Crybaby

 

Crybaby

            I was a crybaby in first grade.  

            Since my earliest days I watched my brothers go off to school but when it was my turn to put on the grey slacks, shiny black shoes and Navy blue Norwood Academy jacket I became anxious.

Breakfast by then was a finely choreographed routine with a constant schedule, predictable foods, recurring conversations, and inside jokes. To me the breakfast ceremonial was strange and so onto my anxiety was added an uncomfortable feeling of being out-of-place.

 After breakfast we kissed Mom and went out the back door. Saying goodbye to Mom meant leaving a world of safety and security and entering a world of danger and insecurity and so onto to my anxiety and uncomfortable feeling of being out-of-place was added fear. 

Mom said goodbye to Dad, Jimmy, Mike, Pat, and lastly to me.  She said goodbye to me last because I was the baby of the group. I knew it and everybody else knew it and so onto my anxiety and uncomfortable feeling of being out-of-place and fear was added the embarrassment of being a baby.  

It was always exciting to ride in Dad’s neat little Chevy Corvair, which we knew Mom disliked for safety reasons. The anticipation of being inside the little white capsule with red interior brought momentary relief that was quickly dashed. Day after day I was forced to sit on the hump between the sporty bucket seats. We were five people this year and that was a problem in a tiny car that barely seats four. The ride to school was less fun this year. This was my fault and so onto my anxiety and uncomfortable feeling of being out-of-place, and fear, and embarrassment of being a baby was added guilt.   

The ride to school was a five minute, two mile drive up the cobblestones of Philadelphia's Germantown Avenue. The first grade classroom at Norwood Academy was in a little stone farmhouse attached to a World War II era tin Quonset hut. The Quonset hut served as gymnasium for the whole academy so on some days I would see my brothers. Mike and Pat would look away or make faces at me but Jimmy would acknowledge me with a smile. The Quonset hut was bizarre, cold, dark, and it had strange ropes with rings hanging from the curved tin ceiling. From time to time horrible sounds could be heard from hut when large objects were moved around.

I would think about the Quonset hut on the short drive and about the nuns in their formidable black habits and their carved from stone faces. I would remember, while sitting on the hump, when a nun told us that we are Christians, and a boy asked her it is true that the Christians were fed to lions.

 “That was a long time ago” the ancient lady confirmed.

‘Like when she was a little girl?’ I pondered, and so onto my anxiety, and uncomfortable feeling of being out-of-place, and fear, and embarrassment of being a baby, and guilt was added the terror of being fed to the lions that definitely lived in Quonset hut.

Every morning I held my emotions together with all of my might but when we pulled into the driveway and approached the little stone farmhouse attached to the terrifying Quonset hut, I exploded.

 There were three other crybabies in the first grade: two boys and a pretty girl. We had our own table at the back of the room where we sobbed until we were ready to join the rest of the class. 

If there is a moment when manhood begins then for me it was at the crybaby table. The pretty girl sat directly across from me. I didn’t want her to see me cry. There was also another reason that I had to get away from the crybabies. One of boys, in addition to being a crybaby, frequently crapped himself.  The smell made us gag and I began to dimly grasp the social consequences of being associated with the crybabies. I started to firm up inside.

Then one day, with a little help from Patrick, I won.

I kept crying in the car every day but my recovery time was improving. Then one day, exasperated with the drama, Dad asked Patrick to walk me to the door and calm me on the way. It was a cool foggy morning. The acrid smell from an asphalt truck hung in the air. Patrick, who was in second grade, spied a cricket as we approached the farmhouse. Like boys throughout history we loved bugs. Patrick captured the cricket and handed it me with instructions to release it inside the classroom.

With the cricket in my pocket a world of new ideas opened in my head. Where would would it go? what would it do? And what would be the reaction?  My mind raced as I raced to the farmhouse door. I instinctively understood the concept of plausible deniability as I pretended to drop something so I could release my new friend just inside the door.

Then I waited.

The result could not have been better. Part of the morning routine involved standing in a circle and holding hands while singing hymns led by a young nun with a guitar. 

The crybabies had finished up their sobbing and poopy pants was clean that day as we joined our angelic voices in a slow dirge:

 “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love! And they will know we are Christians by our ..." 

...then my cricket hopped into the circle. 

The pretty girl screamed. The young nun flew away and the old nun flew into a rage as the boys broke ranks and chased my bug all over the classroom. 

It was chaos and pandemonium, and it was all mine.  

I never went back to the crybaby table.