by V.J. Goll
Four
"To be honest," he said to me tiredly as he went over my student bill, "we were originally our own department, but more of these mishaps have happened that we are in the midst of a merge with the office of vice president."
I looked at him. We were in a fancier part of the university. It was not the typical rundown office. The carpet was nice and cleaned. The desks were their deep red wood. I just sat in a very comfy chair. It almost reminded me of the bank. I guess it was supposed to feel like a bank. He was a thin man that almost reminded me of a person from IT. He had a computer feel to him. He typed in some things and corrected the balances. He looked at me tiredly as he printed a new balance sheet. It showed everything was paid. It felt odd to feel how empty this place was. I was wondering if I was an isolated incident.
I was sitting down on the concrete benches when I was sorting through the paperwork real fast for Eric. I separated the copies for him and for me. I heard a caw of the crow. I glanced to where it was. Apparently, my presence here has disturbed already troubled waters. It felt like there was an atmosphere around this place that was unfriendly. It was bright with the sun seeping through the foliage of leaves that sheltered above me in this small place. I suppose that I should call it the Garden of the Pond. It had two turtle inhabitants and some fish of an odd silver sort. I think they may be bass, but I don't know. I don't fish.
The sidewalks and the area was lined by dark stones that was almost the same type of stones that they use for tombstones. I guess that it how it felt. Some workers, as I found out with my earlier scrolls, actually clean the stones at night with a pressure washer. This place was groomed, but the chaos of the pond and the trees in this area was purposefully left to give a feeling of almost a marsh. The ground was covered with wood chips and was muddy from how wet the pond soaked through the ground. It was unusual for the south. It felt artificial, but I heeded it little mind in this moment.
There was life. The bird chirping caught my hearing aids. I listened to them gently knowing that if they were chirping. They found this area to be safe, and there was no one to disturb this quiet that I had. I couldn't tell you exactly how I felt. I was a mixed of being tired, excited about school, but stressed because of the issues. I knew I looked rough because I stayed up late compiling notes on my meeting with Bad Wizard yesterday. The papers were sorted. I guess the glamour in the legal world. I started walking when I was intercepted by someone.
"Do you want to ride the bus with me?" my high school friend asked me. I was not sure how she asked it. Some part of me guessed it was out of southern politeness and the other part of me, told me that there was something amiss.
"Sure," I said, "we haven't talked in a while. Let's catch up."
This I promise not to share since it would give too much away about who we are and where the real thing happened. We chatted about our classmates that was here at the University which was not very many, but it was a lot for the small town that we graduated from. We chatted about sports which was stopped when the bus came. We both hopped on the North-south shuttle riding our way back to central campus.
"So," she said to me, "something odd happened recently. I had scholarships to cover my student bills, but it seems that they didn't cover everything or they went missing." I kept my face neutral hearing this. It was similar to what I noticed.
"Are the scholarships not showing?" I asked her.
"Not on the paperwork, but they are listed," she said to me, "I called the scholarship organizations myself and checked to make sure the paperwork was in order."
I nodded. "What are you going to do next?" I asked her.
"Ally," she said to me, "I am so glad that I can talk to you about this because other people don't have to deal with these problems. They don't understand them. I wasn't sure about what to do next." I have been told that most people would have been extremely offended by hearing those words. I just continue walking to the Churchhouse weighing these thoughts in my head. As I was waiting to cross a sidewalk, I noticed a crow was fleeing blue jays as they were pecking at him. His body cringed with pain at each peck. I felt sympathy for the crow, but he trespassed onto the blue jays' domain.
To be honest, I read about a corporation later that used old computer programs to log hours for employees that would short them of pay. When I looked back at this situation, I felt the vanishing of the funds and the misuse of them tied into something like this. It felt like an intentional clerical error. They were hoping that most people were not going to check into it, but someone wise once told me: "when it involves money and it moving around wrong, stay away from it. Corruption is a deep pond. You don't ever touch it unless you know how deep the water goes."
"So," said Eric to me as we walked, "do you have the case brief ready?" We were walking on a nature path that hide behind the church house. I guess you could call it the Garden. It was a place of tombstones also which is why the University left the land alone. It was rumored to have unmarked graves. I listened to the crickets chirping to the end of the day.
"Yes," I said simply, "but I am struggling to write it properly." I was learning fast not to waste Eric's time with talk. He was busy with his caseload.
"Did he challenge?" asked Eric.
"He challenged on the budget and my disability," I said, "saying that he couldn't have services set in time."
Eric cocked his head. "Did he say when?" he asked me.
"No," I said.
"Right now," said Eric, "he has no intention of giving you sign language interpreters. You need to email him asking him when they will be in your classes."
I sighed. "Does it have to be this hard?" I asked him.
"Don't ask me question you already know the answers to," said Eric to me sharply, "you aren't a kid, think."
I was taken aback by his tone. "Onto other things," I said to him, "there was some issues with my student account. Some of my scholarship money vanished."
"Ignore it if it isn't related to disability," said Eric to me looking me in the eye, "that is a bureaucracy thing. It has no protections."
"Their numbers are not adding up right," I said to him, "they are overcharging. They only corrected the error when I asked for an accounting sheet and refunded my account saying it was a program error."
"It probably was," said Eric, "do you know of them having any intent to use denying you scholarship funds in a bad way?"
"If it is related to disability, I don't see so at the moment," I said. I knew this ended our discussion about the scholarships. It could be an issue.
"What about you and the government?" asked Eric to me. He was changing the topic.
"Still not on good terms," I said to him, "but I haven't received anything worth of noting yet."
“This finishes our talk, but the reason why you are struggling with writing a case brief,” said Eric to me being satisfied with my answer, “is because you struggle to know what is socially appropriate or inappropriate. You don't know how to tackle the issues on your own." His words were strong. I realized that he was reprimanding me. I stay silent as he gave me that look. It was a look that I better listen because he was only going to tell me once.
I sighed. "I am just a kid in adult clothes," I said to him, "I know I don't understand how to do things."
"That is because you were never taught. When you went to post-secondary schools," he said with a hint of disdain in his voice, "they didn't teach you to think. They taught you to just listen. I remember you had once instance with a special education teacher receiving support services that she got angry with you because you had a great curiosity in science. She told you that her pastor didn't believe in that, and that you shouldn't either. She listened, but she didn't think. You will listen to me, but you are going to have to think. You are going to have to learn to weigh out the words that I am telling you and not take them for granted. I want you to think. Do not ever blindly listen because of what may be taught to you here might work here, but you need to learn how to think to make i
t work elsewhere."
I nodded. "What exactly does that entitle?" I asked him.
"You are going to learn how to research your questions and learn to not to waste the questions that you need to come for me for answers," he said, "I am not always going to know the right answer. The way that I do things may be appropriate for me, but it will not be appropriate for you. You have to understand that your personality, your appearance, what you know and don't know, what you can do and might cannot do is unique to you. The answer is not cookie cutter. It is going to be unique. This world morphs and changes the rules which judges people by and selects their outcomes. It is a cruel world to some. It is a privilege world to others. Now, a lot of people have been knocking at you about your privileges, but what you are learning is those privileges are there for a reason. You need the extra help for a reason."
"Thank you, Eric," I said to him, "I will start doing so. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to ask you questions or not."
"Don't," he said to me, "learn to be independent and work through your own issues first. The only one in life that will look out for your best interests is you. Do not trust me for everything."
For some odd reason, when Eric goes into mega-preacher mode. He makes me want to laugh so I didn't take his discipline too harshly, but I did take it to heart.
"One last thing, Allison," he said to me.
I turned to look at him.
"Always know your worth," he said to me, "always know you deserve to be treated like a person. You deserved to be respected. You have to earn respect to gain it." He handed me a black bag that contained coats. There were four of them. Someone told me once that a tailor made the coats for the COATS program for free as a favor repayment. They were formal coats. The males got an all-black assortment. Females had a little bit of leeway with the coloring. We did have the traditional black coats, bat some of us had tan and white ones also. I choose white as my alternative color.
The summer was in its twilight. Between classes and working with the COATS, I hardly had a chance to really rest.
His comments made me aware that I was following an algorithm of speaking. I was following a script. I did it on purpose because of some internal mechanism had taught me to not to speak up. I guess you could say that I was a Mrs. Manner's kid. My mom used to buy her books from the resale stores and have them on the shelf at home. I read them religiously, but unfortunately, for a young girl was not yet a teenager, it made me awkward when I followed book guidance for an adults.
I sat in the second row in chemistry. I didn't feel like being alone in the first row anymore in the stadium type lecture hall. I saw Mara take a seat in the front. It felt weird. I wanted to move, but I didn't want to seem creepy.
People would freak out if they knew the real you. I wrote on the paper in front of me to reinforce me staying where I was at. Then, I scribbled it out as I prepared my notes for the lecture. I couldn't explain why I was attracted to science. It was not the promises of a stable career field. There was something else that drew me into it. Perhaps, it was that I was immensely curious. I don't know.
Yet, when I say this, I feel a pang of guilt. I am not telling you the truth. I choose to study science to keep refining my brain, to keep pushing it to think and heal. I wanted it to learn the tools that it would need to thrive. I wanted to thrive. I knew that it was just me that could get me somewhere. I wanted to be independent.
It was a building made of sheet metal that stood on a plot near campus. Ironically, the road near it was the main road and a road called Cross Street. I felt it was odd that the heavy glass doors seemed as think as the metal supporting the whole building. They were finely cleaned to the point that I could see my reflection in them. I could see that the floor was some sort of burgundy carpet.
"Are you going to come in?" asked a voice beside me. I turned to look at the person speaking to me. I don't know how to describe Bear, which is the name that I choose for her in this story. Her chocolate eyes seemed to gleam with the mischievous and curiosity of a bear cub. Yet, she was thin and wry as if life had made her to crawl through the tightest spots for adventure. She was the one who could out run the falling boulder if you catch what I mean.
I was not sure what to do. "Sure," I said. I guess I felt confused on why I was here and what drawn me to this place. Part of me did not like being here, and yet, like Bear, there was part of me telling me that there was something here that is important to see. I guess I never spoke about Bear’s eyes
I saw A give me a registered look of surprised seeing me in the crowd. I made sure to keep a barrier between us with people. I was not going to talk to her. I kept following Bear to where she was going. We both sat in the back of the "Great Room" as I would call it. It had a ton of folding chairs. People were standing to sing to the worship songs in the beginning. Bear and I sat in the back. We both were awkwardly placed.
"Why are you here?" I asked her wondering why she looked as confused as me.
"I don't know," she said to me, "I just had a feeling to be here right at the time that you came."'
"Me, too," I said to her. We both started laughing. For some odd reason, it was as if we already known each other.
"So, what are you studying here?" I asked her.
"Biochemistry," she said to me happily. I don’t know what it was, but something attracted me to chemists or biochemists.
I nodded and smiled. "I am also studying chemistry," I said to her. It felt surreal.
We were interrupted by the tapping of a microphone. The pastor of the church was a short, wry man that almost reminded me of the pirate that sits on top of the mast of a ship. He wore a plaid shirt of some generic colors with blue jeans. He started speaking about First James and the mirrors. I listened to him carefully as he talked about the appearance of faith. He talked about acting instead of looking at the image. There was pieces of the lecture that was missing to me. Yet, it felt empty in this room. I felt unease. God is a God of love.
I returned to my dorm to find a fat yellow package in my mailbox. When I saw the address, I felt my heart drop. The testing results have come. I went back to my dorm room to find it thankfully empty as I opened the testing results. My heart dropped further. It was a barrage of different tests that didn't have much rhyme or reason. I flipped to the last page.
"I spoke with Allison about her scores on the standardized testing and asked her if she cheated. She denied cheating."
I glanced at the tests. The personality tests read something like this:
"She has an indecisive nature and may have agnostic belief systems."
This was on a federal testing paperwork. I knew immediately why the personality tests were given. They were trying to paint me as a degenerate and a liar. This is the Christian south so if you were "unchristian." People would look down on you and trust your words less. It is actually true. They did a research study on people's opinions on an atheist becoming a president. The personal responses were not favorable. I sat there on my uneven mattress that was sunken in on one side. I sighed. I felt the stress eating at me. Why does it seem that I never was meant to win? I frowned when I saw an unknown test diagnosing me with a visual perception disability that I didn't have. I knew this was bad. She did everything in her power to hurt me in this test.
"Don't stop," said that internal voice to me. I wanted to freeze. I didn't want to do it because I felt so tired.
"Eric," I texted him, "I got the testing results back, and they are not favorable." I knew they had manipulated the testing results to fit the narrative they wanted. I hardly wanted to look at them. I knew how fragile the differential on diagnosis can be. You just have to have the wrong person who will intentionally interpret the testing in the wrong way.
It took him a moment. God bless that man for his hard work. He texted me back: "Don't worry. I got a friend. See me tomorrow when you can."
"I will," I texted back to him. Something drew me into this. I wasn't sure if them or if it was something else. I tried to
rest, but rest would not find me. I opened some tabs on the internet that I was using. I started applying for jobs. I had a draft resume that I have done. I had no work experience because of advocacy, but I admitted it on the resume. I must have applied for at least twenty something jobs within an hour. That year, I would apply for more than a hundred. I realized later that when I clicked on the job application page. There was two things going against me. I checked "yes" when I admitted to having a disability. I also was applying for jobs in a state with a high dropout rate. I was too educated for a job. I wanted one so bad, but life wasn't going to let me out of this. I felt like something built a brick wall that prevented me from escaping.