He looks up brightly. “Really?”
“Sure. I mean, except the weeks I’m on duty. But otherwise I can help you. You could stay after school too. I’m usually here anyway.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I look at him. “So what subject are you having the most trouble in?”
“Math. Always math.”
“Do you have your book with you?”
“Sure. In my backpack.”
I gesture to the chair beside my desk. “Well, bring your book and your assignment over here and we’ll get started.”
7
And so Connor Blue becomes something of a special project of mine. He still doesn’t take up that much of my mental space—I still worry about Lauren Holloway’s silence, Richard Broad’s rambunctiousness, Kylie McCloud’s nose always buried in books; I still have a life outside school too, with Bill and with Gracie who has just started pre-school this year, all sweet little schoolgirl outfits and a lunchbox emblazoned with images of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But when the final bell rings at 2:45 and the kids bolt from their chairs, busily gathering their sweaters and backpacks and rushing from the classroom, as often as not they leave only Connor and perhaps one or two girls there. It becomes a pleasant place to be, Ms. Straw’s classroom in the after-hours. I’m able to have extended chats with the kids—not just Connor—and the unofficial tutoring I do seems to help them. It’s a casual atmosphere, with other children or the occasional stray teacher wandering in and out. I feel good, productive, useful. It takes time but I’m able to manage around Gracie’s school schedule—she too stays in an after-school program. I have enough time to pick her up at the end of the day, hit the supermarket and get home to make some reasonable sort of dinner. Only as the evening wears on does the tiredness begin to hit me, after I’ve struggled through Gracie’s bath and story and bedtime and drop myself onto the sofa next to Bill to wind up the night watching TV. When we go to bed, as often as not he turns to me and makes the slow movements I know lead in only one direction. Mostly I don’t mind, but slowly, over weeks and months, I find myself growing impatient with his attentions, make excuses more often than I used to. He says nothing, it’s not an issue between us. Yet.
After school my small group of students has its little tutoring and socializing time, but at lunch it’s generally just Connor and me. I’m aware of how this could potentially look to others at the school, so I’m always careful to leave the window blinds wide open, the door ajar. And I tell other teachers about it, about the fact that I tutor him during that period, so there can be no mystery, no sense of secrecy or of anything inappropriate. The fact is, I enjoy Connor’s company. He’s a strange boy, awkward in some ways—he’s clumsy, seemingly undergoing a growth spurt that leaves him uncertain of the dimensions and responses of his own body—but really extremely bright, and in unusual ways. I sense an enormous amount of untapped potential in this boy who can rattle off knowing references to movies fifty years old. Sometimes we discuss current films he’s seen reviewed in the paper or on Siskel & Ebert on TV, but generally he seems more interested in earlier times. I took several film courses in college, and have a large collection of videos and movie books at home. I’m able to direct him to films he might want to watch—one day he comes in raving about White Heat with James Cagney. His enthusiasm is infectious, making me want to seek out movies I’ve somehow missed or watch old favorites again. I loan him cassettes of Bullets or Ballots, The Roaring Twenties, Notorious, Spellbound. I loan him the simpler of my many film books, volumes filled mostly with pictures, focused on Hitchcock or Lang or film noir. I’ve never loaned my personal things to any student, ever—eleven-year-olds are not wise stewards of other people’s property—but Connor is extremely responsible, always returning the items quickly and in excellent condition. But that matters less to me than the gratitude in his eyes—thanking me for the movies and books, yes, but I think more for my trust, something I know he gets little of at home.
I’m curious—concerned—about Connor’s home life, but I know better than to ask. Girls will sometimes come to a teacher unprompted, unload on her all their woes about their mothers and fathers and brothers, but boys tend to be reticent. Watching him eating his daily apple, pouring over the pages of one of the movie books I’ve loaned him, I wonder about him and his father. I don’t know where they live or how much money they have, though judging from Connor’s worn and faded T-shirts and blue jeans I suspect it isn’t a lot. Does he come home to an empty house? How much is his father there? Does he eat decently? Does his dad ever compliment him on anything, support him, praise him?
Poor kid.
It’s around this time that the dreams begin again, dreams that plagued me in high school but which I haven’t had in many years. I’m twelve, I’m on my old red Schwinn bicycle, the asphalt rushing past me under the wheels, I’m swooping downhill on a beautiful summer’s day, the wind blowing back my hair. I come to the intersection, glance left and right, the roads are clear, I glide through squealing with delight and, glancing over my shoulder, call out, Come on, try to catch me, come on! and as I look the other bike sails into the intersection and the truck, an old blue pickup truck which I only later realize was pulling out of a driveway I hadn’t noticed as I’d passed through seconds before, collides head-on with the boy on the bike, I actually see the collision, I watch as the rusted front grill of the truck plows into his left side and his body bends strangely, an angle no body is meant to bend, the bike crumples under him and he goes with it under the truck and I slam into something, later I understand it was the curb, I fly off my bike and my forehead slams into the base of a maple tree, and all this happens silently, just as it did in life, or seemed to. I imagine the truck’s engine must have made some sound but I didn’t hear it. I know the driver never had a chance to swerve or hit his brakes or honk his horn or anything, the damned kid just flew into the intersection so fast, unavoidable accident, no charges, at least the man lived in another town so I wouldn’t have to see him and his hellish blue pickup day after day, in fact I never saw him again, maybe he left the area, maybe he died. The boy’s body bends at that bizarre angle, molding itself to the shape of the truck’s grill, the boy’s body is suspended there for an instant before it follows the bike underneath the wheels, I hit the curb again and again, my body briefly airborne, my forehead smacking against the base of the tree, I turn back with my head bleeding and my palms scraped and my knees of my pants ripped through to see Michael and his bike strangely intertwined, as if they were one single mangled thing there in the middle of the road, Michael, I don’t move, I don’t run to his side, I don’t scream for help, I just lay there on the ground with blood running into my eyes and I stare as the driver of the truck who has leapt from his vehicle comes running back to him, as other drivers pull over, as people wave off traffic, rush to the crumpled thing there in the middle of the road and for a long, long time no one notices me, no one realizes I’m there at all on the other side of the street with blood on my face and palms and knees, and then the sounds finally begin, car sounds, panicked voices, Oh my God and Call an ambulance, Jesus and No no no no and finally someone points toward me, I see the white finger raised accusingly at me, I see its judgment, I see my doom, and I hear a woman’s voice crying out, That’s his sister, look, there’s Michael’s sister, that’s his twin sister!