I've had my share of culture shock as I traipsed through Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, but nothing could have prepared me for my first encounter with a burqua-clad woman on a flight from Rome to Beirut. Not pictures, not books, not stories--nothing could have prepared me for the searing image of the ghostly apparition.
A fastidiously groomed man in a Savile Row Suit, Gucci loafers and a Rolex guided the ethereal shroud to its seat. Swathed head to ankle in a voluminous black cover replete with a plastic Darth Vader-like screen masking its face, it seemed like a character in Night of the Living Dead.
When the meal was served, her gloved hands flipped part of her veil forward creating a mini-tent under which she ate. Except for her feet, you would never have known it was a person--no arms nor legs, no skin, no voice.
I was simultaneously fascinated and repulsed; though I'm not sure which part of the scene prompted my visceral reaction. After all, growing up with nuns exposed me to some very unusual attire, and the religion I was steeped in routinely vilified women as "occasions of sin" so it wasn't as though misogyny was exactly foreign to me.
Maybe it was the proud, pristine peacock steering the faceless, formless figure down the aisle. Maybe it was the beautiful faces of their children who accept that, at puberty, boys become men and girls disappear. Maybe it was the realization that a change in geography could make any woman, myself included, an erasable nonentity. Maybe it was the neon-bright jelly slippers that flashed from beneath the capacious black robe. Whatever it was, it overwhelmed my heart.
In Beirut, I shared the encounter with my Egyptian friend, Mohsen. "Ah, yes," he explained, "Our culture respects virtuous women, that is why we require the burqua."
Oh. My. God.
Years later, my daughter told me about helping to plan a Take Back the Night rally on campus.
"Hundreds of students," she explained, "will protest violence against women. We're going to chant 'Yes means yes, and no means no! However we dress, wherever we go!' It's about victimization," she declared, "about empowerment, too. But really, Mom, I think it's about respect, don't you?"
"Yes, Lia, it is about respect," I replied, flashing back to the image tattooed to my soul so long ago. "We Americans don’t always get it right, but we do keep trying."
Fueled by the renewed energy of my summer hiatus, I again entered the revolving door of Teacher Personnel. Somewhere in the Windy City, I was certain a school existed where students were not hostages and the principal knew his teachers by name. From a map studded with pins, each of which indicated a teacher vacancy, I spotted a prime location.
The beckoning pin was almost floating on Lake Michigan, just a hop from Chicago's Gold Coast where privileged kids enjoyed advantages that dwarfed their skyscraper abodes. The Magnificent Mile shopping Mecca beckoned from the east, Rush Street, haunt of hipsters, was a mile south and Lincoln Park, a miniature of New York's Central Park, was a stone's throw north.
"Excellent choice," the personnel advisor said, as I handed her the marker of my promising future. "It's an Educational Vocational Guidance Center. Sign this form; assignments are irrevocable. Good luck!"
A week later I reported for duty at the oldest school in Chicago, a weathered landmark which lent a bit of architectural romance to my vision, and reinforced my belief that I stumbled on a gem of a job. The center of the stone stairs was worn by the pounding of thousands of Buster Browns, and the dings and dents in the vintage hardwood floors added to the charm. The main office had old-time, school-house pendant light fixtures suspended over a shiny mahogany counter where employees signed in; a note next to the sign-in sheet announced that there were coffee and rolls in the teachers' lounge and a staff meeting was scheduled at ten.
Over a donut I met my fellow provisional teachers, both men new to the system. The first had graduated Princeton, and looked the part right down to his penny loafers. The other had just completed his doctorate at the Chicago Theological Seminary, and was awaiting ordination.
"The woman in Personnel gave this place a rave review," said the Doctor.
"Yeah, she said it was a great choice," said the Princetonian, dusting powdered sugar off his silk, Ivy-league tie, "but I noticed a lot of vacancies."
A man eavesdropping commented, "I don't suppose one of you brain surgeons thought to ask why there were so many empty slots? Trust me; you won't make it through the year."
"How long have you been here?" asked the minister.
"Fifteen years, but there aren't too many job openings for alcoholics. Don't ever light a match near me." His buddy guffawed. "Like you could pass a breathalyzer," Mr. Doomsday snapped, but he was cut short by the arrival of a man who asked that new teachers come to his office.
"My name is Mr. Sharp. Elijah Sharp. I'm the assistant principal. So what do you want to teach? You're on provisional certificates with no teaching credentials so you can teach anything."
"A college degree with no teacher training qualifies one to teach in all subject areas?" Dr. Divinity asked.
"Yep, pick whatever you want, we need everything. One of you guys want Math? I know women are no good at numbers."
"I'll teach Math," Princeton volunteered.
"Good. Room 204." He turned to Divinity, "You look like a scientist. Room 208. And you, Baby, Language Arts, 301. Now for policy. I'm in charge of discipline. If a kid is causing big trouble, send him down with a note; our intercom is busted. Don't send somebody down for petty nonsense, I'll send him right back."
"What's considered petty nonsense?" Divinity asked.
"Cursing, fighting, threats, pranks, refusing to work--you get paid to be in charge of your classroom."
"What constitutes a serious issue?" asked Princeton.
"Weapons. And only if you see one. If they say something like, 'I'm gonna blow your head off,' ignore it. They talk tough. But if you actually see a knife or gun, send down a note," he said. "And no smoking, but again make sure you actually see the kid with reefer. Sometimes the smell comes from 311 where the street people hang. Keep classroom windows locked. We had a kid who was pushed or fell depending on whose story you buy, from the second story last year. He lived, but he's pretty messed up. Any questions? If not, staff meeting at 10."
An attractive, forty-something woman sat down next to us as we waited for the staff meeting to begin. "Hi, I'm Renee Cross, the librarian," she said. "You must be the new teachers." I didn't know what signaled that we were newbies--Princeton's eye twitch, Divinity's knuckle-cracking or my hair-twirling.
At 10, there were only six of us in the lounge, and two were custodians scarfing down the last of the coffee cake.
The principal entered and launched into a Welcome to the Family speech. "Yeah, the Addams Family," a late arrival shouted as he headed to the buffet. "Hey, who ate all the eclairs?"
"Probably fat ass Fred. Pat him down," Doomsday ordered. Two men lifted one of the custodians out of his chair, and began rifling his pants pockets.
"Hey, I found a Long John," yelled a poster child for decaf. "Oops, this isn't a sweet roll, but I'll bet his girlfriend thinks it's one."
The Principal droned on to the finale. "And, in the words of Dr. Seuss, 'Unless someone like you cares a lot, nothing will get better.' Now go get 'em."
Princeton's blinking was now a full-fledged tic. Dr. Divinity's clenched jaw suggested he needed to find a parsonage ASAP.
"Don't let those antics bother you," Renee said. "Some teachers behave worse than the students. We'll go to the Bowl & Roll for lunch, and I'll give you the scoop."
"Nice perk, being surrounded by good restaurants."
"Not exactly surrounded, Cabrini-Green is two blocks thataway," she pointed.
"The housing projects?"
"There's only one Cabrini-Green, the greatest failed social experiment in history, and we get the student casualties from the project's schools--fourteen year-olds reading below third grade," she said. "But things get tricky because Chicago principals get paid by the head; they don't want their numbers to go down so they transfer kids to us only when their behavior is totally off the wall."
Just then the Dr. Seuss enthusiast bellowed from his office, "Move it, folks, I expect appropriate bulletin boards by 3 o'clock!"
"Renee, what's with appropriate?"
"Last year the Shop teachers jig-sawed a life-sized nude and painted WELCOME BACK on a fig leaf."
A woman, with what looked to be an active blonde beehive, was unlocking 304. "Hi," I said, "I'm the new Language Arts teacher."
"I'm the music teacher. Good to have company up here, half the rooms are empty, and no one except the kids and derelicts ever come up to the third floor."
"Derelicts?"
"Addicts, gangbangers--they hang out in 311. The room can't be locked because of the fire escape so all of the dregs in the neighborhood congregate there. Steer clear," she warned. "Can't talk now. I have to see if I got any of the instruments I ordered. There aren't many musical arrangements for kazoos."
"Kazoos?"
"Yes, our trumpets were stolen, the piano has no pedals, the guitar has no strings. Mostly we watch videos--Sound of Music, My Fair Lady."
I decided to check out the 311 halfway house before the squatters commandeered the area.
"You haven't been assigned to 311, have you?" a man, in a Mr. Rogers' cardigan, inquired as I exited the room.
"Oh, no, just checking things out."
"Well, take a peek, then skedaddle. The room gets packed when it's cold out; you can get high just walking down the hall. By the way, I'm Louis Picaro, the art teacher. Everyone calls me Picasso. If you need anything, I'm in room 309."
"As a matter of fact, I do need bulletin board materials."
"Well, someone ripped off my art supplies, but I'll share what's left. Use newspaper for background and it'll be good through Christmas. Staple up paper plates, and tomorrow they'll draw their faces and print their names underneath, that way they get to know each other. In October, have them draw their faces on jack-o-lanterns..."
"You're kidding? Pumpkins?"
"Pumpkins, and in November, a giant turkey--they write what they're thankful for on the tail feathers."
The turkey-feather gratitude list was the last straw. I backed away to find Renee.
"I met Picasso and Beehive," I said. "Beehive told me about thieves and addicts and kazoos and squatters. Picasso gave me bizarre bulletin board tips."
As we walked to the restaurant, I asked her why she was teaching at the Center.
"Without getting too kumbaya on you, let's just say I believe in giving back."
"I understand trying to make a difference, Renee, but swim in a toxic pool, and you gulp poison."
"Sure, some teachers get warped, but there are good ones too, and a lot of nice kids. Chicken or egg? Politics, incompetence, social conditions, it's all in the water, but we can't just give up."
I liked Renee; she'd been around the block, but she didn't seem jaded.
"Okay, I'll try to swim with a snorkel," I said, "but I need the Cliff Notes on how this place operates."
By the time we left the Bowl & Roll, I was cycling between concern and curiosity, and running into Mr. Sharp upon our return magnified both.
"Hey, Baby, forgot to mention, no one enters the building before 8:30--safety issues, and staff vacates at 3:15 sharp; NEVER linger after school."
"But what if a student needs extra help or I have to hold a parent conference?"
He looked at me as though I'd said but what if I have to convene a NATO Summit?
"Girl, kick off those red slippers, and buy you some combat boots. You're on a different planet now."
In our house, a girl, no matter how old, left her parents' home either wed or dead. Since I was neither, my father created a third category, running away, defined as a daughter's act of shameful rebellion, betrayal, ancestral treason.
My father often referenced "...the time she ran away." Those unfamiliar with the saga would raise their eyebrows in puzzlement; others, accustomed to his histrionics, would sigh.
After college graduation, I lived at home while I taught and saved to fund a dream trip, a summer in Europe. After my travels, I intended to get an apartment, though I had no idea how I'd make my escape. While going out on my own was as much a part of my here I come, world plan as my European tour, I knew the subject would be inflammatory; it took little to ignite conflagration.
With dorm living, a college degree, travel and a good job under my belt, I felt equipped to leave the nest despite my father's opposition.
After way too many dinner table wars, the lines were drawn--it's my life versus over my dead body. The rhetoric was hot, mine trumpeted independence, his loaded with dire predictions. You'll be mixing with strangers, you're putting yourself in harm's way, there are drug addicts out there, you could get mugged and robbed, he prophesied. Men will hit on you, he said. That particular caveat I hoped went from his mouth straight to God's ear, but the other warnings I packed away in the if you cross your eyes, they will stay that way category.
My brother got wind of the escalating hostility, and suggested an unusual strategy.
"Pack your bags and go. He's never going to give you permission, if that's what you're waiting for, so just do it. You're not a hostage."
I could not have been more astonished had he suggested I hook up with a Satanic cult. Perhaps because of his gender, my brother never internalized the fact that females in our house were subject to different rules, some made up on the spot. True, I wasn't physically captive, but just walking out, the notion that I could just do it, was unfathomable. My college girlfriends went out on their own, but that was because, according to my father's script, their families didn't care, didn't value their reputations, were shameless and amoral. After awhile longer under my father's thumb, some of those attributes sounded somewhat appealing, and the seduction of independence trumped fear.
I ran away.
Impervious to the warnings that I was risking my life, asking for trouble and tempting fate, sharing a flat with Beth, a college acquaintance, whose paramour had walked out of her heart and out on their lease, seemed perfect. I needed to bring nothing more to the furnished apartment than my suitcase, two boxes and three garbage bags of earthly possessions. Soon though, I discovered, that part of Beth's emotional healing involved bringing home strangers she met in bars. Mornings, I was afraid to walk out of my bedroom not knowing if she'd run off to work leaving her man of the hour eating breakfast at our table. Facing a potential Mr. Goodbar was terrifying, particularly after I overheard a colleague say that she'd awakened one morning to find that her one-night stand had absconded with all of her jewelry. Accused by Beth of not understanding how one recovers from a shattered romance, I took to locking my bedroom door at all times, and being alert for strangers in our shower. I slept over at a friend's apartment on nights when the prospect of Beth mending her broken heart seemed likely.
Thrilled when the lease expired, I signed on with Carri, a dorm friend, whom I knew to be neither desperate, needy, nor prone to falling in love with strangers after two drinks. The only problematic part of our living together was the fact that we were both very messy, our preferred description--not dirty messy, not disgusting messy, just sloppy spirits who thought housekeeping a waste of time, slackers who used chairs as closets, and figured college diplomas immunized against household drudgery. Reading won hands-down when the alternative was vacuuming, and we didn't own anything worth polishing so we, like Thing One and Thing Two, were comfortable in our little pigpen littered with newspapers, running shoes and lesson plans.
One day I returned from teaching unable to unlock the front door. After ten minutes of fiddling with the key, I called our building janitor, who showed up an hour later with his nine-year old clone, disgruntled that I'd interrupted his happy hour.
I tell you, Helmet, womens stupid, always trouble, I heard him grumbling to his son as they climbed the stairs to find me sitting on the floor outside my apartment.
"Mr. Hormet, my key's not working," I said. "The door won't open."
He jerked my key ring from my hands, and proceeded to lecture me on the art of unlocking a door. He had no luck either.
"Door bar," he barked.
"Can't be, I was the last one out this morning, and I locked the door."
"Door bar, maybe burglar home," he guffawed. "Helmet, go back door!"
Within minutes, Helmet appeared in the doorway crowing, "The back door was wide open! Your house is wrecked!"
"See," Mr. Hormet triumphed, "I tol' you robbed!"
"Oh, God," I shrieked, "What happened? What the hell happened?"
"You been robbed," Helmet screeched, delighted to be a player in the drama. "I discovered the crime. I'm like a detective--you have to tip me!" His father concurred, "Yeah, big tip!" The notion flashed through my mind that Mr. Hormet might be the culprit, but just as quickly I realized that he could never stay on task long enough to cause such destruction.
I surveyed the wreckage. The apartment was a catastrophe--drawers dumped, closet contents strewn about, furniture upended, pictures ripped off walls, potted plants smashed-- ruined, destroyed, trashed. Couldn't someone tell from our thrift-store decor that this was not a Gold Coast apartment, that we had nothing of value?
"How could this be," I lamented to the officer who responded to the 911 call. "Nothing here is worth stealing."
"Even a camera or a radio is a jackpot for a drug addict, Miss. It's $20.--more than he had before he picked your lock."
As I sat in tears, the detectives arrived to dust for fingerprints. Within a four square block area, we have 300 break and enters a day, one of Chicago's finest commented, as he sprinkled white powder over the crime scene. I wasn't sure if that statistic was supposed to make me feel less special, or if he was saying welcome to the big city.
And then, almost worse than the burglary, my detested neighbor walked in the door. She had dropped by on a few occasions ostensibly for the proverbial cup of sugar, but her grilling intrusiveness suggested she was some kind of government informant on a covert operation. Just tell her we're diabetics the next time she comes looking for sugar, I had told Carri, don't let the busybody in. Now Torquemada was standing in the middle of the crime scene, her head swiveling, eyeballs spinning as though she was on an intelligence gathering mission.
"Whoa, this place is a real mess," she announced, as she sauntered around assessing the disaster. "Looks like you girls got wild and crazy in here."
"No, a junkie made a housecall," I said.
"Well, he probably wanted to surprise you with a home-cooked meal. The kitchen sink is filled with dirty pots and pans. Then again, maybe he was starving after his futile search for valuables." Unable to go for her throat due to the presence of the evidence technicians, I replied in my best Eliza Doolittle voice, "Oh, Darling, those dishes are from a dinner party we had last summer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must ask you to leave so I can inventory our loss."
Carri came up the stairs just as I was hustling the yenta out the door.
"Don't get scared, Carri, everything is okay, but we were robbed. My dad is now three for three." Carri surveyed the living room then dashed to her bedroom.
"Oh, no, the bastard stole my opal ring, my birthstone!" she wailed. "Oh, god, he got my add-a-pearl necklace too."
"Don't feel bad," I said, "he got my Confirmation watch and my grandmother's cameo."
"Well, ladies," the detective interrupted, "we've done about all we can do here. We got a few prints, but they're probably yours," he laughed. "Doesn't really matter though, we never catch anybody anyway. We dust just to make the victims feel better."
"Makes them think we're on top of things," the other Dick Tracy chuckled, as they beat it out the door.
It was getting late, the circus was over, even Helmet and Mr. Hormet had gotten bored and left. Carri and I cleared a space on the sofa to commiserate.
"He cut the cord on my Princess phone," Carri grieved.
"He got my debate medals," I said, "Let's call it a day. We can clean this dump over the weekend."
"How can we live this way for three days?" Carri yawned.
"We've lived this way since we moved in," I said only half-exaggerating, "except for the time your mother visited. By the way, I'm sleeping on the floor in your room. My bedroom door doesn't lock."
"The floor in my room?"
"Yes, I'm sleeping on your floor in case the creep comes back tonight for something he couldn't carry. My father said criminals often return to the scene of the crime."
"Your father's not infallible. He said guys would be hitting on you, and that hasn't happened. Are you thinking the dope fiend will come back for your class ring?"
"I'm worried he might come back for more stuff. Your add-a-pearl necklace only had seven pearls, remember?"
"I know I got it when I was born, but then my sister came along and my mother got too busy to order pearls," she said, turning out the light, as I nested on the floor in my down quilt.
"Carri," I murmured in the dark. "I'm sorry about your necklace."
"Don't worry about it," she said. "Someday we'll have diamonds that will dazzle even that bitch upstairs."
The room fell silent as I visualized my drop-dead engagement ring. Then in a soft voice, as though Miss J. Edgar Hoover might be listening, Thing One asked, "Thing Two, how did you realize that the apartment had been ransacked?"
"Well, my bike was gone," I whispered. "It was chained to the radiator in the living room, and I noticed it was missing."
My dad said I had to be a little fish in a big pond in order to grow, that I needed to make some new friends, expand my horizons, leave the old neighborhood and interact with girls whose ambitions transcended beauty school. So I was exiled to a high school that required three bus transfers, a place where I wouldn't know a soul. Study on the bus ride my mother said, learn to navigate the city--like I was supposed to be some kind of Christopher Columbus in search of a new world.
Soon I was trudging to the 26th Street bus, but not before I'd sneak under our porch and ditch the embarrassing book bag and, if it had snowed, the humiliating boots my father insisted I wear. It was bad enough that the nuns required us to wear hideous black crepe-soled shoes so as not to scuff the tiled floors, but I drew the line at the mukluk look.
My new girlfriends could have been my cousins, though their names didn't end in vowels. They were first generation, European progeny who didn't eat meat on Fridays, and worried about going to Hell. I translated Caesar's Gallic Wars with the best of them, and even had a leg up when we studied the Renaissance masters, thanks to my ethnicity. The curriculum on sexuality was limited to the dissection of frogs. A couple of sluts, a new word I added to my expanded vocabulary, gossiped about French kissing, and one warned me to stay away from lesbians. I thought lesbian was a nonsense word akin to jabberwocky. While many of my new classmates' aspirations were not limited by gender or tradition, the One True Faith, like a great cement ankle bracelet, detoured us from the real world.
Until I met Linda.
My new friend was sweet and funny with a face and figure that made our flying-monkey uniform almost attractive. She lived three parishes away on the other side of a viaduct which separated our neighborhood, the other side, as we referred to it, was a smidgen more cosmopolitan, but, thanks to both of us being kept on short leashes at home, we were on equal footing when it came to worldliness--one crepe-sole rooted in parochialism, the other inching toward adventure.
One Monday, a not so exuberant Linda flashed her student pass at the bus driver, and flopped into the seat beside me.
"My life is over," she stage whispered.
"Let me guess. Your dog ate your science project."
"This isn't a joke. I'm done. My life is a disaster."
"What happened? Did you fight with your mother? Are you sick?"
"Worse. I had a horrible date Saturday night." She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her flying-monkey bolero. "I wish I was dead."
"You're crying over a boy? Are you kidding me?"
"I'm not kidding. He's awful--crude, cocky, crazy-mean, and now I'm his girl. My life is ruined. I should just finish myself off."
"Stop the drama. I don't get it. This was a first date with a jerk who asked you to be his girlfriend?"
"He didn't ask me. He said, 'I been watchin' you, and I like you. You're my girl now--you only date me.' But I can't stand him. He's disgusting, he's not even cute, he gives me the creeps, I'm afraid of him."
"One date, and he thinks he owns you? He's a nut--just tell him to drop dead when he calls, tell him you're not interested."
"Not interested? You don't understand, that's the scary part," she whispered. "He's connected."
"Connected? Connected to what? He's 17 years old, tell him to get lost, or your dad will kick his butt."
"Lower your voice," she hissed. "You don't get it. My dad can't help me. He'll kill my dad, my mother too--he's a hit guy. He's mobbed up."
"Oh, knock it off. You're being ridiculous--he's seventeen; he's a punk. You can't be a mobster at seventeen," I said. "Don't be afraid, the sicko is just trying to scare you."
The bus pulled up to the curb of our school. Linda was in a daze, and didn't move; the peter-pan collar of her blouse was damp from tears.
"C'mon, Linda, we're here. Let's go. We'll figure this out," I said, as we headed off to translate another chapter of Caesar's Gallic Wars.
That night at dinner, I told my girlfriend's story. "She had one date with this goof, and he thinks he owns her. Did you ever hear of such craziness? She thinks her life is over."
I expected my dad, who was afraid of no one, to say that the guy sounded like a loser, that she should just tell her father. Instead he said, "Eat. Your food is getting cold."
I turned to my brother. "Maybe you know this jerk. His name is Eddie Garren."
"He's a creep," my brother said, "a real bad guy, hazardous to her health."
"Get serious," I scoffed.
"No, you get serious," my father snapped. "Your brother's right, be alert; stay away. She's done."
I found a new route to school. Every now and then, I'd bump into Linda, but I'd keep my distance, avoid her at lunch, always too busy to talk. I knew she understood. We both understood. I had to stay on course; expanding horizons was a full-time job--be alert for bad influences, steer clear of hazards. She knew from that first encounter that she was in trouble--that gossip, loneliness and fear would be her new companions. That coming undone was part of a life unraveling when you're toast.
I trained for debate and symposiums, joined clubs, concentrated on my GPA. Over time, I settled into the big pond, and even got to be a decent sized fish.
I lost track of Linda, though I'd heard that she'd married the psychopath. Occasionally I'd see the monster's name in the news, but it wasn't as though I was following his career.
Then in December, 1999, Chicago headlines announced that Eddie "the Little Guy" Garren, a reputed top mobster, was shot and critically wounded in the alley behind his home as he headed to the funeral of an underworld associate.
Garren had been released only days before the shooting from federal prison after being sentenced to 25 years for masterminding an armed robbery. At the time of his sentencing, he had been arrested 58 times as an adult and convicted 13 times. He had attained special criminal status under a federal law known as the "Dangerous Special Offender Statute."
He never recovered, and died one month later in January, 2000. His obituary described him as a hit man, master thief, robber, hijacker, fence, juice collector and rapist. He was survived by two sons and Linda. A half dozen years later, his eldest, Edward, Jr., testified in Chicago's infamous Family Secrets trial that his father had trained him to follow in his footsteps as a burglar and bookmaker.
I'd held a baby only once before when I begged my mother to let me hold my brand new cousin. "First wash your hands, then sit on the sofa," she ordered. She put Laura in my arms and knelt in front of us. "Hold your thighs together so you make a lap. Support her neck, prop up her head, keep your arm under her body, don't breathe in her face. Careful when you kiss her, watch out for her soft spot."
"What's a soft spot?" I asked.
"It's the part of her head that covers her brain. Now lower your voice or you'll startle her."
Laura started to wail. "Here, take her back, babies have too many rules.”
I steered clear of babies after that and then it happened again.
"Here, my phone is ringing, hold her for a second," my neighbor Lucy said as she thrust her baby, Kiki, into my arms. I was only five years old, a tiny kid myself, sitting on the stoop and munching on a Snicker's.
I pressed my thighs together to make a lap like I remembered from Laura and, poof, just like that, Kiki flipped out of my arms. I gripped her ankle; her pink rubber pants flashed the whole neighborhood. Clutching her leg, I hoisted her up to eye level. Lucky thing her brain didn't fall out of the soft spot. When I flipped her right-side up, she looked okay. Her face was as bright red as a flaming-hot jawbreaker, but her bonnet was still stuck on her head, and she wasn’t bleeding.
"Kiki," I scolded, "you can't just do a somersault whenever you feel like it." Kiki was screaming and not paying attention.
"I don't know why she's crying, maybe she missed you," I lied to Lucy, who hadn't seen her baby bungee-jump from my arms. I was glad Kiki couldn't tell her mother that she was twirling around upside down and almost bounced on the sidewalk.
Over the years, worrying about Kiki's brain caused me many sleepless nights. My brother's friend, Stevie, went to the hospital after he jumped off his garage roof while playing Superman. My brother, who was very smart, said Stevie had a concussion which meant his brain got jiggled in his skull. Even though Kiki hadn't hit the ground, I knew her brain had a good jiggle. Would she grow up to be normal?
"Whatever happened to Stevie after his concussion?" I asked.
"He got in trouble for playing on the roof, and his dad punished him."
"I mean what happened to his brain. Did he like start acting weird?"
"You're weird," my brother sneered, as he rode off on his Schwinn. "Something's wrong with your brain."
So all I could do was spy on Kiki to see if her brain was working right. Every time I'd see Lucy with her in the buggy outside, I'd push the mosquito netting aside and peer at her little bald head.
"How is she today, Lucy? Has she started to talk yet?"
"Oh, Sweetie, she won't be talking for a while. She's still too little."
I wanted to tell Lucy that, thanks to me, Kiki might never talk. I worried that she might get stuck in kindergarten for a couple of years because she had trouble learning then she'd end up like Butchie, down the street. My brother said Butchie was slow because he'd been dropped on his head when he was a baby. Butchie had to repeat second grade twice.
Being on the alert for signs of brain-damage was complicated by the fact that Kiki's family was strange to begin with--I mean, her brother's name was Jujube. Jujube! All the boys in our neighborhood had names like Joey or Junior--no one was named after candy that you bought when you went to the movies. On top of that, Jujube's ears were lopsided, and he kind of looked like he might not make it past fifth grade. To further complicate matters, Kiki and Jujube had different fathers because my brother said Lucy was divorced which meant she traded in her old husband for a new one. So it was going to be hard to know if Kiki was goofed up because of me or her loony tribe. I worried that I was going to have to take the whole blame if Kiki didn't turn out right, if she couldn't spell or add or subtract.
When I was seven, my Nana died and we moved into her old flat six blocks away. Though I didn't change schools, I did lose track of Kiki. I always prayed, though, that she turned out to be normal and that someday I could tell her it was an accident and please forgive me. I dreamed of explaining to Kiki that if she had brain problems it was partly her fault for acting like a kangaroo.
Kiki's caper set me up for a life of chronic worry, but, in fairness to her, I did go to Catholic schools where hijacking cerebellums and embedding neurons of fear was an art form.
At the age of seven, my First Confession, the day before my First Holy Communion, kicked off a deluge of anxiety when I toddled into the black hole of a confessional. A weekly Examination of Conscience required searching out every sin committed in thought, word and/or deed, by acts of commission or omission, intentionally or accidentally, either consciously or unconsciously, in rain, sleet or snow, in sickness or health, pre-conception or postmortem.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..." was my Saturday afternoon mantra, a ritual that was supposed to "...stop God from crying over all the bad things you did during the week," said Sister Perpetua. I thought God must be nuts to cry because I'd rolled my eyeballs at my mother when she told me to dry the dishes. But just after I thought about the possibility of God being cuckoo, I realized the thought was sacrilegious so I'd wait in church all afternoon until the priests changed shifts and the refugee Croation priest, who spoke almost no English, came on duty. No matter what you confessed, he'd say, "Okay, tree r fodders, tree Hey, Marys. Go."
That I accomplished anything in school was astounding seeing that I was so busy dissecting, analyzing and seeking second opinions from my girlfriends on the gravity of my sins.
"Josephine, I know snitching is a sin, but what if I snitched on my brother because I heard him use a swear word? I don't think it's a sin because it did stop him from saying hell." "Well, you just committed a sin yourself because you said the "H" word," said the pint-sized Elmer Gantry. "Plus snitching is a sin no matter what your brother did."
"Another sin just because I said the "H" word?"
"Yes, but it’s just a Venial--you only go to "H" for Mortals," she said.
I ran to Confession, and was relieved when I smelled beer through the little screen which meant Father Alky was on the other side. He probably didn't know what rolling eyeballs were since he too had language limitations. But then I worried that if he didn't understand me, his forgiveness wouldn't count so I added yet another sin by lying that I'd left my prayer book in the pew and fled.
I ran across the vestibule, and got in Father Steve's line. He had escaped the Communists too and his English was not the best, however, he was up on the latest sins. Sometimes you'd be waiting your turn and you'd hear him bellow, "YOU DEED WHAT?" Within minutes you'd see a blubbering eight-year old exit, and run down the aisle with his jacket pulled over his head hoping not to be identified. One time Peter Manzino crashed right into the baptismal font as he tried to make a break for it. Sister Praxeda caught him and dragged him back to the box. Pushing Peter to the front of the line, she made him go in and confess that he'd broken the baptismal watering hole. This time Father Steve's "YOU DEED WHAT?" shook the choir loft. I went in right after Peter, and the kneeler was all wet. I pretended it was holy water.
Over the next few years, my repertoire of sins expanded. Envy, wrath and eavesdropping reared their heads when my brother turned sixteen and got his first part-time job and a paycheck. His tales about the shoplifters, quick-change artists and crazy customers caused me to covet his exciting life.
Then came the day I had long prayed for: a Kiki update. Her mother popped up at my brother's store.
"Ma, remember Lucy, our old neighbor--Jujube's mom? She came shopping today."
My Dumbo ears flapped at the mention of Lucy's name.
"Oh, I haven't seen her in ages. How is she?” my Mom asked.
“She’s fine; she has a new husband and another baby.”
“How’s Kiki?” I blurted. "Is she alive?"
"Well, yeah," he said with a 'you are such a knucklehead' look. "Most people are still alive in fourth grade."
"I meant to say is she normal?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he said, "but they don’t call her Kiki anymore—she’s Katherine, and Jujube only answers to Jerome. He’s studying to be a detective.”
“Good for him,” my mother said.
“Yeah, it is, but Lucy’s really braggy. She said detective like it was a big deal.”
“It is a big deal,” I chimed in. “She probably thought that with his uneven ears he’d never make it through school. But what did she say about Kiki?”
“Katherine,” he corrected me, and turned back to Mom. “Mom, do you ever brag about me?”
“No,” she said as she greased a pie pan. "Your father and I don’t believe in it. We expect you to do well, and we don't need to advertise."
“I get it, but I’d appreciate a little bragging once in a while.”
I agreed. “You could at least say something like my daughter is very intelligent.”
“Ma can't say that because she doesn't want to lie,” he smirked. And then he dropped a bit of gossip that was intended to make me jealous, but instead took a ton of weight off my heart. “Lucy said Katherine got to be May Crowning Queen because she got straight A’s.”
“Straight A’s?” I screamed, "You're kidding! Kiki, straight A’S—May Crowning Queen--wooohoo!" Bubbles of shock, disbelief, gratitude and relief fizzed in my head. "That’s the best! I can't believe it! Go, Kiki, go!"
“Mom, she is psycho,” he said, his mouth twisted like he was sucking on a dirty sock. "I'm positive that one day when you weren't looking, someone dropped her on her head."
"Israel, I've repeated that word at least six times," I said. "You're making me crazy."
For five weeks, I had tried to teach him to read and he'd made no progress.
"Makin' you crazy? How 'bout me? At least you're gettin' paid to do this shit."
"That's true, but I'm not getting paid to bang my head against a wall. Come to think of it, maybe I am."
We both laughed. He was laughing, I'm sure, at the thought of me smashing my head--I laughed because crying was not an option.
Israel was just one of the many students stockpiled in warehouses called Educational Vocational Guidance Centers where I was assigned. If teens hadn't learned to read after a decade in the Chicago school system, and didn't have the courtesy to join the high-school dropout brigade of their own volition, they passed to the Educational Vocational Guidance Center where they got a lethal dose of shame and boredom and finally pulled the plug on themselves. For some reason, Israel refused to jump ship.
Day after day, this Mexican man-child, his legs bouncing like jackhammers, sat beside my desk as we slogged through an out-dated pre-primer designed to teach kindergartners. Who cared that black and brown teen-agers had little in common with Dick and Jane though, in this case, the lack of age-appropriate materials didn't explain, but only complicated, Israel's problems.
Long before Attention Deficit Disorder became the go to diagnosis for kids whose short attention spans and frenetic energy drove teachers crazy, Israel swaggered around the classroom, a roving ambassador of diplomacy, flirting, wisecracking and entertaining those easily amused. As the lone Hispanic in the cadre of black students, he fine-tuned his people skills and charmed even the most hostile competition. He hung out with the "baddest" of the gangbangers, but showed no allegiance to a particular gang, an astounding accomplishment.
Israel threw his lot in with any antisocial scheme which came his way, often cutting classes to head to the near-by Gold Coast to knock hipsters off their $2,000. Colnago bikes. He and Curtiss, his black amigo, would return to class, revved up and sweaty, spouting some cockamamie story about running to Curtiss' crib in the Projects to retrieve a forgotten math book, but the sleek Italian racer, parked in the gym for safe-keeping, announced another mission accomplished.
When cops showed up, Israel was never a suspect because the victim, too shaken to be precise, invariably told the cops he was robbed by a bunch of black kids. Since light brown-skinned Israel flew under the radar, he became the hood's Clarence Darrow, launching preemptive strikes to protect his posse.
"These guys didn't do nothin'. Leave 'em alone. We was all in gym class shootin' hoops."
The gym teacher, who never bothered taking roll-call, dittoed the explanation. Flimsy as it was, the alibi worked--the cops avoided reams of paperwork and the flash mob avoided the lock-up. Everybody was happy except for the injured party, but Israel said that the victim should've been happy too, happy that he didn't get killed.
Though he had just begun to sprout peach fuzz, Israel was a seasoned con man. He could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge and demand a tariff for the privilege of jumping off.
"You read good, Miss S, fast, like you got the words memorized," he'd say, "You're the smartest girl I know."
"Thanks, Israel. Now let's finish this chapter."
"I ain't doin' no more today. My brain's tired."
"Your brain would be fine if you'd use it. Let's finish this page."
"I use it, just not in school. Vowels? Come on, ya gotta be kiddin' me. Who gives a fuck?"
"You're right, Israel, this is a stone joke. I have a job to do, and I can't do it without your cooperation. We're wasting our time," I said, closing the book. "I'm done. You don't want to learn to read."
In a flash, his too-beautiful-to-be-wasted-on-a-boy eyelashes fluttered from a breeze of anger, but then, fast as Michael Jordan when he snatched a rebound, he reclaimed his bravado.
"You know, Miss S, you're smart, but you don't know everything. You don't have no clue about not bein' able to read. If you knew, you'd never say I don't wanna learn how to read."
"Well, what am I supposed to say? You come in here and clown around, you goof off, you entertain the class with your ridiculous behavior, and I'm supposed to think you care?"
"That's because I don't want nobody to think I care," he stage-whispered, the breeze of anger whirling into a tornado. "I don't want nobody to think I can't learn. Let 'em think I don't give a fuck. But you're smart, Miss S, you should know that's bullshit, you gotta' know not bein' able to read is a bitch."
"I can't imagine it," I said. "It's got to be a nightmare."
"A nightmare? Nightmare? Really, ya think?" he sneered.
"How'd you like to go out on a date and have to say I'll have whatever she's havin' cause you can't read the menu? Do you have any idea what I do when I wanna' take a girl to the movies and I don't know what's playin' cause I can't read the sign over the Rialto?
Well, Teach, let me tell you how I do it. I buy a newspaper and I fold it open to the movie part and I go home and I hope that my brother, Hector, is there so I can throw the paper in his lap. 'Find me a good movie,' I say, as I head to the bathroom.
'Find it yourself, asshole.'
'Come on, bro,' I yell from the bathroom. 'I'm in a hurry, I gotta take a shower. Just tell me what's playin'.'"
"Hector doesn't know you can't read?" I asked in amazement.
"Nobody knows," he seethed. "Nobody except you. Don't you get it? I'm ashamed. Besides, it's nobody's fuckin' business."
"I had no idea. I'm sorry."
"Sorry? What are you sorry for? It ain't your fault," he said, settling down, as though coughing up his secret had halted the cement mixer in his gut. "You don't have nothin' to be sorry for."
Nothing to be sorry for, I wanted to scream, you've got to be kidding, but instead I said, "Israel, I promise we are going to learn to read if it's the last thing we do."
"We're going to learn?" he said, flipping back to his cocky persona. "Miss S," he laughed, "you already know how to read. Just teach me, okay?"
"Deal. Tonight I'm going to write a story about this and tomorrow you're going to read it. We'll make a book about you, your stories."
"Cool. We'll call it Israel and Miss S--forget Dick and Jane. Dick. Can you believe that? Dick. I mean, what kind of fuckin' name is Dick?"
"I'm not going there, Israel. Here's a pass for Social Studies. You're late."
"I ain't goin' to Social. I'm meetin' Curtiss."
"Go to Social. Mr. A. will be mad if you ditch."
"Get real. Mr. A don't even know who's in his class plus he hates me. He says Israel is not a person's name--it's the name of a country. 'From now on, I'll call you Jew,' he said. I told him 'Hey, no problema, man, I'll call you Fuckin' Idiot.'"
Over the next couple of months we turned dozens of conversations into stories. We wrote and read about his family--his brother Hector's new car, his sister Rosita's son, getting busted, his father's accident, Lupe's brutal husband and the first time he read a menu. He wrote a poem about his brother Oscar and a song for his girlfriend. We wrote and he read, stumbling and stuttering, but he was reading. "Hey, Miss S," he crowed one day, "do you believe I just read that story about my ma's cooking, and I didn't fuck up one word?"
There was no stopping him now.
When we finished our Israel and Miss S spiral notebook, Israel announced he was going to write his life story. "I'm starting it with the day I was born even though I don't remember that much. I'll get my Ma to help with the details."
Mark Twain said when angry, count to four, when very angry, swear. That Wednesday morning, I was in swear mode. I discovered that some brainiac used a ballpoint pen to draw Gilligan's Island on the long-awaited globe that'd been delivered only two days earlier. I stood there disgusted over the fucked up world I was holding when Curtiss and Leotis charged through the door.
"Miss S, Miss S, Israel shot in the back las' night. He dead."
"Dead? Who? What are you talking about?"
"Israel, Israel Hernandez, he dead. He gone."
"They be washin' his blood right now by the alley on Division Street," Leotis added
I don't remember much more about the day--clusters of kids in the halls, girls crying, boys talking revenge, teachers saying "...what could you expect...it was only a matter of time..."
The following day, a note was scotch-taped next to the teachers' sign-in sheet.
ISRAEL HERNANDEZ IS BEING WAKED AT HOME TONIGHT
AND TOMORROW. FUNERAL SATURDAY MORNING
10 A.M. ST. DOMINICK'S CHURCH
Mr. A was signing in too.
"Are you going to the wake?" I asked.
"What the hell for?'" He went over to check his mailbox.
Curtiss was in a reflective mood as we walked over to Israel's house after school.
"Where you think he be now, Miss S?"
"Some place good, I hope. Maybe with his father."
"I'm thinkin' he be in heaven. I'm thinkin' God be sayin', "What the fuck you doin' up here, Lil' Man? Who tol' you you could come here?"
"Yeah, and he probably told God 'You can't tell me where to go,'" I said remembering his arrogant, defiant side.
"Yeah, I bet Jesus jus' be crackin' up."
The smell of flowers and the food heaped on the kitchen table lent a combination funeral parlor/restaurant air to the space. The hushed quiet of the packed basement apartment was interrupted by sobs as friends joined the crowd. All eyes darted to the entryway, the arrival of a white woman and a black teen-ager stirred whispers. I spotted Hector, an Israel clone right down to the thick eyelashes that had always reminded me of awnings.
"I am so sorry, Hector," I said. "This should never have happened."
For once, Curtiss put his swaggering self on hold as he extended his hand. "Israel be my frien'," he said.
Suddenly, from another room, I heard shrieks of La maestra! La maestra! and a little rotund woman, straight out of a Botero painting, shuffled toward me. "La maestra," she kept wailing, as though she was seeing an apparition.
Alternating between sobs and smiles, we spoke through Hector.
"My mother cannot believe a teacher would come to our house," he translated. "She is honored that you come here. She says that Israel told her you were the smartest woman he ever met."
I stood there, unable to cope with the attention and awe, fixated on the drain tile at her feet. "Tell your Mother Israel was a very smart and beautiful boy."
"Si, si," she sobbed. "Muy bonito."
"Tell her he wrote a story about what a good mother she is and he says she's the best cook in the world."
She took my hand and guided me to the wooden coffin which rested on the dining room table and contained the youngest of her children. Standing guard over their baby brother were Lupe, Raul, Juan, Rosita, Oscar, Sergio and Rico. We had written about them all.
Israel lay there, in a sort of mariachi suit--a dark jacket with huge lapels, a narrow string of black leather tied around the collar of a white ruffled-neck shirt, a red satin cummerbund and black pants. Someone had painted a little mustache on his upper lip with eyebrow pencil. His chalky hands held a rosary and his First Communion prayer book. I remembered the story about his First Confession when he'd asked the priest, "So why do I gotta' tell you all this shit?" He was seven years old.
"Let's go, Miss S, come on," I heard Curtiss mumble. "You can't make him come back to school wit us."
I handed Hector an envelope as we exchanged good-bye handshakes. "You know, Miss S, Israel had stopped throwing newspapers at me," he said, the tears slipping past the awnings.
"Dang, Miss S," Curtiss said as we walked back to school, "Israel be pissed off if he see that Maybelline thing they drawed on his face. He be too cool to look the fool. Why they do that?"
"I guess they wanted him to look like a man--maybe it's easier for them to pretend that he wasn't just a kid."
"Well, he be ashamed if he saw hisself."
"I don't think so, Curtiss," I said, "I know only one thing that Israel was ashamed of, and we were working on that."
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Mary Lou Edwards
Mary Lou is a Chicagoan born into an Italian-American family with all the blessings and liabilities that encompasses. Her unique perspective on life’s absurdities capture painful and outrageous truths which cut deeply into our modern psyche. Her take-no-prisoners style exposes the guilty and gives voice to the wounded.
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