Authors: BRET LOTT
Mrs. Hamby stopped reading when she saw she’d lost them, every one of them looking back at us, what seemed a sea of retarded children, though there were only a dozen or so, some with small eyes and wide faces like my Brenda Kay’s, some with just open mouths and sullen eyes, but all of them looking at us.
“We have visitors, ” Mrs. Hamby said, still with the book open. She was a good teacher, I could tell already, she wasn’t going to lose sight of reading time, wasn’t going to put away the book simply because we’d shown up, and, too, she wasn’t going to shut down the natural interest they all showed in our being here. She would make of this what she could.
“I’m Mrs. Hamby, ” she said. “And you are…”
“Mrs. Hilburn, ” I said, and nodded to her, to all the children.
Their eyes weren’t on me.
“And this is Brenda Kay, ” I said. “Brenda Kay Hilburn, ” and I turned to her, smiled. “My daughter, ” I said.
Brenda Kay only stood there, looking at all the children, and I tried to imagine for a moment what she might think, might feel at suddenly seeing all these children so like her, so in need of all we could give them.
But I could come up with nothing, could think of no one but myself, and the joy of this moment, this fine start.
CHAPTER 27.
BRENDA KAY STOOD AT THE FOUL LINE, HANDS HOLDING THE BASKETBALL between her legs, knees bent, eyes on the net. Behind her were the rest of the children.
“Let’s go, Brenda! ” the woman, this Mrs. Klausman, hollered, and it was all I could do not to shout from where I stood with the other mothers, Brenda Kay, it’s Brenda Kay! But I said nothing, only held my arms tighter across my chest.
Mrs. Klausman blew her whistle, a short bleat of a sound, but loud enough to make it echo off the brick walls of the gymnasium, and scare the living daylights out of most every child. Dennis, the boy behind Brenda Kay, had been standing quiet and still behind her, but now quick brought his arms up to his chest, started to twitching his whole head like he does, his thick glasses near falling off with each move. The little girl behind him, Candy was her name, started to twisting back and forth even faster than she’d been doing before. Another boy, Randy, him short as Brenda Kay, his hair near the same color, let out a low deep growl, started lifting one foot and then the other, one foot and the other. The two children who’d already shot, Marcella and Jimmy, sat on the floor behind this Mrs. Klausman, knees tucked up under their chins.
Jimmy was already shivering, Marcella swaying back and forth.
Brenda Kay was breathing faster now, her eyes still set on the net, her so small there on the floor, that net so far away.
This was the first day to the high school, the children’s first gymnasium day. There’d been talk from Mr. White about this eventuality for the last six years, since I’d started in helping at the center and being paid for it. Six years of talk about getting the children across town to West High School to use the gym during the off period, 11, 45 to 12, 30, so they could get hold of better exercise, better facilities, have more fun.
Until today, exercise time’d been at the old Presbyterian church off Torrance Boulevard. Behind the church was a parking lot painted with stripes for a volleyball court, and we’d all of us march the two blocks up the hill from the Health Center where Mr. White and I held class, the children and the two or three other mothers that showed up each day all holding hands. We’d walk on the sidewalk, beside us the cars on the street, some of them honking at us now and again, teenagers the same age as Brenda Kay hollering out things these children didn’t need to hear, but which most likely meant nothing to them, Morons, Retards.
But we’d sing songs or just talk, and then we’d be at the church parking lot, and I’d pull from the duffel bag I carried over my shoulder the ball, and we’d play there on the broken asphalt a game something akin to volleyball.
I myself had only seen it played on the beach whenever Leston used to feel like going to see Wilman and Burton at it, back before they’d gotten married. Now whenever they got to the beach it was with kids in tow, my grandchildren, Burton’s girls, Susan, Jeannie and Jill, Wilman’s boys, Brad, Robert and Timmy. But there’d been a time not too far back, before they’d had to carry playpens and diapers and umbrellas, when the two of them were out on the beach every afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday, back at Venice Beach and showing off to any girl that’d put eyes on them.
The version we played at the church, though, had no net, no poles, just that painted square on the parking lot. We’d give the ball to one or another of the children, show them again and again how you held the ball in the palm of one hand, then brought the other up under it, hit it hard so it flew up and into play.
But that didn’t happen too often, of course, most of the time the child missed the ball, or only held it in her hand like you showed her, and stared at it or you or the ground. Marcella was the worst about that, her black hair in a ponytail so tight you’d swear she had to work to close her eyes. She’d simply stare at the ball no matter how softly you talked, no matter how calm your hand on her back, no matter how many times you took her hand in yours and swung it up under that ball just to show her. Other children Dennis in particular knocked the stuffing out of it, sent the ball flying high and, usually, behind him, to where it’d bounce off the hood of a churchworker’s car. One time the pastor himself had been in his old Desoto, inching out of his slot at the back door to the sanctuary, only to have a ball Dennis’d slammed too high and far bounce off his roof. Pastor’d jammed on the brakes and looked everywhere, startled and scared, his old man’s red face bleached white with the whump! that ball had sounded. All he’d seen, too, was a parking lot full of retarded children and three mothers bent over laughing, hands covering our mouths in some small attempt at hiding. We joked for months after that, about how Mr. Mcknight must’ve thought God was gearing up to speak to him there in his Desoto, pounding his car roof to get his attention.
The children had fun, even when the ball went too high, or never left a child’s hand. We women spoke to them as if they were children, kids out for fun, and that seemed the trick to it all, just to treat them like they were kids themselves, though they ran in age anywhere from fifteen, which was Candy’s age, to twenty-four, Dennis’ age.
Brenda Kay was one of the younger ones at seventeen. She could get the ball up into the air on occasion, where sometimes it’d make it a couple of times back and forth, one child to the next keeping it in the air.
Sometimes it only fell off her hand, rolled a few feet away. But they were playing outside in the open air and moving themselves, their arms and legs.
Then West High School finally caved in to Mr. White, and of course all we mothers, not to mention Mr. White himself, nearly jumped for joy at the news, at the idea of our children in a real school, if for only an hour or so a day. Mr. White’d had to guarantee in writing the school would have no liabilities for the whole thing, and guarantee the children at the high school would hardly see our children. Even the gym door would be kept locked from the inside, so as not to disturb any of the normal children.
Mrs. Klausman also came with the deal. She was the girls’ PE coach, and’d been assigned this duty, her job supposedly to help out the children with organized play time, but, I figured, also to see they didn’t destroy the place, didn’t each of them go into mad rages and start to tearing the mats off the walls at either end of the court, didn’t throw up and bleed and bash in the wooden bleachers. I’d dealt with people who had no idea what retarded children were about long enough to be able to spot them a mile away. She was one of them, I could see the fear in her by the way she’d tried to smile while telling us at the start of the period what she perceived her role as being, “Coach and friend, friend and coach.” Her eyes never landed on the children around her, but always keeping on us, as though we might throw her some lifeline, reel her in from whatever hell she thought she was drowning in.
I wasn’t certain how long she’d last, blowing that whistle, hollering out to the children to throw. Marcella’d started swaying so hard she looked near to falling over there on the hardwood floor, when it’d been her turn, she’d merely done what Marcella always did, stared at the ball in her hands for a while. But then maybe because this was a new place, a big building with brick walls and championship flags hanging from the rafters, Marcella’d finally held the basketball just like we’d shown her to hold a volleyball, and for the first time ever she put her other hand beneath the ball, swung it up hard and quick, and gave it a good solid slap. The basketball popped up only a few feet, but it was the action that’d counted to we three mothers over here seated on the bleachers.
We’d clapped and cheered, Crystal Holloway Jimmy’s momma and Terri L’Coste Dennis’ momma and myself all standing up in our seats.
But Mrs. Klausman had only blown her whistle, shaken her head, and walked to pick up the ball. She held it at her hip, the whistle in her other hand, and stood next to Marcella, bounced the ball a couple of times. Then she shot, making that ball go in a perfect arc so that it fell right through the net without even touching the metal hoop.
“That’s how you do it, ” she said, and she’d turned, smiling, to where Marcella’d been.
Marcella was already over on the floor, curled up with her knees under her chin like she was right now.
Jimmy’d held the ball with two hands like it was a huge rock, his knees buckling a little under him, and he’d pushed it toward the basket, made it bounce twice before it rolled away to the right, where Mrs. Klausman stopped it with her foot. Then she’d done the same thing, stood next to him, shot, turned to him. He’d only looked up at her, his big ears poking out at either side of his head, his hair in that crew cut his momma said made him look at least a little more attentive than he would otherwise. Then he’d turned, gone and sat next to Marcella.
And now it was Brenda Kay’s turn. Still she stared at the net, still she held the ball between her knees. She opened and closed her mouth with each breath she took, her eyes, it looked from here, already going red at that whistle.
Mrs. Klausman popped the whistle again, just a short moment’s worth of sound, but shrill nonetheless. Randy, at the end of the line, gave a small yelp just as Brenda Kay swung her arms up, let go the ball.
It sailed straight up above her in a perfect line. Brenda Kay looked up at it, watched it a moment before she ducked, turned to get out of the way, bumping hard against Dennis, his hands still at his chest.
The ball came down, bounced on the wood floor, and everyone, even Mrs. Klausman, only watched, let it bounce until it finally stopped, sat right there at the foul line.
Dennis started laughing, his laughter even louder than Brenda Kay’s, the sound way up high and cackling like some wild animal’s. I wasn’t sure what he was laughing at, whether it was Brenda Kay’s shot or the ball settling right square back on the line or Brenda Kay ducking and banging into him. But he was laughing.
Brenda Kay turned to him, stared at him a moment, then let out “Huh!
Huh! Huh! ” almost as loud, and suddenly each of the children was laughing, the gymnasium echoing with laughter so hard and unafraid it was more a haunting sound than anything else, like laughing ghosts in a movie. None of them knew enough to be restrained in how they laughed, that matter of manners and politeness a notion that only operated in their heads when Momma or Daddy was with them.
Mrs. Klausman hadn’t yet picked up the ball, only stood staring at them, the whistle in one hand and close up to her mouth, like she’d been ready to blow it, but couldn’t quite get her hand there. Then she shifted her eyes to us, we mothers there on the bleachers.
None of us did anything to help. We only watched, and from the corner of my eyes I could see in each of us a piece of satisfaction with what was going on, in how the children had set her on edge, let her know they weren’t little zombies she could point in the right direction and expect to have operate just fine. We each of us sat there perfectly still, backs straight, chins up high.
We’d gotten this far alone, was what I was thinking on the way home from the high school. Mrs. Klausman’d finally given up after she’d been unable to stop the children from laughing. Even Jimmy quit his shivering once he’d started in, his laughter more a silent snickering.
That was when we mothers rounded them up, then went out to the station wagon, herded them in Dennis and Brenda Kay in the front seat with me, Marcella and Candy and Jimmy in the back seat, Randy all the way in the far back in the fold-up seat. Crystal and Terri climbed into Crystal’s car, a 57 Chevy she hadn’t yet decided to give up to her seventeen-year-old son, Mark, Jimmy’s younger brother. And then I set off for the drive back to the Health Center, Crystal to take Terri home.
I pulled the station wagon into the Health Center parking lot, yet another of these squared-off stucco buildings I’d finally grown used to here. By this time Randy in the far back had started in to his growling and yelping, and no matter how hard I tried to cut that sound out of my head, it was no use. The first gymnasium day was fast on its way from bad to worse, I’d already gotten a headache, and here it was only a little after noon.
There’d be Mr. White to answer to, report on how it’d gone with Mrs. Klausman and basketball. Then Arts and Crafts this afternoon, all that clay I had to water down and knead up before the children could start with it. We’d roll out the clay into long strings, coil it up on itself into little vases we’d let set in the windows, then paint up, take home sometime next week. It was something we’d done before, but nearly every art project we did we’d done before.
I pulled the keys out of the ignition, turned and opened my door, I hollered out to the children to line up on my side of the car, hold hands for the walk back to the classroom, and I wondered exactly how many coil vases and ashtrays and paperweights and doorstops and unidentifiable other clay whatnots we’d made these years. A hundred at least, I thought, all variations on the same old idea, get them working with their hands, make something they could hold and think I made it!