No One is Beyond Repair

Cleo entered the Holiday Inn Hotel room. The curtains drawn, creating a darkness in the room. Johanna laid in the bed. Her face was black, from a vicious beating, but she smiled. “Hey there,” she said.

The room of Cleo’s mind was like usual. Quiet and observing.

The Skinny Boy was happy. He and Johanna had been playing cards. Cards spread on the bed’s blanket, covering her ribs that were as battered as her face. The target of Cleo’s father’s shiny patten leather shoes. The shoes that she loved to polish to make him happy. Anything to make him happy.

An impossible task.

We, myself and my sister were shuffled off to the bowling alley next door, where we tossed the balls in a most serious manner for three days. They knew how to bowl. Johanna had made sure they had lessons. Bowling. Ah. It sucks. But Johanna had bowled a 300. The trophy resting over their fireplace at home. Cleo would never be her mother’s young protege. She tried but she had a penchant for the gutter.

“Aren’t we suppose to be in school?” Cleo was in the sixth grade and had a teacher that she liked.
She admired this woman who had escaped the tyranny of Fidel. She shared stories in geography class. In Cleo’s mind she was extraordinary. She checked out The Conquistadors from the school library. But the book was beyond her reading skills. Yet, she carried it with her books. A bright yellow cover that all could see. Cleo was a voracious reader. Like her mother Johanna.

The ordeal seemed like a somatic fairy tale. She knew it was bad, but between the Skinny Boy’s elation and her mother’s smiles she transcended the event. She moved beyond – again.

When Cleo returned to school, she told her friend what had transpired. And Cleo was betrayed by that friend. The teacher called her name. She stood. “Come up her please.”

The teacher was sitting down. She strung together some words like, “I understand you have had some difficulty at home.”

Cleo’s back stiffened. Her face remained in the same state that it was always in. Regardless if she was being beat, Bullied. Abused. Or someone told a funny story. But her mind was thinking, “I’ve been betrayed.” Her reply to the inquisitive educator was, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Cleo was crushed. Returning to her desk, she was numb. The sun was shining through the wall of windows. The two walls of black boards were green, not black. And the wall at the back of the room held their lunches and cardigans. Her sanctuary crumbled. Her mind was in sensory overload, She resided in that state. Overwhelmed, but looking like all of the other children. Except for the fact that she was bigger. Taller. And not like them at all.

It was at that time, that Cleo’s 180 degree turn from society was complete.

On the playground, of St. Matthew’s, in the corner of the property on Hamilton St. she climbed a chain link fence. There was a tree there that became her hard life cushion. She leaned into. Separate from the others. She was elevated by the fence. Watching. Listening to the laughs.

When the bell rang she would file in line, orderly. She viewed the drinking fountain but didn’t dare drink. She had been slammed by Sr. Ann Noreen.

Water was not important. Books were. They would take her where she wanted to go. Books and only books. People sucked. In and out of the gutter.