In Springdale Town by Robert Freeman Wexler Page B

child-mind couldn’t process. She wanted me to come to her desk and get the (my!) pencil. I refused. I didn’t trust her–how could I?
    I don’t remember what she did. I suppose I must have sat at my desk doing nothing until the class ended. Later, I went with my classmates to the cafeteria for lunch. After lunch, while we were lined up to return to class, the principal approached. He told me to go to his office. I refused. Later, after we had been back in class for a short time...the principal came in. Again, he tried to make me go to his office. I grabbed my desk’s metal post. He pulled my arm but couldn’t dislodge me. He left.
    I didn’t understand why I was being harassed for losing a pencil, or for the teacher having taken it. My impulse was to pull in, turtle-like, and wait for the threat to pass.
    Toward the end of that day, my class went to the school library (a place I was pretty fond of). As the class was leaving, the principal entered, carrying a wooden paddle. They kept me from leaving. Once the other kids were gone, the principal made me bend over to be paddled. I gave up. He paddled me.
    No one ever talked to me about it. I don’t remember the principal saying anything. No one ever asked why I had refused the teacher’s offer of a pencil. That’s public education, at least in Texas, at that time. Maybe it’s different now. I don’t want my daughter to be treated like that.
    ~
    The way I was feeling...my confusion at the situation...the sudden appearance of authority ready to blame me for...what?...brought this memory back. I wasn’t going to go with them. I’m not violent. I didn’t want the big cop’s beefsteak touching me. I haven’t been in a fight since I was fourteen. I slammed the rooster’s base onto his hand. He howled and let go. I ran. The woman jumped on me. Blindly, I swung the rooster, connected. She dropped. As I ran, I turned to look. Distance increased. Not from my running. Pavement stretched. Their bodies distorted...giant hands reached toward me then snapped back, as if I had reversed a telescope to the wrong end. The buildings near me dissolved, increasing the distance between me and the cops. Now they had their backs to me, big guy on my right, woman-cop...changed, taller, nearly his height, and...between them, they dragged a limp form.
    Know that disorientation you get when you see a photograph of yourself from behind, especially if you hadn’t known you were being photographed? Imagine a video instead, and you get closer to what I experienced.
    More buildings faded, separating us. I reached my car and got in, finding immediate comfort in the metal enclosure. I started the engine. As I eased into the roadway, the sidewalk transformed into a grassy roadside. The car was pointed away from where the cops had gone; that was the direction from which I had entered the town, but I wasn’t going to turn around. I drove. Trees replaced the town, trees and river. I crossed a bridge. The sun was behind me. I drove, waiting to cross a larger road, a road I recognized.
    ~
    I reached my apartment around six. Parked. I lived on the bottom floor of a two-story house that was a short walk from the center of town. The owner lived upstairs. Her son and his girlfriend lived in an apartment in the back. I opened the car door. The rooster was on the front passenger seat. I reached for it, got out, and pulled my overnight bag from the trunk, leaving the books and other things for later. I left the bag and rooster near the door and sat on the futon-sofa, looking around at bookcases, front door, windows, rooster. How long did I sit there? Isolation, smothering isolation, filled the room. I wanted to hear something, the owner, moving around above me or coming down the stairs with her dog, a beagle whose name I’ve long-forgotten. Her son or his girlfriend, their dogs...hounds...I got up. In darkness, I walked downtown. Finding myself at the movie theater, I went in. I didn’t care what was