14 Stories (6 page)

The only weekday mornings I haven't seen her and when I no doubt could have better determined whether she's a student or not simply by her absence or presence on the street, were during the winter and spring vacations when for a week each just about every school in the city was closed. And the one time I've seen her other than on a weekday morning was when she and a girlfriend were approaching the same grocery store I was at that moment leaving. It later made me wonder if she lives with this girl or at home alone or with her folks. Anyway, I missed what I still think was my best chance at introducing myself to her. Because when I saw her coming toward me chatting and laughing with this friend I instantly felt I had the pluck to say something, anything, even a hello accompanied by a smile but hopefully something more courageous or even mildly amusing or ironic, such as “Remember me?” Certainly that would have puzzled her, though I think if she had looked right at me after I said that there would have been some sign of surprised recognition on her face. Because I've noticed that like me she doesn't walk an entire block without once glancing to her right and left and behind and even at the windows and buildings and sky above her and she must have seen me many times, more times than I've observed, as my eyes aren't always on her, and after a while recorded in her mind that almost every weekday morning, because of a combination of concurrences in our living habits and work or educational conditions, I'm the same man who walks on the opposite sidewalk though in a counter direction at almost the same time and in practically the same positioning from her as she heads for the avenue that parallels the park. For the points where we're at nearest antipodes from one another hardly varies from day to day by more than two hundred feet or the combined widths of numbers 20 to 40 brownstones. And the time when I see her is invariably between 8:35, when I leave my apartment, and 8:36, when I normally take a last look back at her before turning the corner, as I have to leave home the same time every morning if I don't want to run to school to dock in by 8:40 or every minute after that be docked about a dime from my monthly paycheck.

The first of the other two times I've seen her up close also happened accidentally. To explain: at the street corner on her side, which she crosses the avenue to get to in order to make her way up my block, is a candy store which has a large variety though charges three cents more per pack of a particular brand of candy I like, the flavors there ranging from several kinds of tropical and sour fruits to the hard-to-get chocolate mint, butternut and the extremely rare maple cream. But because of the higher price and time-consuming inconvenience of having to cross the street to get to this store and then cross back to continue to school, I almost always buy these candies at a store which, besides being along the most direct route to school is also owned by a much friendlier man, who not only has an invaliding chronic affliction I sympathize with but who I have a strong loyalty to because he lets me run up a month's bill on my art and stationery supplies. But once a month or so, and till that morning always in the evening when the store where I get credit is closed, I cross the street to go to this corner store to choose from its much larger selection of this particular candy and in fact to stock up with several of the flavors the other store owner says would be too many dead items to carry, and that's what I did the first time I saw her face to face. It was drizzling and chilly, near the end of March. We passed not a foot from one another and I stared at her eyes as she looked fleetingly at my face and then my clothes. I had on a soiled trench coat, muffler, galoshes and green felt hat—a hat similar to one often worn by male marionettes, though it was advertised in the newspaper, where I got the idea to go downtown to buy it, for golfers who want to pursue their game in the rain but don't want to be burdened with a bulky hat to carry when they already have their cumbersome clubs. I probably looked ridiculous in this hat, as it comes to a point on top, which is the reason it can be rolled up tight and tucked in a back pocket as easy as a large hanky, and has a small brim and no band or feather and the color's like new grass and I wear it pulled down on top of my ears. She was wearing her sou'wester, maxicoat and laced high boots. What was unusual about her was her hair, waving behind her like a flag that never touches its flagstaff in a heavy wind, instead of pinned up under the brim, the only day during a rainstorm when I saw it wasn't The one other time I came up close to her also took place on her side of the street. It was a month later, a clear sunny day I remember, as we'd had a month's string of them, and this time I cut across the street in the middle of the block when I saw her in the distance on the next street over from mine walk toward the avenue, cross it and start up my street from the corner. I wanted to get another good look at her and I thought I might even say “Good morning” or “Nice day” if she was looking at me as we passed—a cheerful innocent greeting, nothing more—so I might have some basis for saying something more substantial to her on another day. But she kept her eyes to the ground as we came together and practically touched elbows and then looked straight ahead when we were separated by about ten steps each.

I saw her again this morning. Short dress, hair combed back and neat as ever, tanned legs, knotty calves, big feet, small waist and nose, slender bowed neck—another dancer sign—never eye- or sunglasses or a perceptible face blemish or clothes stain, she walked briskly, gracefully, I've never seen her chew gum or her nails or eat on the street or smoke and for no more knowable reason than that mixed with my hopes for her health and conjectures about her dancing career, doubt if she smokes at all, long mouth, average­sized eyes, breasts appear small and except for a day when she wore a man's white T-shirt and her teats seemed unusually dark and pronounced, never without a brassiere, high buttocks, low heels on her shoes and boots, never sneakers or socks and stockings always a brilliant color and in the red and blue family, though of late never hose, today in sandals, yesterday when rain was definitely forecast and thunderclouds loomed all day overhead, plastic or leather boots but no other visible rainwear, from what I can see no makeup, jewelry or adornments of any kind on her neck, hair, ears, fingers, clothes, ankles and nothing on her wrist but the watch she always wears with the exaggerated pocketwatch face and equally large transparent band, rarely a blouse, skirt or bandanna and always one of about five leather shoulder bags and each beaded or embroidered with colorful primitive or tribal symbols, designs or replicas of prehistoric cave paintings of what seem to be spear-holding hunters on foot or horseback and their animal or human prey and all with leather fringes that beat against her coat or dangle above her knee. That's about what I know of her till what I learned today.

For the past two-and-a-half weeks and until school closes I'm the substitute typing teacher for the seventh grade, though without an official homeroom class. Periodically, the other typing teacher unlocks my back or front door with her passkey and offers compassion and advice, such as “Pity you don't know shorthand or can't pick it up quick at some speedy secretarial school. For short­hand's what they were promised to learn for June and which would have kept their interest and them from being so rowdy.” I took the job to guarantee myself a full month's work, as per diem work is hardest to get the first and last months of the school year. I don't type and was mainly hired over a woman sub who taught the subject a few years to defend the machines with my very vis vitae and bloody sinews, as the assistant principal put it, since each typewriter costs a hundred fifty dollars and the local school district won't have the funds to replace the irreparably broken ones for a year. I was warned to be especially watchful that the students don't dismantle the margin control springs to use as bracelets or pick off the keys one by one till they've spelled their first, nick- and surnames in their pockets. Some of the students continue to mutilate the machines no matter what I do. Every day I find several Tab, Mar Rel and Back Space keys on the floor after I heard them pinging off the blackboard. Also, the large bolts and wing nuts that secure the machines to their tables and a variety of less familiar parts that I'm sure come from inside the machine though I can't locate where. Even if several students in each class remain fascinated by the machines and type every lesson I give them, I've gradually become incensed with my inability to control the majority of students and reduce their vandalism, and during the last period today I accused two boys of maliciously destroying their margin controls and not even having the simple skill it took to do the job cleanly, though the only proof I had for either charge were the two margin control springs in their hands.

“They were on the floor when we got here,” one of the boys said. I said “Bullcrap and you know it” and threatened to tell their homeroom teacher of their abuse of school property and hold up their final report cards, and right after school to phone their parents and demand they pay for the repair of the machines. I wasn't going to make any such calls or even see their teacher. All I ever do after school is hurry home, shower, snack, have a beer, change to street clothes and walk in the park and read and sketch there for a while or lie on my bed and sleep. Besides, the city has a cover repair contract with a typewriter service that includes everything but the replacement of parts, and what would a couple of margin control springs cost? I asked for the boys' phone numbers. One said he didn't have a phone and lived with his oldest sister and her kids and the other said he lived on a roof of a building I'd be cut up in if I was ever so dumb to step an inch inside and I shouldn't be trying to push them around as the only thing strong about me is my breath. Instead of hoisting him out of his seat and demanding an apology, which I felt like doing but which could end up with a corporal punishment charge brought against me, I said “All right, maybe you didn't do it, but at the rate these machines are being mistreated there won't be one left to type on in a week,” and went to the supply closet and pretended to be looking for something and came across a stack of old school annuals called
Terminations
. The teacher I'm subbing for must have saved every issue of the annual since the school opened twelve years ago. To waste time till the bell rang I began flipping through the top copy—last year's annual—and got caught up in the way the appearances of so many students and teachers I know had changed so radically in just a year. How one teacher with a full head of hair now was in the annual totally bald. How an attractive female teacher then had gained about a hundred pounds since the photo was taken and another teacher looked so different without his present long side-burns, mustache, ear stud and shoulder-length hair. I opened the
Terminations
of two years ago, expecting to see even greater contrasts and transformations in these and other teachers and from there to proceed to later issues till I had read in reverse order them all, when I saw in a photograph of a ninth-grade glass that one of the girls sitting solemnly in the front row looked very much like the young woman I see every day on my way to work. A few of my students were still typing the warm-up exercises. My prize student was copying from her lesson book the long business letter to a cement company about its basement construction costs. Most of the students were congregated around the phonograph in the back of the room, singing and dancing to their records of eleven- and twelve-year-old recording stars, after having removed the instructional record I'd put on to improve their typing speed. One girl sitting on my desk brushing her hair suddenly yelled “Hey Mr. Teacher, Terry's molesting me—get him to stop!” I said” I'll be there in a second, honey—Terry, lay off!” and looked for the blond bony face in the rows of individual photos of the entire ninth-grade graduating class at the end of the book, thinking she shouldn't be too hard to find among so many dark faces and black hairs and half the class male and about a fifth of them with eyeglasses. And there she was. Unmistakably the same girl. Long thin face, hair combed back the same way, no smile, same neck, ears, eyes, forehead and mouth. Judy Louis her name. 7th­grade treasurer. Voted prettiest girl in the 8th grade. Best sense of humor in the 9th. Fencing club, Dramsoc, Quill ‘n Ink, citywide and intramural girls' track-team star. High school she's going to attend: Mind, Spirit, Beauty and the Creative and Performing Arts. College she hopes to attend: School of Hard Knocks. Ambition: dancer, actress, gourmand and paid somnivolent. Favorite sports and hobbies: eating and dreaming. Pet peeves: hard mattresses, cooked okra, bad theater acoustics and a slippery splintery stage. Favorite adage: There's no yesterday and tomorrow never was.

Maybe I'll look up her address in the phone book when I get home and go and see where she lives. Her building's probably on the same number street as mine but the next block over. But what if she has a front apartment and recognizes me through the window as the man she sees every weekday morning on her way to wherever she's going, which is probably school? She might become alarmed, tell her parents, who she's most likely living with, and even if it's only her mother who's at home she might come out and ask who I am and what's my interest in her daughter and their building and the police could be called. No matter how adept I might be in talking myself out of the situation, my school could learn of the incident and I could be fired and also lose my license. Substitute teaching pays me better than any job I've had when I worked at it steadily as I've been doing and I can pick it up and drop it whenever I want. So forget the girl. Crazy idea, looking up her address. She's just a kid. Or at least, compared to my age, much too young.

The bell rings. Chairs are knocked down as the students clamber over one another to leave through either door. I tidy up the room, scour the floor for typewriter parts and check which keyboards the keys belong to and fit them back on, lock the cabinets and doors and go to the general office where I see the other typing teacher waiting with half the teaching staff for three o'clock to come.