Teacher Man: A Memoir (14 page)

A
lberta said they were looking for a teacher at her high school, Seward Park on the Lower East Side. The main building was overcrowded and I was assigned to an annex, an abandoned elementary school by the East River. My teenagers complained about the discomfort and indignity of squeezing their growing bodies into baby furniture.

This was a melting-pot school: Jewish, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Greek, Dominican, Russian, Italian, and I had no preparation or training for teaching English as a Second Language.

Kids want to be cool. Never mind what parents say, or adults in general. Kids want to hang out and talk street language. They want to swear eloquently. You can curse and swear and you are a man, man.

And if you’re hanging out and this foxy white chick comes along the sidewalk you can look cool as shit, man, but if you don’t got the words or you got some kinda crazy foreign accent she ain’t gonna give you even a look and you are home, man, playing with yourself and pissed off because English is a bitch of a language that makes no sense and you’ll never learn it. You’re in America and you gotta get with it, man.

So, teacher man, forget your highfalutin’ English literature and get down here to brass tacks. Back to c-a-t cat, man. Speak the speech and speak it slowly, slowly.

The bell rings and I’m hearing the Tower of Babel.

Excuse me.

They ignore me or they don’t understand my mild request.

Again. Excuse me.

A big red-haired Dominican boy catches my eye. Teacher, you wan’ I should help?

He climbs up on his desk and everyone cheers because climbing on desks is strictly forbidden by the authorities and here is Red Oscar defying the authorities right there in the presence of a teacher.

Yo, says Oscar.
Mira
.

There is a chorus of
mira
s,
Mira, mira, mira, mira, mira,
till Oscar raises his hand and yells, Yo. Shaddup. Lissena teacher.

Thanks, Oscar, but would you please climb down?

A hand. So, mister. Wass you name?

I write on the board, MR. McCOURT, and pronounce it.

Hey, mister, you Jewish?

No.

Alla teachers in this school Jewish. How come you not Jewish?

I don’t know.

They look surprised, even astonished, and the look travels the room. The look says, You hear that, Miguel? Teacher up there, he don’t know.

It’s a hot moment. Teacher confesses ignorance and the class is shocked into silence. Off with the mask, teacher man, and what a relief. No more Mister Know-It-All.

A few years earlier I could have been one of them, part of the huddled masses. This is my immigrant comfort level. I know English, but I’m not so far removed from their confusions. Rock bottom in the social hierarchy. I could drop the teacher mask, walk down the aisle, sit with them and ask them about their families, what it was like in the old country, tell them about myself, my meandering days, how I hid for years behind the mask, still hiding as a matter of fact, how I wish we could lock that door and shut out the world till they spoke enough English to make them feel so cool they can tell that foxy white chick they’re ready for a little action.

Wouldn’t that be pretty?

I look at this collection of kids from all continents, faces of all colors and shapes, God’s plenty, this garden: Asians with hair blacker and shinier than anything ever seen in Europe; the great brown eyes of Hispanic boys and girls; shyness of some, rowdiness of others, posturing of boys, coyness of girls.

Nancy Chu asks if she can talk to me after the last class of the day. She sits at her desk and waits for the room to empty. She reminds me she’s in my second-period sophomore class.

I’m here three years from China.

Your English is very good, Nancy.

Thank you. I learned English from Fred Astaire.

Fred Astaire?

I know all the songs from all his movies. My favorite is
Top Hat
. I sing his songs all the time. My parents think I’m crazy. My friends, too. All they know is rock and you can’t learn English from rock. I have trouble with my parents all the time over Fred Astaire.

Well, it’s unusual, Nancy.

Also, I watch you teach.

Oh.

And I wonder why you’re so uptight. You know English, so you should be cool. Kids all say if they knew English they’d be so cool. Sometimes you’re not uptight and the kids like that. They like it when you tell stories and sing. When I’m uptight I sing “Dancing in the Dark.” You should learn that, Mr. McCourt, and sing it to the class. You don’t have such a bad voice.

Nancy, I’m here to teach English. I’m not a song-and-dance man.

Could you tell me how to be an English teacher who won’t be uptight?

But what will your parents say?

They think I’m crazy already and they say they’re sorry they ever brought me from China, where there’s no Fred Astaire. They say I’m not even Chinese anymore. They say what’s the use of coming all the way from China just to be a teacher and listen to Fred Astaire. Coulda been a teacher over there. You come here to make money, my parents say. Mr. McCourt, will you tell me how to be an English teacher?

I will, Nancy.

Thanks, Mr. McCourt. Do you mind if I ask questions in class?

In class she says, You were lucky you knew English when you came to America. How did you feel when you came to America?

Confused. Do you know what confused means?

The word goes around the room. They explain it to one another in their own languages and heads nod, yeah, yeah. They’re surprised the man up there, the teacher, was once confused like them and he knew English and everything. So, we have something in common: confusion.

I tell them that when I came to New York I had trouble with language and the names of things. I had to learn food words: sauerkraut, cole slaw, hot dog, bagel mit a schmeer.

Then I tell them about my very first teaching experience, which had nothing to do with schools. Years before I became a teacher I worked in a hotel. Big George, a Puerto Rican cook, said five kitchen workers were trying to learn English and would pay fifty cents each if I’d teach them words, once a week, during lunch hour. Two dollars and fifty cents for an hour. At the end of the month I’d have twelve dollars and fifty cents, the most money I ever made at one time in my life. They wanted to know the names of things in the kitchen because if you don’t know the names of things in English how can you move up in the world? They would hold up items and I’d name them and spell them out on sheets of paper. They laughed and shook their heads when I couldn’t name that flat thing with a handle, a spatula, the first one in my life. Big George laughed with his great belly quivering and told the kitchen workers that was a spachoola.

They wanted to know how come I spoke English if I came from a foreign country that wasn’t England and I had to explain how Ireland was conquered, how the English bullied us and tormented us until we spoke their language. When I talked about Ireland there were words they didn’t understand and I wondered if there should be an extra charge for explaining them or could I charge only for words connected with the kitchen? No, I couldn’t charge them after the way they looked sad when I talked about Ireland and the way they said,
Si, si, si,
patted my shoulder and offered me bites of their sandwiches. They understood because they were conquered, too, first by the Spaniards, then the Americans, conquered so much they didn’t know who they were, didn’t know if they were black or white or Indian or all three rolled into one and that’s hard to explain to your kids because they want to be one thing, one thing, not three things, and that’s why they were here mopping up and washing pots and pans in this greasy kitchen. Big George said, This ain’t no greasy kitchen so watch yo’ mouf. They said, Hell with you, and everyone laughed, even Big George, because the idea of talking like that to the biggest Puerto Rican in New York was so crazy. He laughed himself and gave everyone huge slices from a cake left over from the big lunch upstairs of the Daughters of the British Empire.

After four lessons and ten dollars there was nothing left in the kitchen for me to name till Eduardo, who planned to climb in the world, began to ask questions about food and cooking in general. How about braise? he said. How about sauté? Yeah, and marinate. I’d never heard of these words and I looked at Big George to see if he’d help but he said he wasn’t telling nobody nothing long as I was hauling in the big money for being the big-ass word expert. He knew I was in over my head with these new words especially when they asked me the difference between pasta and risotto. I offered to go to the library and look them up, but they said they could do that themselves and what were they paying me for. I could have told them you can’t look up something in the library if you can’t read English in the first place but that didn’t occur to me. I was nervous I might lose my new income, two dollars and fifty cents a week. They said they didn’t mind if I slipped up that time over the spatula, they gave me the money anyway, but they weren’t gonna hand over big bucks to a guy from a foreign country didn’t know pasta from risotto. Two said they were sorry, they were dropping out, and three said they’d hang on, hoping I’d help with words like braise and sauté. I tried to excuse myself by claiming these were French words and surely they wouldn’t expect me to know anything but English. One of the three patted my shoulder and hoped I wouldn’t let them down as they wanted to rise in the world of the kitchen. They had wives and children and girlfriends all waiting for them to rise and bring home more money so I could see how much depended on me and my knowledge of words.

Big George talked in a rough way to hide how soft he was. When the five Puerto Ricans were not in the kitchen he taught me names of vegetables and fruits I’d never heard of: artichoke, asparagus, tangerine, persimmon, rutabaga. He barked the names at me and made me nervous, but I knew he wanted me to know. That’s how I felt about the Puerto Ricans. I wanted them to know words and I almost forgot about the money when they were able to recite what I taught them. It made me feel superior and I thought this must be the way a teacher feels.

Then the two dropouts caused problems in the locker room where we changed and washed up. They knew the word for locker but now they wanted to know what was that thing we sat on — the bench — and what was that flat thing in the locker where you placed small items — the shelf? That was clever the way they got those words out of me free of charge. They’d point to the string in a shoe and I’d tell them it was a lace and they’d smile and say,
Gracias, gracias
. They were getting something for nothing and I didn’t mind till one of the three paying Puerto Ricans said, Wha’ for you tell these words for nottin’ an’ we pay, eh? Wha’ for?

I told them these locker-room words had nothing to do with kitchens and rising in the world but they said they didn’t give a shit. They were paying me and didn’t see why the dropouts should get the free words. These were the last words in English they spoke in the locker room that day. The three screamed at the two in Spanish and the two screamed back at the three and there was a banging of locker doors and five middle fingers stabbing the air till Big George roared in and yelled at them in Spanish and they cut it out. I was sorry over that big row in the locker room and wanted to make up to the three paying ones. I tried to slip them free words like carpet, bulb, dustpan, broom, but they said they didn’t care anymore, that I should take my dustpan and shove it up my ass and where did I say I was from?

Ireland.

Yeah,
si
. Well, I’m going back to PR. Don’t like English no more. Too hard. Hurts my throat.

Big George said, Hey, Irishman. Not your fault. You hell of a good teacher. All you guys come to the kitchen for a piece of peach pie.

But we never had the pie because Big George had a heart attack and collapsed on an open flame on the stove and they said you could smell his flesh burning.

Nancy has this dream of taking her mother to a Fred Astaire movie because her mother never goes out and she’s a very intelligent woman. Her mother can quote Chinese poetry, especially Li Po. You ever heard of Li Po, Mr. McCourt?

No.

She tells the class the reason her mother loves Li Po is that he died in a most beautiful way. One bright moonlit night he drank rice wine and took his boat out on a lake and he was so moved by the beauty of the moon reflected in the lake he leaned over the side to embrace it and fell into the lake and drowned.

Nancy’s mother would have tears on her cheeks when she talked about this and it was her dream, if ever things got better in China, to return and take a boat out on that lake. Nancy herself had tears when she talked about how her mother said if she got very old or had a very serious illness she’d lean over the side and embrace the moon like her beloved Li Po.

When the bell rings they don’t jump from their seats. They don’t rush and scramble. They take their things and file out quietly and I’m sure they have moon and lake images in their heads.