teacher was a man, Mr. Raleigh. That Mr. Raleigh was undeniably effeminate did not cause the stigma to fade in any way.
But what really got me the huge tallies was the fact that my best friend at school was not only a ranker, she was a girl. She was a scrawny girl with a strange name, Rainie van der Glick. The name alone would have consigned her forever to rankerdom. The first name was ripe for punning, and the three components that followed made her an outcast in the public school system, forever unable to line up in alphabetical order. And Rainie was the only person at Norman Ingram Memorial with vision-ware anything close to mine. I cannot recall meeting her for the first time, but I’m sure it was this that drew us together, two little kids wearing their weakness, their weirdness, right on their faces for all the world to see. Rainie had rhinestone-encrusted wingtips, fancy and fashionable, which only made the distorted fish-eyes swimming in the lenses all the more rank.
And for a few bonus points: my mother often wandered across the ancient cow pasture that separated our little house from Norman Ingram. She typically came at morning recess, moving slowly, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. The drink was usually coffee, but on one or two occasions she clutched a glass tumbler. My mother would come within fifty feet of the school, stop and watch. She was searching out neither Jay nor me, because when we presented ourselves she merely waved, and vaguely at that, as though she could not quite remember who we were. After a few minutes she would turn and saunter back to the house.
The issue here was not so much that my mother’s behaviour was odd, it was that her behaviour was conspicuous. Rankers shared this characteristic, mothers who were notable. It would be impossible, really, for a kid to be a ranker all on his or her own, no matter how weird and damaged he or she might be. You needed to be sponsored, in a sense, by your mother.
Rainie van der Glick’s mother was an extreme example; she was about as crazy as a rat in a coffee can. She came to the school on a daily basis to confront the administration, with such fury that she might as well have been toting a battering ram and bazooka. Her complaint, at least originally, was that Rainie was a bona fide genius and that the school was not serving her special needs. No one disputed this, but the principal, Mr. Bowman, explained that there were no provisions made for genius, and Rainie was obligated by law to sit in the classroom all day. Somewhere along the line it got personal; Mr. Bowman said something that stepped on all the twigs in Mrs. van der Glick’s mind. After that, she simply came to do battle. The police were called more than once. For a time Mrs. van der Glick was legally enjoined from stepping onto school property, although this was quashed during one of the many trials held to settle all the suits and countersuits. There were two rumours that captured the imagination of all the schoolchildren. When Mr. Bowman appeared with his foot in a cast, it soon became common knowledge that the damage had been done by a thug, at Mrs. van der Glick’s behest. We would brook no other explanation—although one was delivered over the PA system, concerning a gardening mishap. And the other rumour was that someone—and the identity of this kid changed with each telling—went to the office on an errand, and saw Mr. Bowman lying across his desk. Mrs. van der Glick had her skirts hiked and was sitting astride, pumping merrily.
Mr. van der Glick committed suicide around when Rainie was born, although I doubt if he hanged himself
as
she was being born, which is what Rainie believes.
Myself, what I liked at the Galaxy Odeon were the westerns.
Indeed, I was a pretty big fan of the genre in general. Some of my favourite programs on television were westerns,
Gunsmoke
and
Have Gun Will Travel.
You know, it’s an interesting thing about that lattershow, and
But what really got me the huge tallies was the fact that my best friend at school was not only a ranker, she was a girl. She was a scrawny girl with a strange name, Rainie van der Glick. The name alone would have consigned her forever to rankerdom. The first name was ripe for punning, and the three components that followed made her an outcast in the public school system, forever unable to line up in alphabetical order. And Rainie was the only person at Norman Ingram Memorial with vision-ware anything close to mine. I cannot recall meeting her for the first time, but I’m sure it was this that drew us together, two little kids wearing their weakness, their weirdness, right on their faces for all the world to see. Rainie had rhinestone-encrusted wingtips, fancy and fashionable, which only made the distorted fish-eyes swimming in the lenses all the more rank.
And for a few bonus points: my mother often wandered across the ancient cow pasture that separated our little house from Norman Ingram. She typically came at morning recess, moving slowly, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. The drink was usually coffee, but on one or two occasions she clutched a glass tumbler. My mother would come within fifty feet of the school, stop and watch. She was searching out neither Jay nor me, because when we presented ourselves she merely waved, and vaguely at that, as though she could not quite remember who we were. After a few minutes she would turn and saunter back to the house.
The issue here was not so much that my mother’s behaviour was odd, it was that her behaviour was conspicuous. Rankers shared this characteristic, mothers who were notable. It would be impossible, really, for a kid to be a ranker all on his or her own, no matter how weird and damaged he or she might be. You needed to be sponsored, in a sense, by your mother.
Rainie van der Glick’s mother was an extreme example; she was about as crazy as a rat in a coffee can. She came to the school on a daily basis to confront the administration, with such fury that she might as well have been toting a battering ram and bazooka. Her complaint, at least originally, was that Rainie was a bona fide genius and that the school was not serving her special needs. No one disputed this, but the principal, Mr. Bowman, explained that there were no provisions made for genius, and Rainie was obligated by law to sit in the classroom all day. Somewhere along the line it got personal; Mr. Bowman said something that stepped on all the twigs in Mrs. van der Glick’s mind. After that, she simply came to do battle. The police were called more than once. For a time Mrs. van der Glick was legally enjoined from stepping onto school property, although this was quashed during one of the many trials held to settle all the suits and countersuits. There were two rumours that captured the imagination of all the schoolchildren. When Mr. Bowman appeared with his foot in a cast, it soon became common knowledge that the damage had been done by a thug, at Mrs. van der Glick’s behest. We would brook no other explanation—although one was delivered over the PA system, concerning a gardening mishap. And the other rumour was that someone—and the identity of this kid changed with each telling—went to the office on an errand, and saw Mr. Bowman lying across his desk. Mrs. van der Glick had her skirts hiked and was sitting astride, pumping merrily.
Mr. van der Glick committed suicide around when Rainie was born, although I doubt if he hanged himself
as
she was being born, which is what Rainie believes.
Myself, what I liked at the Galaxy Odeon were the westerns.
Indeed, I was a pretty big fan of the genre in general. Some of my favourite programs on television were westerns,
Gunsmoke
and
Have Gun Will Travel.
You know, it’s an interesting thing about that lattershow, and
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