He saw Robert in the next row ahead of him grab Eleanor’s blonde pigtail and hold it over the inkwell, but he could only watch. He liked Eleanor, dreamed about her at night and wanted to scream “stop.” He knew that he should, thought about it, wished it, then willed it with all his might, but nothing came out. Then Miss Dinkins asked him a question about the electoral college.
He knew the answer, for it was an easy question, or it used to be. Everyone in the class knew the answer she wanted to hear. But Miss Dinkins was asking him, looking at him intently and so was the rest of the class. He was never popular but thought for a moment it would be nice if Eleanor might then notice him.
He sensed that, to his peers, his answer hung in the air inchoate. Would he ever give it birth? He felt the answer turn in his abdomen, and he desperately wanted to deliver, if nothing else to avoid embarrassment. He opened his mouth, but his vocal cords would not vibrate. There was an urge, but the words would not form. His mouth still agape, he glanced at the flag in the corner. It was hanging upside down, three intersecting rings of stars in the bottom quadrant choked by the stripes on top. Was he the only one who noticed? Why didn’t someone fix it?
Back to Miss Dinkins’ question. He pictured himself outside the Capitol building. A feral cat with black and orange stripes darted by and scurried under a bush trying to avoid the shuffling feet of the throng. Atop a lightpost, a man in fatigues waved a megaphone, yet he could not hear. Men pumped their fists in the air and waved upside-down flags, some red, white and blue, others with hissing snakes. He saw Eleanor’s face in the crowd and tried to move toward her, but the hole closed.
Men wearing bandanas pushed forward carrying machetes and axe handles. Some waved flags, others signs. He could not read the words but could feel the symbols and the flames of war. This was not the Civil War he had read about in history class, but something different: A silent movie, but in color. One of the men takes his lighter and sets another man’s hair on fire–blonde hair dyed blue, then orange flames. There should have been shouts and sirens, but there was only silence. Was he deaf? Was he dreaming again or just remembering?
Eleanor turned her head, pigtails now tinted blue, and winked at him. He wanted to answer the question and tell her and the entire class about his vision. He felt it was life-and-death vital. Maybe he could save them if he could speak up. He realized that he had had this waking dream before and it filled him with dread and foreboding. The hair on the back of his hands now stood up, and his knees shook. If he could speak, would they ever listen? Did anyone believe soothsayers anymore? How could he be certain this vision, this premonition, would come true? If they did listen, then calamity would be avoided, and he would appear a fool.
As if on cue, the teacher and his classmates turned their attention away from him. Outside the window, fireworks sparked in the cold distance over the trees. When he was seven years old, he remembered seeing fireworks after a picnic on July 4th and hearing the sparkles and booms. But that was then, and this was now, eight years after, and the fireworks always began at noon on January 20th.
Still he could not hear the sparkles and booms, or his classmates, though he could see their cheering. Any sense of their patriotism was overshadowed by his nostalgia for the country he knew, and his parents knew in the “old country.” He was an only child and his patriotism remained red, white and blue, but back in the world before black and white turned gray, truth and justice purple, and courage yellow. There was only one answer, even if it now had been distorted by the three-ring circus of 51 states.
When the class settled, the teacher asked again. He waited for Eleanor’s smile, not caring if it was genuine. It was the only answer he knew still to be true. His voice was loud and strident: “Two hundred seventy electoral college votes as decided by the will of the people of each state.”
At the teacher’s direction, two linebackers sitting in the next row escorted him to the principal’s office. He was expelled from school that day, and he and his parents celebrated his newfound freedom.
Silent Scream image credit: Composition by Chuck Bins. “The Scream” by Edvard Munch.
