Just Another Kid: Each was a child no one could reach – until one amazing teacher embraced them all. Torey Hayden
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school records weren’t going to be forwarded on for some time, she said, so she hoped she could help me prepare for the boy. And she did help. From her came a picture clearer than anything I would have gotten from a school file.
Shamie was the last of eight children, a gentle, artistic boy who’d been doted on as the baby of a large family. He wasn’t what could be called a bright lad, Mrs. Lonrho said. None of Cath’s were geniuses. But he was good hearted and hardworking.
Shamie’s family, like Shemona and Geraldine’s, was deeply embroiled in the politics of Northern Ireland. Two of his brothers were “Provies,” members of the Provisional IRA, complete with prison sentences to show for it. His mother still worked in a pub that had been bombed twice in the previous four years by opposing groups of loyalist and republican supporters. Shamie’s family had been close to Geraldine and Shemona’s. They lived only a few hundred yards apart on the same street, and indeed, it had been in Shamie’s garage that his uncle had committed suicide. Shamie himself had been very close to this uncle. He had intended to apprentice into his uncle’s electrical business when he came of age, and he had spent a lot of time at his uncle’s house, helping him with his work. Thus, after the uncle’s arrest and release, the boys at school had begun taunting Shamie and calling him an informer too. It was nothing serious, Mrs. Lonrho said. They wouldn’t have really hurt Shamie, but he’d always been an oversensitive lad. He took it seriously. He began to suffer bouts of depression, insomnia and restlessness. He became convinced that he and his family, like his cousins’ family, would be killed.
While listening to Mrs. Lonrho, I developed great sympathy for Shamie. To be taunted as a traitor in a place where people were killed for doing no more than selling building supplies to the opposing side would give me a fright too. Where did the abusive mouths of schoolboys leave off and the real threats begin? Shemona and Geraldine and their family lived only three houses down the street from Shamie. His fears seemed fairly realistic to me.
In the end, Shamie decided that he too wanted to come live with Auntie Bet and Uncle Mike in America, as Geraldine and Shemona had. He wanted to get away from Belfast altogether. And immediately. He couldn’t wait, he’d told his parents. He couldn’t last it out until school-leaving age at sixteen. He said he knew he’d be dead by sixteen.
Shamie arrived in my room six days later. He was a thin, bony boy, looking considerably younger than thirteen, with black hair cut in a style reminiscent of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. His features were soft and feminine, the femininity accented by the thickest, longest eyelashes I’d ever known not to originate in a drugstore. The dark lashes seemed to overpower his eyes, which were a nondescript bluish color, giving him a dreamy, almost sleepy look.
“This is our cousin Shamie,” Geraldine announced with tremendous pride. “He’s come all the way from Belfast. He was just there last Friday. Weren’t you? He’s our Auntie Cath and Uncle Joe’s Shamie, who lives just three doors down, at 44 Greener Terrace. That’s his address. Our house is 38 Greener Terrace.”
“It isn’t now,” Shamie said. “You don’t live there now. Your house number is 3018 Scenic View Drive.” He smiled, pleased with his knowledge. What I noticed, listening to him, was how much of her accent Geraldine had already lost. She sounded broadly American against Shamie’s thick brogue.
“I’m going back,” Geraldine said. “When I’m grown up, I’m going back to live at 38. And Shemona too, huh, Shemona? Shemona and I are going back to live together at 38 Greener Terrace.”
“Can’t do. It’s sold.”
“Shall do, Shamie. We shall buy it back.”
“How silly. You haven’t any money.”
Geraldine’s lower jaw jutted forward in a defiant expression. “Shemona and I,” she said with great importance, “we shall get jobs. We’ll earn bags of money and buy 38 back.”
“It’ll be all different anyhow, Geraldine,” Shamie replied.
“We’ll make it just as it was. And we’ll live there like before. Shan’t we, Shemona?”
I stood by, bemused.
“Well,” said Shamie with a shrug. “You can, if you want. I shan’t go back. I shall never go back. I’m staying here forever.”
Following the brief after-school conversation with Dr. Taylor, I felt more at ease in her presence, although I obviously hadn’t disarmed her any. She still continued to be aloof and uncommunicative when we encountered one another; however, I ceased to take it personally. I perceived it less as directed hostility and more as just an unfortunate personality trait, and that helped me. I was no longer frightened of her.
What helped even more was that she stopped coming to school drunk. I had been on my guard for the first week or so after the conference with Tom Considyne, but I think he must have said something to her, because from then on, she showed up sober. I flattered myself by hoping that perhaps our after-school discussion might have helped. Indeed, I went so far in flattering myself as to think perhaps she was now frightened of me and didn’t dare come to school drunk. It was a warming thought, and I relaxed considerably.
Then the second week of November arrived. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and Dr. Taylor was sitting at the wheel of her car. As had become our custom, she did not get out. Instead, I opened the rear door and helped Leslie into her seat belt. But that afternoon, when I opened the door, I was assaulted by the smell of licorice breath candies and alcohol.
Now what?
For lack of something better to do, I hastily unbuckled Leslie’s seat belt, pulled her back out of the car and shut the door. Then I stepped back up on the curb with Leslie, who was looking perplexed but stayed calm.
The window on the passenger side lowered with an electric whirr. “What are you doing?” Dr. Taylor asked, irritation naked in her voice.
I said nothing and did not lean down so that she could see my face. Instead, I turned Leslie around, and we started back for the school building.
The far-side door opened, and Dr. Taylor got out of her Mercedes. “What are you doing?” she asked, over the top of her car.
I paused and looked back at her. “I’m going to take Leslie into the office and call a taxi for her.”
The alcohol certainly didn’t impair Dr. Taylor’s reflexes any, because she was around the car and up in front of Leslie and me faster than I probably could have done it sober.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “This is my child. I’ll take her anywhere I damned well please.”
“Let’s not make a big deal out of it, okay? I’ll get her a taxi. You go meet her at the other end.”
She glared, crocodile eyes widening. “Give her to me.” The words were said very individually, each emphasized carefully.
“No.” I’d crossed the Rubicon and I think we both knew it. There was a very, very long exchange of glares between us. “Move aside, please,” I said.
But Dr. Taylor gave no indication of backing down. Her eyes narrowed, taking away some of the frightening reptilian coldness but making her look a whole lot angrier.
“You do this,” she said, “and I’ll see you destroyed.”
Not much to say to that.
“You can be assured that the first phone call I’ll make when I reach home will be to my lawyer.” Her voice was very low and quiet.
I swallowed.
“I don’t know who you think you are,” she said, “but I can tell you right now who you aren’t. And that’s a teacher in this school. Because you’re never going to teach in this town again. Believe me.”
Not having any other way to defend myself, I simply stood silent and stared at her. It was a bluffer’s trick, something I’d learned from my elective mutes. She must have learned