David Handler - The Hot Pink Farmhouse

A photographer from the little shoreline weekly paper was already there, waiting to snap a picture of Des posed with the winners of the class’s DARE slogan contest. The five runners-up received Darrens. Ben Leanse, an unusually small boy with an unusually large, bulbous head, got the baseball jacket for his winning slogan: DRUGS ARE FOR SICK PEOPLE.

Miss Frye had chosen the winners. Des was merely there to make the presentation. Mostly, it was a chance for her to interact with them in a setting they were familiar with. Young children needed to find out that police officers were people they could talk to. Plus Des was exceedingly aware that these sheltered, affluent small-town kids had spent very little time around anyone of color. She wanted them to realize that she was not an alien from a galaxy far, far away.

So, after the photographer took off, she hung out, seated there on the edge of Miss Frye’s desk, twirling her big hat in her long, slender fingers.

“Boys and girls, Trooper Mitry has been kind enough to give us a few minutes of her time this morning,” Miss Frye said, as they gaped at Des from their desks. “Can anyone tell us what a resident trooper does?”

“Make busts,” the Leanse boy spoke up promptly. Poor little guy had a gurgly, adenoidal voice to go with his huge head. “Take down bad guys.”

“Ohhh, pumpkin head…” a boy in the back row gurgled mockingly, drawing snickers. And an icy look from Miss Frye. “Pumpkin head…”

“Sometimes I arrest people,” Des said. “What else do I do?”

The other kids began to jump in now: “Gunfights and-”

“Car chases!”

“Break down doors and beat people up-”

“Speeding tickets. My dad got one.”

“My daddy’s pickup truck got broken into,” an angelic little blond girl spoke up. “The Mod Squad stole his nail gun and spray-painted a great big wienie on his windshield.” This drew more snickers. “You gonna catch ’em?”

“We’re working on that real hard,” Des replied, pushing her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Do you know what else I do? I help people. That’s my job. So if anyone ever has a problem, don’t be afraid to call me, okay?”

“You ever kill anyone?” the Leanse boy piped up.

“Ohh, pumpkin head…”

“Ricky, stop that!” Miss Frye said sharply.

“I never have, no,” Des responded, shifting so she could get herself a good look at the taunter in the back row. Ricky was a classic schoolyard-bully type-a fat, no-necked kid with a flattop crew cut and outthrust jaw. Also one helluva black eye. The last kid he’d tangled with had clearly gotten the best of him. “Most of us never have to fire our guns. It’s not like on television.”

“How come a lady is a policeman?” asked the angelic blond girl.

“Well, I was a lieutenant in the Army, first. After the cold war ended I decided to join the state police, just like my father.” The Deacon was deputy superintendent, the second-highest-ranking man in the entire state. And the highest-ranked black man in Connecticut history. “How about you, Ricky?” she asked, making eye contact with him. “Anything you’d like to ask me?”

“Yeah,” he said, his brow furrowing. “Are you a nigger?”

Miss Frye let out a gasp of pure horror. “Ricky Welmers, you just earned yourself another trip to the principal’s office!”

“Wait, it’s okay,” Des interjected.

“It is not okay!” she said firmly. “We have a zero-tolerance policy toward such language.”

Ricky just sat there smirking. He wanted attention, and he was getting it.

“Ricky, what’s the worst thing anyone’s ever called you?” Des asked, strolling down the aisle toward him.

He stuck his chin out at her in defiant silence.

“C’mon, you can tell us,” Des prodded him. “What was it-Fatso, Lardo, Piggy, Miss Piggy…?” This drew snickers from the other kids, which Ricky did not like. “Words hurt, Ricky. If you hurt someone, they’re liable to hurt you back. Is that what you want?”

“I can take it,” he snarled at her.

“And if the other guy’s got a gun? Then what do you do?”

Ricky stared up her, his eyes cold with hate. It wasn’t racially specific, she felt. It was authority in general he was angry at. She wondered why.

Now the classroom door opened and a high school girl came in to tell Des she was needed in the superintendent’s office.

Something in the girl’s voice caused Miss Frye to say, “I’ll show Trooper Mitry the way, Ashley. Will you please stay here with the class until I return?”

They started down the school hallway together, moving briskly. Des, who had learned never to waste an opportunity, immediately went to work: “Ever think about adopting a kitten for your classroom, Miss Frye? It makes a wonderful science project.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’ve got several students with allergies.”

“How about you yourself?” Des pressed her. When it came to placing a healthy neutered kitten she was ruthless. “Do you have a cat?”

“We have a dog.”

“They get along fine. Don’t believe the cartoons. I’ve got some Polaroids right here if you’d care to-”

“No, don’t!” Miss Frye pleaded. “Don’t show them to me. I’m a terrible soft touch.”

“Oh, good, we’ll get along just fine.” Des smiled at her as they strode down the corridor, the teacher matching her stride for stride, which most women couldn’t do. “Do you always keep the windows in your room open?”

“I do,” she responded. “We’ve got a mold problem in the ductwork, and the old wiring is inadequate for air conditioners. They were supposed to upgrade it over the summer, but if they end up tearing the school down, then that would just be a waste of money-and so they did nothing.”

“It’s a sweet old school,” Des said. “Seems a shame to level it.”

“I couldn’t agree more. It has its problems, but nothing that can’t be fixed. Superintendent Falconer has tried to tell Mrs. Leanse-she’s our school board president.”

“Ben’s mother?”

“That’s right. But you know it’s very hard to argue with a parent who feels his or her child’s health is endangered. They want to do the best they can for their children. They’ve spent hundreds of hours working the phones, licking envelopes, packing the school board meetings. They even raised twenty-five thousand dollars of private funds to produce a ten-minute video that went out to every voter in town. All I keep thinking is, if you really care that much about the school, twenty-five thousand would buy us a lot of plumbing repairs. Or computers. Or a security system. Besides, the reality is that it’s not the size of the building that matters. It’s the size of the class and the caliber of the teacher and…” She glanced at Des apologetically. “I’ll shut up now. You asked me a perfectly innocent question about mold and you’re getting an entire lecture.”

“I’m getting insight. I need that.”

They pushed open the double doors at the end of the hall and started out onto the playground behind the school. The superintendent’s office was in the middle school, a twenty-year-old flat-roofed brick building that was located across an expanse of blacktop.

“You handled the children very well,” Miss Frye said, leading Des past the swings and monkey bars.

“I was thinking I could have been a little less confrontational with Ricky.”

“Not at all. You were straight with him. He needs to be talked to that way. They all do. I’m sorry about his language. His older brother, Ronnie, was a handful, too. He’s over at the high school now. Ronnie was just incredibly disruptive. Him they put on Ritalin, and he did better, but the mother was around then. Jay’s raising the boys alone now, and he has his own problems. It’s a real shame, because they’re both very bright. Ronnie’s probably the brightest student in our entire system. His IQ tested exceptionally high. But he’s bored and he’s angry, so he self-medicates.”