Disorderly Conduct

When I reached the fourth grade, I found myself in Georgia in an inner-city school. As the only "white girl" there, except for my cousin who was in kindergarten, my school life was difficult at best. I'd get up in the morning, work the farm, then get dressed for school. I walked down the dirt road to the bus stop and spent the next 7 hours defending myself. Life was just hard. My parents had recently split and it landed us in poverty-ville USA, on a piece of ground my mother's family endearingly called a farm, even though we barely grew anything more than dirt and misery.

Concentrating on anything for long exacted a toll on me, and I had the tendency to lash out. My mind kept wandering back to my old life, the big house on Home Avenue and all my cousins, aunts and uncles who I missed. That's not to say I didn't love the new ones in Georgia, I just missed the others. Add to that the fact that I had left a school where I had friends and felt like I fit in, and you can probably guess how well I was doing in my current school.

Our new teacher that year was trying to teach us poetry, but it was a hard-sell. Most of us were just trying to understand the world we were living in, and rhyming seemed like an unimportant part of that. We tapped our fingers together to count syllables, and tried to recognize patterns. When I started hearing things like "Haiku" and "Iambic Pentameter", something inside me just shut down. Each school day was an exercise in futility for me, but that would soon change with the publication of my first poem.

One Friday afternoon, we tapped our feet to Doctor Seuss for almost an hour. Our teacher said we had to write a poem for a local poetry contest, and that the winning poems would be hung up at the county fair for judging. The winners would get a ribbon and be published in a local paper.

My whole life had just been upended and I'd already made up my mind not to do it, when she said it would count for a third of our grade. With my grades at the time, I couldn't afford another bad one. Mama would skin me alive if I flunked another assignment.

After that, the teacher pulled items from a box to give us inspiration. She'd hold up an item and ask us for something that rhymed with it. Students raised their hands and if they were right, they got a piece of candy out of the bowl on her desk. Not long after the game began, she noticed me with my arms folded, and decided not to let me ignore the exercise. She called my name while holding up a man's fedora.

"What rhymes with hat?"

As a kid in fourth grade, I should have said something like "cat", or "rat", but the only thing I could think of was how my great grandpa in Fort Wayne, used to put on his "fedora and cravat" before church on Sunday mornings. So, I shouted out "cravat", to a round of laughter. I guess no one else had heard that word before and it probably sounded ridiculous, but my teacher quickly shushed everyone.

"Where did you learn that word?" she asked, smiling and gesturing for me to come and get a piece of candy.

As I made my way to the front, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was certain I'd "tote a beatin" for my answer when I ran to the bus later. As I arrived at the desk, I answered.

"My grandpa used to wear a fedora like this one, and a silk cravat with his suit to church on Sundays." I answered.

As I made my way back down the aisle, the other kids shot me threatening glances, but I didn't care. I sat down and ate my caramel with a smile. I knew something no one else did, and that was pretty cool. Our teacher explained what a cravat was, and soon school let out. I was quick to grab my book bag and run for the door, but the teacher caught me by my arm.

"Hold on a minute, Miss Roberts." She said. "I want talk to you."

"But I'll miss the bus!" I shouted.

"No you won't. I only need a moment."

Flustered, I sat down, miserable at the thought of who all might be waiting for me in the school yard.

"I've been meaning to talk to you." She started as she leaned against her desk in front of me. "I can tell you're smart. Your work is good, and your vocabulary is the best I think I've ever seen on a child your age. Why don't you try harder? You could easily have the highest marks in class."

Not wanting to drag this out any further, I shrugged and kept my eyes averted.

"Listen. I know it's hard to get your bearings when you first move to a new place. I've been teaching in inner city schools for years... just not here. I haven't made any new friends and it can be difficult to come to school sometimes, for fear that people won't like me."

At that, my eyes shot up. I couldn't believe that. I thought she was a "new" teacher, so it never occurred to me that she had taught before, just somewhere else.

"Where did you teach before?" I asked.

I think she was surprised I said anything, because her eyebrows raised, but she recovered quickly.

"It doesn't matter. That's all behind me now. I have to focus on the here and now. That's what matters. Promise me you'll take the assignment seriously. You have the words, you just need to figure out a way to arrange them so that they rhyme. Do you think you can do that?"

I nodded and got up.

"Great!" she said, smiling and walking me to the door. "I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do. I'll walk you out."

Of course, no one could hurt me that day with a teacher walking by my side, so I got on the bus without incident, but it was a forty-five minute ride home, and I was pretty scared.

The way this went was, I got on the bus, and no one would let me sit with them. The bus driver would force someone to let me sit down, and then that person would beat the crap out of me on the playground the next day. That day, as I got on the bus, I was feeling a little more myself.

Rather than walk around asking everyone, I stopped at this girl's seat, (who was also picked on a lot for being overweight), and asked if I could sit with her.

"It's a free country." She answered, turning to face the window.

"You're Patricia Jones, right?" I asked, holding my hand out for her to shake. She nodded, giving my hand kind of a raised eyebrow.

"I'm Veronica Roberts." I told her, taking my hand back.

"Quit talking to me dummy! You gonna get me killed!" She said.

"Sorry." I replied, deciding to sit contemplatively for a bit. In a moment, Tricia's little sister stuck her head over the seat in front of us and pointed at her.

"You sittin' with the white girl!" she laughed loudly.

"So!" She yelled back at her. "You sittin' with Chavonda. She's gonna beat your ass when we get off this bus."

Her sister pulled a face and Chavonda then frogged her on the leg and told her to shut-up and sit down. It was quiet for a moment, then I tapped Tricia on the arm. She turned an irritated stare in my direction.

"I'm sorry if I caused you any trouble." I told her. "Kid sisters are the worst!"

"I know that!" She barked at first. Then she started giggling. "And mine's is the worst! My mama makes us sleep in the same bed together and she be fartin' in the bed."

Patricia's sister rose up over the seat shouting she did NOT fart in the bed, and the entire bus erupted into laughter. The more her sister protested, the more Patricia talked about her sister's flatulence and how it kept her awake nights. There was some talk about a green fog, and calling the police, but beyond that, I just remember laughing my head off. I got safely to my bus stop for the first time in months. We lived way out in the country and no one got off there but me, and I was grateful.

After chores, during dinner at my Maw-Maw's house, mom asked me how my day was. She seemed pleasantly surprised when I spoke, rather than shrugging and ignoring the question.

I told her about my teacher thinking I was smart, about the poetry contest and then, through tears of laughter, I told her about Tricia and her sister's unfortunate roasting on the bus. Everyone had a good laugh. After dinner, while clearing the table, Mama told me not to worry about chores on Saturday, to just focus on my poem for school. Look, I hated my new school-life, but if it bought me a day off my chores? Worth it!

Having said that, as it turns out, poetry is friggin hard! Especially at 10.

Recently, my mother passed. As my sister and I were going through her photo albums, the first draft of my poems slipped from between the pages, and I laughed. The poem was about what you'd expect from a 4th grader, trying to stick to rhythm and rhyme, not thinking I could change the rhyme patterns, etc... My mother didn't let me turn that poem in, but she kept it her entire life, so she must have liked something about it. I have shared it with you below. I playfully titled it:

"A Chat With a Cat".

It so happened that, an old man named Matt , saw his hair was too flat, so he bought a silk hat. At the bus stop he sat , with beer and some Bratt , when he realized that, he'd sat on his hat. Along came a cat, who'd been chasing a rat , when he noticed that , this man's prat had a hat. So the thoughtful cat said: "need help with that"? "No." Answered Matt. "Afterall, it's my hat" . "Ok." Said the cat , as he went after the rat, and suddenly Matt , said " Hey, thank you, cat." Just then the cat , stopped chasing the rat and said "No problem, Matt , after all, it's your prat!"

My mother wasn't happy with that composition, and felt I could do better. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, because the memory is fuzzy, and mom didn't have a copy since I turned it in... but it was about my bunny, Sunny. Ironic that she was a bunny and her name rhymed with it. That wasn't even planned. But the poem was basically an ode to her. I said that I loved my bunny, Sunny-Mae, who I brought carrots to, every day. Sitting with her for just a while, filled me with happy thoughts and made me smile. I could forget my rotten world, when my fingers touched my fluffy girl. Life was easier in every way, because of my bunny, Sunny-Mae. (Or something to that effect)

My teacher made us read our poems in front of the class. I was super embarrased, but there was actually applause. When I sat down, Tricia poked me in the back with her ruler.

"Do you really have a bunny?" She asked. I nodded. "Can I come over one day and see her?" She asked, with wide-eyed-wonder.

"Sure you can!" I told her. She had let me sit with her on the bus that morning, so I wasn't about to tell her no. Because we were whispering, my teacher asked us to share what was so important with the rest of the class. So I told her that Patricia had only wanted to know if Sunny-Mae was real.

"Is she?" The teacher asked. I nodded and there was a stir in the classroom. "Do you think your mother would let you bring Sunny-Mae to class one day, so that we can all meet her?"

"I can ask." I shrugged. I never knew what mama would or wouldn't do, so I wasn't about to commit to it, but everyone seemed excited just the same.

"That sounds great. Keep me posted." She said as she went on to the next child.

"My Funny Bunny Sunny-Mae" poem won the county regional finals at the fair that year. I know that, because my friend Patricia went to the fair and saw the first place ribbon with my poem. We couldn't afford the fair, so I never got to go. I have no idea whatever happened to the poem or the ribbon, and I never saw a newspaper article although I was told my poem was there. After Sunny-Mae came to school with me, I made friends and my life got easier.

Once I heard that my poem won first prize and got an "A", I was rarely found without a notebook brimming with poetry and short stories, and a pen. I found myself through writing, and quickly realized that form and structure were good tools to have in order to master an understanding of writing, but that the real winners? Come straight from the heart.