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Diego Becomes a Heroby Judith Black
(Excerpted and condensed from the transcription of Judith Black's interview in The Leading Story Monthly, "Recorded Interviews with Great Minds in Storytelling," Issue 1.) I was doing a residency at a school up in Lawrence. And I'll never forget the first day I walked in. I'm standing there with what felt like thousands of kids running around, teachers, people screaming. School hasn't started. I see the principal at the other end of the hall with a kid under her arm. I mean literally lifted under her arm, you know, like you'd put a board. And the kid's screaming and spitting and pinching at her. And she's meanwhile walking down the hall with him under her arm pinching and fighting. She gets to me. She welcomes me, says she's so glad. She'll introduce me to a kid. "Oh, this is Maria. Maria! Ah! Maria is a good speller, aren't you, Maria," and she sends her off. She finds something that is wonderful about each kid. And then she introduces me to the kid under her arm, who would not stop biting and pinching for the whole nine minutes. And she finally sets him on his feet. He's a second grader, and she says, "I want you to meet my little friend, Diego. He's not having a good day today." And she told me this was a tough day for him, because his father was supposed to come home. He had just finished his sentence in a Massachusetts prison, but he owed some time to a New Hampshire prison. They were not going to let him out; they were taking him straight up. His mother was a junkie. Nobody was in good shape. So Diego was not in good shape either. It turns out that this kid was in one of my classes that I was going to be working with.... Now, when he's not sleeping because he's exhausted, he's usually causing trouble.... Any little thing could click him off - so he would go from a pleasant, engaged kid to a very violent one. So, often he spent a lot of time in the hallway. You know, I'd see him in the hall, "Hey, Diego, how's it going?" And one day he said, "Do you want to see my pictures?" I said, "Sure." We're looking at his pictures, and there's a picture of a place that to you and me would look like a prison. But that is not what he called it. He just said it was a bad building and there was a bad man in it. And I said, "Do you want to hear a story?" And this is one of those Laura Simms moments. You have no idea what's going to come out. So, for some reason I tell him the story of Bluebeard, which is not a story I ever tell, Doug. It is so gruesome and disgusting. But there with Diego in the hallway with millions of people passing, I tell him the story of Bluebeard. And he loves it. The next day in the hall, he is supposed to be reading his book on Michael Jordan. He's about as interested in this as an early death. So the next day I come by and he says, "You want to hear a story?" And I said, "Sure." And I sit down, I could cry just thinking about this. He opens his book to his pictures and he shows me the picture from yesterday - only he's made new drawings on top of it. These violent zigzag lines in red. Over the building that looks like a prison. And he tells me the story of Black Beard. And he says, "Black Beard is a very bad man, and Black Beard is trying to get out of this building. But there is a hero boy and the hero...." And he tells me the story of the hero boy who climbs the fence and through his lightning bolts keeps the bad man in the big building. And becomes the hero of the queen in his world. And I walked out of the school that day, and you know this kid doesn't have control over much of his life. But obviously, keeping his father in prison was the right thing. Him feeling that he had some control over that man and knowing that there are other bad men in this world and that bad men can be stopped by heroes, gave him some strength. And I don't know how much you can give a kid in this setting. But he got what he could get out of it. And he used it and he made himself the hero of his world. When I think of the power of story, that's it. It's such a blessing. Back to The Leading Story Monthly HOME . SERVICES . PUBLICATIONS . STORIES . ARTICLES . RESOURCES Doug Lipman This page was last updated on Friday, November 28, 2003
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