Torey Hayden - Somebody Else’s Kids

“What?”

“I’m going to scare my sister. I got a better costume than her. She don’t got any warts ’cause she spends all her allowance on candy.”

“Oh Lor, she better watch out, huh?”

Boo and I had our own plans for the afternoon. He still was not toilet trained, but I hated keeping him in diapers all the time because it made training so much more difficult; and on those rare, rare occasions when he did attempt to use the toilet, he had missed a couple times because he could not break the tape on the disposable diapers. Recently, however, my guesses had been off and there had been a lot of puddles. I found intensive work in this area difficult with Lori around. So he and I were headed for some heart-to-heart moments in the rest room. Afterward I was considering taking a trip over to a nearby grocery store with him. Boo had never been to one and I wanted to buy new ingredients to try the ice-cream recipe again someday. That would fill our time together.

It was late afternoon, after recess. Boo and I were still in the girls’ rest room. With a copy of Toilet Training in Less Than a Day face down on a sink, a bottle of orange juice nearby to keep Boo supplied with liquids and the door propped open to warn any unsuspecting visitors we were hard at work, I had Boo on a toilet in one of the stalls while I searched the bottom of a potato chip bag for something to make him more thirsty.

“Torey!” someone wailed from the corridor. “Torey!”

I came to the door of the rest room and looked out. Lori in her witch’s costume was struggling down the hall. “Torey,” she cried when she saw me.

I could see tears coursing down through witch makeup, leaving big black smudges on her cheeks. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I got scared when I couldn’t find you.” She pressed her face into my jeans.

“What happened? You were going to be in Mrs. Thorsen’s class all afternoon, remember? Even after recess. Did you forget?” I pulled her chin up. A fake wart was left sticking to the waistband of my jeans. Boo came hopping out, his pants around his ankles.

Lori would not look at me even as I held her face. She jerked her head from my hand and leaned back against my side. Finally I bent to pull up Boo’s pants and fasten them. “Do you want to come back with us, babe?” I asked her.

She nodded.

In the room Lori went over to the worktable and flopped into a chair. I was still unsure what had happened to upset her. The black witch’s hair was skewed to one side, the pointed hat was too large and came down almost to her eyebrows. I found the incongruity between her costume and mood pathetic. Coming over, I sat on the tabletop next to her. “What’s wrong? Did it just scare you not finding us here? Was that it?”

She paid me no attention. Another wart loosened by her tears dropped onto the table. Lori smooshed it with a fingernail.

“Did something go wrong in class?”

She nodded.

“Maybe if you told me about it, that would help.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t think so?”

Another shake.

Across the room I saw Boo begin to unbuckle his pants. I rose to see what he was planning to do.

“Stay here with me,” Lori said.

“Okay,” I sat back down and gave Boo the evil eye to leave his clothes on. He flapped his hands at me.

“Mikey Nelson says I’m retarded,” Lori muttered. “He says this is a retard class.”

Her head was still down; she twisted a strand of mop around one finger.

“He said I was the retardest kid in the whole school. He said I couldn’t even read baby books like the kindergarteners have. I’m that retarded.”

“You know that old saying, Lor? That one about sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t very true, is it? Names do hurt. A lot.”

She nodded.

Another stillness.

“I guess it don’t matter so much,” she said softly. “I guess maybe he’s right. I flunked kindergarten. And I’m probably gonna flunk first grade too.”

Across the room near Benny’s driftwood Boo had sat down on the floor, his legs crossed Indian-style. He looked like an elf. A deep seriousness rested over his features as he watched us.

Lori looked up at me. “Is he right, Torey? Am I a retard kid?”

I put my fingers under her chin and lifted her face to see it more clearly in the gray afternoon light. Such a beautiful child. Why was it all these children looked so beautiful to me? I thought my heart would burst some days, I was so overwhelmed by their beauty. I could never look at them enough. I could never fill my eyes up fully with them the way I wanted. But why was it? Surely they were not all physically attractive. I knew something must happen with my eyes. Yet no matter how I tried to see them right, they seemed so unspeakably beautiful. This kid was. So very many of my kids were. I was troubled because I could not answer that question for myself. Were they that beautiful? Or was it only me?

“Torey?” She touched my knee to bring me back. The question she had asked had gone beyond words and now rested in her eyes.

No answers for my questions. No answers for hers. I looked at her. What could I say to her that would be honest? That would satisfy her? No, she was not retarded. Her brain did not work for a different reason. Mikey Nelson just had the wrong label. I could have told her that. Or perhaps I could have told her it was all a lie. To me it was. Mikey Nelson did not know what he was talking about. But what a laugh. In this world that prizes accomplishments so highly, I would have been the liar then. For Lori there might never be enough teachers, enough therapies; enough effort, even enough love to undo what had happened to her in one night’s anger. And then Mikey Nelson’s word would seem truer than mine.

Gently I pushed back her hair from her face, smoothed the mop strands, straightened the pointed hat. She was so beautiful.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Lori.”

Her eyes were on my face.

“That’s the truth and you believe it. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. No matter what. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“But I can’t read.”

“Hitler could read.”

“Who’s Hitler?”

“A man who really was retarded.”

“Good afternoon, Tomaso,” I said. “My name is Torey. I’ll be your teacher in the afternoons.”

“You leave me the fuck alone, you hear? I sure the hell ain’t staying here. What kind of a place is this anyway?”

We stared at each other. I was between him and the door. His scrawny shoulders were hunched up under a black vinyl jacket. He was tall for his age, but too thin. Lank, greasy, black hair hung over angry eyes. Angry, angry eyes. He was one of the migrant kids, no doubt. His hands were hard and calloused, he had already known the fields by ten.

I had not been prepared for Tomaso. A call in the morning from Birk and here he was. One look at him and his fearless, defiant body and I could guess why he had been brought to me. Not one to fit into the regimen of a school, not Tomaso.

“What kind of shitty place is this anyway?” he repeated a little more loudly.

Lori came around to stand between Tomaso and me. She gave him a long, appraising look. “This is our class.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Lori Ann Sjokheim. Who are you?”

“What have they stuck me in? Some babies’ class?” He looked at me. “ Dios mio! I’ve been put in some fucking babies’ class.”

“I’m no baby,” Lori protested.

“Some goddamn, stinking baby class, that’s what this is. And with little girls in it. Go have a tea party, sweetie,” he said to Lori.