IGMS Issue 33 Read online

  I returned to school with the dread of an escaped convict. Miss Walsh had left -- to get married, the girls said. Though I'd long accepted that I wasn't going to get an answer back about the shamrock leaf, I still felt a pang that she never mentioned it, or said goodbye.

  Geography was replaced in the seventh grade by the history of New York state, taught in a monotone by a new teacher, Mrs. Verderami. I'm sure something interesting had happened since Henry Hudson sailed upriver in 1609, but it wasn't in our textbook, a 600-page murder weapon titled The Empire State.

  The only bright spot was art class. Seventh graders could take either art or music on Wednesday afternoons. I was placed in art, not because anyone consulted me about my preferences, but because my last name was in the bottom half of the alphabet. A lucky break.

  Art was taught by Father Clement, a tall, bald, potbellied priest who, instead of clerical garb, wore a black turtleneck and jeans to class.

  Art, at least the way Father Clem taught it, was the first class in which the students were supposed to have ideas. And mirable dictu, he took our ideas seriously. The first ten minutes of each class was a demonstration of some technique -- perspective or shading or foreshortening -- then we'd practice the techniques on objects in the room. As the weeks went on we incorporated what we'd learned into pencil sketches and pastels from memory, alternating with exercises in which we copied pictures, or details from pictures, that Father Clem hung on the blackboard.

  I liked art. It was the first thing I'd ever done in school that I could really lose myself in. I'd look up at the end of every class, surprised that it was time to go already. Father Clem said I was good at it -- though I could already tell that my drawings were better than my classmates' work. I also eased my frustration at not being able to spend as much time exploring Dreamland by recreating its hills and woods during free-drawing time.

  Then, in the first week of November, Father Clem hung a print of Guardi's Fantastic Landscape in the front of the room. I must have stared at that picture for ten straight minutes without moving a muscle.

  "Really speaks to you, huh?" Father Clem said to me when he came up behind me and saw that I hadn't made a mark on my sketchpad yet.

  "Uh-huh," I nodded.

  "The originals are oil on canvas -- there are three of them, actually, different landscapes -- they're in the Metropolitan Museum in the city," he said. "You should get your parents to take you."

  That almost made me laugh. I should get my parents to buy me a sailboat and a pony, too. I couldn't tell Father Clem the real reason the picture was so riveting: it was Dreamland. Guardi had been there, he had to have been there. Though I'd never seen so much as one stone piled upon another in Dreamland, I recognized Guardi's scene. I hadn't been to that exact spot, but I was certain that Fantastic Landscape was a rendering of someplace in Dreamland. The feel of it was too right.

  It was both exciting and scary to know someone else had been there. I'd gotten comfortable with the idea that Dreamland was my own private preserve, and while Guardi had obviously loved the place as I did, it worried me that anyone else could go there.

  It was the Friday after Thanksgiving when I came home for dinner and found my father just getting off the phone. He gave me a curious look when I came in the door.

  "That was your teacher," he said.

  Instant knot in my stomach. It was never a good thing when a teacher called your house.

  "Which one?"

  "From last year, the geography teacher," he said.

  "Miss Walsh?"

  "Yeah, she changed her name." My father looked intently at me. "She said you gave her a plant that you found in some lot?"

  "A leaf," I shrugged, trying to downplay it. "That was a while ago. What did she say?"

  "What lot was you in?"

  My stomach gave another twist. "Near school."

  "Where near school?"

  "On Quincy," I said. Was he going to tell me I couldn't go there anymore? Despite not wanting to pique his curiosity, I asked, "What did she say?"

  "Never mind," he said, raising his voice. "Concentrate on your schoolwork. Never mind the lot."

  My father only brought up schoolwork when he wanted to change the subject of a conversation. I wasn't sure he knew what grade I was in.

  "Don't say nothing to your mother about this," was all he told me.

  The subject of the lot didn't come up again, and for a while I forgot about the conversation. I could only visit Dreamland a few times in the next month, and the visits were more of a delight than usual because of the contrast with the raw December weather outside.

  I had been looking forward to Christmas vacation -- school was closed between the 23rd and January 6th. Aunt Mary had finally figured out she needed to send me gifts my father couldn't spend or sell, and sent a box of Venus colored pencils and several sketch pads for Christmas. On December 26th, excited to use my new supplies, I headed for the lot.

  I could see the fence from two blocks away, and I hurried the distance with my heart pounding in my chest. The scene inside the chain link perimeter was as bad as anything I could have imagined. Nothing was left standing in the lot -- it was just a block-long rectangle of brown, scraped-bare earth, seeded here and there with some rocks. Not one piece of greenery survived.

  I went to the double gate in the fence and found enough play in the padlocked chain that I could squeeze through. I walked every inch of the lot in a desperate fog, hoping by some miracle for a way into Dreamland.

  I don't know how long I stood there, heartsick. Finally some fat guy in a hardhat pulled up in a step van outside the gate and yelled at me.

  "Hey, get outta there!" he said, squeezing himself out of the driver's seat. He unlocked the gate and gestured to me. "Let's go, let's go . . ."

  I trudged out. "What are they putting here?"

  The fat guy shrugged. "Who knows? City took it over for back taxes. Probably stay like this for another twenty years."

  By the time I got home my father was already off on his daily rounds. If my mother noticed my foul mood, she said nothing about it, and after dinner I flopped into bed with my clothes on.

  I woke up sweaty in the middle of the night, and when I got up to undress I saw the kitchen light on. My father was sitting at the table, squinting at the Post the way he did when he was drunk.

  "What did Miss Walsh say when she called?" I asked him.

  He didn't look up from the paper. "Who?"

  "My teacher from last year, when she called," I said with exaggerated patience. "What'd she say about the leaf?"

  "Oh, yeah," my father said, dismissively waving his hand. "She said some guy she showed it to thought it might be from a new kind of tree, but when they went back there nobody found nuthin'."

  "When who went back there?" I asked.

  "Guy I know, thought maybe there was some money in it if they bought the lot. Turned out to be nuthin' there."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's just a lot," my father said. "The city owns it."

  "What was he going to do? Your friend?"

  "See who owned it, make them a deal. You can't deal with the city though. Anyway, they didn't find no tree there."

  So that was it. My father saw an angle and brought it to some mob wannabee buddy of his. Somehow their interest had poked the bureaucracy to life long enough to bulldoze the lot and put a fence around it.

  "Great, just great," I said.

  My father looked up from his paper, squinting at me through a haze of cigarette smoke and alcohol. "What?" His conversation, a little blurry and distracted to that point, became dangerously sharp at the slightest hint of criticism. I could hear the thin ice cracking in the flat tone of that one syllable.

  "You're so stupid!"

  His face flushed an even deeper red, and he pushed away from the table, but I was too mad to care.

  "The whole thing's gone!" I yelled. "They tore it all down! Because you told your stupid friend!"

  My fathe
r was on his feet, toppling the chair over as he got up. "You watch your damn mouth," he said slurrily.

  I should've shut up, but I was too full of bitter rage.

  "You screwed it all up," I said, shocking myself with even this mild profanity. "Your and your scumbag friend! What did you think --"

  But that was all I got out. My father slapped me just as my mother came into thekitchen, woken by all the shouting.

  "Stop it!" my mother yelled at him, "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

  "Don't you start," he said to her. "He has a smart mouth, your son."

  My face was burning, more from humiliation than the slap. I was suddenly caught between my own pain and rage, and the fear that a fight between my parents would escalate horribly.

  "Never mind," I said. "I'm going to bed."

  "What's going on?" my mother said, grabbing me by my arm. "Why'd he hit you?"

  I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't make things worse.

  "He better learn to watch his mouth," my father said in a tone that was both petulant and dangerous.

  "That's all you're good for," my mother said, rounding on him, "hitting and the bottle."

  "I'll show you what I'm good for," he said, pushing me aside roughly.

  My mother screamed. "Big man," she said. "Try that with your friends in the bar!"

  My father planted his hand in the middle of my mother's face and shoved her, making her topple backwards over a chair.

  "Stop!" I yelled, helping her back to her feet. "Stop it!"

  My father grabbed an iron trivet from the stove and flung it across the room, where it smashed through the glass cabinet front. My mother and I were backed against the sink as he threw the coffeepot and a mug against the wall.

  His fury apparently dissipated slightly, my father slammed out of the house, stopping only to snatch his shirt off the floor where it had fallen with the overturned chair.

  I turned to my mother, struggling with something to say, but she cut me off.

  "See what you did?" she said in her hard, cold voice. "Go to bed."

  In my room I realized that despite the fury of my father's eruption, I was unhurt except for a set of marks on my forearm, where my mother's nails had dug into me.

  I was a pill when school started again. The other kids avoided me, and Father Clem asked me twice if I was feeling okay. Far from improving my mood, art class reminded me of what I'd lost. I found out just how angry I was the first Friday after vacation.

  I had gone to the bathroom between history and religion, and when I came back to the room, I noticed that the other kids were quiet, and the new kid in the class was standing over Kevin Lester's desk.

  The new kid's name was Roger Rogers. He was taller than everyone else in the class and had bright red hair. He had been left back at St. Finbar's, and had transferred over the break.

  Kevin and I had stayed out of each-other's orbits since the principal's office, though I'd noticed the ongoing changes in him. As the semester passed he became more and more withdrawn. He didn't seem to know how to be with other kids, if he wasn't bullying them.

  When I walked back into the room I unconsciously registered Roger Rogers' hostile body language. I was about to slip quietly into my seat when I caught the sick expression on Kevin's face.

  "Hey rubber lips," Roger said, "you kiss your mother with that fat mouth?"

  Kevin did indeed have a protruding lower lip, and six months before I would have felt glee in seeing him tormented the way he'd tormented me. Now the look of misery on his face reminded me of a beaten animal, and it wrung my heart.

  Roger grabbed Kevin's lower lip between thumb and forefinger and started to drag him out of his seat. Kevin tried ineffectually to pry the bigger boy's hand away.

  "How far does this thing stretch?" Roger taunted.

  Without thinking about it I picked up my hardbound copy of The Empire State in both hands, and swung it for all I was worth at the side of Roger's head.

  From a distance I heard the wet crunch of Roger's ear as the book connected, and the horrified gasp of the other kids. Roger went down on all fours, but I didn't stop there. The lightning of long-suppressed fury had found a path to ground, and I smashed Roger several more times with the heavy text, until I was yanked bodily backwards by Sister Agnes.

  "Stop it, stop it!" she yelled.

  What stopped me was the look of fear on her face. Roger was on the floor, a crying, bloody mess. All the other kids, including Kevin, were frozen in wide-eyed shock.

  Sister Agnes helped Roger sit up, and from somewhere inside her habit produced a white handkerchief to hold against his bloody face.

  "Go to the principal's office," Sister Agnes hissed at me. "Tell her we need the nurse. Then stay there!"

  I did as I was told. Sister Gertrude and her secretary rushed out, leaving me to sit alone in the empty office. I felt worse with every passing minute, and not just because I was in trouble. I'd never hit anyone else in my life -- not seriously -- but I'd been hit more than a few times, and I knew how it felt. In an instant Roger had gone from a smirking bully to a scared, kid with tears and snot and blood running down his face.

  I felt like throwing up, but I didn't dare leave the office. I tried to hold it down, but at the last second all I had time to do was lunge for the trashcan. I was still bent over it when Sister Gertrude came back. She ignored me and went straight to the phone to call Roger's mother. When she was done she came around the desk and stood in front of me.

  "What happened?" she said curtly, her arms folded.

  "I, I . . ." That was all I got out before I choked up and my vision started to blur with tears.

  "Why are you crying?" the principal asked.

  "I didn't mean to hurt him," I managed to get out. "Is he okay?"

  She looked at me coolly. "I don't know. His ear is swollen and you cut his head with the book," she said. "What. Happened."

  "He was picking on Kevin . . ."

  "Kevin Lester?"

  "Yes," I nodded. "He grabbed him by the lip -- Roger grabbed Kevin by the lip. He was dragging him."

  She gave me a long look then sighed. "Go wash your face while I call your mother.

  My mother sat tight-lipped through Sister Gertrude's explanation of events.

  "I'm sorry, Sister, he was raised better than that," my mother said, giving me a malevolent glare.

  "I'm sure he was," the principal said.

  My mother's façade cracked a little -- her expression said she was trying to tell whether Sister Gertrude was being sarcastic.

  "He'll be punished for this," my mother finally said.

  Punished. Bad as I was feeling, I almost laughed at the sense of order and normalcy the word implied. My mother didn't punish me so much as conduct protracted vendettas of scowls and angry silences.

  "We'll have to see how the Rogers boy is before we make any decisions," Sister Gertrude said. "Until then Jerry should stay home."

  My mother nodded. I could tell from the look on her face she was choking back an argument.

  As we were leaving the outer office, the principal's secretary offered me a sympathetic smile and a piece of hard candy from the bowl on her desk.

  "He doesn't need any!" my mother snapped, grabbing me by the shoulder and propelling me in front of her out of the office.

  We walked home, my mother's shoes making angry clicks on the pavement. Fury flowed off her in waves.

  She exploded as soon as we were inside the door. "What's wrong with you?" she said, snatching off my coat with angry jerks. "What's going to happen if you get expelled?"

  I didn't know what to say.

  "Answer me!" she shouted. "Do you want to end up in public school with the n------s? Is that what you want?"

  The n------s. That was the trump card -- that was what my parents thought of as danger, never mind that the few black kids at the Nativity School were as terrorized by the bullies as I was.

  "I didn't mean to hurt him," I said. That wasn
't exactly true: in the moment I meant to kill Roger. What I didn't understand was how the switch had flipped.

  "What are you going to do about your schoolwork?" my mother went on, fury unabated. "What if you get left back? Do you know how much I pay for that school?!"

  My father walked in during this tirade -- apparently sober for a change. "What happened?" he asked when my mother paused for breath.

  "Ask your son," my mother said with a disgusted wave.

  But as I started to explain, she couldn't contain herself.

  "He got suspended, " she said, "For fighting in class."

  "With who?" he asked me.

  "What difference does it make? " my mother said. "He has a clear head, your son!"

  I eventually got the whole story out, as my mother's vocalizations of outrage tapered off.

  "You shoulda minded your own business," my father said when I was finished, but there was a note of pride in his voice.

  Retelling the incident had brought back the pain and fear on Roger's face as he sat on the floor sobbing.

  "You don't know anything," I said.

  My father jerked his head in surprise at that, but I ignored him and went to my room to take off my school uniform.

  It turned out Roger wasn't seriously hurt. There was another awkward shaking of hands in the principal's office, and I was allowed to return to class status quo ante bellum.

  The incident made me slightly more popular with my classmates, and I no longer had to eat lunch hunched over my sandwich for fear it would be snatched away by some bigger kid.

  Kevin had been shedding friends since our meeting in the principal's office, but now he was alone all the time. I tried talking to him a few times, but he barely acknowledged me, looking strained and nervous whenever I approached. I gave up out of a sense that I was doing more harm than good.

  Except for art class, school continued to be enforced tedium. I didn't have the release of Dreamland to look forward to in the afternoons and weekends, and drawing it from memory was bittersweet at best. Time stood still.

  Then in April, Father Clem made an announcement: he was taking both art classes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a field trip. I handed my mother the permission slip with studied indifference: if she saw that I really wanted to go she might refuse to sign it as punishment for any offense, ranging from my near-expulsion, to mediocre grades, to being "just like my father." She signed the slip hurriedly, barely glancing at it, and I tucked it carefully away in my bookbag.