Strickland warned us to behave ourselves, and have a good year, she left us alone with th is new teacher. Uumph, good year my foot. We all had to stand up, one at a time, and tell her our names. We wouldn’t ’ve had to do that if Mrs. Loving had been our teacher, she knew who we were. And you could tell this teacher had been hipped to some of us—me and Jo-Jo and a couple of other kids, I won’t say their names— by the way she looked at us when we said who we were, like she was taking Polaroids of us in her mind. I didn’t like the way she looked at me when I stood up, put my hands on my hips and said, “ My name is Denise Robinson.” This roll-call stuff took forever because she kept looking at us all cross-eyed, repeating our names after we told her who we were like she had a bad remembery or something. We couldn’t forget her name. She wrote it on the blackboard in big chalky-white letters like we were blind or something, “ My name is MISS FLEISCHHACKER,” and told us about 50 zillion times how to pronounce it. I kept thinking to myself it was a shame for a kid to get hooked with a name like that, and boy was I glad I hadn’t had anything like that happen to me. The boys didn’t want to marry her, and we girls surely didn’t want to look like her: MISS FLEISCHHACKER had yellowed hair, and yellowed teeth...with halitosis; her eyes were watery blue and she had a long pointy nose her glasses used for a sliding board; she didn’t have no shape at all, just a bean pole. And after what she did to Jo-Jo we wondered how long we’d be in jail if we killed her. Here’s ’zactly what happened—not on the first day of school, this was later in the year— and then you tell me who was wrong. Our school has this thing called. Morning Exercises. When the bell screeches at 8:00 a.m., the twenty of us slide out of our seats, place our right hands over our hearts, say the Pledge of Allegiance and then sing The Star-Spangled Banner. And we’re usually good little poll-parrots, too, chirping the words in unison—that means all together. Everything kids do in school is in unison: singing, saying multiplication tables, not liking substitute teachers, getting in trouble, everything. And that morning we decided, in unison, to have some fun with old MISS FLEISCHHACKER. So when the bell rang and she told us to take our places, we saluted the f la g and chan ted : “ I p ledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America. And to the Republic, for which it stands, One nation, under God, invisible...” “ S top!” said MISS FLEISCHHACKER, ratta-tat-ting on Mrs. Loving’s desk with the yardstick. “ The correct word is indivisible.” Shoot we knew tha t, even though we weren’t real sure of what indivisible meant. We were just having a little bit of fun. The fifth grade kids told us they’d always had fun with Mrs. Loving last year, but old lady Fleischhacker wouldn’t know fun if it was standing up on tip-toe right in front of her face. “ You will now start at the beginning, and recite the pledge properly this time or you will keep reciting it until you do say it correctly.” So we did it differently this time: “ I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America. And to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, IN-DI-VIS-A-BLE, with liberty and justice for all.” MISS FLEISCHHACKER didn’t like it any better that way and since being a teacher means she could do whatever she wanted to do to us from 8:00 till 3:30, we backed down the third time around and said it the way she wanted us to. Not because we were ascared of her or anything like that; you may not like teachers, but you weren’t ascared of them, even if your school did allow Corporal Punishment. We just said it the right way the third time because we figured if we didn't, this crazy old woman was just dumb enough to keep us standing up and pledging allegiance all day long. Some adults are like that you know, they’ll hurt themselves just to get back at you. As soon as we got through with liberty and justice for all, we made those c le a n in g -o u t-yo u r - th ro a t noises so we could launch into The Star-Spangled Banner. Oops, hold it, I forgot to tell you something. There were always two kids in charge of Morning Exercises: one kid held the flag and the other one directed the singing. The director had to give us our key, set the pitch if you wanta get technical about it. I don’t know who that Francis Scott Key was thinking about when he wrote our national anthem, but he sure wasn’t thinking about me. I don’t think old Francis was thinking about too many people at all because if you don’t start singing that song in a low enough key, by the time you reach the “ Rockets’ red glare,” you’re into some notes it would take Grace Bumbry to reach. I know because she gave a concert at our school last year and I didn’t know anybody could sing that high and still stay on key. We didn’t have any problems singing Lift Every Voice and Sing. Mr. James Weldon Johnson musta meant for anybody to sing his song, even little kids, because his notes were low enough so you could reach down in your guts and pull that song up through your throat and out your mouth like it was made for you. Wasn’t no notes you could grab hold of. But I guess Francis Scott Key didn’t want just anybody singing his song because he dangled his notes so high that little kids, and some adults, too, couldn’t get a hold on them. Anyway, up until fourth grade, whoever directed had always had enough sense to start us out on a real low note so we weren’t squealing too bad by the time the rockets took off. But dumb old MISS FLEISCHHACKER, who was really pretty young to be honest about it, I guess—she just had some old ways about her—had the director used a pitch-pipe and we didn’t know how to blow it too well. And that’s what happened that day. We started out too high and our voices cracked as we “ Proudly held.” We didn’t have nowhere left to go when the rockets took off. It was really funny, you should’ve been there. Some kids kept trying to sing, some of us played charades with the words —Mrs. Loving’s kids always played charades on Friday afternoons—but Jo-Jo started laughing. Real loud! At least he was being honest about it and not trying to fake the words. But fourth grade teachers like MISS FLEISCHHACKER don’t want honesty, they just want you to sing when they tell you to. And Jo-Jo was cracking up. Jo-Jo has one of those silly laughs, like a spastic pig snorting. And it was contagious, too, just like a sneeze orja yawn. We started giggling in unison. MISS FLEISCHHACKER ratta-tatted on Mrs. Loving’s desk again which meant we were supposed to shut up. And normally we do. But that morning, Jo-Jo just wouldn’t let us stop. I laughed so hard I caught the hiccups and thought to myself, “ Shoot, the most she can make us do is re-sing it like she made us re-say the pledge.” So I kept laughing and hiccuping. We all kept laughing and MISS FLEISCHHACKER kept beating on the desk. She kept on beating on the desk, harder and harder, and I really looked at her for a change. I usually spent most of my time doing my work, trying to ignore her. But when her face started changing colors, I stopped hiccuping right in the middle of a hie. Something was cracking her friendly- teacher’s-mask into little tiny pieces, and whatever it was, MISS FLEISCHHACKER aimed it directly at Jo-Jo. I got ascared then, just a little bit though because the most she could do was smack Jo-Jo on his open palm five times with the yardstick and he was used to getting corporally punished. But all of a sudden the classroom was loud with quietness; everybody else had stopped laughing and looked ascared too. All nineteen of us just stood there and watched MISS FLEISCHHACKER and Jo-Jo. Poor old Jo-Jo has one of those laughs that just has to die out on its This crazy old woman was just dumb enough to keep us standing up and pledging allegiance all day long. own, so I'm not real sure if he ever saw her coming. But we did and somebody tugged at his sleeve, trying to get him to shut up. He still couldn’t stop laughing. Jo-Jo snorted and honked right up until MISS FLEISCHHACKER s lapped him across the face and called him a nigger. I rubbed my cheek, that’s how much I knew it hurt Jo-Jo. MISS FLEISCHHACKER walked back to Mrs. Loving’s desk and said, “ You will now start from the beginning and show respect for our national anthem. Ready...begin.” It was just pitiful. Some kids started crying; some kids tried to sing. But Jo-Jo called her the “ b” word! I know that was wrong but we’d eavesdropped in on the big kids one day and bitch rhymed with witch and titty rhymed with kitty and a cherry didn’t always go on top of a chocolate sundae, except we couldn’t figure that one out until Jo-Jo snuck a Playboy to school one day—and I’m still not sure I get it. We knew Jo-Jo had called her something bad but she had no business slapping him like that and calling him that word our parents said you never call anybody, even if you’ re just playing. I didn’t understand what was going on. We’d always laughed whenever we missed that note and all we ever had to do before this woman came to our school was re-sing it, starting in a lower key. So she didn’t have to. slap his face like that—the Corporal Punishment Rulebook didn’t say you could. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my parents all about it. And just when I thought eve ry th ing was a ll over, MISS FLEISCHHACKER walked back to Jo- Jo’s desk and back-handed him for calling her something I bet you anything she was being. Some kids fell into their chairs. Some of us kept standing up and stared at her, crying. A few kids found somebody’s pitch and started singing. Netta, the girl who had been holding the flag, ran outta the classroom, tripped down to the principal’s office and sent the assistant principal, Mrs. Warden, running down the hallway to see what was happening. Netta was too petrified-stiff to come back so she laid down on a cot in the office until her mother could take off work and pick her up. Mrs. Warden to o k MISS FLEISCHHACKER by the arm and pulled her into the hallway. Didn’t nobody say a word except Jo-Jo. He wasn’t crying or anything, just standing there with two rocket-red-glaring cheeks and saying the “ B” word, over and over and over. And that’s when we divided the world up into black people and white people. All of our teachers had been black until fourth grade, and whenever they’d corporally punished us we knew we were being paddled for our own good. They’d always said it hurt them more than it hurt us—I wondered about that sometimes when I was waiting for my hand to stop stinging. They told us we were good kids who sometimes did bad things, but that they loved us. And they never called us names, even if Netta was a cry-baby and you-know-who was a rubber-butt. But MISS FLEISCHHACKER was white, and she had called Jo-Jo a nigger and slapped him in the face, twice, just because she was mad at him for laughing about something funny. He wasn’t laughing at her or anything she had said or done. Jo-Jo had laughed because we sounded silly trying to sing a song I don’t think old Francis Scott Key meant for us to sing in the first place or he would have put the notes closer for us to reach. Jo-Jo had laughed during a Morning Exercise full of big words we didn’t understand, like indivisible. But we understood pain and embarrassment and scarediness. And a fter our new-new fourth grade teacher explained why we had Morning Exercises and what the Pledge of Allegiance really meant, we finally understood that indivisible was like singing in unison. So we decided, in- divisibly, not to be too happy or laugh at anything for the rest of the year, even though MISS FLE ISCH HACKER never came back. We had long talks with our parents. We talked to the school psycho- logicalist. And we s till wondered what people like MISS FLEISCHHACKER would do, and could do to us, if we ever did something they really didn’t like. Davida Kilgore is a Twin Cities writer presently living in Paris. Seitu Jones is a Twin Cities artist. Kim Klein is a Twin Cities Art Director. This story is part of a collection entitled Last Summer and published by New River Press. Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1989-90 27
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