Beautiful Child (22 page)

“Lift it up here.”

She looked up.

“Lift it up. Here.” I put a hand under her elbow to make her raise her arm. “Now, put it into the slot.”

She didn’t move.

I put my hand over hers and moved it toward the machine. “There. Push it in.” I guided her hand with the tape until the tape went into the slot. “Good! That’s right. Now, you try it.” I popped the videotape out again. I gave it back to her.

Venus hesitated a very, very long moment. Then slowly she raised her hand and gently put the tape against the VCR slot.

“Okay, good. Now push it in.”

She wasn’t using enough pressure, so the little flap on the slot wouldn’t open.

“Push a bit harder. You won’t break it.”

Venus pressed it a little more against the flap, but it still wouldn’t open.

“Harder. Keep trying. You’re almost there.”

Venus kept the tape pressed against the flap. There came another one of these long, long moments, so long, in fact, that I thought we weren’t going to manage this. But I just waited. And smiled.

She hesitated. Then, at last, she gave it a little push and in it went. The machine purred to life and the cartoon
flickered up onto the monitor as the tape started to move.

“Wow! You did it! You did that all by yourself, didn’t you!” I cried and I grabbed her up in a big hug. “Wow! Princess of Power!”

Venus smiled. Indeed, she did more than smile. Her face broke into a wide grin, showing two missing top teeth.

We both laughed.

D
espite my visit to Venus’s home and the talk with her mother and Danny, Venus still did not attend school regularly. I found this frustrating in the extreme. We would have two or three good days together and then Venus would be gone. It didn’t matter how well we had been doing when she left, inevitably there would be a small slip back, even if she was gone only a day. If I had her crossing the room, but she was out the next day, then the first day back was lost trying to get her to cross the room again. If I had her putting the tape in the VCR, but she was out the next day, then the first day back was lost trying to get her to put the tape in the VCR again. It never failed.

“Something has
got
to be done about this,” I said to Bob.

“I know,” Bob replied, running a hand down across his face in a gesture of frustration.

And Bob did know that. Indeed, Bob did try. He sent the district truant officer to the home to talk to the parents about their responsibility in getting Venus to school. He notified Social Services for the umpteenth millionth time. He even brought in the police at one point and a female officer was dispatched to the home. Despite all this effort, however, there continually seemed to be crossed lines of communication. The police officer went
out
to the home. We were informed of that. What we weren’t informed of was that she did not see Venus. The truant officer went
out
to the home. We were informed of that. What we weren’t informed of was the fact that he found no one there when he arrived. Social Services went
out
to the home. We were informed of that. What we weren’t informed of was the fact that this was this particular social worker’s last day and she didn’t fill out all the appropriate reports before leaving her job and moving to another part of the country. And on and on. So, while the right moves were being made, it was never communicated that they weren’t being fully executed. Bureaucracy tripped over itself. And in the end I was none the wiser for why we could not keep Venus in school.

She-Ra cartoons had long since stopped being shown on television, but I was determined to find more videos; so I spent several Saturday mornings with Beckie “garage-saling,” as she liked to call it. Doing this, I managed to acquire half a dozen more She-Ra videos. In addition, I
found two or three She-Ra picture books and about ten comics.

Venus and I made a routine of watching the cartoons together during the lunch hour. Venus would now wait by the door onto the playground for me to finish my lunch and come get her. Then she’d follow me upstairs without being directed, help me push the monitor across the room, put the tape into the VCR of her own accord before finally joining me on the pillows in the reading corner. She liked sitting on my lap and often wrapped my arms tight around herself, if I didn’t do it quickly enough myself.

During the afternoon recess, we started role-playing. Venus was always She-Ra, of course. Using the yardstick, she transformed herself into the Princess of Power half a dozen times during the twenty minutes. We then acted out small sections of whatever cartoon we had watched at lunchtime or perhaps a scene from one of the comics. These were usually very, very simple scenes. Her favorite was for me to pretend to be the evil character Catra and sneak up on her from the other side of the low bookshelf.

“Here I come! I’m going to destroy that She-Ra. Meeee-ow. Then Etheria will belong to meeeee,” I’d say, pretending to creep along in a very evil way.

Venus found this delicious fun. She would swing the yardstick and laugh and squeal. After the first few times, she managed to work up the courage to come after me. She wasn’t able to let her guard down enough to actually run,
but she managed to speed around the classroom at a fast walk, trying to tap me with the yardstick.

It was low-level stuff, the sort of games you might play with a three-or four-year-old, and it evoked the same giddy laughter from her. I didn’t try to do more. I didn’t push for speech. I didn’t endeavor to make it more age appropriate. I didn’t try to make it educational. All I wanted was to engage Venus, to help her realize this was a good place to be, a fun place, a safe place.

Unfortunately, almost none of this freer behavior was carrying over into the classroom. Venus remained very much her usual closed-in, inhibited self around Julie and the other children. I could occasionally get her to move of her own volition, if the group was working near to her. She would come willingly to stand by me or sit on my lap so that I no longer had to go get her and move her physically. And very, very occasionally she would nod or faintly smile. But these were all still very much exceptions to the rule. Most of the time, she just sat, catatonic as ever.

Because of this, I thought maybe I could make the transition by moving She-Ra into the classroom.

I’d been reading an old favorite of mine –
Treasure Island
– to the children after lunch. I always did this every year because I loved the book and because I found that whatever age the children were, there was an innate fascination with pirates that lent itself to many other activities. In this case, we decided to make pirate chests as an art project. I’d
brought in a big container full of colorful clear plastic chips from a nearby factory to use as jewels, plus an assortment of colored foil and cellophane and other shiny items to be turned into appropriately gaudy treasure chest contents. Then we used cereal boxes to create the chest itself. The boys all took to this enthusiastically, of course. And Venus just sat, of course.

Once it was clear that the boys were well occupied, I took out a large piece of cardboard I’d cut from the side of an apple carton and brought it over to Venus’s table.

“You know what I’m thinking?” I said as I pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m thinking that instead of making a treasure chest, what you
really
need is a proper Sword of Power. Don’t you? I mean, we’ve been pretending with the yardstick and that’s been okay, but I think we should have a
real
one. Don’t you? One just for you? That is your own?”

Venus’s eyes went wide.

“I was thinking we could use this cardboard. I’ll help you draw a sword shape and we can cut it out. Then you can stick fancy jewels on the handle. What do you think?”

Venus’s face lit up. Very, very slightly she nodded.

I drew a freehand sword and cut it from the cardboard. Taking silver foil, I showed Venus how to fold it over the blade and glue it to make it shiny silver. She wouldn’t try it at first. I sat with her, taking her hand and moving it over the foil to smooth it onto the cardboard while Julie walked among the boys, helping them.

As the afternoon passed, Venus slowly became involved.
She chose some colorful wrapping paper for the hilt, which I helped her stick on. Then working on her own, she carefully picked out “jewels” from the assortment of plastic chips I’d laid on her desk and glued them onto the sword.

I rose and moved among the boys to see what they were doing. Venus continued to work. She was very self-contained, sitting hunched over her table, her movements tight and constricted. She gave the impression of intense concentration, as if she were crafting the most delicate masterpiece, and, indeed, it turned out she was, as she added the plastic chips, the sequins, the glitter in a delicate pattern on the hilt of the sword and then eventually up along the blade of the sword too. As she worked, she never looked up or around to see what any of the others of us were doing. Instead, she kept her head down, her shoulders forward, and added decoration after decoration to her Sword of Power.

My fly in the ointment was Julie.

After school had finished that afternoon and we were wiping glue off tables and picking bits of paper off the floor, she said, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.”

“Not comfortable with what?” I asked, having no idea what she was referring to.

“Your using this cartoon thing with Venus. Does Bob know? Have you talked it over with him?”

No, I had not talked it over with Bob. I didn’t generally clear my lesson plans with my principal, so it had not even
occurred to me to talk it over with Bob. I was irritated, not only for her rather casual implication that I didn’t know what I was doing, but also simply because I was the teacher here and she was the aide, so it wasn’t her responsibility to continually question my actions.

“What bothers you about it?” I asked.

“It’s not a very good standard of material. Do you think? I mean, that whole series was just designed to sell toys. Just consumerism gone mad. There’s no depth to these characters. No literary value to them. Wouldn’t it be better to choose something … well, more
educational
to stimulate the children? And something more nonviolent. And…”

“Yes?”

“Well, in Venus’s case, something more culturally appropriate. Venus is African – American. Have we got the right to shove some blonde, white bimbo with pneumatic boobs at her?”

Admittedly, I hadn’t even considered that. My sole goal had been to engage Venus. When she chose the comic as one of her first acts of self will with me, I just took it and ran.

“Julie, I’m about as color-blind as a person can get. I can’t remember the last time I even noticed the color of Venus’s skin.”

“But that isn’t color-blind, Torey. That is just blind. We get so used to thinking from the point of view of white, Anglo-Saxons that we aren’t even aware we
are
prejudiced.
You don’t question if it’s appropriate to be giving this girl these kinds of role models because you’re assuming our culture is right
without
questioning it. But if you were truly color-blind, you would be embracing heroines and role models of all colors. Equally.”

“This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” I said, “this idea that I have to be conscious of someone’s race in order to be not conscious of it. Venus’s skin color is immaterial, just as the length of her hair is or the material of her shirt. I chose what I chose because that’s what she showed an interest in. My goal is simply to wake this kid up again, because when she came into the classroom, she was the walking dead. So, if she’d taken an interest in Spam cans, I probably would have gone with that. I just went with what was there. ‘Culturally appropriate’ never even crossed my mind.”

“Yes, I know. That’s why I’m saying this.”

There was a pause.

“This isn’t me putting you down, Torey,” she said. “I know we always end up like this, always on opposite sides, and I don’t mean that. I really admire the way you work. You’re the most spontaneous teacher I’ve ever known. You can make a lesson out of anything. On the spot. Without any preparation. I could never do that. I have to have everything planned down to the last word in the plan book. So, I really admire this about you, because it would be so hard for me to do it. But sometimes, because things
are
so spontaneous, I think maybe you’re not aware of all the sides to
it. I mean, couldn’t you just try to choose an African – American heroine for this girl? Someone she could be proud to identify with? Say, like, Rosa Parks?”

“Rosa Parks instead of She-Ra?” I asked, hoping that if I said it aloud, the absurdity would strike her.

It didn’t. She nodded approvingly.

“They’re not really in the same category, Julie. I think Rosa Parks is a fantastic person and a wonderful role model, but she just doesn’t represent the same sort of thing that She-Ra does. It isn’t even She-Ra, per se. It’s someone powerful and strong.”

“And you think Rosa Parks isn’t powerful and strong?” Julie replied.

I sighed in exasperation. “Yes, of course she is. But in a different way. She isn’t a comic book superhero. And just at the moment we
need
a comic book superhero.”

“But
why
? Why some unrealistic comic book Barbie doll that Venus will never be like in a million years? Why not someone she can genuinely model herself on?”

“Because I think she
can
be like She-Ra. These are
qualities
, Julie. They have nothing to do with culture or race or gender or any of that crap. Everybody is capable of them. These are human qualities. And they are easier to see in a cartoon character, in a superhero, simply because they
are
exaggerated. It’s easier to know exactly what they are and how you behave to get them. That’s all I want right now.”

“I can’t agree with you there.”

Picking up the scraps of paper I’d collected, I crossed
the room and threw them into the trash can. “No, I can see,” I said because I could. We were on two different planets in this conversation. I didn’t know how to change that.

The conversation bothered me. Long after the school day had ended and Julie and I’d gone our separate ways, I was still thinking about it.
Was
I being inadvertently racist because I had exposed Venus to white superheroes? Was I somehow disenfranchising her by denying her real-life role models of color? In She-Ra’s world of Etheria where people transmogrified into pink cats, did color matter? Truth was, I felt it was Julie who was being racist by putting limits on what Venus could enjoy, by saying,“The only appropriate role models for you are those who look like you, even in your imagination.” But the truth was, I didn’t know the answer to this one.

Julie’s conversation ruined things a little for me. The next day I did not come quite so innocently to our lunchtime cartoon viewing. I now paid attention to who was what color, and the truth was, in Etheria, many of the characters were not even human. There were robots and purple-faced witches, rainbow-colored owl-like things that flew by flapping their ears, and a sorceress who was faceless altogether. But the good guys – Adora, She-Ra, her boyfriend Bow, her friends, Glimmer, Bright Moon, and Flutterina – were all white.