Calaveras Station 2004 - Remedial People

Remedial People

Dan Melzer

I was a sophomore in high school when they put me in remedial P.E. I wasn't retarded or handicapped or anything like that, but I broke my leg playing baseball and the only way I could graduate on time was to take remedial P.E. I'd always imagined that if I was injured playing ball it would be in front of a big crowd, the bottom of the ninth with the score tied and me sliding head-first to beat the throw to the plate and defeat our rivals, the Elmwood High Tigers. But in reality I was injured pitching batting practice. Andy Coppersmith, our clean-up hitter, let go of his bat after smashing one foul down the first base line. The bat popped me on the shin and Andy carried me off the field, the first player in the history of the Lakewood High Lions junior varsity baseball team to suffer a season-ending injury during batting practice. At first the cast went up to my thigh, but when the doctor cut it below my knee and I could hobble around without crutches in a big blue boot the guidance counselor put me in remedial PE. Most of the guys on the baseball team were in my regular P.E. class, so I wasn't thrilled about the change. But I had to admit I was curious about remedial P.E. After all, what kind of an idiot couldnÕt hit a waffle golf ball or run a few laps around the track?

When I walked out onto the baseball field for the first remedial P.E. class, what came to mind was a circus. Standing around the diamond was a guy with no arms, three guys in wheelchairs, some girl with burns on her arms and face, a few retarded people, and to top it all off, a black albino girl. Other than being albino she seemed healthy, and I wondered what she was doing in remedial P.E. To tell you the truth, at that point I wondered what I was doing in remedial P.E. Instead of a real P.E. teacher we had Mrs. Honeywell, who normally taught home economics. She was wearing a lime green sweatsuit and her hair was done up in an enormous beehive. She welcomed us all to remedial P.E., except she called it "special" P.E. "Children," she said, "you are all special. Every last one of you. Even you." She pointed a pudgy finger at me. Maybe she could tell by my scowl that I didn't want to be lumped in with the retards. Then Mrs. Honeywell went over the rules, which included no sliding and no swearing. After she scolded the guy with no arms for saying "Fuck that," the games began.

We chose teams, and since I wasnÕt handicapped I felt I should organize our players. The guy with no arms wanted to play first base, but I convinced him he would be more effective in left field. We had a guy in a wheelchair behind home plate and a retarded girl covering first base. She seemed retarded, anyway. She had had those frog eyes retarded people have and a pear-shaped body. Naturally I pitched, and even though I was throwing a whiffle ball, if I twisted my wrist I could put a nice spin on it. I got their lead-off hitter, the albino girl, to foul off twice and then whiff on the third pitch, which curved out of the strike zone just as she swung. But Mrs. Honeywell said that no one could strike out in remedial P.E., so I had to keep pitching until the albino girl put the ball in play. The albino girl's name was Sharee. I knew this because the retarded girl kept shouting out encouragement to her. "Come on Sharee," she yelled. "Get a hit. Smack that ball!" I ignored these outbursts from the retarded girl, and our defense held them scoreless, including a double-play on two of the guys in wheelchairs.

I realized right away that I was going to be the jock of remedial P.E. The retarded girl told me that I was the first remedial player ever to hit the ball into the outfield. While Mrs. Honeywell sat on the bench and knitted a sweater in the blue and gray colors of the Lakewood High Lions, I pitched a shutout and single-handedly drove in ten runs. By the time the bell rung it must have been at least fifteen to nothing. But when I asked the retarded girl what the score was, she looked at me like I was the retarded one. "We donÕt keep score," she said. I asked her how they knew who won, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

Over the next few days I extended my hitting streak to sixteen at-bats, and I continued to dominate at the mound. It wasn't long before there was a general protest among the remedial people that I was some kind of ringer. The albino girl wondered aloud if my cast was real. "Maybe we should start the soccer unit," she said, staring at my broken leg with a smirk on her albino face. Apparently she was jealous since sheÕd been the star of remedial P.E. before IÕd arrived. "We'll make the teams more even," Mrs. Honeywell decided after the albino girl complained. "It's best to be an even Steven, is what I always say." She put the retarded girl, one of the wheelchair guys, and me on one team, and the rest of the remedial people on the other team. I thought this was unfair, and I protested that I would have to pitch and play the entire infield, all on a broken leg. I even tried to trade the wheelchair guy for the girl with the burns and the guy with no arms. But Mrs. Honeywell told me I was being a negative Ned, and eventually I resigned myself to the situation. But I had a plan.

I taught the retarded girl how to heckle. She was shouting encouragement to Sharee again, so I had a little conference with her. When I motioned for her to come to the mound her frog eyes lit up and she skipped right up to me. I could see her round, pink belly bulging out from under her T-shirt.

"You're supposed to heckle the batters," I said. "Not cheer them on."
"What's heckle?" she asked.
"You know. Make fun of them. Distract them."
She nodded and skipped back to first base. The albino girl tended to crowd the plate, so I threw a fastball inside and she fouled it off.
"Big dummy," the retarded girl yelled. "Idiot!" She flashed me the thumbs-up sign and I nodded.
I threw another pitch, and the retarded girl screamed away. "Pale face," she yelled. "White black person." I glanced at Mrs. Honeywell but she was focused on her knitting. When the girl with the burns stepped up to the plate the retarded girl shouted even louder. "Scarface," she yelled. "Moron!" After two strikes the girl with the burns began to cry. At that point I was sorry I'd told the retarded girl about heckling. But I just let things slide until she started heckling me.
I led off the inning, and as soon as I hobbled to the plate the retarded girl began shouting at me from the bench. "Peg-leg canÕt hit," she yelled. "Strike out, hop-a-long." She screamed "Dumbo!" as I swung and my hitting streak was over. I popped out to the albino girl and everyone on both teams cheered. I was grateful when Mrs. Honeywell finally looked up from her knitting and told the retarded girl not to be a mean Mary.

Naturally, my friends made fun of me when they found out I was in remedial P.E. Jay Palmer, our lead-off hitter, gave me the nickname "remedial boy," and at lunch the guys from the team joked about my exploits among the handicapped. "Handicapable," I would say, imitating Mrs. Honeywell, and everyone would crack up. Jay must have been jealous, though, since his own accomplishments on the baseball team were usually the topic at lunch. That was probably why he was so mean to the retarded girl when she walked up to our table and sat down next to me. It wasn't like I'd signaled to her or told her she could sit with me. She just took a seat, all smiles in a yellow sweater with a big red balloon stitched across the front.

"You shouldn't eat hot dogs," she said to Jay when she realized everyone at the table was staring at her. "They're high in fat. I saw it on TV."
"Are you on remedial boyÕs team?" Jay asked her. He pointed his hot dog in my direction.
"Yes," she said. "I heckle." She leaned toward Jay and started shouting. "Moron!" she yelled. "MamaÕs boy."
The girls at the table behind us started giggling, and Andy Coppersmith squirted his ketchup across the table. Half the cafeteria was staring at Jay when he held up his middle finger and waved it at the retarded girl.
"Fuck off," he said. He pushed the retarded girl's tray against her big belly. "Leave."
The retarded girl didn't move. She looked at me, and even though I didn't return her stare, I could feel those frog eyes on me. I didn't know what to do, so I just started digging in to my bowl of chili.
"Fuck off," Jay repeated. He glared at the retarded girl and finally she left. No one said anything until Ryan Mortenson, our center fielder, started talking about our upcoming game against the Piedmont High Panthers. Ryan and Jay argued over who would get more hits, but I didn't listen. I glanced around the cafeteria, looking for the retarded girl, but she was gone.

Once I got used to not keeping score, I actually started to enjoy remedial P.E. In regular P.E. we were always fighting over the score and every close call, to the point where Coach Hoffman would have to break up a fist-fight over a basket or a touchdown. In regular P.E. Coach Hoffman was constantly breathing down your neck, screaming at you if you swung at a pitch in the dirt or missed an easy lay-up. But Mrs. Honeywell had no understanding of any of the games we played, and neither did anyone else in remedial P.E. besides me. In regular P.E. they ran five laps and did twenty push-ups at the start of every class, even if it was a hundred degrees out. But we had so many people in wheelchairs or missing arms or legs that we never had to run a single lap or do any push-ups. While my buddies were learning about the food pyramid and measuring their percentage of body fat, we munched on Mrs. Honeywell's homemade chocolate chip cookies while playing whiffle golf. I was nervous about the golf unit since I had a nasty slice. Every time my father and I played at Lakewood Municipal I'd curse and throw my clubs in frustration. But in remedial P.E. we didn't count our strokes, so there was no real difference between an eagle and a double-bogey. Except for Mary and her heckling, the golf unit was mostly relaxing.

I tried to explain to Mary that you werenÕt allowed to heckle in golf, but there was no stopping her. When Sharee teed up Mary made owl sounds, hooting at the top of her lungs until Sharee had swung and missed. "YouÕve got two flat tires," she would shout whenever one of the wheelchair guys putted. Once when I was taking a chip shot she called me a cripple just as I swung and I sliced the ball into the school parking lot. My caddie, the guy with no arms, thought this was hysterical, but I signaled for Mary to come to me. "DonÕt ever do that again," I told her. She'd started wearing make-up lately, and her bright pink rouge and red lipstick made her look like a clown. She was wearing so much perfume you could hardly breathe when you were within ten feet of her.
"You're swinging too hard," she said. "That's why you're slicing."
"She's right," the guy with no arms said.
"Fuck off," I said to him.
"Can I sign your cast?" Mary blurted out.
I pretended I didn't hear her and I lined up for another shot.
"I have a marker in my pocket," she said.
At first I said no, but she pleaded and tried to look pitiful, which wasn't hard considering she was wearing a Muppet Babies T-shirt. I felt sorry for her, so I let her sign under my foot, where no one would see it. Before I realized what she was doing she'd outlined a big red heart and put her name inside of it. The guy with no arms laughed and Mary looked up at him.
"I'd let you sign next," she said, "but you don't have any arms."

For some reason I didn't scratch out the heart, even though I knew I should have. And wouldn't you know it, the next day in Mr. Bender's math class I lifted up my leg on the empty chair in front of me and Frank Malloy, our right fielder, caught a glimpse of Mary's heart from the chalkboard, where he was putting the finishing touches on 12 X 12 = 122. After Frank spotted the heart I heard it all the time from the guys on the team. I was still going to our games, but I would sit in the dugout and watch, like a team mascot. Jay would make kissing sounds and pull his eyelids open to look like a retarded person, and Ryan Mortenson wrote my name and Mary's in a heart on the wall of the dugout. Pretty soon I quit going to games, but it was just as bad in class. In math class Frank sent me love notes signed, "retarded girl."

It got worse when Mary started walking by my locker every morning and saying hello to me, right in front of my friends. I never said hello back, but she kept doing it, every morning like clockwork. Jay would poke me in the ribs and ask me when the retarded girl and I were going to tie the knot, and Frank changed my nickname from "remedial boy" to "remedial lover boy." I couldn't even go to a party on the weekend without someone asking me with a smirk on their face how my new girlfriend was doing. I couldn't take it anymore, and I guess that's why I said what I said to Mary.

It was at the gym, after school. Even though I was in a cast, coach Hoffman insisted that I lift weights with the team to keep my pitching arm strong, and I was spotting Jay at the bench when I noticed Mary walk in. You couldn't help noticing her. She was wearing neon orange pants and a gray sweatshirt that said "Muppet Athletics." I'd worked out with the team since the start of the season, but IÕd never seen Mary in the gym before. Everyone on the team knew why she was there. As soon as Jay noticed her he poked me in the ribs. "There's your girlfriend," he said.

I turned away when Mary glanced at me, but I couldn't help noticing she was having trouble figuring out the machines. She didn't know how to adjust the weight, and she would sit down backwards on a machine or put her arms where her legs were supposed to be. Ryan Mortenson told me to go save my damsel in distress, but I stayed put. Jay made loud grunting sounds when he bench pressed so everyone in the gym knew how much weight he was lifting, and his grunting must have attracted Mary. When he finished his last set she was standing right in front of the bench.
"You're doing it wrong," she said.
I thought Jay would tell her to fuck off again. But instead he winked at her and grinned.
"You're not going to heckle me, are you?" he asked.
"You're not supposed to lift so much weight," she said. "I saw it on TV."
"I'm trying to bulk up," Jay said. He didn't even seem upset. He was actually going to debate her.
"It said on TV not to lift so much weight," Mary said. She turned towards me. "Tell him he can get hurt," she said to me.
Jay began to offer a rebuttal but I cut him off. I looked right at Mary when I said it.
"Fucking retard," I said.

Right after I said it everything got quiet. Mary didn't say a word. She just stared at me with those sad frog eyes, and I was sure she was going to start bawling. Maybe she noticed that all of the guys were watching her, but instead of crying she quickly spun around and headed out the door. I expected Jay to poke me in the ribs again, or for one of the guys to crack a joke and ask me if I was having a loverÕs quarrel. But no one said a word. For a second I even thought about chasing after Mary. What I would say to her, I didn't know. But instead I just grabbed two dumbbells and went back to working out.

I decided to apologize to Mary the next day in remedial P.E. class. But she didn't show up, and she wasn't there the next day either. I kept an eye out for her, but she didn't come by my locker room in the morning. I even limped around the cafeteria a few times, but I didnÕt see her. I was feeling guilty, but what could I do? It wasn't like I was going to have a regular class with her or see her at a party on the weekend. She never showed up to another remedial P.E. class, and I didn't see her again until the next year, when I was a junior. By then my cast was off, and I was back in regular P.E.

It was a rainy day and all the P.E. classes had to meet in the gym, including remedial P.E. We were playing basketball when the remedial class marched in. Mary was back in remedial P.E., along with Sharee and all the guys in wheelchairs. Everyone in regular P.E. stopped playing for a moment and stared at the remedial people as they started their basketball game. Instead of choosing sides the people in remedial P.E. formed one big team, with everyone trying to get as many baskets as possible. There was no need for setting picks or even playing defense. They didnÕt even bother with dribbling. They were happy just to keep shooting until the ball went in, and the sad thing was I knew they weren't even keeping score. It was ridiculous, anyone could see that. But the crazy thing was, I had an urge to join them. Even as the guys I'd been playing basketball with began pointing and laughing, I felt like going over there and helping the remedial people shoot that ball in. For a second I almost walked over and joined them, as if my leg was still broken. But that urge didn't last. It was out of the question. Everyone had forgotten about Mary and remedial P.E., including me. I'd gone back to pitching batting practice and lifting weights without having to worry about what people were saying about me. I could go to a party or sit down at lunch and feel like a normal person. I turned my back to the remedial people so they wouldn't recognize me. After all, my cast was long gone. I was back in regular P.E., the same as everyone else.

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