by Sarah Relyea
“Mommy!” the child echoed gleefully.
Joel removed the strand of colored beads and shells, dangling it for Isabel to grasp. She took the beads in one hand and ran back toward the doorway, dragging them through dense beige carpeting.
Seeing Joel’s pleasure in the young girl, Alice wondered if her own father had ever shown such eagerness. Maybe she should give Joel a chance.
“That’s my older daughter, Isabel,” he said, as though informing them of a wondrous event. “She’s learning to be more independent of her parents—creating her own play world, where she has less need of our approval. We’re not there yet; you see how she comes to me for something to play with. But she can make her own game with anything I give her, even a rubber band.”
“Yes, I see,” Marian responded approvingly.
As Joel spoke, Tom had been eyeing one of the beanbags, leaning to assess the proper angle of repose. Now he glanced up.
“Rubber bands—they were good toys during the Depression,” he remarked, poker-faced.
“So,” Joel nodded encouragingly, “you remember the Depression?”
Tom made no response, as though he’d already offered more than enough. Alice glanced from one man to the other; eyeing Joel’s expressive face as he assessed the family, she was feeling embarrassed by her father.
“Oh, I’m afraid some of us do,” came her mother’s sigh as she pondered the glowing panorama, where the bridge was vanishing in fog flowing through the Golden Gate. San Francisco rose in glass and steel from the fog. In the pause, one of the skyscrapers caught the sun’s fading rays in its icy depths; only a gleam escaped.
“Well, the Depression’s long gone,” Joel concluded with a reassuring chuckle.
A glimmer of hope came over Alice.
Her mother was fingering the hem of her cardigan. “Oh my, yes,” she enthused. Her tone suggested she’d never been so impressed before.
Joel’s eyes narrowed in amusement. “Everyone ready?” He waved them magnanimously toward the beanbags.
Propped on the beanbags, they found themselves offered up to one another in embarrassing poses. Leaning back, Alice was suddenly prone; then as she lurched forward, the leather casing collapsed under her forearms. Sprawled awkwardly, she gave way under Joel’s encouraging gaze to a humbling loss of control, as her parents made clumsy thrashings. Joel had assumed an easy pose: legs extended, hands laced behind the lush mane. Turning from one to the other, measuring the progress, he paused for the Raysons to come to order.
Alice could feel her family losing ground even before the conference had begun. Joel’s easy mastery was revealing her parents as hopelessly square; in response, Alice was feeling unsure of herself and where she belonged. Joel could teach her something, if only she could get over her doubts; but that would be a challenge. The man’s game was unknown, and being closely regarded made her uncomfortable. Her father’s brooding, unspoken judgment weighed on her as Joel began, though her mother glanced over and smiled.
Joel commented that Alice would be younger than the other students, then smoothly resolved the problem by suggesting that young people should not be “cordoned off according to chronological age,” but encouraged to choose a comfortable level.
Her mother agreed. “Our daughter has always been ahead of her grade level. We fear that may be causing problems.”
“And you?” Joel demanded, as though Alice were a grown-up. “Do you fear there are problems?”
Alice was feeling confused. Though she had fears and problems, she could not imagine revealing them to a man she’d never seen before. In any case, her family should be the ones asking, not Joel.
He gave her a long, assessing glance before continuing. “Other Paths has some wonderful things to offer young people who are ready to move away from the dead learning.” He paused for her response, but before she could weed through her thoughts, he forged on. “The old forms can get in the way of real learning, deeper learning. Our students at Other Paths choose what and how to learn; the school’s role is to support the young person’s own program.” Smiling wisely, Joel surveyed the Raysons.
“She’s a very good reader,” came her mother’s response. Alice could feel herself cringe—her mother had Joel all wrong.
Joel nodded sagely. “Learning encompasses many things. Of course, reading could be one focus, but at Other Paths we encourage other forms of learning as well, such as math games, guerrilla theater, exploring the wilderness. Our young people are engaged in the community, performing in nightclubs, avant-garde theaters, local political events. Empty vessels need not apply.” Joel had ceased smiling.
“You’re no empty vessel, are you, dear?” her mother murmured, even as Alice was feeling increasingly edgy and self-conscious.
Eyeing her, Joel pressed on. “You may be unhappy with your approach to learning. You may choose to begin by unlearning—re-thinking, re-feeling what school means. Up to now, you may have had someone else choose for you. You may doubt whether you know enough to say what and how you want to learn. ‘What if I choose wrong?’ So many young people bring such fears with them. Our program helps you unlearn all that . . . all that disempowering stuff.”
Joel would be making new demands of her. Feeling hardly ready for them, Alice wondered why she should change, why she should need so much unlearning.
“Our daughter’s more exploratory than most kids—,” her mother began.
Joel waved a hand as though brushing away a fly. “Let’s drop that disempowering word ‘kids.’ Why would we refer to young people in terms reserved for animals?” He paused for everyone to catch up. “Our language can refuse old ways of thought by encouraging young people to feel they’re of value.” Joel eyed her father and added, “We never learned these things at Harvard.”
“No?” he responded dryly.
Joel gave a raucous laugh.
Tom lay in the beanbag, cupping the ragged baseball cap over one knee. Seeing her father’s gruff poker face, Alice wondered why he’d bothered to come. She imagined he’d been bored by school, as bored as she was. Even so, following Joel’s plan, he would have done nothing but play baseball and ended up in the Ford plant. On the other hand, the “dead learning” Joel was urging her to reject had gotten them both to Harvard. Though her father was seemingly unengaged, he was presumably assessing the other man and judging him a fraud, though of course he’d never say so. He’d aced school and would expect the same of her, regardless of any program or dead learning. In any case, she was no longer his problem. He had other things to do now—he’d foregone an evening with Ginger and was clearly ready to wrap things up.
Joel plunged on, seemingly amused by the confusion among the Raysons. Hands over paunch, fingertips together, he resumed the performance. As he spoke, the fingertips bounced together in rhythm, as in a game of cat’s cradle. “Our students have formed a number of bands playing avant-garde rock and jazz, rehearsing together and performing in Bay Area clubs. Our program at Other Paths can free them up for rehearsal hours. Others are making theater. Helen Patterson—of course you know Helen?—and another young woman have been performing with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. They come to us already engaged in wonderful work in the arts. We can help them forge bonds with each other and the community, and we offer a place to work. For the really talented ones, we help by standing out of the way.”
As Alice was wondering how she would become involved in such things or find her way among Helen’s group, Joel paused, waiting for something. Like puppets on strings, the Raysons craned toward the panorama, whose fading glow had become overwhelming. Feeling in need of reassurance and sensing her father’s doubts, Alice wondered why he refused to challenge Joel. But her father seemed far away, present only in the tapping of baseball cap on knee as he scanned the scene, pausing on Marin.
“Where’s Mount Tamalpais?” he asked, gesturing with the cap.
Joel leaned forward, hands propped on the beanbag and head thrown back, sighting along his nose. “Can
you see Angel Island? Mount Tam’s north of there.” He surveyed her father with amused eyes, taking in the cowboy gear and baseball cap as though they were jester’s weeds. Then he turned to her mother. “That’s what you see from home—Mount Tam?”
Her mother’s hand smoothed the cardigan. “That would be lovely. But no, we’re very happy in South Campus. Tom’s with the federal government.”
“Ah!” Joel nodded, absorbing the information, then turned a new face on her father. “You’re with the feds? What department?”
“Health, Education, and Welfare.”
“Ah, the good side. You’re there to keep the home fires from burning.”
“We do what we can,” her father shrugged, “though there’s always someone fanning the flames.”
“Of course you do,” Joel nodded, ignoring the jab. “There are many good people; the problems come from the system. By the way, have you gone to Angel Island?”
“A former internment camp?”
“That’s where they imprisoned the Chinese who came to America. A very informative place—you should show your daughter.”
“Yes, we should,” her mother acknowledged.
“Good for a school outing,” her father murmured as he eyed the panorama. He pulled on the cap, preparing to go, and dropped, “By the way, how do you manage the diplomas?”
Alice wondered how Joel would parry the jab, but he was ready. “As I’m sure you know, Other Paths is part of the Experimental Schools Program approved and funded by the Berkeley public schools and the feds—your own agency.” Joel shrugged, clearly bored by the bureaucratic game. “The young people we enroll have grades and other records on file in the central office on Walnut Street. Our program is empowered to confer diplomas that, as far as the scrap of paper goes, are the same as common public-school diplomas.”
“And the jam sessions? Are ‘glee club’ and ‘band’ dead words?”
Joel’s eyelids fluttered. “‘Glee club’ or ‘band’ for some; others prefer ‘jazz saxophone,’ or ‘solo bass improv.’ The wording should encompass, as far as such phrases can, the young person’s whole learning world, over months or years.”
Joel was handling them, thought Alice; he was managing the terms. Her parents had never regarded a school report card as a stratagem, as Joel could do. And he was onto something: the old words were meaningless. In Washington, there had been Pilgrims and Indians, the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and the challenge of the Confederacy. Then she’d come to California, where they learned of Spanish missions and the Mexican War, the Gold Rush and transcontinental railroad, land grants and squatter’s rights, Robber Barons and People’s Park.
Joel nodded, ending the conference. The panorama was fading. Regular school would be another mess, Alice concluded. Though her father was clearly unimpressed, her father was no longer in charge; he’d gone away. Joel was dangling a sanctuary and the chance for breathing room from her mother’s monologues: Tom and Charles and the wonders of love. She would learn to learn—no small thing, if only she could manage, if only she was good enough. Her mother was no longer slinging accusations; she was pushing the school. Joel and Other Paths would redeem Alice, at least in her mother’s eyes.
Joel
WHEN THE RAYSONS had gone, Joel stood by the window bathed in the dying rays of day flooding the room. From a pocket he drew a pair of heavy-framed sunglasses, adjusting them on his face. The sunset was unusually stunning; he was glad of a chance for the senses to revel in peace, unburdened by the problems of Other Paths. The world beyond the room shimmered in an orange glow.
Joel drew a deep breath and, removing his sunglasses, descended to the lower floor. There he had redone a bedroom as an office, adding bookshelves, an oak desk and leather reclining chair, and an elaborate tape recorder for gathering documentation on Other Paths.
Taking up a legal pad, he flopped down in the leather armchair, jotting impressions of the family he’d just met: “Father—boring, belly-of-the-beast Harvard man; Mother—wobbly, wants to please; Alice—unhappy, uncomfortable with both me and her parents. Maybe.” He paused and added, “Recommended by Mike Patterson.” Absorbed in work, Joel ignored the bay and the gathering haze. The staff of Other Paths had resolved to welcome all comers, unless they brought drug problems that endangered the school. But the Rayson girl was only twelve, younger than the others, and unforthcoming. She would be uncomfortable, he feared, unable to embrace the anarchy and energy of the group. One glance had conveyed that she was bound for college, so that Other Paths would be merely a more adventurous way of preparing for the same old role. The mother was another Berkeley woman readying her young Salomé—but for what? The role of Ibsen’s Nora, alas. He was amused by the way they prodded the daughters to be loose and free in ways the mothers had never been and would never choose for themselves; they’d been taught to fear consequences. The young ones, set loose in a new world, assumed all transgressions would be forgiven.
The phone rang. Joel dropped the pen; Ruth would be bathing Isabel. Leaning back on the padded leather, he reached for the telephone. It was Raymond Connor, the young man from the school. Early on, Raymond had shown how he could romp among the young people, for he was one himself; only twenty-two, a college dropout, he made a gifted camp counselor. Yet he hungered for a leadership role and enthused about moving the school away from book learning and into the community, so Joel had brought him on board as a teacher.
Raymond hoped for a large following; Joel knew that.
“We have three more,” he announced.
“Way to go.” Raymond’s mood sounded up. “And they are . . . ?”
“One was just here,” Joel reported. “She’s young, seventh grade, and shy—”
“No, Joel, no labels. You’ve hardly seen her. When we see her alone, no mom and dad, then we’ll meet the real person. Who’s her father—another professor?”
“No, a government lawyer.”
“Hey, as long as he’s not Harvard—”
Joel guffawed.
“Oh, man,” Raymond huffed, “they’re are all the same. And her mother’s probably unhappy, popping Valium, sleeping around. The daughter needs something real for a change—man, I can see the whole scene.”
Joel heard Raymond exhaling a long groan of anger. The phone clanged on a counter, something crashed, Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” throbbed through the nasal speaker, and then Raymond resumed, “So, who else?”
“Manny’s younger brother dropped by.”
“Awesome. Another jazz man coming up?”
“No, he’s into electronics,” Joel said, eagerly. “And he has hustle, like Manny. He gathers old radios from the dump and rebuilds them at home.”
“Cool. He could be useful. And number three?”
“Number three, yes.” Joel paused, bothered by doubts. “Another Patterson daughter, a younger one.”
“Aha.” Raymond massaged the telephone. “They’ll unman every boy in the school.”
“Come on, now you’re labeling, too. She’s nothing like Helen—they’re moon and sun, yin and yang.”
“Yeah, how so?”
“She’s all about feelings,” Joel responded softly. “You know—teaching poor children.”
“Good. We’re doing those things.”
“Of course we are.”
“I’m hearing something,” Raymond probed. “You’re holding something back.”
Joel was unprepared for Raymond; having no plan, he would have to be open. “Raymond, Helen has real problems. What happens if we take on another?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know Helen’s problems—headaches, mood swings. Her father’s in the Amazon. They have her on a whole pharmacy of stuff.”
“Yeah, yeah, the usual.” Raymond groaned loudly. “Look, we can have those girls at Other Paths, or send them away and wash our hands. You know what I’m gonna say.”
“You want me responsible—” Joel’s tone was rising.
“No, all of us. We work by consensus, remember?”
“We’ve got to be careful.”
“Why?” Raymond demanded, suddenly aggressive.
“Just a hunch.”
“They deserve a chance,” Raymond snapped. “It’s the mother playing Peyton Place—not the daughters.”
“In any case,” Joel summed up, “we need a group consensus.” Joel was feeling warm; he knew Raymond was challenging him. He changed the subject. “You remember there’s a meeting tomorrow—”
“We can get a consensus then.”
“By all means,” Joel agreed. “Remember, though, problems of curriculum are already on the agenda—”
“I’ve been talking with Jerome,” Raymond interrupted. “We’ve got to have more classes on race, things the students deal with every day. Your classes may work for some, the ones pushed toward college regardless, but the problem is, you’re losing the others. They’re not reading No Exit—they’re busy living it.”
“Then you and Jerome should propose some classes. Of course we’re open to classes on race.”
“Last year, we had each group keeping to themselves. We’ve got to push people to deal with other groups in the school.”
“When you say ‘push’ . . .” Joel began, doubtful.
“Come on,” Raymond urged. “You know change happens only under pressure. Look what happened in China: young people held the teachers accountable, they made a revolution beyond what the leadership could ever imagine. We’re here to tear down, so we can create.”
“Then you and Jerome should move on it.”
Some form of consensus had been reached. They hung up. Joel leaned back; fingers laced over chest, he breathed deeply. Jerome, a Black Muslim, forceful and self-taught, had been integrating yoga with basketball as a way around the usual competitive emphasis in school sports, and Joel was learning some of the techniques. Joel had been consuming alarming amounts of alcohol, but now he was replacing it with a combination of yoga and marijuana. He’d never been grounded in the body before; he’d been a head-only man. Now with Jerome’s folk knowledge he would finally escape so undernourished an understanding of self—in, hold, release—the pounding heart subsided—in, hold, release—the eyes calmly beheld a mind-blowing panorama.