This story will unfold in several installments; this is the first. The setting is Santa Barbara; the names of places (inside and out) retain the names we know. Everything else is fiction.
The commissioner has lived in my imagination as a character without a story for many years; she’s been a character without a story, so she hasn’t taken up much space. Now, for no reason I know, she’s started to have a life.
She wants it recorded, and I want to get her and her story out of my mind. She and I are fortunate to have a potential audience. Neither the commissioner nor any other character, including the narrator, is or was a real person.
And, as far as I know, none of these events have taken place, at least not in Santa Barbara.
The traffic commissioner
Ask anyone at any time from kindergarten to the last day of high school. Ask the popular kids, ask the unpopular kids, ask the odd ducks, ask the teachers or the parents: Who’s the smartest kid? Who’s the most responsible, the nicest, the most thoughtful, the kindest?
Or, ask, Who’s the funniest kid? Or you could just ask, Who’s the best kid in the class?
You would get the same answer no matter when or who you asked.
My appreciation grew slowly in the natural way of a late-blooming boy at the age of nine. I remember the sudden switch from appreciation to near adoration at the end of a kickball game. It was near the middle of the second semester of fourth grade.
She had been designated the permanent kickball pitcher. For the athletes, she had a very fast roll that had to be kicked in exactly the right spot at the right moment or the kickball would roll up your leg and, in effect, kick the kicker.
She had another pitch that drifted to the right just as you shifted your weight to your back foot in anticipation of the kick. When you noticed the drift, you had to lunge sideways to get back in front of the ball.
This would leave you off-balance, and the kick, usually off the side of the foot, could go in any direction but rarely beyond the infield.
She also knew how to roll the ball in ways that gave kids who were not athletic their best chance of getting on base. It was much more difficult for her to get these players on base than it was for her to keep the athletes off base.
I was playing first. Martha Hayes whacked a grounder toward the shortstop, whose throw pulled me off-position, leaving Martha safe at first.
It was the first time Martha got on base that year — maybe the first time ever. When she realized she was going to beat me to the base, she was so consumed with the expression of her excitement that I was afraid she’d forget to keep running.
As we ran toward the same place, I yelled: “Run, Martha, run!” Once she was on base, I added a little to the drama by yelling out, “Safe!” even though it was completely unnecessary.
The next kick went over second base and landed halfway to the center fielder. Martha just stood there. She had never been on base before, so I don’t think she knew what she was supposed to do next. I yelled, “Martha, go!”
Once she got going, I yelled, “Run, Martha! Run!” The second baseman ran out to cut off the throw from center field and the shortstop went to cover second base. Martha and the ball came toward the base at the same time.
I couldn’t see the bag, but I heard the shortstop, Susan Babcock, yell, “You’re out, Martha! You’re out.”
Our rule was that two players had to call an out, and there was silence after Susan made her call. Then she said to Jim Steers, who was playing second base, “Come on, Jim, you saw it.” Again, there was silence.
Susan was very competitive, and Martha made it to first because of the wide throw from Susan to me. Being on base was monumental for Martha, but Susan didn’t care. She said, “Jim! Call it!” and he said, “Yeah, okay, she’s out.” It was the last out and the end of the game.
Susan caught up with me on the way back to the classroom and said, “Why would anyone call Martha out on a close play at second?”
At that moment, I was sure I was the only person in whole the school who didn’t understand why anyone would call Martha out on a close play at second.
I should have found words to let her know that I, too, thought Martha’s moment of success was the only important part of the game.
Instead, I said something like, “It’s fourth-grade kickball.” The words just came out. She thought they were very funny and I simpatico. I let her impression stand.
I had had four years to learn I was one of those in a class of 25 who was not like the others — one of the odd ducks. But at that moment, the best girl — the best kid — in the class and I were sharing the same contrarian thoughts, which meant there was one person who was like me.
Okay, she was just a little bit like me, but a little was a lot; it was huge.
This wasn’t an accidental event. She intercepted me on the way to the classroom because she somehow knew we were thinking the same thing, and she wanted me to know it too. It happened again, about once a year until we graduated from high school.
It happened when something very funny or very stupid was said or something quirky happened.
She would turn around from her desk in the front of the room and look for me at my desk in the back of the room. When our eyes met, she would give me a look that communicated: “I know exactly what you’re thinking because it’s what I’m thinking, too.”
I won’t say she saved my life, though I might have said it a couple of times in the past. What’s more accurate is that these brief and infrequent moments of contact made my school life bearable.
It wasn’t something I pondered, but I’m sure I recognized the possibility that my perceived connection with her might exist only within my imagination. If it was an illusion, it was one I protected.
I maintained a distance from her and was never the one to attempt to connect with her. Distance meant less information and it made room for a place to be grateful to her and to enjoy a boyish love for her.
The something, however small, about her, was the same as something about me — and she was the best kid. That thing we had in common was the one part of myself I liked. When I had contact with her, I felt bigger. I felt okay.
I’m still grateful. While the love has persisted, it’s been transformed by the realization that what I love about her is the projection of what I think is the best of myself.
Yeah, when love for another is described as love of yourself, it takes the mickey out of the whole thing. But it worked when I needed it, and I’ll always delight in seeing her.
I don’t know where she applied to college, but I heard she had “several choices.” She chose Princeton, and Princeton was lucky to get her. I thought no accomplishment was out of her reach, that no honor would be too great.
I don’t know why I felt entitled to an opinion about what she should do with her life, but I was disappointed (almost to the point of disillusion) when I heard she was in law school.
At least she was coming back to the coast to go to Stanford, and at least she didn’t go to business school to become an investment banker.
She’d been out of law school for five years when we ran into each other in San Francisco. She told me how she started Princeton as a math major where the main lesson had to do with humility.
She said the math majors at Princeton were, in their own way, smarter than she thought possible, almost a sub-species.
There were too many times when she went to class thinking she was prepared only to find that she couldn’t follow the conversations about the material she had studied the night before, and her test scores were low because she didn’t understand some of the questions.
When told of suffering, I often make an unsuccessful attempt to comfort by describing an experience of my own that was worse. So I said, “That’s what elementary school was like for me.” She politely pretended not to hear.
Humbled by the Princeton math department, perhaps, but she couldn’t have been much of a slouch to graduate with a joint major in computer science and statistics.
After Stanford, she was recruited by a fancy San Francisco law firm. I told her I thought young lawyers in big firms were compelled to spend endless hours doing drudgework, and it was hard for me to imagine her in that position.
She acknowledged her cohorts had been worked to misery for the first three or four years of apprenticeship; however, because of her background in computer science and statistics, she was allowed to create a path of her own and allowed early access to some of the firm’s most important clients.
We went to her building to see the physical layout of the hundred-lawyer law firm. It was a movie set portraying intellectual power and wealth. The message communicated by the interior design was unequivocal: For those who need the best and have the money to pay for it.
I was glad I didn’t have a car. It was the kind of place where you drive into the garage and it’s $50 or even $100 without hope for some change.
I would not have been surprised if her firm used a formula on every non-employee who entered the office: it would multiply a dollar rate by physical volume multiplied by the time spent in the office.
Then, of course, they would have an algorithm to find a client account to which they could charge the amount under a billing code no one would ever be able to crack.
She seemed so well-ensconced in San Francisco that I was astounded when I heard she had moved to Santa Barbara to become … a traffic commissioner.
She must be the most qualified traffic commissioner in the world. I had never wanted to talk with old schoolmates, but, after hearing this news, I looked for opportunities to encounter them, to gather facts, and to hear and join in the speculation about, what happened?
I’ll find out before the next column is due.
— Brian Burke is a certified family law specialist practicing family law and mediation in Santa Barbara. A researcher and educator in the field of divorce and family conflicts, he also is the creator of the Legal Road Map™. Click here for more information, call 805.965.2888 or e-mail brian@burkefamilylaw.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.