In fourth grade I had Mrs. Carroll. I don't remember what her first name was because she probably didn't have one. She was a teacher. If it was anything, it was probably Carol. Carol, Carroll. You can't argue with that kind of simplicity. The universe tends toward it, and I'm guessing that Mrs. Carroll did as well. I changed schools in fourth grade, a year after we'd moved across town to live in a new house. Even though I spent most of my childhood there, and my mother still lives there, I have more vivid memories of the small green house with the crab apple tree that I grew up in. I've been told since that it isn't and was never green, but I remember that house as green. You can trust me though. I remember everything else as acutely as a bird remembers its migration from the prior year.
Besides, Mrs. Carroll, who smoked. The woman smoked there was no doubt about it. It was a fogiveable but strange habit for a teacher, an arbiter of right and wrong to have. She had a slightly gravelly voice and short cropped blond, probably bleached hair. I find that I've seen her in recent movies about women from the 70's. Mind you, it wasn't the 70's, but Mrs. Carroll would have, and probably did kill it in the seventies with her short blond hair and gravelly voice. I can picture her blowing cigarette smoke in some guy's face at 3 AM, the lamp light catching the smooth curve of her throat. But it wasn't ninety seventy five anymore and Mrs. Carroll had gotten old, or older. Eff it, we all get old. What a misery.
Mrs. Carroll's class wasn't particularly strict. I seem to remember we had a boy in class named Eric, though perhaps it was another year because the house wasn't green. In my memory, we had a kid named Eric, tall for his age, strapping would be the kind of word they'd have used if he grew up on a farm. He was deaf, though he wore hearing aids. I don't know if heard much. In those days kids like Eric were usually kept separate from us, and we were fascinated by his hearing aids, by his inarticulate speech. I don't remember any of us ever talking about him or making fun of him, though that wouldn't have been out of the ordinary. What I remember is watching him with a kind of dumb fascination as if he was something separate from the rest of the kids that I knew. He might as well have been from Mars.
Kids are cruel and dumb even when they don't mean to be. I have two other memories of Eric that year. In the first, he suddenly turned grey and lunged for the trash can, emptying his stomach into the small grey container. He wasn't like the rest of us who sneaked off to the nurse when we felt even the slightest tinge of stomach trouble or just wanted to stay at home for a day to watch Bob Barker peddle dish soap to people from the Midwest. School was boring then, as it probably always will be, in ways that we couldn't fathom but knew we needed to escape every now and then to maintain our sanity.
Anyhow, what I remember was staring at Eric, just after he'd thrown up, and Mrs. Carroll, if it was her, holding onto him and telling him that it was going to be okay, and the rest of us suburban white kids just staring at him and wondering what the eff he'd think up next, this stranger who couldn't speak properly. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't because I'm sure I'd make a mess of it all again.
The thing about Eric that also separated him from the rest of us fourth graders was that he could dance. And when I say dance, I mean dance, not the flailing of limbs and shimmy shakes that I use to pass time on the dance floor, nor do I mean he could win on So You Think You Can Dance. What I mean is that he was the most talented fourth grader at our elementary school at dancing. For some reason, this fact slipped all of our notice. Perhaps because we never talked to him, or perhaps because I don't remember ever dancing in the fourth grade for any reason.
Besides, Mrs. Carroll, who smoked. The woman smoked there was no doubt about it. It was a fogiveable but strange habit for a teacher, an arbiter of right and wrong to have. She had a slightly gravelly voice and short cropped blond, probably bleached hair. I find that I've seen her in recent movies about women from the 70's. Mind you, it wasn't the 70's, but Mrs. Carroll would have, and probably did kill it in the seventies with her short blond hair and gravelly voice. I can picture her blowing cigarette smoke in some guy's face at 3 AM, the lamp light catching the smooth curve of her throat. But it wasn't ninety seventy five anymore and Mrs. Carroll had gotten old, or older. Eff it, we all get old. What a misery.
Mrs. Carroll's class wasn't particularly strict. I seem to remember we had a boy in class named Eric, though perhaps it was another year because the house wasn't green. In my memory, we had a kid named Eric, tall for his age, strapping would be the kind of word they'd have used if he grew up on a farm. He was deaf, though he wore hearing aids. I don't know if heard much. In those days kids like Eric were usually kept separate from us, and we were fascinated by his hearing aids, by his inarticulate speech. I don't remember any of us ever talking about him or making fun of him, though that wouldn't have been out of the ordinary. What I remember is watching him with a kind of dumb fascination as if he was something separate from the rest of the kids that I knew. He might as well have been from Mars.
Kids are cruel and dumb even when they don't mean to be. I have two other memories of Eric that year. In the first, he suddenly turned grey and lunged for the trash can, emptying his stomach into the small grey container. He wasn't like the rest of us who sneaked off to the nurse when we felt even the slightest tinge of stomach trouble or just wanted to stay at home for a day to watch Bob Barker peddle dish soap to people from the Midwest. School was boring then, as it probably always will be, in ways that we couldn't fathom but knew we needed to escape every now and then to maintain our sanity.
Anyhow, what I remember was staring at Eric, just after he'd thrown up, and Mrs. Carroll, if it was her, holding onto him and telling him that it was going to be okay, and the rest of us suburban white kids just staring at him and wondering what the eff he'd think up next, this stranger who couldn't speak properly. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't because I'm sure I'd make a mess of it all again.
The thing about Eric that also separated him from the rest of us fourth graders was that he could dance. And when I say dance, I mean dance, not the flailing of limbs and shimmy shakes that I use to pass time on the dance floor, nor do I mean he could win on So You Think You Can Dance. What I mean is that he was the most talented fourth grader at our elementary school at dancing. For some reason, this fact slipped all of our notice. Perhaps because we never talked to him, or perhaps because I don't remember ever dancing in the fourth grade for any reason.
One day, for some inexplicable reason it was decided that we'd watch Eric dance. The aid who was always in the classroom was his hype man. He's really good at it, she said, and we all stared back at her mutely because what the hell else were we going to do? She could have told us that she was bringing in a clown who could make hot air balloons that flew you to the moon, and we'd have had the same tired expressions. When does this end?
I don't remember precisely what music he danced too. I just remember his big, ungainly body, suddenly spurring into action, his feet sliding across the floor and his shoulders, dipping, his arms moving sharply out and then back to his chest. That MFer was dancing just like Michael Jackson, or at least as rough a facsimilie as it would probably ever be our pleasure to see. Mid-way through the performance I remember him grabbing his crotch, just like Michael, and we all kind of laughed. He had his eyes closed as he danced in the middle of the room, and we were all just watching this stranger killing it.
And then one hearing aid, and then another suddenly flew off his head as he shook it, arcing over the first row of kids and coming to rest only God knows where, while we looked on in fascination. What the hell happened to Eric when he lost his hearing aids? None of us knew. He didn't seem to know either. It threw all of us, and the moment was lost. None of us had hearing aids that flew out in the middle of our dances, and we couldn't keep watching him with that same fascination that we'd had before. Or that I'd had before. I suppose I should stop using we because there's an assumption here that everyone else was as callow as I was. He kept dancing for ten or more seconds after, eyes closed, feeling, if we're honest, fully alive, and then his aid walked towards him and hugged his arms down to his sides, which I distinctly remember he fought at first, before finally lowering them. The moment was over. Thank God the moment was over. We could all go back to whatever it was we were doing in our silly little lives without having to watch someone else do the same thing with less grace because he didn't have the choice.
My God, some people say. To be young again. I wouldn't want to be in fourth grade again. I wouldn't want to be staring at Eric for those moments after his hearing aid flew out, watching him through those lenses, which could only see him trying to grasp on to a moment that had passed and failing.
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