First it was confusion yesterday with the bus. It ran late. I registered him only a few weeks ago. I followed the guidelines on the school's website, went on the day listed that they would begin to register kids for fall, as the school office had just reopened from its summer holidays. My son went with me. We took the trolley, with its futuristic wind-whistle sounds, and walked the last six blocks in the unshaded sunshine streets of August. The school secretary complimented me on my being so prompt with our registration. Said there'd be something in the mail to inform us about his classroom and teacher. We walked back down the wide, gray cement stairs, admiring the grounds and play structures.
Taking a last-minute trip to LA interfered with the school's ice cream social last Thursday, where we would have discovered his placement and gotten a chance to see the room and meet with the teacher. Instead, we would have to wait to get home to find out whether they'd sent the information in the mail as promised. Sunday afternoon I worried while the people milled around me in the miniature Long Beach airport, I worried as our son bolted ahead of us on the tarmac, climbing wildly up the steps to the back of the plane as we hollered above the din of the plane's engines to stop! Stop! STOP! Running so far ahead, not to weave amongst the immense blue safety cones towering over his narrow four-foot frame, to stick with us. I yanked on his gray, stained seat belt as he gaped at the screen mounted in the seat in front of him, reassuring myself. The mailer would be there and we would know his room and teacher in a few hours' time, so worrying was a waste of precious brain-doodling space.
No mailer. There was plenty of other junk, flyers and ridiculous items forwarded from our house, things involving FHA loans for a home we no longer own, flyers for pizza and Clorox bleach and Disney figurines, along with the requisite bills, and there was a whole slew of items from the insurance company for my crazy ass (brain), but there was no school-stamped mailer.
Shit.
We had this half-cracked plan to see if the bus driver would let one of us ride along with him yesterday morning, and the other one would follow in the car and that one would get to the school early enough to confirm room placement. We went to the prescribed bus stop across the street from our building a full ten minutes early. 7:20. He was all prepped to take the bus. He talked about it all morning. "I'm taking the bus. It's what big kids do, mom."
7:29. No bus. All the moms and kids stood around, looking down the tunnel of street and cars, watching.
7:36. A fourth-grade kid in a long, lean line of freshly-lanky growing boy, next to his mom said, "Mom. It's late. I think it broke down. Does that mean there's no school today?"
7:41. We looked at each other and I said, "We need to take the car and we need to haul ass. We don't even know if he's registered. What if they didn't even register him? WORST PARENTS EVER." "Not the worst parents ever. Just -- kind of shit ones." "Fine. Shit parents. LET'S GO."
7:50. Running from the car into the stream of people walking with their kids through the half-way sunlit morning, up the walk near the busses lining the road, my hand gripping his small hand, his feet continually catching on uneven sidewalk, my teeth held together in an uneven line. We race up the wide, gray steps and are swept along with the uneven crowd of adults in business casual and children in first-day purples and oranges and greens and bright denim, voices bouncing around us like sharp bubbles, pop pop pop, I spy easels set up with lists for various grades and room assignments and names. Fifth grade. Fourth. There. First grade. Scan, scanning. Woman with smooth, brown hair and a nice, businesslike smile next to the lists. "Can I help you?" Oh. No, thank you. I've found him. We're off. Down the hall. Around the corner. There's the room. Lots of parents and kids buzzing about the door. We hang back. We hug. We smile. We remind. He blinks. He clings. I take his hand and walk to the door and point into the room, and my words sound far away from my ears. Something about love and fun and recess. He begins to sob. A man along the wall behind us says, "my son's first day is today, too. You'll be okay." He smiles. It's warm. He's wearing a blue button-up shirt and his hair is graying. I smile above my son's head, thanking him for his attempt. It is fruitless, but it's kind.
The boy in front of us in line turns around and says his name. Smiles grandly and tells my son he's glad to start school. That it's his first day. I say my son's name. I smile. I prompt my child to acknowledge this other apparently perfectly-adjusted, prepared boy. He refuses to look.
My husband takes him by the hand, then picks him up into a full-body snuggle. He is weeping. Sobbing. Wracked. Everyone has already entered. The room is full. The teacher is by the door, holding a name tag with my son's name in blue Sharpie. She says his name, pokes her head out into the hall. I am draped like first-grade art along the wall just inside the door, my face full of staples. I watch her approach him as he arranges himself along my husband's legs, his sobs and shrieks mingled in a cracking way. She says her name. She has a kindly device by which to encourage the kids to remember her name. It's endearing. My belly is warm and full of iron. He looks up, slowly, nodding. She says, "I need an assistant today. Can you be my assistant?" "Yes." "Great. Why don't we go inside?" "Okay." We watch. We are stricken. Our faces our full of staples and impassive looks. We inhale short, shortish breaths and, after a single beat, step onto the imaginary people mover in the hall that takes us back around the corner and down the gray stairs and along the walk. There is a girl amidst other children who was at the bus stop, the one by our building. I'm relieved to know a bus monster didn't descend on our son's bus.
This morning, we are prepared. We will wait. The same people are there. More of the children are playing together where yesterday there were groups. Our son, the sole first-grader, insists he only wants to watch. I talk sporadically with a mom, a woman with a strong French accent, whose family has just moved here from the east coast. My husband begins to play the same game with our child that the other children are playing, but along the opposite street corner. Suddenly, the bus is there. Late, but not so late as yesterday. The children all begin to line up. I summon my son. "Honey, time to get in line. The bus is coming." He runs up. Stands at the back of the line. He's moving forward, I'm watching. I give him a quick kiss. He's still moving forward. Suddenly, there's a break in the line between him and the child directly in front of him. He won't budge. The bus driver has the door opened with the pulley in hand, his gray beard making his face blank. The kids are all on. There is no fuss, no disorder. All are seated. Ready. My son stands on the sidewalk, and his sobs begin to crescendo. I am smiling and unnaturally bright, I pull electricity out of my chest and inform my words and my face with it, I say, "look, honey! The bus driver is waiting! It's time to get on! You need to go, now. You have to go! Hi! This is my son! May I ask your name?" The bus driver says his name and smiles. My son has his back to the driver. He is imploring me. Arms out. "Momma. Momma. Please, momma. Don't make me. I'm scared. I'm scared!" "I know, baby. But you need to go, and it's going to be fine, and I love you, and dad loves you, and it's fine. You're going to be fine. Okay?"
The driver says his name, asks him to sit down. He finally manages his way up the steps, then scrambles back down them and almost off the bus. I say, "No. No, honey. You can't come back down. You have to stay on the bus." My face hurts with all the electrical infusions. He looks at me and turns back around. He is shrieking like yesterday, and there is no one to help, no one to soothe. A few other moms attempt to help. The woman with the French accent calls to her son, probably to ask him to sit with my child, but he does not hear her. Another mother asks me a question, but I can't properly understand her, because my ears are rushing with the sound of electrical noises and his shrieks.
He sits. My husband's eyes are burned red. He stands near me, hands in pockets. We cannot wave, as our son is on the opposite side of the bus, his face against the window. We watch the door close and the bus pull away. The other mothers look at us as they move across the street. We are smiling. Saying "oh, well." Our breaths are short and stoppered. One mother in a pink shirt says, "tomorrow, we'll get the other kids to play with him." "Yes. That sounds nice." My face aches as I long to discard the electric smile still gripping it.
I say goodbye to my husband at the elevators. We wish each other a good day. Multiple times.
There is no photo of the first grade first-time bus moment.
I don't want one.
