Teacher Man

by Frank McCourt

  On the third day of the crossing I slipped away for breakfast in the dining room, my first visit. The waiter said, Yes, sir? and I felt foolish telling him I didn't know where to sit.

  Sir, haven't you been here before?

  No.

  Because he was a waiter he did not ask the obvious question. Nor did the purser, who said I'd been declared officially not aboard. The ship assumed I'd gone ashore with my friends in a fit of enthusiasm. You could see he was waiting for an explanation, but I could never tell him of my first-class-cabin experiences with the private nurse. He said, yes, there was a seat for me, and welcome to breakfast.

  There were two bunks in that cabin below the waterline. My cabin mate was on his knees, praying. He looked shocked when he saw me. He was a Methodist from Idaho, sailing to Heidelberg to study theology, so I could not brag to him that I'd spent the last three nights in a first-class cabin with a private nurse from New York. I apologized for interrupting his prayer, but he said you could never interrupt his prayer as his whole life was a prayer. I thought that was a wonderful thing to say and wished my life could be a prayer. What he said gave me a pang of conscience and made me feel worthless and sinful. His name was Ted. He looked clean-cut and cheerful. He had fine-looking teeth and a Marine crew cut. His white shirt was crisp, starched, pressed. He was at ease with himself, at peace with the world. God was in his heaven, a Methodist heaven, and all was right. I felt intimidated. If his life was a prayer, what was mine? One long sin? If this ship hit an iceberg Ted would be out on the deck singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee," and I'd be searching the ship for a priest to hear my last confession.

  Ted asked if I was religious, if I attended church. He said I was welcome to join him in an hour at a Methodist service, but I mumbled, I go to Mass occasionally. He said he understood. How could he? What does a Methodist know about the sufferings of a Catholic, especially an Irish Catholic? (I didn't say that, of course. I didn't want to hurt his feelings. He was so sincere.) He asked if I'd like to pray with him and I mumbled again I didn't know any Protestant prayers and, besides, I had to take a shower and change my clothes. He gave me what writers call a penetrating look and I felt he knew everything. He was only twenty-four but, already, he had faith, vision, direction. He might have heard of sin but you could see he was free of it, clean in every way.

  I told Ted that after my shower I would find the Catholic chapel and attend Mass. He said, You don't need Mass. You don't need a priest. You have your faith, your Bible, two knees and a floor to pray on.

  That made me feel cranky. Why can't people leave people alone? Why do people feel they have to convert the likes of me?

  No, I did not want to drop to my knees and pray with the Methodist. Even worse, I didn't want to go to Mass or confession or anything else when I could go up there, walk the deck, sit in a chair and watch the horizon rise and fall.

  Oh, to hell with it, I said, and took my shower, thinking of horizons. I thought horizons were better than people. They didn't bother other horizons. When I came out Ted was gone, his belongings neatly laid out on his bunk.

  Up on deck the private nurse came sailing along on the arm of a short plump gray-haired man in a navy blue double-breasted blazer with a pink Ascot ballooning from his Adam's apple. She pretended she didn't see me but I stared so hard she had to give me a little nod. She passed on and I wondered if she waggled her arse deliberately to torment me.

  Waggle on. I don't care.

  But I cared. I felt destroyed, cast aside. After her three days with me how could that nurse go off with that old man who was at least sixty? What about the times sitting up in bed drinking bottles of white wine? What about the time I scrubbed her back in the tub? What was I to do with myself in the two days before the ship docked in Ireland? I'd have to lie on the top bunk with the Methodist praying and sighing below me. The nurse didn't care. She deliberately crossed my path on different decks to make me miserable, and when I thought about her and that old man it made me disgusted to think of his ancient wrinkled body next to hers.

  The next two days it was darkness on the high seas as I stood at the rail and thought of jumping into the Atlantic Ocean, down to the bottom with all the ships that were sunk during the war, battleships, submarines, destroyers, freighters, and I wondered if an aircraft carrier was ever sunk. That got me off my misery for a while, wondering about the aircraft carriers and bodies below floating and bumping against the bulkheads, but the misery came back. When you're wandering around a ship with nothing to do but run into a nurse you spent three days with and she with the old man with the double-breasted blazer you're inclined to think little or nothing of yourself. If I jumped into the Atlantic it might give her something to think about, but it wouldn't do me any good because I'd never know.

  I stood at that rail, with the ship whooshing along, thinking about my life and what a poltroon I was. (That was one of my favorite words at the time and it was apt.) Poltroon. All I did from the day I arrived in New York to this day on the Queen Elizabeth was meander from one thing to another: emigrate, work at dead-end jobs, drink in Germany and New York, chase women, sleep through four years at New York University, drift from one teaching job to another, marry and wish I was single, have another drink, hit a cul-de-sac in teaching, sail for Ireland with the hope that life would behave itself.

  I wished I could be part of those jolly traveling groups, on land or sea, who play Ping-Pong and shuffleboard and then go off for a drink and who knows what else, but I didn't have the talent. In my head I practiced and rehearsed. Oh, hi, I'd say. How's it going? and they'd say, Fine, and by the way, won't you join us for a drink? and I'd say, Why not? with an air of insouciance. (That was another of my favorite words at the time because it was what I was aiming at, and because I liked the sound of it.) If I had a few drinks the insouciance might come. In my charming Irish way I'd be the life of the party, but I didn't want to leave the rail and the comfort of ending it all.

  Thirty-eight was on my mind. Aging teacher sailing to Dublin, still a student. Is that any way for a man to live?

  I forced myself onto a deck chair for a mid-Atlantic crisis meeting with myself, closed my eyes to shut out the ocean and the sight of the nurse. I couldn't block out the click-clack of her high heels and the American guffaw of Mr. Ancient Ascot.

  If I had any kind of intelligence, beyond the mere sniffing survival skills, I would have attempted an agonizing reappraisal of my life. But I had no talent for introspection. After all those years of confession in Limerick I could examine my conscience with the best of them. This was different. Mother Church was no help here. On that deck chair I could barely venture beyond the catechism. I was beginning to understand that I did not understand, and digging into myself and my miseries made my head hurt. A thirty-eight-year-old in a mess and didn't know what to do about it. That's how ignorant I was. Now I know you're encouraged to blame everyone but yourself for everything: parents; the miserable childhood; the church; the English.

  People in New York, Alberta especially, told me, You need help. I knew they were saying, You're obviously disturbed. You should see a shrink.

  She insisted. She said I was impossible to live with and made an appointment for me with a psychoanalyst on East Ninety-sixth Street, shrink row. The man's name was Henry, and I got off on the wrong foot when I told him he looked like Jeeves. He said, Who's Jeeves? and he wasn't pleased when I told him about that P. G. Wodehouse character. He raised his eyebrows in a Jeevesian way and I felt like a fool. Besides, I did not know what this was all about, what I was doing in that office. I knew from psychology classes at NYU that the mind had various parts, the conscious, the unconscious, the subconscious, the ego, the id, the libido and maybe other little nooks and crannies where demons lurked. That was the extent of my knowledge, if it was knowledge at all. Then I wondered why I was paying money I could barely afford to sit opposite this man who scribbled in a notebook at chin level, stopping occasionally to stare at me as if I were a specimen.
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  He rarely spoke and I felt I had to fill in the silences or we'd just sit there gawking at each other. He never even said, And how do you feel about that? the way they do in the movies. When he closed his notebook I knew the session was over, and it was time for his fee. At the start he told me he would not charge me the full rate. I'd be getting the poor-teacher discount. I wanted to tell him I wasn't a charity case but I rarely said what was on my mind anyway.

  His routine made me feel uncomfortable. He would come into the waiting room and stand. That was my signal to get up and walk into the consultation room. He never offered to shake hands, never passed the time of day. I wondered if it was my job to say hello or stick out my own hand and if I did how he would judge it. Would he say I was doing it out of my massive sense of inferiority? I didn't want to give him the kind of ammunition where he could decide I was a lunatic like certain ancestors in my family. I wanted to impress him with my cool demeanor, my logic and, if possible, my wit.

  On the first visit he watched while I tried to decide what to do with myself. Would this be like confession? Examination of Conscience? Should I sit in that tall high chair or should I lie on the couch the way they do it in the movies? If I sat in the chair I'd have to face him for fifty minutes but if I stretched out on the couch I could look at the ceiling and avoid his eyes. I sat in the chair and he sat in his chair and I felt relieved there was no sign of disapproval on his face.

  After a few visits I wanted to quit, walk over to a Third Avenue bar for the serenity of an afternoon beer. I didn't have the courage or I wasn't angry enough, yet. Week after week I sat and babbled in my chair, sometimes twice a week because, he said, I needed more frequent attention. I wanted to ask him why, but I was beginning to understand that his method was to make me figure it out for myself. If that's the case, I asked myself, Why am I paying him? Why couldn't I sit in Central Park and look at trees and squirrels and let my troubles swim to the surface? Or why couldn't I sit in a pub, have a few beers, look inward, examine my conscience? That would save hundreds of dollars. I wanted to come right out with it and say, Doctor, what's wrong with me? Why am I here? I'd like a diagnosis for all the money I'm paying you even if you're giving me the poor-teacher discount. If you put a name on my ailment I might be able to look it up and figure out a cure. I can't be coming in here week after week blathering about my life and not knowing whether I'm at the beginning or the middle or the end.

  I could never talk to the man like that. I wasn't brought up like that. It wouldn't be polite and he might be offended. I wanted to look good, didn't want him to feel sorry for me. Surely he could see how reasonable and balanced I was, despite my struggle with a troubled marriage and my aimlessness in the world.

  He scribbled away in his notebook and, even though he never showed it, I think he had a good time with me. I told him about my life in Ireland and in the classroom. I did my best to be lively and entertaining, to assure him all was well. I didn't want to upset him in any way. But if all was well, what was I doing there in the first place? I wanted to make him respond, one little smile, one little word to show his appreciation for my efforts. Nothing. He won. He carried the day.

  Then he startled me. He said, Aha, dropped his notebook to his lap and stared at me. I was afraid to speak. What had I said to trigger this Aha?

  I think you've hit paydirt, he said.

  Oh, another paydirt moment. The chairman at Fashion Industries High School had complimented me on hitting paydirt with my lesson on the parts of the sentence.

  All I had said before the Aha was that, outside of my high school classes, I felt shy with people. In groups I could hardly talk unless I'd had a few drinks, unlike my wife or my brother, who could march up to people and get into lively conversations. That was the paydirt.

  After the Aha he said, Hmm. You might benefit from participation in a group. It might be a step forward if you interacted with other people. We have a small group here. You'd be number six.

  I didn't want to be number six. I didn't know what interacting meant. Whatever it was I didn't want to do it. How could I tell him the way I felt, that this was all a waste of time and money? I had to be polite no matter what. Six weeks blathering in this chair and I felt worse than ever. When would I be able to walk up to people and chat in that easy Alberta, Malachy way?

  My wife said it was a good idea even if it cost more money every week. She said I lacked certain social skills, that I was a little rough around the edges, that group work might lead to a big breakthrough.

  That led to a quarrel that lasted for hours. Who was she to tell me I was rough around the edges like some mick fresh off the boat with bog mud on his brogues? I told her I was not going to spend hours with a bunch of New York loonies whining about their lives and trotting out intimate secrets. Bad enough I spent my youth whispering my sins to priests who yawned and made me promise never to sin again for fear of offending poor Jesus suffering up there on the cross for my sins. Now she and the shrink wanted me to blab again. No.

  She said she was sick of hearing about my miserable little Catholic childhood. I didn't blame her. I was sick of my miserable childhood, too, the way it followed me across the Atlantic and kept nagging at me to be made public. Alberta said if I didn't continue my therapy I was in deep trouble.

  Therapy? What do you mean?

  That's what you're getting, and if you don't stick with it this marriage is over.

  That was tempting. If I were single again I'd be free to wander Manhattan. I could have said, All right. The marriage is over, but I let it go. Even if I were free what woman in her right mind would have me anyway, a meandering rough-around-the-edges pedagogue blabbing his life away to a Jeeves on East Ninety-sixth Street? I thought of an Irish saying, "Contention is better than loneliness," and stayed where I was.

  They said shocking things in that group. There was talk of sex with fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, visiting uncles, a rabbi's wife, an Irish setter, sex with a jar of chicken livers, sex with a man who came to fix a refrigerator and stayed for days with his clothes dropped on the kitchen floor. These were things you'd reveal only to a priest, but these group people didn't mind telling their secrets to the world. I knew a bit about sex. I had read the Kama Sutra, Lady Chatterly's Lover, and the One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom of the Marquis de Sade, but they were only books and all in the imagination of the authors, I thought. D. H. Lawrence and the Marquis himself would have been shocked if they'd sat in this group.

  We sat in a semicircle with Henry facing us, scribbling away in his notebook, occasionally nodding. Then one day there was a silence after one man talked about going to Mass and taking the communion wafer home to masturbate on it. He said that was his way of severing all connection with the Roman Catholic Church and what he did was so thrilling he often repeated that little act just for the fun. He knew there wasn't a priest in the world who would give him absolution for such an abomination.

  This was my fourth session with this group and I hadn't said a word. At that moment I wanted to get up and walk out. I wasn't much of a Catholic anymore, but I would never think of using a communion wafer for my sexual enjoyment. Why didn't that man simply quit the church and go about his business?

  Henry knew what I was thinking. He stopped scribbling and asked me if there was anything I wanted to say to that man and I felt my face burning. I shook my head. A red-haired woman said, Oh, come on. You've been here four times. You haven't said a word. Why should we expose ourselves so you can leave here every day all smug and silent and tell our secrets to your friends in bars?

  The man with the communion story said, Yeah, I put myself on the line here, buddy, and we'd like to hear from you. What's your plan? You gonna sit on your ass and let us do the work?

  Henry asked Irma, young woman to my left, what she thought of me, and I was surprised when she massaged my shoulder and said she felt power. She said she'd like to be a student in my class, that I must be a good teacher.

  Did you
hear that, Frank? said Henry. Power.

  I knew they were waiting for me to say something. I felt I should make a contribution. I once slept with a prostitute in Germany, I said.

  Oh, well, said the red-haired woman. Give him credit. He tried.

  Big deal, said the communion man.

  Tell us about it, said Irma.

  I went to bed with her.

  So? said the red-haired woman.

  That's all. I went to bed with her. I paid her four marks.

  Henry saved me. Time is up. See you next week.

  I never went back. I thought he might telephone to see why I had dropped out, but Alberta said they were not supposed to do that. You had to make up your own mind, and if you didn't return, it meant you were sicker than ever. She said a therapist could do only so much, and if I wanted to take chances with my mental health, Your blood be upon your head.

  What?

  It's from the Bible.

  I am leaving the office of Professor Walton, head of the English Department at Trinity College. He said, Yes, quite, to my application for admission to the doctoral program and, Yes, quite, to my dissertation topic, "Irish-American Literary Relations, 1889-1911." Why these terminal dates? In 1889 William Butler Yeats published his first book of poetry and in 1911, in Philadelphia, Abbey Theater actors were pelted with various objects after a performance of The Playboy of the Western World. Professor Walton said, Interesting. My dissertation mentor would be Professor Brendan Kenneally, he said, A fine young poet and scholar from County Kerry. I was now, officially, a Trinity man, exalted, dwelling in marble halls. I tried to walk out the front gate like a man accustomed to walking out that front gate. I walked very slowly so that the American tourists would notice me. Back in Minneapolis they'd tell the folks how they spotted an authentic debonair Trinity man.

  When you're admitted to the doctoral program at Trinity you might as well celebrate by walking up Grafton Street to McDaid's pub where you sat long ago with Mary from Bewley's. A man at the bar said, Over from America, I suppose? How did he know? It's the clothes. You can always tell a Yank by the clothes, he said. I felt friendly, told him about Trinity, the dream come true. He turned hostile. Jaysus, it's a sad fookin' day when you have to come to Dublin for a fookin' university. Don't they have tons of 'em in America, or is it the way they didn't want you and are you a Protestant or what?