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In Clyde Hawkins Elementary School Kindergarten class, I had the distinction of being the only student whose daddy shot at the teacher.
And my teacher, Mrs. Connors, shot right back.
This was Texas, after all.
Being a painfully skinny, feisty little girl who occasionally suffered from lice and rashes of unknown origin, Clyde Hawkins Elementary school had been nothing short of heaven for me. As if the two free hot meals (breakfast and lunch, thank you very much!) weren’t enough, they even had colorful mats you could take a nap right on without the worry of bed bugs making a feast out of your legs and backside.
Ever the optimist, I was the glass half full kind of kid which was just short of a miracle considering my daddy was a straight-up drunk, and my mamma had taken off with the plumber to start a new life without me. But as long as I had those school meals, hand-me-downs from Miss Lilly (the preacher’s wife), and stayed clear of daddy when he was on one of his drinking binges, I didn’t mind about mamma and the plumber nearly as much as maybe I should have.
I was halfway through kindergarten having a good ole time eating that breakfast and enjoying that lunch while playing, singing, and finger painting. It was all fun and games until Mrs. Connors, with her white hair piled up high like a cloud and hands that were soft and wrinkly, introduced the class to letter sounds. I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t make the sounds match the letters or hold them in my head for long. Sometimes those words seemed to jump off the page at me and twist themselves around before they settled back down. I tried hard to keep up with the other kids, but even I knew something was wrong. I was falling further and further behind, and because of that, I started acting out. One day, after I had stolen Marybeth O’Neil’s workbook page and crayoned my own name on it for the second time, Mrs. Connors sent a letter home with me and asked to meet with my daddy.
Big mistake.
Daddy showed up that afternoon all liquored up and waving a double-barreled shotgun in his hand like it was the American Flag. He stood right outside on the steps of Clyde Hawkins Elementary School and punched the air with that gun. Then he yelled out in words that were slurred and as sour as vinegar.“No daughter of mine is a dimwit, and I’ll kill anyone who says so!”
Oh boy.
Me and Mrs. Connors watched from behind the safety of our second-story window while my daddy went crazy with his stompin’ and steamin’. But when we saw his finger go for that trigger we moved back. My daddy let out one warning shot in the air before he aimed that gun right at the school. Then—still hooting and hollering—he shot out the window of my kindergarten classroom.
Mrs. Connors took one look at her carefully painted windows full of ABCs and numbers one through ten and frowned. But when she saw that broken colored glass all over the floor, and me standing in the middle of those shards, Mrs. Connors got a real mean look in her eyes. I knew right there and then that my daddy was in big trouble.
“Liddy, you aren’t hurt, are you?” Her eyes did a quick sweep from my head to my toes.
“No, Ma’am.” I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from crying. “Are you?”
“No, dear. I’m fine. But now I want you to go sit down in that coat closet, honey.” Mrs. Connors’s voice was always kind, but now it sounded funny because her teeth were clenched tightly together.
“Do you think I’m a dimwit, Mrs. Connors?” I asked in a whisper because a hundred pieces of window glass darting through my body wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as the idea that my teacher thought that I was stupid.
“Silly girl, of course not!” Mrs. Connors came over and gave me a quick hug before she ushered me to the relative safety of the coat cubby. Once inside, I kept the door open a bit and looked through a web of dust to see Mrs. Connors push her chubby arm into the back of her locked wooden teacher cabinet. After some grunting and groaning, my kindergarten teacher pulled out a shotgun of her own.
Like I said, Texas.
Mrs. Connors looked at me from across the room with a reassuring wink. “Don’t you worry, Liddy. This won’t kill your daddy, but the sting might be just enough to bring him to his senses.”
Snap!Just like that my kindergarten teacher had that gun expertly cocked and loaded. Then she turned on her heels and with a stride so wide and angry it made the puffy white bun on top of her hair bounce up and down, Mrs. Connors stuck that shotgun out of the broken window, took aim, and pulled that trigger. The next thing I heard was a whole lot of cussing and yelping. My daddy kept hollering and jumping and waving his shotgun in the air until Sheriff Wylie showed up in the town’s only black and white. Then, right in front of the entire elementary school staff and half of the town’s people who had come to see what all the ruckus was about, that sheriff cuffed my daddy’s hands behind his back and took him away in the car with the flashing lights.
That night Mrs. Connors took me home with her. She put me in a bathtub filled with warm water and bubbles that smelled of roses. Then she deloused my hair and put medicine on all my flea bites. She pulled out a pink nightgown from a white chest in a purple room. My teacher explained to me that that room with the pretty polka dot wallpaper was where her granddaughters slept when they came to visit. Then Mrs. Connors tucked me into a soft bed that felt like feathers and a pillow that felt like a big squishy marshmallow. I had no idea beds could be that soft, that pillows could be that puffy, or that life could be this good.
The next day was Saturday, and Mrs. Connors took me by the hand to a department store. There she bought me my very first doll, a pair of bright white sneakers, socks, underwear, pants, tops, and one dress. She fed me lunch until I couldn’t eat anymore and let me have a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. Two days later, she took me to a special doctor who had me look into a machine. The doctor said I had something called aLazy Eye. He gave me a patch to wear on my good eye to make my weak eye stronger. I didn’t mind too much because that patch was pink, and if it meant that someday I could read as well as the other kids did? I was all in.
One steamy Saturday in early June when the air cloaked around me like a hot, wet blanket a lady came to call. She had skin the color of molasses, dark chocolate eyes, and a bright smile that was as wide as Texas. When she spoke, her voice dripped like Tupelo honey on a hot summer day.
“My name is Miss Penelope. What’s your name, Sugar?”
Even though I had a strong feeling that Miss Penelope knew my name and probably everything else about me, I answered her. “My name is Lydia Rose Hall, but everybody calls me Liddy.”
Then Miss Penelope shook my hand. “Glad to meet you, Liddy.”
Miss Penelope’s smile was kind, and her voice was gentle and calm. But that didn’t change the fact that I knew who she was. Ladies who looked just like her with their fancy clothes, and sensible shoes used to come to drop off food on our doorstep every Sunday. That is until daddy sent them away with his mean words and raised fists. The last time they came he was more horrible than before and drunker than ever. He took out his diddly right in front of them. Then my daddy peed all over the brown paper bags full of fresh fruits, vegetables, and my absolute favorite…chocolate chip cookies. I started crying and hollering and got a good whooping for the trouble. After he had fallen asleep in that dead drunk way of his, I had run out to the porch and tried desperately to save whatever I could, but it was mostly all ruined.
The ladies stopped coming after that.
“You a church lady?” I asked Miss Penelope.
“No, honey, I’m not.”
“Then you a worker come to take me away?”
