Educating Brenda is Ali's project. Brenda's friends are uncultured; they only read movie magazines, and the conversation she is exposed to is trivial and the culture poor. Her mother is uncultured, being typical second generation steam-heat Irish who listens mostly to the priest. But her father was born in France and brought culture to the home; however, he does not pay attention to Brenda because she is a girl.
Life is chancy; many persons never meet anyone of meaning. But, sometimes, a gem like Ali comes into one's life. And Ali's coming coincides with an event that marks a new future.
Every Saturday Brenda's gang goes to the Tuxedo movie theater. They sit in left rear. Boy and girl pair off together in seats against wall where their sex play will be less obvious to the middle-aged matron who patrols the aisle to break up too much of it.
Life is chancy; many persons never meet anyone of meaning. But, sometimes, a gem like Ali comes into one's life. And Ali's coming coincides with an event that marks a new future.
Every Saturday Brenda's gang goes to the Tuxedo movie theater. They sit in left rear. Boy and girl pair off together in seats against wall where their sex play will be less obvious to the middle-aged matron who patrols the aisle to break up too much of it.
Brenda paired off with Moyshe, the tall slim, good looking Jewish boy with black skullcap yarmulke. Brenda is Roman Catholic and in grabbing off Moyshe she has “stolen” him from Lorna, an oval face, long black-hair Jewish girl, who is normally quiet but because of the Moyshe-Brenda affair has become resentful and her feeling is shared and fueled by comments of the other Jewish girls: "That dirty shiksa is giving it out free in movie seats to steal good Jewish boys" – and further saying "Somebody oughta take her down."
Now, just after each one's entering the back lobby of The Tux, Lorna taps Brenda. “I want to talk to you, private like. In the girl's room.”
Lorna comes from a cultured, educated family so she speaks upper middle class and Brenda who speaks lowBronx resents Lorna's uppity style. She and Lorna enter the women's room – empty as Lorna knows it should be at the start of a movie.
Lorna comes from a cultured, educated family so she speaks upper middle class and Brenda who speaks low
The normally sweet-minded girl is inwardly angry. She turns on Brenda “Listen, you shiksa bitch. Keep your hooks off my Jewish boy. Stick to your own – and stop using Frenchie sex tricks. If you don't, I'm going to slap you silly. And here's a sample,” She gives a skin-stinging, face-turning right hand slap to Brenda’s left cheek.
Brenda is not a girl of words but the slap is a trigger. She lunges forward, grabbing Lorna under the arms, and the two grapple, not really knowing what the purpose but having a vague racial memory of fighting to death in a primeval ooze. Lorna is bigger and with a wrench of her body she shakes Brenda and grabs her about the shoulders and the two fall forward, Brenda’s head striking the bathroom tile floor hard. The sound of Brenda’s head hitting brings Lorna to her senses.
“Oh my God! What have I done?” She runs to the bathroom door and cries. “Please, help, accident!”
27. The Emergency
Standing on the porch of her home, Brenda seems lost. She can't remember her door key. Ali takes the key out of Brenda's shoulder bag and opens the door. Brenda is oddly quiet for the usual frisky, smart-assBronx teenager she has been. Dr. Stan had warned to expect something like this in the few days after a head banging. Ali sits Brenda on the sofa in the living room, which Brenda's dad – an admirer of French Second Empire style - has furnished expensively. Ali does not keep lights on because Brenda complains it hurts her eyes. After asking Brenda if she will like tea, she goes to kitchen and brews Lipton's in the family's special Czech ormolu – gold inlayed – cups, with king & queen images on outside rims, and brings it back. She sits down on a pulled-up folding chair facing Brenda and they sip the hot, fragrant tea.
The Saturday of Brenda's head injury, Ali is in her forest, and getting back to the apartment Sunday early morning, she sees a note in her dumbwaiter. “Go to Hospital
She hurries and is led into the emergency overnight room where a tired Lorna is sitting sharing breakfast with the in–bed, sitting-up Brenda, both eating from a plate of sunny-side-up eggs with pieces of cooked red salmon and buttered toast. Brenda's forehead is covered with taped-on white gauze, and the black & blue from the head bang shows at the edges.
Lorna answers Ali's questions because Brenda has amnesia. As Ali later learns, this is from concussion, a temporary thinking loss from strong bang that jars the brain but does not tear it or mash it. Its being summer, Brenda's father & mother are on a plane to Brazil
Brenda sits in bed with silly smile not saying a word. Just then a tall military-haircut blond physician, in his mid 20's and looking to Ali like a movie Dr. Kildare comes to the bedside. He introduces as Dr. Stanley Pelc, and, seeing, they are getting out of the room, he motions them to stay, saying – “She is too pretty for me to examine alone.” Ali instantly likes this Dr Kildare. He turns to Brenda. “How are you? Do you remember me from last night?” Brenda shakes head No.
“I need to hear you say something. It's part of the game. Are you OK?”
“Yeah, Doc.” Ali is surprised by the usual voluble Brenda being so short of words.
The doctor examines Brenda's reflexes to hammer taps, asking her to count backwards from 100 subtracting 7 to test short-term memory, testing her feelings of hot & cold and joint position for spinal cord function, looking into to the back of her eyes for brain bleeding, and having her walk back and forth along a straight line and touch her left and then right fingers to tip of nose with eyes open & shut to test cerebellum.
Then he turns to Lorna and Ali. “All OK. She had a concussion; x-rays don't show skull fracture and the neuro exam is negative. So I am going to discharge her. Take her home and someone be with her a few days.”
Lorna volunteers but Ali says “Look, Lorna, you been so good to stay with her all night. You gotta be tired and, besides, your folks must be worried. I'm completely fresh; I'll take Bren home and watch her and after you rest up, c'mon and join us.”
Brenda breaks in. “Lorna, thanks, I love ya like a sis.” And she hugs Lorna who starts to cry.
Dr Pelc takes Ali aside as Brenda gets dressed. “I see you are not a kid like her. Concussions are unpredictable. Most recover quickly. Two things to worry about. Bleed into brain; in that case, she will get too drowsy and you call ambulance. Then, personality change; especially because she banged her forehead badly, it may affect the pre-frontal brain, the part they do lobotomies on. I am resident in neurology and plan to be a neuropsychiatrist so it interests me to follow your friend in outpatient clinic and I hope you will be with her. OK. Let’s shake on that.” They clasp hands, her heart jumps, and he leaves.
28: Educate Brenda
She brings Brenda home by taxi, a 5-minute, 25-cent plus a 5-cent tip to driver. The house is empty because of the parents' summer trip – its being 1942 with war in Europe, they cannot enjoy their usual Paree – so they are flying Pan Am Clipper right now down to Rio.
She brings Brenda home by taxi, a 5-minute, 25-cent plus a 5-cent tip to driver. The house is empty because of the parents' summer trip – its being 1942 with war in Europe, they cannot enjoy their usual Paree – so they are flying Pan Am Clipper right now down to Rio.
Standing on the porch of her home, Brenda seems lost. She can't remember her door key. Ali takes the key out of Brenda's shoulder bag and opens the door. Brenda is oddly quiet for the usual frisky, smart-ass
“Bren, do you remember at all what happened?”
“No. But Gee! I really love Lorna. She is so good to me.”
“What's my name?” Ali asks.
“Ah, ah, ah, Ali”, Brenda replies hesitantly.
Ali fills in the missing events she learned from Lorna.
“She can have that Jewboy. I don't want him. He's too smart for a dumb shiksa like me."
“She can have that Jewboy. I don't want him. He's too smart for a dumb shiksa like me."
“That is what I am going to change, Bren. I am going to make you smart. Not just smart but intelligent – you know, like Einstein.
“Gee, Ali. Really? I am a dumb dodo in school.”
“Well, Bren as they say in novels Fate takes a hand. This accident scrambled your eggs – in the brain. But it is just a shaking up of the marbles and now those marbles will come together again but without a lot of the negative stuff you had before. You are gonna be tabula rasa – a blank slate I can write on to make you a mental marvel – You know like Clark Kent really is despite what his Lois Lane thinks. And the first thing is you are going to speak educated. I don't mean I want you to stop Bronx – I love you for it. But I want you to be able to switch to President Roosevelt's English when you need to. Get me?”
“Yeah, Ali. Gee, am I feelin' good now! You and Lorna! What great friends. We don't need deese guys, ain't it so? Can't we live like dat Sappho you told me about, on the island.”
“No Bren; I don’t want you to be lez. It's ok to show we don't depend on the guys for sex. But in your full life you want to be a normal gal and later have a husband and kids and not make a big deal about what you do in bedroom or bushes or on that sofa."
“Hey, Ali, you mean you teach me real good English?”
“Yeah, Bren. From now on when we talk I speak like Fowler's English Usage dat - oh, I should say, that is going to be your bible for good English. But when we are with the gang – I speak Bronx ta yuh.”
Gotcha, Ali. An I'll do da same – Oops! I mean, the same. Ain't it right?
“Not ain't it! Isn’t it, you dope.”
“Not ain't it! Isn’t it, you dope.”
Ali stays with Brenda. Lorna visits in the evenings.
After a week the parents return and Ali goes back to her apartment. We shall rejoin Educate Brenda at intervals. Meanwhile Ali has other plans.
For next, click 12.29 Morphine in a Meadow
After a week the parents return and Ali goes back to her apartment. We shall rejoin Educate Brenda at intervals. Meanwhile Ali has other plans.
For next, click 12.29 Morphine in a Meadow
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