Frank McCourt - 'Tis

Mr. McCoy.

McCourt.

You shun’t swear like dat. You shun’t say God’s name like dat.

They say, Oh, Mr. McCourt, you should take off tomorrow, Paddy’s Day. Gee, you’re Irish. You should go to the parade.

If I took off and stayed in bed all day they’d be just as pleased. Substitutes for absent teachers rarely bother with attendance and students simply cut class. Aw, come on, Mr. McCourt, you need a holiday with your Irish friends. I mean you wouldn’t come to school if you was in Ireland, would you?

They groan when I appear on the day. Aw, shit, man, excuse the language, what kinda Irishman are you? Hey, teacher, maybe you’ll go out tonight with all the Irish an’ maybe you won’t be in tomorrow?

I’ll be here tomorrow.

They bring me green things, a sprayed potato, a green bagel, a bottle of Heineken because it’s green, a head of cabbage with holes for eyes, nose, mouth, wearing a little green leprechaun cap made in the art room. The cabbage is Kevin and has a girlfriend, an eggplant named Maureen. There is a greeting card two feet by two wishing me Happy St. Paddy’s Day with a collage of green paper things, shamrocks, shillelaghs, whiskey bottles, a drawing of a green corned beef, St. Patrick holding a glass of green beer instead of a crozier and saying, Faith an’ Begorrah, it’s a great day for the Irish, a drawing of me with a balloon saying, Kiss Me I’m Irish. The card is signed by dozens of students from my five classes and decorated with happy faces shaped like shamrocks.

The classes are noisy. Hey, Mr. McCourt, how come you ain’t wearin’ green? Because he don’t have to, stoopid, he’s Irish. Mr. McCourt, whyn’t you goin’ to the parade? Because he just started this job. Chrissakes, he’s here only a week.

Mr. Sorola opens the door. Is everything all right, Mr. McCourt?

Oh, yes.

He comes to my desk, looks at the card, smiles. They must like you, eh? And you’ve been here how long? A week?

Almost.

Well, this is very nice but see if you can get them back to work. He goes toward the door and he’s followed by, Happy Paddy’s Day, Mr. Sorola, but he leaves without turning around. When someone at the back of the room says, Mr. Sorola is a miserable guinea, there is a scuffle that ends only when I threaten them with a test on Your World and You. Then someone says, Sorola ain’t no Italian. He’s Finnish.

Finnish? What’s Finnish?

Finland, stoopid, where it’s dark all the time.

He don’t look Finnish.

So, shithead, what does Finnish look like?

I dunno but he don’t look it. He could be Sicilian.

He’s not Sicilian. He’s Finnish and I’m layin’ a dollar bet. Anyone wanna bet?

No one wants to challenge the bet and I tell them, All right, open your notebooks.

They’re indignant. Open our notebooks? Paddy’s Day an’ you’re telling us open our notebooks after we got you the card an’ everything.

I know. Thank you for the card but this is a regular schoolday, there will be tests and we have to cover Your World and You.

There is a groaning around the room and the green is gone out of the day. Oh, Mr. McCourt, if you only knew how we hate that book.

Oh, Mr. McCourt, can’t you tell us about Ireland or something?

Mr. McCourt, tell us about your girlfriend. You must have a nice girlfriend. You’re real cute. My mother is divorced. She’d like to meet you.

Mr. McCourt, I got a sister your age. She got a big job in a bank. She likes all that old music, Bing Crosby an’ all.

Mr. McCourt, I seen this Irish movie, The Quiet Man, on TV an’ John Wayne was beatin’ up his wife, what’s her name, and is that what they do in Ireland, beat up their wives?

They would do anything to avoid Your World and You. Mr. McCourt, did you keep pigs in your kitchen?

We didn’t have a kitchen.

Yeah, but if you didn’t have a kitchen how could you cook?

We had a fireplace where we boiled water for tea and we ate bread.

They couldn’t believe we had no electricity and wanted to know how we kept food refrigerated. The one who asked about pigs in the kitchen said everyone has a refrigerator till another boy told him he was wrong, that his mother grew up in Sicily and didn’t have a refrigerator and if the pigs-in-the-kitchen boy didn’t believe him they’d meet in a dark alley after school and only one of them would come out. Some girls in the class told them cool it and one said she felt so sorry for me growing up like that if she could go back in time she’d take me home and let me take a nice bath as long as I liked and then I could eat everything in the refrigerator, everything. The girls nodded and the boys were quiet and I was glad the bell rang so that I could escape to the teachers’ toilet with my strange emotions.

I am learning the art of the high school students’ delaying tactics, how they seize on any occasion to avoid the work of the day. They flatter and cajole and hold their hands over their hearts declaring they are desperate to hear all about Ireland and the Irish, they would have asked days ago but they delayed till St. Patrick’s Day knowing I’d want to celebrate my heritage and religion and everything and would I tell them about Irish music and is it true Ireland is green all the time and the girls have those cute little upturned noses and the men drink drink drink, is it true, Mr. McCourt?

There are muttered threats and promises around the room. I ain’t stayin’ in school today. I’m goin’ to the parade in the city. All the Catlic schools have the day off. I’m Catlic. Why shun’t I have the day off? Fuck this. End of this period you’ll see my ass on the ferry. You comin’, Joey?

Nah. My mother would kill me. I’m not Irish.

So what? I’m not Irish neither.

Irish only want Irish in that parade.

Bullshit. They got Negroes in the parade an’ if they got Negroes why should I be sittin’ here an’ I’m Italian Catlic?

They won’t like it.

I don’t care. Irish wouldn’t even be here ’cept Columbus discovered this country an’ he was Italian.

My uncle said he was Jewish.

Oh, kiss my ass, Joey.

There’s a ripple of excitement in the room and calls for Fight, fight, hit him, Joey, hit him, because a fight is another way of passing the time and keeping the teacher from the lesson.

It is time for teacher intervention, All right, all right, open your notebooks, and there are cries of pain, Notebooks, notebooks, Mr. McCourt, why you doin’ this to us? An’ we don’t want no Your World an’ You on Paddy’s Day. My mother’s mother was Irish an’ we should have respect. Why can’t you tell us about school in Ireland, why?

All right.

I’m a new teacher and I’ve lost the first battle and it’s all the fault of St. Patrick. I tell this class and all my classes the rest of the day about school in Ireland, about the masters with their sticks, straps, canes, how we had to memorize everything and recite, how the masters would kill us if we ever tried to fight in their classrooms, how we were not allowed to ask questions nor have discussions, how we left school at fourteen and became messenger boys or unemployed.

I tell them about Ireland because I have no choice. My students have seized the day and there’s nothing I can do about it. I could threaten them with Your World and You and Silas Marner and satisfy myself that I was in control, that I was teaching, but I know there would be a flurry of requests for passes for the toilets, the nurse, the guidance counselor, and, Can I have the pass to call my aunt who’s dying of cancer in Manhattan? If I insisted on hewing to the curriculum today I’d be talking to myself and my instincts tell me one group of experienced students in an American classroom can break one inexperienced teacher.