A Few Bad Apples

by Kenneth La Von

If you could fly as the crow flies from Butch Corner all the way to Watersburg, then the time it would take would be within ten minutes but no more than thirteen. With this in mind, you would also consider two independent factors if you could fly as the crow flies. The first factor would be weather conditions, while the other factor would be a philosophical question. This question would be whether or not crows view time as a commodity, as do the species of bipeds chained by nature of gravity and bone density to invent and drive motorized vehicles, mount animals such as horses and donkeys, or board the shoe leather express. Now if flight were your prerogative as it is to crows, you would likely understand instinctually the diurnal high-pressure systems influencing the anabatic and katabatic breezes swelling among the nuanced landforms and valleys between Butch Corner and Watersburg. Thus, considering the weather as a factor, despite its seemingly fickle variations, would by no means offer a challenge too grave or insurmountable.

Considering the second factor, I would propose that no human understands how a crow conceptualizes time or how it relates to it as a concept—and for good reason. The crow’s ability to travel forward directly and in a linear fashion grants it access to locations that to other species require greater efforts and investments of time. Not to be an utter bore, but this proposal leads to several meaningful questions that beg for answers. Supposing that crows understand time differently because of how they travel, how much then would this single factor construct their metaphysical world view? In other words, how do crows understand and relate to themselves and to the material world because of the way they travel through their existence?

Do crows understand impatience at the thought of having to slow around a corner or wait their turn if they never do these while itinerant? Do crows understand intersections or even intersectionality if they never encounter any such somatic barriers to stop them and signal them this way and that way: barriers that direct them according to corporeal and notional categories? Do crows understand written material laws if they defy the law of gravity inherently?  Do crows understand that feeling of powerlessness when encountering a non-physical barrier barring them passage or entry into a space if they have no physical context for such a thing? I imagine that crows understand two broad yet distinct categories for all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth’s dome. The first category are flightless though neither pitiable nor enviable creatures, while the second category is everything else that remains free.

____

The crow that lived in a somewhat haphazard nest three oak trees down the lane from Candida Rosa Martínez Sandobal de la Paz and her lively family took flight that morning and flew several lazy circles through the clouds before perching on a branch above Candida’s front door. The crow had no intentions for the day and was debating flying over the town center when Candida walked out of her front door and to her car. Immediately, the crow felt the need to follow her and at least speak to her briefly, for the crow sensed something amiss. Normally Candida walked with a brisk step, but today none of the joy was in her heels, only a resolute weight and a certain impalpable urgency. The crow, sensing her burden, decided to follow her, and with wings pulsing leapt from the branch straight upward until her car was but a toy trolling down a thin macadam thread far below. In this way the crow followed her with a circumspect view of her journey and the terrain she encountered.

Candida turned from her lane in Butch Corner onto Welsh Road, past the Y until she came to the T intersection, where Dilbert Road to the right and Press Road to the left disappeared into the yellow undergrowth. She turned left onto Press Road until she arrived at another T intersection, where she turned left again and stayed put on Gimlertown Road until Gimlertown road became Brian Valley road immediately past the Brian Valley Vineyards and Winery. After continuing for several miles over the undulating course of Brian Valley road past Chaly-Beate Springs, Brian Valley Road turned sharply onto the Old 221 that ran north to south through Redford. From Old 221, she hung an immediate right onto Shadyside Road to access Route 31 at the stop light between the GLJ warehouse on the right and Marville Engineering on the left. She then encountered the rush of Route 31 briefly, and after the first major stop light hailed left onto the 326 West for a short measure before turning a final right onto 326 South, also known formally as “Golf Road”.The 326 South is itself a rather convoluted road that spins and turns between valleys and hills, interspersed with broadish fields of corn and soy tethered to small bundles of barns and fading farmhouses. The road is such that Candida could not move fast or slow; rather she maintained a steady patient pace as the trees blurred past her and the morning creeped onward toward noon. The crow kept pace with her car from far above, around every turn and through every intersection, knowing that while traveling in a straight line was more efficient for birds, constraint to Candida’s path would teach empathy; and besides, the crow wasn’t certain of her destination and very curious as to her predicament.

After twenty-five to thirty minutes of total travel time (Candida estimated that she may have lost 5 minutes at stop signs, stop signals and intersections) she finally rounded a bend on the 326 South, and there lay Watersburg in view across several short fields. Watersburg is such a tiny town that the crow wondered what had brought Candida all the way from Butch Corner to this place, not entirely Godforsaken but by no means within his almighty periphery. The crow then saw that perhaps a quarter mile before Watersburg, Candida slowed down and turned right into the small parking lot of a medium-sized brick building. Without further thought, the crow folded wing and quickly descended as Candida left her car and began walking towards the building. She paused before she entered to collect her thoughts and pray for mental fortitude, and as she paused the crow caught up with her and followed her through the door.

____

Inside, they were met by several things almost at once. The air smelled like children’s shoes, chalk dust, and porcelain enamel. The scrape-scrape of yellow pencils, the brushing of erasers and the tiny pink palms that flattened the books and shuffled the papers amidst a silence as reverent as a sanctum reminded the crow of an unexperienced memory, almost cathartic or like déjà vu. They found themselves in a hall stretching forward with doors to the left and right, some of them unshut to a degree and others wide open so that they could glimpse inside at the children’s heads bowed and breathing into their studies. 

As soon as the door shut behind them with a KA-LICK!, anyone with eyes to see—old or young, teacher or student, bold or grave, smiling or resentful—all began staring at them, but especially at Candida. And as if by premonition the door furthest down the hall which alone had been shut the most now burst wide and a stern woman with skirts and grey hair underneath a hardshell white cap, peered out then walked down the hall towards them, like a captain commanding a ship or a preacher demanding an audience. Her walk was deliberate but not slow, and the crow wondered, had the grey woman not been wearing her skirts, if she would have been a soldier with a cape and a fez goose-stepping with the same rigid pace.

The woman rushed towards them, stopped short and almost asked what Candida’s presence was doing in her school. Instead, Candida smiled, held out her hand and said, “Hello, Candida. This is the Lilly Valley Mennonite School, yes? Are you Esther Martin the principal?”

“Yes, that is correct,” the woman said.

Candida continued, “I was hoping to speak to you. El Mr. Nolan Nolt is our friend. He’s from the Cherry Lane Church in Marlinsburg. He’s the principal at the Mennonite school there and he said he knew you. He said you have a good school here too. Could I speak to you?”

The woman paused for too long, then nodded and turned while beckoning with her finger to the room she had appeared from. They walked down the hall and past all of the eyes that stared at them through the doorways. The crow had never felt more alien. The crow eased this discomfort by reading the plaques on the doors. One of them read “Ms. Phyllis Spanner: 3 & 4,” another read “Ms. Lashonda Funk: 1 & 2.” Another read, “Mr. Sensenig: 6-9,” and underneath this was a cursive inscription stating: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom – Prov. 9:10.” Each classroom held some small number of children, all of them held captive behind wooden desks in neat rows of threes and fours. The walls were decorated from corner to corner with various cards denoting either alphabetical or mathematical symbols. There were small posters advertising facts of science, civics and history, underneath colorful chains made of crepe or construction paper. The head of each room garrisoned a tanker desk which harbored thick books, tablets, binders, and papers, organized into brick-like square stacks or in metal trays. Next to each tanker desk a wooden podium stood like Don Quixote.

The lady stood next to the door entrance and ushered them in. Once inside, she closed the door and took her seat behind a wooden executive desk. She motioned for Candida to take a metal folding chair. Candida placed the chair in front of the desk and folded her arms in her lap while the crow, who had been offered no chair, thought nothing of it and took a perch above them on top of a bookshelf.

“Well?” the woman said, staring at Candida. Candida shuffled her feet slightly and sought for the best words to use.

“So you see, Esther, well—”

“You can call me Miss Martin since I am the principal,” the lady said. “Go on.”

“Okay, Mees Martin, it’s very simple. My children, I have seven of them. And we are living here but there is no good Christian school to go to. My husband and I want a good school for our children because all of the public schools, they aren’t Christian. So we are looking for a good private Christian school for our children to go to where they will have a good Christian influence. Now since we go to Cherry Lane Mennonite Church, we want our children to go a Mennonite school much like that.” Candida paused, and the woman interjected immediately:

“Okay, but where are you from?”

“Oh we are from Butch Corner. Do you know, um, do you know the Fishmanne Country Store? We live about 10 minutes by there.”

“No. I mean where are you actually from?” the woman said, a little more slowly and a little more loudly. “Do your children even speak English?”

“Oh,” Candida chuckled lightly, “Sí, sí—I mean, yes. My children speak very good English because they were all born in the States.”

The lady didn’t seem to hear what Candida said because she repeated her question but this time pointing her finger at Candida: “But where are you from? You are not from Butch Corner.”

Candida’s brow almost wrinkled in confusion. “But me?” she said, and then she understood. “Oh, me! Me and my husband, we are born from Guatemala. We have been living here since before we married and we both wanted to live in a Christian way so we joined a Mennonite church now for more than fifteen years.” She paused for a second and then added “My husband, he’s a good Christian man. He came to a small Mennonite mission when he was a young boy in Guatemala and so he’s been Christian since he was 11. I became Christian when I was in Harrisburg and that’s where I met my husband when I went to his Mennonite church. He’s name Adolfo.”

She would have continued, but the woman stopped her by saying, “Gua-Te-ma-la?” spacing the word out and emphasizing the “T” as if her tongue couldn’t fuse the syllables together coherently. “You are from Gua-Te-ma-la? Why are you here?”

The lady paused with a quizzical look on her face that could have been confused for derision before she spoke again, this time very slowly and loudly, spacing and emphasizing each word as if she was trying to make a child understand or attempting to communicate to someone across a vast space or through a barrier.

“But,    why    are    you    here?” 

Candida swallowed and then said, “Me and my husband want to send our children to this school. See, because my husband and I moved here, to Butch Corner, we are looking for a good Mennonite school for our children because we don’t want to send them to the public school.”

“So you want your children to attend our school?” the lady asked.

“Well, yes. We want our children to be Mennonite because that is the best way for us. My family, we are members to the Cherry Lane Mennonite Church in Marlinsburg. We all go to the Cherry Lane church there. But their school is very far away from us. It takes more than an hour to get there and so you are much closer to where we live.”

“I know what church you’re talking about. Did you know that we aren’t a part of that church conference? We are a different conference, and our school is part of our conference. As far as I know, Cherry Lane Church has its own private school, correct?”

“Sí. Sí, but—” Candida said.

The woman held up her hand and paused. “So what is it that you want? Are you asking if you can send your children to our school or are you asking if you need help to get to the Cherry Lane school? Do you need a map or directions?”

“No no. Well, see we want to send our children to the school there since we go to the Cherry Lane church but for us it’s very, very far away,” Candida said again. “We drive there for an hour and more. From Butch Corner, it’s very far for us. But for this school here it’s only maybe thirty minutes. It is much closer here and they said this is a good Mennonite school.” 

“Yes,” the lady said after a long pause. “Well, you see, our church conference and the Cherry Lane Church conference are both Mennonite but they are very different churches overall. We aren’t like Cherry Lane. We do things differently. Have you ever gone to the Cherry Lane church?”

“Me?” Candida said, again confused. “Yes, we are going to the Cherry Lane all the time. Every Sunday and every Wednesday. We are members there.”

“Really? That’s interesting,” the woman said. “So you have attended services there at Cherry Lane?”

“Yes. We are members there,” Candida said again. “Every Sunday we are there. We are members at that church, me and my husband and my oldest children are members there for five years now.”

The lady paused for a moment, “I think I’m confused. Are you actually members at Cherry Lane or are you saying that you know some people who go there or that you have visited there once?” the lady asked.

“Yes. Yes.” Candida re-emphasized. “ Sí. Mire, Mees Martin. We are members there. Me and my husband are members there for five years now. And our oldest son and our oldest daughter are members too. Our daughter just became baptized now for six months. We live like the Cherry Lane church because we think it is the right way. That’s why we dress like this too.”

“I can see that,” the lady said, referencing the dress Candida was wearing. “So how long have you been a member of Cherry Lane?”

Candida didn’t know how to answer her other than to repeat what she had said. “Yes, for five years we have been members.”

After another pause the woman said, “I’m surprised. I didn’t know Cherry Lane would do that. Regardless, are you trying to send your children to the Mennonite school they have there? Have you spoken to the principal of the Cherry Lane school about your children attending there? If you are members there, your children should be able to attend there.”

“We did speak to them but we said that the distance is far for us. My husband and I, we spoke to Nolan Nolt who is the principal there, and he told us to come here and speak to you because he said this is a good Mennonite school and it’s much closer. He said he went to this school when he was a boy.”

“Nolan Nolt told you to come here?” the lady asked. “Which Nolan Nolt? Do I know him?”

“Yes,” Candida said. “Nolan Nolt told us to come here and talk to you and that he used to go to school here when he was a boy. He knows you. You are related to him. I think he said like a cousin maybe?”

The woman sat in silence for a moment and looked at the ceiling.“Oh, that Nolan Nolt. He is my nephew but I don’t speak to him often. I don’t know why he would tell you to come here. He left our church conference a while ago.”

“Well, yes. He told me to come talk to you.” Candida shrugged, not knowing if that bit of information was somehow bad.

“Well, I don’t know why he would say that,” the lady said again.

“Okay,” Candida said, trying to bring the conversation to its crux. “But me and my husband want to know if my children can come to this school? Our children, can they come here?”

“Oh. Well, that is a good question. Did you know that we have a tuition fee here? This isn’t a free school and we aren’t a charity. How would you afford to come here? Does your husband work?”

“My husband works all day. He drives the concrete truck for Watersburg Concrete. It’s a very good job. We can afford it.”

“Okay. But do you know how much it costs?” Before Candida could answer her the woman continued, “But that’s not the main point. My concern is that we keep this Mennonite school as a good influence for our children. We have standards here and we are strict about following them. We don’t want to let just anyone attend here, especially if they aren’t from our conference or if they don’t speak English very well or at all.”

“But all my children speak English. They are all born here and all of their friends are from Cherry Lane. They only learn in English—”

“But we aren’t Cherry Lane,” the woman interjected. “And regardless of that,” the woman continued, “we aren’t a bilingual school. We only speak English here. But I must ask, do you really think that your children would do well in our school?”

“Yes.” Candida said this emphatically because she knew it was true. “My children will do good in a good Mennonite school. They are good Christian children and very friendly.”

“Well,” the lady said, then paused for a moment too long. “I’m glad you feel that way about your children. But the way I see it, a few bad apples will spoil the rest, and I think that applies here. We can’t accept your children even if you could afford it but according to you the Cherry Lane school will.” She said this with a thin smile that signaled resolution and finality. 

The woman stood up abruptly and gestured toward the door. “You can fold that chair and lean it against the wall where it was. I don’t think I need to show you out. Please shut the door behind you gently. Have a good day.”

Candida Rosa Martínez Sandobal de la Paz had no option but stand, fold her chair, close the door behind her and walk out the building, past all of the rooms smelling of chalk dust, past all of the doors with the plaques and the pithy sayings, past all of the eyes that turned and stared after her as if she dared enter into their sacrosanct presence with her burden for her children and the wrinkles of love on her brow. It wasn’t until later, even years later, that bits of her conversation with the school principal would seep into her conscious thought and she would remember plainly the merry-go-round of questions, the tone and diction of the woman’s words, the subtle looks up and down of her body, the sneer hidden behind the principal’s lips, and the way she templed her hands like a snare to deliver her final words.

____

Following Candida outside, the crow realized with sudden clarity that Candida couldn’t fly. She was constrained to re-enter her vehicle and return as she had come, emptier yet more burdened. Because of Candida’s conversation with the principal, the crow began to understand that Candida, like all humans, was merely trying to find the best way to live in peace with her god and her fellow man. However, the thing the crow didn’t understand was the intricate ways by which humans categorize themselves and regulate others according to any given factor. The crow didn’t understand—no, couldn’t even fathom—that no human had free access to any given resource or amenity based on their humanity alone but that certain characteristics of ideology, class, race and language—that is to say, thought, wealth, appearance and coherence—designated access through homogeneity. For the crow there was never any barrier that couldn’t be avoided by taking wing and flying forward far above any perturbation or commotion. The observation of this very human interaction between Candida and the woman left within the crow a feeling of pent confusion and angst that no amount of context would relieve. In that moment, the crow appreciated keenly how gloriously free was the grand space of air that granted anything with wings its total abundance without question.

With these thoughts, the crow approached Candida as she was about to enter her car.

“Candida,” the crow said. “I wish you could fly.” This hasty and awkward statement was all the crow could manage to say in that moment because the crow saw by the look on Candida’s face that she was nigh to tears.

“Mis niños no son manzanas podridas,” Candida said to the crow. “¿Qué estaba intentando decirme?”

The crow shrugged. “I don’t know at all.”

They both paused and looked down at the gravel in the parking lot. Candida bit her lower lip to help regulate her sadness. 

“Can I ride back with you?” the crow asked after a while, because the crow pitied her and wanted to comfort her in any possible way.

“Sí, puedes,” Candida said in a tiny voice, “pero voy a pasar por el mercado. Vámonos pues.”

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Kenneth does things like live and breathe.

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Artwork: Lovis Corinth 1858-1925 Great Raven Landscape