A Safe Place for Joey (28 page)

“When Charlie took the tests last June he was frightened. He was getting further and further behind. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Now
that he sees he can learn, he’s willing to try.

“It helps him to know that I know what to do about his learning problems. If he broke his leg and was having trouble walking, you’d take him to a doctor – find out what was wrong and get him help. It’s the same thing for a child in our society who is having trouble reading –”

“Are you saying Charlie has a broken head?” Mr. Hammond interrupted,
“comparing it to a broken leg? Is that what you think is wrong with Charlie?” Mr. Hammond shoved the papers back across the desk and stared at me.

Another mistake.

“No, of course not. I was just using that as an example.”

“An example. I see. Well, then if it’s not his head, what is it? And perhaps it would be best if you kept examples and emotions out of it and we just discussed
facts.

“In fact, let me start this discussion by saying that none of this makes sense to me at all. Oh, I know. I know. You explained after the evaluation. You’ve talked to my wife. You’ve talked to Charlie, but I’m not sure they understand any better than I do.” He paused. I had a feeling he wanted to add, “though they may like you better,” but he left the words unsaid.

“Now, let
me tell you what makes sense to me,” Mr. Hammond continued. “Intelligence means that you have the ability to acquire knowledge and the ability to use the knowledge you’ve acquired. Now that’s the truth. I’ve looked it up in the dictionary, and it also makes sense to me personally, so let’s accept that statement as fact.

“Now, reading, spelling, math are all knowledge that you can acquire
and use. At least some people can. Charlie doesn’t happen to be one of those people, so therefore it follows, or at least it seems very clear to me, that Charlie is not intelligent.”

He stopped to clear his throat. “Unfortunate as that may be.”

“You’re very wrong,” I said. I had difficulty controlling my voice. How could he say that? “Charlie is intelligent. Look at his answers on
the WISC-R intelligence test.” I took the test out of Charlie’s file and thrust it in front of him. “He can think abstractly, he can reason, he can solve problems, he has acquired a great deal of …” I stopped myself in midsentence. What was I doing? I was actually arguing with this man – this man who was Charlie’s father and whom Charlie needed so much. I should be listening, not arguing.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’ve known Charlie so much longer – you have so much more information than I do. Why do you think Charlie lacks intelligence? Is it just the school work or is it also because of the way he acts at home?”

After a small pause Mr. Hammond said, “Well, both. Not being able to read is a terrible thing, although you seem to think he’s doing better at that now. But there’s
more to it than that.” Mr. Hammond leaned across the desk. “He always needs help. He’s in and out of our bedroom or living room twenty times a night, asking June to help him do this or help him do that. She never says no. He’s like a little baby instead of nine years old. Nine – remember that. He turned nine last week and he can’t do anything for himself.

“Please understand. It’s not that
I don’t love him. I do. You have to ask yourself what kind of a life it is for Charlie, too. Always behind. Always at the bottom of everything. In sports, too. He’ll never make a team – you try to throw him a ball, it hits him in the head. I tell you, he’ll be better off away.”

“Away?” I could hardly get the word out.

“Yes, away at school. I’ve been looking into it. At one of the football
games this fall I ran into an old friend from college, and he told me how he’d gotten his son into this new school, boarding school, that’s just opened in Pennsylvania. It’s not cheap, but he says it’s worth it – it’s made all the difference in their lives.”

“But –”

“No. Let me finish. Please. I wanted June to be here when I brought this up because I thought she could be less emotional
about it here than at home. But since she’s not here, I’m going to put it to you bluntly.

“I think she’s covering up – doing Charlie’s work for him. I think you’re covering up – trying to make both of them feel better. I think the school is probably in on it, too, somehow. Anyway, I’ve had enough. It’s time to face facts. Charlie isn’t right. He’s never been right, and he’s never going to
be. I don’t understand all the ins and outs of it and I’m not saying he’s retarded, but he is defective, and he’ll be better off with his own kind.”

I sat silently. Something terrible was going on, and I had no idea how to stop it.

“We lost one boy, you know. I’m sure June told you. And something happened to Charlie, too. Some people just aren’t meant to have children. You have to
face up to it.”

“You don’t think you’re meant to have children?” I repeated.

“It seems that way,” he said in a measured voice. “I tried as hard as I knew how to hold on to Jason. I’ve tried with Charlie. I never got through to either of them. The only way I can figure it is, it wasn’t meant to be.

“Look now, I’m not talking about putting him in some institution. Just a school.
Lots of kids go away to school. Nothing wrong with that.”

“He’s only eight. Nine, I mean. What’s the name of the school?”

He took a card from his wallet. “High Mountains. High Mountains Boys’ School.”

“It must be very expensive if it’s as good as your friend says.”

“It is. But June has just closed a fantastic deal. She’s lived here all her life, you know, so she has many
contacts, and now she’s sold a five-hundred-thousand-dollar estate up on the hill, and the commission from that will go a good ways and I’m sure there will be more to come. So the picture’s changed as far as money goes. That’s not the issue now.”

I wanted to say, “But you didn’t earn the money and June doesn’t even know your plan,” but I had made enough mistakes for one hour.

“You
obviously have done a great deal of thinking about this.” I wasn’t going to be able to change his mind in the next few minutes, and yet I knew it was the wrong thing to do. Wrong for Charlie – but also wrong for his father. I needed time to think.

“Well,” I said, glancing at my watch, “let me copy these test scores for you so you can share them with June.”

The old copy machine whirred
noisily for a minute or two as I copied the papers in the small adjoining room. I expected Mr. Hammond to be up and waiting by the door, but he still sat opposite the desk.

I suddenly felt very tired. The rain pelted against the windows, and I leaned against the side of the desk, holding the copies out to him, not trusting myself to speak.

Finally, he reached for the papers but made
no motion of rising.

But I was the one now who couldn’t stand it any longer. I forced the words up out of my throat. “I’ll get your coat and meet you at the door.”

Monday morning, the phone rang at seven o’clock.

“This is Jim Hammond, Mrs. MacCracken. I’m sorry to bother you so early. I’m just on my way into the office now, and I wanted to be sure to get you before you saw Charlie
this afternoon. I … uh … haven’t had a chance to talk to June – or Charlie either, as a matter of fact – about the school as yet, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to him just yet.”

A reprieve.

I heard nothing further from Mr. Hammond for the next three weeks. My talks with Charlie’s mother and teacher were the same as always – brief, specific. We all felt that Charlie
was continuing to make progress.

Then just before Christmas vacation I had another seven o’clock phone call from Mr. Hammond, asking if I was going away over the Christmas holiday and, if not, if he could “come by.” Cal and I were to be away for only a week, and so we arranged a time to meet three days after Christmas.

Mr. Hammond opened the conversation as soon as he had settled himself
in the chair across from the desk. “June doesn’t know I’m here. Neither does Charlie. And I’d like to keep it that way, at least for now.”

I nodded and waited for him to continue, but he was silent, studying his hands for several minutes. Then he said slowly, “I’m not a humble man, Mrs. MacCracken, nor can I put my feelings into words easily. I’m an engineer and have much more faith and
knowledge in how things work than how people work. It’s very difficult for me to come here. I tell you this not because I want your sympathy, but so you will understand how important this is to me.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I was last here, and I’ve been observing Charlie very closely. And I’m not sure this makes any sense, but I think that I may not have been fair to Charlie.
Somehow he’s all muddled together in my mind with Jason – it’s as though they’re this one person, my son. And when I told you I’d tried as hard as I could with Charlie, I meant it. I honestly felt I had.

“But now, I don’t know, I’ve been thinking maybe I’ve been a little confused, and all the work and effort was for Jason. He was so sick – you couldn’t believe how hurt and little and frightened
he was. Anyway, I’ve been asking myself to be specific. It seems as though I’m always asking other people to be specific, so I thought perhaps I should ask the same of myself. What specifically have I done for Charlie?

“I couldn’t think of very many things. Do you know what I mean? It felt like I’d worked tremendously hard with him, but now I can’t think of what, if anything, I’ve done.

“So that’s why I’m here. I want to know if there are things I can do and if there are, what they are.

“I’m not giving up on that school. I don’t want you to think that. It’s just … well, to be truthful about it, I want to send Charlie off with a clear conscience. I want to be sure I’ve done everything that could possibly be done.”

I watched the sun shimmering on the snow in the
woods behind the office windows. I wasn’t sure I liked what I’d heard; it almost sounded as though Mr. Hammond were doing it for himself rather than for Charlie. A clear conscience. Did I want to get into the business of helping Mr. Hammond clear his conscience?

“Well,” he said, “are there things I can do?”

“Yes. Of course.” Who was I to judge anybody else’s conscience? Charlie needed
his father. Sometimes the way things begin doesn’t matter. If Charlie and his dad could get to know each other, trust each other, what difference did the reason behind it make?

“To begin with,” I said, “you can listen to Charlie, and let him know that what he says and thinks are important to you.

“Get to know his room. What kind of posters does he have on his wall? What kind of music
does he listen to? Make it a point to get to know his turf and meet him there a lot of the time. You don’t have to stay forever, but have it get so it’s comfortable for both of you. Whatever rules you have about making beds and picking up, discuss at some other time in some neutral place. When you stop in to visit, don’t harp.

“Take over some of those things June does. Lighten her load,
and also show Charlie you want to be involved. You said or implied that she babies Charlie by doing things for him that he ought to be able to do for himself. I think that’s probably true, but if you’re involved in helping him then you can gradually show him how to do things for himself.

“Gradually is the operative word here. If he has to do a report on Alexander Graham Bell, don’t just
tell him to get busy and do it. He can’t. He doesn’t know how, and he’s more confused and frightened by having to produce quantities of words than most kids are. Go with him to the library. Show him how to use the card catalog. Talk to the librarian. Ask which of the reference books are the clearest, the easiest. Help Charlie find the book. Help him copy the pages of pertinent information so he can
take them home. He writes much too slowly to try to do it in the library. Help him organize. Help him when he gets stuck with the writing. Help him rewrite. Let his teacher know you’re helping.

“Don’t expect too much. Even with a rewrite, there will be lots of mistakes. But praise him. Praise him for the effort that he’s put in, not just for the result. And he will get better at it gradually.
And, as he does, you can cut back on the amount of help you give. Don’t ever do the work for him, but also don’t let him flounder.

“Teach him as much as you can. Get him to watch the news with you. Talk about it later. Get a world map and a US map. Put them up in the kitchen or hall and use pushpins to locate the places you talk about.

“Read to him from the books that interest him
and from magazines, books, and newspapers that interest you. If someone develops a new vaccine, tell him about it. If the stock market drops, explain. Keep it short, and don’t put him on the spot or criticize or get impatient if he forgets what you’ve told him. Be polite. Tell him again. The main thing is that you interact and expose Charlie to as much of the world as possible.”

Mr. Hammond
was taking notes, his black eyebrows knit tightly together.

“Look. You don’t need to write this down. It’s all stuff you know, anyway. I’m just sort of pointing it out again.”

“Mrs. MacCracken, as I told you before, I am an engineer, a chemical engineer, and I work in the research department of a chemical company. I’m good at my job, but I’ll never go further because I can’t, or don’t
know how to, get along with people. I accept that. I don’t particularly like most people, anyway.

“But please don’t presume what it is I know or don’t know. Charlie is the first and probably the last nine-year-old boy other than myself that I’ll ever know. Where do you think I would have learned? Certainly not from my father. He believed bringing up children was women’s work. Now, please
keep on.”

He waited, pencil poised. My head was blank. Suddenly it seemed too awesome a task, and too presumptuous of me to assume to know.

“I don’t know. A lot of it will just come naturally once you start. But you can never go wrong telling him you love him and that you don’t care whether he bats zero or a thousand. Tell him about some of the things you couldn’t do when you were
nine.

“And you could get him an electric typewriter and get someone to teach him to type. The keyboard is practically the same as a word processor’s. Word processors and computers are going to be big in education. Charlie could use a head start. And maybe you could make a list” – I was off and running again, embarrassed but too excited to care – “of all the things you like about him. You
don’t have to show it to Charlie, but you could just remind yourself. And you could make a list of every good or decent or intelligent thing he does.