I went cold as I considered it.
I’d had close calls before. Failing grades. Night school. Missed exams.
Looking back, I wondered when it was I’d stopped trying.
I thought of the bad teachers I’d had. Mr. Burm, who started each English class with a piece of chalk between his fingers. He’d step to the board, scratch out an assignment, then return to his newspaper while we did what we wanted at our desks. I kept waiting for something to happen, long after other students had realized that his class would be just another study hall. What a letdown after the nuns who’d shown such fire while reading poetry.
But there were good teachers, too.
Mrs. Farnham, my eleventh-grade English teacher, for instance. She had Parkinson’s or some other ailment that caused her to shake, wore her hair in a quivering pile on top of her head, and made no mystery of the fact that she had only one breast. She loved the books she assigned, and when I actually attended, I found myself touched by Rosasharon’s sharing of her milk, could relate to the seasickness of the Joads’ westward migration. And who could not visualize Lady Macbeth with those impossible stains on her hands in Mrs. Farnham’s telling? Still, I had a job I preferred to school by then. When I received a report card that showed me failing the class, I went to her in a panic. It was a Friday in June, a few days before the end of the school year, but suddenly, I cared. I wanted to pass.
I found Mrs. Farnham in her room, head shaking behind a pile of typed papers. She looked up briefly, then back to her work.
I walked in and stood before her desk.
“I’ve read some books on my own this year,” I said, my voice wet. She’d liked my writing earlier in the year, and I was hoping to impress her with my literary prowess.
“Like what?” she asked without looking up.
I thought hard. I had been reading lots, but didn’t think Harlequin romances would impress her. I wanted to show I’d been serious in my choices. I thought of one an English teacher would like: “Well, Catcher in the Rye, for starts.”
“Outdated piece of shit,” she said.
Surprised by the frankness of her opinion, I was unsure whether to try another title or walk away.
Walk away, I decided.
As I started to leave, Mrs. Farnham finally raised her head and asked if I liked feminist science fiction.
Normally I might have laughed, but I was scared and serious for once, so I said I wasn’t sure.
She sent me home with a stack of books, told me to have them read by Monday, at which time she kept me after school and asked me to explain the plot, literary approach, and roles of women in each novel.
She was cautious as I began, but showed some satisfaction as I continued. “The female characters are surprisingly strong,” I said, “each takes a risk in the novel, and by the end, only one of them seems to regret it.”
“Which? And when?” She asked, and leaned in as I answered.
Still, she did not smile.
“I like you,” she finally said, “but make no mistake, I am doing you no favor—I would have failed you if you hadn’t read every last one of those books.”
I thought of Mrs. Farnham and other close calls as I told my mother it looked like I would not graduate from high school. She was in her room, the door closed. I talked through the door and waited for her response as I told her about failing gym class.
I kept talking.
I said something might happen to save me, but eventually silence hung on both sides of the closed door, and neither of us really believed.