*begun yesterday – after actually beginning in 2011!! a fiction piece, one of many both non-f and fiction on the subject of teachers I have known and not so known, yet imagined. thanks for being here, and for reading.
There was one woman, one girl, he really liked. She was a student, a freshman in high school, with long brownish blond hair and gorgeous brown eyes. John wasn’t a fool, he wouldn’t go there whatever the so-called permissiveness of the era might encourage and allow, but her presence in the hallway, in-between classes (she wore mini-skirts with fringe that swayed with the movement of her hips), and their long talks in the morning (she would drop by and sit on his big wood desk, legs interestingly crossed) and after school often made his day; she waited for him by her locker, her hair falling forward, covering her profile, or, sitting in the floor, where he towered above her, looking down at her lovely upturned face. This was what, he often thought, he’d wished his own high school life had been like. He was popular. Or, anyway, he felt popular. It was nice.
She was bright and funny and was it so bad, having a young woman like this hanging on his every word? No it was not. And Cecilia Molinari was, after all, very mature for her age, which was, unbelievably when they met, only thirteen. She had older sisters, several, and a younger too; the word in the community on the family, on all of the Molinari girls, was ‘fast’ He rejected this pejorative description and it’s implied negative judgment, preferring to say that they were all mature for their ages, because they were. And he was cultivating a persona, a coolness and sangfroid in all situations to go with his long blond center-parted hair, puka shell necklace, and leather bracelets that matched his decorated leather vests and hair ties (sangfroid was one of his favorite words, he’d taken two years of French in high school; it had been required).
John opened his apartment in town to the dalliances of his fellow male teachers; their hard drinking and partying ways frightened and unsettled him, a bit (they were all married and he could hear his father’s voice in his head, cautioning him against getting in too deep), but he was always, always, a good sport, willing to play along. He was not the only one of them to have been in Vietnam; the group was led by an ex-army man, another new history teacher for ninth and tenth grades, a man of great intensity and daring, whose charismatic personality was like a drug on which they were all hooked. This man brought students, fifteen and sixteen year old girls, to the parties, getting them drunk after which he had his ‘way with them’ all, it seemed, entirely without consequence. How could one not feel unsettled and unnerved and, John was honest, also, in a way, how could you not be inspired? Horrified and inspired. Admiring and terrified.
The adrenaline rush of the life he was in was greater than anything John thought, he had experienced in ‘Nam. His colleague, the ex-Army man, said the same, once, late at night when they had both been drinking and had smoked a little pot; this man admitted there was a rush to taking risks, to dare anything, daring death itself – and now disgrace, he supposed – risk taking that he’d actually loved while in Vietnam. He hadn’t shaken his need for it, not by a long shot. This statement had made so much sense to John, nodding his head; yes, yes, that’s it exactly! And really how could you blame the guy, who’d done three tours, was super smart but poor, like dirt poor, and only got to go to college (imagine that, imagine, Jesus!) because of the risks he’d taken with his life, for his country? And anyway, he agreed, it’s not like they’d asked to be sent over there. And the whole thing had been a mess, everybody would one day agree, looked at through a historical, logical lens, the lens they both favored, as ‘men of history’. It made John feel good to be so tight a friend with such a powerful guy but one who was down to earth, and had to work for everything in his life. It was like he finally had the tough, lead you anywhere type of older brother he’d always wanted, a peer who was different enough to push him to expand himself, to be more and try more, but with the bonus of being a guy who also loved history.
John felt slightly safer, knowing what was going on during those weekend nights (and a few school nights, he had to admit) in his bachelor pad, in that the older generation – his dad’s generation – of teachers were retiring, one by one, being replaced by newbies who had no power, and even less experience out in the world. He felt there was less chance for gossip, for slip-ups to occur, not that he was expecting any but still, he liked to be safe. And he felt the older generation, mostly women but some men, many in their sixties, were so far removed by age from the kids (which he was definitely not), how could they make the connection, even if, God forbid, some kid said something? He and his contemporaries, his drinking buddies, were by contrast perfectly positioned, fully of energy, zeal, and lust for life. It was their time. They spoke at night over their beer and rum and cokes of taking control of the teachers union; the school’s principal was rarely in the building, known county-wide for going to every conference or meeting possible; the situation had opportunity written all over it. John went along; why wouldn’t he?
He and Cecilia became sexual in her Junior year, after he was granted tenure. Along with some former students of his, now in their final year in high school, they sometimes drove to New Jersey, stopping in motels where cheap rooms and even cheaper beer was plentiful. He made sure to sit in the back seat, sometimes crouching down, making sure he would not be seen until they had left Delaware County. He became adept at playing the role of a politely interested adult where Ce-ce was concerned, yet all the while the bond between them grew. He did not, yet, share the relationship with his father, but he would, ultimately, when Cecelia was a bit older. She was so adorable, he knew his father, who was a great lover of women himself, would love her as much as he did. Her sisters, who were in on the secret, and his close colleagues, were very supportive; the sisters drove Ce-ce to his apartment for their local trysts. His experiences with sex had been very limited; he grew up in a tight-knit community on Long Island, mostly German and Irish, some Italian, but almost all Catholic; it had made any ‘home-run’ encounters difficult, and while he’d had a few opportunities at home and in college, he’d never had so willing a partner, so consistently and for so long, week after week after month of deliciousness. Ce-ce was, as she liked to say, ‘hot to trot’. Sometimes he felt as thought she and her sisters knew more about sex and all that than he did; they certainly all loved to party.
They decided, he and Ce-ce together, that she would not attend college. He had money coming from his dad and a big chunk of shares he’d inherited from his mother when she died, during his junior year in college. His father, learning about the relationship and their marriage plans, offered them the down payment on a house, only asking that they wait to have kids, at least until Cecelia was twenty-three or four, no longer a teenager. This was reasonable; they were relieved, agreeing without hesitation. They’d wanted to have some fun, as a couple, openly, doing some traveling and living, period, before settling down to having and raising kids.
Their son was born six months after Cecelia’s twenty-fifth birthday, John the Third. They were thrilled, as was his dad, and a daughter followed two years later. Cecelia was a natural, wonderful mom, yet as the kids grew up and started school, her alma mater, she began wondering if there weren’t some way she could make money of her own. This was not, she assured her handsome husband, the man she adored, in any way to say he was not taking care of her, or of their family. She settled on running a local mail route, just mornings and she knew everyone on it, so easy and just enough to give her her own spending cash. She bid competitively, John helped her work out the figures, winning the contract over several others. John would help in other ways as well, in bad weather, on snow days when he wasn’t in school, doing the route in her place. And she would be done by noon, if not earlier, starting at 7a.m., which was perfect as John got the kids breakfast and to school, but she was there when they got back.
When he was an old man, when his ponytail was no longer blond and beautiful (he kept it anyway, Cecilia loved it), John wondered about one or two of those girls, the girls who’d been brought to his apartment back in the day. He had a good life, his two kids were doing well (he forgot, mostly, about his daughter’s pregnancy at eighteen, by an older man with two kids already), and he and Cecilia had plenty of money in the bank, three grandchildren, one of which was named after him, John the fourth. He had so much for which to be thankful. His father died, it was a terrible blow, the only comfort being the inheritance, which was even more than he had anticipated. He contemplated retiring; he’d been teaching for over thirty years, but he loved the kids so much, loved what he was doing, and they loved him in turn. And who would he be without teaching? Would he be anyone? What came after? Helping with the postal route? Dandling grandchildren on his knee? He adored them but this was not how he thought of himself.
And he had, when his father passed away, begun to have unsettling dreams. In them he found himself back in the apartment on Apple Street or in his house, the one he’d rented, on Dry Brook Rd. In them the doors were closed or slammed shut in his face as he reached out to grabbed the knob, in them he had to get through the door but could not, or down the steep stairs that had led to the street, but something held him back. In his dreams he was trapped and the doors were locked against him; he kicked, he screamed, he pounded on the doors until waking, exhausted, he shook the dregs away. John didn’t tell Cecilia about these dreams, turning over to wonder if the doors were locked because he couldn’t now, because of death, reach his father any more.