School's Out

Rudy stared eagerly at the clock, watching the seconds, then minutes, tick by as the school year came to a close. The classroom was like a furnace, not only holding in heat, but seeming also to take it in through the open windows. He waited eagerly as his teacher, Mrs. Winlock, passed out the year-end reports one by one.

After handing them all out, she sat down at her desk and said those final, long awaited words to her class of fifth, sixth and seventh graders, “thank you class, see you next year!” With that the children let out a collective whoop as they quickly gathered their things and left the drudgery of books and assignments behind them. Except Rudy. He sat quietly perplexed; he hadn’t received a home report.

“Reuben,” Mrs. Winlock said softly, “stay behind please, I’d like to speak with you.”

Rudy remained in his seat and nodded. He liked Mrs. Winlock, she was nice. She came from one of the town’s most prominent families. She lived in a huge Victorian home on acres and acres of land. She even had servants but she wasn’t haughty or stuck up, at least not the way Rudy imagined rich folks to be. She had a definite air of class about her, but she treated everyone like a dear old friend, often inviting people to her home for a meal or tea, regardless of station or race. He had heard adults talking about her family having had slaves, but he never dared ask her about it. It wouldn’t have been proper, no matter how badly he wanted to know.

First, he was eavesdropping on what was supposed to be a conversation between his aunt and his grandmother; a conversation that he was sternly ordered to see himself away from. And secondly, even at 11, he knew it would be rude to bring up such a delicate matter.

Mrs. Winlock waited for the room to empty and then approached the child, envelope in hand. She sat on the desk beside him and began gently, “first, Reuben,” she always addressed him by his proper name, “I wanted to know, would you like to work for me again this summer?”

Rudy smiled widely, nodding his head. He had worked for her the previous summer, and enjoyed it very much. He tended the gardens, cut the grass, piled wood, mended the back fence and tended to her animals. He generally did anything that needed doing and took great pride in what she termed his “being in charge of her outdoor operations”. Better yet, he was only required to work through the week, which left his weekends free to fish or play ball and she always invited him inside for a tasty lunch. “Yes, ma’am, I’d like that.”

The teacher smiled warmly, “good,” she patted his slender caramel arm, “I can do $5 a week, plus, just like last year, you’re free to take home some of the produce, fruit, vegetable, whatever we won’t require, does that suit?”

He nodded eagerly, $5 was a full 50 cents over and above his weekly wage the year before, and the work wasn’t all that hard. He was well suited to it. Plus, his mother seemed to greatly appreciate the surplus produce, which, if last year was any indication, would be pletntiful.

Mrs. Winlock shoved the few greyish-brown strands of hair that hung from her neat bun behind her ear and took a deep breath before handing Rudy his home report. She wished more than anything that she could rip it up, call it a huge mistake and welcome the boy as a sixth-grade student the coming fall. But that wasn’t going to happen. He simply hadn’t achieved the necessary outcomes to warrant promotion.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Not on her part, and not on his. Rudy was like most boys, more interested in what was going on outside than what was happening at the front of the classroom, but he was always quiet, attentive, and eager to please.

The truth was, Mrs. Winlock, even with 30 years as a teacher, had no idea what the disconnect was. Rudy wasn’t stupid, not by a long shot. He wasn’t one of the children she would have called slow to learn or backward. In fact, in many ways, he was very bright and wise beyond his tender years. There was a deep soulful knowing behind those brown eyes that shone through everything. And he could learn just about anything as long as someone could show, not tell, him how.

She paused, remembering the time her husband, a fairly feeble man for 54 after having had a severe, mobility - limiting stroke, went outside and showed Rudy just how to prune the tomato plants, cutting the shooters to allow the blossoming vines more room to grow. He only needed that one quick lesson, which was more than the teacher could say for herself. In fact, her husband, Ned, forbade her from ever touching the plants from that day on, after more than once having hacked them half to death.

She couldn’t put her finger on it, if she could have, she’d have fixed it, but somehow, whatever she was doing in the classroom wasn’t getting through to the child and the time had come to accept it. Until this year, he was able to slide by with marginally acceptable results. But as the work became more complex, she saw him fall further and further behind. She could see the torture in his face as he struggled all year to master the material and it broke her heart.

She had thought about doing the charitable thing and pushing him through, reasoning that perhaps the confidence boost would propel the boy to work harder but decided against it. Advancing him to the next grade would serve no one, not the class, not herself and not Rudy. “Please take this home directly,” she said firmly, handing him the envelope, “do not open it, I want your mother to read it first, do you understand?”

Rudy nodded. He knew what it said. The entire year had been a long series of F’s and “please try agains”. It didn’t take any sort of eminent scholar to see the writing on the schoolhouse wall. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Winlock, I will.”

The teacher chocked back her tears and turned her head momentarily to compose herself. She didn’t want Rudy to see her upset. She didn’t want to upset him. She cared a great deal for the lad. In fact, she could readily admit to herself, and to her husband, that he was the favourite of all her students, ever. She imagined had she been able to bear a child herself, he’d have been much like Rudy, strikingly handsome, tall and wiry, strong as a small ox. He was hard working and affable with surprisingly soft heart that most people didn’t take the time to see. He seemed to take very well to and to protect the younger children just coming into school and she had caught him more than once cradling a newly-born calf or lamb in her barn. She even kept one of his favourite calves from last year, especially for him, a bull, which she aptly named Rudy. She smile softly to herself as she remembered the boy's reaction.

"You name him that 'cuz he's bullheaded like me?" he asked her? In fact she hadn't. She named the bull for him because it had the same soft, knowing brown eyes as him.

She’d spent five years watching him grow and blossom, fight and struggle. She knew about his home life. Woodstock wasn’t a big town and talk got around. She knew the black eyes and bruises he often sported came from the hand of his father after downing more than his share of whiskey.

She didn’t know Reuben Senior as a younger man but had heard the stories. He was once just like his son, sweet, tender hearted, but with a steel exterior and a keen sense of the practical. He had somehow managed to lie his way into military service in 1916, stating his age as 18 rather than 16. He came back from the war alive, but just, and forever changed.

He coped, from what she was told, and pretty well for a time. The horror of combat made him more aggressive for sure, something he used to turn himself into quite a good boxer. However, years later, when young Rudy was just a baby, he and his wife lost a child, baby Grace, a sweet chubby girl with dark skin and bright eyes. Mrs. Winlock was given to understand that the 10-month-old was a perfectly healthy infant until suddenly falling ill and passing away some five or six days later. Infuenza, they said, was the cause.

It seemed Reuben Senior never recovered from the loss. The cruel injustice of it all made him bitterly angry and the occasional drink with the guys turned into binge drinking to the point of blackout.

Rudy, she knew, got the brunt of his father’s grief - filled anger and she worried for the child, wondering what sort of brutality this home report would bring. Sober, he seemed a decent enough sort, she’d spoken to him several times and he was quick with a smile and a joke. He was quiet, almost charming. But, fueled by drink, he often sought out his oldest son as an outlet. It was as though the child, who was, in fact, visually, the very picture of his father thirty years prior, represented all the unfulfilled hopes, plans, and dreams he had that never worked out. What better way to address what you see as your shortcomings than to beat up on your younger self?

She shook her head, trying to make the awful thought disappear, “Reuben, please, promise me, you’ll take this directly to your mother, she begged, sounding a little more desperate than she had intended.

Rudy agreed and was dismissed. He walked outside into the late-June heat and found the school yard empty. He walked toward home, just far enough to get out of sight. He darted behind a group of trees and opened the envelope. He scanned it furiously, not wanting to be caught. He skipped over the individual subject reports to get to the bottom line, “I regret to inform that Reuben has not met the necessary requirements to be promoted and will be required to repeat fifth grade.” His heart sank and he sat down behind the tree and cried, his head in his knees. He knew it was coming, but he hoped, naively, as children do, that maybe, just maybe, it would all be okay, but there it was in print. He mourned the defeat, dried his tears and after a few moments, stood up and walked home, knowing exactly what he had to do.

When he arrived at the house, he saw his mother surrounded by several of his siblings, all basking in her praise, jumping up and down clamouring for thier chance at glory. In a large family, it was hard enough to distinguish oneself, and that fact was something not lost on even the youngest of children. Of course, Althea was front and centre, basking in her triumph. Having just turned 13 the month before, she was quickly taking on the bearing of a young woman. She was slender, curvy and had a pretty face which boys were starting to notice. She was very quickly blossoming into a beautiful young woman and Rudy was pretty sure she knew it, on some level. But, she had very little time for the local boys or their nonsense. She had plans, plans to become a teacher and later a wife and mother. She was too smart for the foolishness of the small town in which they lived; she somehow knew her worth and was intent on maintianing it. He secretly admired her for that. It wasn't easy, he knew, for a girl to stand up and want more, to demand more. She wanted respect, and she'd get it. She was brilliant, and beautiful and a good decent girl. He saw the pride in his parents' face over and over when it came to her and he imagined one day, when he had a daughter, she'd be the same, bright, beautiful and virtuious.

She was to spend her summer minding Dr. and Mrs. Baldwin’s eight children and taking in sewing in her free time. She was to be paid $3 a week. A small sum considering how unruly the children were. She kept some for herself. He didn’t understand all the ins and outs of it, but his mother explained that young women needed pocket money for important things, things only women could understand. He didn't ask, and noone ever told him about these things. He imagined it had something to do with dresses or maybe lipstick. He understood that young ladies needed things like that in order to eventually attract a husband. He secretly hoped she wouldn't, that she'd remain a spinster and teach school. Her mind seems such a terrible thing to waste.

Althea, of course, received glowing marks, and finished top of the seventh-grade class; she even got a small plastic trophy. Rudy wasn't sure what it was for, but somehow, he figured it was for composition. She always topped the class with her written work. She could turn her hand to anything the school threw at her, but her command of English was truly something to behold. He admired her, but was also a bit jealous. He wished he were that clever at school, but he knew at the same time, if a boy came around, looking to spoil her plans, he'd fight to the death to defend her honor and see she fulfilled her promise.

Enid stood right behind her sister, jumping up and down, eagerly awaiting her turn at praise. She was a tiny wisp of a girl, but her personality loomed larger than life. She did reasonably well. Her home reports going forward always read the same, “Enid is capable of exceptional work when she puts her mind to it,” and this year was no exception. She was a bright girl, there was no doubt, but she had a streak in her, a fierce independence that often bordered on defiance and troubled their mother. The girl was intent on doing things her way. She wasn’t unruly or disobedient, but had something not often seen in little girls of the time, a sense that she wasn’t supposed to conform to the world, but that in fact it was the other way around, the world was her oyster and it should conform to her. The fact that she was Black was lost on her. She didn't care. She was a young lady on this planet and she was here, she was beautiful and notice would be taken! Rudy loved her spirit, even if it did cause strife now and then. There were times she fought alongside him in the schoolyard, beating boys much older and bigger than herself. Their grandmother politely called her a “spirited child.”

Then there was Bobby, he managed to get through second grade unscathed although his teacher warned that “further effort will be required to be successful in coming years.” Bobby was a sweet boy, but he had a bit of the devil in him, as the adults often said. He was cute and small and got away with a lot.

And finally, David, the impish first-grader, complete with a toothless grin. Sharp as a tack, but inattentive and mischievous. He was the first to peer out the window at anyone or anything that happened by. Although the work came easily, he’d have rather been fishing than in the classroom. He was also the first first-grader to put a dead frog on Mrs. Mullins’ chair back in October. He denied it vehemently, but his guilty giggles gave him away. His older brother Bobby saved him from his father’s beating, claiming responsibility for the prank, something he often did. David was what his grandmother called, "the middle child," crying out for attention by way of antics and tomfoolery. Even at six, he charmed the pants off his teachers and his female peers. He was a devil with an angel's heart and he knew, even at that tender age, how to work both to his advantage.

Rudy lowered his head and when the crowd dispersed, having received an adequate amount of praise, approached his mother, cleared his throat and handed her the envelope, “Mrs. Winlock says for you to read this,” his face reddened with shame. The idea of disappointing his mother killed him. He knew she worked so hard, especially now, with so many children. There was him, Althea, Enid, Bobby, David, Jimmy, Johnny, and now, baby Francine, just six months old. She was a pretty baby and from what he could see, fairly well behaved. She didn’t fuss a lot and she seemed reasonably clever. That made eight kids, and he had heard whispers that another may be on the way. He kind of hoped not, the house was a tight squeeze as it was, the boys, Bobby, David, Jimmy, and himself, shared one room while the babies, Johnny and Francine shared another. Althea, who had previously enjoyed the enviable position of having her own room had recently been forced to suffer the indignity of sharing with Enid. Rudy was sure she hated that, but in true Althea fashion, she accepted the assignment as her duty to the family and said nothing about it.

Thea turned to her children, still milling about in the living room as Rudy stood beside her, “you all get on outside,” she ordered, “I want to have a talk with Rudy.”

“But Mama,” Enid whined, “it’s hot.”

Thea stared hard at the children, her plump brown face set in that way that let them know she meant business, “then go swimming, but scoot, I’ll not tell you a second time.”

The kids scrambled out the door as their mother told them and Thea turned to her eldest son, “let’s see this, then.” She knew what was inside. She gingerly opened the envelope and read it as tear began to stream down her son’s face again.

Rudy buried his face in her ample bosom, sobbing, “I’m sorry Mama, I’m sorry!”

She cradled the child gently then took his face in her hands, wiping his tears, “it’s okay, Rudy, I knew it was coming, you’ll just try harder next year.” She didn’t know why he struggled with his schoolwork, but figured another year in the fifth grade might just be the thing to wake him up.

Rudy snuffed the snot back from his nose and stood straight, “I’m not going back, ma’am,” he declared, “I’m going to work.”

Thea looked at the child in disbelief, “you’re 11, what do you think you’ll work at?”

“I’ll be 12 come January,” he explained, “I’ll do just like Daddy, I’ll join the army, fight in the war, just like him!”

Fear welled up in his mother and quickly turned to rage. She knew what war did to her husband and she also knew her son was just impulsive enough to try such a stunt. It was doubtful, she knew, that her baby-faced son would ever successfully carry out his stated plan, but it was time for a strong message. She softly slapped his face with the back of her hand, “you will do no such thing!” she exclaimed, “and I’ll hear no more talk of any army, do you understand?”

Rudy began to cry again, the slap didn’t hurt physically, she barely touched him. But his pride hurt desperately. He nodded in submission, “yes, Mama, I understand.” Then he added, “but I could continue for a while at Mrs. Winlock’s till after apple season, that’ll take me into October, then I can go work in the woods.” He had it all figured out in his mind and it seemed to be the only reasonable choice. He added, in aid of his case, "I know we can use the money".

Thea softened, “Go on outside and play,” she told him, “I know you’re disappointed, we’ll talk about this nearer the school year, okay?” She had no intention of allowing him to quit school.

Rudy agreed, quietly set in his intention never to return to the classroom. He knew his mind, and he knew his limitations.

The summer went quickly and soon it was time to get ready to return to school. Thea and Reuben Senior took their eldest son aside to see how he was feeling about repeating fifth grade.

Rudy stood straight and tall, as tall as an 11-year-old could and informed his parents of his intentions, “I’m not going back”.

Thea, now confirmed to be expecting, yet again, shook her head, “Reuben Edward, don’t start,” she warned.

The child continued, steel-faced in his opposition, “no, Mama, I’m not going back,” he explained, “Mrs. Winlock says I can stay on for about a month or so, then I got some work with old man Hawthorne lined up, and I also got a bit over at the general store, only a few hours here and there, but it’ll do us.”

Thea’s heart sank, “Rudy, you’re a boy, you need schooling.” She was devastated, it was hard enough in 1941 to be a Black man, but to be a Black man with next to no education, the thought terrified her and shook her to her very soul. She always wanted better for her kids. She wanted them to achieve, to have the opportunities she and their father never had, to be seen as they were, equal members of the human race with much to contribute. She dreamed of her eldest boy being "somebody," a land holder, a shopkeep, a force to be reckoned with. Her dreams dashed as she listened.

Reuben Senior spoke up in favour of his son, “woman,” he said, “we both know the boy ain’t much for the books, he ain't clever like that” he took a big gulp from his mug, “if he don’t wanna go, maybe we shouldn’t make him.” Another gulp and he turned to his son and poked him hard in the chest, “but if you ain’t in no kinda school,” he warned, “you’re payin’ room and board!”

The boy agreed, “of course Daddy,” he said breathlessly, “Mama can have all the money, just like always.” He always turned over his entire weekly earnings to his mother for household expenses, often refusing her pleas that he take a little something for himself. She knew he'd soon find interest in girls and dating. He added, expanding in his long-term plan, “anyway, it’s only ‘till I can get into the army and go into the war like you did, Daddy.” He wanted more than anything to go to Europe and assist in the war effort that was underway. To him, and to many he heard talking in town, the Americans and British, including the Canadians, didn't make the message clear the first time and now, something had to be done. H wasn't sure what he could do, but he knew he could do something and he was ready to do it.

His father panicked in his whiskey fueled haze as memories of World War 1 trenches came flooding back faster than he could process them. The gun fire, the filth, the rain and mud, the slop they passed off as food, and to top it off, the way Black solders like him were treated like simple cannon fodder, pushed out to the front lines, never recognized for anything more than boots on the ground, it was all more than he could bear. He remembered 2 lines of his brothers, standing tall, with White boys behind them. He was okay with it, in a way, he figured they never had to fight, not the way he did through life. He didn’t want his son going through that. Rage filled him, rage at the injustice of it all. Rage at every white superior that called him boy. Rage at every German that shot in his direction and at himself for having to shoot back. Rage at the impetuous, unwitting brat in front of him who had no real idea about the harsh realities of the world. Before he knew it, his hand was up and he smacked the boy, hard, across the face, knocking him onto his ass, screaming, “shut up, boy, shut up!”

Thea jumped between them, begging her husband to stop.

Enraged and seeing nothing but the life his son would have if he chose the military, he shoved his wife out of the way. He needed to make the boy see sense! His mother would be nowhere in sight to protect him in the army and she certainly wasn’t going to shield him now!

Young Rudy rose to his feet staring his father in the face for the first time in his life, cocked back his fist and paused, his eyes narrowed and cold with resolve, “no, Papa,” he warned, standing firm, “this is between you and me.”

Maybe it was the whiskey, or maybe it was the strength in the boy’s conviction, who can tell. Reuben Senior did something he had never done in his life. He stood down, lowering his head and helping his wife tenderly to a chair. His gaze, however, was hard, and fixed firmly on his son. This wasn't over.

As Thea took a seat, trying not to cry in front of her son, Reuben Senior looked at the boy with a hard, critical eye. In that moment, he both loved and hated the child. He loved his resolve and strength. He hated his resolve and strength. He mostly hated that the boy had shown him up and that he had backed down.

Rudy knew nothing would ever be the same. He knew he couldn’t stand against his father and expect to live in his home. He looked at him and said in an apologetic and respectful tone, “Daddy, if I can collect my things, I think it’s best I go to Grannie’s.”

Thea protested, but her husband overruled her, agreeing with his son. The house was crowded as it was, and it gave him a quick opportunity to save at least a little dignity. He agreed with the boy and said sharply, “you got 10 minutes and then I’ll kick you out by the ass!” As the child collected his things, his father moved to the front room, another drink in hand, smiling to himself. The insult of his perceived disrespect melted as he thought about his namesake. “Damn boy, Johnson through and through,” he muttered to himself, “pig headed as they come, but he comes by it honest. He snickered to himself, secretly proud of the strong young man he’d created. He’d never tell him, of course, and he’d never forgive him for challenging him in his own home, but he knew, that strength of character would serve him well in the world. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew if the boy had the gumption to stand up to him, that boy could weather anything the world threw at him.