“What’s funny?” he said.
“You and me. Us. Remember those batting practice sessions? You were pretty tough on me.”
“I was tough on all my players.”
“You were tougher on me. One evening you were out there with a bucket of balls—I can see us right now—and you told me if I didn’t learn to wait on your curve and go with it, I’d never amount to anything.”
Father George grinned. Though he’d lost weight recently, his voice was still strong, and as wryly humorous as ever. “Did I say that?”
“You did. It was almost too dark to see the ball, at least until it was right on me. We’d probably been here an hour already, and I was frustrated and mad besides. When you told me that, about not amounting to anything, I’d had it. I shouted out to you that baseball was just a game. You remember what you said?”
Father George shook his head.
“You stared in at me and you said, and I’m quoting you exactly, ‘I’m not talking baseball, son. I’m talking life. You don’t learn how to hit that dinky little bender of mine, you aren’t ever going to amount to anything in life.’”
Father George nodded. “I was tough on you. And before you got to high school you learned how to hit a curve ball.”
“And amounted to something?”
If he heard, Father George didn’t answer. He was looking out over the diamond, his blue eyes focused somewhere beyond deepest center field. Then he turned to me and said, “Your first class meets tonight, Frank. At the courthouse.”
“My first what?”
“Your first citizenship class—for immigrants who want to become Americans. I used to call it night school. Right up until this morning I thought I could still teach it. But I can’t. I don’t have the strength. You’ll have to teach it for me.”
Something akin to panic came over me. “I never taught a class in my life, Father George. I’m not a teacher. I wouldn’t have any idea what to teach. Or how to teach it.”
“You’re a natural, son,” Father George said, gesturing out toward home plate. “You’ll do just fine.”
The front doors of the courthouse weren’t locked when I arrived. Walking in quickly, so as not to lose courage, I went up the flight of stairs to the courtroom. It was a long room with a very high stamped-tin ceiling and propeller-blade fans hanging down, and it occupied most of the second story. Two rows of tall windows faced each other on the west and east. On the wall behind the judge’s bench was a mural, painted decades ago, of Lake Memphremagog and the Canadian mountains to the north. Just to the right of the mural was a plaque inscribed with the one-sentence constitution of the Kingdom Republic, which had declared its independence from both the United States and Vermont in 1810. The room smelled like old legal tomes and oiled wooden floors, like furniture polish and officialdom.
I sat down in the front row of benches. In the dwindling evening light, the empty courtroom with its plain wooden seats and old-fashioned ceiling and wooden paneling looked as disused as the roped-off balcony, recently judged to be unsafe. Someone had wheeled a portable blackboard out in front of the defense attorney’s table. This was the only indication that a class would be taught here tonight. Something about the arrangement of the blackboard, attorneys’ tables, and empty jury chairs made me think of a stage set, with me as the principal player. A player who had forgotten all his lines, if he’d ever learned them.
“What in blazes are you doing here?”
I whirled around. The man had come in so quietly, and I had been so absorbed in my apprehension of the class to come, that I hadn’t heard him. He was standing in the center aisle, just a few feet away, a big man of about forty-five, wearing a blue uniform. He had a gray crew cut and a bullet-shaped head. On the lapel of his uniform jacket was a metal name tag: Inspector P. W. Bull, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
“I asked what you’re doing here,” Inspector Bull said. “How did you get in?”
“The same way you did. The doors were unlocked.”
“Do you always walk through unlocked doors?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud.
P. W. Bull, in the meantime, jutted his truculent chin even farther forward. I actually thought he might lose his balance and topple over onto his face. “I said, do you always walk through unlocked doors?”
“Always,” I said, smiling.
“Then you can walk right back out again. You want to be an American? You’d better learn how to tell American time. Now go on back outside until I officially open the door. I could have you arrested for trespassing.”
Suddenly I was sick of Inspector P. W. Bull. I stood up, with the folder Father George had given me in my hands.
Inspector Bull was three or four inches taller than I was and seventy or eighty pounds heavier. But when I took three quick steps toward him, the big man took a step backward.
“I know how to tell time,” I said. “And I’m not here to take the citizenship class. I’m here to teach it.”
P.W. Bull gave me a long and incredulous look. Finally he said, “What kind of joke is this, anyway? Father George Lecoeur is teaching this class. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Frank Bennett, and Father George has asked me to teach the class because he’s too sick to do it himself. That’s number one. Number two, I don’t like being sworn at. Don’t do it again.”
I looked hard at Inspector P.W. Bull for a second or two longer, then turned around and went up to the front of the courtroom and found the switch to the lights. They were old-fashioned globe lights hanging from the ceiling on slender metal rods, and when I flipped them on and looked back, P.W. Bull was still standing in the aisle, bent forward like a bellicose gander, his mouth slightly open. Once again I felt like laughing, but this time I didn’t.
As soon as the doors were “officially” opened, students began to arrive. I knew some by name, including, to my considerable surprise, Louvia the Fortuneteller who, I had supposed, was already an American citizen. In all there were eleven. Except for Louvia, who sequestered herself at the rear of the courtroom, they sat scattered on either side of the aisle in the first two rows of spectators’ benches. While I greeted them, P.W. Bull visited with the two selectmen who had arranged for the citizenship class to use the courthouse, Roy Quinn and the Reverend Miles Johnstone.
At exactly 7:30 by the courtroom clock, Bull walked up to the judge’s dais and turned to face the class. “My name is Inspector P. W. Bull of the Northern Vermont District of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. This”—jerking his head at me, standing below the dais and in front of the defense table—“is Frank Bennett. In the unfortunate absence of Father Lecoeur, he’ll be your instructor. At least until I can find someone better qualified.”
Just then a tall young man with long dark hair sauntered into the courtroom. The newcomer came down the center aisle, taking his own sweet time and grinning. He sat down four rows back.
It was Frenchy LaMott, who ran the slaughterhouse on the edge of the village.
“You’re late,” Bull said. “This class started at seven-thirty.” Frenchy slouched back on the bench. In his heavy French Canadian accent he said, “I thought it started at eight.”
“You thought wrong,” Bull said.
I wasn’t sure, but I thought Frenchy grinned at me.
“It’s my understanding,” Bull continued, “that in the past the district immigration office has been lenient to the point of laxness. As a result of new laws and my appointment, that’s going to change.”
Bull paused for this to sink in, then looked at Roy Quinn and Reverend Johnstone. “Would you gentlemen like to add anything?”
Roy cleared his throat. “On behalf of the town, I’d just like to say that it’s an honor, as always, to have you aspiring citizens use the courthouse for your classes. All we ask is that you leave our building in the condition you found it.”
The minister took a step forward, held up his hand like a bishop, and intoned,
“Our dear heavenly Father, we ask Thy blessings upon this most worthwhile enterprise and upon all of these aspiring citizens and their fine young instructor, Frank Bennett, and the fine village where we live. Amen.”
Roy Quinn and Reverend Johnstone hurried out of the courtroom as though eager to get away from the class. P. W. Bull, after one more look at the group, steered me down the aisle by my elbow. “I’d like a private word with you, Bennett.”
Near the door he stopped with his back to the class. In a lowered voice he said, “Look. You and I got off on the wrong foot. I’m prepared to forget about that and start with a clean slate. Here’s my card. Don’t hesitate to give me a holler if there’s trouble of any kind.”
I ignored the card in Bull’s hand. “I’m sure there won’t be any trouble.”
Inspector P.W. Bull sighed. “Listen, Bennett. Don’t get the wrong impression. I don’t have a thing in the world against any of these people. But frankly”—he glanced over his shoulder, then swiveled his head back to me—“if half of them stick it out for the next three weeks and half of those who do pass the test, I’ll be surprised. Nobody, least of all me, expects or even necessarily wants you to work miracles. Understand?”
Staring right into Bull’s eyes, I said, loudly enough for the entire class to hear, “I understand that every single one of these students is going to pass that test and become a United States citizen.”
P. W. Bull gave me a profoundly skeptical look, as if we both knew better, then marched out the door.
“Well, folks, how many of you have ever done anything like this before?”
No hands went up.
“Me neither,” I said, hoping desperately to break the ice. “So we’re all in the same boat.”
“You ask me, Bennett, it a goddamn leaky boat,” Frenchy LaMott piped up. “We don’t pass, you in big trouble.”
I laughed, but the class looked even gloomier.
A small man with wispy gray hair and dark eyes turned around in his seat. It was Abel Feinstein, the village tailor. “Please,” he said. “Mr. French LaMott. Rule number one. Show respect to the teacher.”
“Thank you, Mr. Feinstein,” I said. I took a deep breath and plunged onward. “For any of you who don’t know me, my name’s Frank Bennett. I’m helping Father George this summer. And whatever our friend the inspector may think, I’m going to be your instructor for the next three weeks. One more thing. I meant what I said about everyone passing the test.”
On the tray of the portable blackboard were a pointer and several broken pieces of chalk, some white, some colored. I picked up a white stick and wrote my first and last name on the blackboard. “We’ll be getting to know each other pretty well, so just call me Frank.”
Up shot the hand of Abel Feinstein. “Please,” he said again. “Mr. Frank Bennett. You are our teacher. Rule Number two. A teacher we must call mister.”
“Just Frank is fine, Mr. Feinstein.”
“Mr. Frank, then,” Abel Feinstein said.
“Okay,” I said, opening the folder that Father George had given me. “I’m going to hand out a sheet of one hundred questions to each one of you. We’ll meet twice a week for the next three weeks to go over them. They deal with basic American history, the Constitution, and the way our government works. At the end of the class, you’ll be asked these same questions. To become citizens, you need to get eighty-five percent on the test. Mr. Feinstein, would you please help me pass these out?
“The questions aren’t hard,” I continued. “You’ll have them down pat in a couple of weeks.”
Frenchy scowled at his sheet. “Don’t count on it,” he muttered.
“Mr. Frank will teach, we will pass. Not to worry,” Abel Feinstein told the class as he returned the leftover question sheets to me. “Not to worry” was Abel’s trademark and refrain, and he meant it. A fixture in Kingdom Common for years, Abel was a tireless local booster. He led the Fourth of July parade around the common with a flag as big as a horse blanket, belonged to the volunteer hook-and-ladder brigade, served faithfully on the village water board and library committee, organized charity drives as if his life depended on it. In addition to tailoring he repaired shoes, hung wallpaper, refinished furniture. Some villagers called him Jack, for jack of all trades, though this name he disliked. Most Commoners called him Mr. Feinstein. “Not to worry,” Mr. Feinstein repeated as he sat down.
But many of the other people in the room looked puzzled as they studied their question sheets. A few looked really scared. Probably I did myself. Still, I had to start somewhere.
“Question number one. What are the colors of the flag?”
A group of upturned blank faces.
“The colors of the flag?”
Mr. Feinstein put up his hand. He pointed apologetically at the limp flag behind the judge’s bench. “Is red, white, blue?”
“Yes! Thank you, Mr. Feinstein.”
“One down, ninety-nine to go,” Frenchy said.
“Number two. How many stars on the flag?”
“Forty-eight?” Mr. Feinstein said after a moment.
Soon I found myself all but pleading with the class to help Abel answer the questions. Yet my impression, as I raced through the number of states in the union, the date of Independence Day, who elects the president, and how long he serves, was that most members of the class were only too glad to have Abel answer all the questions himself.
Finally it was nine-thirty. The local train that would take some of the students back to Memphremagog was due in at the station in ten minutes. Somehow, with the help of Abel Feinstein, I had managed to stumble through my first class.
Afterward Abel shook hands with me fervently. On his way out of the courtroom, his head bent over the question sheet, the tailor mumbled questions and answers fast to himself, like a man praying. I, for my part, fought off a strong impulse to collapse with my head on the defense table.
“Frank!”
It was Louvia, still seated in the last row of the courtroom. “Come back here. I have something to show you.”
The fortuneteller was impatiently swinging her feet back and forth an inch or two off the floor. In the bright globe lights her rouged cheeks glowed like fire. Her dark eyes shone like a cat’s. “So,” she said. “How’s your love life?”
“Good God, Louvia. We’ve been over all that before.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday. You don’t pull the wool over Louvia DeBanville’s eyes that easily. I have my sources.”
Unaccountably, the thought of the blue-eyed baker’s girl crossed my mind. But I said to Louvia, “Your sources know more than I do.”
With a knowing smile, she stalked out of the courtroom, down the stairs, and into the night.
“How’d it go, son?”
Father George was sitting at the bird’s-eye maple table in the Big House kitchen, reading over his “Short History.”
“Great. I met an immigration officer who detests immigrants, was pretty much displaced by Abel Feinstein, got threatened by Frenchy LaMott, and called everything but a whoremaster by Louvia DeBanville.”
“Louvia’s in your class?”
“Big as life. Or, in her case, little as life.”
Father George smiled. “So how do you like teaching? Apart from the minor rain delays you mentioned?”
“It’s tiring.”
“It is. I guess doing it off and on for fifty years must be what tired me out.”
“You want a nightcap?”
“I want a lot of things,” Father George said cheerfully. “Youth. A sixteen-ounce porterhouse steak. An evening fishing the Broadhead River in Quebec. I’ll settle for half a glass of warm milk with a dollop of blackberry brandy stirred in.”
I got myself a cold beer and sat down across from Father George at the table with the manuscript pages of the “Short History” spread out on it. Over our drinks we talked, as we had talked together in the Big House kitchen since I had learned to talk. Or, rather, Father George talked and I listene
d. He talked about baseball, about teaching in the one-room school in Lost Nation Hollow, about teaching and coaching at the Academy. He talked about the history of the bird’s-eye table and about his own family history. Talking was one thing my father could still do without getting tired, and I never tired of listening to him.
Finally a lull settled over the conversation.
“What should I do with my class, Father G? Tonight was a disaster.”
He shrugged. “You’ll figure it out, son. The same way I did fifty-some years ago when I stepped into that mountain schoolhouse and looked at twenty kids in eight different grades. Five of them couldn’t read a word. It took me a while. But I figured it out. You will, too.”
“Look. Mr. Frank Bennett. Time flies!”
Mr. Feinstein was smiling and holding up, of all things, an hourglass. He set it on the corner of the defense table, where the entire class could watch the sand pour through. It was a cheap red plastic affair such as one might buy at a five-and-dime store or through a mail-order novelties catalogue. Perched there on the defense table like Exhibit A, it looked absurd. I wanted to tell Abel Feinstein to put the thing away, but I didn’t know how.
“Sands of time are running,” Mr. Feinstein announced. “Please, Mr. Frank. Teach!”
With one eye on that infernal hourglass, I announced that we’d begin with a quick review of the first twenty questions, then tackle the next batch. I added that tonight I had decided to write the answers on the portable blackboard.
The review started with me asking the questions—Who was the first president? What is the date of Independence Day?—and writing down the answers the class members gave. Tonight I had also decided to direct questions specifically to a few other members of the class besides Mr. Feinstein, people who presumably would know the answers. Even so, they had to answer quickly to head off the indefatigable tailor.
What is the Constitution? Can the Constitution be changed? What do we call a change to the Constitution?
As I wrote the word “Amendment” on the board, Abel was on his feet again.
The Fall of the Year Page 13
