The Other Way Around (3 page)

“Yeah, but why are they picking up so many pennies?”

The volunteer stared at me, screening my expression for any possible signs of cheekiness or insubordination. “The pennies are just an example,” she said, this time a little less patiently. It wasn't really the explanation I was looking for, but I knew enough about adult signals to let it go. The lesson went on without interruptions until one of the volunteers tried to explain to our class that people with Down syndrome are often sweet, good-natured, and childlike. This time it was Matt Hider who objected.

“No they're not,” he blurted out without raising his hand. We all looked smugly at the volunteers. We knew something they didn't.

“Well, actually,” the volunteer began.

“My sister's got that and she's a real brat,” Matt announced. “Especially if she doesn't get her way. She hits all the time too.” Matt was the second youngest of seven. His family squeezed into the tiny ranch at the end of our street. I knew for a fact that he was the one who took care of his younger sister every day after school until his parents came home from work. I nodded as he spoke, as though living on the same street as the kid with Down syndrome lent me some sort of secondary authority.

“Well, I'm sure she doesn't mean it,” the volunteer said and smiled brightly at Matt.

“Oh yes she does,” Matt insisted. “Once when I took away the potato chips because she was going to make herself sick, she bit me.” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal the distinctive scars of bite marks. Now it was getting good. We all jumped up from our seats to look at Matt's wounds. Mrs. Wilcox, roused from her stack of papers by our sudden movement, stood up to
retake control of the class. “All right everybody, that's enough,” Mrs. Wilcox said in an elevated tone. Disappointed, we began to drift back to our seats. The best part of the class was clearly over.

“I bet she doesn't sit around all day picking up pennies either,” I blurted out louder than I meant to.

“No way, man, she's not
that
retarded,” Matt replied. The whole class snickered, and for a moment, I reveled in being the kid who had cracked up the whole class.

“Andrew West.” Mrs. Wilcox drew herself up to her full height. A piece of hair had come loose from her otherwise unflappable bun. “You can take your smart mouth directly to the principal's office, young man.”

I remember the heat that rose up instantly in my face and the way everyone else dropped their eyes to their desks, as if disobedience might be contagious. It wasn't like junior high, when kids were sent to the principal's office all the time and everyone just kind shrugged in a too-bad-for-you kind of way. This was elementary school. The principal was a mythic figure who appeared only during holiday assemblies and national emergencies. This was serious.

As I slowly walked down the polished stairs, my sweaty palm gripping the banister for support, it occurred to me that if anyone had been smart-mouthing, it was Matt Hider. I guess it wasn't as easy to send the kid with the retarded sister to the principal's office.

The secretary looked up from her teddy bear catalog long enough to give me a shaming look and direct me to the wooden bench outside the principal's door. I sat there and watched the office comings and goings for about twenty minutes before
anyone else spoke to me. I could hear the muffled tones of Mr. McGinty on the phone inside his office. I watched as a third-grader's mother came to sign her out for a dentist appointment. Two kids, only one who actually looked sick, came down to go to the nurse's office. Mrs. Bolduc, the school nurse, came out at one point and smiled at me until she realized why I was sitting where I was sitting. She exchanged her smile for a troubled look and went back in her office.

Finally Mr. McGinty came out and kneeled next to me so that his head was at my eye level and I could see his yellowing teeth and smell the Scope on his breath. “I suppose you know why you're here,” he said.

“I was rude to the teachers,” I offered, hoping for a brief moment this might be as easy as confession—which I had only seen in movies, since Mom's family thinks too much religion is tacky and Dad describes himself as a recovering Jew.

Mr. McGinty nodded. “I've called your mother, and she's on her way in. She's trying to get ahold of your father so he can be here too.” My blood froze. They were calling my parents? Over this? My face grew hot again, and a few fat, embarrassing tears began to well up in my eyes. Mr. McGinty seemed satisfied with this response. He stood up with some difficulty and spoke to the school secretary. “He can wait in the conference room. Why don't you set him up with something to do until everyone gets here?”

I was ushered into the conference room next to the principal's office, a stale, windowless room with a table, five chairs, and a tower of extra folding chairs stacked in one corner. Month-at-a-glance calendars detailing the schoolwide events and planned field trips covered the walls. I was given a coloring
book and some crayons. Once I grew tired of staring at the calendars, I turned my attention to the coloring book, which turned out to be a series of cautionary tales about a misbehaving frog who makes bad choices. The book had clearly been used before, and I halfheartedly enjoyed whoever had given the frog a yellow Mohawk and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth on each page. I turned to a blank page and began to color the frog purple.

The buildup to the meeting was worse than the meeting itself. By the time my parents got there, school was over and Mrs. Wilcox could attend, along with Mrs. Richards, the school social worker. I was asked a few times if I understood why I what I had said was wrong and inappropriate, and I was able to get away with answering by head nod and sorrowful expression. What I remember most about the meeting were my parents. My mom seemed to actually enjoy the meeting and suggested several times that we might need to reconvene if there wasn't any progress in my behavior or attitude. She mentioned several times that I might have seemed moody lately. It was clearly an invitation for further questions, and she seemed disappointed when no one took her up on it.

My father said nothing, his mouth pursed with tension. He tapped one end of a ballpoint pen lightly on the table throughout the entire meeting. I already knew my parents were splitting up, even though neither had said anything directly. I assumed this was what my mom was getting at. She actually seemed disappointed when Mrs. Richards told her she didn't think weekly social work appointments would be appropriate at this time. “Andrew seems to have a pretty good understanding of what he did wrong,” she explained. And then it was over.

Outside in the parking lot there was an awkward moment as my parents walked purposefully toward their separate cars, and I was unsure of whom to follow. My father turned around first. “You want to go to Friendly's?”

“Sure,” I said.

“David, I hardly think taking him out to lunch is appropriate to the occasion.”

“Did I or did I not just hear you say an hour ago that I need to spend more time with him?”

Mom looked like she wanted to say more. But she didn't, so I followed my father to the car and we went to Friendly's, where I ate a chicken finger basket and he drank Diet Coke and folded and refolded his straw wrapper while trying to explain the basics of the divorce to me.

I know what pity looks like. I've seen it enough to recognize it when it's staring me in the face. Which is why I'm not smiling at the sad half-smile that my mom's secretary is giving me while I'm waiting outside her office. I'm trying not to think about whether some part of breakfast is staining my school uniform. I want to smooth down the cowlick that inevitably pops up on the back of my head by the end of the day, but I resist the urge to act in the face of this sad woman with lipstick on her teeth and a misbuttoned cardigan.

Before I can really get going on my mental rampage, Mom buzzes through to ask if I'm still waiting.

“Sheila, will you ask him if he can find a ride?” the tinny voice scratches out on speaker phone. Sheila looks at me awkwardly. I enjoy her embarrassment as she buzzes back through and reminds my mother that I'm here for a meeting with
her
—for the not-so-dreaded teacher meeting with her and the rest of my teachers. “That's today?” Mom asks rhetorically. “I had it down for next week.” No response is needed.

It's ten of three, and slowly my teachers begin to drift in and make their way to the conference room just off the main
office. Miss Simms, my biology teacher, Mr. Carroll is geometry, Mr. Kunitz from world history, and of course Ms. Tuttle, who smiles sympathetically as she walks past. Even Mr. Beech shows up, and phys. ed. is the one class I'm passing. Mrs. Byers, my guidance counselor, ruffles my hair as she walks by.

I like Mrs. Byers. She's the only African American person on staff at St. Mary's; she refers to all her students as “her babies”; and she's unbelievably optimistic. When Mom expressed some concern earlier in the year about my grades, Mrs. Byers said, “Who, Andrew? My baby? Uh uh. I'm not worried about Andrew. He's going to be just fine once he settles in and makes the transition. He's going to be just fine.” Plus she always has chocolate, and she never questions you if you want to make an appointment to come see her. You can pretty much stop by anytime, which I've made an occasional practice of on test days. She knows I'm not doing that well, but she never pushes me or asks me why.

I already know how this is going to go. Mom will begin by making a little speech about how we can all agree that I'm not living up to my potential. Then there will be teacher reports where everyone says how surprised they are because I seem really smart but the quality of my work is pretty poor. Mr. Beech will be the only exception here when he announces that I'm passing gym with flying colors. He will punctuate this by giving me a dirty look for wasting his time. Then everyone will agree that overall I'm not making enough effort and I need to do better.

Next everyone will look at me, and someone, probably Ms. Tuttle, will ask if there's anything that the teachers can do to help me be more successful. At which point I'll shrug and say
that I don't think so. And if I'm feeling especially sanctimonious, I'll add something about how I know my education is my responsibility. I'd probably be more likely to care if any one of them could demonstrate the usefulness of what they're teaching for life after high school. Dad never bothered to finish his degree—he claims his thesis got held up in committee, but Mom says he wasn't motivated enough to see it through—and he's got a job and a pretty decent life, I guess.

Sometimes they'll ask me for some kind of review or assessment of how my time at home is spent. Mom usually jumps in here and assures everyone that I do not have access to video games and my television time is strictly limited. Which of course makes everyone wonder if I have a life at all.

The truth is, I don't have answers to their questions, and I don't think they do either. I hate when adults look at you like you're some kind of puzzle just waiting to be unlocked by the right question. I like to read—mostly biographies and survival stories. It's cool when people are actually fighting for their survival. I bet no one ever asked Ernest Shackleton to write a five-paragraph essay on the individual versus society.

I rarely like the assigned readings. We read
The Grapes of Wrath
earlier this year, and I kind of liked that. It's sort of like a survival story. I'm remembering it now because I'm thinking of this one scene where Tom Joad gets annoyed at this guy, who works at the gas station during the Great Depression when basically the whole country was going to hell, because he just keeps saying how he wants to know what the country is coming to. According to Tom, the guy is just talking to hear himself talk. That's how it is with these meetings. Everyone sits down and wants to know what I'm coming to.

Then it's time for solutions. Ms. Tuttle suggests that I keep a journal for extra credit in English. I'm not going to tell her that I'd rather have my fingernails removed by some Gestapo guy than spend any more time alone with my stupid thoughts. Instead I just nod, like this might be doable. Mr. Carroll suggests that I stay after school for extra help. I nod again, knowing that I'll only have to do that once or twice before I can start blowing it off. Kunitz recommends some website with a bunch of study skills ideas, and Mom makes a show of writing it down. I've got to give Kunitz credit for that one. The guy's got four kids, there's no way he's staying after to work with someone like me, and I don't blame him. And then the meeting is pretty much over. I'm almost out the door when Mom asks me if I can still find a ride home at this hour because she needs to stay at school and get caught up. She never bothers to ask who I get these mysterious rides from, and I never bother to tell her that 99% of the time I walk. We wouldn't want to shatter the illusion that I actually have friends at St. Mary's.

That night I wait until Mom's had her second glass before I come out of my room. She's still wearing work clothes, but she's put on fuzzy slippers and she's leafing through a women's clothing catalog at the top of a stack of unopened mail.

“The board is giving me a really hard time about the curriculum,” she says out loud.

I reach into the cabinet and grab a handful of Cheez-Its from the box. “Uh-huh?” I say, while munching the crackers.

“I mean, they hired me because they wanted change and now they're dragging their feet every time I suggest something. We can keep Latin and classical studies, but religious education has got to go—at least the way it's being taught now. Maybe we could revamp it into some kind of a world religions class …” Her voice trails off. She pushes aside the catalog and scribbles a note on the back of some unopened mail. Then she looks up and, as if suddenly realizing who she's talking to, frowns. “That was embarrassing for me today, Andrew.”