My Siblings

I miss them terribly.  Most of them are dead, or dying in a nursing home.  They are not my blood relatives, and I am not speaking now of those people who called my parents mom and dad. I miss them too, and love seeing them when I can, but they are not the people with whom I shared my childhood.  They weren't my playmates; they were too "old", too "mature". No,  I am speaking of those people I always referred to as "the residents".  Although when it comes down to it, they are my brothers and sisters.

The "residents" were the adults who lived in the group home which was also my childhood home.  My mother owned such homes from before I was born until she died. I spent my first fourteen years living in an adult congregate living facility.  The residents were adults who could not quite live on their own and who required more care than their families could provide.  Many had aging parents, some were aging parents.

  I came home from school and talked about my day with Jane, who sometimes forgot she wasn't a warden any longer in a women's prison and who, once, mistaking me for an inmate out of area, struck me with her cane. She taught me how elusive both memory and truth are, which has given me patience and understanding.

 I played checkers (both types) with Leroy, whose developmental disabilities left him mentally closer to my age of 8, which I thought was a great excuse to demand the right to smoke cigars like him, after all, we were the same age! I awed at how gracefully he took being beaten at a board game by a child.  Day in and day out.  He never wanted me to take it easy on him, so I was ruthless.  He just laughed and had just as much fun as I had, which taught me how it's the journey that matters.  He taught me all the important ways of being smart.

Bobby swung by as I was doing my homework in our living space each night just to say hi.  Just to share a smile.  Bobby sustained severe head trauma after a motorcycle accident at the age of 18.  I learned so much from him.  Not moving too fast to share a smile or say hi being chief among them.

My baby sitter was Judy.  She loved my mom.  They all did.  And mom loved them right back, but Judy was special.  She suffered from both manic depression and schizophrenia.  Most days she was great, indulgent to me (which I loved, of course), really interested in what I had to say, fiercely loyal to my mother, a hard -worker (she cleaned and did odd jobs for extra cash).  A couple times a year, though, she'd go for a drive with my mom.  Oh, I'd scream and pout that I couldn't go.  They left after dinner or near bedtime and I always hated missing an adventure.  It was years before I discovered the cause of those trips.  Mom was driving her to an institution a couple hours away.  Of course I never knew this because they were usually back by morning.  Mom almost always talked her down.  She was good at talking people down. What struck me the most about Judy, and what drives so much of my heart, was more her backstory, so to speak. 

Like Bobby, her life changed at 18.  For her though, it was emotional change rather than physical.  Judy had been prom queen, beautiful, smart, really going places.  That is, until her sweetheart left her at the altar.  She spiraled downward and latent alcoholism reared its ugly head.  By the time I knew her, she looked nothing like the girl with long flowing blond hair in the faded photograph she showed me. 

Her blond hair severe, cut bluntly, died bright beige, almost yellow, with dark roots.  Her fingers stained from cigars, nails bitten to the quick. She taught me how fleeting youth and beauty are.  I blame her for not letting me relate to the 'it' girls in school.  Their concerns didn't mean anything to me.  I found them trite and boring. 

What's the point of caring about looks or popularity when we are all just one bad break-up, one tragic ride away from living a life unrecognizable to Bobby and Judy in their youth.  Bobby and Judy taught me the trick of time; how quickly reality changes; how severely our lives can change; how easy it is to not recognize yourself in the mirror.

Then there was Jeannie.  Like Leroy, closer to my eight than her forty-eight, but she was all girl.  We sat in her room for hours making collages.  Just cutting out pictures we liked.  Jeannie taught me this truth; life is one great big art project, and we are the end result.

I could go on.  There were twenty two such teachers, friends, confidants, gurus, in my childhood home.  There was the woman who never left the house without her pearls and frequently had tea with the queen.  Although, she snuck out in broad daylight on foot, in nothing but those pearls (and sometimes sneakers) quite regularly.  She taught me how persistent the mind is, how much it overrides the body, how we all live in our minds, exactly where we want to be.

 There was Ron, who suffered severe epilepsy and had a whole host of other conditions.  He'd stop by for a hi too.  He didn't drool as much as Bobby, whose mouth had all the control of a Walking Dead walker, but he had a roving eye (just one) and a nervous tic.  Those guys taught me how to look past people's actions and just see who they are.

When I think about who really knew the child I was, who fostered her, who taught her right from wrong and just damn near everything I know about life, I just can't keep them to myself.  If I have a compassionate, understanding, kind, tolerant bone in my body, it is due to them.

I've been to some great trainings for teaching students with special needs, and specifically, for creating more inclusion in the school.  Most people think it would benefit the students with special needs to spend more time with the rest of the students.  I am lucky enough to know it's the other way around.

I find it ironic that the best parts of me, the parts of my worldview that others respect, have been gained by people so frequently marginalized in society, in schools.  So much money and time is spent in trying to encapsulate the kind of emotional education that I received.  So much credence is now given to those "soft skills" and researching how to best help our children acquire them.

Zora Neale Hurston said, "There are years that ask questions and years that answer."  In so many ways I feel like I had the answers long before I knew the questions.  I feel lucky to be in a place where I see them both so clearly, and sometimes I wonder if my students know who is really teaching them.

Life in an IB School

I feel very blessed today.  I am feeling physically ill and am scheduled for a much needed dental procedure in the morning, but I feel fine otherwise.  Life, for me, is good.  Mostly because of what I get to do all day.

Currently, I am watching the rain while 11 and 12-year-olds are running Yoga Club for me.  They are walking each other through our poses to the sounds of relaxing music.  One of my Drama students just asked to play a quick round of Improv.  I teach at an IB school.

Today, my 6th graders read two poems as master texts and wrote poems in the same styles for the poetry books they are creating.  They took books from my bookcases and searched for two minutes for literary techniques and wrote the examples on the board as a mini-review.  Then they taught me the poem I assigned for reading over Spring Break. I teach at an IB school.

My Drama students planned the filming schedule for their independent film projects demonstrating their perspective of aesthetics, got to know everyone in the class a bit better by finding a compare/contrast detail for each student, and in small groups categorized words that exemplify characteristics of ideal learners, presenting their results to the class and providing their rationale.  I teach at an IB school.

Every day I watch these young people become more tolerant, self-assured, resourceful, and gracious.
Every day I leave work feeling satisfied and relaxed, almost as though I hadn't been working at all.

Yet I have.  I have to satisfy not only district and state requirements, but those of myself and the IB world school community. I am sitting at my desk right now as a volunteer. My work is never done, and I am constantly adding more things to my to-do list.  Nonetheless, I am lucky enough to do what I feel like I was born to do: create a more peaceful world through literature. I teach at an IB school. Yep, life is pretty darn good.

44

    The exit was dark, but so had been the last fifty miles of highway. She could wait no longer. She had considered peeing in a cup, but her coffee was still pretty full. She followed the signs to the gas station and pulled in near the pumps facing the road in anticipation of making a clean getaway.
    She pulled open the grimy door and took in what she could of the small store. The daughter of a Marine, she was accustomed to taking in her surroundings quickly. She did so now: one bored clerk sitting on a stool behind the glass who didn't even look up at her,three rows of sundries and auto trader magazines, yellowed from neglect,and one coffee station free of discarded wrappers or empty sweetener packets.
     Against all instincts, she walked past the coffee station, around the greeting card carousel, to the counter. "Your restroom, please?", she asked the balding attendant. greasy comb over clinging for dear life atop his glistening globe. He inhaled deeply before passing a brass key, blackened with age,  attached to a peeling blue enamel stick under the glass and pointing straight ahead,to the west side of the building. With a huff, she ran outside and to the right, past her car and around to the side of the building. She peered into the woods, seriously debating just squatting inside the treeline, stop being a wuss, it's just a bathroom at a remote exit.I bet thousands of people have stopped here over the years and survived.
     She opened the door and headed down what could only be described as a hallway,  lit only by one dim blue flashing security light. Everything in her told her to turn and run, but she followed the path ahead of her instead. How symbolic of life, she thought. How many times did she just follow the crowd, date who her friends liked, take the job a friend or family member recommended? Her thoughts trailed of right as the hallway ended.
     "What the hell?" She yelled. The concrete box that closed around her silenced her cries.
###
"Did you hear that? I think 44's here!" said one.
 "Hooray!" The others called.
###
     She blinked in the utter darkness, suddenly regretful that she didn't better appreciate the blinking blue light. Suddenly regretful that she didn't appreciate a lot of things. Like open air. And not being held captive by some sadistic fuck.
     She opened her mouth to scream but she'd seen enough TVto know she's better off saving her breath. She grew up on Oprah. The first few minutes are most critical. Assess your surroundings and your resources. No light. Limited oxygen. Concrete walls. Her purse. No, not her purse, just her wristlet. And a bathroom key. Attached to a stick. A rather large stick, she said to herself, allowing one slow smile to creep up her cheeks. It was the first smile in what could have been years.
###
     "We've got to work faster than last time,"said One. She could've been the one that spoke earlier, but she couldn't remember. None of them could. They didn't know how long they'd been here or how to be themselves. They would get memories, sometimes, strong, powerful, urgent, but belonging to someone else. The details, for them, had gotten hazy. All but one. What they would do when 44 arrived.
###
     Of course, she doesn't think of herself as 44, she's Laura, with a miscarriage, or three, an ex-husband, and a degree from Smith, and closer to 44, than she'd like. So close, she would've slapped them if she knew that's what they called her. Luckily, she didn't. They might not have spoken to her if she had.

     She heard a whisper that sounded like a greeting. If that piece of shit thinks that I'll give him the gratification of hearing me beg for my life, he's got another thing coming. He clearly gets off on torturing people, he ain't using me to help jack his sick ass off. Then she heard it louder, this time, hollow. Hollow. Then two thoughts. Am I hearing things or thinking them, and what the fuck does hollow mean? Hollow hope, hollow faith?
###
    "No. Hollow wall." All forty three voices collapsed as one and sat again in nothingness for a long time. None had the energy to voice what they all lacked the stamina to think, I hope she got the message now.
     They spend a lot of the time in solitude, which is weird considering their seemingly immutable unified state. This is what makes the memories so foggy. Maria wants to see her baby again, but who's Maria? Sonya wants to visit her childhood home, but doesn't remember the address. The one pervasive thought they all share is saving 44, who will release them all.
     By the time 44 had arrived, they had learned that they could affect their environment. They had tried to save 43, called out to her, tried to help her make her escape, not as good Samaritans, but as comrades. Their fate was entwined with hers. Save her, and their souls would be free. Perhaps still bound, but at least able to leave their place of death.
     The gas station restroom had become cold. A dead spot no one can be released from. Too much death had occurred there. The dead remained stuck, as if by inertia. Cold places are not entirely unknown to the living, and some places remain cold long after the dead have been released. Aubrey, number 17, developed the theory of cold places while she was awaiting death in her stall. She had visited Dacchau in high school, and remained stricken by the cold in that place for the rest of her 23 years, and ever since. As each victim's concrete cell dropped, this place has gotten decidedly colder.
    It was Aubrey, too, who had suggested that they were connected, bound by their common death, and would remain so until someone escaped their fate. John, number 30, for not all men use the treeline, and some who had met their own end, but alas that is another tale, John, inspired by the movie Ghost, suggested they train collectively, linking up their energies to persuade the concrete world. Persuade is the word they used, for they couldn't affect the world any longer, not really, at least.
  Thus, sending the message "Hollow wall" was the culmination of two decades of conjoined focus.
###
     Hollow wall got Laura thinking. She reassessed her resources. She had paid little attention when her house was being built. That was Jeff's realm, but she had paid rapt attention in physics class. Prof. Lawler commanded the attention of most of his female students. She tried to recall words like joists and rebar from the conserved corners of her vocabulary while digging through her small bag. Key fob, useless except to hit the alarm, to what end? Announce her captivity to her captor? No thanks. Phone, probably no service. Could she Candy Crush her way out? Doubtful. Did she ever download that flashlight? Yes. Light. Check. Okay, let's see, four walls and a ceiling. Hollow though. Any cracks? No. Corners are probably reinforced. Too bad she doesn't have a magnet. Wait. Is there? Yes! That useless compact with the broken powder. Magnetized on the bottom. That's why it was so expensive. Okay, concrete coffin, let's find your weak spot.
###
    It was torture for him to wait out the first hour and forty-five minutes. Laura was wrong, he didn't do it for that initial panic, but for those last few minutes of clinging to that final breath. They hit the walls, but no one comes close to breaking through. About 4 years ago, he hit a lull, even toyed with the idea of suicide. He'd created a game that didn't seem to have a finish line. Like when you change the monopoly rules to so the game will last an entire snowstorm. That was why he added the chisel inside the bathroom stick, to breathe life into his game. He knew it could hardly be called that. It was a game in the sense monopoly is a game when you are playing the cousins you are babysitting, and you're the banker. He had to make rules for himself, he couldn't trust the Squatters to make it interesting, now could he?
    Years ago, he'd mastered the art of lowering the Squatters' defenses. Avoiding eye contact is a great way of disarming their survivalist instincts. They presumed him bored. Tonight he risked a deep breath, but she'd interpreted it as bored disgust, rather than delight. Killing 43 (44!) people in the same way, without laying so much as a finger on them could be regarded as boring or weak to some, lucky for him he had little regard for the opinions of others, even those who share his proclivities.
     Tonight, he set his timer and resisted pleasuring himself for 45 minutes, after which, he made himself a drink, walking the length of "the room" from inside the store. Not counting tonight's grab, he figures he has room for 16 more. He wonders what he'll do when he finishes his game, start a new one, blow himself up with the evidence? He tries to relax, enjoy the moment, now is not the time for this existential bullshit.
     There is a woman breathing her last breaths on the other side of this wall and he is the only one to witness it. That is an incredibly intimate event. One that screams for the proper attire. He has had the idea more than once to keep a tuxedo in the storage room, but didn't like the potential messiness of questions. He plays "What's the Worst that Could Happen?" Almost continuously. The tuxedo scene works like this: a cop comes in for a soda while he's putting money in the safe. Copper sees the suit and asks if he's got big plans. Well the only cops come out here are highway patrol cause there ain't a town to speak of, this exit. Any line he gives, though, the cop's gonna see through. At one point he came up with monthly stories, April funeral, May graduation, June wedding, July reunion, but things got a little hazy after that. Doesn't seem worth the trouble. So, no monkey suit. This makes every little detail of his ritual, every step, crucial. This is his Midnight Mass. This is his prom.
###
     "Let's get it together, people," said one.
     "Ball, right?" Said another.
     "Yes, Ball," Said a third.
     "Just like we practiced," Said a handful.
     "Well, we practiced other stuff too,"said that one.
     "For when we get out. For after Ball," Said several.
     "Okay, sheesh, I just wanted to double check," She said.
     "Ready?" Asked most.
     "Ye-esss," replied the rest.
     "On my count," said Aubrey, who'd been watching as Laura found the spot she was ready to strike.
     "Why you?" Someone asked.
     "Shut up," said everybody else.
     "One." They gathered close together, so tight someone chuckled, remembering the question, how many angels can fit on the head of a needle, turning it into how many ghosts can curl up like a baseball to break out of their early graves and exact revenge on the serial killer who took away their matter. The one next to her, Sage (at least she thinks that's her own name), thought you don't have to have matter to make a difference.
###
    Laura raised the stick like a bat and shifted her weight to her hind leg, one, two, Three! Rang a chorus in her head. The stick bounced hard, banging into her arm, snapping back her wrist. Hard.  It hurt, bad. And it was loud. She almost gave up. She almost didn't turn her phone to the wall again to see the result of her little batting session. She almost didn't waste her time.
    Almost. Incredibly, there was a long crack on the wall. Well, a lot more than her strike would have done alone. Two inches, maybe. Big enough to notice, big enough to motivate her. She wound up again. The other 43 were with her all the way. She was so  excited, she imagined she was in Yankee Stadium. "Here's the wind up. Here's the pitch. She swung again, and the crowd went wild, after the Ball, of course.
     Progress yes, but not enough. After a dozen more swings, Laura was losing steam, and air. She slid down the wall and curled into a ball and had a good, long, cry.
    Chisel, came the whisper, unmistakable. Clear as a bell, this time. A chorus of whispers, in fact.
     "Seriously, what is going on? Who are you?"
     Later. Chisel stick.
     "Chisel stick?" She asked, but despite her confusion she felt around the stick until she found what felt like a the toothpick slot in a Swiss army knife, but on a larger scale. She pulled and smelled the unmistakably iron odor of a chisel.
     "Now this changes things," she said, a bit shocked. They all agreed.She hit the wall again and again, using the chisel to stab at it, worked through one side of a cinder block, only to get discouraged by the other. Inside of an hour, with a little help from her friends, she scurried through rubble and stood up on the other side. Took a deep breath of freedom, laced with cheap whiskey.
    Shit.
    She didn't need light to see the face of her assailant. She saw him clear as day in her mind's eye. Saw his face and where it was. She felt time stop, and knew her swing would be true. She gouged his eye with the chisel, somehow pushing through and past him as she took off for her car. Everything was shaking. Her toes, her vision, even the ground.
    She realized she left the chisel in that creep' s face as she fumbled with her key fob. She started to panic that he'd followed her out, but the sound of screams behind her helped to calm her down enough to get in and start the car. She was back on the highway before she realized she'd never peed.
  ###
    The 43, as they prefer to be called, shot through the hole, creating a bright blue ball of energy. Laura didn't notice it behind her, so focused was she on jamming the chisel into the creep' s face and getting the hell out of there. Not to worry, they'd been waiting a long time to have her back. They wasted no time, raining down flashes of heat in the form of fists of fury. It was they that knocked him down and beat him mercilessly as Laura made her escape. She and everyone else would attribute his bloody condition to adrenaline. Her therapist spent a lot of those first hours in convincing her that she'd repressed the memories of beating the creep to death.  Eventually, she would chalk the voices in her head up to auditory hallucinations brought on by stress. That's the way she'd have to process it. Escaping a serial killer is a big enough deal; no need to throw paranormal activity into the mix.
###
     At least that's how Paula Winston explained it to the other 43 who were hurt that Laura forgot about them.
    It was easier for all of them to remember themselves after their escape. Full names, addresses, and even places of work came flooding in, with few mix ups. Aubrey Jameson became the pilot as they unfurled the Ball and flattened into Blanket, flying across the night sky like a giant stingray. John was copiloting, due to the fact that Ball was his idea. Despite now having a leadership hierarchy, their newfound sense of selves divided the ranks. They were far less effective without a common goal.
###
    A half-hour later, Laura was giving a statement at a police station. Apparently, the man was dead by the time authorities arrived. Laura didn't really know what to say, there were so many things that didn't make sense. She stayed in town while they excavated the death trap, and a little longer than that. Laura was eventually hired by the state department and bought the land previously owned by one Miles D. Jacobs, aka Heartland' s Horror. It became a hub for locating and identifying missing persons in a coalition among 12 states. Where the concrete cages were located became a Memorial garden for the 43. The land and Jacob's house went to his nephew, Leo, who sold both and gave the profit to the foundation that created the memorial, along with a heartfelt letter of apology and a generous delivery of flowers, shrubs, and trees for the garden.
    All of this, of course, was after 43 sets of phone calls, body identification, funerals, all of which were attended by 43 ghosts, who frequently traveled in the form of blanket, and who, after kissing sleeping children and dying parents, remained bound together, helping Laura whenever they could, whether she thought she needed it or not.

Illustration:woman in rainbows holding an umbrella, with a sparkly blue blanket winking behind her.

Synopsis:A man traps 43 women in his cellar at an old gas station. They discover how to coalesce into one being for the purpose of revenge. They help 44 escape, but what becomes of the other 43? After they visit children and past lovers they lose focus and are tired of fighting for power. They don't want to go beyond. They don't want to die. They look up 44. She's a local hero and detective. They decide to let her lead them. They help her solve mysteries.