Friday, February 20, 2009

Wolves and Knives

My recollection is that being six years old was a complicated affair.  I understood some things well enough; some others confused me or seemed inexplicable though so generally accepted as to preclude questioning; and some big stuff apparently evaded my meager notice notice altogether.  Regardless, I demanded, impertinently, my measure and more of participation and respect from society, and blithely blinded myself to the limitations of my immaturity.  I wanted answers to my questions, a say in decisions affecting me and an unearned degree of autonomy.  It took an English table setting to put me in my place. 

Dad’s studies took him to the Bodlean every so often, and 1970 was his sabbatical year so we all went along with him.  For six months we traded homes with an Oxon don who was doing a stint at UCLA, and set up housekeeping in the fair and pleasant England of Blake’s imaginaings.

Of course, he also imagined “dark satanic mills.” Had I known those lyrics at the time, I might have better prepared myself for the experiences that followed.  Then again, maybe I was better off blithe.  The foreknowledge might have crippled me.  As it was, I at least woke up most mornings expecting the best, and that was probably the best I could have done under the circumstances. 

My age placed me approximately in what my Albionic hosts called “first form,” and as I was facing half a year among them I was duly enrolled in a nearby public school.  “Public school” is what they called it, anyway, but that’s something of a misleading term.  It was certainly a private institution; I had to interview to get in and wore a uniform and all that.  Wolvercote, it was called, charmingly enough - a name up to which it seemed eager to live.  Their school year bore no resemblance to the one I knew from back home, and their curriculum was notably more advanced.  Back home in kindygarden I’d been playing with colorforms and copying out letters; now in first form we were doing book reports and subtraction.  I’d also spent six weeks in a full arm cast shortly before making the trip to England, further impairing my already limited physical skills, and I wore ungainly orthopedic shoes, so under the best of circumstances I’d have been at a notable disadvantage.  Add thereto my freakish accent, my heretical Judaism, and a native strain of public school attitude for which no child can truly be prepared, and I never really stood a chance. 

I didn’t have much fun at Wolvercote.  Classes, as I recall, were sufficiently benign, but I spent my daily playground time walking slowly around the perimeter of the field, dragging my hand along the hurricane fencing and trying to avoid being forced to articulate any quaint Americanisms for the entertainment of my peers.  I seem to recall an incident at their swimming pool in which I, a nonswimmmer with tubes in my ears that shouldn’t be submerged, was dragged out of my depth and left to sink, for which I received a sound and ironic ear-boxing by my academic overseers.  However, the incident that caused my parents to remove me from Wolvercote’s clammy grasp was when I came home asking to be taught to use a knife to cut my food.  To that point, I’d been satisfied to have my parents do the mealtime knifework for me, and they were overprotective and anxious enough to keep me well clear of dangerous objects like butterspreaders.  Why the sudden interest?, mom asked, as dad patiently positioned my fingers on the blunt blade.  In response I shared this story:

We had all gathered in a refectory for, I guess, refectation - a meal of some sort, the specifics of which I now disremember.  What I do recall was that something on the plate was made of meat and needed to be cut up, and I was unprepared for that task.  I requested assistance, as a six-year-old boy sometimes does, and the headmaster, if memory serves, came forth in response.  He cut my food, but he wasn’t happy about it.  Any student in his school would have proper table skills, he coldly informed me, the knife ripping through my meat and scraping harshly on my plate.  And until I had developed those skills, he went on, I did not belong at a table with civilized people.  Better, he told me, that I eat outside, where the rats wouldn’t be offended by my ineptitude.  His exact words escape me today, but his sending me out to the company of rats I clearly recall.  I also recall the derisive hoots of my classmates as I carried my tray outside, and sitting down by a cinderblock wall next to a dumpster to eat my meal.  I even remember a measure of relief at dining alone in peace, safe from uncharitable taunts. 

I came home requesting cutlery instruction, was asked why, and told that story.  Shortly thereafter, I left the Wolvercote School for good.  I was done with Wolvercote. But now, having spun this story out nearly four decades downstream, I’m still not sure it’s finished with me.