The Mariners Harbor Messiah

by Todd Daley

  CHAPTER 49

  M & M’s

  In late November, Tom passed under the gruesome limestone gargoyles, noticing Curtis’s hefty principal, Lou Stout, shuffling though some notes.

  “Don’t tell me. Somebody decided to go Christmas shopping, and I have the joy of covering one of his or her classes,” Tom said in a sarcastic tone.

  “Don’t be a Scrooge. ’Tis the season to be jolly. It’s a basic arithmetic class, courtesy of Dr. Gootstein,” the administrator replied calmly.

  “So whose class am I covering?” the skinny science teacher inquired.

  “Mrs. Murray’s arithmetic class. You know Rosie Murray? The one with the big ass,” Stout said with an evil smile.

  “Put me on your naughty-and-nice Christmas list, because you owe me, big-time,” Tom said, snatching the notes from Lou Stout and heading for the time clock, which was decorated with mistletoe and holly.

  What a waste, he thought. If there was one good-looking female teacher at Curtis, it was the unavailable Mrs. Murray. He often fantasized smothering her with holiday kisses and grabbing her nice round butt. At least she’d give him a nice smile the next time he encountered her in the hallways.

  Later on, Tom marched into the remedial math class, grimacing resolutely and clutching Dr. Gootstein’s notes on ratios and rates. The skinny teacher recognized that it was the same arithmetic class he had covered a few weeks earlier, with familiar faces from his general science class. Familiarity breeds not contempt but a comforting sense of the routine for the classroom teacher. Aside from the usual pleas for a free period, the class grudgingly got out their math notebooks and settled down.

  Tom produced a big jar of M&M’s, which immediately grabbed the attention of the youngsters. Truthfully, average teenagers are motivated to learn not from their intrinsic curiosity about the world but from such extrinsic rewards as money, tangible items, and passing grades. Notwithstanding the idealists of the world, like his friend Amon, most people are motivated by self-interest, greed, and material wants.

  “Mr. Haley, can I have some of those M&M’s? I didn’t eat them nasty sloppy joes they make on Mondays,” Barry said, staring at the jar.

  “First, we’re going to have a lesson on ratios and rates. Work before rewards.”

  “What are we, Pavlov’s dogs, learning how to salivate when the bell is rung?” Riner observed petulantly.

  “Only a pencil-head like you would know about Pavlov’s dogs,” Ronnie said.

  “Ronnie! I’m surprised by that comment. Usually you’re nicer than nice,” the skinny teacher replied.

  “Sorry, Mr. Haley. It’s been a long, hard day. We had to write this boring composition in English about the real meaning of Christmas,” the naive youngster complained.

  “Anyway, the task before us is to figure out the ratio of red M&M’s to blue M&M’s. How can we do it?”

  “That’s easy. Just pour them out on your desk and count ’em,” Barry replied.

  “That would take too long. Just take out a few handfuls and count them. They look to be evenly distributed in the jar,” Wendy responded.

  “Excellent, Wendy. We can see that the red and blue M&M’s seem to be evenly distributed throughout the jar. I need a volunteer to help me with the counting,” Tom said as he poured a sizable quantity of the red and blue candies on a large dinner plate. From a sea of hands and a chorus of “Pick me,” Tom chose Lora, who pranced to the front of the room, jingling her copper bracelets and anklets.

  The saucy curly-haired sophomore laboriously counted the M&M’s, arriving at a total of forty-two red candies and 35 blue cndies. Turning to the board, Tom wrote down the ratio: “42 to 35 = 42/35 = 6/5 = 6 to 5 ratio of red to blue.”

  “What would be the reverse ratio of blue M&M’s to red M&M’s?” he asked.

  Ronnie raised her hand. “Blue to red would be 5 to 6.”

  Looking around the room, Tom asked, “What is the ratio of chairs to desks in this room?”

  After a pause of half a minute, Manny called out from the back of the room, “There are 34 chairs and 17 desks, so it’s 34 to 17 or 2 to 1.”

  “What ‘s the ratio of girls to boys in this class?”

  “Sixteen girls and 14 boys, 16 to 14, which reduces to 8 to 7,” Riner answered.

  “Wait a minute. You didn’t count Mr. Haley. So the ratio is 16 to 15,” Lora said.

  “Teachers don’t count, because he was talking about girls and boys,” Ronnie responded.

  “So you’re saying Mr. Haley is not a boy. Are you saying he’s gay?” Barry replied impudently.

  “Teachers are grown-ups, which are their own category,” Ronnie chimed in.

  “Teachers are like robots. They have no gender,” Lora said, waving her copper bracelets back and forth, as if to cancel out their gender.

  “Girl, that’s flagrantly obtuse. Teachers are normal people who like to party and raise hell … like everybody else,” Barry commented with a knowing grin.

  Shrugging his shoulders, Tom pressed on with the lesson. “How do rates differ from ratios?”

  “Ratios are expressed as fractions, and rates are expressed as decimals,” replied Wendy, who was as smart as she was pretty.

  “That’s right, Wendy. Also, ratios compare quantities of the same units, whereas rates compare quantities of different units.” Then the skinny science teacher wrote the following problems on the blackboard:

  Ex 1: A compact car drove a total of 275 miles on 12.5 gallons of gasoline. Find the car’s mileage rate in miles per gallon.

  Ex 2: A train travels for 4.5 hours, covering a distance of 350 miles. Compute the train’s average speed in miles per hour.

  Ex 3: A 16-ounce can of root beer soda costs 40 cents. Find the unit price of the soda in cents per ounce.

  Ex 4: A 12.5-pound bag of grass seed is needed to cover 250 square feet of lawn. Compute the rate of seed coverage in pounds per square feet.

  Ex 5: A 26.5-pound turkey costs $11.66. Find the unit price of the turkey in dollars per pound.

  Ex 6: A 15-ounce bar of silver costs $87.50. Calculate the unit price of silver in dollars per ounce.

  Tom gave his students ten minutes to solve the six rate problems. After they had finished working on them, he had various students work them out on the board.

  Ex 1: 22 mi/gal

  Ex 3: 2.5 cents/oz

  Ex 2: 77.8 mi/hr

  Ex 5: $0.44/lb

  Ex 4: 0.05 lbs/sq ft

  Ex 6: $5.83/oz

  As a result of this activity, Tom discovered a useful fact that he would utilize in his science classes: Students love going to the board, sharing their knowledge, and displaying their physical assets to their classmates. In particular, Lora captured the class’s attention, jangling her copper bracelets as she slowly computed the high price of silver per ounce. Her short skirt gave everyone a nice view of her shapely legs, offset by the impressive copper anklets.

  When the bell rang, Lora came up to the desk, telling Tom a second reason for her affinity for copper. “It’s a lot cheaper than silver and gold. And copper does influence a person’s romantic impulses. Speaking of romance, does Amon have a girlfriend?”

  “Indeed he does. Besides, Amon is an adult. And you should enjoy being a high school student and a teenager. This carefree time of your life will pass very quickly—I can assure you,” Tom said with a hint of melancholy.

  “Adult or not, Amon is very cool,” the cute curly-haired youngster replied, leaving the room jingling her copper bracelets and anklets.

  At this moment, there was a loud crash as the big glass of M&M candies spilled over and a river of M&M’s spilled over the front desk and onto the floor.

  Barry, Manny, Riner, and a few other
boys were scooping up the candies from the desktop and floor and eating them. Tom tried to dissuade them from gathering the scattered M&M’s and eating them.

  “It’s okay, Teach. Remember, M&M’s melt in your mouth and not in your hands,” Barry exclaimed through a mouthful of the popular candy.

  Union representative Alan Katz was passing by in the hall and noticed the commotion in Tom’s class. “What happened, Tom? Did one of your famous practical experiments backfire?”

  “No, I used a jar of M&M’s to show ratios. And at the end of the lesson, my students inadvertently tipped the jar over, trying to get at them.”

  “The guy who invented M&M’s—Forrest Mars—got the idea during the Spanish Civil War, where the soldiers ate chocolate beads in hard sugar shells. Mars realized the chocolate encased in a sugar coating wouldn’t melt during hot weather,” the popular history teacher related.

  “Why are they called M&M’s?” Tom asked.

  “The candies were named after the two owners of the Newark candy company: Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie.”

  “And the rest is history,” Tom said.

  “Offbeat and sugar-coated, which is not often the case in history. That factory in Newark has a big machine, which coats 3,300 pounds of chocolate centers per hour,” Alan related.

  “I’ve got to remember that story and tell it to my students.”

  “You can also tell them that M&M’s were the first candy rocketed into space. NASA sent it with the astronauts as a snack in 1981,” the union representative replied with a grin.

  Alan Katz was not only a stalwart UFT chapter chairman, but also a superb history teacher. He was wont to spin offbeat but true-to-life tales that intrigued his students, making an often-dull subject compelling and tangible to teenagers. Like their peers throughout America, Curtis students appeared to have little interest in events that had occurred prior to their own existence in the world. Tom recalled a quote from philosopher George Santayana: “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Notice to Vacate

  Exhausted from his week of teaching, which included three class coverages from absent Curtis teachers, Tom planned on stopping at Kaffman’s bar at the corner of Morningstar Road and Walker Street for a couple beers. He was not a fan of teachers using their union-mandated personal days to do Christmas shopping. There was plenty of time on the weekend to go Christmas shopping. Besides, Tom didn’t have anyone to buy a present for, except his mom and his sister, Cara. Of course, he would have to get Amon something. The man did so much and got little but aggravation in return.

  At the last minute, Tom felt a vague sense of anxiety. The idea of sitting in a hazy, sour-sweet–smelling saloon did not appeal to the skinny science teacher. So he went home and had some potato chips and soda—his usual unhealthy early-afternoon snack. Lately, his breakfast was equally unhealthy, consisting of a slice of apple pie, downed with a cup of instant coffee. Sitting on the faded red living room couch, he started to drift into a light sleep, dreaming about his high school sweetheart, Joanie. The skinny teacher’s dream was interrupted by the jarring ring of the telephone.

  “Tom, we got to talk to that lawyer friend of yours. I got a letter from the city telling me to vacate my tugboat. They’re condemning all the boats in the harbor for some kind of project.”

  Tom said he’d call Stan Mislicki, the amiable lawyer whose office was directly above his family’s bakery on Morningstar Road. As luck would have it, Stan said he was hanging around his office, finishing up some paperwork. If Tom could get there with his friend in a half hour, he’d wait for them.

  Amon showed Stan the notice that was posted on his tugboat. There were identical notices posted on the rotting docks, crumbling buildings, rusty ships, and corroded hulks, which had remained dormant for years. The studious young attorney read the document carefully while Tom and Amon exchanged worried looks. Amon felt helpless before the weight of municipal government–welding power, which could change the course of his life and the lives of people who depended on him.

  The lawyer asked Amon if he lived alone on the tugboat, and the latter replied that his girlfriend, Mary, lived with him.

  “No children?” the congenial lawyer asked with a straight face.

  Blushing, the charismatic young man said no. Tom was startled to see his usually unflappable friend’s face turn red. Doubtlessly, there was a powerful bond between Amon and Mary.

  “Are there any children living in the residential house on Simonson Avenue?”

  Amon started to shake his head, and then his face brightened. “There’s this woman who talked about moving into the Simonson Avenue house, but we have no vacancies.” Turning to Tom, he said, “You know who I’m talking about—Evette. She has a little boy who goes to PS 44.”

  “Is there room for her and the boy on your boat?” Stan inquired.

  “We’ll make room for her. There’s a cabin we use for storage in the bow,” Amon replied.

  “Well, things might get kind of cramped in your boat,” Stan offered.

  “Evette is very accommodating. She likes to help out. I came to her aid when she was struck by a car in Port Richmond,” Amon commented.

  “He saved her life or at least prevented her leg from being amputated,” Tom interjected, to Amon’s distress and the lawyer’s amazement.

  “That might work. The city does not want to put families on the street. Of course, the builder won’t be happy. But most judges can be convinced to issue an injunction where children are involved.”

  “Well, that’s settled. I knew you could do it, Stan,” Tom chimed in.

  “These builders have money and influence. So nothing’s settled. They’ll come back in six months and apply for a building permit again, after they’ve greased the skids a bit.”

  Amon shook his head in disgust, and Tom patted him on the back. “We’re buying some time, but as Yogi Berra says, ‘it ain’t over till it’s over.’”

  Amon asked Stan for a bill. “This is the second time you’ve helped me, and I want to pay you for your time.”

  Holding up his hands, the young attorney said he was working pro bono.

  As the two young men started to leave the office, Stan said that he had read in the Advocate that Joey Caprino was pitching again on the local men’s baseball team.

  Tom was surprised because he thought his old friend had given up on baseball entirely for “the good life as a Wall Street stockbroker.”

  “He still works on Wall Street, but on weekends he pitches for the Staten Island Seagulls. There was a story about him in the paper—he’s developed a knuckleball that’s just about unhittable.”

  “Good for him. It’s nice to hear about an Elm Park kid making good,” Tom said.

  Joey had been the first kid he made friends with when he and Cara had moved to Staten Island years ago. The stocky youngster used to spend hours playing stoopball, throwing a Spalding against his front porch steps and catching the carom endlessly. Less talented than the hard-throwing Mike Palermo, Joey had had the gift of perseverance and baseball smarts. He also had an uncanny ability to do arithmetic computations in his head, especially the batting averages of his favorite team – the old Brooklyn Dodgers.

  CHAPTER 51

  Supply and Demand

  The week following his coverage of Rosie Murray’s arithmetic class, Tom was given the honor of covering another one of her classes—economics. Because she was a good-looking woman, Tom accepted the assignment from his steadfast supervisor with hardly a contrary word, though he knew little about the subject. He had heard that economics was referred to as the dismal science.

  Handing Tom Mrs. Murray’s economic notes, Lou Stout remarked, “I know what you’re thinking. Forget about her big ass. What happened to that girlfriend of yours? She had a pretty nice derriere, as I recall.”

 
“Martha? We broke up over political differences. She’s a Republican, and I’m a Democrat,” Tom replied unconvincingly.

  “Yeah, sure. My wife’s Catholic, and I’m a Buddhist,” the principal replied, heading back to his wood-paneled office, with its pictures of Curtis baseball and basketball teams coached by Stout in his younger days.

  Walking into Mrs. Murray’s economic class later that day, Tom was astonished to find many of his own students in the class. He and the voluptuous teacher had one thing in common: the same motley crew of Curtis sophomores.

  Too bad she didn’t live in Elm Park. Unfortunately, Rosie Murray was part of a growing contingent of South Shore people who taught at the North Shore high school.

  As Tom got ready to teach the class, he was greeted by a chorus of boos—with the exception of Lora, who clapped and rattled her copper bracelets.

  “Don’t worry, guys. Mrs. Murray has prepared a lesson on supply and demand for your edification,” Tom said as he shuffled through Mrs. Murray’s extensive notes on the subject.

  Maggie tapped on the door, and Tom beckoned her to enter the room. She was carrying a large platter of M&M’s and salted peanuts in separate piles.

  Then, Tom had the curly-haired Lora walk around the class, allowing the students to choose either the peanuts or the M&M’s. The cute sophomore’s rattling copper bracelets and anklets, plus her other charms, distracted the students so much that Tom used the time to write the aim on the board: “What is the law of supply and demand?” He also had time to draw the supply and demand curves on a “price versus quantity” axis on the board, which were similar to the positive and negative sloping lines of coordinate algebra.

  After her merry jingling around the room, Lora brought the plate back up to the front desk. It was apparent that the class overwhelmingly favored the M&M’s over the peanuts. Tom asked the class, “What can we conclude from the appearance of the plate?”