Teacher Man: A Memoir (25 page)

What happens when the poem finishes? David?

The dad waltzes him off to bed. The mom puts the pans back on the kitchen shelf. Next day is Sunday and the dad gets up feeling lousy. The mom makes breakfast but won’t talk to anyone and the kid is caught between. He’s only about nine because he’s only tall enough to scrape his ear on the buckle. The mother would like to walk out and get a divorce because she’s sick of the drinking and the lousy life but she can’t because she’s stuck in the middle of West Virginia and there’s no escape when you don’t have money.

Jonathan?

What I like about this poem is, there it is, a simple story. Or, no. Wait a minute. It isn’t that simple. There’s a lot going on, and there’s a before and after. If you were to make a movie of this poem you’d have a hard job directing it. Would you have the kid in the opening scene where the mother and the kid are waiting for the father? Or would you just show the opening lines where the kid is wincing over the whiskey? How would you tell the kid to hang on? Reaching up to hang on the shirt? How would you get the mother’s countenance without making her look mean? You’d have to decide what kind of guy this dad is when he’s sober because if he’s like this all the time you wouldn’t even want to make a movie about him. What I don’t like is how he beats time on the kid’s head with a dirty hand, which, of course, is proof he works hard.

Ann?

I dunno. There’s a lot in here after you talk about it. Why can’t we just leave it alone? Just take the story and feel sorry for the kid and the mother with her countenance and, maybe, the dad, and not analyze it to death.

David?

We’re not analyzing. We’re just responding. If you go to a movie you come out talking about it, don’t you?

Sometimes, but this is a poem and you know what English teachers do to poems. Analyze, analyze, analyze. Dig for the deeper meaning. That’s what turned me against poetry. Someone should dig a grave and bury the deeper meaning.

I asked you only what happened when you read the poem. If nothing happened it’s not a crime. When I hear heavy metal, the eyes glaze. Some of you could probably explain it to me and I’d try to listen to that music with some understanding, but I just don’t care. You don’t have to respond to every stimulus. If “My Papa’s Waltz” leaves you cold, then it leaves you cold.

That’s one thing, Mr. McCourt, but we have to be careful. If you say something negative about anything, English teachers take it personally and get mad. My sister got in trouble with an English professor at Cornell over the way she interpreted one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He said she was off the mark entirely, and she said a sonnet can be read a hundred different ways, otherwise why would you see a thousand Shakespeare criticism books on the library shelves, and he got pissed off and told her to see him in his office. This time he was nice to her and she backed off and said maybe he was right and went out to dinner with him in Ithaca and I got pissed off at her for giving in like that. Now we only say hello to each other.

Why don’t you write about that, Ann? It’s an unusual story, you and your sister not talking because of a Shakespeare sonnet.

I could, but I’d have to get into the whole sonnet thing, what he said, what she said, and, since I hate getting into deeper meanings, and she’s not talking to me anyway, I don’t have the entire story.

David?

Make it up. There are three characters here, Ann and her sister and the professor, and there’s the sonnet that’s causing all the trouble. You could have a hell of a time with that sonnet. You could change the names, get away from the sonnet, say it’s a big fight about “My Papa’s Waltz,” and next thing is you have a story they want to turn into a movie.

Jonathan?

No offense to Ann but I can’t think of anything more boring than a story about a college student arguing with a professor over a sonnet. I mean, Jesus, excuse the language, this world is falling to pieces, people starving, et cetera, and these people have nothing else to do but argue over a poem. I’d never buy that story and I wouldn’t go to the movie if they let me take my whole family for free.

Mr. McCourt.

Yes, Ann?

Tell Jonathan he can kiss my ass.

Sorry, Ann. That’s a message you’ll have to deliver yourself. There’s the bell but, remember, you don’t have to respond to every stimulus.

Whenever a lesson sagged, whenever their minds wandered, when too many asked for the pass, I fell back on the “dinner interrogation.” Government officials or concerned superiors might have asked, Is this a valid educational activity?

Yes, it is, ladies and gentlemen, because this is a writing class and everything is grist to our mill.

Also, the interrogation made me feel like a prosecutor playing with a witness. If the class was amused I took credit. I was at center stage: Master Teacher, Interrogator, Puppeteer, Conductor.

James, what did you have for dinner last night?

He looks surprised. What?

Dinner, James. What did you have for dinner last night?

He seems to be searching his memory.

James, it’s less than twenty-four hours ago.

Oh, yeah. Chicken.

Where did it come from?

What do you mean?

Did someone buy it, James, or did it fly in the window?

My mother.

So your mother does the shopping?

Well, yeah, except like sometimes we run out of milk or something and she sends my sister to the store. My sister always complains.

Does your mother work?

Yeah, she’s a legal secretary.

How old is your sister?

Fourteen.

And you?

Sixteen.

So your mother works and does the shopping and your sister is two years younger than you and has to run to the store. You are never sent to the store?

No.

So who cooks the chicken?

My mother.

And what are you doing while your sister runs to the store and your mother is knocking herself out in the kitchen?

I’m like in my room.

Doing what?

Catching up with my homework or, you know, listening to music.

And what is your father doing while your mother cooks the chicken?

He’s like in the living room watching the news on TV. He has to keep up with things because he’s a broker.

Who helps your mother in the kitchen?

Sometimes my sister helps.

Not you, not your father?

We don’t know how to cook.

But someone has to set the table.

My sister.

Haven’t you ever set the table?

Yeah, once when my sister went to the hospital with her appendix but it was no good because I didn’t know where to put things and my mom got mad and told me get out of the kitchen.

All right. Who puts the food on the table?

Mr. McCourt, I dunno why you keep asking me these questions when you know what I’m gonna say. My mom puts the food on the table.

What did you have with the chicken last night?

We had, like, you know, salad.

What else?

We had baked potatoes, me and my dad. My mom and sister won’t eat them because they’re on a diet and the potato is a killer.

And what about the table setting? Did you have a tablecloth?

Are you kidding? We had straw place mats.

What happened during the dinner?

What do you mean?

Did you talk? Was there fine music to dine by?

My dad kept listening to the TV and my mom got mad at him for not paying attention to his dinner after all the trouble she went to.

Oh, conflict at the dinner table. Didn’t you all discuss the events of the day? Didn’t you talk about school?

Naw. Then Mom started clearing the table because my dad went back to watch the TV. My mom got mad again because my sister said she didn’t want her chicken. She said it was making her fat, the chicken. Mr. McCourt, why are we doing this? Why you asking all these questions? It’s so boring.

Turn it back to the class. What do you think? This is a writing class. Did you learn anything about James and his family? Is there a story there? Jessica?

My mom would never put up with that crap. James and his dad get treated like kings. The mom and the sister do everything and they just hang out and get their dinner served up to them. I’d like to know who cleans up and washes the dishes. No, I don’t have to ask: the mom, the sister.

Hands are waving, all girls. I can see they want to attack James. Wait, wait, ladies. Before you zero in on James, I’d like to know if each of you is a paragon of virtue around the house, always helpful, always thoughtful. Before we go on tell me this: how many of you, after eating last night, thanked your mother, kissed her, and complimented her on the dinner. Sheila?

That’d be phoney. The mothers know we appreciate what they do.

A dissenting voice. No, they don’t. If James thanked his mother she’d faint.

I played to the crowd till Daniel took the wind out of my sails.

Daniel, what did you have for dinner last night?

Veal medallions in a kind of white-wine sauce.

What did you have with the veal medallions in white wine?

Asparagus and a small tossed salad with vinaigrette.

Any appetizer?

No. Just the dinner. My mother thinks they ruin the appetite.

So, your mother cooked the veal medallions?

No, the maid.

Oh, the maid. And what was your mother doing?

She was with my father.

So the maid cooked the dinner and, I suppose, served it?

That’s right.

And you dined alone?

Yes.

At a vast highly polished mahogany table, I suppose?

That’s right.

With a crystal chandelier?

Yes.

Really?

Yes.

Did you have music in the background?

Yes.

Mozart, I suppose? To go with the table and the chandelier.

No. Telemann.

And then?

I listened to Telemann for twenty minutes. He’s one of my father’s favorites. When the piece ended I called my father.

And where was he, if you don’t mind my asking?

He’s in Sloan-Kettering Hospital with lung cancer and my mother is with him all the time because he’s expected to die.

Oh, Daniel, I’m sorry. You should have told me instead of letting me put you through the dinner interrogation.

It doesn’t matter. He’s going to die anyway.

It was quiet in the classroom. What could I say now to Daniel? I had played my little game: clever and amusing teacher-interrogator, and Daniel had been patient. Details of his elegant solitary dinner filled the classroom. His father was here. We waited by a bed with Daniel’s mother. We’d remember forever the veal medallions, the maid, the chandelier, and Daniel alone at the polished mahogany table while his father died.

I tell my classes that on Mondays they should bring in
The New York Times
so we can read Mimi Sheraton’s restaurant reviews.

They look at one another and shrug in the New York way. Raise your eyebrows. Lift your hands, palms out, elbows against your ribs. This shows patience, resignation, wonder.

Why are you asking us to read restaurant reviews?

You might enjoy them and, of course, broaden and deepen your vocabulary. That’s what you are to tell important visitors from Japan and other places.

Man, oh, man, next you’ll be asking us to bring in obituaries.

That’s a good idea, Myron. You could learn a lot from reading obituaries. Would you prefer that to Mimi Sheraton? You could bring in some juicy obituaries.

Mr. McCourt, let’s stick to recipes and restaurant reviews.

OK, Myron.

We look into the structure of a Mimi Sheraton review. She gives us the ambience of the restaurant and the quality of service, or lack of it. She reports on each stage of a meal: appetizers, entrees, desserts, coffee, wine. She writes a summarizing final paragraph in which she justifies the stars she is awarding or not awarding. That is the structure. Yes, Barbara?

I think this review is one of the meanest things I’ve ever read. I had this image of blood dripping from the paper in her typewriter or whatever she writes on.

If you paid high prices in a restaurant like this, Barbara, wouldn’t you like to be warned by someone like Mimi Sheraton?

I try to focus on the review, use of language, details, but they want to know if she eats out every night of her life and how does she do it?

They said you’d have to feel sorry for someone with a job like that where you can’t just stay at home and have a hamburger or a bowl of cereal with a banana in it. She probably goes home nights and tells her husband she never wants to look at chicken or pork chops again in her life. The husband himself never has the pleasure of preparing a little collation to perk her up after a long day as she’s probably had enough food already to keep her going for a week. Imagine the dilemma of the husbands and wives of all these food critics. Husband can never invite wife out to dinner just for the sake of going out to dinner where you don’t have to glide things over your palate to figure out what spices were used or what was in that sauce. Who would want to eat with a woman who knows everything about food and wine? You’d be watching to see what kind of face she made at the first mouthful. No, she might have this glamorous job that pays loads of money but you’d get tired of the same old routine of having to eat the best of everything and can you imagine what it does to your insides anyway.

Then, for the first time in my life, I used a word I’d never used before. I said, Nevertheless, and repeated it. Nevertheless, I’m going to make Mimi Sheratons out of all of you.

I asked them to write about the school cafeteria or neighborhood restaurants. No one wrote positive reviews of the school cafeteria. Three ended their essays with the same sentence, It sucks. There were rave reviews of local pizzerias and the vendor who sold hot dogs and pretzels on First Avenue. One pizzeria proprietor told students he’d like to meet me and thank me for calling attention to his business and bringing honor to his profession. It was a hell of a thing to think of this teacher with an Irish name encouraging his students to appreciate the finer things in life. Anytime I wanted a pizza, not just a slice but a whole one, the door was wide open and I could have on that pizza anything I wanted, even if he had to send out to a delicatessen for extra toppings he might not have.