Desperate to save his relationship with Martha, Tom had an idea. For the first time in years, he skipped a Saturday night elbow-bending session at Kaffman’s.
After playing some late-night basketball at PS 21, the skinny science teacher treated himself to an ice cream cone at Ralph’s in Port Richmond. Reading the New York Post briefly, he was ensconced in his sun-porch bedroom and asleep by 11:30 p.m. Why to bed so early? Tom had plans for Sunday morning. Visions of the tall, voluptuous brunette filled his head, along with the din of Saturday night traffic on Pulaski Avenue.
Neatly dressed in one of his old teaching suits, a light-blue polyester garment purchased at J. C. Penny, Tom hoped that Martha was in attendance at St. Mary’s church on Richmond Terrace. The small chapel was lightly attended for a pleasant Sunday in early May, Tom imagined. He assumed that church attendance fell during the bitter days of winter and rose with the balmy days of spring. Then he saw her, clothed in a formfitting pink dress, with a matching pink bonnet.
Trying to focus on the priest’s sermon, Tom did his best to disregard her blooming presence. The subject of the priest’s sermon was the role of marriage in providing stability for children and society as a whole. When it came time to receive communion, Martha went up to the front of the church to receive communion.
She must have gone to confession and told the stern, middle-aged priest about her sexual transgressions. Somehow, that thought did not bode well for a reconciliation between the two teachers.
As Tom emerged from the church, he waited for his old girlfriend. Approaching her with trepidation, the young science teacher said hello.
“Tom! This is the last place I’d expect to see you. Did you have a scary dream about a burning bush?” Martha said, adjusting her pink bonnet.
“Maybe I had a revelation, and I’m turning over a new leaf in life,” he replied.
“Tom has found religion. You of all people? Why don’t you sell me the Brooklyn Bridge?” she commented with a wry smile.
“Martha, Martha. You are worried about so many things. I never knew you to be so cynical.”
“Stop with that ‘Martha, Martha’ crap from the Bible. It’s a joke worn thinner than your bony ass.”
“Ouch! You really know how to hurt a guy.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Mr. Newspaper Boy,” she exclaimed in a loud voice, attracting some of the bystanders’ attention.
Walking away, Tom stumbled and fell on the sidewalk, tearing a hole in his light-blue trousers. The trousers were part of a suit he had purchased during his first year of teaching. He was sentimental about clothes, refusing to discard them no matter how wrinkled, frayed, or faded with chalk the garment was.
Now she thinks I’m back to early-morning drinking, a habit he had long ago given up. I keep digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole with Martha. As with so many things in life, luck plays a big role. And he was out of luck with the tall buxom brunette. At least he wasn’t wearing one of his newer bell-bottom trousers—the rage of the 1970s. A few weeks earlier, the skinny teacher had tripped on his wide cuffs walking up Hamilton Hill, drawing giggles from his students. Yet he had to laugh at his own clumsiness. It reminded him of a heavyset softball player from Elm Park who had stumbled and fell hard on the pavement while running out a ground ball on the PS 21 playground years ago. Everybody turned away, struggling to keep from laughing at the funny spectacle of all that abundant soft flesh bouncing on hard concrete.