AS A RULE, I don’t like exceptions. I like rules.
Beverly, however, was an exception. We called her “Redheaded Beverly” to distinguish her from regular Beverly. Regular Beverly had sandy hair and had attended St. C’s since first grade and walked to school because she was from the neighborhood. Redheaded Beverly, on the other hand, was interesting and weird and not like anybody else.
One of the ways she was different was that she was a Ward 17, the only girl 17, so the lifelong St. Colmcille’s Community kids never completely seemed to get her. Another way she was different was that nobody from Ward 17 seemed to get her either.
We were talking, Redheaded Beverly and I, in the schoolyard, which we did most mornings before the bell. It was the best place and time to talk to a girl, because it was almost as if you weren’t doing it. The entire population of St. C’s students was out and buzzing, acting the nutters, playing throwball or pitching pennies or just running around headless. And though you never could find out who was doing it, it was a constant that there was mad screaming going on at all times in the schoolyard.
So while you wouldn’t think it was possible, you could actually exist in this little bubble in the center of all that and have real conversations with real people—even if they were girls—in the middle of all that.
“I like baseball fine,” she said, “but I don’t think it is the most important thing in the whole world, like you do.”
I took a shot. “I don’t think it’s the most important thing in the whole world, Beverly.”
“Yes you do.”
Should I try again? Could I?
“Well it is,” I said.
Here’s one of those things about Beverly that’s pretty decent. She wouldn’t fight with you. If she disagreed and wanted to let you know that but still get on with the conversation, she would say blah-blah-blah.
“Blah-blah-blah. But if it were me, and I were trying to show a person new to the country what it was all about here, I’d take him to the symphony. Boston has one of the world’s greatest orchestras. Their conductor, Seiji Ozawa, is a huge international superstar.”
“Um, Ozawa? Sorry Bev, but if I’m going to introduce my friend to American culture, I’ll probably start out with people who at least sound like they’re American.”
“Oh, like Carl Yastrzemski.”
“Exactly.”
“Dur, Richard. Like there were more Yastrzemskis than Ozawas at the Battle of Bunker Hill, is that it?”
“Well,” I said after careful thought, “probably. ...”
“Blah-blah-blah. There were exactly the same number.”
Sister Jacqueline, the principal and my homeroom teacher, appeared then in the yard with her mighty bell. That meant in a few minutes she’d be clanging away and we would have to line up.
“Okay Mr. All-American, I’ll make you a deal. Let’s take a quick poll, right here in the yard. I’ll bet you a buck more kids can spell Ozawa than Yastrzemski.”
I was about to let out a loud mock of a laugh but quickly, as my mouth hung open, made a stab at the spelling myself. Uh-oh.
“Carl Yastrzemski is an American institution,” I said instead. “And I don’t think you have any right—”
“You can’t spell it either, huh?”
She was always like this. Difficult. Always making things complicated. Regular Beverly would have understood better.
“Read the papers,” I said. “Real Americans call him Yaz.”
“I’ll go one step further, even,” she pressed. “If you can find me more people who can spell Yastrzemski than can spell Ozawa, then I will go with you and Napoleon to a Red Sox game.”
Now this was an offer. I was a little nervous—we weren’t talking about Carl Smith here after all—but more excited. And I had to have faith that my people could do this. I clapped.
“However,” Beverly said, “if I win, you know where the three of us will be going, don’t you?”
Rats.
Together we began the test. Beverly and I started patrolling the yard trying to collar kids for the quiz. But even that proved difficult because the very sight of Sister Jacqueline and her bell set the whole place into extra rev motion as everybody tried to squeeze the last drops of pre-boring school life out of life.
“Yo! Hey. Whoa. You there.” We tried, but nobody had the time.
And I was increasingly pleased. Yastrzemski. Yastrzemski? What was I thinking? The girls I knew mostly had no interest in baseball, and the boys had enough on their plates trying to spell their own names. I was starting to picture myself sitting in Symphony Hall, in a coma.
Ring, bell, ring.
I have to admit, I lost my nerve so badly I finally angled our search over toward Sister Jacqueline, who had gotten herself wrapped up in a conversation with the custodian, Mr. Mendelson, and had drifted past bell-ringing time.
“Sister,” I said. “Aren’t we late?”
Sister took a quick gander at her watch, and sure enough started pumping that big brass beautiful bell so hard it was as if she thought she could pull back that lost ninety seconds of our education with the force of it.
“Chicken,” Beverly said to me. Then she topped me. Went straight to the top.
“Okay then,” Sister said. “That’s a good one. Let’s see. O-Z-A-W-A.”
“Ya rat,” I whispered to Beverly.
“And Y-A-S-T-R-Z-E-M-S-K-I.”
Nuns. Is there anything they can’t do? I sighed with relief. Tie. Bet’s off. Until...
“O-Z-A-” Mr. Mendelson began, after Sister called him back from his appointed rounds.
One right.
“Y-E-Z—”
Come on, Mendelson, ya fink.
“This is fun, and an interesting point, Beverly,” Sister Jacqueline said. “Let’s take it inside and try it out on the whole class.”
Very bad idea. “Wait, wait, no, Beverly, we forgot to add first names. They have to spell the first names too. For me, Carl. For you, Seiji.”
The two of them ganged up on me and shot down my proposal. Shot down even more mercilessly was my chance in the bet. I got creamed. Of the thirty-two kids in our class, about one quarter got neither name right. Four got both right.
But in the important swing-vote category... I stopped counting the correct Ozawas once the figure reached twenty. As for Captain Carl... several boys punted and tried to get away with spelling Yaz. I figured after fifteen years in a Red Sox uniform it was high time he Americanized it anyway, but Sister did not agree. One girl began the spelling with a U. A couple more went straight from the Y to the S. Almost nobody could figure out what to do with the stupid Z, and to tell you the truth by the end I was angry enough at the guy to agree with them. He even threw us by moving the Z into a whole nother spot when he nicknamed himself, which I also mentioned in my defense, with no success.
Sister made great use of the opportunity, turning the contest into a fascinating progression of phonetic, geographic, and civic lessons. She led a discussion on what constitutes culture, and what constitutes “American.” It was all very nice and all very interesting, and gave a person no extra citizenship points for being a baseball player. She was clearly biased.
Which was fine for Sister Jacqueline. She didn’t have to go to the stupid symphony.
Napoleon Charlie Ellis was late that morning. He walked into the middle of the discussion and took his seat next to mine at the back of the class. Sister caught him on the fly, pulling him right in.
He got them both right.