Sixth Grade

        If by the fifth grade, my competitive streak had put down roots, it was only in the sixth grade that the tree would bear fruit, much of it bitter.  The sixth grade classroom was across the hall from Mrs. Keefe’s fifth grade classroom, but it might as well have been across a deep ravine.  The sixth grade teacher’s name was Mr. L.  He was perhaps in his late 30s but was already balding. He actually looked to be in his 50’s. Always immaculately dressed, his black hair slicked back, bald head shining; he walked into the room reeking of aftershave.  His dark eyes had a touch of cruelty in them; combined with a square jaw and tightly set mouth, his face gave an idea of his harsh nature.  His shoes were polished to a high shine, much like an officer of the police or Gestapo.  I hated the sight of him immediately.

I now had a pretty strong group of girl friends:  Lynn, Donna, and Brenda.  We had sleep overs at each other’s houses, the usual girl stuff.  But when I sat in Mr. L.’s classroom, I felt utterly alone, almost from the start of the school year.  It was 1970 and I had just turned 12 that summer. Lynn and I were still best friends but she was spending more time with boys.  I had distant crushes on boys but nothing tangible and I think I felt better keeping it that way.  It would have been unthinkable in my family to have a boyfriend at that tender age anyway. 

Mr. L soon earned himself a nickname; I think it was Wally P. who gave it to him:  “Latch”.  It fit him perfectly. When you think of Latch, you think of a latchkey or someone who holds the lock to chains that bind you.  Besides, Latch just sounds ugly.  We kids were on to him. He would present himself to parents as the perfect gentleman and teacher who put the education and wellbeing of his students first.  At one of the school events, his wife and two children, boys very close in age, attended.  The wife was mousy and ragged, as one who could very well be living constantly on the edge of fear.  Her eyes darted about and she seemed exhausted.  The little boys were very much like their mother:  overdressed and preened but over alert, like scared rabbits in a cage waiting for the hatchet to fall. 

He began to focus his attention on me in class.  It was as though he had spotted me as his perfect victim:  naïve, an over achiever eager for praise, a perfectionist who could be easily manipulated.  Like his wife and children, he could see that I too lived on the edge of fear of failing or incurring the wrath of a more powerful being.  He sensed all this and chose me to become his pet.  Being the teacher’s pet had been an easy affair in the fifth grade.  Mrs. Keefe underplayed it and that was the right thing to do.  No kid wants to be put on the spot, or in the spotlight, in front of her classmates. Latch on the other hand played it up to the hilt.  He would call on me to give correct answers and make a point of letting everyone know that I knew everything, and wasn’t I just great.  He did it very skillfully, in a way that was just subtle enough so that my classmates didn’t suspect him of foul play.  But in fact, the game he was playing was absolutely conscious on his part.  He knew exactly what he was doing.  In many subtle ways, he was able to turn my classmates against me until they hated me outwardly.  It became uncool to befriend me or even talk to me.  Within a month of two of the start of school, I was completely shunned. 

This was unbearably painful for me, especially since I had creative ideas that I wanted to express, that I HAD to express at the time.  I had proposed to him that we have a school newspaper.  He agreed that it was a good idea and as editor, I got busy with it.  Each month, for every new edition of the “Lakewood Happenings”, every sixth grade student would submit a cover design.  We’d line them along the blackboard and vote for the winner.  I ended up doing most of the writing for the paper:  short pieces on what was happening in the various grades, teachers’ bios, that sort of thing.  Once I had a complete copy, I’d be excused from class to run down to the first floor copy room to use the mimeograph machine and crank out 100 copies or so.  The smell of the ink became a familiar smell to me, month after month. 

I also began a small business making and selling handbags.  I enjoyed sewing on my mother’s Singer machine and had come up with the idea of buying sheets of naugahide, a type of synthetic leather that was popular at the time. Close by was a large discount fabric store where I bought the stuff in various textures and colors.  I would cut the fabric into 12 inch wide strips a yard long or so and turned it into a fringed shoulder bag.  The fringes were 6 or more inches long and hung below the bag.  The fringes created the bottom half of the flap that closed the bag.  I sold the bags for as little as a dollar and as much as three dollars, I think.  It wasn’t a very lucrative business but I did sell a lot of them to church members, neighbors, teachers, and anyone else I could sell them to.  Maybe they felt sorry for this little girl who had worked so hard and showed such initiative; the least they could do was buy a bag!

I mentioned earlier that I was getting into religion.  With so much of it around me, religion was getting into me.  My father taught Sunday school and my mother sang in the choir, for starters.  As new immigrants, the church members had welcomed us and hosted us in their homes.  Friendships had grown and flourished.  They had given my grandparents a third floor apartment next door to the church, in a triple decker, at a greatly reduced rent, and where we enjoyed visiting them after church.  Church gave us a sense of belonging.  It wasn’t ideal belonging though.  Belonging, in my mind, infers a utopian ideal of equality.  There was never a sense that we would or could become equal to golden haired folks who lived in big golden homes (that was my biased sense of an all white community at the time).  Still, it was better to be a stepchild than not have any parent or family at all, right?  That’s how it felt and was, really.  It was an unspoken feeling that we outsiders were less than others. 

I took comfort in the Ten Commandments.  I especially loved the poetic beauty of the Psalms.  In Sunday school we were continuing our study of the Bible.  I was captivated by the stories within each chapter; the characters became alive in my imagination.  Jesus Christ Superstar, the rock opera, had exploded on the scene, making it cool to be into Jesus.  I could be a Jesus Freak.  I surrendered to the allure and tried to live by the golden rule.  I taped the Ten Commandments to the inside cover of my violin case.  Whenever I needed comfort, I could open the case and read the Ten Commandments slowly, reminding myself that this was Truth and I was its follower. 

Shunned by my classmates, I found refuge in my private religious world.  I had constructed it just as I needed it to be.  It was a shell that I could climb into for protection.  I also found comfort playing my violin.  I had always loved the alligator skin case, worn with many years, and the lovely soft green velvet interior, the resin box and the characteristic smell each time I opened it.  I loved the static feel of resin against horsehair and the fine resin dust in the air once the bow was full.  I loved that first stroke of the strings when the bow was fresh and full.  Thus, it was a perfect pairing: the Ten Commandments and my violin.  It was even portable.  Sometimes, I would open the violin case in the school yard or whenever I needed to be reminded of the Ten Commandments’ promise of living the truthful way.  I believed that if I could just remain on that righteous path, I would be protected from all harm.   

In fact, there was much to fear.  My girlfriends had drifted away.  Peer pressure played a part no doubt.  The word was out that I was Latch’s pet and because they knew he was evil, they assumed I must be evil too.  It was guilt by association and I didn’t know how to disassociate from him.  Latch became bolder in his approach to me.  He would often ask me to remain in class after the dismissal bell had rung.  My classmates and all the kids in the school would rush towards the doors and spill out into the schoolyard into freedom.  I would remain in my seat in that second floor corner classroom and listen to the thundering of feet and the slow dissipation of children’s voices as everyone headed home.  They’d walk home with each other, I imagined.  By the time I’d get out, the school yard would be completely empty and silent.  I’d make my way home alone.

After all the kids were gone, Latch would call me up to his desk.  I have forgotten so much over the years of what happened in that classroom because I haven’t wanted to remember.  But I do remember that he would call me up to the front of the class and, as he sat behind his desk, he would insult me nonstop.  He would call me dirty names for women, with added racial remarks and slurs for emphasis.  I remember the words: “gook”, “cunt”, “bitch”.  I know I stood there and felt lower than a worm, made to feel like an Asian prostitute.  He would eventually let me go, his rage released, satisfied with the result, the pain evident on my face, the damage done, the wound inflicted.  And so the school year continued in this way.  It was my dirty secret and I didn’t even dream of telling a soul.  It felt dirty because somehow I was dirty.  I had somehow caused this to happen to my Self.

At the Christmas open house, Latch told all the parents what great strides he had made in his teaching.  He proudly announced that he had started a newspaper for the students to work on, for one thing.  Everyone clapped.  My parents were impressed with him.  Once again, his wife and kids quivered in the background.  I could feel their fear and identified with them.  I felt sorry for his wife for I felt sure that he insulted her just as he did me.  I felt sorry for his little sons who had no defense, I was sure, against his complete control.

The sight of him began to disgust me.  I can still see the hairs on the backs of his fingers and his ring and the overpowering smell of aftershave.  Living in that secret reality began to make me sick.  I had terrible stomach pains that required medical attention.  After downing a chalky drink and undergoing the GI series, the doctor found that I had a spastic colon.  It was a definite spasm in my right abdomen.  Quite literally, I was in knots.  I was always anxious, living in fear of my next encounter with Latch.  I was anxious about not having any friends and being an object of the other children’s hatred, though somehow I knew it was all an act.  I knew they didn’t hate me.  I knew Latch had manipulated their feelings.  He had masterminded a hateful play using his students as puppets.  I was a convenient victim. He was a very sick s. o. b..

At some point during the sixth grade, I had permission to take the day off when I wasn’t sick.  The whole family climbed into our baby blue Chevy Impala and drove to the courthouse in Providence.  With others, we stood and held our hands to our hearts to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  We were American citizens!  It was a momentous occasion for us.  To celebrate, my father took us out to a restaurant; probably Ted’s Big Boy and we ordered typical American fare like steaks and baked potatoes, cokes and shakes.  When I went back to class the next day, I felt somehow different.  In a transformative shared experience I had gone from an immigrant to an American.  It felt magical.  I savored the experience quietly.

Sixth grade eventually did come to an end and I imagine now that I must have been relieved, but the worry machine had been set in motion for life.