by Mike Morris
To Mrs. Tooray’s shock, I won the election. The school’s student body voted me Lieutenant of Patrols. My job was to run the flag up each morning and to stand guard at the stairs leading up to the main entrance. I don’t know from what I was guarding the school because Mr. Traylor and Mrs. Tooray were already in the building before I arrived at my post. And if they weren’t, they sneaked in the back door, which was unguarded. Boy, that didn’t make sense.
Despite the fact that the palace was teeming with scoundrels before I could stand sentry, everything went well until an unfortunate incident occurred. I accidentally ran the flag up, upside down. I don’t think one single person believed that was accidental ... but it was. I had no knowledge at the time that flying the flag upside-down was a signal of dire distress in an instance of extreme danger to life or property. Maybe, my subconscious was trying to warn me of my impending doom. In any event, this may have been the occurrence that uncorked any restraining device that may have been obstructing the flow of burning, verbal lava the vulture fancied to spew.
Her opening came on a day, a very rare day, when I was paying attention in class as Mrs. Tooray called on students to spell vocabulary words. I volunteered to spell the word “monument.” Unaware at the time that I didn’t know how to pronounce the letter “m” – I pronounced “m” as “elm.” I don’t know why, I just did – and actually knowing how to spell the word, which was unusual, I raised my hand. The vulture suspected dinner was near and smiled. “Mo, do you want to try and spell the word?”
It appeared she didn’t think I could spell the word, but I knew this one. I figured this was an opportunity to answer a question correctly and then I could space out for the rest of the day. “Yes,” I declared with suave certainty.
“Okay, Mo. Stand up.”
I felt a gust of icy northern wind. I don’t do well in cold weather, but the approaching frost or her penetrating gaze couldn’t unnerve me because I knew this one.
“Spell monument,” the Vulture coldly commanded.
I took a deep breath and as I let it out deliberately and proudly pronounced each letter, “Elm-o-n-u-elm-e-n-t.”
“What?” she snapped.
Thinking she couldn’t believe I knew how to spell the word, I spelled it again. “Elm-o-n-u-elm-e-n...”
“What!” This time she cut me off and seemed sincerely sinister.
I froze. Doubts began to creep into my once confident state of mind.
“Spell that again!” The Vulture appeared to be drooling and licking her chops.
I think I could see her placing a bib around her neck, but I couldn’t be sure because my eyes were starting to tear up. I hesitated, confused.
“Spell it again, please!” she threatened. Even though she didn’t move from her perch her pestiferous beak seemed to be opened around my throat.
Tentatively, I began, “Elm...”
“What!”
Uh-oh, my head was in her throat. Everyone was staring at her meal and her meal was fighting back tears.
“Go up to the board,” she curtly demanded.
I don’t know who was laughing, but I could hear snickers and giggles as I headed toward the board. I really could have used my coat, gloves, and hat; I was freezing. The cold was causing tears to fill my eyes and I knew any moment one would escape down my cheek. I turned to face her as I arrived at the board, but I couldn’t see through my tears.
“Pick up the chalk and write it on the board.”
Since I couldn’t see to find the chalk, there was plenty of time for the Vulture to get out all of her dishes and set her table as I blindly searched for it. The snickers and giggles were becoming chortles and chuckles. As I leaned my head down in pursuit of the chalk a tear made its escape down my cheek, then another, and another. Finally, finding the chalk and wiping tears with one hand, I wrote “m-o-n-u-m-e-n-t” on the board with the other hand. Not wanting to turn and face the class I remained facing the board. Naturally, the Vulture insisted I turn around. When I did, the students who felt like it was their duty to notify everyone of what everyone could already see began hissing and passing the word, “He’s crying! Mo is crying!”
Sensing her vengeance was almost complete and dinner was served, the Vulture pronounced, “Well, that is correct.”
Naively thinking my ordeal was finally over, I took a step toward my desk but was brutally stopped by the Vulture’s heartless order, “Now say it.”
As I tried to blubber, “Elm-o-n...” and classmates were cackling, Mrs. Tooray somewhat gently with only a splash of seething, showed the way, “Mo, say ‘m.’ Repeat after me, ‘m.’” But it was too late. I was a slobbering, sobbing slice of vulture chow. Later, Mrs. Tooray apologized to my mom for making me cry, but the Vulture never apologized to me.
Mrs. Tooray arranged her classroom into five tables. The “A” table was especially assembled for the beyond smart kids who actually could walk across the room without touching the floor and could communicate with the vulture in a secret vulture language without showing any fear of becoming her prey. If I recall correctly, it was constructed of the finest marble. The “B” – as in brick – table was built for the plain old smart kids who liked to smirk at those mediocre peasants at the “C” table – a table reserved for those of us going nowhere. The “D” table was designed for struggling morons whose goal in life was to make a “C”. Finally, the “F” table was fabricated for the mindless failures fitting all the fellow feeling we could proffer.
I much later realized that it wasn’t just me who was going nowhere, no matter how hard I tried; the whole “C” table was stuck. In fact, I don’t recall anyone moving up or down a table all year, although Mrs. Tooray repeatedly talked about working hard and “moving up.” Alas, no matter how many times I scored the highest grade on diagramming sentences, or how many times I expected to be moved up, she never moved me. Even when my story about two dancing dogs doing the cha-cha was selected as the best story and placed on the board for all to appreciate, I stayed put. After reciting the Gettysburg Address perfectly from memory, I sat fast at the “C” table. When Mrs. Tooray offered extra credit for memorization of the Bill of Rights, I was the only one who did it, and I delivered it perfectly. The class was amazed, and Mrs. Tooray was totally shocked. She even commented that did I not only memorize the whole thing, I recited it perfectly ... but I never budged from the “C” table!
Before every vacation and at any opportunity, Mrs. Tooray liked to make eloquent, inspirational speeches. So I knew on the last day of school she would be delivering her grandest address of all. As the end of that fateful day approached, I slipped out of the classroom. I felt a modification of her plan – a twist in the plot – an alteration of the blueprint was in order. I headed directly to the fire alarm, pulled it, hurried down the steps and out the back door – the secret hatchway of Traylor and Tooray. After sprinting across the ball fields, I bounced over the fence, slid down the hill, jumped over the sewage creek, and skipped the hundred or so yards to my backyard.
Soon a friend arrived to brief me on the outcome of the operation. When the alarm sounded, Mrs. Tooray had just launched into the opening of what appeared to be the commencement of an award-winning monologue. As the warning chimes began to peal, she struck a granite pose. Then the stone vulture flatly uttered two words, “Mo Mickus.”
Students leaped from their seats, lined up at the door, then filed down the hall, following the practiced procedure for fire drills. As they lined up outside, the busses arrived to take them home. All hope of finishing her end of the year dissertation was lost. Her final send-off was flawlessly subverted.
21
Nightmares
Three elementary schools fed their worn out plebeians to the same junior high school. After prowling around two out of three of these preserves – Hellincrest and Green Valley – I found the passage out led me and most of my former mates to pay this primary school, Benjamin Stoddard, a mandatory visit. Here I identified many well-known hum
an kissers, and this produced a sense of well-being – almost euphoria. Enduring so many new schools already, I had never before found a face familiar on the first day. It was liberating; and it opened a gate – an opening to freedom from an extended routine of nightmares.
I haven’t mentioned it, but the nightmares I had as a young child tormented my senses. The sound of my nightmares hurt. The sights in my nightmares hurt. The smothering atmosphere in my nightmares hurt. Not being able to understand what was happening in my nightmares hurt. The lies I told trying to explain my nightmares hurt.
My initial awareness of these creepy visions dated back six or seven years when I was a much more callow young fellow, slow-witted and suddenly waking up to my own anguished screaming. I wrestled for clarity in a hazy world where the misty confusion of my dark dream mixed with the shadows and shapes of the reality of my dark room – a reality which included a large creature aggressively approaching me, demanding to know what happened. As the haze cleared and my father came into focus, I realized there was no way I could explain the abstract apparition I had just encountered, so I made up something about a monster at the window. Faultily clear to my father that I had fabricated the entire story, he departed for much needed rest, leaving a trace of fatherly annoyance behind.
The nightmares continued, and the distinct parts eventually did become clear. Once illuminated, the nightmares were always the same. In the beginning of the fiendish dream, I would approach a large, round, domed building. It had no windows and one lonely, forlorn door. After I timorously tapped on the dreary door, it opened, and I fearfully treaded forward. The door immediately shut, disappeared, and my senses were harshly assaulted. Unintelligible noises violated my ears. Chilling laughter rang through the air. Foreign languages assailed me and demanded a response I didn’t know how to give – or even to what question. The smudgy conditions that abided in this beastly biosphere were breathable by all but me. Nevertheless, the most horrid part was the herd of beings that filled this vast chamber. Although their bodies were human, their heads were non-human and grotesque. They had vulture heads, bulldog heads, rhinoceros heads, hippopotamus heads, rodent heads, fish heads, and malformed alien heads of indescribable hideousness. They all knew each other and laughed, joked, and seemed to be pointing at me and making fun of me. Having the only human head, I felt misplaced. I didn’t recognize any of them. I pushed and shoved through the packed crowd, trying to find a door so I could leave and get some air, but I could never find one. So torturous was the pain that I would bolt out of the nightmare like I was bolting from the depths of the ocean floor to the water’s surface, gasping for air.
Eventually, in the beginning of the 7th grade at Benjamin Stoddard Junior High, freedom from these nightmares arrived when I understood from where these nightmares came. Since my father had decided the sailor’s life wasn’t for him and quit the Navy, we were able to dwell in one geographical area for longer than a year. I had already been to one school in California, two schools in Florida, one school in Virginia, and three schools in Maryland. Benjamin Stoddard was the 8th school I had attended.
Since my older brother Leo already attended Stoddard, he escorted me to school that first day. Leo walked me into the lobby and then explained the basic layout of the school. He directed me to meet him back at the front doors of the building and assured me by explaining the different ways in which I could arrive at the front doors. Leo pledged to meet me there at the end of the day. After my last class I met Leo at the front doors and we went home.
That night I had the nightmare again. But this time Leo was in the dream. He walked me up to the large, round, domed building. Leo opened the dreary door for me and instructed me to just knock on the door when I was ready to leave, and he would open it. Everything else was the same in the nightmare except when I began to panic and returned to where I thought the door was, it was there! I knocked, and Leo opened it for me. It was a happy ending. Once I understood my nightmares – bad dreams caused by the constant changing of schools – walking into situations where teachers and fellow students were atrocious-looking beings to be feared, their relationships already firmly established, and I was the lonely outsider – I stopped having them – at least while I was asleep.
22
Awakening
I don’t think any of us really understood what the assassination of President Kennedy meant, but Ms. Delonnie’s reaction gave us some insight. Ms. Delonnie, my 7th grade core subjects’ teacher, was young, beautiful, and way cool. She really liked me. I could tell. What was especially nice, besides being able to make goo-goo eyes at her, was that she laughed at all my jokes. Well ... most of them. I had a big-time crush on her and 7th grade was a joy.
It was in her class that the news came over the intercom that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. I, like many of my classmates, could have laughed, or made some crude remark, but Ms. Delonnie taught me a little bit about being a human being. Ms. Delonnie just began crying. She didn’t say a word to us the rest of the day. She just cried. Not one of us uttered a word, even yours truly. We just put our heads on our desks, waiting, looking at Ms. Delonnie, and feeling like something really horrible had happened. Those moments gave me time to think and to understand a little about death and evil and good. It became the moment it should have been – a serious, melancholy moment – a moment I needed to remember.
You never know when you are going to meet a lifetime friend, but 7th grade was where I met Yakov Mordicai ben Gabriel. My first recollection of Yakov was during P.E. class. After catching a pass during a football game and heading toward the end zone for an easy score, I casually glanced back at the line of scrimmage and noticed a Clark Kent looking guy – Clark Kent as in Superman’s well-disguised geeky persona. He sported meticulously combed hair –parted on the side – and he was wearing dorky looking glasses. But, he also had Superman style muscles. A 7th grader with muscles? I hadn’t noticed one of those before. I don’t mean the kind of muscles I have always had – the secret ones that no one notices. He had clear and visible muscles.
Anyway, Clark Kent was determinedly running toward me – kind of like he was going to launch into flight. His single-minded intent – catching me – was clear. I was so close to the goal line and so far ahead that I worried not and casually jogged toward the score. A few steps later I glanced back again. Clark Kent had closed the gap considerably. Somewhat startled, I throttled into high gear. After many years, we both agree that he did not catch me.
In the same way Roger’s mom had offered me the delicious cherries at his home, on a visit to Yakov’s home, his wonderful mom brought out milk and cookies. As we sat at a small table in the kitchen, she placed a jar full of Oreos in front of us and encouraged me to eat as many as I liked. After she left the room, Yakov told me that she didn’t really mean I could eat as many as I wanted – that I should only eat one.
Over the years Yakov grew so tired of hearing me share this story – a story that insinuates he selfishly limited me to one Oreo so he could have the rest – that a half century later, he mailed me a full bag of Oreos.
At this time I was vaguely aware that my younger sister, Melody, was becoming a world class baton twirler. Both my parents seemed seriously focused on this. Melody and I travelled in different orbits, but even from a safe distance it was obvious to me that she was extraordinarily focused and intensely competitive.
One day my father pressed me to participate in Melody’s world, forcing me to travel with the family to attend a parade corps competition. I sulked and complained and exuded the unhappiest vibe I could muster, but to no avail. After we arrived, I wandered off by myself, sat on the curb, and did my very best to let everyone in Melody’s world know how unhappy I was. As I pouted on the curb, the audience cheered each corps as it passed by. All the groups seemed the same to me – each twirled and tossed batons into the air – each was followed by a float or a car pumping out lousy recorded music through a lousy sound system.
Then th
e universe issued a wake-up call! A mysterious switch was flipped! Another corps approached – but this group was not accompanied by crappy recorded music crackling from a vehicle behind them. Behind this group strolled a drumline! I was awestruck! I was totally mesmerized! That moment is indelibly etched into my consciousness. I still clearly recall exactly what that drumline was playing.
When I got home, I burrowed into a closet full of forgotten items and found an empty shoe box and a couple of toy Lincoln logs. Using the Lincoln logs as sticks and the shoe box as a drum, I figured out how to play what I had seen and heard. I began to play it over and over. For hours each day, whirling in the world of absorption, I sat next to that closet and drummed the drumline’s cadence exactly as I had witnessed them do it. Didi-dada-dup click-click, didi-dada-dup click-click, didi-dada-dup dup dada dada dup click-click.
After a week or two of enduring relentless thumping, my mom walked by and said, “That’s sounding good!” Although immersed in my own world, her comment was able to penetrate my drumming domain and suggest the element of an audience.
Some days later, as my father passed me on his way out the door, he said that the group my sister twirled for was starting a beginner drum group, and he asked if I wanted to join. At that time, I always said no to my father, and “no” was on its way out of my mouth. However, I realized he was asking me if I wanted to learn how to drum. I stifled the no, and meekly said, “Yeah”.
Shortly after my conversion into the world of drummers, Leo started playing records by a strange-looking band called the Beatles. At first, I didn’t like them. I was a big Temptations and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles fan and felt some hostility toward Leo’s new mania. However, some of the neighborhood gang came over, and we watched the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Television was kind of a new thing back then. I remember the picture on our television was black and white – as in there was no red or blue or green or any other color – just black or white or maybe a lifeless kind of color in between black and white. I don’t know if the other kids in the neighborhood didn’t have their own television, but it seemed if something big was happening – like the Sonny Liston/ Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali) fight – or the Beatles – they would come over to our house to watch it on TV.