Chapter Fifteen
….through your tears you look around
But there’s no peace of mind to be found,
Darlin’, reach out!
“Reach Out”, the Four Tops
Saturday morning my mother made corn meal pancakes, which I covered with Karo corn syrup. I savored the grainy texture and homely taste of these pancakes. It was a sunny day and expected to reach sixty degrees. I sighed deeply. I had slept the best last night since before Christmas.
“So Terry,” said my mother, “does Mr. Warren have a practice teacher for your English class?”
Yes,” I said. “I think she starts next week.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Rhame.”
“Oh, so it is Judy Rhame!” my mother clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful news! I saw her Friday and she was trying to figure out if she’d seen you in one of the classes. You know who she is, right? You remember Buckley Rhame from church?”
“I was trying to remember,” I said. “I thought the name was familiar.”
“Oh, you’ll love her!” said my mother. “I taught her in Sunday School.”
“What is Buck Rhame doing?”
“He’s starting his internship at Baptist Hospital.”
I started to put this picture together. Buck Rhame had been a member of our church while he was at Atlantic University being a football star. Apparently he also studied pretty hard in his classes so he could become a doctor. Tall rangy fellow. Tight end.
“I think she’s going to be a great teacher,” said my mother.
“Well, I’m impressed so far,” I allowed.
Mrs. Rhame did begin teaching us on Monday. Mr. Warren mostly sat in the back of the room with the stack of our tests. I felt pretty confident. Despite my absences I had kept up well in English and had a chance at an “A”.
“So, for a week or so, we’re going to be reading some works from early English literature – a couple of versions of the Arthurian cycle, yes, King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, a medieval drama called “Piers Ploughman,” then some literature based on the legend cycle of Robin Hood. Only after that will we be ready to take the plunge into Shakespeare.”
How was I not going to enjoy the next few weeks? This tall, beautiful woman telling us the old stories of England…
“Have any of you ever heard of the Childe Ballads?”
I raised my hand. “You mean, like ‘Barbara Allen?’”
“Exactly, yes!” she smiled. “You’re Terry, Terry Owens.”
I nodded.
“Better keep your eye on this one,” joked Mr. Warren. He winked at me.
For the first couple of weeks of the new year I tried to buckle down and pull my grades up. I was diligent with my science work during study hall. During Algebra I strained to stay awake and alert. Some days I managed it, some days I failed. I tried to practice French more often in lab. I listened to what French people do to celebrate the New Year:
Comme d’autres pays, les Francais fetant le Nouvel An lors du 31 decembre. Pour les Francais, c’est un moment unique a passer entre amis, l’occasion de manger un bon repas, de dancer et bien sur de faire la fete jusqu’au bout de la nuit.
Mrs. Rhame assigned us a paper – a page and a half. She gave us three different characters from the Robin Hood cycle to write a sketch about. I chose Robin’s musical pal, Allan-a-Dale. Two days later she returned the paper and I saw “A+” marked on the front. She wrote a brief paragraph on the back basically gushing over what a talented writer I was.
Now that made me feel good.
She caught me near the door as I was leaving for lunch. “Terry, your piece was just great! If you don’t mind I’d like to talk to you about your writing and some things you might to do develop your talents.”
“Well thank you!” I said.
“And… well, your mother had also mentioned to me that you’ve been having some difficulties this year. I hope you don’t mind that we talked about that…”
“No, I really don’t mind,” I said. “I’ve been talking to lots of different people about it.”
“Well then, I just want you to know that if you ever want to talk to another person,” she smiled, “then I would be happy to listen.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Rhame. I think I probably will. I’ll let you know.”
It would be ridiculous if I said that I was in love with her, but the fact is I was in love with her. I was aware, I think, of the limitations of this kind of relationship, but damn if I wasn’t going to enjoy it – even if only secretly. Aside from the fact that she was so pretty and so nice, I knew I needed as many friends as I could have right now. So I was happy to include Judy Rhame into my circle, with the added effect of her ability to turn my knees into butter.
After another weekend of fair and mild weather, I saw Judy at church on Sunday morning. She approached me after the service.
“Hi, Terry, how are you?”
“I’m doing pretty good, thanks.”
“Buck is working at the hospital today,” she said, “so I wouldn’t mind having someone join me for lunch. Would you care to come along. my treat?”
Umm, I believe I can give that a definite YES!
“Yeah, that sounds okay.”
She looked at my mother. “You don’t mind if I steal your son for a while? I’ll give him a ride back home.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” said my mother.
Then consider me stolen. And you can keep me if you’d like to.
She did want to hear about my difficulties of the year and about my experience with the bullies. “My older brother had a tough time with bullies when he was in the seventh grade. It’s a shame how it happens to so many young people.”
“It’s definitely a shame.” She was a good listener, and sympathetic. It was good to talk to her. While we talked I also had the absurd thought that, as screwed up as my hormones already were, could it be that spending time with this beautiful woman would send them into a spin from which I would never recover? I shook my head in an attempt to clear the thought from my mind.
Finally, she offered a suggestion: why didn’t I write about my experiences of this year? It would not only be an exercise in the craft of writing, but perhaps it would be therapeutic as well. “You told me you’ve kept a journal from time to time,” she said. “Sometimes writing things out, especially someone with your skills, can help to organize and clarify things that happen to us, or things we observe around us. Do you agree?”
“I do agree,” I said. “I tried to write some things during the holidays, but I just couldn’t get my mind to calm down.”
“Maybe now that you’re changing your classes and all you’ll have a quieter mind for writing about it. I can help you if you’d like to try it.”
I could refuse this woman nothing, and actually thought all her advice to be excellent. There was to be no deadline, no rubric for the piece, just an ongoing project. Though, she said, I should get some extra credit if I brought it to completion.
#####
Avoiding bullies became a developing skill. I had already had a good deal of practice, but I continued my efforts after I had ceased going to the dreaded classes of science and gym. I had to fairly memorize their movements during a given day, and use my memory to insure that I was not there when they were. It was a cat and mouse game in which I was the mouse. I got pretty good at it, but I wasn’t perfect. Sometimes I would see one of them in the hallways. When I would see Ray and he would spot me, he would take a quick glance my way and then turn his attention elsewhere, with what appeared to me a haughty gesture, as if he couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge my presence. Sometimes he would glare at me for several seconds – some kind of evil eye attempt, I guess, meant to freeze me in my tracks. But he never took the trouble to cross the hallway toward me or to speak. Hugh Elroy took a bit more of a direct approach – he would sometimes call out my name: “He-e-ey, Owens!” with some kind of facial grimace (I couldn’t always read it), or hand gesture, and then move on. “Moving on” actually seemed the order of the day. Neither of them seemed to me to want to dwell on the bully/victim relationship we had cultivated during first semester. They may have had other fish to fry. I didn’t trust them, though, and I continued to play mouse to their cat and honing my avoidance skills.
Eddie Tinsley I don’t remember seeing at all. I think he may have dropped out of school while I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but at some point I checked the Big Board of Disgrace in the basement and noticed his absences had climbed to the mid-sixties. Maybe his fighting James Huggins was the last straw for Congaree Central. In any case, bye-bye, Eddie.
I had lost my momentum in basketball, at least for Congaree Central B-squad. I went out for the church team and played a few games after my ankle strengthened. Rob stuck with the B-squad and was a fairly frequent substitute. He would report on the games for me. He and Ray Melcher mostly rode the bench together with some of the other guys. Otis Tullis was basically the major threat from our team, along with Cedric Alesford and James Huggins on the starting five, though apparently they weren’t threatening enough to win more than three games, while losing seven. It was all right. I would get Congaree Central behind me, work hard during the off-season, and begin to recover from my health problems. In a better place physically and emotionally, would go after my dream next year – the Junior Varsity at Beckham.
It had at least become clear that my dreams of the future did not include boxing. I was forced to admit that at this time of my life I didn’t have the stamina for it. I had failed as a rope jumper – though I now knew how. My big punching bag was stacked in the corner of the garage and I could hang it up and use it any time. Mr. Foley had shown me the basics, the stance, some strategies and moves, and some footwork. We parted amicably. It was up to me whether to pursue it or not.
#####
“Renegade Rob!”
“Hiya, Terry Tempestuous! How’s the world treatin’ ya?”
“Well, I’ve broken out of the world’s choke hold… at least for the moment.”
“That’s good news,” said Rob. “I never thought a purple complexion looked that good on you.”
“So Rob,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, it’s like this, Terry. I’ve been making some conversations with Joanie Proctor lately, you know. I’m hoping we can make time for getting together more often.”
“Well you’re a sly dog,” I said admiringly. “I wish you well with that caper.”
I liked Joanie Proctor. She was cute and very bright, and under ordinary circumstances I would like to have cultivated her friendship further. But Rob deserved this. I knew Rob was going to go ahead and live his life instead of staying with me in the shadows. He stayed with his basketball, he made new friendships, he started writing for the school newspaper. And he remained my friend. The last thing I wanted to do was to pull such an exceptional fellow down into the dark corners with me. I was fine with that. What had happened to me had happened, and my entire school year had been crippled, but I didn’t want to hold anybody back. I intended, in fact I felt that I needed, to stay in the darker places for now, the obscure corners of the hall, the quiet nooks, the seams and passageways, ready to disappear at an instant’s notice. I was becoming a silent watcher inside Congaree Central. I needed to learn, if I could, from this depression, and I could only learn inside the silence, alone.
ijustcantstopwriting 