Flowers for Algernon

The scene fades, but from that time Norma spent all her free moments with her friends, or playing alone in her mom. She kept the door to her room closed, and I was forbidden to enter without her permission. I recall once overhearing Norma and one of her girl friends playing in her room, and Norma shouting: “He is not my real brother! He’s just a boy we took in because we felt sorry for him. My mamma told me, and she said I can tell everyone now that he’s not really my brother at all.” I wish this memory were a photograph so that I could tear it up and throw it back into her face. I want to call back across the years and tell her I never meant to stop her from getting her dog. She could have had it all to herself, and I wouldn’t have fed it, or brushed it, or played with it and I would never have made it like me more than it liked her. I only wanted her to play games with me the way we used to. I never meant to do anything that would hurt her at all.

June 6-My first real quarrel with Alice today. My fault. I wanted to see her. Often, after a disturbing memory or dream, talking to her-just being with her-makes me feel better. But it was a mistake to go down to the Center to pick her up.

I had not been back to the Center for Retarded Adults since the operation, and the thought of seeing the place was exciting. It’s on Twenty-third Street, east of Fifth Avenue, in an old schoolhouse that has been used by the Beekman University Clinic for the last five years as a center for experimental education-special classes for the handicapped. The sign outside on the doorway, framed by the old spiked gateway, is just a gleaming brass plate that says C. R. A. Beekman Extension.

Her class ended at eight, but I wanted to see the mom where-not so long ago-I had struggled over simple reading and writing and learned to count change of a dollar. I went inside, slipped up to the door, and, keeping out 83 of sight, I looked through the window. Alice was at her desk, and in a chair beside her was a thin-faced woman I didn’t recognize. She was frowning that open frown of unconcealed puzzlement, and I wondered what Alice was trying to explain.

Near the blackboard was Mike Dorni in his wheelchair, and there in his usual first-row first-seat was Lester Braun, who, Alice said, was the smartest in the group. Lester had learned easily what I had struggled over, but he came when he felt like it, or he stayed away to earn money waxing floors. I guess if he had cared at all-if it had been important to him as it was to me-they would have used him for this experiment. There were new faces, too, people I didn’t know.

Finally, I got up the nerve to go in. “It’s Charliel” said Mike, whirling his wheelchair around. I waved to him.

Bernice, the pretty blonde with empty eyes, looked up and smiled dully. “Where ya been, Charlie? That’s a nice suit.”

The others who remembered me waved to me and I waved back. Suddenly, I could see by Alice’s expression that she was annoyed. “It’s almost eight o’clock,” she announced. “Time to put things away.” Each person had an assigned task, the putting away of chalk, erasers, papers, books, pencils, note paper, paints, and demonstration material. Each one knew his job and took pride in doing it well. They all started on their tasks except Bernice. She was staring at me.

“Why ain’t Charlie been coming to school?” asked Bernice. “What’s the matter, Charlie? Are you coming back?”

The others looked up at me. I looked to Alice, waiting for her to answer for me, and there was a long silence. What could I tell them that would not hurt them?

“This is just a visit,” I said. One of the girls started to giggle-Francine, whom Alice was always worried about. She had given birth to three children by the time she was eighteen, before her parents arranged for a hysterectomy. She wasn’t pret 84 ty-not nearly as attractive as Bernice-but she had been an easy mark for dozens of men who bought her something pretty, or paid her way to the movies. She lived at a boarding house approved for outside work trainees by the Warren State Home, and was permitted out in the evenings to come to the Center. Twice she hadn’t shown up-picked up by men on the way to school — and now she was allowed out only with an escort. “He talks like a big shot now,” she giggled.

“All right,” said Alice, breaking in sharply. “Class dismissed. I’ll see you all tomorrow night at six.”

When they were gone, I could see by the way she was slamming her own things into her closet, that she was angry.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was going to wait for you downstairs, and then I got curious about the old classroom. My alma mater. I just wanted to look through the window. And before I knew what I was doing I came in. What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing-nothing’s bothering me.”

“Come on. Your anger is all out of proportion to what’s happened. Something’s on your mind.”