Aimee Bender: An Invisible Sign of My Own

She hung up before I could answer.

The elementary school was a quick brisk walk from my apartment. I went to look at it that weekend, passing the red mouth of the fire station, striding by the house with the dumb iron geese on the lawn, trudging through an overgrown empty lot. Above the roof tops, leaving a diamond of bluish shadow on the cement, loomed the large blue-glass hospital, the town’s most unusual building.

But that marked the other end of town. On one end: kid school.

Other end: people coughing and dying and weak.

The school was a modest white box on a corner. Inside was a kitchen for the staff, a lobby area for lunch boxes and jackets, a big

activity room, and a hall lined with doors. Each had a subject card on it: READING in red, SCIENCE in yellow, and mine said mATH in big black letters. I spent a minute with the word, proud, and then took a breath and went inside.

I was very disappointed to see that the math classroom had no windows and was the width of a hallway. Also it smelled like concrete. ART and SPELLING were squarer, and windowed, and scented with sunshine, so I figured math gets the shaft in classroom selection because the math teacher is the dentist of the school curriculum. It’s a miracle if there are kids in the class who don’t hate you.

Except me. I had loved all my math teachers. I’d loved my arithmetic teacher with the giraffe face who made up word problems that rhymed; I’d loved the woman who wept when she explained quadratic equations because, she said, their beauty was so true it was what fashion magazines should do their photo shoots on; I’d loved the eager substitute with the paint splattered ties who held a contest for finding a perfect circle in nature that I won by pointing to my pupil.

I’d loved my high school algebra teacher the most-the man who now ran the local hardware store instead. Mr. Jones had been a huge presence to me, growing up, a young girl, attracted to numbers. He lived next door to my parents, and I’d never seen him without a wax number hanging from a string around his neck. They varied, according to his mood-he’d go higher if in a better mood, lower if he felt lower. Generally he hung steady around 15only once did I see it go up to 37, and that same day a woman exited his door in the early morning, and they kissed long in the doorway and he seemed like a stranger, a dashing shadow of himself. Only a few times did it go so low as lz. On those days he just went outside to take out the trash, and that’s all I saw of him.

He was in the house, probably wearing that lz, for several weeks. His classes had math substitutes the entire time, and all testing was postponed until Jones felt better.

He’d been the best and worst of them all.

So that weekend, to honor all math teachers, I transformed my ugly classroom into a beautiful museum of numbers, but on the first day of school, the kindergarten and first grade ignored everything. They were cute enough in their overalls and hair bows, and a couple of them called me mom by accident, but they didn’t even glance at the walls and notice the carefully framed construction paper numbers I’d slaved over all weekend: Demure blue 2! Fun red 5! Noble black 10! The Rules of the Universe laid out in front of them! Just, as of yet, unorganized. Two peed and one thought he had a hurt finger and I thought it looked just like a regular finger but he wanted very badly to go to the nurse who turned out to be his aunt so I let him.

My own enthusiasm was sinking when the bell rang for third period and no one came in.

This wasn’t a bad thing. I thought it was nice to have a break. I checked the schedule but it said no, I had the second grade now.

I read the roster, in my boss’s well-slanted cursive:

SECOND GRADE:

John Beeze Ann DiLanno Elmer Gravlaki Mimi Lunelle Danny O’Mazzi Lisa Venus Ellen (last name?) The last was written in an embarrassed scrawl. I practiced the names. The second bell rang. I erased the board.

After five minutes, I opened the door and peered into the hall.

Bingo. Right outside the classroom was a clump of seven seven year-olds, laying on the floor.

Are you the second grade? I asked. Come on, I said. I have you for math now!

A ratty-haired girl poked her head off the ground and looked at me. The rest rolled back and forth. Only three were wearing the requisite first-day name tags.

I cleared my throat and was about to start the year with a bang by sending a couple of them straight to the boss when they jumped up and went straight in to my wall of numbers.

The girl with ratty hair pointed to big purple 3. I’m Lisa Venus, she said. This one’s the best.

Her friend, name tag stating John Beeze, touched the foot of red 5We smiled at each other.

Good morning! I said. I’m Ms. Gray, your new math teacher. Let me tell you, I said, math can be a wonderful subject One boy with a name tag, Elmer Gravlaki, dove under the table.

Another with no name tag and a cap of black hair made his hands into guns and shot everybody.

Lisa Venus walked the row of portraits, a tiny docent.

Don’t like lz, she said. I like the yellow 9 a lot. I don’t like 7 — I like the 4. Don’t like the 1.

Sit, I said.

Gun boy found the drawers I’d filled with counting devices buttons and paper clips and rubber bands.

Our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown, said Mimi Lunelle, sitting at her desk with curls that made perfect whirlpools, like she was constantly spinning down a drain.

No, I said. She went to Paraguay to become a revolutionary. I’m Ms. Gray.

Paraguay? Mimi asked.

You already said your name, muttered the sour-faced girl next to Mimi.

Paraguay’s a place, I said. Now, let’s start with a game! First, tell me your name and favorite number!

No response.

Gun boy stuck a button in the crotch of a rubber band and pulled it taut.

Lisa Venus raised her hand.

Sit please, I said. She leaned on a chair.

I’m Lisa Venus, she said again. My favorite is a billion. One to ten, I said. Hi Lisa.

Three, she said. Nine. Seven.

Come be three, I said. Do I have a second volunteer?

Gun boy aimed his rubber band right at me. Elmer whimpered under the table. The sour-faced girl twisted her lips with her fingers.

I hated teaching, suddenly.

2 My favorite is five, said John Beeze from his desk.

I had John and Lisa come up to the front and told them to physically form the numbers-Lisa sticking out her butt to get the 2 second arch of the 3, John kicking up a heel to finish 5.

There! I said. So what’s the total of Lisa and John?

The group groaned.

8, announced Lisa, head down.

Anyone want to be 8? I said.

To my surprise, gun boy raised his hand at the back of the room.

He snapped the rubber band at the wall and the button tumbled down.

My favorite is 8, he said evenly. And what’s your name?

Danny O’Mazzi, he said.

His T-shirt sleeves stopped high on his shoulders and there were biceps showing in his arms, already, at age seven. After putting away the button and rubber band with unexpected neatness, he walked to the front of the room, and without any cueing from me, turned out his feet, bent his knees, and clasped his hands over his head.

Hey! I said, grinning. Great! Now who wants to be the plus sign?

Hands went up, waving. I brought Mimi Lunelle to the front and she held her feet together and spread her arms wide. This is good, I said. Now I loved teaching. I wished my boss would walk in. We had our first human equation and my spirits were rising and it would’ve worked beautifully if sour-face, the one named Ann Di Lanno, hadn’t started stomping her foot and muttering because she wanted to be the plus sign. I explained that Mimi Lunette (Lunelle, spoke the plus sign) was already the plus sign but Ann DiLanno wouldn’t settle down even when I offered her the very desirable role of equals sign. She kicked the table leg and Elmer started to cry and Danny O’Mazzi was making his arm into a rifle when, at Lisa’s suggestion, we sat down.