Melancholy after his encounter with Bonnie Rosolio, Tom opted for some heavy drinking at Kaffman’s on Morningstar Road. He frequently sought to numb his melancholia after meeting with former classmates. Bumping into Harry the Horse, he spewed out a narrative of maudlin remarks. After an hour, Harry had heard enough from the skinny science teacher. Pocketing his money from the bar, the former Pied Piper of Elm Park grabbed Tom by the collar of his shirt and escorted him out of the hazy, sour-sweet–smelling bar into the fresh air of the balmy April night.
“It’s time both of us got out of there. I don’t know about you, but I have work tomorrow,” Harry growled, fumbling for his keys.
“Ah. Who said April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of dead land, mixing memory and desire?” Tom recited, recalling Bonnie Rosolio’s love of poetry.
“How the fuck would I know! I’m not a schoolteacher. You better get your ass home. Those kids are gonna give you a hard time, whether you’re hungover or not.”
“It was T. S. Eliot, the American expatriate, living in Paris.”
“Go home, Tom. I tell you what—I’ll play you in stickball Saturday. Bring your friend with you.”
Pleased by the notion of challenging the formidable stickball player, Tom smiled and shook the housepainter’s hand. He turned and shambled down Booker Place and was sound asleep in his sun-porch bedroom within a few minutes.
Walking into the front entrance of Curtis High School, Tom greeted the school’s principal.
“Don’t tell me, I’m going to be covering somebody’s class today.”
“Yup. By the way, you look like shit today. I hope you’re not back drinking all hours of the night,” the burly administrator said, eyeing Tom closely.
“Not at all. I might be coming down with something. Otherwise, I’m as fit as a fiddle. When was the last time I missed a day of teaching?”
“You got a point there. But burning both ends of the candle is going to affect your looks at some point,” Mr. Stout said sardonically.
“Then I’ll start living like a saint—attending church, eating healthy, getting to bed by nine o’clock, no drinking, no women, and no impure thoughts.”
“Yeah, sure. The Elm Park barfly is turning over a new leaf.”
“Anyway, whose class am I covering?”
“You know who—Miss Rearview Mirror. She’s missing in action for the next few days. You’re covering an English class,” Mr. Stout said grimly.
“Would that I grab that rear appendage, an indiscretion worth dying for,” Tom replied.
“Don’t even think about it. Rosie Murray’s husband is a New York City detective who keeps her on a short leash,” Mr. Stout said, handing Tom the absent teacher’s notes.
Entering Mrs. Murray’s class to the usual crescendo of boos and cheers, Tom wondered how he would start a lesson on Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. He barely remembered the splendid book, which he had read in high school. Unlike his science lessons, he had no practical experiment or visual aid to motivate the lesson. How did English teachers get their ideas across without a dramatic opening like launching a match-head rocket or dropping a piece of sodium in a beaker of water? Nothing beat pyrotechnics when it came to grabbing teenagers’ attention. Turning to the board, the skinny science teacher wrote the name of the book on the board as his students groaned with typical irritation and petulance.
“Come on, Mr. Haley. Do one of your practical experiments,” Manny called out from the back of the room.
“Why don’t you give us a free period?” someone chimed in from the same locale.
“He’s just doing his job. Give the guy a break,” Lora said, rattling her copper bracelets and anklets.
“Look who’s brownnosing today. Yesterday you were giving Mrs. Murray a hard time,” Barry replied.
“I hate that snotty bitch. Thinks she’s better than everyone with her fancy clothes and her big you-know-what.”
“Okay, everybody, pipe down. Let’s talk about the book, which is set in a small town. When does the story take place?”
“During the 1950s,” Ronnie answered.
Looking at his notes, Tom corrected her. “I believe it was during the 1930s. There’s mention of Franklin Roosevelt’s WPA program employing some people in the town of Maycomb, Alabama.”
“It had to be a long time ago, because all the white people had black housekeepers and maids doing their work,” Barry observed.
“Those Southerners were very mean to the Negroes. My dad said people from the South are still fighting the Civil War,” Wendy observed.
“What about the two Finch children, Scout and Jem?” Tom asked, checking his notes.
“How can a six-year-old girl beat up her big brother? That’s messed up,” Barry said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, Jem must be gay like that music teacher, Mr. Schayes,” Manny called out from the back of the room.
“Here’s some practical advice: live and let live,” Tom replied. He had heard the same advice as a CCNY student from his physics instructor in response to some derogatory remarks made by a classmate about an English professor.
“That girl Scout was the real hero of the book. Remember when she kicked that redneck in the nuts when he was getting ready to beat up Atticus?” Lora commented, shaking her copper bracelets and anklets for emphasis.
“What did you say? The proper description is to say she rattled his nuggets,” Barry interjected.
Ignoring the chitchat and perusing Mrs. Murray’s notes, Tom asked about the social taboos described in the book.
“We all know about that stuff. When a colored man messes with a white woman, he’ll wind up dead before you can say Jackie Robinson,” Barry said.
“That’s only in the South,” Lora replied.
“You kidding me? A white girl with jungle fever is asking for trouble … North or South in the good USA.”
“What about the title, To Kill a Mockingbird?” Tom inquired.
“The mockingbird was a symbol of innocence. You could shoot a blue jay but not a mockingbird, which sang each morning,” Wendy replied.
“Excellent, Wendy. Getting back to the book, was Atticus Finch a hero in the story, unlike most of the adults who had axes to grind?”
“He argued a good case for that black man, Tom. But the jury was prejudiced, and he was convicted of raping that white woman. I’m not a big fan of trial by jury,” said Riner, a bespectacled boy who always did his homework.
“Trial by jury goes back to English common law and the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution,” Tom observed.
“That white woman, Mayella, was a slut. She should have gone to jail for perjury,” Manny called out from the back row of desks.
“The thing that bugs me about small towns, like Maycomb, is that everybody knows your business,” Lora said, fiddling with her copper bracelets.
“Why’s that? You got something to hide, girl?” Barry snapped.
“Shut the fuck up!” she screamed.
“You want to make me?” Barry yelled, getting up from his seat.
“Calm down, both of you,” Tom said firmly, walking down Barry’s aisle.
Moving on, Tom asked, “What about the emphasis on family and social class? Is that just a phenomenon of the South, or does it also exist in the North?”
“That’s just snobbery. It exists everywhere,” said Wendy, whose good looks were matched by a sharp mind.
“I agree,” said Barry. “Look at Mr. Haley. He comes from a long line of whiskey drinkers, but he became a renowned Curtis High School teacher.”
“Mr. Haley is cool. And he has cool friends, like that messiah man from Mariners Harbor,” Lora replied.
“You ought to invite him here to talk to us,” someone called out from the back of the room.
“Is he white or black?” Barry asked.
“He’s mixed, like most of us,” Tom replied. Actually, Tom wasn’t sure of his friend’s ethnic background. Lately, he surmised that Amon was a Native American.
Glancing at Mrs. Murray’s notes, Tom asked what Harper Lee meant by the term “fine folks” in her book.
“That’s just another name for white people,” Barry replied.
“Actually, the author defined ‘fine folks’ as those with the good sense to do the best with what they’ve been given,” Tom read from his notes.
“Why does everybody have to have a label? White, black, Spanish, Italian, Irish, Polish, Chinese—down deep inside we’re all the same,” Lora asserted.
“That’s a profound sentiment,” Tom concurred, folding up Mrs. Murray’s notes.
“C’mon, people, now, smile on your brother. Everybody get together, try to love one another right now,” Barry crooned off-key as the bell sounded, ending the class.
Amidst the good insights, irrelevant comments, laughter, and derision, and the Youngbloods’ song on brotherly love, Tom’s fill-in lesson for his well-endowed colleague seemed to go fairly well. Of course, how much his restless teenagers carried away from Harper Lee’s memorable book about social justice in the racially divided South was questionable. From Tom’s remembrances of his own high school experiences, he believed that students took away useful insights that would remain with them through the years. He recalled reading Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities in high school, which began with the line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness … it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”