twelve, he brought home an end-of-term progress report from
school: Jason is a highly intelligent child. His achievements in areas where he
chooses to apply himself, such as art and creative writing, are considerable.
However, he seems unable to relate well to the other children; his remoteness
and his apparent determination to be “different” keep him from becoming a
successful member of the classroom community. Due to this, though all his marks
are above average, I cannot call his passage through the sixth grade a fully
satisfactory one.
Yours,
Geraldine
Clemmons
Two
or three years later he could have laughed. But all through his sixth-grade
year he had had no real friends, no one who would come to his house and play
games of pretend in the woods, no one who offered to trade sandwiches at
lunchtime or asked him to one of the boy-girl parties that were beginning to be
all the rage. Through the girls’ thin Tshirts he saw
their sore budding breasts. When he undressed for gym with the other boys, he
tried to look at their bodies without seeming to look. On some of them he
noticed those same fearfully secret hairs he had begun to find upon himself.
He
could not laugh at Mrs. Clemmons’s stupid progress
report because he had begun to know how alone he was. All through his childhood
he had amused himself without really thinking about it—reading, playing alone
or with neighborhood children, never noticing that they were uncomfortable with
the stories he liked to make up, that they seldom came back more than two or
three times.
But
at twelve he became aware of himself, painfully so. He became aware that he did
not know who he was. He dreamed often of a strange boisterous family who
laughed all the time and cuddled him and took him along wherever they went. He
discovered how to masturbate, thinking at first that it was something he had
made up. Then he connected it with things he had read, and he learned how to
turn it into a highly sensual experience, biting himself at first gently and
then harder, thinking of other children in his class, imagining how it would be
to hold them, taste them, feel their flesh between his teeth.
It
did not seem strange that he thought about these things.
But
on the day he brought the progress report home, he knew that he was alone and
that he might be alone for a very long time.
His
parents were both at work, his mother counselling disturbed children at a day-care center, his father doing something that had
vaguely to do with finance. The house was sunny and still, and all that
afternoon he searched through their desk drawers, through their files and
boxes, looking for his adoption papers. He had to know who his real parents
were. He had to know where he had come from and whether someday he might find
his way back.
His
parents’ papers were remarkably dull. There were no old love letters scented
and tied with pastel ribbons, no scan-dais, no bloodstained lace handkerchiefs.
There were no adoption papers. The shadows in the house lengthened. He became
frantic, knowing with the terrible conviction of a twelve-year-old that these strangers
named Rodger and Marilyn would murder him if they caught him going through
their things; they would have an excuse at last. But he opened one final
dresser drawer in their bedroom, not really expecting to find anything, and
under his mother’s old granny glasses and McGovern buttons was the note. It was
tucked into a corner of the drawer, not hidden very well. By this time he was
sweaty and a little breathless. His hand shook as he extracted the note, trying
not to disturb the rest of the mess.
The
paper was thick and cream-colored, with two small holes at the top as if it had
been pinned to something. Slowly he
school: Jason is a highly intelligent child. His achievements in areas where he
chooses to apply himself, such as art and creative writing, are considerable.
However, he seems unable to relate well to the other children; his remoteness
and his apparent determination to be “different” keep him from becoming a
successful member of the classroom community. Due to this, though all his marks
are above average, I cannot call his passage through the sixth grade a fully
satisfactory one.
Yours,
Geraldine
Clemmons
Two
or three years later he could have laughed. But all through his sixth-grade
year he had had no real friends, no one who would come to his house and play
games of pretend in the woods, no one who offered to trade sandwiches at
lunchtime or asked him to one of the boy-girl parties that were beginning to be
all the rage. Through the girls’ thin Tshirts he saw
their sore budding breasts. When he undressed for gym with the other boys, he
tried to look at their bodies without seeming to look. On some of them he
noticed those same fearfully secret hairs he had begun to find upon himself.
He
could not laugh at Mrs. Clemmons’s stupid progress
report because he had begun to know how alone he was. All through his childhood
he had amused himself without really thinking about it—reading, playing alone
or with neighborhood children, never noticing that they were uncomfortable with
the stories he liked to make up, that they seldom came back more than two or
three times.
But
at twelve he became aware of himself, painfully so. He became aware that he did
not know who he was. He dreamed often of a strange boisterous family who
laughed all the time and cuddled him and took him along wherever they went. He
discovered how to masturbate, thinking at first that it was something he had
made up. Then he connected it with things he had read, and he learned how to
turn it into a highly sensual experience, biting himself at first gently and
then harder, thinking of other children in his class, imagining how it would be
to hold them, taste them, feel their flesh between his teeth.
It
did not seem strange that he thought about these things.
But
on the day he brought the progress report home, he knew that he was alone and
that he might be alone for a very long time.
His
parents were both at work, his mother counselling disturbed children at a day-care center, his father doing something that had
vaguely to do with finance. The house was sunny and still, and all that
afternoon he searched through their desk drawers, through their files and
boxes, looking for his adoption papers. He had to know who his real parents
were. He had to know where he had come from and whether someday he might find
his way back.
His
parents’ papers were remarkably dull. There were no old love letters scented
and tied with pastel ribbons, no scan-dais, no bloodstained lace handkerchiefs.
There were no adoption papers. The shadows in the house lengthened. He became
frantic, knowing with the terrible conviction of a twelve-year-old that these strangers
named Rodger and Marilyn would murder him if they caught him going through
their things; they would have an excuse at last. But he opened one final
dresser drawer in their bedroom, not really expecting to find anything, and
under his mother’s old granny glasses and McGovern buttons was the note. It was
tucked into a corner of the drawer, not hidden very well. By this time he was
sweaty and a little breathless. His hand shook as he extracted the note, trying
not to disturb the rest of the mess.
The
paper was thick and cream-colored, with two small holes at the top as if it had
been pinned to something. Slowly he
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