A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room (5 page)

“You don’t kid around, do you?” It was a barter—three
days with this deadly angel for his job, straight across. A few
days with a lovely stranger for what little was left of his life.
He wanted her to take the deal, wanted it more than he’d wanted
anything in a long time. Something told him she would.

He shook his head no. “You want my job, you can damn
well try to get it. I won’t resign. You heard the deal. I’m making
it easy enough.

I’m not going to hand it to you. Take it or leave
it.” He went out, the locker room door swinging shut behind
him.

• • •

She’d take it.

Her fingers moved quickly over the keys of her
laptop. Fourth period— self-defense. Two students sent to the
showers without office notification, a second violation of
assertive discipline guidelines.

She slipped it back into her bag. Dh, she was good.
She didn’t need his resignation. She’d just asked to see what he
would say. It was a trick she’d learned at the mercados in Sao
Paulo—ask for more than you need and you’ll get what you want.

Thursday night it would be over. Friday she’d be back
in her office, her wonderful office, smelling of new carpet and
freshly brewed chamomile tea. Her eye fell on the empty mat, moving
with grim slowness about the empty wrestling room, dead silent,
now.

Where did that leave Chelsea, Moses, Frank, and the
others? It left them with a rookie who didn’t know a thing about
teaching except the useless nonsense they taught in teacher
training, and it left the district with fifteen thousand saved on
his salary. Not a bad deal—for the district.

Could she do it? Could she fire a good teacher to
keep her job? She went to wait for him in the hall, letting the
door swing shut behind her.

She didn’t know the answer.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

She waited for O’Connel in the stale hall.

Through large windows she looked out over the front
lawn.

The rain had let up, but the sky hung heavy still.
Lightning skipped above bloated clouds, rattling the plate
glass.

The last time she’d seen her father had been a day
like this. He’d taken her up on the roof of their apartment, and
together they watched a storm blow in from the east, stinking of
the sea—of rotting kelp, crab shell, sewage.

On the roof with its forest of aerials and vent
pipes, her father sat under the tin overhang of a pigeon loft
holding her close in strong arms. Around them Sao Paulo stretched
an endless noisy jumble to the hazy horizon.

Sipping at a bottle of beer, eyes on clouds sweeping
above them, he spoke to her as he never had. Smelling of beer, of
sweat, of diesel, he pressed her to him, tired eyes full of love,
beard sandpaper against her face.

“Minha pequenina, what will you be, eh? A great
woman? A special woman?” Tongue-tied with emotion, she could say
nothing. Most nights, shuffling home coated with dust turned to
black mud in the sweaty creases of arms and neck, he found little
to say. The family table at dinner was a solemn and silent place,
the only sound of eating, of drinking. Now, under a bloated sky, so
many words at once. He had never said such things—not to her.

He took another sip of beer, sending droplets of
condensation running up the neck of the bottle. With a big
calloused hand, nails stained brown with hand-rolled cigarettes, he
stroked her hair. “My little one, who reads so much and says so
little.” He shook his head, smelling of the rich black earth of the
forest. Even in the cab it reached him, the fine dust, the flesh of
the earth the wind carried away from the raw-scoured wounds he left
behind.

“I’m a poor man, an ignorant man. I work, I sleep, I
eat. Such is my life.” He nodded, eyes on the horizon, perhaps
seeing out past the smog to the forest. The forest he loved. The
forest he leveled to buy their food and clothing, to buy her
books.

Bone weary, he sighed, eyes barely open. “I know
nothing but how to work—only to work. But you, Solange, will be
much more than I. This I know.” Suddenly came a flash of blue-white
and a rattling, rumbling, booming of such power that she hid
herself against him, secure in the smell of his sweat.

Against the swollen bruise of dark cloud wheeled
specks of dazzling white. Around and around they hurtled under the
heavy ceiling of cloud.

He raised a black arm. “There, see the gulls, they’re
not afraid.

You, Solange, are one of those.” So many words had
tired him. He said nothing more. Solange faced the cracking sky,
doing her best to be brave. She loved him that day so hard it
scalded her heart.

The next day he rose in the dark and caught the bus
to the forest.

He never came home.

A two hundred foot mahogany crushed the cab of his
Komatsu, its two steering levers impaling him through the chest. He
died quickly, they said.

After the funeral, a short service with a priest
reeking of wine in a mud-stained church on the edge of the forest,
Solange slipped off into the jungle, drawn to see the wrecked
machine. Alone, good white shoes ruined in the sucking mud, she
climbed into the mangled steel cage. There, as he lay dying, in the
thick layer of dust on the diamond plate floor, her father had
traced her name.

• • •

She looked up to find O’Connel beside her in the
quiet hall, long hair wet from the shower. “You don’t like
thunder?” She looked up, eyes narrowed, on her guard.

Just how much could he see? “I like it, why?”

“You looked a little sad for a second, that’s all.
Come on, it’s lunch time.” He led the way down the hall toward the
teacher’s lounge.

Dreading this, she hung back. “Oh, I didn’t know, I
should have looked at the schedule. I brought my lunch, I’ll eat in
my car.” He turned back, smile mocking her. “Afraid to mix with the
hoi polloi?”

“No,” she said, voice rising slightly in
exasperation. “I just don’t see any reason to subject them to it.”
Or herself.

“To what?” She sighed. Could he be that stupid? “To
having me there.”

“Why? You chew with your mouth open?”

“You know how they feel about me.” He shrugged. “You
don’t seem like the type to run and hide. Are you?” Their eyes
locked. He was first to look away. “I didn’t think so, come on, it
might be fun.” Fun for whom, she wondered, following reluctantly.
This, she was sure, was a very bad idea.

“Ms. Gonsalvas,” O’Connel said, “you remember Karl
Calandra, Sid Lott, Myrtle Sparrow, Aurora Helvey.”

“Solange,” she said awkwardly. “I’m still just
Solange.” Myrtle peered up through thick glasses and smiled,
drawing out an arm’s length of yarn from the bag at her feet.
“Well, well,” she bellowed, “what a nice surprise, we don’t see you
much any more. How’s life in the big city?” Solange sat, leaning
over to hug her. “Oh, Myrtle, I miss you.

You sure I can’t bribe you to come downtown?” Myrtle
hugged her back, then pushed her away playfully with a big flabby
arm. “Oh, stop it, now,” she said, blushing. “I wouldn’t last a
week around all those bigwigs. It wouldn’t be long and I’d be
telling one of them to put his head down on his desk and shut his
big fat mouth.” Solange cocked her head, smiling. “That might not
be so bad.” How she’d missed this lovely old woman.

“Hey, everybody,” Myrtle said, wrinkled hand pressed
over Solange’s, “I want you all to know this woman is the best
damned teacher I’ve ever worked for.” Encircling Solange with a
beefy arm, she pulled her close. “Honey, you get tired of being a
big shot downtown, you can come back here and go to work with me,
any time.” O’Connel nodded at five new teachers huddled together
further down the long table. “Those are our up-and-coming rookies,
true believers just passing through on their way to bigger and
better things. They keep themselves apart so the cynicism won’t rub
off” The big man seated with them spoke up with an apologetic
shrug, “There’s only one lounge.” A woman spoke up, “Well, Solange,
from what I hear, you’ve come to bring the renegade here, to heel,”
Solange opened her Tupperware of sliced carrots and celery, setting
it on the table in front of her. This was it—they were all
listening.

“I’m here to observe Mr. O’Connel’s classes if that’s
what you mean, yes.” The new teacher drew a finger across her
throat with appropriate sound effects, giving O’Connel a saccharine
smile.

“Now children,” O’Connel said, wagging a finger,
“don’t go moving your blocks into my toy box yet.”

“Good timing,” Sid said through a mouthful of apple,
running shoes propped up on the back of a chair. “You’re just in
time to get your two cents in, O’Connel.” He pointed to the
chalkboard on the wall. “We’re listing the fads we’ve seen go over
the dam in the last thirty years.” Aurora went to the board,
holding a floret of raw broccoli between her teeth as she wrote.
“Open Classroom.” Karl, blowing on a cup of steaming soup, thick
glasses fogged, waved his spoon in the air. “That had to be one of
the biggest jokes.

I taught in an open school in L.A. in the sixties.”
He shook his head, giggling. “It was a loony bin. Kids flying
everywhere, everybody talking at once. All that freedom was
supposed to really make them want to learn, right? Uh,
uh—monkey-wrencher’s paradise.” Aurora spoke up with a vehemence
that surprised Solange. “We’re still fighting it thirty years later
in classrooms divided with sliding curtains. The way sound carries
you might as well be in the same room. They wasted millions
building the stupid things.” Sid picked a piece of apple from his
jeans. “Let it all hang out.” Setting aside her broccoli, Aurora
tore open a pound bag of M

M’s. “How about New Math— Remember that?”

“I did that!” Solange said. “All it ever did was
confuse me.” Sid leaned over to examine Solange’s carrots and
celery. “Me, too, and I had to teach it.” He squinted up at
Aurora’s candy as he took another bite of apple. “I wonder, do you
think there’s any relationship between the food people eat, and the
way people look?” Aurora smiled, plump face reddening. “Okay, smart
ass.” She sent a floret of broccoli flying past his ear. “At least
I had good intentions.”

“Oh, I saw that. I saw that. You ate what? Maybe
three pieces of broccoli? That balances out a bag of M

M’s. I was just asking is all.”

“What about Whole Language?” Solange said.

“Good one,” Aurora said. “We threw out phonics in
favor of guessing at words. Now, ten years later, oops! A
generation of kids missed out on learning to decode. And we’re
still teaching it! Why?”

“Follow the money,” said Karl. “Textbook publishers.
Who needs a book to learn phonics? A two dollar chart on the wall,
and you’re done. No money in it, that’s why.”

“But wait a minute,” Solange said. “When I was here
we taught phonics. It was coming back. I thought all the primary
teachers in the district were still teaching it.”

“Wrong,” Aurora said. “I’m the only one I know of ,
and I can only get away with it because I’ve been here so long they
leave me alone. I’m not supposed to be.” Sid covered his eyes.
“What are you telling her for?” Aurora blew air through slack lips.
“I’m not going to teach kids to memorize words, to look at the
picture and guess. I’ve been teaching reading for thirty years. I
may not have the neatest room, or the quietest room— “ Karl and Sid
raised their eyes to the ceiling.

“Okay, okay! I don’t have the neatest or quietest
room!”

“Got any grades in your grade book yet, Helvey?” She
laughed, face coloring. “Not yet, it’s only November!” Karl moaned,
covering his eyes.

“I’ll get to it. But my second graders can read! They
can spell!’ She rummaged in a big purse. “Let them fire me! I got a
letter from PERS right here, says I can retire right now and draw
fifteen hundred a month.” Sid whistled. “Big money! Okay, grab some
chalk, Helvey.

Units— Remember when they were big? if you could
teach without a textbook, man, you were really teaching! “ Karl
peeled open a candy bar. “And portfolios, what about them? They’re
coming back around now. Just shows to go you, you wait long enough
and you’re on the cutting edge again.”

“I’ve got one,” Aurora said, “Twenty-first Century
Schools and Certificates of Initial Mastery.” Karl shook
make-believe dice. “Stand back, baby, this one’s the one! I feel
lucky this time!”

“Boy, speaking of luck,” Sid shook his gray head,
“Oakland and Yoncalla have sure got it made with their four day
week. What a gravy train. I’ve been suggesting we go to a four-day
week for years, and they just laughed at me. We had to watch our
minutes of instruction, and we didn’t even have enough to shorten
the day by twenty. How come minutes aren’t important now?”

“They got a waiver,” Solange said. “They spend
Fridays in meetings to get their portfolio programs and Certificate
of Initial Mastery program up and running. The teachers think it’s
great.” Aurora put back the chalk. “Oh, I know I would. What I
don’t get is why the parents go for it. They get their kids at home
one more day, and the teachers get a day with no kids. If I were a
parent, I’d be yelling my head off”

“Hey, I know!” Karl said. “We could have a one day
week! One, twenty-four hour day. What do you think, Solange? Will
it fly?” She smiled despite herself “I’ll bounce it off Hugh and
let you know.” He grabbed thinning hair with both hands. “Oh,
Christ, don’t tell him, he’ll write it down in that little book of
his.”

“What’s the matter?” Sid said. “don’t you want to be
in his memoirs?” Karl raised a hand. “I take the fifth.” For a
moment it was quiet, and Solange couldn’t stop herself “You know,
what it is, is that kids fail. Nobody wants that, so we’re
constantly trying to change the rules so all kids will succeed. The
problem is, nothing works. No matter how low we set the
requirements, kids keep failing.”