Playground Zero

by Sarah Relyea

  “You have no manners, Jerome, man,” he teased. “We have a young lady here, and I can see she comes to learn—why, here she comes on Day One and she’s even early—and you’re gonna welcome her, man, let her know she belongs. Now, young lady,” he pursued, “I would love to hear your name.”

  “Alice.”

  “Why, that’s a lovely name. I’m Reggie Pryor. And I’m so proud to have you here. We have a wonderful day planned, so you should stay around. No runnin’ around on your own—do as your mama says, come to school every day. That’s the real revolution: learn, baby, learn!” Reggie pumped an arm, while Jerome faded through the doorway.

  Though enjoying Reggie’s outgoing presence, Alice wondered why he thought she needed a pep talk just to show up. She’d been going to school every day for years. Maybe he assumed she was feeling in such need of “unlearning” that she was in danger of wandering off.

  “We have fun here, you’ll see,” Raymond added. He paused, clearly taking her measure. She found herself feeling uncomfortable. “Everyone here has the same problem as you—bored to death by regular school.”

  “Oh my, yes,” Reggie chuckled.

  “But there’s no need to be bored here,” Raymond assured her, smiling vaguely as though he had some goody up his sleeve. “We can help you learn the things you want to learn. And you’ll be in good company. Everyone who comes here wants a change from the status quo in the schools.”

  She made no response.

  “No, not everyone. Some go back,” Reggie said sadly. “Some refuse to be free. I say, let them go.”

  “Yeah, if you’re happy at Berkeley High, then you should be there,” Raymond added, folding his arms in a posture of command. “But chances are you’re here for a reason.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure she’s here for a good reason,” Reggie said, nodding, as Raymond surveyed her. “And may I say, young lady,” Reggie added, “I hope to see you in class. I want to hear what you have to say about urban geography.”

  She was unsure of the meaning. Raymond was smiling as though amused by her. “He means the modern American city—you know, the older urban core and the ring of suburbs—”

  “Yes,” Reggie beamed, opening his arms for emphasis, “that’s what we’re gonna rap about. You’re here to change the world, not just keep on keepin’ on, same old same old. And how are we gonna change things unless we analyze the things we’re here to change—how they came to be, what keeps them going, who profits, who gets hurt? Can you help us understand?”

  “I guess so,” Alice shrugged, feeling growing bemusement regarding how she should respond.

  “Good!” Reggie said, laughing. “No being shy, now.”

  From the large meeting room, there suddenly came a blaring saxophone riff, followed by shouts of male revelry. Amid the clamor could be heard a wavering soprano, singing a Laura Nyro song. Uptown, goin’ down, old life line . . . Beckoning Alice to follow them, Reggie and Raymond headed through the door of the large room, where young people were bonding and regrouping in surges of enthusiasm, loudly welcoming each other. Among them was the boy from the foyer, now playing a saxophone. Dancing around him was a girl wearing a leotard, clown-face makeup, and a many-colored skirt. Long flowing hair bounced against her hips as she weaved around the boy with the saxophone; her face shone ghostly white, and she had a blue diamond around each eye and a clown’s red nose and mouth. The girl seemed older, the same age as most of the boys, some of whom had beards. Alice had imagined blending in; after all, everyone thought she was older than seventh grade. But among the high-school group, she was feeling out of place. Wishing Helen would show up, Alice regarded the dancing girl, wondering where she’d come from, how she’d become so free—if that was the word for her performance. The girl weaved around one boy and then another, engaging in teasing badinage, laughing in a rippling flow of sparrow song. Then when she’d danced long enough around her chosen boys, she abandoned them for Raymond and Reggie.

  “Ray! Reggie!” she giggled with theatrical joy. “Other Paths, here in the Finnish Meeting Hall!”

  “Maya, welcome back!” Reggie said, applauding.

  “What a wonderful place for rehearsals! Me and Manny—we can already feel it. Let’s get going!” And there came another ripple of laughter, seemingly spontaneous but maybe just flawlessly performed. As Maya’s laughter rose, Manny jumped up on the piano bench and blew a long, honking riff around a submerged melody.

  Before long, he was blowing, squealing his way through “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  Two boys made a Nazi salute in honor of the anthem, as someone else hollered, “Burn, baby, burn!”

  The room had begun pulsing with anarchy as more people came in. There were now forty young people jammed in the large space. Helen came from the foyer, leading a group of girls along the edge of the crowd, passing Alice as though unaware of her presence. The girls looked about her brother’s age—early high school—and elegantly hippie, in clean bell-bottoms and scarves and clogs. Helen wore a floppy sombrero; as she pulled it off, mussing her dark mane, Alice had an uncanny feeling—Helen had become a young woman. No longer barefoot and contemptuous, she’d changed her style; like her mother, Sabrina, she had self-assurance, dangling earrings, a woman’s casual grace. By comparison Alice, in jeans and sneakers, resembled one of the boys.

  Helen’s group rushed the teachers, sending up girlish mating calls.

  “Ray! Reggie!”

  “Welcome back, young lady,” Reggie said, grinning, arms open to hug one of the girls, as the others mobbed Raymond. Alice eyed the scene, consumed by feelings of uneasy embarrassment. She was too shy for mobbing male teachers—it hardly seemed normal, even for girls who knew these men. She wondered how soon these people would demand such eagerness from her, as reassurance of her engagement with the group. The school day was becoming an anthropological foray—performances, group bonding, fervor. Or maybe her age was the problem. These people were older, they’d been together for a year; someday she, too, would learn to jump in and feel what she was supposed to feel. Or would she?

  Suddenly the place was booming. “Joel! Joel! Joel! Joel!”

  The saxophone blared the anthem’s closing bars, then hung on a fading blue note. Alice peered along the edge of the crowd. Through the foyer doorway came a plump man with dark curls: Joel had arrived. The man’s half-moon eyebrows rose in bashful pleasure as he balanced a large whiteboard panel on the floor. Though she’d seen Joel before, he seemed a stranger as he bubbled with laughter in the warm glow of applause. Then, touching one hand to his pursed and youthful mouth, as though pondering an enigma, he remained for a long moment unmoving, suspended in a sunbeam that landed on one shoulder and draped over the paunch. The clamor ceased.

  Joel grasped the panel and made his way through the group to the grand piano. The boy with the saxophone, Manny, clambered down from the bench to make way for Joel, who now rose above the gathering bearing the panel aloft. It was emblazoned with a symbol and the words “Destroy in order to create.” Joel wore blanched jeans slung low and cowboy boots, more than ample for the legs that rose from them. Rocking gently to and fro in the boots, he began to speak.

  “Wonderful to see everyone,” he began. “Other Paths is a large and generous family; each and every one of you belongs among us. We come here to argue, and reject, and learn, and love each other, in all the ways our culture has suppressed—”

  “Ooooh, baby!”

  “—and we come here to heal from the dead learning of a culture gone mad.”

  “Dig it!”

  Joel paused as the energy flowed, then declared, “Our purpose is: Destroy in order to create! So, yes, we come here to destroy what’s bad, or simply no longer useful. Some of you may feel scared or saddened by some of the work we do. But remember: mostly we come here to make something new, something in and of our moment. We come here to learn in and from the Now.”

  A sound of whooping filled the room, underscored by the swanking of t
he saxophone. Joel handed the panel to one of the boys. Rocking loosely in the hips, he closed his eyes and began swaying back and forth, thumbs hooked in the jeans. Suddenly Helen passed near Alice; leaning in, she murmured, “Joel’s such a phony.” Then she sashayed from the room, waving her sombrero. An odor of patchouli hung in the doorway, heavy as Southern magnolia.

  The group was already coming undone. Some were heading for the foyer even as Joel resumed; others surged around Joel or one of the teachers, full of eager demands. Raymond was surrounded by several older guys, while Reggie moved around the room, working the floor, laughing and paying compliments to the girls. Jerome was near the door, conferring with a young man. As for Joel, he’d been commandeered by a group of boys of varying ages and vogues. Caught up in the confusion, Alice wandered through the room, wondering where and how to begin.

  Helen came from the hallway. Brushing a wave from her temple with careless grace, she surveyed the group around Raymond and then made her move.

  “Oh, Ray!” she cried, tossing a wounded glance. “You promised to lend me a book, remember?”

  Raymond eyed her. “Oh yeah?”

  A black guy clapped a hand on Raymond’s shoulder. “Lend me a book, Ray man,” he laughed. “Lend me a book, white Jesus, and save me!”

  Helen glanced around, curling the wave by her temple and then flipping it over her shoulder.

  “What’s the book?” Raymond pursued, one hand fingering his bushy mustache.

  “You remember, of course you do,” she said, pouting. “You know, the one you’re always carrying around—the one about Trotsky.”

  “Which one?”

  “Oh, come on, Ray—it’s your missionary bible,” she taunted.

  A gleam appeared in Raymond’s eyes as his thumb and forefinger massaged his mustache. Helen held the glance for a moment and then, face aglow from her obscure purpose, dropped him for Joel.

  Surrounded by a group of boys, Joel was fully engaged. Several of the boys had an incongruous college look; clean-cut and respectful, they leaned in, hanging on Joel’s words. Helen approached and regarded them, biding her time; then in a lull, she caught Joel’s eye.

  “Welcome back, Helen.”

  “I’m planning on taking your classes, Joel—all of them.”

  “Oh?” Joel was nodding soberly. “Last year you were wonderful in the Happenings—”

  “Yes, and now I’m ready for more. I want to learn everything.”

  “That’s very eager of you.”

  “I mean it, Joel. I want you to see me as a real person.”

  Joel’s raucous laugh burbled from the depths.

  Now one of Joel’s boys placed a hand on Helen’s arm, then whispered in her ear. She leaned in, touching the boy’s shoulder, and murmured a response before disengaging herself from him and the group. The boy glanced after her as Joel resumed, once again the focus of his eager disciples.

  Without warning, Raymond could be heard announcing that the school day was ending, and informing them that they would be choosing classes the following day.

  “So, make sure you come by,” he commanded.

  As he concluded, young people began bounding for the door, joyful at the change of plans. As far as Alice could see, she was the only one left feeling empty-handed by the early dismissal. Soon she was alone in the large meeting room. Why was everyone so eager to leave? The day would be long, and where would she go? There could be no going home now, even before noon. Her mother would be angry—or maybe she would merely resume the endless conversation about Tom and Charles, Tom and Charles . . . Oh no, surely there was someplace else she could go for a few hours.

  Wondering what had happened and hoping someone would come back, Alice wandered through the room. There was no singing or saxophone, only the sound of crows cawing on the roof. Maya and Manny had gone off; they had plans, rehearsals, places to go. Even Helen had been unapproachable.

  Overcome by uncanny feelings brought on by the echoing room, Alice suddenly remembered the stairway to the upper floors. They’d forbidden her, but now they were gone.

  The old grand piano crouched in the corner. Feeling emboldened by a yearning for belonging, she ran over and played a few chords. The sounds rose, giving her courage, then hung in the room before slowly fading. Enjoying her freedom, she passed through the hallway, running her hand along the redwood paneling. There were the steps to the second floor: they seemed to beckon her. She began climbing and soon found herself in an upper foyer, warm and musty, garret-like. Wandering across the scarred wooden floor, she entered a damp room containing only a few books and a large leather trunk. The trunk was peeling with age; the lock had been torn away. Gingerly, she opened the cover.

  In the moldy recesses lay a faded gray-green jacket, the color of eucalyptus bark. The cuffs were frayed; the shoulders bore colored insignia, marking it as a military uniform. Under the army jacket was an album of old photographs.

  Lifting the album from the trunk, she leafed through a few pages of photographs labeled in an unfamiliar language. There were snowy village scenes, sleighs and dogs and figures leaning against the wind. Then came summer woods, a woman in the grass, a picnic. Turning the page, she saw a cafe table, men in army uniforms. Were they in Finland, she wondered; if so, who were they fighting for? She thought of Finland as a minor player long under the sway of larger powers. So maybe they’d been fighting under compulsion—but maybe, against the odds, they’d made a grab for freedom. Or maybe they’d fought other Finns.

  Her imagination caught by the unknown, she hung the jacket over her arm. Then she made her way down the steps and through the workingman’s hall to the street.

  When she’d rounded the corner, she paused long enough to pull on the jacket. The sleeves hung loosely over her hands, seeming to offer camouflage. If her mother wondered, she would say she’d found it hanging on a fence.

  Continuing along the block, she found herself on the corner of University Avenue, near a barber shop and a liquor store. A bus came and she boarded it. The noonday bus was nearly empty; she took a seat near the door. Motels and car dealerships rolled by as they rumbled through the Berkeley flatlands. Far ahead rose the campus and hills, seeming small and faded, as though in a photograph. Usually they were up close, looming over her house. Slumped in the seat, she began contemplating her morning at Other Paths.

  She’d been unprepared for the place and the people—and the strangely free schedule. She was no longer tempted by so much freedom: she was feeling bummed. She would be unlearning, Joel had promised—but what was unlearning? It must involve something more than leaving her to wander for the day. She was through with elementary school and ready for something new. She remembered envying her brother’s junior-high schedule, an array of subjects such as biology, algebra, French. Today she’d been eager to get going: choosing a schedule, heading to classes, and hearing new ideas. Her brother had regaled the family during meals; now she would have the chance to regale them—even Charles, who would be coming up from Los Angeles on weekends. But when he asked about Other Paths, she would babble about urban geography, a saxophone player and a dancing clown, Helen and Trotsky and a phony man named Joel.

  Her parents assumed she would go to college, but something had happened and the plan had dead-ended. Year after year, she passed the school days in boredom, anger, and growing hopelessness. Now they’d found a hangout for her, a summer camp of fun and games. Maybe these things just happened—parents wandered off. But she’d had enough of random wandering. One way or another, she would have to save herself.

  The bus ground to a stop. Beyond the glass lay Shattuck Avenue, a hub of shops and department stores and the Central Library.

  Suddenly she remembered her mother coming home one day, face aglow, raving about the library—the humongous card catalogue and boundless rows of books. She ran for the door.

  The Campanile bells were pealing noon. Alice approached the library, whose looming sand-colored walls and arched windows could hav
e housed a dozen Finnish Meeting Halls. The foyer was hung with paintings of wealthy donors. Glancing at the men in formal black, she passed through a door to a large reading room lined with towering bookshelves. A long table lay before her. Hearing her footsteps echo through the enormous space, she advanced several yards and grasped a wooden chair. The chair made a loud scraping sound; she sat hardly moving, aware only of the rows of books.

  Near the door was a reference desk and a woman in bangs and glasses, working alone. Pausing for a moment, the woman removed her glasses to gaze at the newcomer, then resumed her work. Alice leaned her arms on the table, wondering what to do, as an annoying drone pulsed in her head—aggravating, maddening—murmuring of Tom and Charles, Tom and Charles. It was accompanied by images of Reggie’s face and pumping arm; Raymond’s hand as he fingered his mustache, grooving to Helen’s patchouli; Maya and Manny, dancing girl and saxophone boy; and Joel’s paunch and cowboy boots as he rampaged through the room, destroying in order to create. Fingering the frayed sleeve of her foreign army jacket, she suddenly wanted to cry.

  Looking around at the shelves, she wondered how she would ever learn enough to escape the churning Now, where everyone in this place was seemingly eager to drown.

  In the Now a woman appeared, wearing bangs and glasses. Her eyes had an impish look as they took in the young girl and the old army jacket.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  Alice looked up.

  “May I help you?” the woman repeated. A cloud passed over her face.

  Alice was feeling misgivings. She’d wanted a peaceful place to gather her thoughts, but there would be no chance of that. The woman was leaning close, bearing down on her.

  “Are you here for school?” she demanded, her mouth curling in an ambiguous smile as she eyed the army jacket.

  “Yes.”

  “What school are you from? Have you brought your assignment with you?”

  “It’s called Other Paths,” Alice murmured, uncomfortable, hoping the woman would be easily appeased and go away.