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LENNY WAS A FOOTBALLER but not the stereotypical athlete. He was bright, handsome, and captain of the school’s senior football team. He invited me to some of his matches and at one of them I met his parents who were quite pleasant and who welcomed me as if I were a long lost relative.
His sister made my heart flutter: pretty, sanguine, good sense of humor. Was she the one for me? It was a question I always asked when I met a desirable woman for the first time, but was deflated when I heard that she was fifteen years younger than I was. Next.
Lenny hooked up with another of my seniors, Felicity, and I had not seen that coming.
Felicity’s story was like so many others in school: her mother was away in New York and she lived with her grandmother and aunt. The barrel generation, we called them in the staff room, since their parents would ship a barrel to them at Christmastime with all the latest brands of clothing, shoes and video games. These kids usually failed at school for they were living with the expectation of being sent for by the parent to live in America where their lives were going to be so much better. What most of them did not know was that their parents were living in the States illegally and would not be sending for them to live in the land overflowing with milk and honey.
Felicity was the exception in that she had no desire to move to the States. Life on the island as a multi-talented athlete was all she wanted – that and for her grandmother to stop nagging her.
Because she had never known her father, I psychoanalyzed, she had a long, sordid history with boyfriends, with all of whom she had been sexually involved. Some were true riff-raff who were just glad for an opportunity to be with a good-looking young woman to elevate their status in the eyes of their friends.
I had taken a liking to Felicity for her boldness. She loved harassing me and would never do anything I told her the first time. Yet she often found herself in my company, listening to whatever stories or advice I might be dishing out to someone, walking off saying how boring I was. But somehow I knew I was getting under her skin.
When Felicity visited her mother one vacation and asked me what I wanted for Christmas, she brought back a CD that I couldn’t get locally. I was so excited that I wanted to hug her, but she refused me. I think it had to do with how many kids were around. How uncool was it to be hugged by your teacher anyway?
When Lenny and Felicity hooked up I said nothing – neither approving nor disapproving. Their class that year, when they were seniors, sneaked alcohol into school the day we were having our school’s annual Carnival celebrations. Felicity got drunk, Lenny had unprotected sex with her in the bathroom and Felicity got pregnant. Neither told me anything – and there I had been under the delusion that I was their father-figure.
The situation worsened: Felicity got an abortion without telling anyone except one of her friends who accompanied her to the nurse who did it. She did not even tell Lenny. When he found out he went ballistic. He had already been making plans to tell his parents about the child and was determined to find some way to raise it.
“Lenny,” I said to him one day while sitting on a bench after school. He was waiting for his coach to arrive and I had stayed back to grade some papers. I loved the school compound after hours – peaceful, green, and, to quote the running joke among my colleagues, “so much better when the kids were not there.” “I’ve been hearing some talk about you.”
He bowed his head. “It’s true, sir.”
“But you don’t even know what it is.”
“It’s about Felicity. Everybody knows. I’m surprised that it took so long for you to find out.” His eyes moistened. “Sir, she killed my child. Who knows who that child would have turned out to be?” He was weeping unabashedly. “And no matter how long I live or how many kids I have, I will always be tormented by the memory of this one.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. I had no words to comfort him.
*
AFTER GRADUATION FELICITY joined her mother in New York to start college. We kept in touch via e-mail and from time to time she would call me. I took on the job of surrogate father in her life especially when she told me about all the men who wanted to be with her. “Just say no,” was my advice to her. Books first, boys later. Boys were not on the list of endangered species and when she was through studying there would still be boys left.
I had no idea that she would have taken me so literally.
Felicity’s e-mail seemed deliberately vague one day. She claimed that things were going so well that the cynic in me anticipated that something bad was about to happen. She wrote that since she had gone to New York she had been doing something that I was not going to approve of but it was something that she liked anyway. Yes, she was staying away from the boys, but there was a girl she had been seeing; “experimenting” was what she called it.
I held my head and groaned. No, Lise. Not you too. I shoved my chair back and paced the room. It seemed that lately I had heard of an increasing number of my past students playing on the opposite side of the fence, but Felicity was the first girl I knew of. If it were some other girl I would have accepted it, probably would not have been bothered by it, but Felicity was like a little sister, a daughter even.
When I calmed down, half an hour later, I composed a carefully worded e-mail to her. It read:
Dear Lise, you mean so much to me. Thank you for sharing honestly with me what has been going on with you. Even though I may not approve, I still do love you. I will call you over the weekend.
I had learned from my experience with Rawle years earlier.
Felicity called that very night. Her mood was flippant as mine was. We made small talk, and then I asked, “So how did it happen?”
“It just did.”
“Come on, Lise. You mean to tell me you were just, I don’t know, studying in the library with some girl, and then she invited you to her place, asked you to take your clothes off and lie on the bed, and you did?”
She laughed her little ratty laugh. “No.”
“So, how did it happen?”
She hesitated a moment before telling me her tale. “There’s this girl on the track team that I found myself having feelings for. I spoke to someone about it and she told me that I should do whatever makes me happy.” Bloody Americans, I thought. Doesn’t anybody think about right and wrong anymore? “So I approached the girl and we just did it.”
“So, she was lesbian?”
“No.”
My mind clouded. “So she is now?”
“Sir, this is just a phase we’re going through, you know. She’s going off to another college next semester so I don’t know what will happen to us. It’s just something – maybe temporary, maybe not.”
“You told your Mom yet?”
“Nope. I want to tell my aunt, my favorite aunt, but I don’t know how she would take it.” I had seen pictures of her mom: a big-boned, serious-looking, hard-working, no-nonsense woman. I had spoken with her on the phone. There was no way in hell she was going to be okay with her only daughter being lesbian. She was going to raise hell and break every homosexual bone in her child. After all, she had a four-year-old son and what example would that be for him, I could imagine her saying.
“So what about God? What would you say to him when you stand before him on judgment day?” Felicity had been an acolyte in the Catholic Church while she lived on the island. Was I wrong to try to reach her on a spiritual level? Was I trying to force her into a choice that I would be happy with – without even considering what she wanted? Wasn’t it her life and, as an adult, didn’t she have a right to make her own choices even if I didn’t agree with them?
“Sir, I know it is wrong, but...” No justification came.
Of all the arguments I had lined up, this was the only one I believed in. I was still old-fashioned and the only real problem I had with homosexuality was a spiritual one.
We hung up at about eleven o’clock after exhausting the topic. She was experimenting with homosexuality and there was nothing I could do about it. I just did not want her to get hurt. I had heard stories about homosexual men and how promiscuous they were; many were into it for the sex and not any long-term commitment. I did not want Felicity to be sixty and alone save a few cats for company.
I had a restive night in bed. The jazz music playing softly in the background did nothing to calm me. I felt like I had failed Felicity. I felt like I had let down a whole bunch of people. I had been idealistic when I entered the teaching service with ambitions of changing the world, one child at a time. And I did change some children’s world – but not enough to lift me out of the disillusionment that was creeping in. After serving for sixteen years, I knew the time had come for me to leave.
*
I LEFT THE NOBLE JOB of teaching high school students because teaching left me.
When I entered the profession at the ripe old age of twenty-two it had been purely by accident. I was going to do a master’s degree right after receiving my baccalaureate, but my supervisor was a directionless clown who had me doing research at his whim. Fearing that I might have spent four years on a two-year degree program, I left when teaching opened up for me.
But life had taught me that everything happens for a reason. There were no accidents. It all depended on how you looked at it.
I had spent sixteen years teaching kids, being a friend to them, a parent for many who came from broken homes where an adult male was not present, a counselor, a caregiver, a money-lender, a cheerleader... My role was modified to suit each child I had the privilege of having in my class.
But the human interaction had taken its toll on me. I had heard stories of abuse and neglect, of seduction, drug use, abandonment, violence, murder and every imaginable evil against children – for that is how I saw them, as children, even though others said that they were big men and women who could handle anything life threw at them.
Over the years there had been a handful of students I got close to and wished I could have adopted, just so that I could make a more tangible difference in their lives. I opened my heart to them so that maybe they could see what a real person – a real adult, a real male – was like. I opened my heart, my home and my wallet to them. My motto was that if it made them happy even for a little while, it was worth it. I hoped that I was laying the foundation for better things, planting a good seed in them so that when they were reflecting on the good influences in their lives, I would be one they thought of.
I would be one who led by example. Quite an ambitious undertaking, but it was the only reason for being a school teacher, the only reason to spend six hours of my day among angry, rude, selfish, loud teenagers. My secret agenda was never verbalized.
But I got tired. I still did reach out to the new kids that came in year after year, but the fire in me was going out. It was Lenny and Felicity who drove me over the edge on which I was precariously perched.
Once the decision was made there was no turning back. I interviewed for the post of creative director at the video production company that I had done lots of work with – and got it.
The students were sad to see me leave, begging me to stay until they graduated. But I could not save the world. At least at the new company I could someday influence what our children were looking at and I could even create new programs that would not only entertain them, but empower them.
There were no accidents in life. Everything happened for a reason and the sixteen years spent in the classroom had been preparing me for the next step on my journey.
“So, you’re actually leaving,” Rie said to me as I cleaned out my desk.
“Yes.”
“Will you stay in touch?”
“Do you want me to?”
“We had some great times. I would hate for them to end.”
I wanted to say that they could continue with Trevor but that would have been cruel. Instead I said, “The choice is yours.”
“You’ll probably be busy with your productions and hobnobbing with the who’s who of society.”
“Probably.” I put all the trash into a garbage bag.
“You’re not making this apology easy, are you?”
“Is that what this is?”
“It really hurt me that my friend would think the worst of me, Clay.”
“I was only warning you. It’s so easy to...”
“I know. Only a true friend would be brave enough to confront me, instead of gossiping behind my back. I appreciate that.”
She hugged me. In the years that we had been friends, I didn’t remember ever hugging Rie and it felt weird. Gingerly, I patted her back.
