Meet Behind Mars
Renee Simms
Dr. Lutz,
You’ve requested that I write a statement to the school board about The Night of the Yellow Mustard Penis, and I’ve tried to pull together all of the evidence that I have. In the process, I’ve remembered other incidents that have happened over the years, like The Bullying with a Dead Leaf Incident, or The Case of Sexual Harassment with Gummy Worms. The worm incident happened when Jesse was just in 2nd grade. Recalling this, Dr. Lutz, has been hard for me and I feel like I can’t tell one story about a giant mustard penis because it’s not about a mustard penis only, but about all of these incidents together, in context, and through time. It’s also about education and the fact that I’m a black woman who lives alone with her son. It’s about lots of stuff, some of which I tried to include in this statement but most which I decided to leave out. The worst part of writing this statement was recalling all of these events because, honestly, I’d just as soon forget. Anyway, I’m including email and voicemail messages along with my written thoughts. I hope this is acceptable to your board members.
Sincerely,
Jesse’s Mom
Gloria Clark
FROM: Rachel Manning <manning@dusd.edu>
TO: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
DATE: October2011
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Good Afternoon, Ms. Clark,
Jesse bullied another student today by placing a leaf on the boy’s shirt. He told the boy that the leaf was a bug and Jesse knows that this student is scared of bugs. I thought that you should know.
Sincerely,
Rachel Manning
TO: Rachel Manning <manning@dusd.edu>
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
DATE: October 2011
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi Mrs. Manning,
I’m confused. Is this child blind?
Sincerely,
Jesse’s mom
TRANSCRIBED VOICEMAIL MESSAGE
April 2009
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi, Gloria, this is Adrienne Kuchanick, principal at Middleton Elementary. I wanted you to know that I gave Jesse two after school detentions for bringing a weapon to school. Yeah……(PAUSE)......he was found in possession of a nail file at recess. Now, usually the consequences for this are suspension or expulsion. Bringing a weapon to school is a big No-No that we take very seriously within our district. But I showed Jesse some leniency by giving him after-school detentions because he’s a good kid. And he’s such a cutie!! But he cannot bring weapons to school. Let me know if you have any questions. Okay. Thanks, Gloria. Bye-bye.
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
TO: Adrienne Kuchanik <akuchanick@dusd.edu>
DATE: April 2009
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Principal Kuchanick,
This may be too much information but we don’t own any nail files in our home.
Sincerely,
Jesse’s mom
TRANSCRIBED VOICEMAIL MESSAGE
April 2009
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi Gloria,
Principal Kuchanick, here. I received your email. After further investigation, we discovered that another boy brought the nail file to school. But Jesse was the one holding the file when the recess teacher found it. Apparently a bunch of boys were standing around and playing with this very sharp tool. All of the boys are serving after school detentions. Thanks for your support of our rules. Let me know if you have further concerns. Okay. Take care. Bye-bye.
FROM: Elena Guitierrez <guitierrez@dusd.edu>
TO: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
DATE: September 2008
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello,
I wanted you to know that I had to speak to Jesse about sexual harassment today. I caught him and a few other boys placing gummy worms near their privates and laughing with each other in class. There were girls in the class who saw this lewd display. I talked to Jesse about appropriate and inappropriate behavior with gummy worms.
Let me know if you have questions.
Elena Guitierrez
Lead Second Grade Teacher
FROM: Adrianne Kuchanick <akuchanick@dusd.edu>
TO: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
DATE: November 2012
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi Gloria,
I wanted to let you know that we got a call from a parent who saw Jesse looking at graffiti on one of the foreclosed homes in the neighborhood. Please remind him that this is private property and to walk straight home from school.
Sincerely,
Principal Kuchanick
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
TO: Brian Carlson <bcarlson@dusd.edu>
DATE: October 2013
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Mr. Carlson,
When I checked Gradebook I saw that Jesse has zeros for assignments when he was out of town. I sent you emails before he traveled to make sure he could make up those assignments. Did you get those emails? Thanks for helping me keep him on track.
Best,
Gloria
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
TO: Brian Carlson <bcarlson@dusd.edu>
DATE: October 2013
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi Mr. Carlson,
You have Jesse marked as absent in Gradebook on days that he was excused to travel to Oakland to visit his dad. I apologize if you didn’t get my messages. I’m thinking my emails went into your spam.
Sincerely,
Jesse’s Mom
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
TO: Brian Carlson <bcarlson@dusd.edu>
DATE: November 2013
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mr. Carlson,
Jesse insists that he turned in the Algebra assignments which are marked as missing in Gradebook. I am trying to keep him accountable. Did you get those assignments from him?
Jesse’s Mom
FROM: Brian Carlson <bcarlson@dusd.edu>
TO: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
DATE: January 2014
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hey Gloria,
Jesse knows that he’s not doing all of his work. He’s not being honest with you. I understand that his dad is not around and it’s probably hard for you to keep up with everything as a single parent. I’ve told Jesse, Look, your mom has moved you to a good school district, got you in advanced math, and you need to take advantage of this opportunity and not mess it up. Bottom line is Jesse needs to work a little harder.
Excuse me, Dr. Lutz, but this is where I’d like to include the advertisement for the home which attracted me to your school district:
Desirable Dupont rambler! Open and inviting floor plan. Large kitchen with hickory cabinets and pergo style flooring. Spacious living room with cozy brick fireplace . Newer exterior paint. Big fenced back yard. Views of Olympic Mountains and Sequalitchew Creek. Located in great neighborhood. RV parking. Good Schools! Walking distance to Middleton Elementary.
You see, Mr. Carlson is right that I was interested in Dupont because of its schools. He’s also right that I am single, which is announced on the deed to the house that I bought:
Statutory Warranty Deed
_______________________________________________________________________
Grantor(s): Stacey Flanahan and John Flanahan, wife and husband
Grantee(s): Gloria V. Clark, an unmarried woman
_______________________________________________________________________
But the fact that I’m a single mother who moved to a decent school district is no big deal, right? I mean, people do that every day. So why did Mr. Carlson feel the need to bring it up? And why did I feel dirty as I read his response? It reminded me of what Thurgood Marshall said in his closing arguments in Brown v. Board of Education. I know this argument by heart because Jesse memorized it when he portrayed Thurgood Marshall at History Night in the 6th grade. In his closing remarks, Marshall said, and I quote,
“So whichever way it is done, the only way that this Court can decide this case in opposition to our position (of school desegregation), is that there must be some reason which gives the state the right to make a classification that they can make in regard to nothing else in regard to Negroes, and we submit the only way to arrive at that decision is to find that for some reason Negroes are inferior to all other human beings.”
Those last eight words get at what I’m trying to say to you, Dr. Lutz. That’s what’s underneath Mr. Carlson’s email and all of these messages. These messages show what members of this school community really think of me and Jesse when they look at us. They think that we’ll stab them with a Revlon nail file. They think it’s fascinating that we live in this neighborhood. They think of nooky. Take this discussion I had with another mom at family orientation when Jesse was in the first grade:
PARENT: “Hi, I’m Michelle.”
ME: “Hi, I’m Gloria”
MICHELLE: “Which child is yours?”
ME: “The black boy in the class.”
MICHELLE: “You mean Jesse! My Becca talks about Jesse all of the time.”
ME: “Okay,” (confused because I’d never heard of Becca before).
MICHELLE: “I think they have crushes on each other.”
ME: “Really?”
MICHELLE: “Oh, yeah. Becca thinks Jesse is cute. Becca talks about him all of the time.”
ME: Head down furiously searching for something in my purse.
Or, this exchange with Jesse’s kindergarten teacher when I was volunteering in the classroom one day:
TEACHER: Jesse is a real leader in this class.
ME: That’s great! We--
TEACHER: You can tell that he will be the life of the party when he’s older. He and his buddy, Vershawn, are going to be so popular. They’re so cute. They almost look like brothers.
When I remember these incidents, Dr. Lutz, I recall what my sister said when I told her that I was moving to Dupont. “Why you moving out to Mars?” she asked. “There aren’t a lot of people who look like us out there.” And I defended this place to my sister. I didn’t tell her that Dupont wasn’t Mars, because most days it feels like a foreign planet. But I told her that I had a right to sail across the universe if I wanted, and to meet behind Mars with my beloveds like Cheryl Lynn sang in 1978 when we were twelve and fourteen years old and listening to her song on our mother’s car radio. We’d be curled up like roly polys in the backseat, singing, and our mother would be in the driver’s seat surrounded by light streaming through the windshield and the smoke from her cigarette. Back then, my sister probably imagined “making star love” to one of her boyfriends, but when I listened to Star Love, I heard a call to go wherever I damn pleased, and to expect good things when I showed up.
Anyway, this is how I answered Mr. Carlson:
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
TO: Brian Carlson <bcarlson@dusd.edu>
DATE: January 2014
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Mr. Carlson,
Can we arrange for a time to meet? I just got Jesse’s state testing and he’s in the 94th percentile in math but he has a C in your class. I’m trying to understand this discrepancy. Thanks. Gloria Clark.
I never heard back from Mr. Carlson. I went to the assistant principal. I told him about Gradebook, the test scores, how I’d seen Mr. Carlson talking to people in the parking lot during school hours. How Mr. Carlson was absent every week. How he refused to communicate with me. The assistant principal said he would have Mr. Carlson get in touch with me, but Carlson never did. Then the following year Jesse was placed in Algebra 1-2 again, despite the fact that we’d registered for the next course, Algebra 3-4. And when I asked the principal why Jesse was taken off the fast track she said Mr. Carlson recommended it and she would talk to him because she wasn’t sure why he made this decision, looking at Jesse’s test scores and grades. Well, Mr. Carlson never responded to her, and so she placed Jesse back in 3-4. Then a few weeks later we learned that Mr. Carlson had been arrested for dealing and using drugs on the school campus.
Jesse is 15 years old now. Here is correspondence I’ve received from his teachers about him this year:
Jesse is receiving a lunch detention for failure to keep his hands to himself. We have zero tolerance for touching in the hallways. Jesse hugged another student. This was caught on camera.
Jesse is receiving a lunch detention for wearing his jeans too low. When he bends over at his locker, cameras show his gym shorts sticking out from beneath his jeans.
Jesse is receiving a lunch detention for activity seen on hall cameras. He and another student were jumping up trying to touch the top of the lockers.
Jesse is laughing too much in Spanish. Spanish is not a funny class.
Jesse takes too long to tie his shoes in the locker room and is late coming out for class.
And then there is the incident involving kids from his high school which prompted this statement that I write to you:
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
TO: Officer Nesbitt <fxnesbitt@dusd.edu>
DATE: February 2015
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear School Officer Nesbitt,
Could you please come investigate a yellow mustard penis drawn on my driveway? I believe the picture was drawn by girls at the high school.
FROM: Officer Nesbitt <fxnesbitt@dusd.edu>
TO: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
DATE: February 2015
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Ms. Clark,
Tell me more about the mustard penis. Do you have pictures of it?
TO: Officer Nesbitt <fxnesbitt@dusd.edu>
FROM: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
DATE: February 2015
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Officer Nesbitt,
Here are pictures of the mustard penis. And here are pictures of the message F-U-C-K Y, or “fucky” that was drawn on my garage door. (I assume the girls ran out of mustard to draw the letters o and u). Also please find pictures of a busted watermelon and Kool Aid Jammers that were thrown at the house. The perpetrators are 9th grade white girls who did this at midnight. My son was having a birthday sleepover at the time. Jesse’s guests were 9th grade black boys who also go to the school.
As punishment, I would like these girls to stand in front of the watermelon and mustard penis and perform an interpretive dance.
TO: Gloria Clark <gc66@gmail.com>
FROM: Officer Nesbitt <fxnesbitt@dusd.edu>
DATE: February 2015
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ms. Clark,
I have looked at the photos and contacted parents. We cannot ask the girls to perform a dance, but they have written letters of apology, three of which I’m attaching below.
Dear Mrs. Clark,
I’m so sorry for what we did to you your house. It will never ever happen again. There was no intent to be racist towards anyone and I’m sorry if you felt that way.
Sincerely, Miley
Dear Mrs. Clark,
I would like to formally apologize for pranking your property. It was out of childish humor and ended up turning into something worse. This will never happen again and I hope you forgive my friends and I.
From,
Sarah
Gloria,
I’m sorry for doing that to your house. The reasons we used watermelon is because one of the boys asked for it on their Snapchat story. The Kool-Aid was just something to drink.
Sincerely,
Christi
Christi’s response (that the girls only came to my home bearing gifts) reminds me of one last thing that I want to say, Dr. Lutz.
I can’t really do much with the girls’ letters of apology except put them in this statement to the school board. I wish the girls had done an interpretive dance instead. They could have used streamed music or live instruments. They could have put those awful-sounding wind recorders from 4th grade to good use. They could have designed costumes: long skirts with bells, or leggings and sparkly t-shirts purchased from Justice and Pink. They could have danced with or without shoes. That alone is something. Only brave souls step in bare feet on the cold moss and rocks. They would have had to move around and through each item thrown against my house. The red melon that peeked through its cracked shell. The shiny mass-produced Jammers that won’t decay, that will end up floating somewhere with other junk in the Pacific. It would have been interesting to see whether they stepped on the yellow balls drawn from their imaginations; whether they absorbed the color and substance into their own skin or performed around it in deference to or fear of the image and idea. Would they have danced in the sun? Or come again at night? There would have been so many decisions for them to make! See, a letter leaves the work to me to translate what they really think. But a dance! Now a dance would have shown me who those girls are.
Renee Simms' stories and essays have appeared in Joyland, Full Grown People, Salon, North American Review, Hawai'i Review, and in the 2014 anthology All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color. She received a Notable Story mention in storySouth and her fiction has been supported by fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, PEN Center, Kimbilio, and VONA. She has an MFA from Arizona State University and a JD from Wayne State University. She teaches writing and African American Studies at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA.
