation to Psychological Testing was not so easy. We had spent an inordinately long time on bell curves and standard deviation. The curve I understood. Its normal distribution curve did seem normal

  It seemed right that there would probably be more average people than other kinds. Professor Frye said that a random sample of a thousand people in Times Square yielded 68.26 percent (2/3) with IQ’s between 85 and 115. However, the curve wasn’t always normal; sometimes it skewed to the right, sometimes it skewed to the left. Then beware the mean and trust only the median.

  Worst of all was σ. This simple little sign stood for standard deviation, and Professor Frye was determined that we all be able to figure out standard deviations mathematically, although there are perfectly good charts in the test manuals that are readily available.

  But day after day we memorized the formula and did the computations. If I did them carefully, two or three pages of numbers and many minutes later it was possible to arrive at the measure of the variability of a group of scores independent of the mean.

  Where was Ian Michaels? And what did all this have to do with helping Luke?

  My head steamed like an overheated teakettle.

  I wrote everything on index cards and laid them on the floors through our apartment. Then I walked through my carpet of cards picking up the ones I thought I knew, piling them on the dining room table, then picking up the others and studying them once again. The steaming in my head turned out to be mostly due to the flu, and I staggered from bed to exams and back to bed again. I called School 23 Monday morning to explain to Mrs. Karras that I was ill and couldn’t come until Friday. Mrs. Karras was out, but her secretary said she would relay the message to Lisa, Luke, and Mrs. Karras.

  I finished my last exam on Thursday afternoon. My temperature was down, and on impulse I drove to School 23.

  John Hudson was in the music room with Vernon when I arrived. They were playing catch with a tennis ball over the piano.

  Hud said, “Christ. I’m glad it’s you. Come on in.”

  Hud and I hardly ever saw each other anymore. Our schedules at the school were on different days and our group meetings were dwindling.

  Vernon pegged a hard ball at Hud’s stomach. Hud dug it out with his left and sent it looping back.

  “Nice,” I said to Hud.

  “You know him?” Vernon asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Kin he bat? He say he bat as good as he throw. That true?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hey, Vernon,” Hud said, “come on, man. You gotta have faith.”

  Vernon threw the ball hard, harder than ever.

  “We’ll see, man. We’ll see …” he said.

  Hud grinned. “What do you think, Mary? Am I convincing?”

  “I believe you,” I said. “I’ll leave you two. I just came down to see Luke for a minute.”

  John pocketed the ball.

  “They didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Vernon, set up the checkerboard, will you? I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Hud came over and stood close to me.

  “Luke’s not here.”

  “Why? Where is he?” My stomach plummeted down.

  “They can’t find him. At least the probation officer can’t, although they think he comes home at night and his mother just doesn’t let on.”

  “Why?” I asked again, not understanding. “Why would he do that?”

  Hud shrugged. “Because of the fire, I guess.”

  I sat down, suddenly nauseated, remnants of the flu rolling in my head and stomach.

  “You know about the fire, don’t you?” Hud asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, Christ. I’m sorry. Tuesday afternoon some cosmetic factory caught on fire. No one was hurt, but they lost a back storage shed. The police are sure it was set by kids, but they can’t prove it. They got one kid, Wendell Higgins, who had been involved in a lot of other fires and grilled him. (He’s on our waiting list, too, I hear.) According to him, he didn’t have anything to do with it. It was all Luke.”

  “What does Luke say?”

  “That’s just it. Nobody can find Luke.”

  Vernon began pitching the checkers in our direction. I got up. “Thanks, Hud. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Listen, Mary. I can stay when Vernon goes back to class. If I can help …”

  Again I nodded my thanks and headed for the office.
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  The door to Mrs. Karras’s office was closed. I looked inquiringly at the secretary, who smiled sympathetically.

  “She’s in conference, one of the board members. Probably be awhile.”

  I nodded and asked for the file keys.

  Brauer, Lucas. I lifted out his folder, but there was nothing new except absence slips for Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, and Thursday. I put it back and handed the key to the secretary. “Have you heard how much damage there was at the fire?”

  “Not much. Didn’t really amount to a lot. Just a storage shed for extra lipstick tubes, from what I heard. Fire Department got there fast. Kept it under control.”

  “Do you know where the factory is? Is it close by?” My face felt as if it were frozen. Lipstick tubes.

  “Sure. It’s right over on Jefferson. Just three blocks down. We could see the fire from the steps.”

  “The steps? Oh, yes. The front steps.”

  It was all like a bad dream. I headed for the door. “Tell Mrs. Karras –” I stopped suddenly. “She did get my message – I mean, Luke – uh, Miss Eckhardt knew why I haven’t been in this week, didn’t they?”

  A look of confusion passed briefly over the secretary’s pleasant face. “Not in? Let’s see, you’re Shirley, aren’t you? Let me see, here in my notes …”

  I didn’t wait for her to finish. Obviously, the secretary had been confused. Nobody had gotten my message. Nobody knew I was home sick. Luke must have thought I just hadn’t bothered to show up. One more person in his life he couldn’t count on.

  I walked across the street to my car. Not really thinking yet, just ordering my stomach to be still. I drove straight ahead. There it was, Jefferson. I parked my car and got out and walked down the street. Most of the buildings were empty, or else the windows were covered with grimy sheets concealing whatever went on behind them.

  The factory was immediately recognizable. There was an unpleasant acrid smell and then the sight of burned grass and piles of blackened tubes. Automatically I touched the outside of my front jeans pocket. I could feel the tube that Luke had given me for luck. I had carried it to each exam.