The Mare

Ginger

My cell rang and somebody wanted to know if I was Velveteen Vargas’s godmother. I said, Yes, why?

Because there’d been a girl-fight in the Catholic school yard. Three girls on one, but the one fought so fiercely the others got the worst of it. When the social worker ran out to break it up, she saw the lone girl had one of the three by her hair; this lone girl looked so wild that for a minute the social worker thought she might be attacked — but the girl just spewed obscenities and then they all ran. The social worker’s car had gotten keyed, Velvet’s school was called, Velvet was ratted out and dragged by her ear over to the Catholic school. Where she was immediately recognized as the ferocious fighter.

“When we tried to call her mother about paying to repair the car, nobody answered. She says her mom can’t pay anyway. She says you might.”

They said it would cost four hundred dollars, and I said I’d pay for half, I don’t know why. Maybe because the car-keyed social worker had a kind, harried voice. Even when she said she’d never heard such ugly language come out of a young girl.

“When they brought her over, I confronted her. I said to her, You know I am a mother of two young children. How would you feel if somebody talked to your mother that way?”

“She’s actually very nice,” I said. “But in fact she talks to her m—”

“I know! I know she is! When I confronted her, when I said ‘How would you feel if someone talked to your mother that way,’ she just looked down, ashamed.”

I said, “You know, I’m not a mother, but I wouldn’t like to be talked at like that, either.”

“No, no, of course not. No woman would. I just thought, if she could think of it in those terms, she’d—”

I asked where I should send the check. She expressed gratitude.

I hung up and thought, Maybe they really are different from us. More violent, more dishonest — nicer in some ways, yes, warm, physical, passionate. But weak-minded. Screaming and yelling all the time, no self-control. Do her homework with her on the phone, she doesn’t turn it in and lies about it. Give her all the special treatment in the world and she throws it away because she can’t follow through. Just different.

So Paul was right. Everybody was right. I’m racist. At least now I know.