A Long Island Story

by Rick Gekoski

  But Jake had more problems. He was too mature, really, for elementary school, this one anyway, advanced in reading and writing and mathematics. He would do just fine academically, but he was too – Addie hesitated to use the term – too sophisticated for this suburban environment of conformists and cultural dimwits.

  Too strong-willed as well. She had tried bribery – a dollar! two dollars! – to make him take off his ‘McCARTHY FOR FUEHRER’ button, and failed.

  ‘I am not taking it off till he is gone!’

  And so it was a balky, fastidious and politically engaged ten-year-old who was introduced to his formidable teacher, Miss Connolly, a stout besuited middle-aged Irish spinster – lesbian, sniffed Addie, can’t fool me – of distinctly conservative leanings. She liked her fifth graders well-dressed, well-behaved and full of patriotic fervour for their great country, lustily pledging their allegiances to the flag, belting out ‘America the Beautiful’ at Assembly.

  Miss Connolly bent down in a stately manner, which took some time, and peered at Jake’s button. He stood still, thrust his chest out proudly.

  ‘And what is this?’ enquired Miss Connolly in a voice heard right across the halls.

  ‘It’s a button,’ said Jake. ‘Because I hate McCarthy. He’s a big fat schmo!’

  ‘Senator McCarthy!’ said an outraged Miss Connolly. ‘And you are to take it off this very moment!’

  ‘I don’t have to.’ He had prepared himself for this in conversations with Ben, who was inclined to support his son’s political allegiances, though he no longer shared them. He had tried to explain about Stalin, who was as bad as Hitler, and why he had abandoned the party himself, but the boy argued that just because a bad man came along it didn’t mean Communism was a bad idea! Suppose McCarthy got to be president, would that mean democracy was a bad idea? Fair point, thought Ben proudly, a lot of very smart people think like that too.

  Miss Connolly stood up straight, her face reddening.

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ She reached out to grab him by the sleeve of his shirt, but Addie (tactfully, she thought) drew the boy away.

  ‘I don’t have to,’ said Jake, his voice quivering only a little. ‘I have a right. It is called freedom of speech! It is protected by the First—’

  ‘You insolent boy!’ This time Miss Connolly succeeded in collaring him. ‘Come with me to the principal’s office!’

  ‘Good,’ said Jake bravely. Addie stood beside him, speechless at his courage.

  ‘I think,’ Addie said, ‘that you will find he is right, that freedom of ex—’

  ‘Then you,’ said Miss Connolly, ‘are as misguided as he is. There is no “freedom of speech” in Woodbury Avenue Elementary School. What a preposterous idea!’ She looked at the boy sternly, then at his equally misguided mother with contempt.

  ‘Is this boy some sort of Communist sympathiser then? Is that what this horrible button signifies?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jake. ‘I am. Communists are good people, they want fairness for everybody. To each according to his needs!’

  Miss Connolly was not going to be lectured on subversive politics by a ten-year-old.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said, turning with a stately air and heading down the hall. Addie followed compliantly, but Jake, amazingly, seemed to be enjoying himself. She felt proud, watching him standing up for himself. Miss Connolly was a formidable woman, and a principal an archetypal menace. And here was Jake, taking them on! They’d done a good job with that one, Ben and she. Good parenting, that was!

  Mr Burkett stood up and came from behind his desk as Miss Connolly barged in, tugging Jake in her wake. It looked, thought Addie with a wry smile, like a scene from a Marx Brothers film, with Margaret Dumont dominating some weedy man. For Mr Burkett was hardly formidable. Dressed in a rumpled seersucker suit that had seen better days, the principal was slight, a trifle dandruffy and obviously disliked confrontations. He looked at Miss Connolly briefly, unwilling to meet her eye, turned to Addie and said, ‘Ah, you must be Mrs Grossman, I’ve just been reading your application forms for Jacob and Rebecca. We are so glad to have them, even if it is a few days late. Quite useful, otherwise they could get lost in the rush of the first few days of term. Thank you for coming in—’

  A red-faced Miss Connolly interrupted him.

  ‘This insolent boy, Principal Burkett—’

  ‘Ah yes, thank you, Miss Connolly. You may go now.’

  Miss Connolly spluttered, drew herself up, opened her mouth . . .

  ‘Thank you, Miss Connolly. Please shut the door on your way out.’

  Miss Connolly did, more firmly than was strictly necessary.

  Mr Burkett turned to Jake.

  ‘Jacob,’ he said, ‘Miss Connolly is an excellent teacher, I’m sure you’ll get on. She sometimes seems a bit fierce, but she has a heart of gold. And you know what?’ He looked down at the papers on his desk. ‘She lives in the Garden Apartments too, just like you!’

  ‘I’m called Jake,’ said the boy, unwilling to contemplate living next to a female incarnation of Mike the Atomic Bomb.

  ‘Jake, then,’ said the smiling principal, who rose to shake his hand, held it for an extra second while reading his political button. Addie smiled back. He was OK, Mr Burkett, reasonable.

  ‘I see you have just moved to Huntington,’ he said. ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Alexandria, my husband was an attorney with the Department of Justice, and he will be setting up an office in Huntington after he passes the Bar.’

  Mr Burkett screwed his forehead into a thinking shape, making the inevitable computation. Lawyer leaving DC hastily, a late application for the school, child with an anti-McCarthy button, wife a social worker with (he looked down again) Family Service League. Good organisation, growing every year, he often had families who needed their services.

  An archetypal leftist family. No wonder Miss Connolly had turned against them. She thought Senator McCarthy was insufficiently vigilant in his pursuit of such people. Silly woman really, but a good teacher.

  ‘I hope the move went smoothly, it can be such a trial, especially for the children. And hard on your husband, having to pass the Bar. I always think it is absurd, how each state has its own qualifying examination. It must be stressful for him, and humiliating.’

  Addie smiled warmly. Such a nice man, who’d have thought it? Principals were often ex-gym teachers, muscle-bound klutzes. And this guy, she looked at him closely, was more a piano teacher than a gym teacher.

  ‘For all of us! We haven’t even moved yet. We are living with my parents in Harbor Heights Park while we redecorate the apartment. Our stuff arrives next Monday.’

  Mr Burkett looked up from the paper, satisfied that all was in order.

  ‘We do have one problem, Jacob – I’m sorry, Jake – and that is your button. I am afraid it will have to come off, you can’t wear it in school.’ He turned to Addie. ‘Perhaps you could take it home with you?’

  Addie shook her head. ‘He thinks it is freedom of speech.’

  ‘It is!’ said Jake. ‘It’s the First Amendment!’

  ‘Let me explain what the rules are here – because they are the same at all schools,’ said Mr Burkett. (He had clearly never heard of Burgundy Farm Country Day School.) ‘We encourage our pupils to express themselves, that is what a democracy is all about. But there have to be limits, and one of those limits is that we do not allow offensive or provocative language—’

  ‘But . . .’ interrupted Jake.

  Mr Burkett raised a finger gently to shush him.

  ‘For instance, we do not allow cursing. And more importantly, we do not allow children to say things that would be offensive to other children: suppose one of the white pupils called a Negro a “nigger”? That is a bad word and would cause pain, and it is not allowed in this school . . .’

  Jake raised his hand.

  ‘Yes, Jacob?’

  ‘Jake! My button isn’t calling anybody a name except McCarthy. And Hitl
er, I guess. It isn’t horrible, it’s good, and right!’

  ‘You may well think so,’ said Mr Burkett, ‘and you certainly may proclaim it with your button when you are not in this school. But we do not allow political demonstrations of any kind . . .’

  Jake was ready for that one.

  ‘What about “I LIKE IKE”?’ he said.

  ‘Even that button,’ said the principal. ‘Next thing you know an “I LIKE ADLAI” button would show up, and we’d have disagreements, maybe even fisticuffs in the playground.’

  He laughed. He clearly didn’t mean that, but he was implacable.

  ‘Be a good boy, then, and take it off. Then I can show you to Miss Connolly’s classroom and perhaps the two of you can start again?’

  ‘She started it!’ said Jake.

  ‘Then you can finish it,’ said Mr Burkett. ‘I will help you.’

  Jake sat still in his chair, considering. Unpinned the button and gave it to Addie, who put it into her purse.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Mr Burkett. ‘Thank you for being so reasonable. Perhaps you’d both like to come with me?’

  Ben arrived to pick the kids up from school, having been briefed by Addie about the saga of the Brave Red Boy, hoping that it had been resolved without escalation. That Miss Connolly sounded a formidable old bat, and she apparently lived round the corner. Oy vey. He tried to clear his mind from the reconsideration of a story he’d written early in 1946, quite promising really, shook his head like a sheepdog in the rain, popped out of the car and wandered into the playground with the other parents. The kids would be out in five minutes.

  The fact that he didn’t recognise a single parental face didn’t bother him. He would in time, and in more time he would be representing some of these folks as they bought houses, had accidents, divorced their spouses. It was a bit more common now, divorce, and there was good money in it. Yet he liked the idea of being a mediator – even when it meant there would be less fees – encouraging warring partners to take a deep breath, listen to each other, remember what it was that had united them, recall their vows and commitments to their families. He would be good at that: reasonable, benevolent, clear-minded. People liked him immediately. They would at Temple Beth El, too, which he would soon join, and where he was told there was an absence of competent leadership. Step right up: more acquaintances, more friends, more contacts, more clients. More money.

  He could master the relevant material for the Bar, he reckoned, in five or six months – his memory was still sharp and he had every incentive – then set up an office in the centre of town. There were suites available above some of the older shops on New York Avenue. Addie would be starting her job at Family Service League at the beginning of October, so there would soon be enough coming in to pay back her father. No more sandwiches!

  He attracted one or two bemused glances and hesitant smiles as he loitered with the other parents outside the exit from which the kids would soon flow. He didn’t realise how paint-spattered he was, could see it on his shirtsleeves and hands, but had no idea that there was blue paint in his hair and on his cheek. He looked, in his old check shirt and dirty chinos, like some sort of workman. A painter and decorator? Good ones were hard to find. He noticed one or two of the woman eyeing him thoughtfully. At first he thought it was because they fancied him, but it seemed they only fancied his services. He smiled, there was a joke lurking there somewhere.

  When the bell rang a flood of kids, in a surprising number of sizes and shapes, poured out of the not-wide-enough door, laughing and pushing, trying to locate their waiting parents. Jake was near the front, caught Ben’s eye immediately and rushed over.

  ‘Not so fast, could you go back and make sure Becca is OK?’

  She was one of the little ones, she might get a bit lost and confused. But before Jake could turn, there she was, grabbing his hand, a huge smile on her face.

  ‘It’s brilliant!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have a new friend, she’s nice, she’s going to come to the new apartment to play . . . And I have the best teacher!’

  Jake pulled at Ben’s other arm.

  ‘I don’t!’ he said.

  ‘So I gather, Addie told me all about it. Did it get any better as the day went on?’

  ‘I guess. She doesn’t like me. And I already know everything they’re studying, it’s so dumb . . .’

  ‘I’m sure there will be things for you to learn, but maybe they don’t all come at once?’

  Jake looked doubtful.

  ‘It’ll be boring!’

  ‘Well,’ said Ben, ‘why don’t the two of you come get in the car and I’ll show you something that isn’t boring!’

  ‘What? What!’ said Becca. ‘Tell us now!’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  *

  In the apartment there were dust motes floating in the air, it was so bright with all the lights on and the windows wide open, helping to fumigate and let the paint dry. Poppa Mo was standing on a ladder, which Addie was holding quite unnecessarily, filling in the holes in the wall that those Silbers had left, where the nails for putting up all the pictures were. Every wall had multiple holes and grey shadows where a horrible painting had been. As a housewarming present Harriet Silber had given them a particularly garish oil painting of the outside of the Garden Apartments, as if they needed to be reminded where they now lived. The picture was on the floor in the living room, its front to the wall. They could put it in a closet and hang it if the Silbers came to visit.

  ‘Come this way!’ said Ben. ‘Poppa and I only just finished it, so you could see it after school, don’t touch the walls!’ He led them into their bedroom, with windows facing to the rear of the building, which had been decorated in a pleasing mid-blue colour, the result of hours of negotiation between the children, some tears and an eventual colouristic reconciliation.

  Becca looked round, wide-eyed. Jake gave one of his little smiles.

  ‘It’s neat,’ he said. ‘Thanks!’

  Becca nodded, said ‘Thanks!’ in a quiet voice, already wondering which side of the room her bed would be on and where she could hang her picture. At their last visit to the museum, she’d bought – or Addie had bought for her – a beautiful picture of a little girl, all swirly blue and yellow and green, by a painter from France, she loved him. And Jake got a silly picture that was just funny shapes, he’d be allowed to put his up too. The pictures didn’t go together at all, but it didn’t matter, Ben said. They just had different taste. Taste meant what you liked or didn’t like.

  ‘Don’t forget to thank Poppa, too!’

  They turned and went back to the living room. Poppa hardly looked down, concentrating, but Addie risked letting go of the ladder to give them a hug.

  ‘So how was school?’ she asked, in what was intended to be a casual tone. She’d been worried about this day for weeks; the kids were not used to a public school system, had been raised in a permissive environment. She had Jake’s button ready to hand and pinned it to his shirt. He smiled at her, ran his fingers over its face, happy that it had returned to its rightful place in the world.

  ‘It was great!’ said Becca.

  ‘It was OK,’ said Jake.

  That was good enough, the most that could have been expected. She breathed a sigh, relief.

  ‘Did you hear that, Poppa?’ she asked, re-taking her hold on the ladder.

  ‘Mmm, good,’ he said, without turning round. ‘Jake, come and help me.’

  There were sounds coming from the kitchen, and Becca popped down the hall to see who was there. It was exciting, getting ready to move, and there was Granny Perle – she had to look twice, she’d never seen Granny in old pants and a baggy blouse, looking altogether not Granny – but there she was on a stepladder, washing out the insides of a kitchen cabinet, bending low to dunk her cloth in a bowl of soapy water, wringing it out, starting again.

  ‘Please, Granny! Can I help?’

  Perle looked down at the little one, beaming up at her, so anxious to please, an
d an uncharacteristically broad smile passed her features. It was wonderful that the family were moving to Huntington, she would see them much more now, such a brocheh.

  ‘Of course you can, darling. Let me show you.’ She descended the two steps of the ladder and showed Becca the rag, dunked it in the water – ‘It’s a bit hot, you be careful!’ – and wrung it out.

  ‘When I hand it down to you, you can do this and hand it back, that will be such a big help!’

  Addie was in what Harriet had referred to as the Master Bedroom, whether because that was its name on some brochure or because she was a pretentious nitwit. Addie rather inclined towards the latter, and the idea of Charlie Silber as a Master made her sneer. She was thinking these ungenerous thoughts as she surveyed the walls of what was certainly the larger of the two bedrooms – was the smaller one called the Servant Bedroom? – with increasing irritation and disdain. Harriet had used this private space to hang an unusually large number of her daubs, plus an even larger number of Scotch-taped drawings and cards. The walls, once a jade green, when stripped of their contents were shabby, mildewed, pitted, full of holes (now filled) where nails had been.

  On the floor was an open can of Super Kem-Tone Miracle Wall Finish, which the instructions claimed could cover even a dark shade in a single coat. Addie looked at the antagonistic surfaces sceptically, hoping for a fair fight.

  ‘Two,’ she thought. ‘It’ll take two to cover all that schmutz!’

  They’d brought Poppa’s Roller-Koaters; it could be finished by the end of the weekend. Shasta White walls looking like new, all that foul underlying mess now invisible, still there but covered over. Brilliant! White-washed!

  The white was Ben’s idea. Nobody had white bedroom walls, but they could, like a fresh start! She had acceded reluctantly, would have gone dark green given a choice. It would have covered the schmutz more easily and more thoroughly. She found herself humming the tune that had taken possession of her mind. It wouldn’t go away.

  Covering up the schmutz!

  Covering up the schmutz!