The Seventh Circle

I don't know what your memories are. In mine, my sister and I board the bus from the end of Maple Street--or Immigrant Avenue. Us, with our square backpacks from Norway, and my sister's accent, and my funky eyes; Anna and Albert Marsili, who only spoke Italian until we taught them English, little by little; Wilma and Yvonne deHaas, from Holland, who weren't allowed to play with us because their clothes got too dirty. All of us freaks, in a lily-white town of corporate executives.

I don't remember the taunts, but I know they were there. I remember people shifting their bags so there'd be no room for us on the seats beside them. I remember the Inger Finger chant--so innocuous now that my children do it sometimes and I laugh. But then it was the ultimate proof that I didn't belong. The not belonging--that's the thing that sticks with you.

One morning, for whatever particular reason, my mother climbed onto the bus and hollered at the kids and the driver. Said she was taking names--she was calling parents, she'd be in the principal's office before the bus even got to school that day. My sister and I paid for that. The taunts increased. Now we were also BABIES who needed their MOMMY to protect them.

But I also know how it cost my mother; I know how she'd cry in the principal's office, affected by their plasticity, by her pain at her children's pain--by her sense that nobody could crack the nut. What was she supposed to do? Nothing?

Liam has been having a hard time on the bus. He, of course, stands out in this lily-white town, too, though his personality is bigger and sunnier than mine ever was, and that helps him. He's gotten off the bus in tears more often than not, and one day he got off the bus with a bloody lip. The bloody lip happened because he was hiding on the floor under the seat instead of sitting in the seat and wearing a seat belt. He wasn't wearing a seat belt because the kids behind him were whacking him on the head with a book, and the seat belt made him vulnerable to more attacks. The bus driver is a non-influence.

I talked to the driver. I talked to the principal. I talked to the teacher and the superintendent. They promised to look into it, but didn't. So when Liam got off the bus in tears again, I became my mother.

I climbed onto that bus Monday morning. I hollered at the driver and the kids--even made one kid cry, and felt glorious about it. I took names. I said I'd be calling parents (and I did); I said I'd be in the principal's office before the bus got to school that day (and I was). That afternoon Liam climbed off the bus in tears. "They're TORTURING me!" he screamed. I didn't even know he knew that word.

Why oh why do we thumb our noses at history?

The supervisor at the bus depot tells me they have videos on the bus now--something they didn't have in my day. She watched it, and was appalled--said she'd be using it in a bus safety training session, and that she was sending it over to the school administrators. (Mom tells me now that she, too, finally got action when she went to the bus depot supervisor. ) But for now, I'm driving Liam in and picking him up. He hates it, but I'm too explosive in this arena to walk any kind of line; I'm fueled by the past.