Saint Francis

Triangle Virginia is a phlegm the state will never spit out.

It is a town that thirsts for its victims as a tapeworm would search for a stray dog. Its sole purpose is to provide low income housing for the area’s marines and it will forever drown below the standard poverty level. This is where my mother and I called home when she decided to join me in my escape from Miami.

Our apartment complex sat atop a once vacant sewage field. The scent of soggy garbage and rust drifted on every frostbitten breeze that rushed through our tattered screen windows. The lock on the green aluminum front door showed evidence of dulled stab wounds, a result of several failed burglary attempts. Our carpet lay across slabs of plywood and had no connections to the wall so every step was made cautiously as to not drag the television onto the floor. The television was black and white with a twisted hanger acting as an antennae. To say the least, it would not exactly have been a tragedy if the tv dropped but the re runs of Three’s Company were the only entertainment we had.

My family was forced to enroll me into a private school after my departure from the detention center in Miami. Saint Francis of Assisi was a Catholic school that was horrendously overcrowded and we were four months past the registration deadline for new students. I sat outside a large oak door decorated only by a faded slanting place card that read “Director” as my mother walked through dressed in sweatpants and an oversized Lowe’s work shirt she had kept from her last job. I sat nervously in an orange plastic school chair as I heard numerous whimpers turning into cries as they seaped through the door. My mother pleaded with the school’s principal, impressing the idea upon him that I was mentally disturbed and needed a Christian influence in my life to set me straight. Mascara was dripping into pools around the corners of her lips as she grabbed me by the hand and walked me back to the silver Honda Accord my dad was forced to surrender after my mother’s threats to show up at his office.

So I started school on a Thursday. The classroom I sat in consisted of about twenty desks that were connected to chairs. The wooden tops could be lifted to access a storage area for books. In the front of the class was a large aqua green chalkboard. This board worked on a pulley system and when a student pulled the rope on the right the large wall would raise up and reveal a spacious room decorated with various hooks and drawers to store our winter clothing. When not in use, the blackboard remained partially up so only a student’s legs were visible as they hung up their jackets.

Ross was the name of a very unique child that sat in the seat directly next to me. Ross had a strict routine that he stuck to every day. When the clock neared 1:30 there would be an aroma that circulated into the air. This was a distinct smell that has latched its claws forever into my memory. I would compare the scent to that of a rancid slice of meat wrapped in a sleeve of wet newspaper. Poor Ross had a difficulty controlling his bowels. He was portly to say the least, and as evident by his maroon polyester shirt tucked into his underwear and the dark stains around his pelvis, he was not blessed with social grooming skills. Every day as we sat down after lunch Mrs. Grandly would be the last to taste the lurid smell. “Ross, would you like to go freshen up?” she would ask with a calming familiarity. In essence she was asking ‘Ross would you like to change into the spare clothes you bring to class everyday because you shit your pants again?’ The students and I eventually relied on this fragrance as a dictator of how much time was left in the day before we could go home. The discarded clothes were always placed in a large brown paper bag that he plopped beside his desk and next to my leg. This daily event was the only pleasure I got out of Saint Francis.

It didn’t take long for me to rebel against attending classes. I figured out ways to lose myself from the group as we traveled to Friday Mass or afternoon recess. In a town with a population of 2,000 there was no need to invest in entertainment or commerce. Therefore, skipping class was not exactly exciting. I often found myself wondering down a creek bed searching for crawfish or throwing gravel at cars from the top of the school’s roof.

One morning I had decided that I wanted to bypass ditching my teachers between classes and go directly to the source of my pain. It was Tuesday morning and I informed my mother that I would not be attending school at all that day. Mom had gotten a job at a local clothing manufacturer. Day after day she would stand in a warehouse in front of a conveyor belt placing stitched labels atop sweaters before a large steam press. Her employer was a overweight black man who had a southern draw in his voice and a quick temper. She was given no lenience with him whenever she cried and being an ex marine he was eager to jump on any employee for tardiness. She was fifteen minutes late by the time she managed to grab me by the hair as I hid under the crooked coffee table. I fought for a moment before I heard her shriek into my ear, “You’re going to schoooool!”. She locked me into the passenger seat with a fierce snap of the seat buckle. We both sat in an angered silence as she stared between the blinding drizzle on the windshield and I grinded my teeth awaiting an opportunity to escape.

The school appeared on the horizon too soon before I realized I had missed my chance. I wasn’t one to die quietly in defeat though. I reached down for the black knob of the stick shift my mother’s hand was resting on and grinded it into any position it would fit. The car bounced loudly back and forth as our necks jutted forward into our chests, my mother’s gas station coffee launching into the steering wheel, splashing the beige interior. There was a delicate calm in my ears as I examined the extent of exactly what I had done and then I saw her hand reach out for the black knob again. Being in an absent daze I did what any animal would do when forced to protect their goal, to protect the integrity of what their actions were supposed to stand for; I attacked. I slapped my clenched fist hard onto her pale forearm. The blow caused her left hand to swerve the steering wheel far to the right as we veered into the rainy morning’s haze. “Oh. My. God. You little Bastaaaard!!!!!,” she shrieked into the ceiling of the small car. The engine revved and the sound of our tires squeeled into the parking lot like a dying cat as we launched over the first of several speed bumps. The silver car chased past the smoke of our exhausted muffler as we made loops in the parking lot to access the easiest entrance into the school. Stop. My mother didn’t hesitate as she unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door with one movement. I got my first sensation of the panic Terry Martin could inflict as I watched her manic frame circle the back of the car from the rear view mirror.

I had never felt a force so fierce as that of the one my mother’s grip had on the thick of the gray scarf wrapped around my neck. My body was thrown viciously across the spray painted four square design on the pavement our car had driven onto. My knees scraped across the loose asphalt pebbles as they tore into the fabric of my linen dress pants. She continued to pick me up by the hair and drag me forcefully into the front double doors of the school’s main entrance. The warm damp air smacked my face as the doors opened and allowed me to fully understand where we actually were.

The interior oval structure of Saint Francis of Assisi, consisting of twelve classrooms ranging in level from first to twelfth grade, allowed each room to face directly into the center arena that we now stood. To be accurate I was not standing, rather, I was on the ground being pulled by my now stretched shirt sleeve. Classroom doors were never to be closed at Saint Francis. When my mother had dragged me as far as she could I stopped crying loudly and resisting as I realized every student and teacher in the school could see us. I can imagine it being quite an exciting break to the morning lectures. “You son of a bitch bastard piece of sh** monster!!!, she hollered into the silent air of the Catholic hallways. “You’re just like your f***ing father!!!”. She struck me atop my forehead and shoulders in unison with every slanderous syllable she spewed. When I put my arms up to block her fists, she pulled me by my hair again and slapped me across the mouth continuously. She fought like a warrior, hatred and years of pain and misfortune seeped through her fingers with every blow. The veins in my face were broken now as evident by the long red steaks lining my cheeks. The loud cursing had dulled to booming vibrations in my skull as I saw her every move come at me in a blur. And just as suddenly as it had started it had stopped. My eyes opened to the ceiling and then to my right, as I saw my mother in her burgundy coat march furiously away, "You deal with him," she hollered. I didn’t blink my eyes until the large double doors slammed tightly with a deafening thud.

I laid there for a moment until Mrs. Grandly and the school counselor appeared above me. They quickly picked me up by the arms and escorted me into my class. I have never witnessed a stronger silence in my life than that moment when these two women walked me to class with a thousand eyes watching our every movement, every mouth gaped open. There were no snickers, no jokes, for no one had yet registered what they had seen.

I was sat down at my desk very gently as Mrs. Grandly delicately brushed my cheek with the back of her hand. She regained her position in front of the class and began to address our lecture but stopped in mid sentence, “Gregory why don’t you hang your jacket up?” I hadn’t realized that I was still wearing my jacket fully zipped up. My right sleeve was still hanging loosely past the end of my knuckles. “Mmmph Okay,” I managed to let out through my hoarse throat. I kept my head down and focused my eyes on every crack of the linoleum floor as I made my way past the curious students. I ducked under the blackboard and positioned my jacket to hang on its hook when my right foot dragged across the floor in back of me. The cheap rubber sole of my black dress shoe had managed to create enough friction with the ground to let out a high pitched sound very much resembling that of a loud fart. It squeaked sharply and lasted far too long for anyone to miss it. It only took one kid to shout what every twelve year old in the room was thinking, “Greg farted!!!” The laughter roared through the air like a freight train delivering a much needed end to a horrible tension in the air. My heart dropped and I was thrown from my blind daze into a horrifying awareness of my surroundings. “I Didn’t fart,” I pleaded from behind the blackboard, my feet the only thing visible to the class as I nervously tried to recreate the sound again by kicking against the ground with my shoes. I had no luck as my classmates saw a pair of black loafers dancing furiously back and forth behind yesterday’s algebra problems chalked against the board. The laughter only gained momentum and soon my cries could no longer be heard, “I didn’t fart, it was my shoe!!!”. My neck drooped forward as I laid my forehead on the cardboard backing of the chalkboard barrier. My tears fell in splashes onto my thighs as I managed to regain my balance and duck back under the wall into the class. There was no more shame left in me. As I walked slowly back to my seat I caught Ross staring at me with a serene grimace. He knew as well as I did that I had joined in the rankings of the school’s popularity roster.
I was the new Ross.