One Child Part 1

One Child.

by Torey L. Hayden.

Prologue.

FOR THE BETTER PART OF MY ADULT LIFE I have been working with emotionally disturbed children. The autumn of my freshman year in college I took a volunteer position in a day program for disturbed and disadvantaged preschoolers. From that season I have remained captivated by the perplexing aspects of mental illness in childhood. Since that time I have acquired three degrees; devoted several years as a teacher's aide, a teacher, a university instructor and a psychiatric researcher; lived in five states; and worked in private day-care centers, public schools, locked psychiatric wards and state inst.i.tutions, all the while pursuing the elusive answers to these children, the magic keys that will finally open them to my understanding. Yet, within me, I have long known there are no keys, and that for some children, even love will never be enough. But belief in the human soul escapes all reason and flies beyond the frail fingers of our knowledge.

I am often asked about my work. Perhaps the commonest question is Isn't it frustrating? Isn't it frustrating, the college student asks, to live day to day with violence, poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, s.e.xual and physical abuse, neglect and apathy? Isn't it frustrating, the regular cla.s.sroom teacher asks, to work so hard for so little in return? Isn't it frustrating, they all ask, to know your greatest success will probably never have more than an approximation of normalcy; to know that these very little children have been sentenced to live a life which, by our standards, will never be productive, contributing, or normal? Isn't it frustrating?

No. No, it isn't really. They are simply children, frustrating at times as all children are. But they are also gratifyingly compa.s.sionate and hauntingly perceptive. Madness alone seems to allow the whole truth to be spoken.

But these children are more. They are courageous. While we turn on the evening news to hear of new excitements and conquests on some distant front, we miss the very real dramas that play themselves out among us. This is unfortunate, because there is bravery here unsurpa.s.sed by any outside event. Some of these children live with such haunted nightmares in their heads that every move is fraught with unknown terror. Some live with such violence and perversity that it cannot be captured in words. Some live without the dignity accorded animals. Some live without love. Some live without hope. Yet they endure. And for the most part they accept, not knowing any other way.

This book tells of only one child. It was not written to evoke pity. Nor was it intended to bring praise on one teacher. Nor to depress those who have found peace in not knowing. Instead, it is an answer to the question of frustration in working with the mentally ill. It is a song to the human soul, because this little girl is like all my children. Like all of us. She is a survivor.

CHAPTER 1.

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.

The article was a small one, just a few paragraphs stuck on page six under the comics. It told of a six-year-old girl who had abducted a neighborhood child. On that cold November evening, she had taken the three-year-old boy, tied him to a tree in a nearby woodlot and burned him. The boy was currently in a local hospital in critical condition. The girl had been taken into custody.

I read the article in the same casual manner that I read the rest of the newspaper and felt an offhand what-is-this-world-coming-to revulsion. Then later in the day it came back to me while I was was.h.i.+ng the dishes. I wondered what the police had done with the girl. Could you put a six-year-old in jail? I had random Kafkaesque visions of the child knocking about in our old, drafty city jail. I thought about it only in a faceless, impersonal manner. But I should have known.

I should have known that no teacher would want a six-year-old with that background in his or her cla.s.sroom. No parent would want a child like that attending school with his or her child. No one would want that kid loose.

I should have known she would end up in my program.

I taught what was affectionately referred to in our school district as the "garbage cla.s.s." It was the last year before the effort to mainstream special children would begin; it was the last year to pigeonhole all the odd children into special cla.s.ses. There were cla.s.ses for the r.e.t.a.r.ded, cla.s.ses for the emotionally disturbed, cla.s.ses for the physically handicapped, cla.s.ses for the behaviorally disordered, cla.s.ses for the learning disabled, and then there was my cla.s.s. I had the eight who were left over, the eight who defied cla.s.sification, I was the last stop before the inst.i.tution. It was the cla.s.s for young human refuse.

The spring before I had been teaching as a resource person, supplying help to emotionally disturbed and learning disabled children who attended regular cla.s.srooms part of the day. I had been in the district for some time in a variety of capacities; so I had not been surprised when Ed Somers, the Director of Special Education, had approached me in May and had asked if I would be interested in teaching the garbage cla.s.s the next fall. He knew I had had experience with severely disturbed children and that I liked small children. And that I liked a challenge. He chuckled self-consciously after saying that, aware of how contrived the flattery sounded, but he was desperate enough to try it anyway.

I had said yes, but not without reservations. However, I longed for my own cla.s.sroom again with my own set of kids. I also wanted to be free of an unintentionally oppressive princ.i.p.al. He was a good-hearted man, but we did not see things in the same way. He objected to my casual dress, to my disorderly cla.s.sroom, and to my children addressing me by my first name. These were minor issues, but like all small things, they became the major sore spots. I knew that by doing Ed the favor of taking this cla.s.s, allowances would be made for my jeans and my sloppiness and my familiarity with the kids. So I accepted the job, confident that I could overcome any of the obstacles it presented.

My confidence flagged considerably between the signing of the contract and the end of the first day of school. The first blow came when I learned I was to be placed back into the same school I had been in and under the same princ.i.p.al. Now not only did he have to worry about me but also about eight very peculiar children. Immediately we were all placed in a room in the annex which we shared with the gymnasium and nothing else. We were totally isolated from the rest of the school. My room would have been large enough if the children had been older and more self-contained. But for eight small children and two adults, plus ten desks, three tables, four bookcases and countless chairs that seemed to mate and multiply in the night, the room was hopelessly crowded. So out went the teacher's desk, two bookshelves, a file cabinet, all but nine little chairs and eventually all the student desks. Moreover, the room was long and narrow with only one window at the far end. It had originally been designed as a testing and counseling s.p.a.ce, so it was wood-paneled and carpeted. I would have gladly traded all that grandeur for a room that did not need lights on all day or for a linoleum floor more impervious to spills and stains.

The state law required that I have a full-time aide because I was carrying the maximum load of severely disturbed children. I had been hoping for one of the two competent women I had worked with the year before, but no, I received a newly hired one. In our community, which had in close proximity a state hospital, a state prison and a huge migrant workers' camp, there was a staggering welfare list. Consequently, unskilled jobs were usually reserved for the unemployed listed with Social Services. Although I did not consider my aide position an unskilled one, Welfare did, and the first day of school I was confronted with a tall, gangly Mexican-American who spoke more Spanish than English. Anton was twenty-nine and had never graduated from high school. Well, no, he admitted, he had never worked with children. Well, no, he never especially wanted to. But you see, he explained, you had to take the job they gave you or you lost benefits. He dropped his gargantuan frame onto one of the kindergarten-sized chairs, mentioning that if this job worked out, it would be the first time he had ever stayed north all winter instead of following the other migrant workers back to California. So then we were two. Later, after the school year started, I acquired a fourteen-year-old junior high school student who devoted her two hours of study hall to coming over and working with my cla.s.s each day. Thus armed, I met the children.

I had no unusual expectations for these eight. I had been in the business long enough to have lost my naivete. Besides, I had learned long before that even when I was shocked or surprised, my best defense was to never show it. It was safer that way.

The first to arrive that morning in August had been Peter. Eight years old and a husky black with a scraggly Afro, Peter had a robust body that belied the deteriorating neurological condition that caused severe seizures and increasingly violent behavior. Peter burst into the room in anger, cursing and shouting. He hated school, he hated me, he hated this cla.s.s and he wasn't going to stay in this s.h.i.+tty room and I couldn't make him.

Next was Tyler, who startled me by being a girl. She slunk in behind her mother, her dark curly head down. Tyler was also eight and had already tried to kill herself twice. The last time the drain cleaner she had drunk had eaten away part of her esophagus. Now her throat bore an artificial tube and numerous red-rimmed surgical scars in ghoulish testimony to her skill.

Max and Freddie were both hauled in screaming. Max, who was a big, strapping, blond six-year-old, carried the label of infantile autism. He cried and squawked and twirled around the room flapping his hands. His mother apologized because he always acted so unpredictably to change. She looked at me wearily and let the relief to be free of him for a few hours show too plainly in her eyes. Freddie was seven and weighed 94 pounds. The fat rolled over the edges of his clothing and squeezed out between the b.u.t.tons on his s.h.i.+rt. Once allowed to flop on the floor, he ceased crying, ceased everything, in fact, to lie lifelessly in a heap. One report said that he, too, was autistic. One stated that he was profoundly r.e.t.a.r.ded. One admitted not knowing.

I had known Sarah, age seven, for three years. I had worked with her when she was in preschool. A victim of physical and s.e.xual abuse, Sarah was an angry, defiant child. She had been electively mute throughout the previous year when she had been in a special first grade cla.s.s at another school. She had refused to talk to anyone except her mother and sister. We smiled upon seeing each other, both of us thankful for a familiar face.

A smartly dressed, middle-aged woman carried in a beautiful, doll-like child. The little girl looked like a picture from a children's fas.h.i.+on magazine, her soft blond hair carefully styled, her crisp dress spotless. Her name was Susannah Joy, she was six, and this was her first time in school. My heart winced. To be placed in my cla.s.s upon entrance to school was not a hopeful sign. The doctors had told the parents that Susannah would never be normal; she was a childhood schizophrenic. She apparently hallucinated both visually and auditorily, and spent most of her days weeping and rocking her body back and forth. She rarely spoke and even when she did, seldom meaningfully. The mother's eyes implored me to perform the magic ritual necessary to turn her fairy child back to normal. My heart ached seeing those pleading eyes, because they signified nonacceptance. I knew the pain and agony that lay ahead for those parents as they learned that none of us would ever have the type of magic they needed for Susannah Joy.

Last to come were William and Guillermo. Both were nine. William was a lanky, pasty-faced boy haunted by fears of water and darkness and cars and vacuum cleaners and the dust under his bed. To protect himself, William engaged in elaborate rituals, compulsively touching himself or chanting little spells under his breath. Guillermo was one of the countless Mexican-American migrants who came to work in the fields each year. He was an angry boy but not uncontrollable. Unfortunately, he was also blind. At first I was stymied that he had been placed in my cla.s.s, but was informed that the cla.s.ses for the blind and partially sighted did not feel equipped to deal with his aggressive behaviors. Well, I thought, that made us even. I did not feel equipped to deal with his blindness.

So, then we were ten, and with Whitney, the junior high student, we were in all eleven. When first I surveyed this motley bunch of children and my equally motley staff, I felt a wave of despair. How would we ever be a cla.s.s? How could I ever get them doing math or all the other miracles that needed accomplis.h.i.+ng in nine months? Three were not toilet trained, two more had accidents. Three could not talk, one wouldn't. Two would not shut up. One could not see. Certainly it was more of a challenge than I had bargained for.

But we managed. Anton learned to change diapers. Whitney learned to get urine out of the carpet. And I learned Braille. The princ.i.p.al, Mr. Collins, learned not to come over to the annex. Ed Somers learned to hide. And so we became a cla.s.s.

By Christmas vacation we belonged to one another and I was beginning to look forward to each new day. Sarah had begun to talk regularly again; Max was learning his letters; Tyler was smiling occasionally; Peter didn't fly into rages quite so often; William could pa.s.s all the light switches in the hallway to the lunchroom and not say one charm to protect himself; Guillermo was begrudgingly learning Braille. And Susannah Joy and Freddie? Well, we were still trying with them.

I had read the newspaper article in late November and had forgotten it. But I shouldn't have. I should have known that sooner or later we would be twelve.

Ed Somers appeared in my room the day after school resumed following Christmas vacation. He came early, his kind face swathed in that apologetic expression that I was beginning to realize meant trouble for me. It was the expression attached to things like not getting a special tutor for Guillermo, or yet another hopeless report from the newest doctor Susannah's parents had found. Ed wanted things to be different; I believe he genuinely did, which made it impossible for me to be angry with him.

"There's going to be a new child in your cla.s.s," he said, his face mirroring his resitance to tell me.

I stared at him a long moment, not comprehending. I already had the state-allowed maximum and had never antic.i.p.ated having another child. "I have eight now, Ed."

"I know, Torey. But this is a special case. We don't have any place to put her. Your cla.s.s is the only option we have."

"But I've got eight kids already," I repeated dumbly. "That is all I can have."

Ed looked pained. He was a big bear of a man, tall and muscular like a football player but padded with the extra softness of middle age. His hair was nearly gone and what was left he had carefully combed across the s.h.i.+ny dome. But above all, Ed was gentle and I was amazed that he had ever made it to such a high position in education, a profession not known for its kind treatment of gentle people. But perhaps that was his secret, because I never failed to soften when he looked so hurt by what he was having to do to me.

"What's so special about this kid?" I asked tentatively.

"This is that girl who burned the little boy in November. They took her out of school and made arrangements to send her to the state hospital. But there hasn't been an opening in the children's unit yet. So the kid's been home a month and getting into all sorts of trouble. Now the social worker is beginning to ask why we aren't doing anything for her."

"Can't they put her on homebound?" I asked. A number of my children had been taught by homebound, a term referring to the practice of sending a teacher into the home to teach a child when for some reason he could not attend school. Often, severely disturbed children were handled in this manner until appropriate placement could be found.

Ed frowned at the floor. "No one is willing to work with her."

"The kid's six years old," I said in surprise. "They're scared of a six-year-old?"

He shrugged, his silence telling me more about this child than words could have.

"But I already have all the children I can handle."

"Choose a child to be transferred. We have to put this child in here, Torey. It will just be temporary. Until a place opens up at the state hospital. But we have to put her in here. This is the only place equipped to handle her. This is the only place she'll fit."

"You mean I'm the only one idiotic enough to take her."

"You can pick whom you want transferred."

"When is she coming?"

"The eighth."

By that point the children were beginning to arrive and I had to prepare for our first day back from vacation. Sensing my need to get to work, Ed nodded and left. He knew that, if given time, I would do it Ed knew that, for all my bravado, I was a pushover.

After telling Anton the news, I looked over the children. As we went through the day I kept asking myself who should go. Guillermo was the obvious choice, simply because I was least equipped to teach him. But what about Freddie or Susannah Joy? Neither was making progress of much note. Anyone could lug them around and change their pants. Or maybe Tyler. She wasn't so suicidal now; she hardly ever spoke of killing herself anymore; she no longer drew those black-crayoned pictures. A resource teacher could probably handle her. I looked at each one of them, wondering where they would go and how they would make it. And how our room would be without them. I knew in my heart none of them would survive the rigors of a less-sheltered cla.s.s. None of them was ready. Nor was I ready to give them up, nor give up on them.

"Ed?" I clutched the receiver tightly because it kept slipping in my sweating hand. "I don't want to transfer any of my kids. We're doing so well together. I can't choose any one of them."

"Torey, I told you we have to put that girl in there. I'm really sorry. I hate to do it to you, but there isn't any other place."

I stared morosely at the bulletin board beside the phone with all its proclamations of events my children never could attend. I was feeling used. "Can I have nine?"

"Will you take nine?"

"It's against the law. Do I get another aide?"

"We'll see."

"Does that mean yes?"

"I hope so," Ed replied. "But we'll just have to see. Will you need another desk?"

"What I need is another teacher. Or another room."

"Will you settle for another desk?"

"No. I don't have any desks. There wasn't room for the first eight. So we just sit on the carpet or at the tables. No, I don't need another desk. Just send me the kid."

CHAPTER 2.

SHE ARRIVED JANUARY EIGHTH. Between the time I had agreed to accept her and the morning she arrived, I had heard nothing, received no files, learned no background. All I knew was what I had read in a two-paragraph article under the comics on page six a month and a half earlier. But I suppose it did not matter. Nothing could have prepared me adequately for what I got.

Ed Somers brought her, holding tightly on to her wrist and dragging her behind him. Mr. Collins also came out to the annex with Ed. "This is going to be your new teacher," Ed explained. "And this will be your new room."

We looked at one another. Her name was Sheila. She was six and a half, almost; a tiny little mite of a thing with matted hair, hostile eyes and a very bad smell. I was surprised she was so small. I had expected something bigger. The three-year-old must have been nearly as tall as she was. Clad in worn denim overalls and a well-faded boy's striped T-s.h.i.+rt, she looked like one of those kids in the Save the Children ads.

"Hi, my name's Torey," I said in my friendliest teacher's voice while reaching for her hand. But she did not respond. I ended up taking the limp wrist from Ed. "This is Sarah. She's our welcome person. She'll show you around."

Sarah extended a hand but Sheila remained impa.s.sive, her eyes darting from face to face. "Come on, kid." Sarah grabbed her wrist.

"Her name is Sheila," I said. But Sheila bristled at these acts of familiarity and yanked her hand away, retreating backwards. She turned to run, but Mr. Collins was fortunately standing in the doorway and Sheila ran right into him. I captured one arm and dragged her back into the cla.s.sroom.

"We'll leave you," Ed said, that apologetic look creeping across his face, "I left her c.u.mulative folder in the office for you."

Anton slipped the bolt lock into place after closing the door behind Ed and Mr. Collins as they left. I dragged Sheila across the room to my chair where we always held morning discussion and set her on the floor in front of me. The other children cautiously gathered around us. Now we were twelve.

We always began each morning with "discussion." Ours was a school that enjoyed saying the pledge to the flag and singing patriotic songs before starting cla.s.ses. I felt patriotism was not an appropriate topic for children who could not even communicate basic needs; however, the school board took a dim view of anyone who refused this display of nationalism. There were too many other issues I had to fight that were more important to me than the pledge of allegiance. So I compromised and created discussion. The children all came from such chaotic and disrupted homes that we needed something to reunite us each morning after being apart. And I had wanted something which would stimulate communication and develop verbal understanding. The first thing we did was the pledge, and I put it to good use by having one child lead it, which meant he had to learn it. Even this process was valuable because it presented words in an organized sense that implied meaning. Afterwards I started discussion with a "topic." Usually topic explored feelings, such as talking about things that made one happy; or topic was a roundtable for solving problems, such as what would one do if he saw someone else hurt himself. We went from there as a jumping-off point, making sure that everyone had a chance to partic.i.p.ate. In the beginning I had brought all the topics in, but after the first month or two the children had their own suggestions and I had not started the discussion in ages.

After topic, I let each child have a few moments to tell what had happened to him since the release of school the previous day or Friday. These two aspects of morning discussion had gotten increasingly livelier, and even Susannah partic.i.p.ated meaningfully on occasion. The kids all had a lot to say and I was hard put some days to terminate the activity. Afterwards, I outlined a schedule of the day and then we closed with a song. I had a repertoire of action songs that I could sing with more gusto than tune, usually pulling one of the kids through the actions puppetlike. The children loved that and we always ended laughing, even on those days when we had not come in merry.

So this morning I gathered the children around me. "Kids, this is Sheila, and she's going to join our cla.s.s."

"How come?" Peter asked suspiciously. "You never told us we was getting a new girl."

"Yes, I did, Peter. Remember how we rehea.r.s.ed last Friday things to show Sheila that we're glad she's with us? Remember what we did?"

"Well, I'm not glad she's with us," he replied. "I liked us just the way we was." He placed his hands over his ears to shut me out and began rocking.

"It'll take some getting used to, I imagine. But we will." I patted Sheila's shoulder and she pulled away. "Now, who's got a topic?"

Everyone sat around me on the floor. No one spoke.

"No one has a topic? Well then, I've got one: what do you suppose it feels like when you're new and don't know anyone, or maybe you want to be part of a group and no one wants you to? How's that feel inside?"

"Bad," Guillermo said. "That happened to me once and I felt bad."

"Can you tell us about it?" I asked.

Suddenly Peter leaped to his feet. "She stinks, teacher." He backed away from Sheila. "She stinks terrible and I don't want her sitting with us. She'll stink me up."

Sheila regarded him blackly but did not speak or move.

She had folded herself up into a little lump, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.

Sarah stood up and moved around to where Peter had reseated himself. "She does stink, Torey. She smells like pee."

Good manners were certainly not our forte. I was not surprised by the lack of tact, but as always I was dismayed. Silencing their clear-eyed perceptions of the world was an impossibility. For every step forward I made in teaching good manners, I took two back and six to the side. "How do you suppose that feels, Peter, to have someone say you stink?"

"Well, she does stink terrible," Peter retorted.

"That's not what I asked. I asked how you'd feel if someone said that to you?"

"I wouldn't want to stink everybody out of the cla.s.s,, that's for sure."

"That's not what I asked."

"It'd hurt my feelings," Tyler volunteered, bouncing up on her knees. Any displays of anger or disagreement frightened Tyler tremendously and sent her into rounds of appeas.e.m.e.nt, acting overly mature for her eight years and motherly toward those who disagreed.