City Kid

by Mary MacCracken

  I let Bobby stand there. Who cared whether he copied the words or wrote the sentences? What he was doing for Luke in that one minute was worth more than all the praise I could give him in a year.

  Luke closed the book and looked at me, waiting for my comment. But I waited for Bobby. He closed his mouth, then opened it again. “Jeez,” he said, “how’d you learn to do that?”

  From that time on Bobby and Luke shared part of each other’s time. Bobby came early, Luke stayed late, so that they were each getting almost an hour a day.

  They were good for each other. Luke’s mind was quicker, his ability to grasp concepts better, but Bobby had his own strengths. For one thing, he had an almost perfect ear. The slightest variation of a sound was blaringly apparent to Bobby, so that phonics and word attack skills were a snap for him. He shone in one arena, Luke in another, and they developed respect for each other.

  They helped each other in other ways as well. Bobby was rooted in reality; his family was poor and evidently boisterous and unruly, but there was also a knockabout cohesiveness to them, a sense of family. Whatever Bobby’s problems were, they didn’t seem bad enough to cause him to run away, either mentally or physically.

  In another discussion of the troublesome short e, the word pet came up. Bobby immediately began to tell us how his pet bird died. He had put it in a cereal box and buried it in the woods. “I cried somethin’ awful.”

  Luke said, “Not me. I never cry. Last year my dog – we had a big, big, dog then, almost all Saint Bernard – got hit by a car and died right in the street. I didn’t cry or nothin’. My mom and I just got the wheelbarrow from Mr. Berkus and pulled on that big ole dog till we got him in it and then we wheeled him down to the dump.”

  I loved watching Luke and Bobby. They worked well together. They listened to each other. They played together both inside and out of school. Best of all, the Ferraro brothers now included Luke in their fishing and camping expeditions. He thrived in their company and developed a capacity to deal with life rather than running away to fantasy. I missed his flights of imagination, but I welcomed his new strengths. Most of all, I welcomed Bobby.

  For the first time since I’d known him, Luke had an honest-to-goodness friend.

  Chapter 29

  All senior classes were canceled for two days. Campus interviewing was in full swing. Longworth Hall had been cleared of teachers and in their places sat interviewers from various schools and institutions questioning seniors one at a time.

  I had signed up for five different interviews – three were for teaching positions in special ed, one a kindergarten class, one “open.” I wasn’t sure what “open” meant, but it sounded possible.

  We sat outside the classrooms waiting for our names to be called. Ten to twenty bodies in a row, turning restlessly on the wooden benches, leafing through our resumés. The wait was usually thirty or forty minutes, the interview five or six.

  On the second day, as I twisted back and forth on the bench between two sets of jeans and long straight curtains of hair, Amy Schwarzenbach’s rangy figure loped by.

  I was off the bench in a second. “Amy! Hey, Amy! Wait a minute.”

  Amy paused, squinting her eyes in my direction.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Mary. Remember swimming and TSS? How are you? I haven’t seen you for months. Ian either. How are you doing?”

  Amy shrugged and nodded. “Okay, I guess. Except it’s a long time between letters.”

  “Letters?”

  Amy nodded again. “Ian’s in Vietnam. You didn’t know? He got called last summer. I tried to get him to go on up to Canada. But you know Ian. He just said if he kept his hat on, the enemy’d never know he was there. But I don’t know, Mary, I think they make them wear helmets, don’t they?”

  I wanted to cry or maybe yell. How could they do that? Make Ian part of that war. Out loud I said, “I’d put my money on Ian. I bet he’s got his hat on under the helmet.”

  Amy touched my shoulder. “Thanks, Mary. I gotta run. Would you believe I’m helping Hogan coach the swim team? See you.”

  I sat back down. The hair curtains on either side were misty now. Why did people keep saying “See you,” particularly when they didn’t?

  Each of my interviews was a carbon copy of the others. First an inspection of my folder, which contained my resumé and credits. Next, a description of the job and then the same question. “Why do you feel you are qualified for this job?”

  The first time I was asked, I had no answer. I had never had a job interview of any kind before and I felt both nervous and shy. Why did I feel I was qualified for the job? Why did they ask that? The only qualifications I had were inside the folder and the interviewer had already read that. Was I supposed to have some other hidden qualifications, or was it a memory test to see if I could remember what I had written down?

  I went to see Professor Foster.

  “It doesn’t matter much what you say,” he said. “They want to see what kind of person you are. Just project your personality.”

  I looked at him and shook my head. “I came back to college for two years because I needed the credits to be able to teach, and at the end, the thing I’m supposed to do in order to get a job is ‘project my personality.’”

  “Don’t be bitter. Doesn’t help,” Professor Foster inspected me carefully, then grinned. “And one more thing. You might try wearing a little tighter sweater.”

  He ducked before I even threw the book.

  I did try to talk more and it seemed to work passably well. At least two of the interviewers said they’d be in touch to arrange a follow-up interview. Well, actually only one. The second man changed his mind at the last minute.

  “Uh … now … did you put your age down in your resumé?” He was suddenly leafing through pages.

  “Yes. On the front. Forty-five.”

  “Forty-five?” He cleared his throat, lowering his voice from the crescendo. “Yes. Well … excellent. We’ll be in touch.”

  But I knew he wouldn’t. I limped back to School 23 feeling older than I ever had before.

  I stopped in Mrs. Karras’s office to catch up after missing a day and also to tell her about Luke’s remarks about Louisa Mae.

  “She lives in the basement?” Mrs. Karras echoed. “What makes Luke think that?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to press him, but then he told me about seeing her outside in her underpants and I thought you should know.”

  “Yes. You’re right. I’ll have the social worker or someone check up. Incidentally, Mary, Luke is doing so well. Lisa was showing me some of his work when I was in her class the other day.”

  I sensed happiness and the return of youth.

  Never planning to ask, I asked, “Do you think I could teach here next year?”

  Mrs. Karras shook her head. “Much as I’d love it, I’m afraid there’s not a chance of getting money to continue the program.”

  “I know. But maybe I could teach, just teach, in one of the classrooms.”

  Mrs. Karras got up and walked to the window. She stood looking out for a while and then turned and, still standing in front of the window, spoke to me from there.

  “Yes. You could do that. I’m sure one of the teachers will have a baby or get sick or retire between now and September, and I could hire you. But is that what you really want, Mary? I think you should think about it very carefully because what you do this coming year will set the course for the rest of your life. Certainly, you could teach a regular class. You’d probably have a ball. But what about the other kids – emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, socially maladjusted, whatever the labels are, the kids most people think are bad, difficult, dumb, different, unable to learn, in trouble of one kind or another? Are you sure those aren’t the children you want?”

  I nodded. I knew she was right. “Okay,” I said. “Thank you. I will think about it. Listen, one more thing I wanted to ask. Would it be all right if I took Luke and Bobby down to the library
and let them get library cards?”

  Mrs. Karras chuckled. “Of course. That’s a fine idea.

  They’re residents of this town. They’re entitled.” Then she laughed. “I’ll bet Bobby will be the first Ferraro to have a library card.”

  Maureen was standing outside her classroom door crying as Luke and Bobby and I headed for the front door. We couldn’t just walk by her.

  “Wait. I’ll just be a minute,” I said to the boys.

  I squatted down next to Maureen. “What’s the matter, babe? Why are you crying?”

  Maureen shook her head, unable to speak, sobs mixing with hiccups.

  Across the hall Bobby pointed his finger and singsonged, “Crybaby. Crybaby. Maureen is a crybaby.”

  “Cut it out, Bobby,” I said sharply and handed Maureen a wrinkled but clean piece of Kleenex from my pocket.

  Maureen wiped and blew and then sat down on the floor and began to wiggle her right foot out of her shoe. Between sniffles she said, “I got it for you. Jimmy spanked me somethin’ awful when he saw me copying it, said we didn’t give our phone number to no friggin’ do-gooder lady, but when he left for the station this morning, Jimmy’s a policeman, you know, and Mama was curling Diane’s hair, I copied it down again and put it in my shoe so nobody’d know.”

  Maureen handed me a small, crumpled piece of paper with her phone number written in large penciled numerals.

  A routine question that I asked all the kids. “What’s your address? Do you know your phone number?” And it had created a family crisis and earned Maureen a spanking. The families of children like Maureen and Luke lived closed lives, full of secrets and deceit. It was necessary for survival. Any probing from the outside might cut off desperately needed welfare funds or reveal long-hidden police records or hospitalizations. To enter the world of these city children would be a long, slow journey. Mrs. Brauer had just begun to trust me. Would I ever reach someone like Jimmy or Luke’s Uncle Chuck?

  I smoothed out the slip of paper and folded it carefully and put it in my pocket. I looked at Maureen, her nose clogged from allergies and tears, sitting, damp and miserable, on the hall floor. There was no way I could leave her there.

  “Thank you, Maureen. I’ll copy your phone number in my book and tear up the paper as soon as we get back. Come on, now. You’ll need your jacket. We’re going down to the library.”

  Across the hall Luke and Bobby groaned in unison.

  Maureen scurried to the coat closet in her classroom as her teacher pulled me to one side. “Take her with my blessings. She’s worse than all the boys together at disrupting the class. All those tears and crying and moaning. You know why she’s carrying on like that? Because she didn’t get picked for the spelling bee, that’s why. What else can I do with her besides put her in the hall?”

  I nodded. Maureen would not be a joy, particularly in a classroom of thirty.

  When Maureen and I joined Luke and Bobby, Bobby made a definite point of holding his nose and gazing at Maureen. I made an equally strong point of holding the hand that had held the nose and holding it hard.

  “Jeez,” Bobby said. “I was just havin’ fun.”

  “Okay,” I said, letting go. “Let’s all have fun.”

  Bobby and Luke dashed ahead and Maureen and I followed, our progress slowed by the fact that Maureen walked with her face buried against my leg.

  But even so, I was aware of feeling good. Feeling better. It was almost like having a class again. A class meant the kids I taught. And that meant Louisa Mae. We couldn’t go without Louisa Mae.

  I herded Luke, Bobby, and Maureen toward first grade. Maureen now joined loudly in the complaints about having to take Louisa Mae.

  “I bet you already saw her today. She shouldn’t get to come twice. That’s not fair.” I could stand tears and temper tantrums, but the whine in Maureen’s voice went through me like fingernails on a blackboard.

  “Maureen,” I said, squatting beside her once again, “may I tell you how I perceive you?”

  Maureen nodded, not having a glimmer of what I was talking about.

  “That’s not fair,” I said in near-perfect imitation of Maureen’s whine. It was so unexpected that Maureen laughed.

  “You sound funny,” she said.

  “Yup,” I agreed, “and so do you, when you talk like that. Try to keep your voice down more. Like this, okay?”

  Louisa Mae’s teacher was even happier to give permission than Maureen’s teacher had been. Louisa Mae had poked one of the boys in the eye and had been relegated to the chair in the corner. The only trouble was that she insisted on covering her head with her dress, which sent both boys and girls off into shrill giggles.

  At last we were off, Louisa Mae and Maureen holding my hands, Luke and Bobby scouting in front.

  We were going to have to hurry. I could hear the big old clock in the city bell tower striking eleven and we had to be back before twelve for lunch.

  But the library was only six blocks from the school and Luke was used to our walks and stayed at Bobby’s heels, keeping him in line. I kept the girls’ hands enclosed in mine and we arrived at the library intact.

  I was unprepared for the inner vastness of the library, an ordinary-looking stone building from the outside that I had passed many times. But inside, everything was dark wood, empty space, and walls of books and silence.

  One elderly man sat at a table on the right, nodding over the newspaper. The only other living person in the building seemed to be a librarian who sat at a large desk, blocking the entrance and exit. There was no way to get in or out except by squeezing past her desk. We were obviously going to have to speak to her.

  “Good morning,” I said. “We’ve come over from School Twenty-three. As a special treat. Do you have a children’s section?” I asked.

  “Yes. Over this way,” she waddled ahead of us, talking without looking at us. “Nothing fancy. We don’t have the money for all that software hullaballoo, and we don’t have many children nowadays. But in its time, it was a pretty fair collection.”

  Bobby waddled after her, somehow making his skinny body look as fat and awkward as hers.

  Up until now the children had been quiet, hushed by the large, unfamiliar room, but now that we were in motion again, awe was receding. My hands were full with the girls and I could only hope the librarian would not turn around suddenly and discover Bobby.

  The children’s section was not inviting. There were no books on display or out on the tables. In fact, most of the books were without labels and their dull black, blue, and green spines lined the shelves monotonously. It was very different from other children’s libraries that I had known and I sighed even as I thanked the retreating back of the librarian. A disappointment. A waste of the children’s time and mine. Well, at least there would be no trouble in getting back by twelve.

  But I had forgotten that these children had no other libraries to compare this with, that there were probably very few books of any kind in their homes.

  Luke, Bobby, and Maureen were all on their knees pulling books out, pushing them back in. Many of the books did have illustrations on their front covers and Luke was studying a cover that had a picture of a small brown deer and other animals in a forest. Bobby skipped around the room taking a book from here, a book from there, piling them on the table.

  “Crimminee. Look at these things. They got books about everything in here. Lookit that.” He pointed to his pile. “Rudolph. Snoopy. They copied all the good stuff on TV and put it in these here books.”

  Maureen was sitting on the floor reading, oblivious to the rest of the world.

  I sat down on one of the chairs and pulled Louisa Mae onto my lap, watching in wonder. These children were like sponges, soaking up whatever they came in contact with.

  Louisa Mae tugged my arm. “Hain’t got no book.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Let’s find one for you.”

  Luke came over to my side. “Come on, Louisa Mae, I’ll show you
where the pitcher books are.” Luke led her to a low shelf where the larger picture books were stacked and took out the top one. “Here’s a train,” he said. “Wanta book about a train?”

  But Louisa Mae ignored him, digging through the books till she found one with a picture of a doll.

  “Hit Baby Hug Me,” she said.

  I had been so busy watching Luke and Louisa Mae that I hadn’t seen the librarian arrive.

  “The children are only allowed to take down one book from the shelves at a time, Miss. Not create a mess like this. We don’t have all the money in the world, you know, to hire people to clean up after children.”

  “Okay, kids. That’s enough. Put the books back. You can each pick one book and then we’ll get you a library card and you can check it out.”

  “Library card? Can these children read? You have to be able to read to have a library card.”

  “They can read.”

  “Well, are they legal residents? That’s a requirement, you know. We don’t issue books to out-of-towners.” The librarian was becoming distraught with the thought of parting with four of the ancient books.

  “Yes,” I said. “They all live here.” Although suddenly I wasn’t so sure about Louisa Mae.

  Back at her desk she got out cards. “All right. One at a time now.”

  “Bobby Ferraro. Twelve forty-four Prospect.”

  Good, Bobby, I thought. You sound like a pro, giving your address without being asked.

  “I’m going to take this here book on magic.” Who would have guessed Bobby was interested in magic?

  “Well, who’s next? Hurry along now.” The librarian tapped her stamper on the ink pad.

  Luke whispered to me, “I don’t think Louisa Mae knows her street, I got her doll book here, but she’ll start to cry or curse if that lady don’t let her get her book.”

  I nodded. “See if you can get two, Luke.”

  Luke stepped up to the desk. He looked so small beside the large librarian and her desk. “Luke Brauer. Eight thirty-four Cherry, apartment three A. These two, please.”