Secret Rivalries

           Being in a class with another kid who has the same name was a drag. It made extra work for everyone, and there is always some kind of confusion or rivalry. Michelle Brewer and I were both in Mrs. Plescia's second grade class; we were known as Michelle G. and Michelle B. We were both petite, but Michelle B. was blonde with dainty English features, and I looked her opposite: dark-haired and indigenous. Our moms were friends, sort of -- they both hung out at the Logger's Club, one of the three bars in the one block radius that made up downtown Tuolumne. My mom and Maureen were both interested in the same guy, so by extension Michelle B. and I became rivals too. Robert Mason was a tall, rugged, blond haired guy, who sometimes wore Indian leather and who all women loved. They would both eventually date him but at different times.

         Michelle and I we just went to school and pretended we were normal. I wore dresses with tights and kept my hair neatly braided. I was polite, respectful, and easy going with the teachers. Michelle kept her unusually long fingernails clean, smiled when she was in trouble or spoke in a cutesy voice. But as extensions of our single, beer-drinking, pot-smoking, bar-carousing mothers, we were at risk of being exposed. 
         We should have been friends, but mostly we tried to pretend we didn't know the other, hadn't both stood around in front of the bar, closer to the little store as cover, waiting for our moms to finish their beers and come home. Michelle's mom, Maureen, also a pretty, petite blond, had a son and a daughter, and was on welfare just like my mom. Just like mine, she had to fill out a monthly income report, meet with the family's social worker in Sonora in the hospital building, and buy food with brightly colored food stamps -- the mark of poverty. The monthly income report had to be filled out every month and sent in or hand delivered by a set date in order for a family to receive its benefits: a check for cash, food stamps, and those green medi-cal stickers that my brother and I used to stick all over each other once we received a fresh batch to be used in the new month. My mom complained about those income reports each month as she was filling them out, usually at the last minute and in need of a ride to Sonora to get them there on time. 
         "The same fucking thing every God damn month," she'd say, rummaging through her purse for the envelope sent by the welfare office. "Every god damn month."
         I had heard this tirade before. I knew that they always asked about how many people lived in the house, if the recipient has made any money, or received any cash gifts, and on and on. And most of the time, the information that she put on those forms was the same information that she had included the month before that and that and that, but sometimes she did lie -- usually about whether or not she was "co-habitating," or not. It seems the welfare system liked knowing if they're single parent recipients were getting laid or not and/or whether parties responsible for making sexual contributions to the head of household were also contributing financially. If that were the case the recipients’ benefits would need to be "adjusted." Michelle B.'s mom, Maureen had to fill out the same forms, and decide whether or not to report the short-term live-in boyfriend whom she had hoped would have lasted longer than he did, not necessarily expecting him to begin providing for her children of her former husband, or as it turned out, to stick around.
         For these reasons, Michelle B. and I were sort of friends; we sometimes played together on the weekends when our mothers took us with them to visit their mutual friends. When our mothers weren't getting along or were competing for the same man, or accusing the other of being bad mothers, we'd argue and Michelle would pinch me on the underside of my upper arm with her long fingernails. At school, we kept our distance, always still aware of what the other was doing, or saying, and to whom.
         We made an unspoken effort not to be associated with the other for several years.  We probably weren't the only welfare kids who worked hard to not look shabby and to blend in. Michelle used her petite femininity, and I just tried to stay out of trouble. As I got older, the biggest complaint from my teachers was that I talked too much in class, but not in second and third grade. In those early grades, I kept to myself and spent a lot of time observing the other students act up and the teachers' reactions. 

         In Ms. Plescia's second grade class, it was Jimbo Dry who had become known for getting into trouble. Jimbo was stout and muscular in the second grade. I suppose his stature, his dark skin, and his often serious face intimidated some teachers; it seemed to make our second grade teacher, Mrs. Plescia angry. Jimbo had what I recognize now as a great deal of difficulty with authority figures and anger issues. And maybe this was the case because his most important authority figures weren't meeting his needs, or because being male and Me-wuk, he was expected to act up and probably to fail, or some combination of the two. Our teacher, Mrs. Plescia, also had anger issues. She was widowed and lived with her sisters in a mansion that bordered the school grounds. One of her sisters, Mrs. Robinson, also taught at Summerville Elementary school; I had her in first grade. Mrs. Plescia was what kids called a strict teacher. She often warned our second grade class to behave, threatening to turn into a "grumble snort" if we didn't
         "Class, you know what happens when you don't listen when I'm talking," she'd warn. "I turn into a grumble snort. You don't want me turning into a grumble snort do you?"

         Frankly, I never saw much of difference between the real Ms. Plescia and her grumble snort, but I did see her very very angry one time, and it was at Jimbo.
         The class had been particularly rambunctious that day and Mrs. Plescia had already threatened us with the grumble snort several times and asked Jimbo several times to do as he had been told. While transitioning from working at our desks to the next activity, there was lots of talking, the sounds of desks opening and closing, chairs scraping the floor, and children milling about. But a much louder commotion brewing between Jimbo and Mrs. Plescia stopped time, freezing each kid in place.
         "I said, sit down," Mrs. Plescia shouted at Jimbo, her face in his.

         Jimbo just stood still, his arms crossed in front of him.
         "Sit at your desk. I said, sit down" Mrs. Plescia repeated, this time leaning in and grabbing Jimbo by the elbow.  
         With that, his face suddenly a dark, dark red, Jimbo, went toward his desk. Half growling, half shouting, he threw the desk over, going immediately to the empty desk in front of him. Mrs. Plescia who had jumped out of the way of the first desk, was now lunging for Jimbo, who was lunging for another desk. Just as he grabbed a corner, Mrs. Plescia grabbed one of his arms, put him in a kind of bear hug, and dragged him writhing and half growling, half screaming out of the room, crashing into empty chairs and desks with kids sitting in them, their mouths agape, along the way. Stunned into complete blind obedience, each second grader went to his or her seat if not already there and sat quietly until a teacher from another classroom came and told us to read quietly to ourselves. We remained in a silent shock until Mrs. Plescia returned alone to the classroom a few minutes later, still breathing hard. We were quiet and on our best behavior for the rest of the afternoon.       

                                                                                                                                                    
         Though no one mentioned his name for the rest of the day or the incident ever again, I couldn't help thinking about Jimbo. Why couldn't he listen to the teacher? Why did Mrs. Plescia get so angry? Didn’t Jimbo know what he did meant? How what he did was now always going to be associated with who he was? It was the kind of attention I avoided, the reason Michelle B. and I pretended we didn't know each other, or that our lives were any different from any of the other kids in our class -- except Jimbo. We certainly were not like Jimb; that much had been made clear. 
         I managed to lay low for a month or so after the Jimbo incident which was still fresh in my mind. I managed not to bring any unwanted attention to myself, my image still intact. I couldn't say the same for Mrs. Plescia who had taken to reading to us often from her favorite Mrs. Piggle Wiggle chapter books, but who we were all still afraid of. One morning after reading a chapter or more, the class was getting restless, and Michelle spoke out of turn.  
         "My mom saw Michelle G's mom at the Logger's Club on Tuesday night. She was dancing and she wasn't wearing any underwear."
         Stunned, I turned my head with a quick jerk in Michelle's direction. Waiting for an audible reaction from the class, she looked smug, her pointy nose in the air. But the room was mostly quiet, probably waiting for my reaction. 

         And I hadn't been there, but I could see it. The Loggers Club. The juke box playing "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy. My mom dancing with some guy, the only lights coming from the juke box display, the lamp over the pool table in the back of the room, and the low lights at the bar. Hazy lines of cigarette smoke and mom dancing in circles, her hands over head, her cotton prairie skirt lifting, lifting, floating higher and higher on a naked gust of wind.
         I didn't say a word.

         And I didn't look at Mrs. Plescia either, but I knew that she was looking at me.

Blondes Have More Fun

      Mr. Lark, the school’s double-duty vice principal and music teacher, called me into his office early one morning just after the bell rang. I was surprised he couldn’t wait to see me until band practice later that day but happy about it anyway. When I got to the front office, I was asked to wait while Mrs. Handy poked her head into Mr. Lark’s office to let him know that I had arrived. She motioned for me to enter his office, and I, always pleased to be in Mr. Lark’s company, practically sprinted the short distance from the front desk to Mr. Lark’s door. The name plate said, “Donald Lark – Vice Principal.” I was in fourth grade, and I had never been inside his office before. There was a large window near his desk that looked out onto the Kindergarten class’ play yard and beyond that the parking lot.

      I was one of Mr. Lark’s favorites, or at least that’s how I saw it. He gave me a vocal solo in the annual Christmas program for two years in a row until I decided to play the flute in the third grade, so I could later join the school band under his tutelage. As a second grader, he gave me one of the coveted solos in “Silent Night”, and I remember feeling special singing about Jesus. As a third grader, just when I started getting interested in boys, Mr. Lark gave me a solo in “Let It Snow;” perhaps I was one of the few girls who could pull off the flirtatious verse and chorus, “The weather outside is frightful/ the fire is so delightful/ and since there’s no place to go/ let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” I’ll never forget how pleased he was when I played up the flirtatious lyrics with my third grade version of charm and nailed the sentiment that I thought he was going for. My being a poor Mexican-American girl from across town never factored into my solo potential, and so with “Let It Snow,” I left baby Jesus innocence behind and was well on my way to fourth grade. Though, to my horror, Mr. Lark was beginning his career as an administrator. I had always thought he wanted nothing more but to bring his guitar to each of the lower grades to sing, “There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza,” “John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt,” and “Old Dan Tucker,” that song about a man who washed his face in a frying pan and combed his hair with a wagon wheel.

      As soon as Mr. Lark greeted me with a bright smile, I realized I had been called to his office for reasons other than to see his new digs.

      “Michelle, do you know why you’re here?”

      What I had done to Melissa Wheeling the day before suddenly popped into my head.

      “I think so,” I said, looking out the window toward the parking lot where I had grabbed Melissa's precious white blond hair and yanked her to the ground.

      “You know that there’s no fighting allowed on school grounds; do you want to tell me about what happened?”

      I trusted Mr. Lark a great deal, so I told him the truth. I also suspected that since he spent so much time on the play yard that he had some idea that I was involved in a very complicated love triangle.

      Melissa Wheeling, blond-haired, blue-eyed Melissa Wheeling, who had been my friend, had stolen my boyfriend Donnie Baugh. Donnie and I had been carrying on for a whole month or so, and to make matters worse, he lived up the hill from me. We’d walk home together and kiss on the hill above my house to the intoxicating scent of wild lilac until our lips were sore and until after our parents had started wondering where we were. I actually don’t think I mentioned the kissing to Mr. Lark, but he had a daughter who also in fourth grade and who was just as frisky and much more popular.

      “So Donnie broke up with you to go out with Melissa and that’s why you pushed her to the ground?”

      “I didn’t push her Mr. Lark; I pulled her by the hair, and not because Donnie broke up with me. I did it because of what she said. And we were off school grounds, out of the parking lot.”

      “But you were on the sidewalk.”

      We were on the sidewalk, and Melissa and Donnie were showing off. They were holding hands, and when I called Donnie’s name, Melissa turned around and said, ‘Blondes have more fun,’ flipping her white blond hair over her shoulder. So I grabbed it and yanked her to the ground.

      With a slight hint of amusement showing on his appropriate administrator face, Mr. Lark listened intently to my version of the story, nodding from time to time. Sure he was the vice-principal, but he was also the school’s music teacher, my music teacher, a music lover. Surely he had seen the recent Rod Stewart album, the front showing Rod wrapped in a leopard-print-clad blonde, himself a blond. Surely he had heard the song that had been all over the radio that year, “If you want my body, and you think I’m sexy,” surely he saw the back side of the album, Blondes Have More Fun, which showed a mischievous-faced Rod with the dark-skinned brunette.      

      “I see,” said Mr. Lark with a twinkle in his eye. He tried not to smile, but I’m sure I saw the beginnings of one as he turned to look toward the window where I had been motioning. “Michelle, you know you’re not supposed to be fighting at all, and not on school grounds, right?”

      “Yes,” I said. His words stung, but when I looked out the window to where the tussle took place, I was still glad I hadn’t let Melissa get away with pointing out just how different I was from her, Ronnie, and just about everyone else.

      “I’m supposed to keep you after school for forgetting, but given that,” he paused, cleared his throat and then smiled wide, “well given that you’ve never been in any trouble like this before, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

     And it wasn’t. Donnie broke up with Melissa soon after. The word on the playground was that Donnie broke up with Melissa because she had bad breath. I felt secretly avenged. And I had learned something back in Mr. Lark’s office, something about being discreet. It didn't feel good that everyone was talking bad about Melissa. I tried catching her eye, to be her friend again. Still, I was glad when she moved away.