“I’m George Katz,” the small, wiry man said. “Social Studies. Taught at Christopher Columbus before I got appointed here.”
“You should have stayed there,” Solly said. “Even if they had you sweeping up the toilets.”
“They didn’t,” Katz assured him, smiling.
“Well, not to change the subject,” Rick said, “but can I get something to drink?”
“You get a choice,” Solly said, walking to the table and looping his thumb through his suspender. “You can bring your own container of milk and stick it in the refrigerator. That’s if you drink milk. If you drink coffee, you can bring instant coffee and use the hot water from the tea kettle outside. That’s if you drink coffee. If you drink tea, you can pay Captain Schaefer a scant ten cents a month, and he’ll let you use the tea balls he buys for us thirsty bastards. The hot water is still free.”
“Well...” Rick started.
“In any case, you will have to pay Schaefer your dues. He’ll pop in any minute and put the bite on you, as soon as he has his gymnasts climbing ropes or playing basketball or pulling their dummies.”
“Is he the gym teacher?” Rick asked.
“You saw him downstairs?” Solly asked. “Captain Max Schaefer.”
“What are the dues for?” Rick asked.
“The cups. The Captain buys the cups. Then he takes the dues we pay, and he replenishes his pocketbook. He also uses the dues to replace chipped, cracked, or broken cups. The Captain is a non-profit organization, or so he tells us.”
“How much are the dues?”
“Ask the Captain,” Solly said. “They change all the time.”
“He charged me a quarter,” one of the men at the table said.
Rick looked down the length of the table to the man who’d spoken. He was a tall, handsome boy, with midnight black hair that spilled onto his forehead in small ringlets. He had a perfect nose, high cheekbones, and sculptured, almost feminine lips. He was no older than twenty-five, and he was built like the statue of a Greek athlete. He did not introduce himself, so Rick didn’t ask his name.
“A quarter sounds reasonable,” Rick said. “Do you think I could use one of the tea balls before paying my dues?”
“Help yourself,” Solly said, waving a short, wide hand. “The Captain makes his living on this concession anyway.”
Rick rose and went to the cupboard, found the cardboard container of tea balls, and was reaching for a cup when a voice behind him said, “That’s mine.”
The voice was mild. Rick turned and saw that it belonged to a thin man in a gray, pencil-stripe, rumpled suit. The man wore rimless glasses, and his eyes were sad behind them. He had thin brown hair and shaggy brown eyebrows, and he repeated, “That’s mine,” almost apologetically.
“I didn’t know...” Rick started.
“Everything belongs to Lou,” Solly said. “He’s got a proprietor’s complex.”
“We have our initials on the cups,” the thin man said. “So we can tell them apart. See the L.S.? That’s me. Lou Savoldi.”
“He thinks he owns everything,” Solly said, grinning. “You talk to Lou, you find out he owns Manual Trades. He just leases it to the city during the season. In the summer, he runs a whore house here.”
“You’re one of my best customers,” Savoldi said, unsmiling, his eyes sad.
“Not since your wife left for one of those fancy East Side places,” Solly countered.
“That’s all right,” Savoldi answered, his eyes still sad. “I get more calls for your wife anyway.”
“That’s natural. She’s a prettier woman.”
“The kettle’s boiling,” Savoldi said. “Anybody want tea?”
“I’ll have some,” George Katz said, looking up from his history book. “Would you bring me a tea ball, Dadier?”
“Sure,” Rick said.
“My cup is in there, too,” Katz went on. “G.K. Be careful, the initials may still be wet.”
“I see it,” Rick said. He took down Katz’s cup as Savoldi left the room. “Can I use one of these without any initials on it?” Rick asked.
“Sure,” Solly said. He walked to the cupboard and took down a cup marked with S.K. in bright blue letters. “Hell, we might as well all have some tea.” He brought his cup to the table, putting it down next to Rick’s sandwiches. “How about you, Manners?” he asked the Greek athlete at the end of the table.
“None for me,” Manners replied. “I’m strictly a milk man. Two quarts a day.”
“Sugar baby,” Solly said. “I’ll bet you don’t drink, smoke, curse, or screw either.”
“You’ve got me wrong,” Manners said. “They call me Amoral Alan in my neighborhood.”
“Where’s that? In the Virgin Islands?”
“Bensonhurst,” Manners said quickly, proudly.
“So why the hell did they give you a school in the Bronx?”
“I’ve got pull,” Manners said dryly.
“Pull this a while,” Solly said. He sat down abruptly, and Lou Savoldi came back into the room with the steaming tea kettle in his hand. Rick sat down with his cup, and Savoldi poured for himself, Solly, Rick, and Katz.
“I won’t be here long, anyway,” Manners said, smiling.
“How come?” Savoldi asked.
“I want an all-girls’ school,” Manners said honestly.
“They’re worse than all-boys’ schools,” Savoldi told him.
“Yeah, but think of the pussy,” Manners said honestly.
“Think of twenty-year jail sentences,” Savoldi said sadly.
“I know a guy who’s teaching science in a school in Harlem. All girls. He got propositioned six times his first day at the school. He was almost raped on the staircase.”
“I’ll stay here,” Savoldi said sadly. “It’s safer at my age.” He finished pouring and left the room to put the kettle back on the stove.
“Well,” Manners said, “that’s for me. An all-girls’ school.”
“You’re just a regular Lover Boy,” Solly told him.
Savoldi came back into the room and said, “You’re the original Lover Boy, Solly.”
“Don’t I know it?” Solly picked up his tea cup in both hands, sipped at it noisily and then said, “This is too damn hot.”
Rick bit into his ham sandwich and then sipped at his tea. The man lying on the couch had not moved a muscle since Rick had entered the room.
“You can go to an all-girls’ school if you like, Lover Boy,” Solly said, “but you won’t find it any different than any other vocational school in the city.”
“Girls are different from boys,” Savoldi said. “Ain’t you heard, Solly?”
“You always got your mind up some pussy,” Solly said. “I’m telling you there’s no difference. I know plenty of guys teaching in girls’ vocational schools. It’s no different. If anything, it’s worse. You can’t smack a girl around.”
“You never smacked any boy around, either,” Savoldi said.
“That’s true. I don’t want to get contaminated.”
“What do you mean?” Rick asked, chewing on his sandwich.
“What do I mean?” Solly repeated. “I’ll tell you something, Dadier. This is the garbage can of the educational system. Every vocational school in the city. You put them all together, and you got one big, fat, overflowing garbage can. And you want to know what our job is? Our job is to sit on the lid of the garbage can and see that none of the filth overflows into the streets. That’s our job.”
“You don’t mean that,” Rick said politely, incredulously.
“I don’t, huh?” Solly shrugged. “You’re new here, so you don’t know. I’m telling you it’s a garbage can, and you’ll find out the minute you get a whiff of the stink. All the waste product, all the crap they can’t fit into a general high school, all that stink goes into the garbage can that’s the vocational high school system. That’s why the system was invented.