They were arguing about whether or not Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare's plays.
One of the boys—the fat one with the sweaty face—said that Marlowe wrote all of Shakespeare's plays.
But Lenny, the short kid with the dark glasses, didn't believe that business about Marlowe, and he said that everyone knew that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the plays because Shakespeare had never been to college and never had the education that shows up in those plays.
That's when the one with the freshman beanie said he had heard a couple of guys in the men's room talking about how Shakespeare's plays were really written by a lady.
And they talked about politics and art and God.
I never before heard anyone say that there might not be a God.
That frightened me, because for the first time I began to think about what God means.
Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you've believed in all your life aren't true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.
All the time they talked and argued, I felt the excitement bubble up inside me.
This was what I wanted to do—go to college and hear people talk about important things.
I spend most of my free time at the library now, reading and soaking up what I can from books.
I'm not concentrating on anything in particular, just reading a lot of fiction now—Dostoevski, Flaubert, Dickens, Hemingway, Faulkner—everything I can get my hands on—feeding a hunger that can't be satisfied.
April 28
In a dream last night I heard Mom screaming at Dad and the teacher at the elementary school P.S. 13 (my first school before they transferred me to P.S. 222)….
"He's normal!
He's normal!
He'll grow up like other people.
Better than others."
She was trying to scratch the teacher, but Dad was holding her back.
"He'll go to college someday.
He'll be somebody."
She kept screaming it, clawing at Dad so he'd let go of her.
"He'll go to college someday and he'll be somebody."
We were in the principal's office and there were a lot of people looking embarrassed, but the assistant principal was smiling and turning his head so no one would see it.
The principal in my dream had a long beard, and was floating around the room and pointing at me.
"He'll have to go to a special school.
Put him into the Warren State Home and Training School.
We can't have him here."
Dad was pulling Mom out of the principal's office, and she was shouting and crying too.
I didn't see her face, but her big red teardrops kept splashing down on me.. Ђў.
This morning I could recall the dream, but now there's more than that—I can remember through the blur, back to when I was six years old and it all happened.
Just before Norma was born.
I see Mom, a thin, dark-haired woman who talks too fast and uses her hands too much. As always her face is blurred. Her hair is up in a bun, and her hand goes to touch it, pat it smooth, as if she has to make sure it's still there.
I remember that she was always fluttering like a big, white bird—around my father, and he too heavy and tired to escape her pecking.
I see Charlie, standing in the center of the kitchen, playing with his spinner, bright colored beads and rings threaded on a string.
He holds the string up in one hand turns the rings so they wind and unwind in bright spinning flashes.
He spends long hours watching his spinner.
I don't know who made it for him, or what became of it, but I see him standing there fascinated as the string untwists and sets the rings spinning
She is screaming at him—no, she's screaming at his father.
"I'm not going to take him.
There's nothing wrong with him!"
"Rose, it won't do any good pretending any longer that nothing is wrong.
Just look at him, Rose.
Six years old, and—"
"He's not a dummy. He's normal.
He'll be just like everyone else."
He looks sadly at his son with the spinner and Charlie smiles and holds it up to show him how pretty it is when it goes around and around.
"Put that thing away!" Mom shrieks and suddenly she knocks the spinner from Charlie's hand, and it crashes across the kitchen floor.
"Go play with your alphabet blocks."
He stands there, frightened by the sudden outburst.