Teacher Man. Frank McCourt

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      What’s your name, young lady?

      June Somers.

      Haven’t I just told you I’ve observed and supervised dozens of student teachers?

      My father is a high school teacher, professor, and he says you know nothing about high school teaching till you’ve done it.

      He said he didn’t know what she was getting at. She was wasting the time of this class and if she wanted to continue the discussion she could make an appointment with his secretary to meet in his office.

      She stood and slung her bag strap on her shoulder. No, she would not make an appointment to see him and saw no reason why he couldn’t simply answer her question about his teaching experience.

      That’s enough, Miss Somers.

      She turned and looked at Seymour, glanced at me and walked toward the door. The professor stared and dropped the piece of chalk in his hand. By the time he retrieved it she was gone.

      What would he do now about Miss June Somers?

      Nothing. He said the hour was nearly over, he’d see us next week, picked up his bag and walked out. Seymour said June Somers had screwed herself royally. Royally. He said, One thing I’ll tell you. Don’t mess around with professors. You can’t win. Ever.

      The following week he said, Did you see that? Jesus.

      I didn’t think someone wearing a yarmulke should say Jesus like that. How would he like it if Yahweh or G dash D were a curse and I blasted him with it? But I said nothing for fear he might laugh at me.

      He said, They’re going out. I saw them in a Macdougal Street café all lovey-dovey drinking coffee, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. Goddam. I guess she had a little chat in his office and moved on.

      My mouth was dry. I thought some day I’d run into June and find

      my tongue and we’d go to a movie together. I’d choose something foreign with subtitles to show how sophisticated I was and she’d admire me and let me kiss her in the dark, missing a dozen subtitles and the thread of the story. That wouldn’t matter because we’d have plenty to talk about in a cozy Italian restaurant where candles flickered and her red hair twinkled back and who knows what that would lead to because that was as far as my dreams would go. Who did I think I was anyway? What made me think she’d look at me for one second?

      I prowled the coffee shops of Macdougal Street hoping she might see me and smile and I’d smile back and sip my coffee so casually she’d be impressed, take a second look. I’d make sure she could see the cover of my book, something by Nietzsche or Schopenhauer, and she’d wonder why she was wasting her time with the professor when she could be with that sensitive Irishman sunk in German philosophy. She’d excuse herself and on her way to the ladies’ toilet drop a scrap of paper on my table with her phone number.

      Which is what she did the day I saw her at the Café Figaro. When she left the table the professor looked after her with such an air of ownership and pride I could have knocked him from his chair. Then he glanced at me and I knew he didn’t even recognize me as a student from his class.

      He called for his bill, and while the waitress stood at his table obscuring his view, June was able to drop that scrap of paper on my table. I waited till they left. “Frank, call me tomorrow.” The telephone number was scrawled in lipstick.

      God. She noticed me, a dockside laborer fumbling my way toward a teaching career, and the professor was, Jesus, a professor. But she knew my name. I was weak in the head from happiness. There was my name on a paper napkin with lipstick that had touched her lips and I knew I’d keep that piece of paper forever. I’d be buried with it.

      I called her and she asked if I knew where we could have a quiet drink.

      Chumley’s.

      OK.

      What would I do? How would I sit? What would I say? I was having a drink with the most beautiful girl in Manhattan, who probably slept every night with that professor. That was my Calvary, thinking of her with him. Men in Chumley’s looked at me and envied me and I knew what they were thinking. Who is that miserable specimen with that beautiful girl, that knockout, that stunner? Yeah, maybe I was her brother or cousin. No, even that was unlikely. I wasn’t good- looking enough even to be her third or fourth cousin.

      She ordered a drink. Norm’s away, she said. He teaches a course in Vermont two days a week. I suppose bigmouth Seymour told you everything.

      No.

      So, why are you here?

      You… you invited me.

      What do you think of yourself?

      What?

      Simple question. What do you think of yourself?

      I don’t know. I…

      She looked disapproving. You call when you’re told to call. You appear when you’re told to appear and you don’t know what you think of yourself. For Christ’s sakes, say one good thing about yourself. Go ahead.

      I felt blood rushing to my face. I had to say something or she might get up and walk away.

      A platform boss on the piers once said I was a tough little mick.

      Oh, well. Take that remark and a dime and you can ride the subway two stops. You’re a lost soul. That’s easy to see. Norm likes lost souls.

      Words jumped from my mouth: I don’t care what Norm likes.

      Oh, God. She’ll get up and walk away. No. She laughed so hard she nearly choked on her wine. Then everything was different. She smiled at me and smiled and smiled. I felt so happy I could barely stay in my skin.

      She reached across the table and put her hand on mine and my heart was a mad animal in my chest. Let’s go, she said.

      We walked to her apartment on Barrow Street. Inside, she turned and kissed me. She moved her head in a circular way so that her tongue traveled clockwise in my mouth and I thought, Lord, I am not worthy. Why didn’t God tell me about this before my twenty- sixth year?

      She said I was a healthy peasant and obviously starved for affection. I didn’t like being called a peasant—Jesus, hadn’t I read books, every word of E. Laurie Long, P. G. Wodehouse, Mark Twain, E. Philips Oppenheim, Edgar Wallace and good old Dickens—and I thought what we were doing here was more than showing affection. I said nothing because I had no experience of activities like this. She asked me if I liked monkfish and I said I didn’t know because I’d never heard of it before. She said everything depended on how you cooked it. Her secret was shallots. Not everyone agrees with that, she said, but it worked for her. It’s a delicate whitefish best cooked with a good white wine. Not an ordinary cooking wine, but a good one. Norm cooked fish once but he made a mess of it, used some piss from California that turned the fish into an old shoe. The poor dear knew his literature and his lecturing, but nothing about wine or fish.

      It’s strange to be with a woman who takes your face in her hands and tells you to have faith in yourself. She said, My father came from Liverpool and he drank himself to death because he was afraid of the world. He said he wished he was a Catholic so СКАЧАТЬ