Chapter 68
Looking straight at Veronica Ron said, “Ok, why is Antonio sad?”
Veronica grinned and opened her notebook. She turned back a few pages. “I think that he is sad because he does not love his life and he knows that it is the only one that he has and he is dissatisfied with it.”
Ron was struck first by the simplicity of her insight. He nodded slowly and made a cross on the board, labeling it with a Y and an N.
“How many of you agree with Veronica?”
As he took the poll, he realized that he had made a mistake to do it this way. By identifying the statement as belonging to Veronica, the poll became a referendum on her and it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. It was unanimous in favor of agreement. He stopped. There was no place to go with a vote like this unless he took the opposing point of view. He didn’t want to do that. “What is missing in his life?” he said.
Donna grinned as she raised her hand. “I personally think that he is a little bit too sweet on Bassanio.”
There was a scattering of “Ewws” in the classroom. Ron looked at Donna and said, “Why do you think that?”
Donna answered with a strong and confident voice. “Bassanio is the only one that he wants to see before he thinks that he is going to die, for one thing.”
“That is true,” said Ron. “Anyone else have an idea?”
Veronica’s hand went back up into the air. She began speaking as soon as Ron made eye contact with her. “I think that he has taken his life for granted and that it’s only when he is faced with losing it that he realizes that he has another chance. I think that Shakespeare put him through this so that he could learn that his life was important.”
“Why do you believe that he didn’t understand that his life was important?”
Elena chimed in. “The bond. Who makes that kind of deal about a debt? It had to be that he just didn’t care.”
Ron was stunned. He had read this play at least six times and he had never come to these conclusions, but now they looked real and true and he believed them to be accurate insights. “I think that you may all be correct. And I think that I have never had these thoughts about the play before.” He grinned at them proudly and they grinned back at him just as proud of themselves as he was of them.
“OK,” he said. “Let’s move on to the rings and what Portia does back at Belmont.”
Samantha said, “She’s just having fun with him.”
He exaggerated a face of being aghast and in pain. “That was your idea of fun?”
The girls giggled. Elizabeth said, “Mr. Tuck, do you remember back in freshman year when we read The Odyssey?
Ron smiled. “Yes.”
Elizabeth continued, “Didn’t Penelope do the same thing to Ody?”
They laughed remembering the name that he had given them to use because they had trouble saying Odysseus. “What do you mean?
“At the end of the story, when she tests him and tells her maid to bring their bed so that she can sleep with him,” said Elizabeth.
“Both events are very much related. Except of course that Odysseus was gone for 20 years and she wanted to make sure that it was him.”
Elizabeth blushed but held her ground. “She knew it was him. She wanted to make sure that he hadn’t taken her for granted and Portia is doing the same thing here.”
“Wow,” said Ron. “I should just sit down and let you guys teach the class to yourselves.”
Paula looked at him as if he was serious. “We couldn’t do this without you,” she complained.
Ron smiled. “Yes, you can and you’re gonna.”
He spent the rest of the class reviewing and giving them a pool of quotes from which he would choose his questions. He made the pool huge, including at least thirty quotes from which he would choose ten. Even if they just studied those quotes, they would be ready. Then he told them about the new testing formula that he was going to use and he saw them get nervous again. He explained that he did it so that they would have more time to express themselves and feel less pressure. They were not convinced.
Standing with Bernadette, in the hall between classes, he said, “I just had the best class that I have ever had with these kids. They are something special.”
Bernadette’s dark eyes looked into his face. Her expression was worried. “Do you think that you might be putting too much pressure on them?”
“No,” said Ron quickly.
“Are you raising their expectations too high, Ron?”
“Why are you asking that?”
“Because I think that some of these kids are going to fail to live up to your expectations of them and what happens to them then? You get a new batch of kids to teach. What do they get?”
Ron felt slapped. He actually took a step back. “Is that what you think that I’m doing?”
“I’m worried that you might be getting carried away,” she said.
“Have you spoken to them about colleges?”
“A little bit.”
“Did you tell Elena that an Ivy League school would not be out of the question?”
“I didn’t have to tell her. She already knew. But I certainly didn’t discourage her.”
Bernadette rolled her eyes. “Come on, Ron, an Ivy League school? And even with affirmative action, if she did get in, do you think that there would be any way that she could possibly make it in that kind of an environment?”
“Yes, I do.”
Bernadette’s face was hard. “Whose dream is that Ron, yours or hers?” Saying that she turned and went back into her classroom. Ron stood and watched her go feeling very confused. A moment ago he had been riding along on the wave of their learning. He was feeling like he was finally doing some real good and now he felt incredibly insecure. Bernadette had never said anything like that to him before.
At lunch, he walked the streets around the school and smoked cigarettes. The leaves were the spectacular variety of colors that he remembered from his childhood. The light was soft as if filtered through them. He wanted to do what was right. He believed in them. They believed in him. Did they believe in him too much? Did he have unrealistic expectations for them? Was he setting them up for failure? Did he just want to think that he was some kind of magical person who could come back to Newark and change the way that things were? Was he a fool? He thought of the Blake proverb about the fool persisting in his folly and becoming wise. Did the fool become wise by learning that he had been a fool? He did not want his wisdom to come at their expense. He was quite sure that he could never forgive himself that.
At the end of the day, Bernadette appeared in his doorway. He had sleepwalked through his afternoon classes. He could not stop thinking about it. “I was cruel to you,” she said.
He looked up and said, “No, you were telling what you believed. That’s not being cruel.”
“What do you think I was telling you?”
“I think that you were saying that I might be doing this for myself more than I am doing it for them.”
“That’s how I thought it sounded too. I was just upset.”
“About what?”
Bernadette came into the room and closed the door. “I got a letter from Irene Emanuel.”
“How is she doing?”
Bernadette moved deeper into his room. “She was worried about the way that she left and she was worried about you.”
“Me?”
“She said that I should look after you and help you to not burn yourself out.”
“I miss her,” said Ron. “I really wish that I understood why she just had to go like that.”
“If I tell you something you have to promise me that you will never tell anyone under any circumstances.” Ron looked at her quizzically. She paused and waited for him. He nodded. “Do you remember that man whose body they found in the basement just before she left?” Ron nodded again. “Did you know Father Joyce?”
“He baptized me when I converted back when I was 14. I studied with him.”
“Did you like him?”
“No, he was cold and never smiled.”
“You were too old for his taste. Lucky you!”
“What do you mean?”
“Irene Emanuel was poking around in the basement trying to figure out what had happened. She couldn’t stop wondering what this man was doing down there and why he went there to die. She found a bunch of pictures of Father Joyce and the boys from the second grade Indians Club. Some of the boys had no clothes on. It wasn’t a hobo Ron. It was a former student. He went down there to kill himself”
“What?”
Bernadette nodded. “She took the pictures to the Rectory and shortly after that both she and Father Joyce were transferred.”
Ron sat with his mouth hanging open.
“Some things here are never what you think that they are, Ron.”
End of Part 3