one o f those fuzzy collars you put on top o f sweaters and
someone had to stand behind her chair facing the class and
with their hands keep brushing the fuzzy collar down,
smoothing it down, with one stroke from her neck to her
shoulder, the left hand had to stroke the left side o f her collar
and the right hand had to stroke the right side o f her collar, and
it had to be smooth and in rhythm and feel good to her or she
would get mean and say sarcastic things about you to the class.
Y ou just had to stand there and keep touching her and they’d
stare at you. Y ou were supposed to like it because she only
picked you if she liked you or if you were done your test early
or i f you were very good and everyone else stared at you and
you were the teacher’s pet. But m y arms got tired and I hated
standing there and I felt funny and I thought it was boring and
I didn’t see w hy I couldn’t do something else like read while I
was waiting for the test to be over and I tried to prolong it but I
couldn’t too much and I thought she was mean but the meaner
she was the more you wanted her to like you and be nice to you
because otherwise she would hurt you so much by saying
awful things about you to the class. And m y mother said she
was the teacher and an adult and I had to be respectful and do
what she said. I had to be nice to adults and do what they said
because they were adults and I wanted to grow up so I
w ouldn’t have to listen to them anymore and obey them but
the only w ay to get them to think you were grow n up was to
obey them because then they would say you were mature and
acting like an adult. Y ou had to brush the teacher’s collar and
no one ever had to say w hy to you even i f you kept asking and
they just told you to keep quiet and stop asking. She could
make you stand in the corner or sit alone or keep you after
school or give you a bad mark even if you knew everything. I
wanted to be an adult like my daddy. He was always very
polite and intelligent and he listened to people and treated
them fair and he didn’t yell and he explained things if you
asked why except sometimes when he got tired or fed up. But
he was nicer than anyone. He didn’t treat people bad, even
children. He always wanted to know what you were thinking.
He listened to what everybody said even if they were children
or even if they were stupid adults and he said you could always
listen even if you didn’t agree and even if someone was dumb
or rude or filled with prejudice or mean and then you could
disagree in the right way and not be low like them. He said you
should be polite to everyone no matter who they were or
where they came from or if they were colored or if they were
smart or stupid it didn’t make any difference. M y relatives and
teachers were pretty stupid a lot and they weren’t nice to
Negroes but I was supposed to be quiet even then because they
were adults. I was supposed to know they were wrong
without saying anything because that would be rude. I got
confused because he said you needed to be polite to Negroes
because white people weren’t and white people were wrong
and Jew s like us knew more about it than anyone and it was
meaner for us to do it than anyone but I also had to be polite to
the white people who did the bad things and used the bad
words and said the ugly things that were poisonous and made
the six million die. M y daddy said I had to be quiet because I
was a child. M y daddy said I had to be polite to my uncle who
called colored people niggers and he said I had to stay quiet and
when I was grown up I could say something. I watched my
daddy and he was quiet and polite and he would wait and listen
and then he would tell m y uncle he was wrong and Negroes
were just like us, especially like us, and they weren’t being
treated fair at all but I didn’t think it helped or was really good
enough because m y uncle never stopped it and I wanted to
explode all the time. M y daddy always said something but it
was ju st at the end because m y uncle would go aw ay and not
listen to him and no one listened to him, except me, I’m pretty
sure o f that. And once when m y mother was sick and going
into the hospital and I had to go stay in m y uncle’s house I cried
so hard because I was afraid she would die but also I knew he
would be calling colored people bad names and I would have
to be quiet and I had to live there and couldn’t go aw ay and m y
daddy told me specially as an order that I had to be quiet and
respectful even though m y uncle was doing something awful.
I didn’t understand w hy adults were allowed to do so many
things w rong and w hy children had to keep quiet all the time
during them. I stayed aw ay out o f the house as long as I could
every day, I hung out with teenagers or I’d just hang out alone,
and I prayed to God that m y uncle w ouldn’t talk but nothing
stopped him and I would try not to m ove and not to breathe so
I w ouldn’t run aw ay or call him bad names or scream because
it caused me such outrage in m y heart, I hated him so much for
being so stupid and so cruel. I sometimes had cuts on the inside
o f m y mouth because I would bite down to stop from talking
back and I would press m y fingernails into m y palms so bad
they would bleed and I had sores all over m y hands so I bit m y
nails to keep the sores from coming. Y ou had to do what
adults said no matter what even if you didn’t know them or
they were creeps or very bad people. The man was an adult.
He w asn’t so mean as m y uncle in how he talked, he talked
nicer and quieter. I was sitting there, acting grow n up,
wearing m y black bermuda shorts. Outside it was hot and
inside it was cold from air-conditioning. I liked the cold inside.
O ur house was hot and the city was hot but the movie was nice
and cold and the sweat dried on you and I liked how amazing it
felt. The man sat down next to me. There were a million empty
seats and the theater was like a huge, dark castle, but he
sat down right next to me, on m y left. The whole big theater
was empty. The usher was a teenager but I didn’t think he was
cute. He had a light blue uniform and a flashlight. He showed
me to my seat. He wanted it in the middle but I kept wanting
to go closer to the screen. I sat down in front where I’m not
allowed with my parents because they think it’s too close but I
like it because then the movie is big and it seems like the people
are giants and you forget everything looking at them. The
theater was so big and the ceiling was so high and you could
get lost in it except that the seats were all in rows. The theater
was dark but not completely dark. There was dim light but
not enough light really to see in or to read my book in. I had a
book stuffed in my pocket. I always carried a book. I liked to
read whenever I could. Y ou could read almost anywhere but
there wasn’t enough light even for me so I had to sit and wait
for the lights to go down all the w ay and the movie to start. I
crossed m y legs because I thought it was sophisticated. I
crossed them one way, then the other way. I opened the top
buttons on my blouse because I was alone now and I could do
what I wanted. The man sat down and the usher wasn’t there
because I tried to look but I didn’t want to insult the man by
acting like anything was wrong. I didn’t understand w hy he
had to sit there and I wished he wouldn’t but you had to be nice
to people who sat next to you in a bus or in a synagogue or
anywhere and I wanted to move but he hadn’t done anything