e laughed at him when we were children. The barely-contained-snicker as he passed by, lifting and lowering his arms, turned into an uncontrollable-all-out-laugh attack when he was no longer in direct eye sight, but still in hearing range. It was odd the way he walked, moving his arms in an up-down circular motion, as if he were trying to scratch his ears with his elbows. Or trying to propel himself forward. Certainly, like all things, there was a reason.

We always took turns imitating him. Jammie was the best, she added a nice chicken neck move and lifted her knees high, like a crab-trapper wadding through Louisiana marsh. “No, no—it’s like this,” I would say. And change the marsh walk into the goofy gallop that we had practiced in P.E. It’s hard to remember which was the more memorable sight, the man with the funny walk or two fourth-graders and their impressions.

We called him Mongoloid, his name was Marshall. He was a custodian, but we called him a janitor. And he had a janitor friend named Tilley. Her name was funny enough not to invent a new one. She had deformed arms like a Tyrannosaurs Rex. We could never tell if Tilley had whole arms that were just small, or if the lower part was missing and hands were glued on to her elbows. Jammie loved to pretend that they were friends, so they could wave at each other. We figured one day Tilley would wave hard enough that her sleeves would slip down and we could see. Our favorite game to play with her was locking the restroom door, claiming a student was trapped inside and watching her bend way down to rummage through her pocket and fish out her set of keys. The unlock was always a victory.

Mongoloid and Tilley had their own work-shed, down at the foot of the school playground. It was most commonly referred to as the retard shack. The fence behind the shack was over grown with jasmine and honeysuckle. We spent afternoons waiting for the school bus, making chains with the aromatic yellow flowers and tasting the nectar, a single sweet drop of liquid, that could be pulled from the white trumpets. It was the only escape we had, the only place where there was life in the environment. The front part of the playground was a dirt playing field. The only reason to go to that area was to play sports or when we were summoned by our classmates chanting, “Fight, fight, fight!”

Down by the fence, being with my friend Jammie was the best part of the day. All the other places I was forced to go: classrooms, lunchrooms, church and even home never felt as comforting as being with Jammie. When her bus arrived in the afternoon, always before mine, watching her leave was like saying goodbye to existing. I felt like a television with no electricity. And I was alone, stuck, hiding behind a retard shack, too scared to join the others on the playground.

Jammie brought a Chinese jump rope to school with her and we were trying to learn the tricks. She stole the elastic from a pair of her mother’s slacks. Said, “I just went right up in that closet while mama was cookin’ supper and ripped us out a piece of elastic.” She pulled the material from her pocket. “She won’t never miss them ’ol ugly pants,” and laughed as she waved the inner-workings of her mother’s waistband in the air. “She’d tear me up good if she knew what I done.”

Chinese jump rope was a big fad in the 80s. It was made of stretchy material that was a continuous circle, not chopped in half into a straight line like a jumping rope. Instead of holding the rope with your hands and twirling it, two people put it around their legs and stood facing one another, creating a box. The third person jumped in and out and on, without trying to fall.

We had to modify the three-person game because there was only the two of us. The rich kids that played up on the front part of the playground had a solid piece of elastic. One piece, unified. Our stolen elastic worked just as well. Since it was severed, we were able to tie it around a tree to make our third. Jammie had learned some of the moves and songs the day I stayed home with pink eye. She said she was like a secret spy, watching a few of the pretty girls with smooth straight blonde ponytails play the game.

Our favorite game was, When I grow up, I’m gonna be. We started off with the chant and then would jump in, out, in, out and on the rope. Every time you landed on the rope you got to repeat it again, until you missed. And for each in, out, in, out, and on, you would get to make a wish. When it was her turn, she would jump in, out, in, out and on and sing, “Pretty, rich, good hair, good clothes and smart!’

I always wished, “tough, fast, football player, baseball player and strong!” I don’t think we realized what we were really wishing for. That we were hoping for something else.

Only a few weeks after we got our Chinese Jump Rope, Jammie stopped coming to school. Just when we were beginning to understand our game, I lost my friend. When the bell rang, I ran as fast as I could to the foot of the playground, hoping, somehow Jammie would be there. Instead, I remained isolated on the outskirts of the playground, trying to remain invisible. I hid. Only drawing as much attention to myself as the flowers on the fence or the retard shack.

On the second afternoon of my solitude, Tilley was rummaging around inside, using her foot to push a bucket around on the floor. I could almost hear Jammie calling her a kangaroo, fighting with its feet. Mongoloid was sitting outside in a chair, tinkering with a lawnmower. He looked comfortable, natural sitting in the chair. Almost normal.

I was sitting Indian-style, criss-crossed applesauced in the grass, picking at the grass and weaving the longer blades into a bracelet. Randolph Higgins missed a pass and his football landed near my jewelry factory. I tried to stay pre-occupied by the work and ignore what was in front of me.

“Hey, throw us the ball!” Randolph hollered.

I knew if I ignored him it would be worse. I picked up the ball and felt like my body did the best job it could. It made it half-ways towards him.

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be such a sissy!” Randolph started running towards me. “Don’t you know how to throw a ball?” I wondered what snapped inside of him. He was going to kill me because I couldn’t throw a ball as good as him.

I stood-up, ready to take my punishment for a crime I was constructed to commit. But Mongoloid was beside me before Randolph could make it.

The boy turned around, shouting as he walked away, “Just like a girl to get a crippled retard to stand up for—her.”

It did not hurt. It was used to it. I went back to making my bracelets. Mongoloid went back to his chair, his arms pumping air along the way.

Ten days passed and Jammie still hadn’t been back to school. It was around that time that I started listening. It was like Jammie disappearing and Randolph almost murdering me opened up my ears. Spying on Mongoloid Marshall (his name was slightly upgraded after saving my life) and T-Rex Tilley (her named remained—she didn’t do anything to help) replaced Jammie. They had fascinating lives. If I walked along the fence and buried myself deep behind the foliage, I could hear the two janitors in their shed.

“Where you do that rehab again? At the veteran’s hospital?” Tilley asked.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Marshal said.

“How’s it going?”

Mongoloid Marshall gave short answers. It sounded like my parents’ conversation. “All right. I’m walking better now.”

“They say anything ’bout why your arms keep goin’?” She sniffed, looked at her small hands and wiped her nose on her shirt.

“Said, since I been out the chair, my brain thinks my body can’t move without my arms.” He focused on the bucket of paint he was mixing.

“Kinda weird ain’t it?”

“’Spose so.” He looked out the window. If he saw me, he didn’t let on. “Got so used to the wheels, my hands won’t let go.”

At the time, I didn’t understand it. But I felt like I was being let into someone else’s world. I imagined Marshall surrounded by scientists trying to fix his differentness. I wondered what other problems they could fix. If they could look at anyone, figure out what was wrong and help.

News came about Jammie. It was late in the fall and the air was turning cold. One of the teachers told us that she had been hurt very badly and was in the hospital. I buried myself that afternoon deep in the recesses of the playground. I wondered if it was in a car or if she had crashed her bicycle into a train. Maybe she had accidentally strangled herself with our Chinese jump rope. I had a vision of her in a hospital bed with her eyes bulged and rope burns around her neck. I needed to know what happened to my friend. No more information was provided at school.

At home, I worked up the courage to ask my parents a question. We were in the kitchen. Mom was opening cans for dinner and Dad was re-stringing a fishing reel.

I said, “Can we go to the hospital to see my friend, Jammie?”

“Who’s Jammie?” Mom asked.

“She’s my friend. The one who taught me how to Chinese jump rope.”

“What the hell you doing jump roping?” My father put the fishing equipment down on the table. “With a girl?”

I looked down at my fingernails. I liked the white line that was growing in on the tips. It was hard to breath with my head hung so low. “Because it’s fun?” I half asked, half answered.

“Because he’s a fat-face, yellow-tooth, sissy,” my brother yelled from the other room. While they argued, I ran my tongue across my teeth to see if I could taste the color yellow.

“Damn it, Troy! Leave him alone. I told you not to call him that,” my mother hollered through the house. She continued stirring.

“Look, son, we’re not going to the hospital.” My father returned to his fishing lures. “I’ll sign you up for football if you want something to do.”

“That would be fun.” She stirred.

“Yes, you’re right. It’ll be good for him. He can get some exercise, lose some weight,” he said to my mother. “What do you think?” He asked me.

“Um, I don’t know.” What I really wanted to do was take dancing classes and make my own music video.

“You’ll like it. You can make some new friends. It’ll make a man out of you.”

What he didn’t understand was that I was trying to find the friend I already had, the one who let me be a boy who jumped rope. All I had left of her was a hiding place behind a retard shack. “If that’s what you want me to do,” I relented.

My favorite times were walking down the drive to and from the school bus. It was the only part of the day when no one was around, where I could be natural, invisible. There were only a few moments between places that I felt safe. Times when I didn’t have to hide. It followed a pattern: Home, safety, bus, school, bus, safety, home. It was a rhythm I developed, like jumping rope.

After school down by the fence, my mind was watching a music video I had seen, wondering what the lady felt like dancing wild and free. Or how I would look in a flashy costume. What kind of hairstyle could I have? I knew the only time I could be those things was in my mind, where no one could see.

The afternoon hung low in the sky, almost like there was no longer a sun. The jasmine was wilted and the honeysuckle dry. The cycle of life was turning; everything was changing. Winter had set in. The once lush grass where we played games was gone. It was only scattered with the petal remnants of what used to be beautiful flowers. I overheard the two janitors in their shed.

“You heard about that little girl?” Tilley was on her knees using her tiny arms to pick-up a dustpan from the floor. “They said the State’s not letting her mama take her back, after what she done to her.”

I wondered if they were talking about Jammie. I crept closer to the shed. If anything was said about my friend, I wanted to know.

“What little girl?” Marshall asked.

“That nigger girl, the one who plays with the little fag boy out there by the fence. Her mama beat her so bad they’re taking her away.”

I was almost in the shed now and heard her clearly. It was the first time I remember having an image of myself. Somehow it was different hearing it from someone like her. When it was a word someone was calling you to be mean it didn’t hurt. But when it was spoken as the truth, as a name, it became different. I realized Jammie was a nigger. And I was a fag, standing there with them, in their retard shack. I knew nothing separated us now.

“You shouldn’t call them kids that,” Marshall said. “It ain’t right.”

“After all they call us? Hell, they deserve it,” Tilley claimed.

As a child, I wondered if she was right. I didn’t know what a fag was. But I could tell what Tilley meant. It sounded like a question from one of those fill-in-the-blank tests we had to take: If Nigger is a bad word for a black person; Fag is a bad word for _____________.

I missed Jammie more than ever. I wanted her there, with me, to help make jokes about Tilley. I needed her to help me feel better about myself. I wondered if I could find her. Jammie could explain it all to me, just like she had shown me the Chinese jump rope.

I left school, walked right out the front gate. It was the only moment of bravery I had as a child. And when I began to run, my insides moved me more than the outside of my body. I knew that it wasn’t my legs and arms controlling my body because somewhere I dropped my book-sack and didn’t remember letting go.

As my body moved hypnotically, legs and feet slapping across the pavement, arms flailing, I realized I wasn’t mad at Marshall; we were no different, our problems were just the same. It was Jammie; she was the one I wanted to compare myself to. I hoped that we could see each other, one last time, as more than just a nigger and a fag who made fun of retards.

I knew Jammie lived somewhere off of Pine Street on one of the roads where the blacktop fades to loose gravel and then to packed dirt. She was from one of the neighborhoods where there are piles of rusted metal and too many barking dogs in all of the yards. Things were unclear in this new terrain. I searched hopelessly. I never made it to Jammie’s house.

Lost in the middle of a tiny town, I found myself, too far away from school to go back. Too confused to find my home.

A lady called after me from her front porch. “Baby, what you looking for?” The rocking chair squeaked from the relief of her immense body as she stood up. Each step gasped underneath the weight as she climbed off the porch. She crossed the yard towards me.

I didn’t know what to say. My mind wanted to say that a fat-lady was trying to help me. But somehow it didn’t feel right.

“Where you supposed to be? Your daddy know where you are? What about your mama?”

I still didn’t know what to say. My mind was focused on not crying.

“Well, come inside, you can use my phone. You know your number?” She gently gripped the back of my neck and steered me towards her house. “Lord, what happened to this child?” She asked the air as we headed to her telephone.

It was an embarrassing phone call to make. I can’t remember the lie that stumbled from my mouth. I was grateful my mother was the one to come pick me up.

That was the year Jammie went into her foster home. It was the year that Chinese jump rope became my favorite game to play, but it was also the year I made myself start football. No kid wants to be called a Chinese jump roper.

 

[END]

© 2006 Greg Johnson - Contributor's Bio

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