Stotan! by Chris Crutcher Read Free Book Online Page B

was all right, and I said yeah, everything was fine, that I’d talk to her later.
    Nortie sat up and leaned against the wall. “There’s this kid named Jamie Crawford; his dad’s a local neighborhood drunk, so Jamie’s at the Center all the time. Anyway, he came in all pissed off because of something that happened with this girl named Kathy Scarpelli. I don’t know what it was because I wasn’t out there with them and neither one would tell me. Anyway, we were getting ready to do a science experiment and Jamiewouldn’t participate; he just sat over at his desk and pouted. He’s a real temperamental kid anyway. I tried to talk him out of it, but he just got madder and madder and I decided to let him work it out for himself. So I was over setting up this experiment with Kathy’s group and he started calling her names; really dirty ones. I was the only worker in the room and I was just getting ready to put him away from the group in the Time Out room when he started calling me names too.”
    He took a deep breath. “I didn’t get mad, Walk. Really I didn’t. I just ordered him to the Time Out room, and when he wouldn’t go, I went over to move him. We do that all the time. He said I was a little faggot and I couldn’t tell him what to do. I started to take his arm and move him, and he broke away and ran over and hit Kathy in the middle of the back as hard as he could and called her ‘dirty nigger,’ then just swept his arm across the table and the experiment went crashing to the floor. I got there and she was screaming and I turned him around to pull him away and he spit in my face.” Nortie’s face dropped and the tears started coming again. “I slapped him three or four times on the side of the face, Walk. Before I even knew what I was doing. I’m just like my dad.” He broke down.
    â€œNortie,” I said, “it can’t be as bad as you think.Did any of the other workers come back? Did you talk to anyone?”
    He shook his head. “I just ran,” he said. “I saw what I did and I ran to the car and came here.” He looked to the window, tears still streaming. “I hate my dad, Walk. I thought I loved him, but I hate his guts. I’m just like him.”
    â€œYou’re not like your dad, Nortie. You lost your temper. I’d have thrown the little turd across the room.”
    He shook his head and grimaced. “I’m supposed to be like a teacher there, Walk. Those are little kids. It’s my job to show them the difference. They don’t know it, man. I have to show them.”
    â€œLook,” I said, “let’s go talk to Maybelle. I can’t believe this can’t be fixed. You’ve put in too much time and work. Let’s go back over and see her.”
    He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t go back there now. I couldn’t look those kids in the eye. Or Maybelle either. They trusted me.”
    â€œNortie, you’ve got to. You can’t just run away from something like this.”
    â€œIt’s not just them,” he said. “It’s me. I can’t be working with kids if I hit them. Even if they’d let me. I can’t do that.”
    â€œNortie, damn it, you don’t hit kids. That was afreak thing. You learned from it. You’re not going to do it again.”
    He shook his head. “It’s just like my dad. Damn it, it’s just like all the books say.”
    I started to stop him, but he held up his hand and told me to just listen for a minute. “You know why I was so good at the Center?”
    I shrugged. “You’re just good, that’s all.”
    â€œNope. When everyone started saying that, I let them think it was true, because it felt so good to have everyone believe I was just naturally good at something. But I read books. Man, I read books. When I took Child Development at school, I was the only boy