The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (6 page)

Dr. Reid, who had grown rather fond of his patient, made it a point to stop by the house the day before they were leaving to bring the addresses of some prominent therapists in Atlanta in case Sill needed someone to talk to. He hugged her when he left and Mrs. Shipp swore she saw a tear in the good doctor’s eye. Hugging him, Mrs. Shipp felt compelled to apologize for not trusting his judgment more and then they all began crying in earnest. That is, except for Mr. Shipp, who saw the whole damn scene as one big charade. He had been out of sorts ever since Peter left and now that Sylvia was about to leave, he was downright cantankerous.

“Why the hell we got to go out there and get a U-Haul and spend money we don’t have is beyond me,” he said. “Hell, it ain’t but a six hour drive down there. I could use the pickup and make a couple of trips down there while you ladies get the house in order. Don’t make a lick a sense to spend a hundred and

fifty dollars for that raggedy-assed, U-Haul and we got a truck sittin’ right here in the yard. Don’t make no sense at all.”

Mrs. Shipp was not much better. “You’re absolutely right, Horace. Didn’t make a bit of sense to buy that damn pickup in the first place. What the hell you plan on haulin’. Here you are damn near sixty years old and you actin’ like you done caught your second wind. What? You plannin’ on startin’ to haul coal or is it logs? No, wait! You fashion yourself as Fred Sanford and I guess I’m spozed to be Lamont. Do you know what your father told me when he bought this truck, Sill?”

Sill tried not to frown. She hated getting caught in the middle but knew her leaving had as much to do with the arguments as anything else.

“He told me that that thing out there in the yard would pay for itself. That’s what he told me. And I swear, I’ve been watchin’ it everyday and I ain’t seen it get up and go to work yet,” Mrs. Shipp stated matter-of-factly while Sill feigned a smile in amusement.

Despite his protests, Mr. Shipp drove the twenty-foot U-Haul down the highway with Sill and Mrs. Shipp taking turns riding with him. After what seemed like forever and a day, they finally found the Lake Spring Apartment complex Sill was to move into. She had been here only a week before to get a firsthand look, pay the security deposit, first month’s rent and pick up the key but it was evening now and Atlanta appeared so different. Everyone seemed more relaxed, everyone, that is, but Sylvia who was positively ecstatic.

“Put the étagère over here, daddy. Mommy did you see the balcony? And look at the view. Ooh, I can›t wait to decorate,» she crowed.

The Shipps watched Sylvia bounce from one room to the next and were at last at peace. More than anything else, they like all parents were happy when their daughter was happy. Over the next couple of days, they managed to unload the huge truck with minimal help from outsiders other than one neighbor, a teenage boy who seemed taken by Sill. They spent the remainder of their time getting directions and getting lost as they traipsed from landmark-to-landmark and from restaurant to restaurant.

Sylvia never dreamed Atlanta could be so large or so cosmopolitan. Mrs. Shipp on the other hand, was fascinated by the sheer number of Black people in one place. And Mr. Shipp, po› thing, who refused to drive in the city was just happy to sit in the back seat of the tiny Ford Escort and let his neck turn from side to side and prayed that the Lord would bestow a photographic memory so he could remember every fine sista he saw, to take back to Elizabethtown with him. Lord, so many fine, fine, hammers. If only he were twenty again he thought to himself.

Sylvia couldn›t recall ever enjoying her parents as much as she did those first three days in Atlanta. Sure they bickered but it was all in good fun. That›s just the way old married couples do, she guessed, and only hoped to have what they shared after thirty-four years of marriage. Together they laughed and joked and ate then ate some more. And, for all intents and purposes they had a grand ol› time. When it came time for them to drop off the U-Haul and pick up their train tickets, it suddenly dawned on Sill that not only were they leaving but that she would be alone in a city that made Elizabethtown and Greensboro look like Andy Griffith›s Mayberry. Her parents saw the growing apprehension when they mentioned their leaving and agreed to stay another day, which just happened to be Sill›s first day teaching.

When she returned that day after her first day in the classroom, Mr. and Mrs. Shipp knew that their baby girl had found her niche and would be all right. Sylvia quickly found teaching to be a revelation, an eye-opener. For so long Sylvia had searched to find out exactly where she belonged, just how she fit into the whole scheme of things. But the first time she stepped in front of those twenty-six, grinning, eager third graders, there was no question as to her purpose in life. Sure, she›d been nervous but, closing the door to her classroom, she knew two things: These were now
her
children and her children were a reflection of her. That being the case, her children would be the best and the brightest. She vowed to defy the odds and take them where others had failed and written them off. Sylvia considered each tiny personality that stepped in her classroom each day hers. She didn’t have time to blame the parents or the school system. She only had time to teach. And she felt that it was equally important to teach them how to be strong little African-American boys and girls, as it was to teach them how to read and write. With hugs and love and an occasional harsh word for some of her miniature wannabe street toughs, Sylvia Shipp soon had her third grade class eating out of her hand. And soon thereafter, she was not only the talk of the school but the talk of the neighborhood as well.

It was not at all unusual for the diminutive third grade teacher to be seen in the evenings long after the school day was over walking through some of Atlanta’s most dangerous neighborhoods searching for the home of one of her students. If a child’s attitude changed drastically, Ms. Shipp was ringing that child’s doorbell to see what was wrong. If one of her children missed more than a day of school, Ms. Shipp was ringing the doorbell. And no matter how bad the neighborhood was said to be she had no fear. What was even more remarkable was that everyone knew her. Even the young thugs who hugged the corners in Atlanta’s worst ghetto stopped their trade and spoke to her out of reverence. Most of them had younger brothers and sisters and it didn’t take long before the word was out that there was a newcomer in the hood and she
cared.
Every now and then, a case worker from Social Services shuffled into the projects before daybreak and rushed to get the hell out of there by nightfall. But not Ms. Shipp whom they joked about before they got to know her.

“Bitch, sho’ must cain’t tell time. Either that or she ain’t got no watch, yo,” one young thug quipped to another as she exited Raul’s building one evening.

“Must not, yo. Walkin’ roun’
here
this time of night she sho’ don’t know what time it is,” they laughed.

But Ms. Shipp didn’t care about them or the crackheads they served. All she cared about were her kids. A week later, the same two thugs who had joked about her not knowing what time it was, nodded as she passed. “Evenin’, Ms. Shipp.” Somewhat surprised that they knew her name, she returned the nod.

When her supervisor became aware of her evening forays, he immediately called her down to his office to warn her about the dangers and the risk she was taking but she refused to take heed and continued her journeys, so committed was she to her students. If they weren’t in school, then they couldn’t learn, she reasoned. And unless they were terminally ill there was no good reason why a third grader should not be in school. Armed with her student’s well being at heart, Sylvia spent her evenings scrupulously correcting papers and seeking new and creative ways to reach some of her hard-to-reach children. If a child wasn’t learning, then she wasn’t teaching and so it went. It didn’t matter that the little Black children she taught were from single parent households or that her school district still hadn’t received their books and Thanksgiving was just around the corner. She expected her kids to learn in spite of it all. And they did. Despite the odds, they learned. And they learned at a record pace. She made no excuses and found a variety of ways to motivate them to reach new heights each school day and they loved her all the more for it. At lunchtime, her colleagues remarked that she had more kids in her room than during her regular class period. The word was out that Ms. Shipp was out to make a difference and it wasn’t long before the parents were there offering there help as well.

Mr. and Mrs. Shipp called almost nightly checking on Sill and were almost as excited as she was about her new found success. But they still worried and couldn’t help but wonder if she were truly happy or if it were all a facade. Sylvia had little time to entertain their concerns. There was simply too much to do.

Never one to make time, she was late frequently. She blamed it on the drive in to the inner city which was always hectic. There always seemed to be an accident or a bottleneck no matter what time she started out. Once she got to school, she had virtually no time to prepare so she would usually begin her day by assigning her class a journal topic to start them off and give herself a chance to gather her thoughts and unwind from the long commute. She would teach until almost two-thirty then gather her belongings and start the savage trek home.

After picking up her dry cleaning, stopping at the supermarket and Office Depot for supplies it would usually be some time after five. Then by the time she took a quick shower and prepared herself something to eat there was little time to do anything other than check her kid’s papers and go over the next day’s lesson plans.

Too often, she found herself nodding off in her easy chair, exhausted, red pen still in hand. It was not until the weekend that Sill began to feel that something was amiss, that perhaps her life was anything but full and rewarding.

It wasn’t until Friday afternoons, when her white colleagues discussed ticket prices for the upcoming Cher farewell concert, did she come to the realization that her whole life centered on a bunch of third graders. And if Friday afternoon’s were bad, Saturday afternoons were the worst. Never one to sleep late, by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around Sill had changed the linens, washed and ironed her clothes for the week and cleaned her house despite never having any company. These were the times she dreaded most. Those dull, ordinary Saturday afternoons drove her crazy.

When she first arrived in Atlanta, it was nothing to curl up with a bag of those greasy ol’ Wise Barbeque Potato Chips, some French Onion Dip, a large Pepsi and a good book but in time she found the dip going straight to her hips and herself in a rut. The five movies for five-day thing from Blockbuster didn’t work either. There were no plots, no themes, and no storyline in movies anymore. Nowadays, everything was graphics and special effects. Aside from
A
Beautiful Mind,
she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a good movie and that was years ago. In the days and weeks that followed, Sylvia finally conceded, that she had always been lonely and a loner. Even with mom and dad, her sorority sisters, Chad...

Growing up out on Highway 46 in Elizabethtown, the houses were so far apart and the neighbors so few that she often had to find solace in waving at the passing cars. Her brother, David, was eleven years older than she was already driving and dating when she first came to recall him as a memory. Her best friend had been Pinky who was an imaginary person she’d made up. Pinky used to wait along with her each evening for daddy to come home from work. Then together she and Pinky would jump out from under the table to greet him when they could no longer wait for him to find them. She wondered and wondered if there had been something wrong with her as far back as Pinky.

When she reached high school, so desperate had she been for friends that she latched onto the first group of kids that looked to extend a hand in friendship. Of course, these were always the worst sort but she’d been so desperate for friendship that it hardly mattered. With them she found friendship and camaraderie as well as cigarettes and alcohol. Still, there was only so far she would stray from the nest so when they decided to go on their little shoplifting sprees, she would always find her way back home.

Casual sex was out of the question. In fact, she was still a virgin until those animals raped her. In her eyes, she was still a virgin. Probably would remain one the rest of her life. Hell, what was the point of having sex anyway? She couldn’t have kids. Matter of fact the only person she had ever considered having sex with was Peter and he hadn’t seemed the least bit interested. Sylvia never had understood that. Peter was constantly telling her how good she looked but he had never approached her other than as a complete gentleman. In fact, it was she who had to initiate or better yet, force him to kiss her at the end of the night or whenever they went to the movies.

After dating for a little more than two months, Sill actually wondered if her parents had engineered the whole thing. She then remembered that it was she who made the impromptu stop at the dealership on her way home from work that day. Their meeting was no more than coincidence at best. Then she wondered if her father had spoken to Peter and warned him about putting his hands on her. But if that were the case, and Peter was like the rest of the guys she knew he would have bolted then. And, Lord knows, the boy had all the money in the world. He was probably making more than the entire Shipp household combined so they couldn’t be paying him off. Still, she had never run into a guy like him. Never. Sylvia smiled at the thought. Yep, Peter was definitely the man for her. She could marry Peter, never have to tell him what happened at school and not worry about how she’d respond since they’d probably never have sex. If she was frigid, she’d never know.

Sylvia laughed out loud then caught herself. Most people occasionally laughed aloud but Sylvia was always careful to catch herself She wouldn’t even allow herself to daydream. She called it a waste of time. What she was really