I have to take control. I have to be the teacher. After all, I was once a corporal in the United States Army. I told men what to do and if they didn’t do it I’d have their ass because they were in direct defiance of military regulations and subject to court-martial. I will simply tell these girls what to do.
Put everything away and open your books.
What books?
Whatever books you have for English.
All we got is this Giants in the Earth and that’s the most boring book in the world. And the whole class chants, Uh, huh, boring, boring, boring.
They tell me it’s about some family from Europe out there on the prairie and everyone is depressed and talking about suicide and no one in the class can finish this book because it makes you want to commit suicide yourself. Why can’t they read a nice romance where you don’t have all these Europe people all gloomy on the prairie? Or why couldn’t they watch movies? They could watch James Dean, oh, gawd, James Dean, can’t believe he’s dead, they could watch him and talk about him. Oh, they could watch James Dean forever.
When the Beauty Culture girls leave there is homeroom, an eight-minute period when I have to take care of the clerical work for thirty-three students from Printing Shop. They swarm in, all boys, and they’re helpful. They tell me what has to be done and not to worry. I am to take attendance, send a list of absentees to Miss Seested, collect absentee excuse notes supposedly written by parents and doctors, distribute transportation passes for bus, train, ferry. One boy brings the contents of Miss Mudd’s mailbox in the office. There are notes and letters from various officials in and out of the school, notes summoning wayward students for counseling, requests and demands for lists and forms and second and third reminders. Miss Mudd seems to have ignored everything in her mailbox for weeks and my head feels heavy with the thought of the work she’s left me.
The boys tell me I don’t have to take attendance every day but once I start I can’t stop. Most are Italian and taking the attendance is light opera: Adinolfi, Buscaglia, Cacciamani, DiFazio, Esposito, Gagliardo, Miceli.
I’m supposed to lead the class in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I barely know them but that doesn’t matter. The boys stand, place their hands on their hearts and recite their own version of the Pledge, I pledge allegiance to the flag of Staten Island, and to one-night stands, one girl under me, invisible to all, with love and kisses for me only me.
When they sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” some hum along with “You ain’t nothin’ but a hounddog.”
There’s a note from the Academic Chairman requesting I go to his office next period, the third, my prep period when I’m supposed to plan my lessons. He tells me I should have a lesson plan for every class and there is a standard form for lesson plans, I should insist all students keep notebooks that are clean and neat, I should make sure their textbooks are covered, points off if they don’t, I should check to see that windows are open six inches from the top, I should send a student around the room at the end of every period to collect litter, I should stand at the door to greet classes entering and again leaving, I should print clearly on the blackboard the title and aim of every lesson, I should never ask a question requiring a yes or no answer, I shouldn’t allow unnecessary noise in the room, I should require all students to stay in their seats unless they raise their hands for the bathroom pass, I should insist on boys removing their hats, I should make it clear that no student is allowed to speak without first raising his hand. I should make sure all students stay till the end of the period, that they’re not to be allowed out of the room at the warning bell which, for my information, rings five minutes before the end of the period. If my students are caught in the hallways before the end of the period I’ll have to answer to the principal himself. Any questions?
The chairman says there will be midterm exams in two weeks and my teaching should focus on the areas that will be covered in the exams. Students in English should have mastered spelling and vocabulary lists, one hundred of each which they are supposed to have in their notebooks and if they don’t, points off, and be prepared to write essays on two novels. Economic Citizenship students should be more than halfway through Your World and You.
The bell rings for the fifth period, my Building Assignment, the school cafeteria. The chairman tells me that’s an easy assignment. I’ll be up there with Jake Homer, the teacher the kids fear most.
I climb the stairs to the cafeteria, my head throbbing, my mouth dry and I wish I could sail away with Miss Mudd. Instead I’m pushed and jostled by students on the staircase and stopped by a teacher who demands to see my pass. He’s short and broad and his bald head sits, neckless, on his shoulders. He glares at me through thick glasses and his chin is a challenging jut. I tell him I’m a teacher and he won’t believe me. He wants to see my program card. Oh, he says, I’m sorry. You’re McCourt. I’m Jake Homer. We’ll be in the cafeteria together. I follow him upstairs and along the hallway to the students’ cafeteria. There are two lines waiting to be served in the kitchen, a boys and a girls. Jake tells me that’s one of the big problems, keeping the boys and girls separated. He says they’re animals at this age, especially the boys, and it’s not their fault. It’s nature. If he had his way he’d have the girls in a separate cafeteria altogether. The boys are always strutting and showing off and if two like the same girl there’s bound to be a fight. He tells me if there is a fight don’t interfere right away. Let the little bastards go at it and get it out of their systems. It’s worse in the warm weather, May, June, when the girls take off their sweaters and the boys go tit crazy. The girls know what they’re doing and the boys are like lap dogs, panting. Our job is to keep them separated and if a boy wants to visit the girls’ section he has to come over here for permission. Otherwise you’ll have two hundred kids going at it in broad daylight. We also have to patrol the cafeteria and make sure the kids take their trays and garbage back to the kitchen, make sure they clean the area around their tables.
Jake asks if I’d ever been in the army and when I tell him yes he says, Bet you didn’t know you’d be pulling this kind of shit detail when you decided to become a teacher. Bet you didn’t know you’d be a cafeteria guard, a garbage supervisor, a psychologist, a baby-sitter, eh? Tells you what they think of teachers in this country that you have to spend hours of your life looking at these kids eating like pigs and telling them clean up afterward. Doctors and lawyers don’t run around telling people clean up. You won’t find teachers in Europe stuck with this kind of crap. Over there a high school teacher is treated like a professor.
A boy carrying his tray to the kitchen doesn’t notice that an ice cream wrapper has fallen from his tray. On the way back to his table Jake calls him over.
Kid, pick up that ice cream wrapper.
The boy is defiant. I didn’t drop that.
Kid, I didn’t ask you that. I said pick it up.
I don’t have to pick it up. I know my rights.
Come here, kid. I’ll tell you your rights.
It is suddenly quiet in the cafeteria. With everyone looking on, Jake grabs the skin over the boy’s left shoulder blade and twists it clockwise. Kid, he says, you have five rights. Number one, you shut up. Number two, you do what you’re told, and the other three don’t count.
As Jake twists the skin the boy tries not to grimace, tries to look good, till Jake twists so hard the boy’s knees buckle and he cries, All right, all right, Mr. Homer, all right. I’ll pick up the paper.
Jake releases him. Okay, kid. I can see you’re a reasonable kid.
The boy slouches back to his seat. He’s ashamed and I know he needn’t be. When a master in Leamy’s National School in Limerick tormented a boy like that we were always against the master and I can feel that’s how it is here the way students, boys and girls, glare at Jake and me. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever be as hard as an Irish schoolmaster or as tough as Jake Homer. The psychology teachers at NYU never told us what
we should do in such cases and that’s because university professors never have to supervise students in high school cafeterias. And what will happen if Jake is ever absent and I’m the only teacher here trying to keep two hundred students under control? Surely if I tell a girl pick up a piece of paper and she refuses I can’t twist the skin of her shoulder blade till her knees tremble. No, I’ll have to wait till I’m old and tough like Jake, though even he surely wouldn’t twist the skin of a girl’s shoulder blade. He’s more polite with the girls, calls them dear, and would they mind helping keep this place clean. They say, Yes, Mr. Homer, and he waddles away smiling.
He stands by me near the kitchen and tells me, You gotta come down on the little bastards like a ton of bricks. Then he says to a boy standing before us, Yes, son?
Mr. Homer, I gotta give you back the dollar I owe you.
What was that, son?
Day I didn’t have lunch money last month. You gave me a lend of a buck.
Forget it, son. Get yourself an ice cream.
But, Mr. Homer.
Go on, son. Get yourself a treat.
Thanks, Mr. Homer.
Okay, kid.
He tells me, That’s a nice kid. You wouldn’t believe what a hard time he has, still comes to school. His father tortured, nearly killed by a Mussolini gang in Italy. Jesus, you wouldn’t believe the hard times they have, these kids’ families, and this is the richest country in the world. Count your blessings, McCourt. Mind if I call you Frank?
Not at all, Mr. Homer.
Call me Jake.
Okay, Jake.
It’s my lunch hour and he directs me to the teachers’ cafeteria on the top floor. Mr. Sorola sees me and introduces me to teachers at different tables, Mr. Rowantree, Printing, Mr. Kriegsman, Health Ed., Mr. Gordon, Machine Shop, Miss Gilfinane, Art, Mr. Garber, Speech, Mr. Bogard, Social Studies, Mr. Maratea, Social Studies.
I take my tray with sandwich and coffee and sit at an empty table but Mr. Bogard comes over, tells me his name is Bob, and invites me to sit with him and the other teachers. I’d like to stay by myself because I don’t know what to say to anyone and as soon as I open my mouth they’ll say, Oh, you’re Irish, and I’ll have to explain how that happened. It’s not as bad as being black. You can always change your accent but you can never change the color of your skin and it must be a nuisance when you’re black and people think they have to talk about black matters just because you’re there with that skin. You can change your accent and people will stop telling you where their parents came from in Ireland but there’s no escape when you’re black.
But I can’t say no to Mr. Bogard after he went to all the trouble of coming to my table and, when I’m settled with my coffee and sandwich, the teachers introduce themselves again with first names. Jack Kriegsman says, Your first day, eh? You sure you want to do this?
Some teachers laugh and shake their heads as if to say they’re sorry they ever got into this. Bob Bogard doesn’t laugh. He leans across the table and says, If there’s any profession more important than teaching I’d like to know what it is. No one seems to know what to say after that till Stanley Garber asks me what subject I teach.
English. Well, not exactly. They have me teaching three classes of Economic Citizenship, and Miss Gilfinane says, Oh, you’re Irish. It’s so nice to hear the brogue here.
She tells me her ancestry and wants to know where I came from, when I came, will I ever go back, and why are the Catholics and Protestants always fighting in the Old Country. Jack Kriegsman says they’re worse than the Jews and the Arabs and Stanley Garber disagrees. Stanley says at least the Irish on both sides have one thing in common, Christianity, and the Jews and the Arabs are as different as day and night. Jack says, Bullshit, and Stanley comes back with a sarcastic, That’s an intelligent comment.
When the bell rings Bob Bogard and Stanley Garber walk me downstairs and Bob tells me he knows the situation in Miss Mudd’s classes, that the kids are wild after weeks where there was no teaching, and if I need help to let him know. I tell him I do need help. I’d like to know what the hell I’m supposed to do with Economic Citizenship classes facing mid-term exams in two weeks who haven’t even looked at the book. How am I supposed to give grades on report cards based on nothing?
Stanley says, Don’t worry. A lot of the report card grades in this school are based on nothing anyway. There are kids here reading on a third grade level and it’s not your fault. They should be in elementary school but they can’t be kept there because they’re six feet tall, too big for the furniture and trouble for the teachers. You’ll see.
He and Bob Bogard look at my program and shake their heads. Three classes at the end of the day. That’s the worst possible program you can get, an impossible one for a new teacher. The kids have had their lunch and they’re all charged up with protein and sugar and they want to be outside horsing around. Sex. That’s all it is, says Stanley. Sex, sex, sex. But that’s what happens when you arrive in the middle of the term and take over for the Miss Mudds of the world.
Good luck, says Stanley.
Let me know if I can help, says Bob.
I grapple with the protein and the sugar and the sex sex sex in periods six, seven and eight but I’m silenced by a hail of questions and objections. Where’s Miss Mudd? She dead? She eloped? Ha ha ha. You our new teacher? You gonna be with us forever and ever? You gotta girlfriend, teacher? No, we don’t have no World and You. Dumb book. Why can’t we talk about movies? I had a teacher in fifth grade talked about movies all the time and they fired her. She was a great teacher. Teacher, don’t forget to take the attendance. Miss Mudd always took the attendance.
Miss Mudd didn’t have to take the attendance because in every class there is a monitor to do it. The monitor is usually a shy girl with a neat notebook and good handwriting. For taking the attendance she gets service credits and that impresses employers when she goes looking for a job in Manhattan.
The sophomore English students break into cheers at the news that Miss Mudd is gone forever. She was mean. She tried to make them read that boring book, Giants in the Earth, and she said when they were finished with that they’d have to read Silas Marner and Louis by the window who reads lots of books told everyone it’s a book about a dirty old man in England and a little girl and that’s the kind of book we shouldn’t be reading in America.
Miss Mudd said they’d have to read Silas Marner because there was a midterm exam coming up and they’d have to write an essay comparing it with Giants in the Earth and the students in eighth-period sophomore English would like to know where does she get off thinking you can compare a book about gloomy people on the prairie with a book about a dirty old man in England?
They cheer again. They tell me, We don’t want to read no dumb books.
You mean you don’t want to read any dumb books.
What?
Oh, nothing. The warning bell rings and they gather up their coats and bags to pile out the door. I have to shout, Sit down. That’s the warning bell.
They look surprised. What’s up, teacher?
You’re not supposed to leave at the warning bell.
Miss Mudd let us leave.
I’m not Miss Mudd.
Miss Mudd was nice. She let us leave. Why you so mean?
They’re out the door and I can’t stop them. Mr. Sorola is in the hallway to tell me my students are not supposed to leave at the warning bell.
I know, Mr. Sorola. I couldn’t stop them.
Well, Mr. McCourt, a little more discipline tomorrow, eh?
Yes, Mr. Sorola.
Is this man serious or is he pulling my leg?
37
Old Italian men patrol the Staten Island Ferry for shoeshine customers. I’ve had a hard night and a harder day and is there any reason why I shouldn’t spend a dollar plus a quarter tip on a shoeshine even if this old Italian shakes his head and tells me in his broken English I should buy a new pair of shoes from his brother who sells them on Delancey Street a
nd would give me a good price if I mention Alfonso on the ferry.
When he finishes he shakes his head and says he’ll charge me only fifty cents because these are the worst shoes he’s seen in years, a bum’s shoes, shoes you wouldn’t put on a dead man, and I should go to Delancey Street and don’t forget to tell his brother who sent me. I tell him how I don’t have the money for a new pair, I just started a new job, and he says, Alla right, alla right, gimme a dolla. He says, You teacha, right? and I say, How do you know? Teachas always have the lousy shoes.
I give him the dollar and the tip and he walks away shaking his head and calling Shine, shine.
It’s a bright March day and pleasant to sit on the deck outside to watch tourists excited with their cameras over the Statue of Liberty, the long finger of the Hudson River ahead and the Manhattan skyline drifting toward us. The water is alive with little choppy white waves and there’s a warm spring touch in the breeze blowing up the Narrows. Oh, it’s good and I’d like to stand up there on the bridge steering this old ferry back and forth back and forth through the tugs and scows and freighters and liners that heave the harbor into swells that plash against the ferry car deck.
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