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Based on a true story, a young artist's work is stolen. But justice served is so sweet! |
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Based on a true story, a young artist's work is stolen. Helen Castle is knock-kneed, pigeon-toed, half-blind and speaks with a lisp. Yet, she possesses a rare gift. When a new girl comes to town, the fourth grade class in the small town of Taylor is turned upside down with jealousy and all sorts of shenanigans. Narrated by Charlie (Charlotte) Cordova, a fellow student, A Righteous Design tells of the tragedy that befalls Helen and the surprising revenge served cold much, much later. You are guaranteed to savor justice! |
The Princess Comes to Town That year I started my music career. Free string lessons were offered Tuesdays and Thursdays at one o’clock which meant you could get out of Social Studies hour. My brother Shawn had a dusty violin under his bed and I figured logically,"it's just sitting there, I think that means I’m supposed to play it." I’m sure the teachers that did the music demonstration said something about instruments going to waste. My string teacher was Mr. Sorenson. He played violin professionally. God, was he gorgeous. Every one of us girls had a crush on him and every one of us thought we had a chance when he gave us a picture of himself. He was the only teacher I ever had, who thought enough of his students to actually give us a picture with which to remember him. He was kind, witty, and it wouldn't matter how much we flirted or fantasized about which one of us would end up with him, because he was gay. We never figured that out until high school, though. We adored this man. He was a star and he was the only adult I trusted enough to eventually confide in, about what Renata Regent did to Helen Castle. She moved to our town a month into the school year. We were having a contest that Halloween. Boys against Girls. Each team had to design a bulletin board for Halloween and the losers had to be the winners' slaves for a week. We girls were busy with a classy haunted house theme. Balloon ghosts, a huge yellow moon, a flying witch, a corn-husk landscape and a family of black cats. The boys were designing a graveyard. It was really quite good. They were trying to do it in three dimensional with styro-foam tombstones, and spanish moss for grass, and real leaves they had collected at recess and, after they had made it perfect -- they began to add the gore; hands reaching up from graves, zombies leaning against trees in the distance. Here's where they really kicked our butts; one of the kids brought in a turntable and a forty-five record with Halloween sound effects on it. I knew we were losing. Only a brazen act of shameless flirting and incredible good behavior would save us. Even at that age, we had learned these timeless lessons. This meant Doreen would have to stop chewing gum in class. This meant Andrea would have to comb her hair and stop swearing on the playground for an entire week. I did not think these things were possible. "We're gonna lose, you guys," I said to my teammates. "We are gonna lose." "Uh-uh, we never lose to the boys," said Doreen, snapping her Double Bubble. "They're not artistic enough," someone said. "Have you seen their display?" I said, "We are losing." We got serious and went to spy. We walked over to the boys’ board. "We have to have a good guard," Haley Clyde was saying as he cut something out of a comic book. The boys were working to the sounds of the Halloween record; a woman moaning, thunder rolling, a cat screeching. Haley placed a perfectly sized Batman standing regally at the graveyard's iron gate. "What do you guys want?" he turned and snarled at us. "We just wanted to see what your board looks like," Doreen said snottily. "Nothing wrong with that is there?" I challenged. "You idiots are spying!" Haley shouted. "No, we're not!" I said. "How can we be spying? We're all done with ours," Andrea said. Then for a bit we studied their board and made whispery comments, pretending we were secretly seeing all the pathetic flaws, but were too nice to mention it to them. The boys flanked together and stood in front of their display, trying to hide it. "You stupid girls get out of here. We're not letting you see our board. Just get lost!" "Batman? Batman is not Halloween," Andrea sneered. "Oh shut-up and leave us alone." "You’re gonna get disqualified because you used something you didn't make yourself," Andrea said. “Just wait till you're our slaves," Haley laughed. "Just wait." "I'm gonna make Charlie lick the toe-jam outta my toes," Rodney McFarland taunted me. "I'm gonna make you carry my Barbie lunch pail around," Doreen shouted, shaking a fist at Haley. "You guys are gonna look pretty stupid twirling jump ropes for us," I said. The threats and the taunts escalated and then suddenly our classroom door opened and hell if the principal wasn't standing right there. The shush was immediate. "Now we are really going to get it," whispered Doreen, whipping her gum out of her mouth. Mr. Huddie looked unconcerned and so did the principal. And so did the slim, tall, green-eyed, gorgeous creature standing at his side. "Class," the principal addressed us, "I'd like you to meet a brand new student, Miss Renata Regent." Silence. "Mr. Huddie?" the principal looked expectantly at our teacher. "Welcome to our class," Mr. Huddie stood up and greeted her warmly. He took her by the arm and led her to where we were gathered. "We're right in the middle of a class contest." He explained the contest to her as she nodded gently at us and the boys started snickering when he got to conditions of the winners. I had already developed a huge crush on Carl Thompson, and when I looked at him, I saw his eyes dilate with admiration. I could read his thoughts, at last . . . a woman, a woman with tits. And I knew I had lost him forever. Renata approached us confidently. We greeted her shyly and someone grabbed her arm and tugged her over to our board. Soon, we were lost in talking about what our school was like and what to watch out for and how the playground supervisor was a momentous snotty witch. "Hey!" Andrea said, "Maybe we can get a picture of her and paste it over our witch's face! That'd be creative!" "I have an idea," Renata said softly. Well, if she had said to put a picture of the baby Jesus setting fire to a virgin in the front yard of our haunted house, we would have done it. Anything to make her feel welcome, and to prove to each other that we didn't already hate her for being so pretty. . . and having tits already. "Um, my class in Arkansas made a display last year (and she emphasized last year), and we used some black and gray netting to make ethereal clouds around the moon." When she said ethereal she fluttered her long fingers in the air. She traced one lovely finger along the bottom of the moon, "like so." "And then we took some cotton gauze," she continued, and Doreen nudged me. "She's got boobs!" Doreen whispered. Andrea heard her. "So do I!" "That's because you were held back a year," said Doreen. "Shut up!" I said, annoyed. I was studying Renata’s fingers, marveling at her white fingernails. How did she keep them so clean? "I don't like her," Andrea whispered. "She's too clean." "What the hell is eethreel?" whispered Doreen. Well, the upshot of it was, we took Renata's idea and made it happen. As we worked, cutting and measuring the netting, draping it and stapling it, the new girl somehow sized me up correctly and started making overtures to get to know me. "Is Mr. Huddie a nice teacher?" Her voice was simply velvety. "Oh yeah, he's great,” I answered with a zest I did not feel. ”He’s going to teach us square dancing and we have a splatter painting machine, and every year he goes on a trip and recreates his trip for his class so they can learn about far away lands. I hear he went to Hawaii last summer and we're gonna get to make a grass hut this year and coconut trees and --" "Oh that's neat!" she interrupted. "In my class in Arkansas we did a project on Austria and my part was the classical music display and--" "We have a really cool music teacher,” I butted in. “His name is Mr. Sorenson and he is so cute. I just wish I was older, you know?" "What kind of music?" she asked fingering the cotton gauze she would line the black clouds with. "Oh, um, orchestra. He's our orchestra teacher." Then I added rather pompously, "I play the violin." I figured that should shut up Miss My Class In Arkansas. "I play the violin, too," she said coolly and walked away to ask Mr. Huddie if we could use dry ice for our display. Our Halloween board was beautiful. The netting looked like real clouds and the cotton gauze made the moonlight so real somehow. And the dry ice, oh it was incredible! Even the boys started yakking about it and Haley snatched some of it when no one was looking and stuck it in Priscilla Biden’s lunch pail under her chair. When the smoke started billowing out from under her butt, she started screaming, ran out of the classroom and fell over some third grader in the hall. And we won. We won because of Renata Regent. Doreen tried to get Haley to carry her Barbie pail around, but he refused. He did carry her books for two days to school and gave her a candy bar he stole from Randalson’s store. I made Rodney McFarland clean my desk top every day and hand in my papers. Carl Thompson did Renata’s cafeteria clean up duties. Andrea didn’t do anything. She just plain didn’t care. Besides, she could beat up any of the boys any time, so if she wanted someone to do something for her, it was never an issue. * * * { |
All About Helen Helen Castle had been in all of my classes since kindergarten. She was gangly and not pretty; pigeon-toed and knock-kneed. She couldn’t play four square or jump rope at recess because of those legs. She started wearing glasses in the second grade and was placed in the slowest part of the class. She had a quiet lisp and her teeth were crooked and bad. Helen was the tallest kid in class until Renata Regent moved to town. You know how, regardless of a kid's inability to do one thing or another, there is usually something, some quality that becomes their specialty? Those of us who couldn't rip through our studies, played some great four square and tether ball. Those of us who couldn't play the tougher games, sat on the porch steps and played jacks or made troll doll clothes. Those of us who were mediocre at everything, developed wit and humor to get by. The outcasts, and I knew them all well, excelled in anarchy and rebellion. They were the tough kids from the excruciatingly poor families. They were the first to cut up in class, were always seated in the back (like that was supposed to be some punishment), the first to develop a swearing vocabulary and the first to take up smoking. The Indians were the poorest and more outcast than anyone, including my family. We were Filipino. No one even knew that was an ethnicity then; we were just brown-skinned. Most of the grown-ups in Taylor wouldn’t let their kids play with the Cordovas, my family. The Indians majored in horses. Each one of the Tomak kids had a horse of their own and, though nobody played with the Tomaks much, they were envied by all, because of those horses. Helen Castle didn't major in anything. Except for her height, she was almost invisible. I recall her wearing a red coat at wintertime. I remember thick glasses making her empty, blue eyes even more owl-like. I remember her pigeon-toed walk. I remember kids making cruel fun of her. She struggled to speak through uneven, browned teeth with a tongue that clove to her lips. And I don’t recall ever seeing her face break into a smile or hearing her bubbly laugh. Ever. I was probably one of maybe five kids that spoke to her during her entire life at school and I'm not saying that because I'm special. I knew that I was like Helen, but I didn't know why. Maybe it was because of that brown-skin label. Although academics, friends, and sports all came easy to me, I knew that I was different. And if you don’t know you’re different by a certain age, they make sure you do. That difference announces itself when you walk into a room, before you even open your mouth. We were never really close friends, Helen and I. But, I do remember her gracious and soft hello to me whenever we crossed paths. I recognized the ghost in Helen. The one I harbored, too. The ghost of not feeling right, that you are somehow faking it. Her emptiness was so visible that no one could get close to her – the shadow might spread. Then after her sisters died, the sadness of Helen Castle was a cloud she was wrapped in. If Helen’s lack was palpable, mine was invisible. I stuffed that misery in my pocket and pasted a smile on my face and this is how I got through life. My husband says that normal is just a setting on your dryer and he’s right, but back then normal was all any of us ever wanted to be. I heard the rumors of the twins' drowning and refused to believe them. Stuff like that was just not supposed to happen in childhood. Two weeks later I started the fourth grade. On the first day of school when roll was called, Helen Castle didn't answer. Mr. Huddie, the teacher, said quietly after he welcomed us, "Kids, one of your classmates isn’t here today, Helen Castle." I was absentmindedly kicking the back of Carl Thompson’s chair thinking, so what? "When Helen returns to school next week, I want you all to be kind to her. She has suffered a family tragedy.” That's all he said. And then Helen did come back to school and she seemed exactly the same. But now I knew for certain what I didn't want to know. I never saw Donna and Nina again. They would have just entered the sixth grade. * * * |
A Summer Day Gone Wrong – part 2 Doreen said the Indians --all the Tomak kids, were there that day. They were down at the river taking a water break for their horses. None of them could swim either. Andrea told Doreen that Davey Castle jumped in after Donna and Nina, and headed toward them as best he could. For some reason he just couldn't get to them; paddling and paddling and paddling for all he was worth, fighting the water furiously as he watched Donna and Nina bob up and down and float away. Davey screamed himself hoarse that day and couldn't talk for two weeks. He didn't understand the water. He didn't understand to use the float and let the water's power take him to his beloved sisters. And there was nobody shouting, "Use the float! Dammit Dave, float!" Because nobody knew that was what to do. Andrea told Doreen everything. How Donna and Nina Castle screamed, how Dave ran up and down the bank yelling for help, until he just had to jump in, how the Indians shouted and two of Andrea's brothers took off on their horses to get the police. How Helen Castle stood there paralyzed. * * * |
A Summer Day Gone Wrong - Part 1 Davey Castle had just started swimming lessons at Steele Lake. He had gotten himself as far as the dog paddling stage. But his newly-grasped skills would be useless against the iron undercurrent of the river that took his younger sisters’ lives that hot, helpless day in late August '64. I heard about it a couple days after it happened and didn't believe it. I just didn't believe it. My best friend Doreen, said the Castle kids had gone down to the Stuck River to swim. This was something we all did during the hottest days of summer. She said Andrea Tomak was there and told her everything. Davey, the oldest, Donna & Nina the twins, and Helen -- she was in my class at school, had packed up their cut-offs and cotton swimsuits and walked down to the swim hole. First, Donna somehow wandered too far from the swim hole, too far out toward the distant bank of the river where it was suddenly deep and swift. She lost control and panicked. Nina, her twin, who had not learned to swim at all, jumped in to rescue her. Kids were shouting and screaming along the banks of the Stuck. Helpless. Donna and Nina floated away downstream and then Davey, all of thirteen; the dog-paddling graduate, jumped in. Every summer, in the town of Taylor, a battered yellow school bus would stop at twelve noon on the corner of Ward and Milwaukee, and pick up any kid who wanted to go to Steele Lake for the afternoon. The bus ride was free. We don't have s*** like that anymore. Swim lessons were free too, and the summer before, when I was nine, I had started them. The first swim class was bubble blowing and face floating, so bubble, bubble, bubble, breathe was where I began. I found it very difficult, but I worked hard at it, eventually passing on to the second level, back floating. Me and my best friend, Doreen Scholby, would try to get to the lake at least once or twice a week and go play teenager. I never wanted to swim much. I just liked to lie on my towel in the sun; listening to Doreen's transistor radio and pretending I was old enough to have tits and smoke. It was a kick. Occasionally, I would get up the nerve to go in the water. It was always cold. And I have never been good with cold water. Ask anybody who's had to endure a water sport with me. One inch at a time. First the toes, then the ankles, then the calves. By the time I get to the tops of my thighs I am screaming and gasping. "Charlie, if you would just dunk your head under the water and get it over with all at once it would be a lot easier," Doreen would yell at me. And I did try that. More than once. And it was never easier. I would come up for air, shrieking and gasping and simply dying of the cold. If face floating was hard for me, back floating was nearly impossible. I never succeeded then. I think now, I did not have enough fat on my body to hold me up. The teacher passed me anyway, because she figured I'd eventually get it and I should really go on to dog paddling. By the time that summer was over, I had mastered dog paddling. The next summer, for some reason I didn't continue my swim lessons and then, that was the summer the Castle twins died. The Northern Pacific railroad track ran north and south through the town of Taylor. The Stuck River flowed east to west and the swim hole under the tracks was pretty well-visited. Now and then, my dad would take us kids there. Under his watchful eye, my brother Shawn, little sister Tif, and I would splash it up. None of us could really swim well at the time, but the river got so low there, in some places you could walk across it. Still, I never ventured across that river. Daddy warned me again and again. Daredevil kids would climb up the steep bank, clamber onto the railroad trestle that crossed the deepest part of the Stuck and jump off. Some would scramble up under the trestle, grab the thick, sturdy rope tied there, and swing out as far as they could, dropping down into the depths. I never had those guts. I was a born wader. * * * |
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