Monstrato

  ~~~

  Same day Hope came back, I went to Mrs. Garrison's room after school to get some work I still had to make up. When I walked into the room, Mrs. Garrison was sitting behind her desk, looking real cheery, and talking to all her Christian students who thought she was the best teacher in the world. When they saw me come in, they started clearing out. They knew if I was in Mrs. Garrison's room, it was because I had some business to take care of.

  I stood just inside the door watching them wrap up whatever conversation they were having and watching Mrs. Garrison give big smiles to all the kids who were leaving. What lovely fun, I thought, being surrounded by kids who adore you—nice Christian girls in khaki skirts with their little crosses and hair tucked behind their ears—the same girls who were so stuck up that they wouldn't even look at me and would never say hi back when I said it to them. When the last one left the room, I walked up to Mrs. Garrison's desk and said, "I need the assignment from last Tuesday."

  "Last Tuesday?"

  "Yeah. I was suspended, and you gave us a response essay we were supposed to write, but I don't know what it was about."

  "Well, let's see." She reached towards the front of her desk where she had a bunch of notebooks lined up, one next to the other. She pulled out a blue notebook with bright tabs down the side, opened it up, and laid on her desk. She said, "Okay, the book we were reading was Of Mice and Men, and you were supposed to write about the relationships between men and animals."

  "Okay?"

  "Do you remember the story?

  "Yeah."

  "So what relationships were there between men and animals?"

  "…Well, they killed that guy's dog."

  "Right…"

  "And the big, dumb guy was always squeezing the life out of little animals."

  "Right. So try to find a theme in those relationships and write about it. Do you still have the book?"

  "I think so."

  "But I collected them back. Did you turn yours in?"

  "I don't know. I'll see." I was feeling impatient, and I wanted to get out of there.

  She said, "Here, take this one, and if you still have the other copy, make sure you turn them both back in."

  "I will."

  "And what about my copy of Animal Farm that I let you borrow?"

  "I'll look for that one, too," I said.

  "Did you finish it?"

  "Yeah." I could tell she was in one of her moods where she wanted to talk. She always wanted to talk. You could never just get what you needed and leave.

  "So what did you think? Did you like it?"

  "It was all right." I turned and looked at the door. It was a reflex. I don't know what I was hoping to see through the tiny window. Maybe I was waiting for somebody else to come through the door who would take Mrs. Garrison's attention off of me.

  Mrs. Garrison wrote down the assignment on one of her heart notes, handed it to me, and said, "You look awfully mad, Macy."

  "I am mad," I snapped. It was a lie, or at least, I thought it was. What I did know was that I was gonna be mad if I missed catching a ride with Lori and had to wait around for my mom to pick me up.

  "What's wrong?" she asked giving me one of those real quizzical looks, like she couldn't imagine that I might have some problems.

  I didn't want to talk to her. I was in a hurry, and I wanted to blow her off and end the conversation right there. But something about the look on her face—that same goddamn look she's always giving us kids when she's trying to act concerned—it seemed so fake. Suddenly, I felt like smashing her cozy world, if only for a moment, just to let her know that kids really do have problems, big problems, and nobody's doing anything about them. I wanted to wipe that look off her face with a little dose of reality—my reality. So I said, "What do you think? There's some messed up shh…stuff that's been going on around here."

  She lowered her voice, got a real concerned, painful look on her face, and said, "You mean with Hope? How's she doing?"

  "I guess she's doing all right. She came to school today. But it's not fair, Mrs. Garrison, that people can do what they did to her and not have to pay for it."

  "So that's what you're mad about. You think there should be some sort of revenge."

  I said, "I'm not talking about revenge. I just don't see how they can go around doing the things they do and nobody ever does anything about it."

  She glanced quickly at the door and then whispered, "You mean Tammy and…"

  "Well, yeah!" I yelled.

  Still speaking quietly, she asked, "What do you think should be done?"

  "I don't know. How am I suppose to know? I'm just a sixteen-year-old kid. You're the adult. Don't you think this is something the adults should be handling?"

  "But, Macy, sometimes there's nothing you can do."

  "So that's how it is. There's nothing that can be done. They're just gonna go on messing with people's lives and pushing people around."

  She looked at me with that same painful expression, sort of nodded her head, and said, "Yeah. The world's not always fair, Macy." It angered me when she said that because that's what everyone always says. She was acting like I never heard it before, like she was telling me something new.

  I said, "Yeah, but isn't school supposed to be fair? Aren't they supposed to, at least, try to make it fair? Shouldn't we be protected from the unfairness until we, at least, grow up?"

  She thought about this for a moment and said, "Well, they should try to make it fair. But you know it's not always fair for kids. Some kid's parents have money, others don't. Some kids have parents who are divorced, or on drugs…"

  I yelled, "Yeah, but that's even more of a reason why school should be fair!" I put my hands on her desk, looked her in the eye, and asked, "Doesn't it make you mad, Mrs. Garrison? Don't you ever wanna go in the office and start screaming and tell Tammy what you really think of her and tell her all the things she's done wrong?" Mrs. Garrison started laughing when I said this because she wasn't the type of person to do that. But I didn't think it was funny. I was dead serious.

  "Macy, you're just looking at all the negatives of the school and not the positives. Right now, it seems…unfair, as you say, but there are some things we can't change, and if you keep focusing on them, it will just get you down. Why don't you try thinking about some of the good things this school has to offer?"

  "But I don't wanna think about the good things. That's the problem! If everyone pretends like nothing happened and acts as if everything is okay, then it's just gonna keep happening again and again."

  She said, "You can't fix the world, Macy," which was the last thing I wanted to hear, especially from her. She was always trying to 'fix' us kids whenever she had a chance. And what was that, anyway? Grown-ups were always saying stupid shit like that. I wasn't trying to fix the world.

  I said, "Yeah, that's how all you teachers think. You'll get all over us kids about something we're doing in class, or something we're not doing, but if a real problem comes up, something that effects everyone, you say, 'Well, you can't fix the world.' Well, you know what I think? I think you're all just scared."

  "Macy Carpenter!" she yelled, furrowing up her brow. "You can't say that! It's not about being scared."

  "Well, that's what I think."

  I could see she was getting irritated. She pointed her finger at me and said, "Now listen, you don't know what goes on between me and the administration, and I don't think you should make that assumption. Like you say, you're just a kid, and you have no idea how hard we teachers work to make this a good school."

  "I'm just saying that it doesn't seem to me like anyone's standing up to them."

  "Well, you don't know, Macy, and it's not always about standing up to people. Sometimes, if you want to make a difference, you have to accept things you can't change."

  I scowled at her and said, "Well, you might have to accept it, but I don't."

  She said, "Maayceee…" like she was disappointed in my attitude. But I was disa
ppointed in hers.

  I said, "I don't know, Mrs. Garrison. I gotta go," and I headed for the door.

  She said, "Macy," with a pleading look, "try not to let it get you down too much. And thanks for coming to see me."

  When I got to the parking lot, I saw Lori had already left and there was no one else for me to catch a ride with. Just as I feared, I was gonna have to wait around for my mom to pick up my little brother. The elementary didn't get out for another 10 minutes, so I went and sat on the green electric box in front of the school. I was upset about what Mrs. Garrison had said—"You can't fix the world." Fucking bullshit. All I wanted was a little justice, and Mrs. Garrison was acting like I was off-kilter or something. I just wanted somebody to do something, anything, so that I would know I wasn't fucking crazy—so I would know somebody else cared. Because, right then, I was sick of myself for caring and wishing there was some way I could make myself stop.

  When I got in the car with my mom, she said, "What's wrong with you? You look like you're doing some thinking in there." I told her what I was upset about. I told her about Hope coming back to school and about my conversation with Mrs. Garrison. She said, "Oh Macy, I don't know what you expect people to do. What's Mrs. Garrison going to do, quit her job? And who's going to get Tammy in trouble, anyway? Sure, what she did wasn't very nice. She had no business telling anybody about Hope's private information, and it was terrible the way it got dumped on Hope like that. But I don't even think she broke the law. And it's her school. She does what she wants. You know that."

  I said, "It's not her school! She may have started it, but she doesn't own it. She gets money from the taxpayers just like you said. What I don't understand is why you aren't upset. Hope's mom didn't even want her to come back to school because she's so mad at Tammy, but you don't seem to care if I go there."

  She started getting angry and said, "What am I supposed to do, Macy, pull you out and send you to a private school? We can't afford that. And you're not going to the big high school. Who knows what'll happen to you there. And as far as getting upset at Tammy, what's that going to accomplish? You act like us parents are supposed to be perfect. We have a lot of hard decisions to make, especially when they have to do with you kids. We can't solve all the problems, Macy, and my main concern is you and Justin. You'll see. You'll understand what I mean when you grow up. Right now, you just need to worry about Macy, and let the adults deal with the rest of it."

  "Well, what about Hope? Who's worried about Hope?"

  "Her parents."

  "She's still has to go to school. She has to sit in class, and the kids are all scared of her like she's some sort of freak. She's got all this shit she's gotta think about, and meanwhile, Tammy and Corena, the people who caused her problems, get to hide out in the office. They don't gotta deal with any of it."

  She said, "Well, it wasn't just Tammy and Corena that caused Hope's problems. Her parents could have told her she was adopted. Anyway, I thought you said she was gonna go live with her dad."

  "I thought she was, too, but she changed her mind. I think she's afraid she's gonna lose her credits."

  "Hmm," was all my mom said.

  I felt tired and was glad my mom didn't have anything more to say. I leaned my head against the headrest, stared out the window, and watched the houses pass by as if I was watching TV, not thinking, just looking.

  I saw faded big wheels and plastic play equipment rotting in tall grass and sidewalks crumbling into the street. I saw old, beat-up furniture sitting at the end of driveways, set out for the taking by people poor enough to think someone would actually want it. I saw abandoned houses with sagging roofs, gutters falling off and mold growing everywhere, smashed-out storm windows and porches covered with broken glass. I saw houses with no trees in the front yard and rusted fencing, bent over and laying on the ground. I saw people sitting on front porches and standing in their yards, staring at us as we drove by. And the way they looked at us with a sort of expectation, like they were waiting for something and hoping, it gave me the feeling their house was just a place they were staying and nothing more. And it all looked so ugly and mean. It made me feel tired. Tired of school, tired of my mom, my friends, my whole life. It was obvious nobody cared.

  And as I started going over in my mind what my mom had said, I could feel her apathy rubbing me in a spot that'd been sore for a long time.

  I said, "You're right about one thing, Mom.

  "What?"

  "Parents aren't perfect…You're far from perfect…very far from…"

  "Don't start, Macy. I'm not in the mood."