called, blatantly enough, the Wayside School.
For troubled girls, my mother would tell me as we drove past, for girls in trouble. (The irony of it was never lost upon her: all her prayers and all her formulas for pregnancy coming to nothing while mere children were conceiving, casually, inadvertently, in parking lots and playgrounds.) It was surrounded by a high stockade fence so that only its green and silver sign was visible from the road, and the driveway that led into it was blocked by an iron gate. I never saw the school buildings themselves, never knew anyone who went there, but each Christmas one of the classes in our own school would draw Wayside as its place to send Christmas packages. Draw it from a field that included the children’s ward at the nearby mental hospital, a city prison, a Catholic orphanage and innumerable nursing homes. The girls at Wayside, the class would be told each year, would appreciate perfume, hand cream, small stuffed animals and dusting powder. Each year the class was asked not to enclose notes, names or addresses with their gifts.
In college, I met a girl who had grown up just a few blocks from the school. She told me about the occasional incident when one of the “students” tried to bolt, running wild and confused (and sometimes, too appropriately, barefoot) through their neighborhood or down the main street. Once, she and some of her girlfriends—they couldn’t have been more than nine or ten at the time—took a ladder from a set of bunk beds and carried it through the backyard of a neighbor and across a gully to some obscure part of the school’s high fence. It had been about dusk on a summer evening and they had taken turns climbing up. They stood on tiptoe, on the top rung, gripping the points of the fence’s wooden stakes, but what they saw made the effort worthwhile: a half dozen teenage girls, most of them pregnant, listlessly tossing a beach ball across a lush green lawn.
Eventually, one of the teenagers noticed the children, or perhaps one of the children grew brave enough to call out, and the entire group moved toward the fence. At first they exchanged information politely, with some of the cautious fascination of Martian to Earthling. “Hello!” they said. “Where did you come from?” The unwed mothers, with their hands on their hips and their bangs in their eyes, laughed each time one of the children stepped down and another head appeared. It must have been a kind of puppet show for them. “And what’s your name?” they’d ask each new face. “And what kind of house do you live in?” The children themselves turning to look down—“What? What?”-taking instructions from the invisible chorus below.
When some kind of rapport had been established, the teenagers asked for cigarettes. Of course the children had none, but yes, they had parents who smoked. Their parents would never miss one pack, the pregnant girls assured them.
(And here our school officials should be commended for their foresight. What might have happened to my own classmates had they included their names and addresses when they wrapped their two cans of hairspray and card of bobby pins in Christmas paper? What requests might they have received from the Wayside girls in return: Go into your parents’ room while they are sleeping. Remove the following from your father’s handkerchief drawer ...)
Two of the children said, almost immediately, “I’ll be right back.” The others said, “We’ll bring you some tomorrow.” And magazines, the girls said, good magazines like Modern Romance, 16, True. Could they ever get them magazines? The children conferred. One climbed the ladder to say her sister read 16 and Teen Screen. She was forced down by the breathless return of the others, who carried packs of Camels and Pall Malls.
And makeup, the unwed mothers asked. Could they maybe bring them some makeup? But suddenly one of them said, “Beat it,” and the teenagers scrambled. The children
For troubled girls, my mother would tell me as we drove past, for girls in trouble. (The irony of it was never lost upon her: all her prayers and all her formulas for pregnancy coming to nothing while mere children were conceiving, casually, inadvertently, in parking lots and playgrounds.) It was surrounded by a high stockade fence so that only its green and silver sign was visible from the road, and the driveway that led into it was blocked by an iron gate. I never saw the school buildings themselves, never knew anyone who went there, but each Christmas one of the classes in our own school would draw Wayside as its place to send Christmas packages. Draw it from a field that included the children’s ward at the nearby mental hospital, a city prison, a Catholic orphanage and innumerable nursing homes. The girls at Wayside, the class would be told each year, would appreciate perfume, hand cream, small stuffed animals and dusting powder. Each year the class was asked not to enclose notes, names or addresses with their gifts.
In college, I met a girl who had grown up just a few blocks from the school. She told me about the occasional incident when one of the “students” tried to bolt, running wild and confused (and sometimes, too appropriately, barefoot) through their neighborhood or down the main street. Once, she and some of her girlfriends—they couldn’t have been more than nine or ten at the time—took a ladder from a set of bunk beds and carried it through the backyard of a neighbor and across a gully to some obscure part of the school’s high fence. It had been about dusk on a summer evening and they had taken turns climbing up. They stood on tiptoe, on the top rung, gripping the points of the fence’s wooden stakes, but what they saw made the effort worthwhile: a half dozen teenage girls, most of them pregnant, listlessly tossing a beach ball across a lush green lawn.
Eventually, one of the teenagers noticed the children, or perhaps one of the children grew brave enough to call out, and the entire group moved toward the fence. At first they exchanged information politely, with some of the cautious fascination of Martian to Earthling. “Hello!” they said. “Where did you come from?” The unwed mothers, with their hands on their hips and their bangs in their eyes, laughed each time one of the children stepped down and another head appeared. It must have been a kind of puppet show for them. “And what’s your name?” they’d ask each new face. “And what kind of house do you live in?” The children themselves turning to look down—“What? What?”-taking instructions from the invisible chorus below.
When some kind of rapport had been established, the teenagers asked for cigarettes. Of course the children had none, but yes, they had parents who smoked. Their parents would never miss one pack, the pregnant girls assured them.
(And here our school officials should be commended for their foresight. What might have happened to my own classmates had they included their names and addresses when they wrapped their two cans of hairspray and card of bobby pins in Christmas paper? What requests might they have received from the Wayside girls in return: Go into your parents’ room while they are sleeping. Remove the following from your father’s handkerchief drawer ...)
Two of the children said, almost immediately, “I’ll be right back.” The others said, “We’ll bring you some tomorrow.” And magazines, the girls said, good magazines like Modern Romance, 16, True. Could they ever get them magazines? The children conferred. One climbed the ladder to say her sister read 16 and Teen Screen. She was forced down by the breathless return of the others, who carried packs of Camels and Pall Malls.
And makeup, the unwed mothers asked. Could they maybe bring them some makeup? But suddenly one of them said, “Beat it,” and the teenagers scrambled. The children
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