Chapter 6 --- Special Ed

SPECIAL EDUCATION

         It was getting more into fall by this time. Summer was fading fast. Jess walked down to the bus stop with Joey. "Listen Little One, I have to tell you something. I won't be on the bus this afternoon because there's something I have to go do. You get on the bus and come on home and I'll get back later, okay?"

         Joey said, "Okay. What do you have to go do?"

         Jess said, "You remember what happened last week?"

         A lot of things had happened last week, but Joey could guess within two which one. "You mean when you had a fight with the Bull or when you got saved?"

         "Both of those things."

         "What about it?"

         "This might be a little hard for you to understand because you're only five but I'll tell you. You know I've been reading in the Bible lately. I found where it says that if you know somebody that has something against you, you need to go and talk to him and straighten it out. Well the Bull has something against me. I broke his nose, right? Well I can't fix his nose but I can apologize to him."

         "Apologize to the Bull? Isn't he a retard?"

         "Don’t call him that; don't ever call anybody that!"

         "What did he do to make you mad?"

         "He said something he shouldn't, but then I did something I shouldn't. So that makes me worse than him and I have to do something about it."

         "You're going to apologize to him?"

         "Something like that. I hurt him and I didn't have any right to do that."

         This was making more sense to Joey than Jess thought. He'd been watching the changes in his young governor very closely. Joey went right to the heart of the matter as usual and said, “This is because you got saved, isn’t it?"

         Jess smiled. "Yeah."

         The bus arrived then and Joey joined some friends his own age.

         After school Jess went over to the other building where the special ed classes were held and waited for Ernest to come out. When the Bull saw him standing there his first thought was trouble but he had no choice but to walk through the gate where Jess was standing. He already knew that provoking Jesse was unwise; he might learn slowly but he had got that in one lesson. Jesse fell into step beside him. "Bull I need to talk to you," he said. Ernest looked up at him apprehensively.

         "Okay. Are you still mad at me?"

         "No, no more. Come over here," and Jess led him to a bench under the cotton wood tree. Leaves were falling all around them. Apologizing did not come easy to Jess. He said, "I'm sorry for what I did to you. I didn't have any right to do it and ~~ I'm sorry."

         Ernest looked at him in surprise. "I said a bad thing to you and I'm sorry, too," he said.

         This was going better than Jess expected. "What you said wasn't that bad, I just took it wrong. I had no right to hit you. I don't have a right to hit anybody.”

         "That's okay Jesse." Ernest had a kind of childlike view of the world. "Does this mean we can be friends?"

         Jess offered a right hand and Ernest grasped it. His right, the Bull's left, the hands they had hit each other with a week ago. "Yes it does."

         Ernest pointed out, "You're smart. I'm a retard."

         "Don't call yourself that, Bull."

         "Everybody calls me that. You called me it a couple of times."

         "Then I'm sorry. I was out of line."

         "That's okay. I didn't think smart people could be friends with re ~ with dumb people."

         "Why not?"

         Ernest plumbed his mind for a reason and could not come up with one.

         Jess said, "If smart people are all that smart they should help people; not insult them and hurt their feelings."

         Ernest had not really known Jess before this all started. When he had insulted him on the way to school that morning he did it without really thinking about it; certainly not looking to start a fight. Now he was looking closely at him and seeing him for the first time. Ernest said, "People laugh at me. They might laugh at you for being my friend."

         "Let them. How is your nose? I'm real sorry I broke it."

         The Bull was still wearing a bandage. "It hurts. But it's getting better."

         Jess said he had to be getting home because he had chores. The Bull needed to get home for the same reason. Jess said, "Then we forgive each other?"

         "Sure." Enest was impressed that one of the smart people would seek him out to apologize to him. The two boys shook hands again and headed for home.

         After that there was a friendship formed between Jess and the big slow boy people called a Mongoloid and said he wasn't all there. Jess was finding out Ernest had the mind of as child along with a great deal of understanding that had nothing to do with being smart. He found himself taking the place of a kind of defender where Ernest was concerned and having something to say right away when anyone gave him grief. People had reason to respect Jess and because of that they began to respect Ernest a little more too. Nobody wanted to incur Jess’s wrath!

         A couple of Sundays later Ernest, pretty much cleaned up and combed appeared at the foot of the church steps to meet Jess. "I'm here," he said with a grin. The bandage was off his nose by then. Jess had tried to explain to Ernest what was going on in his own life and what had happened to him in this place. Some of it made sense to the other boy; some of it was confusing, but Jess was new at this himself. He had somehow got it across to the Bull that he could talk to God and being retarded did not shut him out from that.

         Treacher watched them together and decided Jess didn't need any help, not from him. He wondered how much of the teaching was sinking in through the Bull's thick head.

         After service Jess invited Ernest to come home with him. "Mom made a roast beef and there's plenty," he said. "Here you go, Joey, climb up." He leaned down and Joey got on his back. Jess explained, "It's quicker carrying him because his legs are so short. Besides he likes to be carried, don’t you?" Joey said he did and put his arms around Jess's neck and prepared for the ride home.

         "Is Miz MacIver going to be mad you brought me home?" Ernest asked.

         "I don't think so, why should she?"

         Ernest started to say because he was a retard and then he knew Jess didn't like that word. It was funny he thought because Jess was still learning and he still used plenty of cusswords but it was that word he took exception to.

         Jess let Joey climb down by the side porch and told him to go in and change out of his church clothes. "I better go help him so he gets things hung up right," he said.

         Lillian looked up in surprise as they came into the house. "Mom this is Ernest Kagan. He came to dinner, okay?"

         She said "Okay." She told the Ernest to come on in and welcome.

         The Ernest thanked her and Jess told him to sit down in the living room while he helped Joey change his clothes. "If he doesn't get out of his suit he's going to ruin it," he explained.

         Joey was in his room taking off his clothes. "What did Grandma say when she saw the Bull?" he asked.

         "She said hello," said Jess and started putting Joey's suit on a hanger.

         Joey said, "I like the Bull."

         Jesse said, "So do I. You be real respectful to him you hear?"

         Joey was pulling up his blue jeans. "Okay." He sat on the bed and held up a sneaker to be tied.

         After dinner Jess told Lillian to go rest and he would do the cleanup. Joey went out to play.

         Jess rolled his sleeves and took off his watch. "Mom works too hard," he explained. "Sit down I want to talk to you." Ernest sat and watched Jesse work. Jesse asked "Did you hear anything in church you want to talk about?"

         As a matter of fact he had. He said he didn't understand most of it but this one thing he got clearly enough, God loves everybody which includes retards. He said "My ma had a book that has pictures out of the Bible and there's one of this guy hanging on a cross with blood coming down. When I was little I used to look at that picture and cry. Why would they do that to Him? What did He do?"

         Jesse wondered how to answer. "He didn't do anything wrong in His whole life. He did good to people and helped them. That made some of the big shots in the country jealous of Him because they thought He was getting more respect than they were and they wanted to get rid of Him."

         "But the preacher said He made sick people well and people that was blind, like my Gramma, He made them see. What was wrong with that?"

         "Nothing."

         "So I don't get it," said Ernest.

         "See the way I understand it and you have to remember I'm new at this too, they couldn't do it to Him unless He let them. He wasn't just a man; he was really God. God put on a human body so He could live in the world with people and set an example and then die."

         "Why would He want to do that?"

         "Because He loves people. He wanted to save us. We all did things that are bad. Right?"

         Ernest had no trouble admitting that. "Yeah," he said.

         "So somebody had to pay for that. He didn't want us to have to pay for our sins, so He paid for them. That's why He died so bad, with nails in Him and everything."

         The Ernest was listening intently and putting all his concentration on grasping what he was hearing. Jess said "He was really God and He could have made them stop any time He wanted to, but He didn't because He wanted to pay everything we owe. That was what it took."

         "The preacher said He came back to life. "

         "Yes He did, and enough people saw Him after that that there was no doubt of it. He stayed around for more than a month and showed Himself to everybody."

         The Ernest tried to wrap his mind around that. Some of it he just had to take on faith. We all do but the boy with the mind of a child realized it where not everybody else does. In this way he was far ahead of a lot of us. He didn't have to become as a little child; he was already there. He began to speak mirroring back what he had heard both in the church this morning and just now in the MacIvers' kitchen. "So I did bad things and He took the punishment for it and if He did I don't have to so what do I do now?"

         Jess hung up the dishcloth and came to the table and sat opposite him. "So you talk to Him and tell Him you get it and you want to be forgiven and you want to own what He did for you. All you have to do is ask."

         "The preacher says He's everywhere and He can hear whatever we say whether we're talking to Him or not."

         "I can tell you what I said to Him and maybe that would help you say it too. I told Him I'm a sinner and I have a lot of bad things to be sorry for and I want to be forgiven and cleaned up and I want Him to come and live inside of me so I can start doing better."

         "Can I do that right here in the kitchen?"

         "Sure you can." With a little promping Ernest offered a prayer for forgiveness and help.

         Joey came in at that point. "So you guys are friends now, right?"

         Jess said "Yeah" and slapped the Ernest's shoulder. "Let's get into the leftover pie, okay?"

         "Will Miz MacIver get mad if we eat up her pie?"

         "No, she made it for us to eat. If we eat it she’ll know we liked it and make more."

         "Then we better eat it," Ernest concluded.