The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, page 4
I assume the channel went to commercial, because I recall asking, “Can I have the potatoes?”
“Please pass the potatoes,” my mother corrected.
“Please pass the potatoes,” I said.
My father got as far as picking up the bowl when the local newscast began.
“Today in Burlingame a Catholic school denied admittance to a young boy because he was born with a rare genetic condition that causes the irises of his eyes to be red.”
My father dropped the bowl. My mother appeared on the grainy television, standing beside Dan, a microphone under her chin and Sister Beatrice’s letter in her hand.
“It seems that when it comes to Catholic values, Our Lady of Mercy is good at preaching them but not at practicing them,” my mother said to Dan. “My son is no different from any other child, save for the color of his eyes, over which he has no control.”
Our Lady of Mercy’s school grounds appeared on the television, the shot angling up at the quad from the lower parking lot. It then switched to a close-up of the salmon-colored door of the administration office. The blinds had been drawn to cover the thin sidelights. Dan peered into the camera. “Attempts to contact the school principal, Sister Beatrice, were not successful,” he said, tone grave.
The camera shot returned to my mother standing beside Dan in the parking lot. “She said the decision was hers alone to make, so I can only assume she speaks for the entire parish.”
“But that appears not to be the case,” the newscaster said, and I recognized the sudden appearance of our pastor, Father Brogan, dressed in his mud-brown Franciscan frock.
“This is clearly a misunderstanding,” Father Brogan said to Dan. He looked uncomfortable. “Here at OLM we do far more than preach Catholic ideals. I can assure you they are very much put into practice.”
Dan asked, “So is there any truth to the assertion that the boy was denied admittance because of the color of his eyes?”
Father Brogan looked pale, even on the washed-out screen. “We had more applicants than space,” he managed. “We certainly do not discriminate at OLM.”
With that pronouncement, my mother returned to the screen beside Dan. This time she sounded more conciliatory. “We’re hopeful that this misunderstanding will be quickly rectified.”
The newscast moved on to the next story. My father and I sat as if frozen.
“Samuel, turn off the television,” my mother said, piercing a green bean with her fork and bringing it to her mouth.
The click of the knob was the last sound I recall until the telephone down the hall rang. My mother casually transferred her napkin from her lap to the table, and left to answer it. “Hill residence. This is Mrs. Hill.” Pause. “It’s nice of you to call, Father Brogan.” Another pause. “No. As a matter of fact, we were just finishing up.” Longer pause. “I understand. Of course. These things do happen. Samuel is very much looking forward to it.”
I looked to my father. He sat rigid, his face red.
My mother continued to speak into the phone. “We’d like to have you to dinner one evening, Father. Yes, we’ll have to do that.”
I heard her replace the receiver in its cradle. A moment later she reseated herself and draped her napkin in her lap. “You’ll need to get a good night’s sleep tonight, Samuel. You start first grade in the morning at Our Lady of Mercy.”
12
We spent the rest of the evening in a chilly silence. I pretended to watch television until my bedtime at seven thirty. The minute hand had no sooner struck the six when my mother and father spoke nearly simultaneously—“Time for bed, Samuel.” I needed no further encouragement this night.
I hurried upstairs, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and pulled on my pajamas. Then I slid beneath my bed and inched close to the floor vent. Ordinarily I had to press my ear to hear my parents’ conversations in the room below, but this evening I could hear them both just fine.
“Why on God’s green earth would you do that, Madeline?”
“I won’t have him discriminated against.”
“You drew more attention to him than if you stood on the church steps and blew a bugle.”
“Don’t be melodramatic. I stood up for my son; if that makes me a bad mother—”
“And don’t pull the martyr act. This isn’t about you, Maddy. This is about Sam. He is the one who has to walk into that school tomorrow and confront the bed you have made for him.”
“He will be stronger for it.”
“He’s six years old!”
“And what? You think it will get easier for him as he gets older?”
“Precisely my point—the cruelty will begin soon enough.”
Cruelty? What kind of school was OLM? Jefferson Elementary was looking better and better.
“The cruelty has already been inflicted by a Dominican nun who had the temerity to call my son, our son—”
“Who will be his principal—”
“The ‘devil boy.’”
“Good God!” my dad shouted. “And you want to send him there?”
“She won’t be his principal for long, not if I have anything to do with it.”
“Please. Are you going to get every teacher who is unkind to Samuel fired? What about every child who mistreats him—are you going to have them expelled?”
Unkind? Mistreatment? What had I gotten myself into?
“Don’t be ridiculous, Maxwell.” My mother rarely called my father Maxwell.
“Me being ridiculous? I’m not the one who made a spectacle of myself on local television.”
“I certainly didn’t make a spectacle of myself.”
“You indicted the entire community. Our community.” There was a lull in the battle. Then my father said, “Sam is different. There’s nothing that can be done about that.”
“He certainly is.”
“Then why draw more attention to him? Why make him stand out any more than he already does? Why not let him just . . .” My father did not finish.
“What? Blend in?”
“Yes, to whatever extent he can.”
“Because he can’t blend in, and the sooner Samuel learns that is the case, the sooner he can learn to deal with it.”
There was another silence. Then I heard my father say, “Devil Boy?”
Later, I lay in bed listening to the rhythmic flow of my mother’s prayers. The cadence of her Our Fathers and Hail Marys ordinarily helped me drift to sleep. Not this night. I contemplated breaking that piggy bank and using my stored prayers for a good case of the flu, but I knew the flu would not last, and, eventually, I would be forced to attend OLM and face the cruelty and the mistreatment, whatever that meant.
While lying in bed, I heard my mother’s footsteps ascending the stairs. Though I pretended to be asleep, I was a poor actor, and as she tucked me in, she asked, “Have you been crying?”
“Why am I different?” I asked.
She sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re not different.”
“No one else has red eyes. No one.”
“And who gave you those eyes?”
I swallowed hard. “God,” I said.
“God gave you extraordinary eyes, Samuel, because he intends for you to lead an extraordinary life.”
“What if I don’t want to? What if I just want to be like other kids?”
She brushed my hair from my forehead. Then she touched her finger to my chest. “You are every bit as normal as any other boy, in here, where it counts. Our skin, our hair, and our eyes are simply the shell that surrounds our soul, and our soul is who we are. What counts is on the inside.”
“People don’t make fun of what’s on the inside,” I said.
She sighed. “People make fun of things they don’t understand.”
“I don’t even know them. Why would they call me that?”
“They’ll like you when they get to know you.”
“She doesn’t. Sister Beatrice. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“She called me Devil Boy.”
“We don’t always know God’s will, Sam.”
“Is it his will for her to hate me?”
My mother seemed to give this further consideration. Her answer surprised me. “It might be,” she said. “No one knows.”
“Then how do you know?”
She stood. “Have faith, Samuel. Can you do that for me?”
I wasn’t sure I could. I wasn’t too happy with God at that moment. I’d spent prayers from my prayer bank, and that hadn’t worked out too well. “I guess so,” I said.
“Now close your beautiful eyes and go to sleep. You have a big day tomorrow.” She bent and kissed my forehead.
But I did not fall asleep, not right away. I lay awake wondering what kind of cruelty awaited me, the devil boy. I got an idea, closed my eyes, and in my mind I smashed the piggy bank and emptied out all my prayers.
13
That night I dreamed of a black crow with a sharp beak pecking at my eyes. It would be a recurring nightmare throughout my youth. When I awoke I was so tired, my stomach so upset, that for a brief moment I thought maybe God had answered my prayers and I did indeed have the flu. No such luck. Looking back, I now know that my mother had taken a stand. She’d drawn a line in the sand. Though I’m certain I didn’t completely understand it then, I sensed even at that tender young age that attending school that day was about far more than beginning my Catholic education. It was about what my mother had whispered in my ear when we had knelt before the Blessed Mother the prior morning.
Righteousness.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but when I looked in the bathroom mirror that morning, I saw the same two red orbs. Even though I’d used all my prayers, the Blessed Mother had not changed the color of my eyes. It was the first—but not the last—time I would empty my bank for that request and be disappointed.
My mother and father stood at the bottom of the stairs, my father documenting the occasion in black-and-white film with the camera. My worry and concern are etched in deep grooves on my forehead. And, watching the movie as an adult, it dawned on me that my mother had not recorded the prior morning—clear evidence she never expected OLM to accept me that day.
“First day. Big day,” my father said from behind the camera.
“Smile, Samuel,” my mother said. “This is the start of a new adventure.”
“I am smiling,” I recall saying. But in that film I do not look like a child about to embark on an exciting new adventure. I look like a child about to be sick.
My father lowered the camera. “What do you say we celebrate and have dinner at Santoro’s tonight?”
“I pulled out a pot roast from the freezer,” my mother said.
“We’ll eat it tomorrow night. Samuel, what do you say?”
Ordinarily the anticipation of eating Santoro’s pizza would have sent my spirits soaring, but this morning the thought of liquefied cheese and greasy pepperoni only made me queasier. “I don’t care,” I said, considering it the safest response.
“Well, I know I care,” my father said. “Santoro’s it is.”
I pushed Cheerios around a bowl until it was time for my father to leave for work. He embraced me in a long hug. “I love you, son,” he said and quickly turned to leave, though not before I saw a tear run down his cheek.
My mother did her best to calm me with details, explaining that OLM had two first-grade classrooms, 1A and 1B, each with twenty-three students, though I now would make twenty-four in class 1B. “An even two dozen,” she said. “That has to be lucky.”
I failed to see why.
“Father Brogan said you’ll be in 1B. That’s Sister Kathleen’s classroom. I hear she is a very good teacher. Finish up, Sam. We don’t want to be late your first day.”
14
As my mother drove down Cortez Avenue and parked on the street below the red steps leading up to the gated entrance, I noticed mothers and schoolchildren in their uniforms standing on the sidewalk. I didn’t know if this was usual or not, this being my first day. Then I noticed Dan standing alongside them and another man holding a large camera on his shoulder. A third man held a notebook and pen. I had the sense this was definitely not normal.
“Let’s go, Samuel,” my mother said, opening her car door. “Punctuality is a sign of respect for your teacher.”
When I stepped from the car, I felt the eyes of every mother and every kid staring at me. Mothers held their children’s hands as if to prevent them from venturing too close to a stray dog. The man with the camera was pointing it in my direction, and Dan looked to be directing him where to film. I was grateful when the kids began to climb the stairs until I looked up and saw Sister Beatrice in her black habit unlocking and opening the gate. My mother walked me up the steps with the other students, and that was the picture I would later find in her scrapbook, cut from the front page of the local newspaper, along with a short article on my admittance. Whether my ascent up those steps also aired on the evening news, I do not know, though I assume there was some follow-up story. We never again watched television in the kitchen.
Sister Beatrice stood inside the gates, as rigid as the white stone statue of the Blessed Mother in the courtyard behind her.
My mother nodded. “Sister.”
Sister Beatrice set her gaze upon me. “Samuel, welcome to Our Lady of Mercy,” she said. “You will be in Sister Kathleen’s classroom.” She pointed to her right. When my mother attempted to step forward, Sister Beatrice slid into her path. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hill. No adults are allowed past these gates without first obtaining a visitor’s pass from the office. It’s procedure . . . to protect the children. I’m sure you understand.”
My mother smiled in that way I’d seen before, closed lips, no visible teeth. Then she bent and arranged my shirt collar. “You have a good first day, Samuel, and mind Sister Kathleen. I’ll be here at three o’clock sharp to pick you up.” She straightened, and the two women again locked gazes. “I’m certain you will have the best first day of any child who has ever attended this school.”
I watched my mother descend the steps just as an ear-piercing bell clattered in the courtyard. The students scattered and disappeared into their classrooms. Sister Beatrice walked off. When she looked back, I took that as my clue to follow. Sister Beatrice never broke stride, and she did not otherwise acknowledge me, but I heard her loud and clear above the fading din of the bell. “Arrogance is a sin, Mr. Hill. God punishes the arrogant. Humility will be taught, and it will be a hard lesson learned.”
15
I spent much of that first day in dread of the cruelty and mistreatment that was to come, but not a single student even approached me. I caught just about every kid in my class staring at me at one point or another throughout the day, but not one said a word to me. Since I did not raise my hand to answer a question, I also did not speak. Sister Kathleen seemed content to leave me be.
At recess and at lunch I ate while sitting alone on the bloodred bleachers that separated the upper playground from the lower playground, which was where the older students played. Mothers called “lunch ladies” dutifully watched over us to prevent any “horseplay.” They also would not allow us to leave those bleachers until they had inspected our lunch boxes to ensure we did not waste food that could otherwise feed the starving children in Africa. I would have been content to remain on my bleacher the entire lunch period, but there was apparently a rule against sitting, because a lunch lady instructed me to “go get some exercise.”
I wandered the playground aimlessly. When I did muster the courage to approach my classmates playing kickball or wall ball, they either treated me as if I were invisible or took the ball and ran to another area of the playground. Once or twice I heard a whisper behind me. “Devil Boy.”
The entire week went pretty much the same as that first day, which was problematic, because each night at dinner I was expected to provide my parents a detailed accounting of my day—something, I could tell, they awaited with great anticipation. Not wanting to disappoint, I did what any six-year-old would have done. I lied.
“I made another friend,” I said Friday evening when my father asked how the day had gone.
“Another one?” My father lowered his fork. “My word, but you’re popular.”
“They all want me to be on their kickball team,” I said. “They had a big fight about it.”
“I hope not a fistfight,” my mother said, passing a bowl of peas.
“No, just some yelling.”
“I don’t doubt it, with all those home runs you’ve been kicking. Maddy, we might have ourselves a soccer star.”
“I don’t know,” I said, concerned I’d possibly overdone it.
I convinced myself these were not real lies—not the kind that caused a person to burn in hell, anyway. These fit squarely in the category of lies my mother had once explained were okay if they were intended to avoid hurting a person’s feelings. I knew how badly my mother and father wanted me to fit in, and the smiles that lit up their faces while sitting at that table were worth the daily pain of my isolation. I thought it the perfect plan.
“You’ll have to invite some of your friends over after school to play,” my mother said, which nearly caused me to choke on a piece of steak.
“But my word, where will we fit them all?” my father asked. “We’ve created a regular Bobby Kennedy. Do they have student government? Maybe you could run for class president.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think you have to be older before they let you do that stuff.”
“Any problems?” my mother would ask.
“No,” I’d quickly say.
My father’s concern that others would be cruel seemed as far from reality as the world I created each night at our dinner table.
All of that would soon change, however.
16
The following Monday, I took what had become my customary spot on a bleacher near a cinder-block wall that provided a wedge of shade in which I tried to hide from the lunch ladies. I had no trouble getting this spot. As I ascended the bleachers, the other students would either move to another bleacher or slide away. The void expanded as each student quickly ate, eager to depart for their all-important exercise.
