Then one day, Professor Bible stopped by my classroom. I’d just finished my last class and had to get outside to the bus, but he lumbered in and sat down in the chair by my desk. He seemed out of breath.
“Did you talk to George Meeker today?”
“He seemed fine.”
“Did he say anything to you about his father.”
“Not today. But I can tell you—that boy loves his father.”
Bible rubbed his chin, staring at me.
I put the day’s pile of papers in my briefcase and closed it. “Lots of grading today.”
He had no response.
“Lots of grading every day,” I said.
“You bring cigarettes today?”
“No, but I’m prepared.” I opened my desk drawer and retrieved a pack of Camel Lights. I’d bought them a week before, and hadn’t opened the pack yet.
As I was tearing the cellophane from the pack, Bible said, “I prefer the regular camel filters.”
“This is all I’ve got today.”
“Mrs. Creighton told me that George is worried about what’s going to happen to him tonight.”
“Tonight?” I handed the pack to him. He held it in his hand, studying it. For a moment he seemed confused, and I had a stab of fear that he was showing his age; that I’d have to tell him what he was holding in his hand. But then he opened it and retrieved two cigarettes. One he put in his shirt pocket, the other he let dangle out of his mouth.
“You’re not going to light that in here, are you?”
He shook his head. “George’s in big trouble. He washed the family car and forgot to turn off the hose yesterday and his basement got a little flooded.”
“That would get me in trouble.”
“His father was out of town yesterday. He comes back tonight.”
“George said nothing about it to me,” I said.
He handed back the pack of cigarettes and I put them back in the drawer and waited. He just sat there, looking off into space. I really had to get out of there. It was almost two twenty, and my students were probably already waiting on the bus.
“Well,” I said. “I should get going.”
“Look at him closely tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“Pay attention.”
I had my bag in hand, standing by the desk, and he looked at me now with serious, darkened eyes. It was almost as if the thick brows over his glasses had turned to a darker shade. He said, “That boy’s going to need you. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“This is where you learn a few things,” he said, rising from the chair. He took a deep breath; then, with the cigarette still dangling from his mouth, he left the room.
The next day I watched George take his assigned seat in front of the picture window, halfway back in the first row of seats. This morning, instead of taking out his notebook and a pen, he stared out the window. I had graded all their papers and I was ready to talk about problems I was seeing repeated by everybody. This would take most of the hour, and then I’d let them go without a writing assignment for one day. (I sometimes just had to design breaks like that for myself, to keep from going mad.)
I think I was demonstrating the singular and plural form of the word “woman.” I wrote on the board, “1 man, 1 woman, 2 men, 2 women.” As I gave my talk about their writing, George seemed to check himself a bit—sitting back in his seat and furtively glancing down at the front of his shirt, his pants.
I said, “All of you write the word ‘women’ when you mean one ‘woman.’ You see how to remember it?”
He looked out the window again. I walked down the aisle toward where he was sitting. I talked about the use of possessives, I think, or some other issue. He did not look at me, but I thought I noticed him take in a little extra air, as though he had stifled a cough or a sneeze. Then I realized he was trying desperately not to cry.
I didn’t want to embarrass him, but I was concerned about the reaction if he actually started crying and the others saw him doing that. I stopped midway down the aisle, a few feet away from where he was sitting. Happy Bell, the boy I’d sent to the office back on that first day said, “Hey Mr. Jameson.”
I looked at him. “Call me Ben.”
“Mr. Ben.”
“Just Ben.”
“Just Ben.”
This led to jeers across the room.
“Settle down,” I said.
George slowly turned his head, his chin held high. He would not be cowed. I noticed again how small the boy was—small in size and bone structure; he was almost delicate and very pale. His skin looked like brushed marble. Under his chin, at the top of his throat, he wore a bruise that ran from one side to the other. It looked as though he’d been tilted from a horse by running full speed into a small branch.
“Watch this,” Happy said. He produced a Kleenex. All eyes were on him as he stood up, staring at it as though it was alive.
“Sit down now, Happy,” I said.
He threw the Kleenex into the air above his head, and it wafted down, slowly in front of his face. He did not lean back or forward. He kept his face exactly straight, and as the tissue passed his nose, he breathed in hard and it stuck there against his face covering his nose and mouth.
The whole room erupted in laughter.
“How’d you do that?” I said.
Happy took the Kleenex off his face and said, “I’ll show you.” He threw it up again and everybody cheered. This time it didn’t move toward him at all and fell to the floor. He picked it up. “Wait a minute.” He was in a hurry. The class was still laughing very loud. It echoed off the shelves and books that lined the room. He threw it in the air again, moved a little to get exactly in position in front of its path. When it passed his eyes he inhaled again very fast and it moved gently to his face and stuck there.
“Let me try it,” somebody said.
“Settle down now,” I said, but I was laughing too.
Mrs. Creighton came in, a look of puzzlement on her face. “What’s all the noise in here?”
I didn’t know what to tell her.
Happy sat down, the Kleenex wadded tightly in his fist. He tried not to laugh, as did the rest of the class.
“What’s so funny?” Mrs. Creighton said. She was not amused, and it astonished me to see how easily her face sank into a kind of visual reproach. She looked as though she were repressing a shout. I just knew her demeanor was a result of something other than the noise in my room and I did not feel like laughing anymore. “Happy was demonstrating a little trick he learned somewhere.”
“This is school,” Mrs. Creighton said, through tight red lips, so that it almost sounded like she said “skole.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s my fault.”
“If you would please refrain from such loud displays,” she said—but she wasn’t talking to me, she was addressing the class. Her voice was high-pitched and strained, not loud—almost a quiet scream. “It disturbs the other classes, and disrupts the entire program. This is a small building.”
“I really am sorry,” I said.
She still did not look at me. It was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Every one of you knows better.”
The students were quiet now, but suppressed laughter adorned every face—eyes averted from Mrs. Creighton, each student about to burst from the effort not to laugh. I looked at George and he seemed to have control of himself. He wasn’t laughing, but I could see the struggle against tears had stopped. He did not look at me, but his face appeared calm now.
“Happy,” Mrs. Creighton said. “You come with me.”
“Mrs. Creighton,” I said.
She looked at me, still the stern expression on her face.
“It’s my fault. I let him show us the trick.”
“Would you like to see it, Mrs. Creighton?” Happy said.
A slight titter arose in the class.
“No, I wouldn’t,” she said.
Happy started to g
et up to go with her, but she put her hand on his shoulder and gently put him back in his seat. “I’ll let it go this time.”
Happy did not look back at her. He stared straight ahead, still clutching the Kleenex in his fist.
“Okay.” Mrs. Creighton smiled at me.
I felt insanely reassured. “I really am sorry,” I said. “I thought we needed a little levity this morning.”
The stern look returned, but now it was attenuated by a kind of busy, preoccupied sort of expression. “We’ve got to prepare for parent conferences.”
“Okay,” I said.
“George is out sick today,” she said. “Could you leave the assignment for tomorrow for him on my desk—or …”
“George is here,” I said. “He’s right there.”
Again there were slight snickers from the class.
She looked over at George and I realized he had sort of frozen himself in place—as if he were waiting for somebody to hurl cold water on him. He stared straight ahead, gripping the front of his desk with both hands.
“George?” Mrs. Creighton said.
He would not look at her. He said, “Ma’am?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to school,” he said, and his voice broke. “I want to go to school.”
“Well your mother called me this morning …” Mrs. Creighton stopped.
It got very quiet in the room. Everyone just sort of waited for him to say something. I felt so sorry for him.
“I’m in school today,” he said, his voice trembling.
“Are you sick?”
“I’m in school,” he whispered.
“George,” she said, loudly.
“I’m not sick,” he said. Tears welled in his eyes. “I’m in school.”
Looking slightly tired, and a little confused, Mrs. Creighton started to turn and leave through the door she had come through, but then she changed her mind and walked rather purposefully to the Math room. The class breathed a sigh of relief, and some of them started laughing quietly again.
“Come on you guys,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”
I decided to forget what I’d planned for the class. Now I didn’t want to talk, and I figured the best thing to do was to get them writing something so I could sit and watch them and worry about George in silence.
“Would you like to learn how writers actually write?” I said.
They had their notebooks out, each with pen in hand.
“It’s a little like what Happy did with that Kleenex.”
Now they were puzzled, but some of them started laughing again, quietly.
“You start with something very light and airy, thrown into the air—an idea, or a thing you remember, or maybe an experience you have to tell about.” I strolled around the room and their eyes followed me. George continued to stare straight ahead. I said, “Try this: Everybody take your pen and put it to paper.”
“You want us to write something?” Happy said.
“Right now, I want each of you to put the point of your pen on the paper and I’ll tell you when to start writing. Okay?”
They did as they were told.
“When I tell you to start, I want you to begin writing, whether or not you have anything to say. In other words, I just want you to start the actual physical activity of writing on the page. But I want you to write words. I want you to write whatever is in your mind—even if it’s nothing. If you can’t think of something to write, just write, ‘my mind is blank, my mind is blank, my mind is blank,’ like that, over and over. You’ll get tired of writing that. When you get tired of it, write, ‘I’m tired of writing this.’ Then you might begin to wonder why I’m asking you to do this, so write that. But the key is to just start writing, and don’t stop until I tell you to.”
“What should we write about?” Happy asked.
“You understand,” I said, “I don’t want you to stop writing for anything. Not to think of a word, not to correct anything you’ve written, not to try to remember an event, or how to spell a word, or anything at all. Once you start writing, do not stop until I tell you to.”
“But what do we write about?” Happy asked again.
“Write about anything you want.”
“I don’t want to write at all.”
Again, titters of laughter. I realized they had nothing to say yet; they were not angry or challenged or in any way threatened by ideas. I also knew this was a private school and I could do almost anything I wanted within reason. And then it hit me what I could have them do. “I’ll give you something to think about, and you can write about it or not.”
He nodded, then set himself, pen in hand. The others, too, got ready. It was almost as if they were now engaged in something very much like a race. They were definitely at the starting line.
“Close your eyes first,” I said.
They did so.
“Now concentrate on what I say. And no matter how you feel, only listen. Wait until I tell you to begin. Okay?”
A few of them nodded.
“Listen carefully.” I paused for a few seconds, then I went on. “The sun is bright this morning, and it won’t rain anytime soon. Don’t you like it when the sun makes shadows through the leaves of those oak trees outside our window? Think about how beautiful fall is. I like the cold air, and the benevolent sun.”
“What kind of sun?” somebody asked.
“The kind sun. Don’t talk. Just listen.” I was in front of the room now. “Can you see the shadows in your memory? Open your eyes for a moment and look out the window. See how green the grass is on the sunny side of those shadows, and how deeply green the grass is in the shadows? Really look at it now.” They all gazed out the picture window, even George. “Look carefully. You can get up if you want.” Some on the far side of the room stood up so they could see. Again I said, “Look how dark green the grass looks in the shadows. Shades of color. A beautiful world. And it’s all here for us to see and enjoy because why?”
They were quiet for a long while, some still staring out the window, some looking at me now. Finally, somebody said, “It’s nature.”
“Well,” I said. “Some people think God put it there. President Reagan thinks it was God.”
A few of them nodded.
“Do you think God put it there?”
Several of them agreed that God had done so.
I said, “Well some people also wonder, if he made the gorgeous spring and fall, why did he also make tornados and hurricanes. What would be so wonderful about a god like that? Others want to know why we refer to God as a he? Would God be a man, really? With hormones and whiskers, biceps and pectorals? And would he really need genitals? What makes him a man? What would make him a woman? What would make him human at all, except humans? Some say if we were all dogs, then God would be a dog. If we were all elephants, then God would be an elephant. The truth is: a lot of people say there is no God.”
“Mr. Jameson,” Happy said. “I don’t appreciate …”
“Now,” I said. “Everybody start writing now. Happy, whatever you were going to say, put it on the paper. Start writing what’s on your mind now and don’t stop until I tell you to.”
They all began writing furiously. I came to call this little exercise my “God Assignment.” It always got students writing. It’s just simply true that no one can write very well who doesn’t want to write, and who has nothing to say. I gave them something to say.
I went to my desk and sat down. I watched them, the intense look of anger, frustration, and denial in every face; the hard-edged look of a need for rebuttal and defense driving them. (A few agreed there was no God, but they wanted to tell me that as luridly as they could.) All of them went after the idea, in words. All except George. He was sitting there, staring at me, nodding his head. Tears ran down his face. The bruise on his neck looked from a distance like a bandana.
I think that was the beginning of everything.
6
The Learning Cu
rve
At eleven that day I took my lunch to Professor Bible’s classroom. He was eating an orange, peeling it at his desk, putting the peels on a paper towel in front of him. He had a hot cup of tea balanced to his right on a pencil box.
“Come on in,” he said. “Did you bring your lunch?”
“Just a sandwich,” I said. I showed him my lunch bag.
“Want some tea?”
“I’ll just sip on my Coke.” I pulled up a chair and sat down on the other side of his desk. When I opened the Coke it made a hissing sound, but it didn’t overflow. It got his attention, though. He watched me as I removed the cap and set it on his desk in front of me. Then I took out a ham sandwich I’d packed for myself and began to eat. “You saw it?” I said. “The mark on George’s neck?”
“I heard about it.”
“He’s had that mark before?”
“Last year.”
“Well,” I said. “We have to do something, right?”
“You know,” Bible said, leaning back in his chair. “Last year, before I found out about his father’s curious methods of discipline, I just thought little George was shy. The quiet type. You know. Then I attributed his reticence to the abuse. After that, it never occurred to me again that maybe he really was the shy type. That his demeanor had nothing whatever to do with the abuse.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Not a thing.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s a very well-researched theory of mine,” he said.
“Does Mrs. Creighton know about this?”
“A tested theory.”
“Tested? How?”
“I asked George if anything was bothering him.” His voice was deep and sonorous—he could have easily gotten a job reading the news. He reached up and removed his glasses. “Did you bring cigarettes?”
In the Fall They Come Back Page 5