“Laura?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok. You and Natalie- follow me. You two are going to be sharing a buddy this year. He’s in the other room.”
We follow, as does a third girl, Natalie’s friend. That one that looks like her name should be Penelope.
“Jessica?” Natalie asks. “Meg’s just going to have the same buddy as me.”
All three of us, with the two of them already knowing each other, juniors or seniors and me the unknown, confused freshman. What am I doing in a group with them?
So Penelope’s name is Meg.
“This is Eric.”
Eric is sitting in his wheelchair at a table at the far end of the classroom. The lighting and sound aids my non-PC subconscious, which says that I would rather be across the hall with all the other people. I’m going to arrange outings with Natalie and Penelope and Eric? Three of us with one Buddy? Why are we in this other classroom?
But even as the door we entered though closes another one opens. Amy. She’s a senior, and a Best Buddies officer, and I know her. When she was in my mom’s 3rd grade class, the two of us used to play after school together. We made up games and crawled around on top of desks. “Jessica? Thomas doesn’t have a buddy.”
“And Eric has three.” Jessica, the president of Berkeley High Best Buddies, is overwhelmed with all the different needs she has to look after.
“Can I take Laura?”
Yes, Amy. Take me!
“Sure.”
Out we go, away from Jessica and Penelope and Eric, back into Tamara’s classroom, the room with the people, the lights, and the noise. And a Best Buddy of my own.
“Thomas, this is Laura, Laura: Thomas.”
Amy walks away.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Laura.”
Like maybe he didn’t hear her introduction or something? Meeting people is awkward. What was I supposed to say?
Thomas grunts.
Someone hands me a sheet of paper. Congratulations! You are now an official member of the Best Buddies chapter at _____________(Name of High School). It has a place for my contact info, and for his.
“What’s your phone number?”
Thomas grunts.
“Here. Write your phone number?”
Thomas grunts.
Now what?
I’d joined Best Buddies to make friends. That’s what the sister of one of the six people I knew at Berkeley High had told me. A place to make friends. I knew six people at Berkeley High. God knows I needed a place to make friends. It wasn’t until the informational meeting weeks later that I got the part about being paired with people who have intellectual disabilities. But I’d learned about disabilities from my mom, and I know a girl with Asperger’s Syndrome. I could do disabilities.
Weeks pass, and months, and contrary to the stories I’d heard in the safety of Private Middle School, I do make friends. Friends in my classes who don’t know about Best Buddies, because I don’t tell them.
Meanwhile, Best Buddies is my alternate reality. It exists on Wednesdays during lunchtime. In this world people are kind to each other, and patient. They don’t judge. This room is the one place where race isn’t an issue. The peer buddies are all white, but we all treat each other appropriately based on ability, regardless of race. Not even an issue. I’ve never see that anywhere else.
I play the roll of a mediator and an encourager instead of that of a small link in the system that is getting people through high school. The world exists for 40 minutes, and then it vanishes for another 165 hours. I can’t find it in my fourth period conversations or as I pass Buddies in the hallways.
“Ask Thomas to show you his Talker. He needs to practice using it.”
The Talker is this electronic device with buttons that have certain everyday words. You can string together sentences, and type words when the given ones are lacking.
“What’s your favorite food?” I ask. My Best Buddy had just entered the room at five minutes to twelve, more then half way through the lunch period. I have no idea why getting food takes so long- for some reason I’ve never pursued the process. Perhaps he is being social, enjoying his real world relationships and dreading the return to my unnatural, structured friendship. Our partnership is placed upon him rather then one that he has developed for himself. Is he oblivious? Indifferent? Appreciative? Insulted? I have no way of knowing- we can’t communicate.
Thomas obediently readies his Talker.
“Pizza,” says the machine, “Thomas Like Pizza.”
This is before Berkeley High’s cafeteria is built, so the special education students who eat school lunches receive these mundane defrosted things in sealed plastic bags. They are the kind that come from the freezer section of Costco, yet rarely make an appearance on the red-and-white checkered tablecloths of the taster booths. Today’s school lunch of choice is the pizza pocket.
“Pizza,” says the talker.
We chew in silence.
“Chicken. Macaroni and Cheese.” The mechanical voice is merely a toy, an insufficient device in filling the language barrier.
“French fries.”
What could fill that hole? Is it really a hole that can be filled, or is that just my imagination kicking in? Could sign language do it? How do I go about finding the way?
“Root beer. Orange juice. Milkshake. Milkshake. Milkshake.”
Apparently pressing buttons and hearing the response is more rewarding than trying to engage in what I view as communication.
Thomas moves his stubby fingers to the sentence window. “Pizza. Thomas Like Pizza. Pizza. Chicken. Macaroni and Cheese. French fries. Root beer. Orange juice. Milkshake. Milkshake. Milkshake.” The Talker pronounces every syllable in the monotone of unperfected computer speech. We laugh.
The year drags on. Our communication improves, and we begin to wave at each other in the halls. I talk about Best Buddies with my friends at school; I am comfortable with my token freshman identity within the mainstream students in the club. I attend group activities in school and out. I learn that hanging out with the buddies offers a good solution to a lack of non-disabled friends in these situations. I gain high school experience, such as the time we went to a Best Buddies dance in the city for all the chapters in the area. We were stuck in traffic on the freeway, in the rain, at night, lost in the one-way streets of San Francisco, a senior officer at the wheel.
But on these occasions Thomas was not with me. His parents do not speak English, so when I asked for his contact information, I received the phone number of his sister. I called her a few times, but nothing could be arranged outside of school. Best Buddies stresses relationships besides school activities, and this lack of accessibility carried with it a sense of guilt.
From my senior chapter president perspective, I realize that I was just another little private school white girl. Buddies with partners who fit that profile express their appreciation for the girl’s dedication, but relate that finding common interests is often difficult. The next year, when Thomas received an older, more physical and outgoing buddy I saw him thrive in ways I’d never experienced while working with him. Now we are friends, and his old buddy has graduated. He is matched with another private school white girl freshman. Because that’s all we have.
Best Buddies has been a club of private school while girls for as long as I’ve been there. New private school freshman girls tend to look for clubs to join- they don’t know very many people, and all the advice they’ve received tells them to join clubs. They know the people already in Best Buddies, because they went to the same private school. Best Buddies appears to potential members as a community service club, and for some reason, this kind of community service attracts white girls from private middle schools. If others joined, they might learn that Best Buddies is about friendship and communication. But they don’t take the chance.
As a senior, I worked hard to recruit
people who did not fit this profile. We got many names on our Freshman
Orientation “I Want Information!” sheet- male names, public school names,
non-white names. We put up posters and we put announcements in the school
bulletin. We called all of the “I Want Information!” freshmen.
Then freshman year was over, and the next fall I was matched with a new buddy, Eric. Penelope and Natalie had graduated, and again Eric got two Peer Buddies: Rachel and me. Rachel was a freshman from Prospect Sierra. The two of us ate lunch with Eric once a week, and talked to him through his overbearing aide.
Enter Rachel and Laura: “Hey Eric, what’s up?”
Eric: “Hi. Chun Chun run away.”
Aid: “Ask Laura about something she’s interested in. Ask her how Latin is going.”
Eric: “How is Latin going?”
Laura: “Latin’s ok. It’s hard. I have a test today.”
Rachel: “Yeah, it’s a lot of work.”
Aide: “ Tell Laura she should study for her test.”
Eric: “Laura, study for your test.”
Rachel and Laura: “Go away! Eric can talk for himself!”
Except that we don’t really say that. We clench our teeth and talk directly to Eric, asking him about the things he’s interested in. We talk about Chun Chun and the bus, and we talk about the horrible teacher that all three of us have had.
Within the next year Rachel had learned to feed Eric, so there was no excuse for the aide to stick around. But by then I’d moved on to Thoie, a buddy Rachel and I had picked up when we were sharing Eric between us.
I met Thoie in the cafeteria when an aide asked me to take her to the Best Buddies classroom. From then on I met her every week, and assisted her in focusing on getting her lunch. We then walked back to the classroom together.
“Hey, Thoie!”
“Hiiiiii!!!!!!!!” Thoie runs over and throws her arms around me. She also runs over and throws her arms around other people, ones she doesn’t know. “Hug her back,” I would tell them in response to their frightened and confused looks. This display of affection has since been toned down, but I miss the hugs. I used to tell my friends that I was not a very huggy person, except with Thoie. Hugs are her method of communication.
Thoie and I have a little game. I try to get her to eat lunch, and she gets distracted. One time, after she had collected half a dozen forks from a lunch counter (one at a time every two minutes,) I stuck a fork in food and she ate it, I stuck another fork in food, she ate that too. We share an interest in wandering around at lunch, visiting everyone. Every once in a while we wander in the same direction.
The best thing about being matched with Thoie was her accessibility. We took Afrohatian dance together, so we saw each other every day. And when I called her mom, she talked to me. For the first time, I was able to see my buddy outside of school. We went to the park and played tag and catch. I talked to her mom and got insight on Thoie’s abilities.
Junior year I was also the chapter’s secretary. I’d applied for an officer position at the end of sophomore year, and I was the only underclassman to do so. Officer meetings were a continuation of what my roll had been all along. I was a junior, and still the youngest in the group. Of the five of us, the other four were seniors, all on Jacket, all friends, (all white girls, mostly from private schools). But I was useful. I worked hard, and used my lunch wanderings productively, spreading information to our members, now spread through an area of the cafeteria instead of concentrated in a classroom. In May, I was confirmed as the only logical candidate for Chapter President.
Lat summer I spent four days in Indiana at
the Best Buddies Leadership Conference. I was surrounded by about fifteen
hundred of my fellow leaders and we learned to fill out paperwork and memorize
the mission statement. Fifteen hundred people with such a strong common
interest, yet many whom I would not consider talking to in any other context.
But despite the warnings given to me by the previous chapter president, I did
make friends and “build a network to which I can go for ideas and help.”
I take my place in the front of the room, my officers around me. Despite my conscientious effort to recruit everyone, the room is almost entirely filled with white girls. I have a sudden urge to request a show of hands of who went to a private middle school, but somehow I resist.
This time I do the matching. We can’t put multiple people with one buddy any more; it’s against the law. Thou shalt not put multiple peer buddies with one buddy, or such friendships shall not succeed and thou shalt not have fulfilled thy mission of matching people in mutually enriching one on one friendships. I can understand that- I was in a threesome sophomore year, and it was awkward.
So the interested parties that stand out
have a buddy, and the other ones don’t. Would I have stood out enough as a
freshman had I been one of 40 applying? I’m not sure. Would I be standing here
today if I didn’t? Probably not.
“Erica, this is Liza. Liza: Erica.”
“Hi” says Erica.
Liza doesn’t acknowledge her presence.
“Liza’s pretty shy,” I tell Erica. “It may take a while for her to talk to you, but she can become quite talkative. She likes to dance.”