Institutionalized

Pine, Palm, Ash, Vine.

St. Louis Catholic school, 72 Vine Street, Nashua New Hampshire.

1981?

It was a long carpooling-ride in every morning for the middle school’s 7:30 early start. Never long enough. The fear would start to climb and the heart would start to race as we crossed Pine, Palm, Ash, and finally swung a left on the Vine in this jungle of one-ways. The parking lot/school yard would unfold on the right, one building (was it the rectory? It had a sign in French on it and I cannot quite remember what it said, though my eyes are closed and I’m squinting really hard to make it out. Something about friendship si je me souviens. Was it Le Rendezvous?) occupying no man’s land between the late 60s catholic-institutional architecture of the two stories high, one hallway deep, long and skinny school building (a double-height double wide) and the modern, austere, cold, dark, quiet, in the semi-round church. The original beauty in this French quarter of the city had burned down before my time. So don’t call the VFD, it warn’t me and it warn’t B-Jackie.

The church itself wasn’t all bad. Come late Sunday evening, it was the last option for miles around, and without the torture that is the catholic attempt at joyous music (ha! entire documentaries could be filmed on the inherently pathetic catholic attempts at music, all, I assume, focused on the goal of getting away from the pipe organ. My theory is that they did the folk mass to us on purpose), mass would be an in and out affair, accomplished in 40 minutes or less or your money back. Dead, lifeless, quiet, quick. Which is, I suppose, a thing worth contemplating from the catholic perspective if only it weren’t generally the only thing we seem to offer, and therefore the contemplation isn’t a separate consideration, it’s the mud we wallow in. Depressing as, well, depressing as hell. Add to that the fact that, if it was during the school year, I would likely be back in under twelve hours to begin a shiny new week as I, in the back seat of the carpool began my catastrophic countdown to catatonia.

Pine, Palm, Ash, Vine.

There was a traffic light that would sometimes catch us during the countdown. There was a florist on the right hand corner of… (was it Elliot? Lake?) and Pine or Palm. It was only a thirty second delay, but it helped.

Why was this normal? Why didn’t I consciously recognize how much I hated school when I clearly consciously recognized what gave me each day my daily dread:

Pine, Palm, Ash, Vine.

As documented elsewhere, I’m “wicked smaht,” smart enough that is, that I wasn’t afraid of failing classes or being “held back,” my generation’s euphemism for flunking (what do they call it now, I wonder. Do they even do that or do they kick your can up a grade regardless?). I was Bs and As without effort, though effort was involved. There is no joy in schools, in schoolwork; only pressure and dread. There is, like taxes, the silent presence of enforcement, ultimately, by the threat of gaol, that is, the threat of force. Detention, suspension, your permanent record. The dark, mysterious, “you’ll get in trouble,” a punishment made worse than all others because you don’t know what the punishment could have been. Abstract fears are the best fears, or at least the most effective. It’s not just schools. Look at those around you. People have no idea what they’re afraid of, but afraid they certainly are.

School is fun but twice a year. The night before the new year starts, when your loose leaf is sorted and orderly and empirically, ironically un-loose in your new Trapper Keeper along with long, freshly-sharpened pencils and oh, we get to use a compass and protractor this year, and the last day, at the end, bell ringing, short sleeved, warm sun, running helter-skelter escaping the building singing your choice of Alice Cooper or Pink Floyd’s arena anthems.

Just to be clear: I think that schools are the most blunt instrument you can find to inflict an education.

I had at least three incredibly embarrassing moments during my middle school years. I’m fine now, and survived, but can you imagine, in middle school of all times through your twelve year institutional sentence:

1. Trying to do some fashion thing the cool kids did (there’s not much room for fashion while wearing the blue pants, blue or white button down shirt uniform, but kids can be creative within those bounds) and getting called on it by the cool kids. I didn’t make it to lunch break.

2. Crying and blubbering in front of the class because the teacher dressed you down for missing an assignment.

3. Actually peeing your pants on a ski trip? Calgon, where were you?

Ha! School, the full time job for children, the make-work day camp that carries over into the evening with fucking homework because they apparently couldn’t stuff knowledge into your rightfully rejecting brains during the seven hours they had you chained to your desk.

Here comes the judge. All rise!

“As for the crime of which you are accused, that of being a happy child in this modern world, we find you guilty, and hereby sentence you to twelve years of institutional schooling. Your incarceration will begin with the orientation at kindergarten (you fucking Germans and your fucking obsessive-compulsive structure, round holes to pound square pegs into), from which you will proceed to the elementary (up here in Maine, there’s a colloquialism where the accent is placed towards the end of the word. El-e-men-TARE-y. It’s the tell that helps you spot the natives. Or, I suppose, since everyone here is from here and I’m from away (another colloquialism, along with taurists, (those who come up to their lake house in summah and leave their money behind) since I’ve only lived here 17 years, I’m still (and will ever be) from away) it helps me stand out. Or blend in. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!) (Did I close all the parenthetical asides? I used to use footnotes, but now I want readers to have to work for comprehension of my gist through a tangled path of tangential trails) day prisons of Holy Angels and St. Christopher. Upon completion of your base certifications in reading, writing, and arithmetic, you’ll graduate into a new institution, St. Louis, specifically and diabolically designed to pervert your mind. We call it the middle school. No longer a child but not yet pubescent; oh, the delightful tortures you’ll encounter there. Should you successfully navigate pre-algebra (come on, kid, if 3X = 9, what is X? Yep, 3. You got it. That’s pre-algebra. It takes a full year to get that across via our water-drop-to-the-forehead torture teaching methods, but developing an inherent distaste for learning is the real lesson here, not a love of simple mathematics) and learn to repeat full sentences in a foreign language (French! French, not that commoner’s pig-din Spanish (which has taken over that French neighborhood in the generation and a half since I escaped Prison Camp 72 Vine)), we’ll move you into the maximum security, all-boys high school across town: Bishop Guertin. In that asylum, we’ll let the inmates provide for the torture through rivalry (sucks bein’ you, Charlie Wagner), tradition (go green and gold!), and locker rooms with communal showers. Everyone will know you really haven’t hit puberty by the simple fact that you ain’t no-ways, no-how going to strip off your underwear while changing for or from gym class. Nope. Can you imagine a bare, hairless scrotum exposed by a junior in a room full of testosterone-filled apes? Holy shit, those lockers are big enough to stuff a scared, naked kid into and padlock. Perhaps one of the perverted Brothers (not all, some: but apparently not the ones you would expect. My guardian angel watched over me, ‘tis true, and for that I thank him) will get you. Regardless, you’ll be in no danger of getting a girl pregnant there. Son, you’re being sentenced here. Yes, the juniors and seniors will be mean to you through orientation and important tribal rituals designed, and I want to make this clear, designed to make a man out of you. If you were a native, you’d have to smoke peyote, go on a vision quest, and hunt down a wolf for your chief. We’re not savages here. We’re simply savage. You know, with class. But look at it on the bright side: Eventually you’ll be the one in charge. (You can exact your revenge by inflicting like-for-like damage on the next generation through. What a great system! Hand me down, pass it on torture. Traditio, Vindicta, Brutalis!) This sentencing is serious and these investments in your future are not handed down in a light-hearted manner. These austere institutions will prepare you for real life, because that’s what you need at your tender, innocent, formable age. It’s formation for your own good, son: Go to college. Oh, and sell those chocolates. Clear? Any last words before we commit you to your path?”

“Yes, your honor, if I may. Are you sure this is the only way? That it’s right for me; that it’s right for everyone?”

“Damn your insolence! You will not speak such heresies in my court. Where do you get such cheek? Of course it’s right. There are communists out there! Faggots! There are losers who punch a clock every day. They, they… they labor, good God. Think on that, young one. Bailiff, I want add something to this one’s special case. I want the following inscribed on his brain for all eternity, so that he may remember what trouble awaits those who question authority…”

Pine, Palm, Ash, Vine.