by Ed Boland
I had not been involved in any kind of fight since the sixth grade, when I unsuccessfully took on a local bully over a perceived school-yard insult. Thirty-five years later, I was both rusty and terrified, but also convinced that Dannisha could actually kill Mickey in my classroom right in front of my eyes. For an instant, I wondered what clever headlines the New York Post would create for such a story.
Before the school year started, the new faculty members had been read the riot act by Seth, a math teacher and our union representative: “Whatever you do, don’t get in the middle of a fight. If you get hurt, you are not covered at all by health insurance or disability. It’s not worth the risk. Just call Security.”
It sounded so logical at the time, but school security was a distant hope at the moment. We were on the third floor, and no matter of emergency ever brought the guards up three flights. The first time I’d called down to have a student removed, the class laughed as I held the handset in my sweaty palm listening to it ring for a full minute, and a voice taunted me from the back of the room: “You crazy? They ain’t draggin’ their black asses up here. Think they got room service here, mister?”
I swallowed hard and stepped into the fray, squeezing myself into the flurry of flying limbs. As I tried to push them apart, Dannisha, clawing indiscriminately, scratched my neck bloody and hit me with the box of art supplies. Just when I thought the classroom couldn’t get any louder, my entry into battle inspired even more deafening screams and cheers from the onlookers.
Yerfrey, a sweet kid who had recently arrived from the Dominican Republic, was the only other person in the room who seemed to recognize that something dangerous was happening. Wide-eyed and flustered, he went scurrying into the hallway to get help, pushing through a growing group of kids standing in the doorway, watching the show.
Of all people, it had to be Seth who marched in to see me ignoring his advice and disobeying union rules. With great difficulty, he pulled Dannisha off Mickey and muscled her out of the classroom. Dannisha was bellowing at the top of her lungs and nursing a bloody eye. Seth pulled her down the hallway, where she collapsed in a bawling heap. Brad, the English teacher from two doors down, then removed a dazed and unusually quiet Mickey. Just when everyone thought the fracas was over, Dannisha broke free from Seth and went charging down the hall for another round with Mickey. Luckily, Brad stopped her in her tracks.
Drawing on the surge of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins, I pulled myself together and, without a word about what had just happened, started teaching again, returning to our lesson on the role of the United Nations in global conflicts. I dragged a broken-down VCR in front of the kids and showed a clip from Hotel Rwanda to illustrate the challenges faced by UN peacekeepers. As they half watched, I stood in the back of the room discreetly blotting the blood from my neck.
At the very end of class, I summarized the lesson in a robotic voice: “So, as you saw in the clip, a UN peacekeeper comes from a different country outside of the conflict; he’s lightly armed and avoids direct engagement where possible. He enters the battle only as a last resort.”
Fat Clovis, now the unquestioned leader of the class’s Greek chorus, smiled broadly and guffawed. “Just like you, mister. Just like you.”
Mickey’s offenses continued to pile up, even after the fight with Dannisha. In complete frustration, I had summoned his grandmother from the rough-and-tumble streets of Bed-Stuy for an intervention of sorts with the principal, the social worker, his Special Education teacher, and me.
Three days later Granny Wardwell arrived, unsteady on two clattering canes, at the first-floor nurse’s office, which we had commandeered because she couldn’t climb the stairs to my room. She had put on her Sunday best for the occasion, including a pink, somewhat misshapen, church-lady hat that had seen many an Easter. A hulking far older brother accompanied her on the trip. He didn’t speak, wouldn’t shake hands, and turned his chair away from us with disdain. We were packed in the tiny space, practically knee to knee.
Before we even sat down, she announced she had used her last dime getting a car service to the school. Everyone shifted uncomfortably at that news. As if from the pulpit, she pointed to Mickey and preached, “This is a good boy, a sweet boy, a boy who has a shelf full of awards and trophies at home, a child who loves history. I am shocked to hear him described as disruptive.”
Everyone looked at me, and I looked at Mickey.
He sat there oblivious, humming and pretending not to listen as I recited his rap sheet: the now-famous incident with Dannisha, a food fight with Eugenio laced with Mexican slurs, the gum-in-the-Koran episode, and the vandalization of the computer room in full view of the catatonic substitute teacher whom he kept calling Mrs. Doubtfire. (His assessment was unfortunately on the mark; the resemblance was uncanny.)
“Oh, we have never had this kind of situation before,” Mrs. Wardwell protested. “We may be poor, but I raised this child right and in the eyes of God. He has the blood of all people in him, black, Spanish, white, even American Indian. How can he be prejudiced?”
There was more uncomfortable shifting and silence from my colleagues. Suddenly sensing that I had misplayed my hand, I let my eyes float between cheery health posters touting the joys of flossing and frequent hand washing as I thought of a response.
“Well, I don’t think behavior like this just starts overnight—” I was interrupted by a sudden, ferocious snore from the brother, his back still to us. As he exhaled, his bristly neck roll shook violently. Grandma poked him in the ribs to stop the distraction.
She ignored me and looked directly at Mei. “I don’t know how long Mr. Boland has been teaching, but maybe he isn’t experienced enough yet to understand kids like Mickey.” What made it worse was that she said this with Christian compassion instead of anger. My face reddened and my hands went cold.
I started to speak again, but she interrupted me. “As I understand it, Mickey has been repeatedly provoked by his classmates. He commutes over an hour to come here and there is no one else from our neighborhood here. He’s new and doesn’t know many other students.”
Challenging anyone’s beaten-down grandma is difficult. Taking on one with dentures so rickety that she had to hold them up with her thumb is impossible. She had me on the ropes.
“I am not feeling well and need to get home,” said Grandma. She poked the sleeping giant again. “Let’s go, RJ.”
I shook her hand, but she wouldn’t look at me. Disapproval from a sweet old lady hit me hard. Maybe it was true that my lack of experience brought out the worst in Mickey. Maybe he was as much victim as perpetrator.
“Well, we’ll continue to monitor the situation here and keep you informed of his progress. Every student can and will continue to be successful here,” said Mei with a bright smile. I could tell she couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over.
A week later, Katy, Mickey’s Special Ed teacher, received his primary school Special Education file and left it in my mailbox. It was packed with offenses going back to the second grade: incident reports, an expert diagnosis classifying him as “antisocial,” and a bunch of faded Polaroids of a cheery classroom that looked like the Manson family had paid a visit—an overturned bookshelf, shredded artwork, and a chair in pieces.
I shut the file. I had been played by a church lady.
Months passed and Mickey’s crimes continued unchecked. I had devoted a large part of the spring to a world religions unit. In an effort to undo some of the prejudices of my young charges, I threw myself into the lessons. To make it all seem relevant, I planned a field trip as the culmination of the unit, where we would visit a Jewish synagogue, a mosque, and a Buddhist temple. I was especially worried about bringing Mickey on this trip. He often made anti-Semitic comments, and a week before, he’d desecrated a picture of a prostrate Muslim praying toward Mecca by turning it into an anal sex scene. So naturally, of the fifty permission slips I received back, the first was from Mickey’s grandmother, signed in her s
haky hand. I let out a little whimper.
On a gorgeous May morning, a group of about fifty kids and four teachers set out for the Ninety-Seventh Street mosque. I had spent a lot of time teaching my kids about mosque etiquette: removing their shoes, washing their hands, and, for the girls, donning head scarves. For many, it took some convincing that these courtesies wouldn’t violate their Christian faith and “make them” Muslims. It didn’t help matters when Kendra, up until then a devout Christian, showed up at school the morning of the trip wearing a long hijab and announced she was becoming a Muslim. This scene sent the kids atwitter, saying that Mr. Boland was hell-bent on converting everyone to Islam.
When we arrived, the kids were impressed by the mosque and its stately minarets, which took up a whole city block. The kindly imam droned through an unsolicited forty-minute sermon, delivered through half-closed eyes. His accent was so thick, he could have been reciting a Chuck E. Cheese’s menu for all we knew, but whatever he said, he quickly used up our already scarce supply of “Please be on your best behavior in public.” To my surprise, Mickey didn’t act worse than anyone else. As we exited, Jahmellah, one of the Muslim students, gave a touching lecture to a group of girls about how central chastity was to her faith and that her mother made her go to a “special doctor” to ensure that her virginity was still intact. (The week before, I had intercepted a note being passed back and forth between her and a group of boys that included “Do you want to give us all hand jobs?” But the word hand was scratched out and they had upped the ante to blow jobs. From her scribbled responses, it seemed as if the requests were under active consideration.)
On the subway to our next destination, as the students were screaming and slapping one another, I wondered who they misunderstood more, the Jews or the Muslims. September 11 hadn’t helped the image of the Muslims for this group; many of my students lived in downtown Manhattan, and much of their youth had been defined by the event. But there were plenty of instances when I’d heard the phrase “rich fuckin’ Jews” in the hallways as well, often within earshot of Jewish teachers struggling to make car payments or cover their kids’ orthodontist bills. As awful as it was, the anti-Semitism never really got addressed. There were simply too many other fires to put out.
We arrived late and rowdy at Temple Emmanu-El, a chunk of formidable limestone on Fifth Avenue, the toniest temple in New York. At the visitors’ center, I checked in with a portly Latino security guard. He craned his neck over the desk to see where all the noise was coming from and rolled his eyes when he saw my crew terrorizing a hot-dog vendor outside.
He flipped through a stack of papers attached to a clipboard without looking up. “You’re Union Street? You’re really late, y’know that? Tell those kids to be quiet and wait outside till you are escorted in by your guide.”
A few minutes later, out tottered Hadassah. Hunched but perky, she was probably kissing eighty and was five foot two at most, even with the assistance of a smart pair of cork wedges. She looked up at me through oversize Philip Johnson–like glasses and asked me a few perfunctory questions as the screams, shouts, and profanities reached a crescendo outside. I pulled her out of sight of my students and spoke frantically, sputtering, “Sometimes they get so out of hand, but…they really don’t mean what they say half the time, and…we tried to study Judaism, but…and there is this one boy, Mickey.”
She fixed me with a stare, part Golda Meir, part Dr. Ruth. “Don’t you worry about a thing, my dear. Oh, they’ll listen to me,” she declared. We entered the massive sanctuary. The kids were immediately awestruck. Many of them were used to storefront evangelical operations and the low-rent kingdom halls of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Sunlight poured in through stories-high stained-glass windows. Soaring organ music swelled in the vast space. They filed into the pews quietly. I was relieved to see Mickey sit in a row at the back by himself.
Hadassah mounted the altar, and with one smooth gesture pulled a high-tech wireless headset down from over her ear to her mouth. Janet Jackson had nothing on her.
“That’s it, Sebastian, thank you,” she said into her headset. The blasting organ went silent midnote. It was clear who ran the show here. She then held forth for a half hour about her faith, its history, and the temple. And by God, as she’d promised, they listened to her. I should have been delighted at their behavior, but instead I sank into a shame spiral about my shortcomings as a teacher. What has she got that I ain’t got? Are they cutting her slack because she’s old? Female? Short? Maternal? The last time I tried to lecture for even five minutes, there was immediate unrest. Now here they are, listening raptly like members of the Temple Sisterhood. What gives?
“Questions?” Hadassah said finally. My abdomen tightened.
Figgy threw up his hand. “How much does it cost you to heat this place every month?”
“Well, no one has ever asked me that before. I don’t know.” She sounded perplexed. “Probably a lot.” It may have seemed bizarre or cheeky to her, but it was a logical question for a kid whose mother was struggling to pay the rent for a basement apartment in the Bronx.
“How do you change a lightbulb up in here?” Fat Clovis called out as he craned his neck up to the ornate ceiling.
She just chuckled.
“Are you Jewish?” asked Warren.
“What a silly question! Of course I’m Jewish.”
“Well, that security guard back there, he works here and he don’t look too Jewish to me,” he shot back. Touché.
“Good point,” she conceded.
“Why do the Jews love black and white so much?” asked Kate.
“Oh, you mean the cookie. Yes, I love black-and-white cookies. They’re great with coffee.”
“The Jews invented Oreos?” Kate asked.
Hadassah looked even more puzzled.
“Jews make Oreos? No wonder they’re so rich,” someone mumbled. My eyes immediately darted back to Mickey, but I was relieved to see him blankly staring into space.
I tried to come to Hadassah’s rescue. “I think Kate means in their choice of clothing.” Kate nodded yes.
Hadassah again seemed mystified, and with a sweep of her hand she alluded to her colorful floral-print dress with pride.
I intervened again. “Many of our students come from the Lower East Side. I think she means the Hasidic community.”
“Oh, them!” She seemed eager to distance herself. “That’s a good question. They like things very old-fashioned.”
Wilson Chan, a perennial wiseass who specialized in making adults uncomfortable, took his shot. “Do you hate Muslims?”
She gasped. “Why, no! I don’t hate anybody and…” Before she could finish, she was drowned out by Mickey’s raspy voice screaming from the last row. I cringed. I knew this was coming.
“You dumb bitches, don’t you listen to nothin’ Mr. Boland tells you in class? The Jews and the Muslims are related through daddy Abraham. It’s family fuckin’ feud over there, and it has been for a long time. What’s the matter with you? You don’t listen.”
The sacred setting was perfect for an emotional thunderclap. I was literally speechless. Mickey, of all people, had listened to something in class and really got it. Mickey—asleep. Mickey—with the headphones always on. Mickey—with his head forever out the window. How in God’s name did that sink in? How did anything sink in? Mr. Boland? I was shocked that he even knew my name after ten months. What the hell else did he manage to learn? My mind raced. Maybe they were all getting it, learning on the sly, and faking stupidity just to torture me. Just “frontin’.” Maybe there was hope after all.
As I was leaping from idea to hopeful idea about the power of teaching, I suddenly realized that all eyes, including Hadassah’s, were on me, waiting for me to light into Mickey for his irreverence and profanity. Hadassah was miffed. I heard myself giving a perfunctory reprimand, but I was still enjoying the afterglow of my tiny victory. In a biblical echo, “the least of my brethren” had learned something from me. I felt gi
ddy, dizzy, and drunk, all at the same time.
As we filed back out of the sanctuary and onto the street, a passage from A Streetcar Named Desire flashed into my head. Blanche Dubois was right: “Sometimes—there’s God—so quickly!”
The final leg of our trip was to a large Buddhist temple in Chinatown, housed in a former pornographic movie theater not far from the school. I was coming down from the adrenaline rush of Mickey’s revelation and barely had the energy to keep the kids in line. In front of a large gilded statue of Buddha, a subdued Buddhist nun in gray robes with a heavy accent and a mouthful of braces gave us a blessedly brief overview of twenty-five hundred years of Buddhism. At this point, even I was having a hard time paying attention. She closed our visit by inviting me to choose a student to ring the temple bell, an enormous bronze thing imported from China and hanging from a tall, elaborately engraved wooden tripod.
I foolishly offered Marius Owens as a volunteer. He grabbed the ringer, a wooden log hanging on chains, and ran with it like a maniac full force into the bell. A deafening peal rang out. I was certain he had cracked it. The nun covered her mouth in horror and quickly went over to inspect the bell. Other nuns and concerned worshippers came out of nowhere. To my relief, it was undamaged. Before I could say anything to Marius, his classmates let him know he had crossed the line: “Chill the fuck out! Why you wiling, man? It’s religious in here!” I was glad they took over because I didn’t have the reserves for one more chewing-out that day.
Even the nun had lost her Zen cool. “What is the matter with these children? You should not bring them back here,” she said as she rushed us toward the exit. After a final profuse apology from me and a forced one from Marius, we filed out of the candlelit temple and into the brilliant sunshine to walk back to school. I was spent.
