Deirdre Sugiuchi

My second night at reform school, after we finished washing dishes, the housefather told us to line up by rank— the nine of us girls were organized in levels according to our compliance. The schedule said after dinner we’d have free time. I was looking forward to journaling. I wanted to make sense of my new world on paper, but instead the housefather told the high rankers they could have free time. He told the mid-rankers to scrub floors. "Low rankers," he said, "Come with me."

Just the way the housefather said that term, low rankers, like the three of us weren’t even people, caused my pulse to spike. Stomach sinking, I followed the other two, asking permission at each threshold, the way we were forced to do, until we made it out to the patio which connected the two wings of the house. Outside the sky was fading from rich red to lavender. Above, the first stars faintly glimmered.

The housefather told us to step down to the main portion of the patio, onto the lower rectangle boxing in a stunted palm tree. After asking for permission— “May I please step down the stairs?”— the three of us stood before him. He asked me, the newbie, if I knew how to do a bear crawl. I shook my head, wondering what he meant. He ordered Rachel to show me how to do a bear crawl. I watched as she twisted her fine hair into a knot and tucked her shirt into her shorts, the movement emphasizing her narrow waist, her firm bust. She pivoted as though about to cartwheel, but instead of flying, she leaned over, head drooped between her hands, ass in the air. She shambled, circling the palm tree on all fours. My jaw dropped in surprise. The housefather nodded in my direction. I leaned over, following Olivia, the other low ranker, relieved that my hair was covering my angry expression. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I was upset.

After a few minutes my shoulders ached. My left knee twinged. I stumbled. The housefather told me to stay in form. “This is only a game,” I told myself. “This isn’t happening.” Soon I lurched to the side, and, conscious of his gaze, stumbled. The housefather made some comment about how I must be getting tired, so he assigned us duck walks. The three of us squatted, waddling around the patio.

Sometimes back home, after we lost a game, my basketball coach would assign us duck walks for punishment. But here, at Escuela Caribe, I hadn’t done anything wrong. Neither had the other girls. The housefather was punishing us because he could. The three of us waddled. I wondered what my father would think. I thought he’d probably like it, seeing me put in my place. I quit caring if my face contorted with anger, until I saw the smile creeping across the housefather’s face. I could tell it was because he knew he was getting to me. I focused on making my face calm, like Rachel and Olivia. They didn’t seem angry, just resigned. Occasionally I’d catch Olivia glancing my way. Earlier that evening, during prayer before dinner, she’d squeezed my hand. Even now, performing exercises, it was a relief to know that someone here cared. I waddled on, right knee aching. I inched higher, trying to relieve my burning thighs. Right at my breaking point, the housefather ordered the three of us up. We immediately complied. “Olivia, show Deirdre how we do pushups.”

Olivia assumed the plank position, slowly lowered herself to the floor, slender arms pumping, up and down, up and down. Her light brown hair brushed against the red slate tiles; the frames of her glasses slid down her nose. All too soon, she completed her reps. “Now Rachel and Deirdre, give me twenty pushups,” the housefather said.

I assumed the plank position, slowly lowered, then lumbered up. The year before, a physical therapist had diagnosed me with limited shoulder mobility— in my 48 hours at the school, I’d discovered pushups were my weakness. I sacrificed my form and mimicked Rachel’s speed, hoping the housefather wouldn’t notice how shallow my pushups were, but no dice. He told me to take my pushups lower. I tried, but couldn’t. He told me again to take mine lower. “I can’t,” I tried emulating his modulated tone.

His pitch became sharper. “You will.”

My biceps shivered. “Take them down farther, Deirdre.”

My voice quavered as I told him I couldn’t, that it hurt. Again, he told me to take them farther. I said something about having back problems.

“Get up!” he ordered.

I complied. Immediately. I wanted him to understand that I wasn’t trying to rebel.

“I went to see a physical therapist last year,” I tried explaining.

“Then your arms must be too weak,” he cut me off. “Raise them to your sides.”

It was a relief to hold my arms in a different position, but they still felt wobbly. He turned to Rachel. “Go to the living room. Fetch me two books.” She nodded, asked if she could step inside. He told her yes, adding, “Make sure they’re not light.”

Moths darted in and out of the orange glow of the emergency lantern mounted in the corner of the porch, nearest the door. Down the mountain I could hear someone at the boys’ house asking if he could please step inside. The sliding glass door opened. Rachel brought back two thick volumes. The housefather weighed them in his hand, sent her back for something heavier. She brought back two more, Reader's Digest Condensed Books. I’d noticed them earlier— I’d wondered why anyone would want to read a book that was condensed. The housefather placed a volume in each of my outstretched hands. For the first minute or so they felt manageable. “Bear-crawls,” the housefather told Rachel and Olivia, who again began circling.

Laughter rang out from the living room as the mid-rankers, finished with scrubbing floors, joined the others. The sky had darkened into dusk. As the seconds passed, my arms strained. I didn’t understand how the girls inside could laugh, knowing we three were out here. "Why did your parents send you here?" the housefather asked. 

“My parents said they were sending me to boarding school,” I told the face half shadowed in the orange glow. For a moment I wondered if I was at the wrong school, if my standing on the front porch with my arms outstretched was all a mistake. My arms drooped.

"You lie!" the housefather told me. “Keep your arms straight! And quit sniveling!”

I jerked them up. “I read your chart,” the housefather said, referring to my hospital records.

Aware of the silent audience circling the patio, I thought about how that information was supposed to be confidential. I wondered what was in my chart. Two nights before I went into the short-term facility that led to my being sent to Escuela Caribe, my father, who couldn’t control his temper, had been scarier than ever before, grabbing me by the arms, throwing me into the wall. If the housefather read my chart, then he knew about the bruises on my body— I’d watch the nurse in charge record them at intake. But instead of acknowledging my father’s issues with anger management, the housefather told me, "You rebelled against your parents. You have an authority problem. That's why they sent you here." My arms sagged. "Keep them straight!" he snarled.

I jolted them back up. I tried to tell him that my arms hurt. He told me to quit crying.

I choked down the sobs, straightening my arms out, even though second by second the books felt heavier. I tried to keep emotion from my face as I thought about how ever since my father became a born-again Christian when I was five years old, embracing a form of evangelicalism which taught that men were ordained by God to be head of the household and that women were inferior, I’d been taught not to question my father’s actions. Even though I was happy at public school, when I was in 4th grade my father sent me to my first Christian school, what I later realized was a segregationist academy, where me and my peers were taught that America was founded as a Christian nation. Back at public school, besides my best friend Jessie, my favorite playmates were Brenda, LaTonya, and Thelma. They’d taught me how to jump rope; we’d spent hours hanging upside down on the climbing gym, but my new school was all white. At Christian school, we learned most enslavers were kind, something which, even as a kid, I knew was a lie. At Christian school girls were forced to only wear dresses, because supposedly wearing pants incited men’s lust, an accusation I found disgusting, but I didn’t complain, because I was raised to do what my father told.

A minute passed. My arms began bouncing from the pain. Suddenly the housefather removed the books, telling me, “You may lower your arms.”

I collapsed them, crossing my hands over my chest, massaging the aching muscles beneath my shoulders, under my ribcage. “Put your arms back up,” he told me a minute later, replacing the books. An eternity seemed to pass, but it was only seconds. 

I thought about how, even as my father’s beliefs became more rigid, I did what I could to stay happy by reading, by going to my grandmother’s, by blissing out on nature, gazing into the branches of the magnolia in my backyard with its glossy green leaves and waxy white flowers. I spent my weekends skating at the roller rink. I was walking on sunshine. I was hungry like the wolf. Fractures of light bounced off the disco ball as I circled round and around. As I skated— Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Let's go crazy! — I pretended I was normal. I made loops— I was sending out an SOS to the world; I knew what it sounded like when doves cried— pretending I wasn’t different from anyone else. 

Back on the porch, my arms quaked and spasmed.

“Duck-walks, girls,” the housefather told Olivia and Rachel, stroking his goatee. I thought of how they weren’t girls, more like young women, how the housefather himself was only a few years older than us. “Keep your arms up, Deirdre,” he said.

I thought about all the things I did when I was young to keep from acknowledging my father’s extremism, which didn’t just impact me, but also my mother, who became severely depressed, and spent most of her days in bed. I thought of how, right before I transferred to Christian school, I celebrated my ninth birthday at the roller skating rink. I’d skated around the rink with my friends, disco ball flashing, until my father arrived. As soon as he walked in, he shook his head, nostrils flaring the way they did when he was mad. He left and returned twenty minutes later, a stack of records under his arm. He leaned across the counter and began talking to the DJ, shoving over the stack of records. The DJ shook his head. All the older kids were watching— I was so embarrassed. When my father pulled out his wallet and handed the DJ a stack of bills, the older kids groaned. As the DJ shoved his money into his wallet, some of the older kids glanced my way. My face flushed crimson, as I realized that even at my favorite place, the roller skating rink, on my birthday, I'd been marked as my father’s daughter, different. Inside I slumped. 

But not outside. I spent the rest of the party skating to Amy Grant, Psalty the Singing Songbook, Sandi Patty— Sing your praise to the Lord! — pretending, like a good American, that I didn’t care.

The way I was pretending I didn’t care now, even as the books grew heavier. My arms started quaking. I thought about being back at the skating rink, the thrill I’d feel as I rolled beneath the disco ball, back when I was a girl who just wanted to have fun, back when I was wearing my sunglasses at night. The books began to bounce. Tears streamed down my face, snot from my nose. My teeth began to chatter. Shock, I was going into shock, I now realize, but then the housefather yelled, “Get a hold of yourself Deirdre. And quit doing that thing with your mouth.”

“I c-can’t help it!” I stammered, my arms trembling from exhaustion.

“Get it under control.”

My forehead beaded with fresh perspiration. Seconds, then minutes, slowly passed, and my arms began twitching again, teeth vibrating. I knew he wanted me to refuse to hold the books. He wanted to have an excuse to punish me further. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. The whole world shrank until it was just me, trapped in the dark before my housefather. He told me to confess what a bad girl I was. I nodded, anything to stop what was happening.

“Can I please put my arms down?” I asked.

“Keep them up, Deirdre.”

“It really hurts,” I tried to explain.

“I told you to keep them up!” he said.

I stood there shaking, arms aching. I watched what I could see of the housefather’s face beneath the crimped brim of his cap, daring me to give him a reason to hurt me more.

"You provoked your father to wrath with your rebellion, say it!"

I remained strong, holding my arms up, shivering, my body shaking, clenching my teeth to stop the chatter. My muscles were screaming. I didn't want to, but he made me say it, that I deserved being punished like this.

Right when I thought I would break, that I’d have to let the books fall, the sliding door slid open, and the counselor stood in the doorway. She looked out over the patio, not displaying any surprise at the girls exercising, at me standing with my arms outstretched. She told the housefather it was eight forty-five.

“Time for target goals, girls,” he said.

Behind me, the shuffling stopped. Rachel and Olivia asked, “May I please step up?”

He nodded as he took the books from my hands. The relief of the weight being removed was indescribable. Still, I kept my arms outstretched, not dropping them until he nodded. As I let them fall, my shoulder sockets blazed with white heat. I snorted back snot, rubbed at my eyes. I felt oddly exhilarated, endorphins rushing through me. After asking for permission to step into the living room, I joined the others for target goals.

Once in the living room, I sat on the composite tile floor with the other low rankers. Besides holding hands in prayer, target goal time was the only time the three of us were allowed to interact. My target was to follow the rules of the program, but, according to my peers, I was too slow, too aware of the other low rankers, and wasn’t in control of my facial expressions. I didn’t stop chattering my teeth when asked, Rachel noted. I rolled my eyes. At the end, everyone closed their eyes and held up their vote. According to the group, I earned a zero.

An hour later, I lay in my bunk, alone at last, silent tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. Still, inside part of me was spinning around and around beneath a sparkling disco ball, singing along with Gloria Gaynor, “I will survive.”

I knew I’d passed a test. The housefather hadn’t broken me. I didn't drop the books.