Chapter 39
Ron’s seniors sat in front of him with expectant faces. He had taken attendance. He had explained that because of the lost day yesterday that it was necessary to get right to work.
“Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s strangest plays. It was written after the death of Queen Elizabeth and Willie was doing a few things. Mainly he was kissing up to his new King, but at the same time he was instructing him on how to be a king. Now that is a delicate thing to do and you will see his genius in doing it.
People in the theater are frightened of this play. The legend is that it’s bad luck to mention the name in a theater and so they always refer to it as The Scottish Play. There are all kinds of stories of bad things happening, people being killed during performances, theaters burning down. Lots of weird stuff and then, of course, there are the witches.” Ron stopped and looked at their faces. He was checking to make sure that none of them had drifted. “What is the word in Spanish for witch?”
“Bruja,” they said in a chorus.
“And what does it mean to be a witch?”
“Sometimes it just means an old woman,” said Connie Gonzalez.
“I think it means a sorceress,” said Imelda Cruz.
“Both of those things are true in this case. But it also means a servant of the devil. Witches were a big thing in Shakespeare’s time. The King, his name was James, actually wrote a book about how to identify witches.”
“Sometimes it means a prostitute,” said Barbara Rodriguez.
Ron noticed that his Spanish students were the only ones responding and realized that he had to get the other girls involved again. It was a tough balancing act to meet the needs of some students in this school without alienating others. “Well, in the English tradition, it doesn’t really mean that. And besides, these women were so ugly that they would have had to pay men.”
The girls giggled nervously and Ron wondered if he should have said that but he went on. “Ok so he’s kissing up to the King and he is also writing a great play about ambition and obsession. Now the language is going to be difficult, but I’ll help you through it and last year many of the girls told me that this was their favorite book for the year. So let’s get started. I want notebooks out there are going to be lots and lots of notes. But right now, just listen.”
Dutifully they looked up at him. It amazed Ron to see their faces and he felt this incredible surge of power and responsibility. He wondered for at least the one hundredth time how Lashly could have ever allowed himself to become sexually intimate with his students. It just wasn’t even close to fair.
He started dramatically. “Now there is this war, a civil war. I’ll explain later why it was being fought. But one of the main guys on Macbeth’s side went over to the enemy and convinced this guy Norway to attack Scotland. And some of the Scottish troops fought with the traitor. Now our guy Macbeth, we’ll call him Mac.” There were more giggles. Ron liked to call Shakespeare Willy and to shorten or give slang names to the characters. He felt that it made the play more accessible. The other teachers in the English department had scoffed disdainfully when he mentioned the idea at a department meeting. “So Mac sees the traitor and wades across the battlefield killing people as he goes.”
Ron mimicked Mac, wading into the class shoving the desks with the girls still in them back until he made a path for himself.
“Mac’s like a superhero,” said Connie.
“Yes, he is. He’s a very brave and forceful fighter.” Ron fixed his eyes on Imelda, who was sitting in the last row. He pushed his way towards her, making a mess of the configuration of the room. Finally, he stopped in front of her desk. “Then Mac takes his sword and unseams him from the nave to the chops,” said Ron, quoting from the play. “Which means he sliced him open,” he turned to the class and pointed to his navel, and then traced a line up his chest to his throat, “from here to here. Then he cuts off the traitor’s head and holds it up on the end of his sword and lets up a loud whoop.” Again Ron mimicked Macbeth’s action and whooped, just as he saw Irene Emanuel at his door.
The principal entered the room and the girls sat up very straight and tried to look studious in the mess of a classroom. Some went so far as to open their books and to look down. She looked at them for a long moment and then let her eyes take in the disarray of the room and then she finally settled her gaze on Ron.
Ron grinned at her and said triumphantly and with an absurd confidence and enthusiasm, “Come in Sister, we are just starting Shakespeare.”
“Let’s do hope the building survives the play, Mr. Tuck. May I see you for a moment?”
“Yes Sister. Straighten out the desks, girls and start to look at the first scene. I’ll be right back and remember, notebooks out.”
Ron went to the door with the nun. She smiled at him and said, “Please don’t get them all worked up so that the rest of the day is spent talking about what Mr. Tuck said or did in their other classes again.”
Ron lowered his head in mock penance and said, “No Sister I won’t, but the language is hard for them and if I don’t get them hooked into it early, I think it will really be a tough go.”
“Well, I’m happy that I don’t have to follow your act, Mr. Tuck,” she said with her pursed lips, but by now he knew her well enough to be able to tell that she wasn’t really upset. “There’s a meeting of the faculty council after school and after a very short meeting of the whole faculty to discuss what happened yesterday. Do not discuss any rumors with the girls today until I have had a chance to meet with the faculty and then we’ll have the council meeting afterwards.”
“Yes Sister.”
After classes the faculty congregated in the convent. Students who normally stayed for after school activities were told to report to the cafeteria, where two of the nuns were assigned to supervise them. Not too many of the girls attended. Most took the opportunity to crowd into the corner store where Ron still got his coffee twice a day. Those who went to the cafeteria either disliked the luncheonette or were forbidden to go there by parents, whose punishments made it not worth the risk.
Ron took a few drags on a cigarette as he walked the outside route to the convent. When he rang the bell, an elder sister who no longer taught but spent her days with housekeeping and cooking answered. “Yes?” she said warily.
“I’m here for the faculty meeting,” said Ron.
“Are you from the police?” asked the nun her face was pudgy and her steel rimmed glasses continued to regard him with suspicion.
“No, Sister, I’m a teacher at the high school.”
She sniffed the smoke that was radiating from him and challenged him. “At this high school?”
“Yes Sister. My name is Ron Tuck.”
She scrunched her face into a sneer, stepped back from the door and opened it wider. “Oh,” she said. As he walked passed her, she caught the odor of cigarette smoke on him, and she shook her head in disgust.
“As all of you know, we had an unfortunate incident that occurred yesterday. I know that I told you there was a gas leak and for that I apologize, but that stretch of the truth was necessary. It seems that a man, a street person really, we used to call them hobos when I was younger, was found to have met the lord in our basement. We have all prayed for the repose of his soul and I invite you to join me now in doing so again.” She led them through an Our Father and 3 Hail Marys. “May his soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace”
Ron felt like they were all doing penance for the dead guy. When the prayers were finished, Irene Emanuel continued. “Now I know there have been lots of rumors swirling about and most of them are utter foolishness. There was no foul play that occurred on our school grounds and it is important that we get that message out when we are asked. It is also important that we do not let this unfortunate incident distract us from the business at hand, and so it is my hope that after today we will hear no more about it. However, people being the way that they are, if you are asked by parents or by students and they have further questions, please direct their calls to me. They should not be calling the rectory or anywhere else to engage in their quest for details.” She enlarged her eyes and pursed her lips with the word “details” elongating it and pausing both before or after it to ensure the fact that her meaning was very clear. “Now, unless there are any other questions, many of us have students waiting and I suggest that we resume our duties.” After this last line she smiled and stood adding, “I wish to thank you all for your anticipated cooperation.”
Clearly questions were not being encouraged. But Doris who had been at the school longer than Irene Emanuel and did not have a particularly high opinion of her since the nun had stopped giving her the last period of the day off and allowing her to leave school early, raised her hand.
“I would like to know if the school is safe,” said Doris loudly.
“Of course, we are safe,” said Irene Emanuel with look of mock shock and real condescension on her face.
“Well how did the bum get into the basement?” persisted Doris.
“Father is checking into that and we are having the maintenance man and two of the church deacons checking all of the locks on doors and windows to make sure that this can’t ever happen again.
Doris turned to Marsha and muttered sarcastically, “Oh, now I feel safe.”
Irene Emanuel heard her as did most of the people in the room. But Irene just chose to ignore the quip and made note that Doris would never have a late afternoon prep again. The meeting adjourned and people either left for the day or made their way back over to the school.
The girl who was to be seen by the faculty council that afternoon was not given the option of leaving and coming back or of going to the cafeteria. She was seated in one of the hard back chairs in the principal’s office with her secretary as visible evidence of her misdeeds. Ron knew the girl very well. Her name was Immaculada Santiago and she had been in his reading class the year before. He liked the girl but knew that she was an airhead who had minimal interest in reading writing or, Ron would have suspected, any of her other classes. She had a boyfriend. She was there marking time until she got married. She had had her “Fifteens” coming out party in the fall and soon after she had formally began dating her brother’s best friend. Ron knew why she was there. The girl was excessively late to school and to her classes. The end of each class required a trip to the lavatory where she primped and studied herself in the mirror. Re-combed her hair, washed her hands and put on hand lotion to make sure that she did not chap. This was her second visit to the council. The first had come after she had amassed her initial ten lates. If the teachers had marked her to the minute, that would have taken less than a week, but most let it go saying that was just how Immaculada was. Now she had amassed twenty lates and it was required that a parent join her for this second appearance before the faculty council. Her mother sat next to her staring at her shoes and wondering how long this nonsense would take.
The faculty council met in the lay teachers’ lunch room. On the days when these meetings were held, there was a note attached to the inside of the front door by Irene Emanuel reminding the teachers that there was going to be a meeting that afternoon in the room and that it should be in “presentable condition.” This year’s council consisted of Ron, Sister Bernadette, Marsha and Irene Emanuel. Bernadette and Ron conspired as often as they could to keep the girls out of trouble and Irene Emanuel knew that it had been a mistake to allow Bernadette to serve on the committee. But she had volunteered and garnered support and although Irene Emanuel, who could have blocked her appointment with the choir rehearsals as an excuse, had allowed things to move forward. Ron had been given the job as chairperson of the committee, an election that both startled him and most of the rest of the faculty, who were sure now that the school was going to ruin. The truth was that Irene Emanuel ran the committee and every other committee in the school and she could, if she chose, overrule the council’s decisions as the principal’s discretion, but she did like the appearance of democracy.
They sat around the round table and Ron read through the card that had the dates of Immaculada’s unexcused latenesses on them. Then he read the additional excused latenesses and did some quick math in his head.
“Immaculada,” he said gently, “you are late almost half of the days that school is in session. Can you tell us what’s wrong?”
Mrs. Santiago shot Immaculada a feigned look of anger and then moved her hair to the side and stared out the window and tapped her long manicured fingernails on the leather purse that she held on her lap. The girl put her head down and muttered, “I don’t know. I will try harder,” looking up after the last statement with the absurd hope that her promise would be enough. It was what her mother had told her to say.
But Bernadette was having none of it. “Are you unable to get out of bed early enough?”
“Immaculada was almost indignant. “No Sister, I get up every morning at 5:30.”
Irene Emanuel said simply. “School begins at 8 am.”
Bernadette looked at Mrs. Santiago. “What time does she leave the house?”
The mother and the girl exchanged a worried look. The mother set her jaw and said, “I’m not really sure, Sister Bernadette.”
But Bernadette already knew where she was going with this. She had seen it before. “Do you come straight to school when you leave the house?”
Immaculada stared straight down like she wanted to burn a hole into the floor. “No Sister.”
“Do you go to your boyfriend’s house?”
Her face was so flushed and her voice was barely a whisper. “Yes, Sister.” Then she began to cry. Ron felt sorry and was moved by the sight of the tears rolling down the girl’s rouged cheeks. The women were not.
Bernadette now sat back. She had heard what she expected to hear. She knew that the girl was going to her boyfriend’s house to make his bed and to help his mother and learn to cook his meals in the way that he was accustomed to having them prepared. She knew that this happened with full knowledge and probably the support of Mrs. Santiago. It was all a matter of priorities.
Irene Emanuel directed herself to Immaculada. “Do you understand that a continuation of this behavior can result in you being asked to leave this school?”
The girl was sobbing now. “Yes Sister.”
Then Ron spoke up. “Does your father know about this?”
The girl abruptly stopped crying. The look of fear that blazed onto Mrs. Santaigo’s face was evident. The tension in the room became immediately thick.
The older woman leaned forward and looked at Ron. “Please, Mister. Please don’t say that you are going to tell him.”
Now everyone was uncomfortable. Irene Emanuel broke the silence. “I don’t think that there will be any reason to involve anyone else as long as this behavior is corrected. However, this Saturday and next Saturday morning, Immaculada, we’ll see you at the convent at 8 am so that you can work off the time that you owe us.”
The principal escorted the mother and daughter out of the room. They both looked as if they had been tortured. Bernadette leaned over and whispered to Ron. “He’d beat both of them for shaming him.”