Class Dismissed

by Kevin McIntosh

  As soon as Patrick and his attorney were out in the Byzantine hallways of 110 Livingston, Sylvia pulled him into a tiny conference room, half the size of his solitary confinement at Court Street. It had the same décor, an ancient, scarred wooden table and two vinyl-covered chairs. She urged Patrick into one chair and plopped down in the other. She set her legal pad and a stack of files on the table, her hands flat atop them.

  “Look, Mr. Lynch, Patrick––”

  To whom was she speaking, he wondered, the innocent, terrified young man or the defamed English teacher? He noticed at once a change in Sylvia Bartolino, her tone, her posture. More, somehow, that of a broker. Or of Susan’s accountant, Lonnie.

  “––we have to get to the bottom line. Before Stankowski sees and hears Josh Mishkin.” She exhaled heavily. “That whole office pass thing screwed us royally. I know you could see that. Sometimes things come up, small things, that you can’t anticipate. But it changes the chemistry. I think I turned it around a little on cross, on the facts.” She combed her shag with those little stubs. “But did you look at Stankowski? Something shifted in him that I couldn’t shift back. As I said in my office, these hearings are part law, part gut. Frequently, with this arbitrator, a lot gut.

  “Hanrahan is right now meeting with the Mishkins, planning his next move. Have to give him credit; he’s set it up well. Got a gift and knew what to do with it.” She leaned back, braided her fingers over her belly. “In a few minutes, enter the maimed, dreadlocked, Jewish boy. The lone white kid in Mr. Lynch’s class, bright but learning-disabled, with high-expectation parents, who is trying to fit into the dominant African-American sensibility of the urban classroom.”

  A fine Hanrahan impression. And, Patrick thought, where have I heard this before? Ibid. Chapter three, Aspects of Modern Social Work.

  “This is the kid that Mr. Lynch, a good teacher but angry beyond all management, set up for humiliation at the hands of Joshua’s minority classmates, kicked out of class with a pre-signed pass, then proceeded to chop off his finger.” She popped open a Diet Coke. “Next case.”

  Patrick felt a little sick and a little like crying. “It’s that bad?”

  “It’s that bad right now.” She took a gulp. “But this is day one. We’ve got a list of students to hear from. Your principal. The special investigator. This can go into next fall, next spring. Or––”

  “Or?” Be careful, the Scribbler said.

  “I spoke with Hanrahan after the pre-hearing. Quick, off the record. Standard. Just to get a sense of his view, set a baseline, if you will.”

  “What did he say?”

  “From what he saw on paper: two thousand fine, three months suspension without pay, counseling. Then back to Garvey.” She shrugged. “Or wherever.”

  “Counseling?”

  “Anger management.” She flexed the mini-bridge. “Mishkins get satisfaction, BOE saves face, Silverstein gets his school out of the Post. Mr. Lynch gets his classroom back.”

  “You already cut a deal?” He was surprised at his anger. Fear, guilt, he had access to those. He’d never had anger to manage till now.

  Ms. Bartolino thrust her palms at him. “We don’t do deals, Mr. Lynch. We’re the UFT. We reach settlements.” She barked out a laugh. She wasn’t mad; this is what she did. “And there’s no settlement without your say-so. And, of course, Stankowski’s.”

  “What if I don’t want to settle?”

  “Then it’s game on, and we play this thing out while you cool your heels in a Rubber Room.” She swiped the sweat off her Diet Coke can. “But there are no guarantees. You risk all.”

  Then back to Garvey? He couldn’t imagine. Feeling guilty and pleading guilty were very different. One Catholic, the other criminal. Some tiny scared part of him thought, Fuck it, take it. Never set foot in a Rubber Room again. Done. Something deeper, though, told him he’d never set foot in a classroom again. You’ll always be damaged goods. And Coach Carlson, of all people, spoke up, laid a solid hand on his shoulder: Your dad would be so proud.

  He sat up straighter, squared his shoulders. “I never meant to hurt Josh Mishkin. I’m fighting this. No matter how long it takes.”

  “Well, all right then,” Sylvia said, rising, grabbing the files and her soda. He couldn’t tell if she was pleased at his decision. He didn’t care.

  Outside the hearing room, down the hallway, he saw Dr. Mishkin first—Mrs. Dr. Mishkin. He still wouldn’t know the famous Mr. Dr. Mishkin if he sat next to him on the No. 1 local. Dr. Mishkin’s back was to Patrick, the broad shoulders of her well-tailored black suit shielding him from Hanrahan. All he could see of the tall BOE attorney were his eyes fixed on that index finger pointed at his chest. Patrick couldn’t see the finger, but he could feel it, how it bore in on the rib cage, filled with accusation: you, you aren’t doing enough, aren’t accomplishing what I want. You are incompetent. I deserve better.

  But Hanrahan wasn’t a public school teacher; he had a different hand to play, and different stakes. Amid the noisy bustle of 110 Livingston, Patrick watched their pantomime. Hanrahan staring at the finger, arms folded. Dr. Mishkin throwing her arms out. The attorney planting hands on hips. Back to the finger wag. Hanrahan thrusting his palms up, tapping two fingers on his wristwatch. Dr. Mishkin’s formidable shoulders lifting, holding, collapsing. Hanrahan setting a gentle hand on a deflated shoulder. Dr. Mishkin shaking her head, shambling off down the hall.

  So engrossed was Patrick in this bit of dumb show, he hadn’t considered the obvious source of its drama: Where was Josh?

  Patrick entered the hearing room and sat next to his counsel. Sylvia had notes on Angela’s testimony in front of her and a minute-by-minute chronology of the events in room 234, April 7, second period. A more detailed lesson plan than Mr. Lynch had ever crafted, though, to be sure, with a less clear lesson.

  The clock over Stankowski’s head showed 12:58, two minutes before the hearing was to recommence. Sylvia looked at Stankowski, who raised his eyebrows at Hanrahan. The prosecutor ducked out in the hallway, returned, shook his head at Stankowski. The hearing officer glanced at the clock, grimaced, motioned for Hanrahan to sit.

  “We are back on the record in the case of Patrick Lynch, SED Number 11377,” Stankowski said, nodding to the stenographer. “Mr. Hanrahan, you have a witness to call?”

  Hanrahan cleared his throat. “Hearing Officer Stankowski, the Board would like to request a brief delay––”

  The hearing room door opened and in stepped a young soldier in fatigues, sporting a fresh buzz cut. The occupants of the hearing room stared at the young man, then one another. Even the stenographer was nonplussed. Was the fortress at 110 Livingston Street under assault? Only the Timberland boots gave the soldier away. The boots and the short right middle finger, wrapped in beige bandages. Josh stood more or less at attention, waiting for a command.

  Hanrahan, so recently so cocky, slumped back, thrown off his game, off any game. So this is what Josh was doing while he tussled with Dr. Mishkin? Getting a military makeover? He shuffled some papers, reordered some files, coughed. “Hearing Officer Stankowski, the Board calls Joshua Mishkin to testify.”

  Josh strode to the witness chair, sat erect, hands on thighs. He looked straight ahead, solemn, as he was sworn in, grumpily, by the hearing officer. Stankowski shifted back and forth in his big chair, pulled at the lapels of his grey suit. He glared at Hanrahan. This is your witness, counselor, the Jewish rapper that pretty little Chinese girl just described? Patrick recalled the Scribbler’s scathing description of Stankowski, how Sylvia referenced the appellate court “slapping his hand.” He was not amused.

  Hanrahan was nearly as altered as his witness. Gone was the restrained sureness of the interlocutor from this morning, the one who’d uncovered the damning secret. Never ask a witness a question without knowing his answer, wasn’t that what they said on Law and Order? What would he g
et out of Josh Mishkin, PFC?

  At Patrick’s side, Sylvia Bartolino was composed, no more pen clicking, pad tapping. She merely leaned in, ready.

  “Joshua, I’d like to ask you about April 7th,” Hanrahan began, “the morning you were injured in Mr. Lynch’s classroom.”

  “Objection. Joshua wasn’t injured in Mr. Lynch’s classroom. Previous witness established, under Mr. Hanrahan’s examination, that Joshua had left room 234.”

  Hanrahan, chastened, rattled, restructured the syntax of his request, with diagrammatic repositioning of prepositions, as Josh ran his left hand over the bristles covering his pale scalp.

  “I was sitting at the editing table when the chancellor came in,” Josh began. Patrick marveled at his response. So even-toned the narrative of this young warrior, so steady the eye contact. And when Hanrahan interrupted with clarifying questions, backtracking to the failed after-school tutorial, even revisiting the neighborhood garden disaster, Josh answered patiently, completely, finishing several replies with “sir.” Sir?

  But though Josh’s answers were respectful, and in content not very different from Angela’s, Hanrahan kept tiptoeing, flop sweat emerging on the freckled forehead. This wasn’t the witness he’d prepared for. Unlike Mr. Lynch, the BOE attorney was unaccustomed to teenage character reinventions. The Catholic school refugees transformed into hot mamas in the course of a weekend, plaid skirt and sweater on Friday, spaghetti straps, short-shorts, bubblegum lip gloss on Monday. Or the boy, baggy-jean badass on Tuesday, turned prep school wannabe on Wednesday: khakis, Lacoste shirt, Top-Siders, the works. Kid like that walked into class, you could barely bring yourself to call on him, bit your tongue until it bled. But Patrick wasn’t laughing now.

  What unnerved him wasn’t so much the combat gear and barbering as the detachment with which Josh related the moments leading to the “incident.” Like a film he’d seen, some scuttlebutt from a friend of a friend, and not the morning he lost a fraction of hand. Patrick was unnerved and, as Josh’s English teacher, oddly offended. It’s your story, Josh, he’d told him so many times. If you’re not invested, who will be?

  More unsettling yet was the other lanky adolescent now droning in Patrick’s ear, detailing, with equal disengagement, an act of violence at another high school, as distant from Marcus Garvey as the dark side of the moon: public property damaged, blood spilt, a bright boy in a black watch cap needlessly disfigured. And a representative of another Board of Education inquiring, Patrick, are you angry at me? His linebacker body is still, his broad face quivering; the answer means everything. The lanky adolescent on the other side of his desk remains vague, impassive.

  “Did you see Mr. Lynch’s face before he…closed the door?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young man in fatigues.

  “What did he look like?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Hanrahan reeled out some invisible line. “His expression. How would you describe it?”

  Sylvia leaned forward but said nothing.

  “He looked––normal.”

  “Normal?”

  Patrick was listening now. They all were listening. The answer meant everything.

  “Like a teacher.”

  Hanrahan nodded and scowled, a facial veto of the affirmative head motion. He tried again. “Joshua, you said earlier that when Mr. Lynch tutored you after school he raised his voice, seemed angry. How would you compare that time to when he gave you the office pass, or when he turned to shut the door to room 234?”

  Josh looked at Hanrahan, then Stankowski. He even watched the stenographer type. He hadn’t once looked at Mr. Lynch, though he sat straight down the table from him, much closer than they ever were in class. “It was about the same, I guess.”

  “The same. Can you describe that, Joshua?”

  That familiar vacant look. Surely Hanrahan had memorized Josh’s Ed Plan, but he wasn’t used to giving wait time. Josh was searching for the right word; verbal precision was strangely important to him. His father’s DNA at work, perhaps. “Consistent,” he said.

  “Consistent? In what way?”

  “He got mad sometimes. But it was always for a reason.”

  “Did you feel he was personally angry at you?”

  Josh swiped at his newly shaven face. “I guess, from his…point-of-view, I was making his job more difficult.”

  Hanrahan swelled at this, his star witness finally on script. “Can you recall anything, anything specific, Mr. Lynch did or said on April 7––or before––that showed his personal anger toward you?”

  Patrick was making his own personal list. Sylvia was digging a hole in her legal pad. The second hand swept around the clock over Stankowski’s shoulder.

  Josh looked at Mr. Lynch. “No,” he said. “Not really.”

  The ruddy complexion of the BOE attorney grew ruddier.

  He sharpened the question in a variety of formulations, each attacking Mr. Lynch’s character, his motivations, more directly. But Private Mishkin was having none of it, remaining stoical through every incursion. Hanrahan even shot a few pleading looks at Ms. Bartolino, begging her objection. Anything. But she seemed content to let him lead this witness. Let him try.

  Poor Hanrahan. Stankowski stared at him, head propped up with his left hand, the grooves beneath his eyes somehow deeper than before. The prosecutor was treading water now, praying for another office pass from heaven. No one understood better than Patrick the impossibility of getting Josh to say the right thing at the right time. Mr. Lynch had only made that happen once. And look where it got him.

  Finally Hanrahan went for broke, asking Josh point blank if Mr. Lynch had slammed the door of room 234 in anger.

  “He was doing his job,” the witness shrugged, a little irritated, a bit of the old Josh breaking through. “He did what he had to do.”

  Do what ya gotta do, Paddy. He could see Gunther walking away, but this time, clearly, not in anger.

  Maybe that’s what Josh could live with too. What they all could live with.

  Hanrahan leaned back and exhaled through pursed lips, an old Schwinn with a slow leak. “Request to go off the record, Hearing Officer Stankowski.”

  “Granted.” Stankowski nodded at the stenographer, who put his hands in his lap.

  Stankowski dismissed Private Mishkin. Hanrahan and Stankowski rose and murmured in a back corner, behind the stenographer. Otherwise, the hearing room was quiet, just the soft buzz of the lights, the hum of the second hand sweeping around the clock.

  “What does this mean?” Patrick whispered to his counsel.

  “I think,” Sylvia Bartolino lifted those dark Italian brows, “it means you’re free, Mr. Lynch.” She played a swift arpeggio across the Lynch files. “You’re free.”

  Freedom’s Just Another Word

  Frank Lynch, like all great teachers, was an actor, a trickster, a pied piper. On Christmas Eve, when his wife would haul out A Christmas Carol and request an excerpt, Frank would demur. Ha! That old chestnut? he’d say. Third-rate Dickens, scarcely worth the reading. And the more he protested, the more his children clamored for a performance. Soon they would be nestled at his side, giggling as their bulky daddy impersonated the spindly old Scrooge, lapping up that sugary gateway drug to classic literature.

  And so those words came to Frank’s son just then, incongruously, on that balmy spring afternoon in Brooklyn. I’m as giddy as a schoolboy, Patrick thought, bounding down the stairs of the Court Street subway station. I’m as light as a feather.

  The No. 2 train lurched out of the station, headed for Manhattan. A frigid glance from a woman with a child on each hip brought him back to the world. Patrick begged, but did not receive, her pardon as he smiled, snapping his foot off hers. Nothing could darken his mood today. He would go back to the Rubber Room tomorrow, sure, but then only until the end of the school year––two weeks––and
then, Sylvia said, Stankowski would release his report. His judgment? And then, remarkably, inconceivably, Mr. Lynch would get his life back.

  Afternoon subway rides home were always a time for Patrick to reflect, and his mind––even in this mood––went to the day’s events. He held fast to a support pole, shaking his head. He’d never been able to anticipate Josh’s next move, but he’d never have predicted him sabotaging his own case.

  And that look: he’d never forget that last look. As he left the hearing room, Dr. Mishkin standing down the hallway at the negotiated distance. Hanrahan giving her the bad news, that he wouldn’t be delivering Mr. Lynch’s head on a platter after all. Those shoulders drooping. She turned to her son and Patrick saw her face for the first time in a long time and it wasn’t the NYU professor now, or Leonard Mishkin’s wife; it was Josh’s mom, anyone’s mom, teary, features crumpled, making that maternal lean toward her indifferent adolescent son, begging embrace. Josh inclined just enough to permit her hands on his waist, his hands on her arms. And it was for a moment as if Norman Rockwell had captured a particularly awkward farewell: Soldier’s Final Fuck You.

  When her son backed away, she turned and did a quick double-take at Patrick, surprised, somehow, that he was part of the proceedings. Bitterness, yes, he’d seen that from her before. But, underneath it all––relief? He hadn’t allowed himself to feel for Josh’s mom, consider her legitimate pain. While his future was under siege, he couldn’t spare any sympathy for the Javert who’d made his life so miserable. Had this hearing been something she felt duty-bound to pursue? Perhaps she, too, was relieved to see it ended, even poorly. Or was this mere projection on his part?

  The doors beeped open at Seventy-Ninth Street. LetemoffLetemoffLetemoffLetemoff the conductor mumbled as passengers pushed their way past the high school students spilling in. 3:15, Tuesday, second week in June. Seniors finished with Regents exams? A guilty twinge. He should be prepping his kids for their finals.