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 and 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.