Cipher in the Snow
This is a
very sad story.
Cipher in
the Snow is a true story, by Jean Mizer.
I copied the following off the Internet.
After it, I will tell you my own “cipher in the snow” story.
It started with tragedy on a
biting cold February morning. I was driving behind the Milford Corners bus as I
did most snowy mornings on my way to school. It veered and stopped short at the
hotel, which it had no business doing, and I was annoyed as I had to come to an
unexpected stop. A boy lurched out of the bus, reeled, stumbled, and collapsed
on the snow-bank at the curb. The bus driver and I reached him at the same
moment. His thin, hollow face was white even against the snow. "He's
dead," the driver whispered. It didn't register for a minute. I glanced
quickly at the scared young faces staring down at us from the school bus.
"A doctor! Quick! I'll phone from the hotel ... " "No use, I
tell you, he's dead." The driver looked down at the boy's still form.
"He never even said he felt bad," he muttered. "Just tapped my
on the shoulder and said, real quiet, 'I'm sorry. I have to get off at the
hotel.' That's all. Polite and apologizing like." At school the giggling,
shuffling morning noise quieted as news went down the halls. I passed a huddle
of girls. "Who was it? Who dropped dead on the way to school?" I
heard one of them half-whisper. "Don't know his name. Some kid from
Milford Corners," was the reply. It was like that in the faculty room and
the principal's office. "I'd appreciate your going out to tell the
parents," the principal told me. "They haven't a phone, and anyway,
somebody from the school should go there in person. I'll cover your
classes." "Why me?" I asked. "Wouldn't it be better if you
did it?" "I didn't know the boy," the principal admitted
levelly. "And in last year's sophomore personalities column I noted that
you were listed as his favorite teacher." I drove through the snow and
cold down the bad canyon road to the Evans' place and thought about the boy,
Cliff Evans. His favorite teacher! I thought. He hasn't spoken two words to me
in two years! I could see him in my mind's eye all right, sitting back there in
the last seat in my afternoon literature class. He came in the room by himself
and left by himself. "Cliff Evans, " I muttered to myself, "a
boy who never talked." I thought a minute. "A boy who never smiled. I
never saw him smile once." The big ranch kitchen was clean and warm. I
blurted out my news somehow. Mrs. Evans reached blindly toward a chair.
"He never said anything about bein' ailing." His stepfather snorted.
"He ain't said nothin' about anything since we moved in here." Mrs.
Evans pushed a pan to the back of the stove and began to untie her apron.
"Now hold on," her husband snapped. "I got to have breakfast
before I go to town. Nothin' we can do now, anyway. If Cliff hadn't been so
dumb, he'd have told us he didn't feel good." After school I sat in the
office and stared blankly at the records spread out before me. I was to read
the file and write the obituary for the school paper. The almost bare sheets
mocked the effort. Cliff Evans, white, never legally adopted by stepfather,
five young half-brothers and sisters. These meager strands of information and
the list of "D" grades were all the records had to offer. Cliff Evans
had silently come in the school door in the mornings and gone out the school
door in the evenings, and that was all. He had never belonged to a club. He had
never played on a team. He had never held an office. As far as I could tell, he
had never done one happy, noisy kid thing. He had never been anybody at all.
How do you go about making a boy into a zero? The grade-school records showed
me. The first and second grade teachers' annotations read, "Sweet, shy child,"
"timid but eager." Then the third-grade note had opened the attack.
Some teacher had written in a good, firm hand, "Cliff won't talk.
Uncooperative. Slow learner." The other academic sheep followed with
"dull," "slow-witted," "low LQ." They became
correct. The boy's LQ. score in the ninth grade was listed at 83. But his LQ.
in the third grade had been 106. The score didn't go under 100 until the
seventh grade. Even the shy, timid, sweet children have resilience. It takes
time to break them. I stomped to the typewriter and wrote a savage report
pointing out what education had done to Cliff Evans. I slapped a copy on the
principal's desk and another in the sad, dog-eared file. I banged the
typewriter and slammed the file and crashed the door shut, but I didn't feel
much better. A little boy kept walking after me, a little boy with a peaked,
pale face; a skinny body in faded jeans; and big eyes that had looked and
searched for a long time and then had become veiled. I could guess how many
times he had been chosen last to play sides in a game, how many whispered child
conversations had excluded him, how many times he hadn't been asked. I could
see and hear the faces that said over and over, "You're nothing, Cliff
Evans." A child is a believing creature. Cliff undoubtedly believed them.
Suddenly it seemed clear to me: When finally, there was nothing left at all for
Cliff Evans, he collapsed on a snow-bank and went away. The doctor might list
"heart failure" as the cause of death, but that wouldn't change my mind.
We couldn't find ten students in the school who had known Cliff well enough to
attend the funeral as his friends. So, the student body officers and a
committee from the junior class went as a group to the church, being politely
sad. I attended the services with them, and sat through it with a lump of cold
lead in my chest and a big resolve growing through me. I've never forgotten
Cliff Evans, nor that resolve. He has been my challenge year after year, class
after class. I look for veiled eyes or bodies scrounged into a seat in an alien
world. "Look, kids," I say silently. "I may not do anything else
for you this year, but not one of you is going to come out of here as a nobody.
I'll work or fight to the bitter end doing battle with society and the school
board, but I won't have one of you coming out of there thinking himself a
zero." •• Most of the time -- not always, but most of the time -- I've
succeeded.
Jean Mizer
Here is a
picture of my Cipher in the snow. He
died one day in October. Just fell over
dead.
I don’t know
where he came from. He was just suddenly
in my early morning Seminary class. He
would come in late, always very red in the face. I heard he rode his bike from Canyon Hill-
quite a long ride, especially at 7:00 in the morning. Especially in the winter. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now
I admire his tenacity to ride that far that early so he could attend
Seminary. He must have ridden to high
school after that. That’s quite a long
way, too. I don’t know how he could make
it on time. He probably didn’t.
I don’t
remember seeing him at school, but my most vivid memory of him was at the stake
dances. He would come early. He would ask the girls to dance. Many would turn him down. He was different. He wasn’t popular. I can remember dancing with him. I thought he was nice. Some of the other girls would dance with him,
too.
Then, one
day, I got a call from Margo Jensen. She
told me quite brusquely that Wesley had died and they wanted her, me, and Patti
Miles to sing at the funeral. What? I couldn’t process it for a few minutes.
We did sing
at the funeral. It was a very emotional
experience. Many of my classmates and
peers attended, though none of us knew him well.
We then all
drove out to the cemetery where he was buried.
That night,
I couldn’t sleep. I got very anxious and
upset. I went upstairs and woke up my
mom and told her I thought I was going to die.
I remember her saying, “Oh, the boy in your class dying has upset
you.” That was honestly the first time I
realized that is why I was afraid I was going to die. I had not related the two. She made a bed for me on the couch so I would
be near her.
I think of
Wesley every so often. A lot at first,
but less and less as the years go by.
But when I do, I resolve that no one I know will feel unloved or
unimportant. I hope I have lived that
resolve.
