They were not fish eyes. They were eyes that newspaper editors in later years loved to isolate for effect. They were referred to as “reptilian,” but that was not correct either.
Jay Smith was tall, middle-aged, with receding dark hair, a weak knobby chin and a rubbery sensual mouth. He was not an attractive man. Some thought that Jay Smith looked like an obscene phone call.
Ida Micucci hated to admit that his eyes scared her, but then she was too busy disliking Jay Smith to be all that scared. For starters, no one could ever find the guy. He’d come to school and enter his office and vanish. When he’d eventually reappear after people went looking all over campus for him, he’d never apologize. He’d simply enter the office and tend to his paperwork. By late afternoon he’d lock his office door and refuse to come out.
Ida Micucci was annoyed from the start. She knew that sometimes a school principal had private business that needed closed doors, but Jay Smith would lock his door nearly every day as a matter of policy. He did not want to be disturbed unless it was urgent.
Being several years older than her new boss, Ida felt it was up to her to put this principal in his place. She gave it a try from time to time and was just about the only one at Upper Merion who ever did. For one thing, she’d turn him down when he came around with army paperwork that needed typing. He was going for colonel then with a good shot at becoming a general before he retired.
She’d say, “No, I’m far too busy to do the army’s work.” And he’d simple turn and walk quietly away.
It became apparent though that neither Ida nor anyone else was going to put him in his place. He had a quick mind and a sharp tongue and wouldn’t hesitate to draw blood if he was crossed.
He could speed-read and remember whole chunks of books. He virtually memorized the yearbook, and astonished students by addressing them by name. He loved using arcane words on troublesome faculty members when they bothered him with petty problems.
One of those troublesome faculty members was Bill Bradfield, whom Ida liked as much as she disliked Jay Smith. Ida thought that Bill Bradfield was handsome and manly and she liked the way he’d come in and give her a hug and a smile and a cheery hello.
Sometimes Bill Bradfield as teachers’ representative had occasion to start ragging the principal about a teacher who’d received an unsatisfactory notice and thought it unfair.
Jay Smith would simply fix him quietly with those eyes and say something like “I find your reasoning a bit periphrastic.”
Bill Bradfield would have to scamper for a dictionary, thereby leaving Jay Smith to do his customary vanishing act.
One semester the principal gave Ida an unsatisfactory notice and she marched straight into his office and told him that she’d never received an unsatisfactory notice in her entire career and she was not about to take one without an explanation, a written explanation.
Jay Smith sat there and stared vacantly with those eyes and nodded and wrote his explanation. The report indicated that by bringing in candy every day and putting it on her desk, Ida Micucci was encouraging teachers to loiter around the principals office. And furthermore, Ida Micucci was attracting “bugs and other vermin.”
That did it. Jay C. Smith had a very angry senior secretary on his hands. And one day he called her in and apologized for the report. And not just a few times. He apologized every time he happened to glance at the candy jar. She thought he was going to spend the remaining years of her career apologizing.
He’d be handing her something to type six months after the bugs-and-vermin report, and he’d suddenly say, “Please forgive me, Ida.”
But he never apologized to another soul for anything. And pretty soon, he got tired of dumping words like “sesquipedalian” on his unfortunate faculty. He started inventing words for the likes of Bill Bradfield when he dared to match wits with Jay Smith.
Once when the teachers’ representative came reeling out of Jay Smith’s office unable to find a word like “ransmigrifold” in any dictionary, the principal sat and chuckled mirthlessly and finally had to share his secret.
“I’m inventing words for them, Ida,” he informed his secretary. “Those pseudo-intellectuals need the exercise that I provide.”
Jay Smith would bring his trash to work. Nobody could believe it at first, but it was so. He’d bring bags of trash from home and transfer it from his car to the school Dumpsters. Even the custodians were asking what the hell was going on! Didn’t they have garbage pickup in his neighborhood?
And that wasn’t all that the custodians were wondering about. They noticed him hanging around school at night when everyone else had gone home. Late at night. Once, a janitor saw the principal strolling out of his office on the way to the lavatory. It wouldn’t have caused concern except that Jay Smith was wearing nothing but underwear.
Then there was the matter of his meeting and greeting prospective teachers. One of them was a new member of the English department, a young woman, recently widowed.
Jay Smith had a full, smooth speaking voice and always enunciated crisply. His most dulcet tone was reserved for attractive women.
“Do you use Warriner’s Grammar?” he asked the young widow as she squirmed a bit. Many women reported feeling that his eyes were always asking lewd questions.
“Yes, I do,” she answered, just as his phone rang.
“One moment, my dear,” he said and picked up the telephone.
And the teacher started wishing for silver bullets because he was transformed!
“This is Colonel Jay C. Smith,” he snarled. “And we will bivouac at oh five hundred, do you understand?”
Bang went the telephone and just that fast the wolfman disappeared.
It was a velvet frog who said, “Yes, my dear, it’s a very good grammar book and I’m delighted to see that you think so.”
And there was the “stress” question. Every teacher at Upper Merion, new or old, had to get used to the fact that Jay Smith seemed to have a perverse need to shock.
For example, he’d sometimes gravely ask a prospective teacher what kind of birth control she used, as though her diaphragm was at least as important as Upper Merion’s football schedule.
To the user of Warriner’s Grammar, he said, “As a young widow, perhaps you could tell me how you handle your sex life.”
She answered, “Discreetly,” and the chill in her voice made him conclude the interview.
He dealt with male teachers in a similar fashion. To a new English teacher named Vincent Valaitis who had the face (and the worldliness) of a Vienna choirboy, Jay Smith said, “Young man, just remember one thing, English literature is nothing more than fucking and sucking.”
The twenty-four-year-old teacher thanked the principal for the insight and got the job.
A change took place at Upper Merion Senior High School. It was gradual at first and then it gained momentum as the years passed. It became clear to the faculty that their principal would let them run their classrooms pretty much as they wished. This meant that traditions like a dress code went out the window for students and for some teachers.
Faculty members like Bill Bradfield came to class in down vests and jogging shoes. And without a dress code Bill Bradfield grew his beard into a John Brown Raiding Harpers Ferry model. His mustache hung over his mouth so long and ragged that Sue Myers practically needed a machete for a kiss. And the kisses were coming less frequently since their return from Europe.