Frank McCourt - 'Tis

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.

That would be a pleasant life, easier than facing dozens of high school kids every day with their secret little nudges, winks and laughs, their complaints and objections, or the way they have of ignoring me as if I were a piece of furniture. A memory floats into my head from a morning at NYU, a face saying, Aren’t we being a little paranoid?

Paranoid. I looked it up. If I’m standing before a class and one kid whispers something to another and they laugh will I think they’re laughing at me? Will they sit in the cafeteria imitating my accent and joking about my red eyes? I know they will because we did the same thing in Leamy’s National School and if I’m going to worry about it I might as well spend my life in the loan department of the Manufacturer’s Trust Company.

Is this what I’ll do the rest of my life, take the subway then the ferry to Staten Island, climb the hill to McKee Vocational and Technical High School, punch in at the time clock, extract a bulge of paper from my mailbox, tell my students class after class day after day, Sit down, please, open your notebooks, take out your pens, you don’t have paper? here’s paper, you don’t have a pen? borrow one, copy the notes on the board, you can’t see from there? Joey would you change seats with Brian? come on, Joey, don’t be such a, no, Joey, I didn’t call you a jerk, I just asked you to change seats with Brian who needs glasses, you don’t need glasses, Brian? well, why do you have to move, never mind, Joey, just move, will you? Freddie, put that sandwich away, this isn’t the lunchroom, I don’t care if you’re hungry, no, you can’t go to the bathroom to eat your sandwich, you’re not supposed to be eating sandwiches in the toilet, what is it, Maria? you’re sick, you have to see the nurse? Okay, here’s a pass, Diane, would you take Maria to the nurse’s office and let me know what the nurse says, no, I know they won’t tell you what’s wrong with her, I just want to know if she’ll be coming back to class, what is it, Albert, you’re sick, too? no, you’re not, Albert, you just sit there and do your work, you gotta see the nurse, Albert? you’re really sick? you have diarrhea? well, here, here’s the pass to the boys’ room and don’t stay there all period, the rest of you finish copying the notes on the board, there will be a test, you know that, don’t you? there will be a test, what’s that, Sebastian, your pen ran out of ink? well, why didn’t you say something? yes, you’re saying it now but you could have said it ten minutes ago, oh, you didn’t want to interrupt all these sick people? that’s nice of you, Sebastian, does anyone have a pen to loan Sebastian? oh, come on, what’s that, Joey? Sebastian is a what? a what? you shouldn’t say things like that, Joey, Sebastian sit down, no fighting in the classroom, what’s that, Ann? you gotta go? go where, Ann? oh, you got your period? you’re right, Joey, she doesn’t have to tell the whole world, yes, Daniela? you want to take Ann to the bathroom? why? oh, she don’t ah doesn’t speak good English, so what does that have to do with her having her? what’s that, Joey? you don’t think girls should talk like that, easy, Daniela, easy, you don’t have to be insulting, what’s that, Joey? you’re religious and people shouldn’t talk like that, okay, easy, Daniela, I know you’re defending Ann who needs to go to the toilet, the bathroom, so go, take her there, and the rest of you copy the notes on the board, oh, you can’t see, either? you want to move up? okay, move up, here’s an empty seat but where’s your notebook? you left it on the bus, all right, you need paper, here’s paper, you need a pen? here’s a pen, you need to go to the bathroom? well, go go go to the bathroom, eat a sandwich, hang out with your friends, Jesus.