James Herndon - The Way It Spozed To Be

The Way It Spozed to Be

JAMES HERNDON

Simon and Schuster NewYork

All rights reserved

including the right ofreproduction

in whole or in part in any form

Copyright 1965, 1968 by James Herndon

Published by Simon and Schuster

Rockefeller Center, 630 FifthAvenue

New York, New York 10020

A portion of this book originally appeared inHarper's Magazine in a different form.

Seventh Printing

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-12171

Manufactured in the United States of America

By American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York

For Fran

When the taxi does not move it does not move. When you feed it gasor treat it like a dead refrigerator it does not move. Burn it asquick as you can.

Jack Spicer

THE WAY IT SPOZED TO BE

(1) Ruth

We had just come out of the library from our first meeting withthe principal, just the new teachers, perhaps fifteen of us. I walkeddown the hall with a man named Skates whom I'd just met. It wasmidafternoon; the hall was dark.

At least it looks like a school, I was saying, old, dark, the samebrown window shades all pulled exactly three-quarters of the waydown.... I was rather pleased about that. A real school, not one ofthose new ones I saw going up all over that looked like motels orbowling alleys. I was about to say that the motel-schools foolednobody; they were still schools, and the same old crap was going togo on in them. Here, at least, everyone was notified right away bythe looks of things that it was the same old crap.

Suddenly, a trio of girls burst upon us as if they had been lyingin ambush. One jumped ahead, pointing a finger at me.

You a new teacher?

Uh-huh. Yes.

What grade?

All of them, it looks like.

You teach the eighth?

Yes. Eighth too.

What you teach to the eighth grade?

English. Social Studies. No, only English to the eighth grade.

The other two girls were hanging back, giggling. This girl crowdedme, standing right next to me, looking straight up. I kept my headabsurdly raised, feeling that if I bent down I'd graze the top of herhead with my chin. I kept stepping back in order to get a look ather, and also to get away from her. She kept moving forward; sheacted as if this was her hall, she owned it, and I, a stranger, couldbe interrogated at will. She talked very loudly, smiling and grinningall the time but still almost shouting every word, having a finetime. It was OK with me.

What your name?

Herndon. Mr. Herndon.

OK, Mr. Hern-don, saying Hern-dawn, accent last syllable, as I wasto hear it spoken from then on by all students. OK, Mr. Herndon, youall right. I'm gonna be in your class. You better believe it! I'm inyour class!

Well, fine, I said. Good. The two girls giggled in the background.Skates stood around, waiting. She ignored all of them; her businesswas with me.

It seemed to be over. I waved my hand at her and started to moveoff. She grabbed me by the arm.

I ain't done! Listen you, Mr. Herndon, my name Ruth. Ruth! You'llhear about me, don't worry about it! And what I say, Mr. Herndon, youdon't cause me no trouble and I don't cause you none! You hear?

That suits me, I said. Well, see you later, Ruth, girls. Skatesand I started off.

You don't cause me none, and I don't cause you none! she yelledonce more, and then the three of them took off, sprinting down thehall away from us, laughing like hell and yelling at the top of theirlungs. Someone opened the library door and looked out after theypassed, but they had already turned the corner and were out of sight.

The first day, sure enough, there was Ruth in my eighth grade Bclass. She was absolutely the craziest-looking girl I've ever seen.Her hair was a mass of grease, matted down flat insome places, sticking straight out in several others. Her face wasfaintly Arabic, and she was rather handsome, meaning, I suppose, thather features were Caucasian in style. She was very black. Across herforehead a tremendous scar ran in a zigzag pattern from somewhereabove the hairline on her left side across to her right eye, cuttinginto the eyebrow. The scar was dead white. She was about five feetthree inches tall, weighed maybe 115 pounds. Not thin, anyway. Herentire figure seemed full of energy and power; she was, every time Isaw her, completely alert and ready. She could have been any age fromfifteen to twenty-five. I once tried to look up her age, there wereso many rumors about her from the faculty and from other students,but that fact was absent from her file; on every sheet, the spaceafter Age was simply left blank. No one knew, and apparentlyno one knew why it was that no one knew.

True to her word, she didn't cause me no trouble that first day.She sat at the second desk in her row and all she did was to sitthere and grab all the pencils I handed out for that row and refuseto pass them back. The row burst into an uproar, demanding theirpencils. The other rows, not having thought of this themselves,yelled derisively, That row ain't gittin' any!

Please pass the pencils back, Ruth, I said, reasonably but loudly,since I wanted to be heard. In the back of my mind I was stillwondering how she got in my class, or at least how she knew she wasgoing to be in my class. The other two girls were there too, I saw.

Ruth jumped up immediately. Don't go to hollowing at me! sheyelled. You got plenty of pencils! You spozed to give 'em all out!They ain't your pencils! You spozed to give 'em out! I need thesepencils!

The class yelled out, Whooooo-eee! Whooo-eee! They all made thesame sound. Everyone stood up, laughing and yelling whooo-eee exceptfor the kids in Ruth's row who all screamed, We ain't got nopyenculs!

I advanced on the row. Sit down! I shouted at everybody. I didhave plenty of pencils, and I was going to give one to each kid inthe row and forget about it. Let her keep the goddampencils! Who cared? But as I came toward the row, Ruth suddenlyflung the handful of pencils out into the room, screeched out No! andlaunched herself backwards into space. She actually flew through theair and landed on her back on the floor after crashingsome part ofher body or head, I couldn't tellagainst a desk and a kid or two.Across the room twenty kids dived, shouting, for the pencils. Notrouble, I thought bitterly, and came over to get her up. That's allI could think of at the time, get this damn girl off the floor. Butagain, as I moved, she jumped up, full of life, and fled for thedoor.

You ain't sending me to Miss Bentley, nobody sending me! I go tellher myself what you done, Mr. Herndon!

Bang. She was gone. The class was still squabbling over thepencils, but not seriously, and a few were still taunting the rowwhich didn't have none, but only halfheartedly. They were tooimpressed with Ruth. So was I. I passed out some more pencils, andeveryone sat down and awaited excitedly the passing out of paper,enrollment cards and books.

Still, I felt betrayed. I thought she meant it, out there in thehall, about the no trouble. Perhaps the fact that I thought about itat all, took her statement seriously in that way, was the firstmistake; the girl was a student in the eighth grade, I was theteacher. Period. Or again, I had been passing out pencils all day, toeach class, but as it turned out I was only supposed to give them outto my first-period class. These kids had already gotten pencils intheir own first period; they were receiving a bonus, a free gift.Free gifts were a mistake too.

As it turned out, she hadn't betrayed me at all. In Ruth's terms,she hadn't really caused me no trouble. Not no real trouble. Thatbecame very clear later on in the year.

(2) Meeting

In this book I'm trying to tell about my year teachinglearningto teachin a public school, a year spent in a particular school,at a particular time, and with particular students. These particularsare my anecdote.