This little piece is from a YA/historical fiction I wrote called A Change Gonna Come. Change is about being in 6th grade in a Catholic school during the 1967-68 school year. Tom is a sweet kid. He thinks he's a little too sensitive for his own good. Marilyn is a new girl in class. Her mom took Thalidomide during pregnancy and this leaves Marilyn with phocomelia the most obvious deformity caused by Thalidomide. Her arm is severely shortened. This little bit is based on a true story from my own childhood.
Mark Timchenko was tough. Once, Tom saw him slide into second base on the asphalt playground during a game of kickball, ripping his trousers and skinning his knee. Sister Celeste declared him safe at the base. His hair was slick, which bothered Sister Rachael Marie. She ridiculed him about it. In his quiet, confident way, he was defiant. Geno was cool in a loudmouth way. Mark was quiet cool.
That morning, Sister walked the aisles while the class worked on penmanship. Sister stopped near Tom’s desk. She sniffed the air like a dog on the scent. “What on earth is that smell?” She glanced at Tom accusingly. He shook his head. She was holding the ruler.
She looked to her left. Mark shrugged, eyes wide. She turned to Tom. He shuddered. Then she snapped back to Mark. “It’s you!” she shrieked, grabbing him by the neck. He dropped his pencil with the chewed-up eraser. It rolled down the aisle.
“What did you put in your hair?” Mark didn’t speak at the first assault. “Answer me!”
Mark’s big brother wore Brylcream in his hair. Everyone knew if you wanted your hair slick that “a little dab’ll do ya,” like they said on TV. It didn’t smell like Brylcream.
“Bacon grease, Sister Rachael Marie,” Mark choked out.
“What were you thinking?” She jerked him out of his seat by the neck and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat. Mark winced. But he did not cry. That boy had a high threshold of pain. Mark simply wouldn’t or couldn’t cry.
Then she pulled his hair.
“How dare you? What will your father say?” If his parents were anything like the O’Briens, they’d laugh and called him a goofball. Maybe, Tom thought, Sister felt like she owed Mark, like he’d gotten away with too much.
“I… don’t… know…Sister…” The words came out with little spaces between them. Spaces Tom knew were filled with pain. Mark’s scalp rose at the front of his hairline. His eyes were squeezed shut.
The class knew that she wouldn’t release him until she got what she was looking for.
“What will your father say?” she repeated.
She shifted her grip from the front of his hair to his sideburn. Of course, they were too young for real sideburns. But Sister grabbed the piece of hair just in front and above his ear. And pulled. Up. Hard.
Mark wasn’t trying to be brave; it was just not his nature to cry. The class knew she wouldn’t stop pulling until he did. Tears were Sister’s currency.
Tom said a prayer for Mark. Tom thought later he should have prayed for Sister to have a kinder heart.
After what seemed like eternity, a tear pearled in the corner of Mark’s eye. All the kids who could see that tear hoped it would signal the end of Sister Rachael Marie’s discipline. The tear slipped down his cheek and onto his handwriting paper, a round wet spot blurring the blue lines.
With a faint smile, Sister let him go. Mark’s face was red. Tears filled both of his eyes now. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
Sister sighed. “Where were we? Oh yes, let’s review the letter Q…”
Tom walked home alone. Geno would have made up a nickname for Mark, and Tom couldn’t bear it. The scene played over in his mind—Mark’s crooked tie, the chewed pencil rolling down the aisle, the silence as everyone waited for him to cry.
Tom ducked into a weedy lot beside 57th Avenue. He sat on a cement block, the remains of a house foundation. Crickets chirped. Grasshoppers flung themselves around at being disturbed on this perfect grasshopper day. There was a yellow and black spider with a bright white zipper line woven through the middle of her web, waiting to catch one of these reckless grasshoppers. He heard traffic and snatches of kids’ conversation. A cicada buzzed close by. Tom put his head in his hands. And cried.
They were quiet tears, like Mark’s. He prayed Mark would not be too embarrassed. He prayed Sister would lighten up. He prayed for the strength not to be such a crybaby. Tom was alone in this weedy little world, his head bowed.
He sighed and lifted his chin. Startled, he realized he wasn’t alone. Sitting next to him was Marilyn Malloy. She looked into the distance. Tom wiped his eyes and stole a glance at her. Her right arm was tucked into the folds of her plaid skirt. Her eyes sparkled blue and clear.
Then she snatched off her beanie. Bobby pins flew. Tom thought about making up a story to account for his tears, maybe allergies or an imaginary bug that flew up his nose.
“Sorry,” he croaked.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I don’t usually hang out in the weeds and lose it.”
“I get it,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Sister’s cruel. I cry sometimes, too.”
So, Tom thought, she can read minds.
They sat silently for a few minutes while he composed himself. She looked away so he wouldn’t be embarrassed. Tall weeds. Singing crickets. Foolish grasshoppers. Hungry spiders.
Marilyn pulled her malformed arm from its hiding place and touched Tom on the shoulder. Tom looked at it, then met her gaze. She smiled.
“Listen. Don’t let her get you down. She wins then.”
Tom had never been touched by a girl, other than his sisters or his mom.
She simply touched him, got up, nodded, and walked away. For the rest of his life, he’d remember the first time being touched in kindness by a pretty girl.
