Mark's Pages

March 12, 2003:

Very young children, daycare, early 1960s.

Skinny Mark, all spindly arms and elbows insect-thin. Pale, with smiling lips that seem extra-bright by contrast. Dark brown hair in a military cut. Green jeans, red Keds, home-knitted red v-neck sweater that fascinates him for some childhood reason. Energy enough to light up La Mesa, California, for weeks to come.

Shy little girl, tiny, quiet. Dark-haired, sometimes braided in pigtails, sometimes not. Loves the older children, but, she's too small and too shy to join in easily. Idolizes young Mark as a sophisticated first-grader, unimaginably mature in her awkward preschool eyes.

With her stands ancient Bertie, their daycare keeper; that is, Bertha Angel, professional babysitter. Older than trees and rivers, heavyset, sluggish, none-too-bright, not-too-fast, but well-meaning and full of love for the children she tends. Baptist, devout; she enjoys reading psalms aloud in King James' dialect, sonorous syllables lost on the open-mouthed kids blinking in befuddlement.

"Mark," Bertie says kindly. "We have something we'd like to show you."

She and the little girl stand beaming.

You climb down from the wall or the refrigerator top or the faux chandelier, wipe your runny nose with a sleeve, stand impatiently, arms crossed, foot tapping. This little girl wants something. Spit it out.

She's mastered an important achievement. In her shy way, she wants to share her pleasure. With pride and measured precision she carefully sings, "Aay bee cee dee eee eff jee; aaytch eye jay kay, ell-em-en-owe-pee. Cue and arr and ess and tee, you-vee dubble-you ex why zee. Now I know my aay bee cees! Tell me what you think of me!" Stands shyly beaming, awaiting judgment.

Schoolyard playground. Dry sand under swaying eucalyptus trees that rustle in the wind, sometimes dropping acorns hard as rocks. In the dappled shade, older boys are playing marbles for keeps. Because you want to join them you're watching carefully, mentally mimicking their postures and actions and language.

"Pee Dee's first," someone says. Pee Dee's a wiry kid with orange hair, an orange shirt and bright orange ear wax clearly visible from yards away. Although ear wax is inherently fascinating, right now you're focusing closely on the game.

Pee Dee shoots, a standard cat's eye, going for distance over the soft sand surface broken by twigs and acorns and eucalyptus leaves. But his aim is off. His marble clips a tree root, bounces halfway back, comes to rest an easy target, just two or three feet from the starting point.

"That was stupid!" says another boy, derisively.

Pee Dee looks up from behind his ear wax, scowls, says, "You're stupid."

"Not as stupid as you," says the second boy.

Pee Dee puffs out his scrawny chest, scowls, says, in the ultimate grammar school macho-challenge, "Prove it."

Second boy snickers. He's a heavy kid, dark-skinned, with falling-down pants that are too short for him. This is his game. The other boys acknowledge his mastery, but grudgingly, and only for short periods, a few days. He's forced to prove himself again and again, for as you observe, marbles is a sport without heroes.

He measures the lie of the land, aims, shoots. A purie with a bluish tint. Clack! Easy prey. Pee Dee's cat's eye is his. He adds it to the bag he carries, clasped with a drawstring of red and white braided threads.

"Thanks stupid," he snickers. Looking around he says, "Next?"

You step up. The older boys frown. You've never been allowed to play, but now you're sure you know how to convince them. You pull a beauty from your pocket, a cobalt-blue boulder which you got from another boy one day by trading your lunch. You think of it as your entrance fee.

Eyes widen with greed. Heavy kid nods. You're in, because he wants it.

You shoot, avoiding the tree root, a good, long shot. Heavy kid sizes his chances, decides on a conservative response. Lands his cat's eye boulder halfway between yours and the starting point. It's too far to be a sure hit, and it's over uneven ground, a difficult lie. He's pleased. Odds are you'll miss your attempt, and land lying close enough for an easy kill with his second shot.

You fool him. You aim for position, shooting to his left toward a patch of harder ground strewn with acorns. Your strategy is to use the acorns as defense shields, forcing him to come closer to you.

He snickers. He believes the acorns are not so tough. And he thinks your lie makes it more difficult for you to reach him than for him to reach you. "That was stupid," he says. With his second shot he narrows the distance, landing with slightly downhill lie, about six feet across broken ground.

Perfect. You've been practicing. Shots at this distance aren't so hard with boulders. They're bigger and heavier than standard marbles, and they curve in more predictable ways. The ground is broken where you are, but it's open sand where he lies. All you have to do is shoot over the acorn patch and roll downhill. Clack! You win.

There's a gasp from the older boys. You smile. You took him fair and square, and there's no denying it. Pee Dee smiles. Vengeance is sweet. You pick up both boulders. "Next?", you say.

Heavy kid looks at you over one cocked eye. "What's your name?", he challenges.

"Not 'stupid', stupid!" you answer, and everyone laughs, even him.

By the end of the school year your marble collection fills half a dozen three-pound coffee cans.

"I think you're stupid," pronounces Judge Mark, with finality, like the sound of a gavel.

Picture the mouth of a shy little girl open in surprise. It trembles, while tiny welling pools form into I'm-sad drops that trickle down little-girl cheeks. For a moment she looks into your eyes with no shame for her broken heart. Then she bursts into soul-sobs, hides her face in her hands, runs crying into another room, where you can still hear her sniffling hours later, at the end of the day.

Much later Bertie asks him, "Why did you do that?"

You have no answer. There's no reason why you did it. You thought that's what you were supposed to do.