by Todd Daley
Parking on Hamilton Avenue, near Curtis High School, the three young people stopped to admire the school’s impressive facade, with its fierce sandstone gargoyles. In his early years at Curtis, Tom would hurry into the school, trying to avoid a look at the grimacing creatures.
“Those stone goblins are interesting. Wouldn’t you say so, Mary?” Amon said, pointing toward the school, which was a North Shore landmark.
“Rather garish and probably paganistic, I would assume,” Mary said, eyeballing them with strained curiosity.
“You remind me of Martha—always on guard for signs of heathen influences,” Tom remarked.
“Not at all. There’s something to be said for paganism. Wouldn’t you agree?” she replied, turning to Amon.
“I respect all religious persuasions. No one faith is better than any other.”
“Speaking of pagans, how is my old flame Martha doing? Still keeping her pupils in line with her fiery temper and her iron fist?” Tom asked, trying to sound matter-of-fact. He missed her large voluptuous presence, especially on Saturday nights.
“Martha quit St. Mary’s. She got a job teaching in the public schools—PS 21.”
“For real? PS 21 was the first school my sister and I went to on Staten Island,” Tom mentioned.
“I can see you there with Cara, hanging out in that school yard with a pretty curly-haired girl, memorizing a poem for some kind of a recital,” Amon said.
“There you go again. The Mariners Harbor clairvoyant at work.”
“I call him the Mariners Harbor Messiah,” Mary cooed, throwing her arm around his waste.
“I’d give my right arm for that kind of insight into the past and even the future,” the skinny science teacher replied.
“It’s an unwelcome gift, but my vision of the future is clouded at best.”
Boarding the large orange-hued ferry, the threesome looked out across the bay toward the distant Manhattan skyline, with its vaunted skyscrapers dominated by the newly erected World Trade Center towers. Under John Lindsay’s spirited leadership, “fun city” had experienced a building boom, a business resurgence, and a cultural renaissance. The big rumbling ferry, rocking with the strong currents, barreled out of the ferry slip, bouncing off the weathered docks, which reminded Tom of the old docks of the Mariners Harbor waterfront.
Sitting on the outside of the boat’s second level, Tom noticed a face from the past. It was Perry Pantino, an old Port Richmond High School classmate.
Tom took leave of his two friends to accost Perry, whom he hadn’t seen in many years. The years had changed Perry’s appearance in added weight, long hair, and a scruffy beard. His dark eyes darted back and forth, never focusing on one object for very long.
“How are you doing, Perry? Long time no see,” Tom called to his former classmate.
“I’m okay. I haven’t seen you since those long friggin’ subway rides to City College,” Perry replied, looking toward the choppy waters of the bay with bulging eyes.
“Yeah. That Seventh Avenue IRT was the subway from hell,” Tom concurred.
“That’s why I quit going there, plus those queer professors. I had this goofy English professor with a goatee—looked like that Flash Gordon villain, Ming.”
Turning to Amon, Tom introduced Perry to the Mariners Harbor resident.
“I couldn’t stand those fuckin’ faggots at City College. Can you blame me?”
“Live and let live. That’s my motto. We’re all God’s children after all,” Amon replied, studying Perry closely.
“What are you? Some kind of a preacher or some kind of a nut?” Perry asked with undisguised hostility.
“A little of both. We do what we can and give what we have,” Amon intoned diplomatically.
“Butt out! I don’t want anything from you,” Perry yelled with sudden fury. Then he left the two young men abruptly without any good-byes.
“That’s not the Perry I used to know,” Tom said. “He was always making jokes, followed by a high-pitched cackle. Kind of a happy-go-lucky guy.”
“He doesn’t look like a happy customer to me,” Mary offered, watching the peculiar young man as he walked to the other side of the boat. His gait was rapid, and he seemed to be nodding his head, as if conversing with an invisible sidekick.
“Keep your eyes on him, Mary. He’s in trouble—that’s for sure,” Amon replied in an undertone.
“His parents used to have a deli on Richmond Avenue near DeNinno’s Pizzeria. I think he had a younger sister—don’t recall her name. They were a close-knit family. Once some wise guy came into the store and harassed Perry’s mom when she accused him of stealing something. Perry beat the crap out of him. After that, nobody disrespected his mom—or his dad, for that matter.”
“He seems like a person who’s had some setbacks in life. Wears his heart on his sleeve,” Mary said, looking over to the other side of the ferry.
“The only difference between an average person and a troubled person is the intensity of his feelings,” Amon commented.
“You’re right,” Tom said. “I’ve gone through rough times when things looked pretty shitty. You look for a way out, and there’s isn’t any.”
“Going through tough times can make you stronger. Sometimes a little misfortune is good,” Amon replied, signaling to Mary to follow Perry in his peculiar meandering around the outside aisles of the ferry.
Mary sauntered to the other side of the boat, looking at the Statue of Liberty, which appeared through the windows. She gave the strange young man a cursory glance, pretending indifference to his frenetic wandering. Suddenly, Perry climbed over the outside railing and stood on the ferry’s ledge, which overlooked the pounding waves surging by the boat. Screaming, Mary rushed over to him and grabbed his shirt. Shaking loose from the young woman’s grip, the desperate young man leaped into the churning water.
Stirred by his girlfriend’s scream, Amon sprang into action, tossing off his shoes and his lumberjack shirt and diving off the rail of the ferry into the turbulent greenish-blue water. Tom grabbed a roped flotation doughnut, which was anchored to the boat via a thick iron ring. A powerful swimmer, Amon was within a few feet of Perry, who was thrashing frantically in the rough sea. Within seconds, Amon had collared the unhappy young man and swam back toward the boat, where he grabbed the doughnut. Tom and another male passenger tugged desperately on the rope, slowly pulling it toward the ferry. By this time, deckhands had arrived on the scene, lowering a rowboat to the floundering twosome.
Arriving in New York City, the three friends were interviewed by the police, while the victim was placed in an ambulance and taken to Bellevue Hospital in Lower Manhattan. Perry appeared subdued and remorseful. He had attempted to apologize to Amon before being taken away, but the medics wouldn’t allow it.
Amon did manage to go over to Perry, and the two spoke quietly for a few minutes. As with all mishaps and calamities, newspaper reporters appeared suddenly on the scene, plying the modest young man with questions. A grizzled reporter turned to Mary, who was holding Amon’s hand, for her reaction to his heroic actions on the Staten Island ferry.
“This was a typical day for my boyfriend. He’s always helping people, especially the poor and the downtrodden,” Mary related to the reporter.
“He’s rescued people from fires, fed the hungry, provided a home for the homeless. You name it, Amon’s done it,” Tom chimed in.
“On Staten island, he’s known as the Mariners Harbor Messiah,” Mary added, to Amon’s chagrin.
“Mariners Harbor Messiah, you say? That’s kind of catchy,” the veteran reporter said, writing furiously on his pad.
CHAPTER 46
Pumpkin Pie
Walking to the front entrance of Curtis High School and barely noticing the limestone gargoyles grimacing from the school’s distinctive facade, Tom caught sight of the principal, Lou Stout.
He held some notes carefully collected from an absent pedagogue.
“Just tell me it’s not a poetry lesson from the semi-beautiful Mrs. Hannity.
“No, it’s something you’re comfortable with—a lesson on decimals, courtesy of Dr. Gootstein,” the burly administrator replied.
“Goody Gootstein. He hates the thought of my having a free period to relax and mull over my lesson plans.”
“We all know you use the same dog-eared lesson plans that you wrote up as a rookie teacher.”
“How can you improve on perfection? All my lessons start off with a bang,” Tom retorted.
“Yeah. Half the time the entire science wing is filled with fumes, or you burn your suit jacket from one of your practical experiments.”
“Hell, that’s the fun of it. I like to break up the humdrum routine of teaching. When the sparks fly from a botched experiment, a teacher blowup, or student fisticuffs, that’s when it gets interesting,” Tom said.
“No. I don’t want the unexpected. Just give me dull, boring, uneventful days. The big shots at the Board of Education don’t want surprises either. Remember, there is no learning without discipline,” Stout replied before heading back to his large, sofa-chaired, picture-filled office.
Looking over Dr. Gootstein’s notes, Tom was happy to learn he would be teaching math basics—decimals and fractions. The prospect of spending his prep period poring over advanced algebra or trigonometry notes would not have made him happy—not that he was lacking in scholarly interest in academic areas outside of science. On the contrary, the skinny science teacher enjoyed studying diverse subjects, from science to mathematics, history, and even literature. He wondered how he would motivate such a basic topic as fraction–decimal conversions. Then, an offbeat notion struck him: the way to a student’s mind is through his stomach.
Bursting into the remedial math class, Tom was greeted by a chorus of Bronx cheers. However, when the motley group of teenagers saw that the popular science teacher was carrying a large pumpkin pie, the boos turned to actual cheers.
Tom was also happy to observe familiar faces in the room—all of whom had their eyes focused on the jumbo-size pumpkin pie, which had just emerged from the oven of the teacher’s cafeteria. The chief cook of the Curtis High School cafeteria, Maggie, had hurriedly baked the pie—induced by a sizable tip and her connection to Tom as a fellow Elm Park resident.
Waving her hand, which jingled with the pretty teenager’s copper bracelets, Lora asked if she could cut the pie for the skinny young teacher. Tom said that he would do the honors. Setting the jumbo-size pie carefully on his desk, he wrote the aim of the lesson on the blackboard: “What are fraction–decimal conversions?”
“We already know about fractions and decimals. How about doing a practical experiment, like setting off one of your match-head rockets?” Riner complained.
Ignoring the student’s complaint, Tom asked the class to define fractions.
“Fractions represent parts of a whole. If you cut that pie into four parts, each part is one-fourth of the pie,” Wendy replied.
“Very good, Wendy. What are the two kinds of fractions?”
Barry raised his hand. “Polite and vulgar.”
“Very funny. The two kinds of fractions are proper and improper,” Ronnie responded.
“How do proper and improper fractions differ?” Tom inquired.
“Proper fractions have numerators that are smaller than the denominators. And improper fractions have numerators that are larger than the denominators,” Wendy answered.
“Mr. Haley, this is stuff we learned in elementary school. Our regular math teacher was doing signed numbers,” Riner declared in an annoyed manner.
“What’s the matter? Are fractions beneath you? You wouldn’t be able to follow a recipe without knowing about fractions,” Barry snapped at the studious boy.
“I still hate fractions,” Lora responded.
“Suppose somebody offered you half a million dollars? Would you turn him down because you hate fractions?” Tom asked the winsome youngster.
“You have a point there, Mr. Haley. I’d spend the money quick to get rid of the annoying fraction,” she replied dryly.
Turning to the board, Tom wrote out the following problem: “4.5 x 5.25.”
The students struggled over the problem before realizing they had to convert the mixed numbers to improper fractions in order to multiply them. And then they had to convert the answer back to a mixed number.
“Why is it necessary to change improper fractions back to mixed numbers?” Lora asked petulantly.
“Would you go to a butcher shop and ask for 5/2 pounds of chop meat? He wouldn’t know what you meant. But if you had said 2.5 pounds, there’d be no misunderstanding,” Tom offered.
“So you’re saying butchers are stupid? My uncle is a butcher,” Manny called out from the back of the room.
“I would never insult a person with a cleaver,” Tom snapped. “But moving on, let’s talk about those important numbers called decimals.”
“What’s so important about them?” Lora asked, fiddling with her copper ankle bracelets, which caused several of the boys to stare at her shapely ankles and calves.
“Well, if you like money. Our money system is based on decimals. A penny is 1/100 of a dollar, a nickel is 5/100, a dime 10/100, a quarter is 25/100 of a dollar, and a half-dollar is 50/100 of a dollar,” Tom replied, going to the blackboard.
Coin / Fraction of Dollar / Decimal Value
Penny / 1/100 / $0.01
Nickel / 5/100 / $0.05
Dime / 10/100 / $0.10
Quarter / 25/100 / $0.25
Half-Dollar / 50/100 / $0.50
Dollar / 100/100 / $1.00
“Come on, Mr. Haley. Let’s do something besides money, which is the root of all evil,” Ronnie complained.
“But it is a necessary evil. Without it we would be living on the street,” Lora replied, fiddling with her copper armbands.
“Yeah. If you had money, you’d be wearing gold bracelets instead of those dumb copper bracelets on your arms and legs,” Barry retorted.
Wagging her hands and shaking her legs, Lora started to say something about the sexual benefits of wearing copper, but upon further thought said nothing.
“It’s interesting when we look at ancient civilizations and their use of different metals. The metal bronze, which is a mixture of copper and tin, was used in Africa and the Middle East about four thousand years ago. Whereas iron was first used in China, India, and the Middle East about three thousand years ago,” Tom explained.
“When man first used bronze, it was called the Bronze Age, and when people started using iron, it was called the Iron Age,” Riner observed, having overcome his boredom with the topic of the day.
Tom took advantage of this brief interlude to introduce the English and metric systems of measurement. “In the areas of science, engineering, and construction, we need an accurate system of weights and measures.”
Turning to the board, the skinny teacher wrote down the following information.
English System
Metric System
Length
12 inches = 1 foot
10 millimeters = 1 centimeter
3 feet = 1 yard
100 centimeters = 1 meter
660 feet = 1 furlong
100 meters = 1 hectometer
5,280 feet = 1 mile
1,000 meters = 1 kilometer
Weight
480 grains = 1 ounce
1,000 milligrams = 1 gram
16 ounces = 1 pound
10 grams = 1 decagram
100 pounds = 1 hundredwt
100 grams = 1 hectogram
1,000 pounds = 1 ton
1,000 grams = 1 kilogram
“Getting back to fractions and decimals, it’s often useful to convert fractions into decimals. How is that conversion done?” Tom inquired.
Wendy raised her hand. “You divide the numerator by the denominator.”
“Very good. Everybody convert the fraction 5/8 into a decimal.”
The class performed the indicated division, coming up with the answer: 0.625.
Tom went over the decimal equivalents of the basic fractions 1/2, 1/4, and 3/4. He went on to explain that not all fractions convert into exact decimals. Some fractions convert into repeating decimals. He then had the class convert 1/3 and 2/3 into decimals.
Barry raised his hand. “The first one is 0.3333 repeating, and the second one is 0.6666 repeating, which is a sign of the devil. I wouldn’t mess with 2/3 if I were you. Especially if you go around with those devilish copper bracelets.”
“What are you talking about? Copper is a good luck metal, unlike silver and gold,” Lora replied indignantly.
“We’re getting off topic. How can you tell if a fraction will convert into an exact decimal or one of those scary repeating decimals?”
Riner raised his hand. “A fraction is exact only if its denominator can be converted into a power of ten.”
“Excellent, Riner!” Going to the blackboard, Tom did the following computations:
1/2 x 50/50 = 50/100 = 0.5
3/4 x 25/25 = 75/100 = 0.75
5/8 x 125/125 = 625/1000 = 0.625
“It’s clear why these fractions are exact decimals and not repeating decimals.”