I hadn’t noticed Gary’s mood in the car on the way to Long Island City. But now on the court, it’s clear that something is very wrong.
It’s been two weeks since we last played with him. Another instructor picked us up from school last week, because Gary was away or sick or something. And then Saturday was canceled, too. But he is back, and he is different.
What is different? His coloring is ashy gray. His stubble is growing out. It’s disturbing, this visual reference to both his age and his biological masculinity. Gary Wilensky, half child, half gabby old woman, has turned out as a gruff man. It’s not that I didn’t think he could grow facial hair, I assumed he couldn’t. The idea of him shaving at all never crossed my mind.
The gray coloring of his jaw makes his eyebrows seem thicker, darker, more intensely arched. Or maybe it’s his mood. He is in no mood.
One clap and it’s “All right, girls, practice.”
He and I on one side, Emma and Tara on the other. He is at half court with a rolling basket of balls. Feeding them, feeding them.
Hit a forehand, hit a backhand. But there are no goods or excellents given out today. Instead it’s commands. Harder. Faster. And when it’s Emma’s turn, he screams, gravely and frustrated, “Come on, you can do better than that.”
But that’s not all. Curses. Snarling. Spit talk in all directions. He keeps hitting balls in Emma’s direction, making her dive for them, so that her knobby knees are singed with clay pebbles. But it’s not good enough. Her return hits the net.
“Jesus Christ! What the fuck is wrong with you today?”
Then he drops the ball he was holding and walks over to her side of the court. I watch Gary’s body blocking Emma and his flinching, jerky movements. He waves his racket as he lectures her or curses at her. Fuck. Shit. Disgusted. He marks the clay with the head of his racket to draw some sort of point-making line so she’ll understand, but it’s still unclear what it is she’s doing wrong.
When he walks back to my side of the court, I study the green clay in front of my sneakers, so as not to call attention to myself. If I can’t see him, he can’t see me.
Emma is in tears. She runs past the benches and across my side of the court to the flap of the bubble that you have to unseal. The Velcro rips open and she is gone.
Gary resumes the lesson and doesn’t look behind him, not at me nor at the opening through which Emma has disappeared.
I play carefully, with exaggerated effort, to avoid being his next target, but he ignores me. He seems satisfied now that he’s torn Emma down.
Adults sometimes do this. You think you know their tolerance level, what sets them off, and exactly when it will. You know when to back off, or when, if you don’t, you will get what’s coming to you. And these unspoken boundaries, which vary from adult to adult, are comforting. They establish the you you are when you’re with them. But sometimes, unpredictably, they snap. They target an unassuming student—not even the known troublemaker—and punish them viciously, publicly, scaring everyone else into silence.
Someone else’s mother walks into a room at a normal hour on a normal day, glares at you, and screams, “You, out.” A usually easygoing teacher slams the textbook closed when you mispronounce a verb and makes you stand in the hallway. It’s so jarring you want to believe you’ve done something wrong. The alternative is much more frightening.
When child allies lose their temper, it’s even worse. They’ve made unspoken promises to never pull rank unless safety was an issue, to never call out moderate disobedience that they’ve already approved, to never abuse their authority or snap like other adults, without providing some legitimate, apologetic explanation. We require these guidelines for child allies. Without them, they are neither allies nor adults, but large, physically dominant children whose dismissal of the rules is no longer liberating, but threatening.
Nobody wants to sit shotgun on the way home, so we all crowd into the backseat. Gary has papers on the passenger seat anyway. If we speak at all in the car, it is to each other in whispers—a short yes or no, questions and answers about homework. If Gary is driving fast, if he’s jerking through turns or speeding through a yellow light, we hold our breaths. We check that our seat belts are fastened. We are good girls. We just want to go home.