Teacher Man: A Memoir (15 page)

In
1968
, at Seward Park High School, I faced the hardest challenge of my whole teaching career. I had the usual five classes: three English as a Second Language and two regular ninth-grade English classes. One of those ninth-grade classes consisted of twenty-nine black girls from an uptown feeder school and two Puerto Rican boys who sat in a corner, minding their own business, never saying a word. If they opened their mouths, the girls would turn on them, Who axed you? All the ingredients of difficulty were wrapped up in this one group: gender clash; generation clash; culture clash; racial clash.

The girls ignored me, white guy standing up there trying to get their attention. They had stuff to talk about. There was always some adventure from last night. Boys. Boys. Boys. Serena said she didn’t go out with boys. She went out with men. She had ginger hair and her skin was the color of butterscotch. She was so thin tight clothes hung loose on her. She was fifteen and the center of the class, the one who settled arguments, the one who made decisions. She told the class one day, I don’t wanna be no leader. You wanna be with me? OK. You can be with me.

Some girls challenged her place in the class, tried to cross swords with her. Hey, Serena, how come you go out with old men? They can’t do nothin’.

Yeah, they can. They can put five dollars in my hand every time.

They complained to me, We don’t do nothin’ in this class. Other classes do things.

I brought in a tape recorder. Surely they’d like to hear themselves talking. Serena took the microphone.

My sister was arrested last night. My sister is a nice person. She was only liberating two pork chops from the store. White people take pork chops an’ everything all the time but they don’t get arrested. I seen white women walk outa the store with steaks under their dresses. Now my sister in jail till she go to court.

She stopped, looked at me for the first time and handed back the microphone. I dunno why I’m telling you this. You just a teacher. You just a white man. She turned away and walked to her seat. She sat primly, hands folded on the desk. She had put me in my place and the class knew it.

For the first time that term the room was quiet. They waited for me to take the next step, but I was paralyzed, standing there with the microphone in my hand, the tape running from reel to reel recording nothing.

Anyone else? I said.

They stared at me. Was that contempt?

A hand went up. Maria, the bright, well-dressed one who kept a neat notebook, had a question.

Mister, how come the other classes go on trips and we don’t go nowhere? We just sit here talking into a stupid tape recorder. How come?

Yeah, yeah, said the class. How come?

Other classes go to the movies. Why can’t we go to the movies?

They were looking at me, talking to me, recognizing my existence, including me in their world. If you had walked into the room at that moment you would have said, Oh, here’s a teacher actually engaging with his class. Look at those bright young girls, and those two boys, gazing at their teacher. Makes you believe in public education.

So, I said, feeling like a man in charge, what movie would you like to see?

Cold Turkey,
said Maria. My brother seen it up on Broadway near Times Square.

Nah, said Serena. That movie all about drugs. Cold turkey is when you just stop drugs. You don’t go to no clinic an’ no doctor.

Maria said her brother said nothing about drugs. Serena looked at the ceiling. Your brother goody-goody like you. Your brother don’t know shit.

Next day they brought notes from their parents giving them permission to take a trip to see a movie. A dozen notes were forgeries, written in the grand manner parents are supposed to use when addressing teachers.

When the Puerto Rican boys brought no notes the girls objected. How come they not going to the movie? We brought notes an’ everything an’ we have to go to this movie an’ they have the day off. How come?

To appease the girls I told the boys they’d have to write a short report on how they spent their day. The girls said, Yeah, yeah, and the boys looked sullen.

On the six-block walk to the subway, the parade of twenty-nine black girls and one white teacher attracted attention. Shopkeepers shouted at me to tell these kids keep their goddam hands off the goddam goods. Can’t you control these goddam Negroes?

They ran into stores to buy candy, hot dogs and bottles of pink lemonade. They said pink lemonade was the greatest and why couldn’t they have it in the school cafeteria instead of all those juices that tasted like detergent or milk.

Down the steps, into the subway. Forget the fare. Jump the turnstiles, run through gates. Man in the change booth yelled, Hey, hey, pay your fare. Pay your goddam fare. I held back, didn’t want the man in the booth to know I was with that wild pack.

They ran back and forth on the subway platform. Where’s the train? I don’t see no train.

They pretended to push one another onto the tracks. Teacher, teacher, she tried to kill me, teacher. You see that?

People waiting for the train glared at me. A man said, Why don’t they go back uptown where they belong? They don’t know how to behave like human beings.

I wanted to be a brave, concerned, committed teacher, stand up to him, defend my twenty-eight rowdy black girls, Maria the exception, Maria the forger. But I was a long way from bravery, and what would I say anyway? You try it, Mister Indignant Citizen. You try taking twenty-nine black girls on the subway, all charged up with being fifteen and escaping from school for a day, all pumped up with sugar from cookies, candy and pink lemonade. Try teaching them every day when they look at you as if you were a white snowman about to melt.

I said nothing and prayed for the rumble of the F train.

On the train they squealed and pushed and fought for seats. The passengers looked hostile. Why aren’t these Negro kids in school? No wonder they’re ignorant.

At West Fourth Street an obese white woman waddled onto the train and stood with her back to the closing door. The girls stared at her and snickered. She stared back. What you little bitches lookin’ at?

Serena had the smart, troublemaking mouth. She said, We never seen a mountain get on a train before.

Her twenty-eight classmates laughed, pretended to collapse, laughed again. Serena stared, unsmiling, at the large woman, who said, Come over here, honey, and I’ll show you how a mountain can move.

I was the teacher. I had to assert myself, but how? Then I had a strange feeling. I looked at the other passengers, their frowns of disapproval, and I wanted to fight back, defend my twenty-nine.

I stood with my back to the large woman to keep Serena from coming near her.

Her classmates chanted, Go, Serena, go.

The train pulled into the Fourteenth Street station and the large woman backed out the door. You’re lucky I have to get off this train, honey, or I’d have you for breakfast.

Serena sneered after her, Yeah, fatso, you really need breakfast.

She moved as if to follow the woman but I blocked the door and kept her on the train till we reached Forty-second Street. The way she looked at me gave me a feeling of satisfaction and puzzlement. If I could win her over I’d have the class. They’d say, That’s Mr. McCourt, the teacher who stopped Serena from getting into a fight with a white woman on the train. He on our side. He OK.

Once they saw the pornography and sex shops along Forty-second Street it was impossible to keep them together. They hooted and giggled and postured like the half-naked figures in the shop windows.

Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt, can we go in?

No, no. Can’t you see the signs? You have to be twenty-one. Let’s go.

A policeman stood before me.

Yes. I’m their teacher.

So what are these kids doing on Forty-second Street in the middle of the day?

I blushed, embarrassed. Going to a movie.

Well, isn’t that something. Going to a movie. And that’s what we pay taxes for. OK, mister teacher, keep these girls moving.

All right, girls, I said. Let’s go. Straight ahead to Times Square.

Maria walked beside me. She said, You know, we never came to Times Square before.

I wanted to hug her for talking to me but all I could manage was, You should come here at night to see the lights.

At the theater they rushed to the ticket office, pushing one another aside. Five lingered near me, giving me sidelong looks. What’s the matter? Aren’t you getting tickets?

They shuffled and looked away and said they had no money. I thought of saying, Well, why the hell did you come here? but I didn’t want to spoil a budding relationship with them. Tomorrow they might let me be a teacher.

I bought the tickets, distributed them, hoped there might be a look or a thank you. Nothing. They took the tickets, ran into the lobby, straight to the concession stand, with money they’d told me they didn’t have, staggered upstairs with popcorn, candy, bottles of Coke.

I followed them to the balcony, where they pushed and fought for seats and disturbed the other customers. An usher complained to me, We can’t have this, and I told the girls, Please sit down and be quiet.

They ignored me. They were a tight pack of twenty-nine black girls at loose in the world, raucous, defiant, flinging bits of popcorn at one another, shouting up at the projection booth, Hey, when we gonna see the movie? We not gonna live forever.

The projectionist said, If they’re not quiet I might have to call management.

I said, Yes. I want to be here when management comes. I want to see management handle them.

But the lights dimmed and the movie came on and my twenty-nine girls grew silent. The opening shot showed a perfect small American town, sweet tree-lined avenues, blond white children scooting along on little bicycles, with cheerful background music to assure us that all was well in this American paradise, and from the front row of the balcony came an agonized cry from one of my twenty-nine girls, Hey, Mr. McCourt, how come you takin’ us to these honky movies?

They complained all through the movie.

The usher shone his flashlight on them and threatened them with management.

I pleaded with them. Girls. Please be quiet. Management is on its way.

They turned it into a chant:

They said management could kiss their ass and that upset the usher. He said, OK. That’s it. That’s i-t, it. You don’t behave yourselves and you’re out, o-u-t.

Oh, man. He know how to spell an’ everything. OK. We be quiet.

When the movie ended and the lights came on, no one moved.

All right, I said. Let’s go. It’s over.

We know it’s over. We not blind.

You have to go home now.

They said they were staying. They were gonna see this honky movie again.

I told them I was leaving.

OK, you leaving.

They turned away to wait for their second viewing of
Cold Turkey,
that boring honky movie.

The following week the twenty-nine girls said, Is that all we gonna do? No more trips? Just sit here every day talkin’ about nouns an’ you makin’ us write that stuff you put on the board? That all?

A note in my mailbox announced a trip for our students to a college production of
Hamlet
on Long Island. I threw the announcement into the wastepaper basket. Twenty-nine girls who could sit through two performances of
Cold Turkey
would never appreciate
Hamlet
.

Next day, more questions.

How come all these other classes goin’ on a big trip to see a play?

Well, it’s a play by Shakespeare.

Yeah? So?

How could I tell them the truth, that I had such low expectations of them I thought they’d never understand a word of Shakespeare? I said it was a hard play to understand and I didn’t think they’d like it.

Oh, yeah? So what’s it about, this play?

It’s called
Hamlet
. It’s about a prince who comes home and is shocked to discover his father is dead and his mother already married to his father’s brother.

I know what happened, said Serena.

The class called out, What happened? What happened?

Brother that married the mother tries to kill the prince, right?

Yes, but that comes later.

Serena gave me the look that said she was trying to be patient. ’Course it comes later. Everything comes later. If everything come at the beginning then there’s nothing to come later.

Donna said, Whachoo talkin’ about?

None your business. Talkin’ to the teacher about the prince.

A fight was brewing. I had to stop it. I said, Hamlet was angry about his mother marrying his uncle.

They said, Wow.

Hamlet thought his uncle killed his father.

Didn’t I say that already? said Serena. What’s the use me sayin’ something if you gonna say it, too? We still wanna know how come we not goin’ to see this play? White kids gonna see this play just because this prince be white.

All right. I’ll see if we can go with the other classes.

They lined up to board the bus. They told passing pedestrians and motorists they were going to Long Island to see this play about a woman who marries her dead husband’s brother. The Puerto Rican boys asked if they could sit near me. They didn’t want to sit with these girls who were crazy and talked nonstop about sex and everything.

As soon as the bus pulled into the street the girls were opening bags and sharing lunch. They whispered about the one who’d get a prize for hitting the bus driver with a piece of bread. They’d all contribute a dime and the winner would get two dollars and eighty cents. But he was watching in his rearview mirror and told them, Just try it. Go ahead, just try it, and your little black ass will be off this bus. The girls said, Oh, yeah, in that brave cheeky way. That’s all they could say because the driver was black and they knew with him they’d get away with nothing.