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| Mrs. Reagan Grade 5 Teacher |
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| Fire Escape Tube |
It's strange how a house can be emptied so quickly of its contents, the material stuff of one's life. The movers wrapped furniture in gray quilts and carried it along with many labeled boxes out to a big truck. Jimmy Mihalic, Butch Marlow, Donny Ward, and Kenneth Kirstel sat on the lawn watching. Kenneth's ball cap was typically askew, and the "C" had been torn off so that the remaining red felt letters read "Chicago UBS." Jimmy was a Sox fan, though his hat was western and said "Hopalong Cassidy" on the band. Butch was eating some crab apples from Mr. Rebey's yard, while Donny attempted to smooth down the corners of the band-aid on the bottom of his left foot.
Something ached inside me as I told them to wait for me a minute.Then I walked into the house, where morning light was still falling in golden strips through venetian blinds and onto bare oak floors. There was an echo with each step I took in the empty rooms where I recalled Easters, Christmases, Thanksgivings, and the births of my brother and sister. Dad's voice from outside called me back to reality. "Come on, Buddy. We're leaving now, and I want to lock the front door." Turning once more to look back, I tried hard to drink in the memories. I knew there would be ghosts there, laughing ghosts from past summers, hiding in corners and lingering there all my life. Outside, Jimmy, Butch, Donny , and Kenneth were still sitting on the grass watching the moving van pull away. They were unusually quiet and a little embarrassed, not knowing what to say or do. Mom, Dad, David, and Connie were already in the car waiting for me to say my goodbyes. Even now I can't be sure how much the others felt and understood of what was happening, but Donny stood up, hopped over to me on his right foot and offered his hand. "We're gonna miss ya, Buddy." Then there was silence, because speech was impossible as Donny reached into a pocket of his shorts and handed me a blue plastic knight. Dad sounded the horn so I got into the car, situating myself between Connie and David so I could, on my knees, look out the rear window. In our lives, there are things we cannot look at hard enough, because they are so fleeting. I think of Emily from Thornton Wilder's play, OUR TOWN, and appreciate the truth of the ache she too felt in looking one last time at the past. The sight of those four kids sitting by the SOLD sign on that front lawn was such for me. As we drove down the street, they waved and grew gradually smaller in the distance along with all the houses and recollections that have remained in storage for me all these years, but that door had essentially closed forever.
September came as I became swallowed up by the new school with its endless corridors, clanging lockers, and cafeteria that smelled eternally of bananas, peanut butter, fish sticks, and stale snack cakes. Fifth grade had come at last, and I couldn't imagine growing up any more. This was, as we all think along the way, the ultimate stage in the maturing process. That illusion, pleasant as it was, left the moment I met my fifth- grade teacher, Mrs. Reagan.
She was physically imposing in height and breadth. Her breasts always arrived seconds before the rest of her. At least that's how huge they seemed. Her hair was in a loose bun that moved from side to side as she walked. It is easy to recall her clothing, because she wore the same dress most of the year. It was black jersey with white polka dots all over, except for yellow ones under the arms. Black orthopedic shoes (doubtless size twelve) and tortoise shell glasses held by a chain around her neck completed Mrs. Reagan's attire. She was a classic example of what women of middle age should not wear.
In her hand was always a pointer with which she would visually punctuate whatever she was saying. She used the pointer also to crack unwary students on their knuckles. The latter seemed to be her favorite activity, because she demonstrated complete adroitness from what must have been a lot of practice. The intended victim didn't have to be doing something overtly wrong to get whacked. Simple day dreaming merited a quick lick of the pointer. Some people got the pointer every day so that by sixth grade, they had gnarled and arthritic looking fingers. James Dillon was one of these chronic offenders, though I believe Mrs. Reagan resented his size more than anything else. He was almost as big as she was, and the other kids called him Baby Huey.
With Mrs. Reagan's great bulk in mind, I am still amazed that she could sneak up on people so quickly and quietly to get them with that pointer.
The only warning was her usual, "What ya gawkin' at?" in her raspy voice. One subtle clue to her presence behind you was the scent of something like Ivory Liquid, which evidently she dabbed extravagantly behind her ears each morning.
The deluxe feature of our classroom was a fire escape tube, something Mrs. Reagan considered a true technological wonder. Our classroom was on the second floor, and three other classrooms shared with us the same escape tube. This meant that the teachers had the drill down to an exact science and choreographed our movements with terrifying precision. Mrs. Reagan's class would always slide down first, followed in order by Mr. Firth's, then Miss Selkerk's, and finally Mrs. Briggs's class.
Admittedly, fire drills were fun, because they broke the rigid routine generally followed so strictly during the school day. It was akin to an amusement park ride. Sliding down the waxed interior of that metal tube was, in fact, delightful, that is, until one afternoon after a grueling assembly about Johnny Appleseed in the gym. We marched back over creaking wooden floors to Mrs. Reagan's room to discuss the life of this American folk hero. As I sat at my desk wondering how that sixth-grade kid had been persuaded to run around a stage with a sauce pan on his head, the fire alarm went off. It seemed immediately just what was needed to perk up our day. Suddenly though, Mrs. Reagan began shoving people down the tube as she waved her pointer and screamed, "What ya gawkin'at? Ya wanna be burned up?"
I was one of the first to go down the tube, and it soon became obvious that the bottom of the tube had not been opened. The custodian, Mr. Jenks, could be heard fumbling with the two pad locks that held the cover in place. "Nobody tells me nothin' 'round here," he was mumbling. In the meantime, more people were coming down the shoot and piling up at the bottom. Jo Ann Bunch, who wore cleats, came down on top of me, one of her saddle shoes right on my forehead. The circle of light from above was now disappearing, along with Mrs. Reagan's shoes and voice. Girls were crying. So were a few of the boys, and in the midst of the panic, a voice cried out, "Shut up!" Then in the silence, a meek little voice asked the
most terrifying of questions. "Ya don't think Mrs. Reagan'll come down this thing, do ya?"
There was a quiet hum of reflection in the dark at such a hideous possibility before the bottom of the tube was finally opened, and we all poured out on to the cool grass. Mr. Jenks was rolling on the ground in what appeared to be a terminal case of laughter. Had there actually been a fire, I'm not sure how or if Mrs. Reagan would have made an escape. It is certain she would not have fit into the tube but possible that she could have stamped out the flames with her pointer or blown them out with a massive, "What ya gawkin' at?" For three weeks afterward, I walked around with a big cleat mark pressed into my forehead.
That was also the September I had the only physical fight of my life with anyone besides my brother. The air was still warm as summer, so it was difficult to focus my attention for very long on Mrs. Reagan, despite the menacing pointer. She was droning on one day about Francis Scott Key. Her words became a distant hum as I gazed out the open window at the cottonwoods, listening to the flutter of their leaves and remembering Mrs. Gardner at the organ playing, "The Star Spangled Banner." There were still a few cicadas drilling the late afternoon with their hypnotic buzz. Then the tapping of a pencil across the room arrested my attention.
It was big Jim Dillon's pencil, and he was trying to get my attention. Hardly able to fit at his desk, Jim was staring at the marble bag hanging over the corner of my desk chair. Mrs. Gardner had made it for me before I moved away. Jim's lips formed the words, "I want it back," which made things instantly clear to me.
At lunch that day Jimmy and I had played marbles, and I had won his blue shooter, a large, glass sphere with veins of blue that made it look like a miniature planet earth. In the game that followed, Jimmy had failed to win back the marble, so I considered it mine, a prize won fair and square. When I shook my head and my lips formed the word, "No." Jim's fists clenched and his jaw muscles became taut enough to open a bottle of soda.
"What are you doing back there, Mr. Bolinger?" inquired Mrs. Reagan. "You have the manners of a goat!" she continued.
Of course, I couldn't deny that my manners were not up to her standards, but I hardly thought they were those of a goat, though I wasn't clear about the quality of a goat's manners anyway. The comparison fascinated me, even as Mrs. Reagan continued with her next and final topic of the day, the Northern Irish Peat Bogs. Nothing else she said registered that afternoon, because I was too busy imagining a goat drinking his finger bowl, or using the wrong fork at dinner. Jimmy then dropped a book on the floor. Several people jumped from the shock, but it had been for my benefit, not theirs. He pointed at the clock, then at me as he held up a fist to indicate he was going to pummel me after school.
Bravery in the face of pending violence has never been my strong suit, but this time a principle was involved, and so was my dignity. Several other students were now staring at me, wondering how I was going to cope with Baby Huey. I reached into my cloth marble bag and pulled out the blue shooter, placing in the pencil tray of my desk, where it rolled to a stop and stared blankly up at me like Uncle Wesley's glass eye. The clock above Mrs. Reagan's desk showed 2:55, five minutes until dismissal. The second hand inched its way around the face of the clock, cutting the minutes into pie-shaped slices. I remembered the movie HIGH NOON at the Ace Theater and watching the clock tick closer and closer to Gary Cooper's showdown with the crooks from that noon train, and suddenly, Ruth Ann Coulter in the seat across from mine began to resemble Grace Kelly.
The bell rang and, as usual, I was the last one out of the room. I took time at my locker to stash some books before walking down the stairs and down the long, narrow corridor leading to the front doors and out of the building. Noise had dwindled away, and the jostling was over, because almost everyone had gone. The sun made me blink as I stepped out onto the black top so that I had to cup my left hand over my brow. Leaning against a cottonwood was Jim Dillon, hands in his pockets, his head cocked to one side in belligerent anticipation of a fight. He walked toward me as a harmonica in my head played, "Please don't forsake me, oh, my darlin'" A few kids moved from the grass to the black top to witness the imminent battle.
At last Jimmy and I were face to face.
"Gimme that shooter, bicycle face," he said stiffly.
"Nothin' doin'," I insisted. "It's mine now. I won it in a fair game and even gave you a chance to win it back."
"Yeah, well I'm gonna mash yer face!" he threatened.
All of a sudden I was no longer Gary Cooper but little David without his slingshot. Goliath shoved me with a hand the size of a bread board, and I shoved back. The next thing I knew, we were rolling around on the black top throwing punches, most of which hit nothing. A crowd had gathered by now, a few of them cheering, but not for any one in particular. Taking sides against Big Jim was apparently a little too risky. All sensible bets would have been on Jim anyway. in fact, it was obvious, even to non-sports fans, that I was not going to win the battle.
Finally something happened that ended the brawl but that was far worse than any physical abuse I might have suffered. Worse than any of the scrapes on my arms and face was the fact that I was being rescued by a sixth-grade girl, whose sharp tongue and lovely face rendered Big Jim sheepish. Debbie lived on my street and insisted on walking me home. Though I was grateful for my life, I was also mortified by what I had to pay. Neither Gary Cooper nor little Davie had ever been rescued by a sixth-grade girl named Debbie. The school grapevine was certainly going to climb high with this piece of news, but for the time being I just went into the house straight to my room, where I lay on my stomach, staring up at the blue plastic knight on the dresser and the marble bag containing the blue shooter. The world was still mine, but it had come at a price.
