No one else seemed to see me. Might’ve been somebody’s sheepskin jacket tossed beneath a chair at the back of the room.
Standing over me breathing hoarsely for so long, I wouldn’t know.
Time to wake up, dear! Take my hand.
But it was his hand that took my hand. Gripped hard, and hauled me to my feet.
Why did you let him touch you, Violet! That terrible man.
Why, when you would not let others touch you, who’d hoped to love you as a daughter?
2.
“I am the captain. You are the crew. If you don’t shape up, you go overboard.”
Mr. Sandman, ninth-grade math. His skin was flushed with perpetual indignation at our stupidity. His eyes leapt at us like small shiny toads. When he stretched his lips it was like meat grinning, we cringed and shuddered and yet we laughed, for Mr. Sandman was funny.
He was one of only three male teachers at Port Oriskany Middle School. He was advisor to the Chess Club and the Math Club. He led his homeroom class each morning in the Pledge of Allegiance.
(In a severe voice Mr. Sandman recited the pledge facing us as we stood obediently with our hands over our hearts, heads bowed. There was no joking now. You would have thought that the Pledge of Allegiance was a prayer. A shiny American flag, said to be a personal flag, a flag that Mr. Sandman had purchased himself, hung unfurled from the top, left-hand corner of the blackboard, and when Mr. Sandman finished the pledge in his loud righteous voice he lifted his right hand with a flourish, in a kind of salute, fingers pointing straight upward and at the flag.)
(Was this the Nazi salute?) (We were uncertain.)
Mr. Sandman ruled math classes like a sea captain. He liked to shake what he called his iron fist. If one of us, usually a boy, was hopelessly stupid that day he’d have to walk the plank — rise from his desk and walk to the rear of the room, stand there with his back to the class and wait for the bell.
On a day of rough waters there’d be three, could be four, boys at the rear of the room, resigned to standing until the bell rang, forbidden to turn around, no smirking, no wisecracks, if you have to pee just pee your pants — a Sandman pronouncement shocking each time we heard, provoking gales of nervous laughter through the room.
Of course, this was ninth-grade algebra. We were fourteen, fifteen years old. Nobody in this class was likely to pee his pants.
(Yet we were not so old that the possibility didn’t evoke terror in us. Our faces flushed, we squirmed in our seats hoping not to be singled out for torment by Mr. Sandman.)
It was rare that Mr. Sandman commanded a girl to march to walk the plank. Though Mr. Sandman teased girls, and provoked some (of us) to tears, yet he was not cruel to girls, not usually.
Boys were another story. Boys were Schmutz.
Bobbie Sandusky was Boobie Schmutz. Mike Farrolino was Muck Schmutz. Rick Latour was Ruck Schmutz. Don Farquhar was Dumbo Schmutz.
Was any of this funny? But why did we laugh?
Hiding our faces in our hands. Nothing so hilarious as the misery of someone not-you.
You’d have thought that Mr. Sandman would be detested but in fact Mr. Sandman had many admirers. Graduates of the middle school spoke fondly of him as a character, mean old sonuvabitch who really made us learn algebra. Even boys he ridiculed laughed at his jokes. Like a standup TV comic scowling and growling and the most shocking things erupting from his mouth, impossible not to laugh. Hilarity was a gas seeping into the room that made you laugh even as it choked you.
Mr. Sandman was a firm believer in running a tight ship. “In an asylum you can’t let the inmates get control.”
A scattering of boys in Mr. Sandman’s class seemed to escape his ridicule. Not the smartest boys but likely to be the tallest, best-looking, often athletes, sons of well-to-do families in Port Oriskany. These boys who laughed loudest at jokes of Mr. Sandman’s directed at other, less fortunate boys. My goon squad.
He’d get them uniforms, he said. Helmets, boots. Revolvers to fit into holsters. Rifles.
They could learn to goose-step. March in a parade along Main Street past the school. Atten-tion! Ready, aim. He’d lead them.
(Would Mr. Sandman be in uniform, himself? What sort of captain’s uniform? A pistol in a holster, not a rifle. Polished boots to the thigh.)
Boys were goons at best but girls didn’t matter at all. When Mr. Sandman spoke with a rough sort of tenderness of his goon squad it seemed that we (girls) were invisible in his eyes.
“Girls have no ‘natural aptitude’ for math. There is no reason for girls to know math at all. Especially algebra — of no earthly use for a female. I have made my opinion known to the illustrious school board of our fair city but my (informed, objective) opinions often fall upon deaf ears and into empty heads. Therefore, I do not expect anything from females — but I am hoping for at least mediocre, passable work from you. And you, and you.” Winking at the girls nearest him.
Was this funny? Why did girls laugh?
It did not seem like a radical idea to us, any of us, that girls had no natural aptitude for math. It seemed like a very reasonable idea. And a relief, to some (of us), that our math teacher did not hold us to standards higher than mediocrity — (a word we’d never heard before, but instinctively understood).
In fact Mr. Sandman didn’t wink at me at such times. When he made his pronouncements which were meant to make us laugh, and yet instruct us in the ways of the world, he didn’t look at me at all. He’d arranged the classroom seating so that “Violet Kerrigan” was seated at a desk in the first row of desks, farthest to the right and near the outer wall of windows, a few inches from the teacher’s desk. In this way as Mr. Sandman preened at the front of the classroom addressing the class I was at his right hand, sidelined as if backstage in a theater.
Keeping my eye on you. “Vio-let Rue.”
Each math class was a drill. Up and down the rows, Mr. Sandman as captain and drillmaster calling upon hapless students. Even if you’d done the homework and knew the answer you were likely to be intimidated, to stammer and misspeak. Even Mr. Sandman’s praise might sting — “Well! A correct answer.” And he’d clap, with deadpan ironic intent.
As Mr. Sandman paced about the front of the room preaching, scolding, teasing, and tormenting us an oily sheen would appear on his forehead. His stiff, thinning, dust-colored hair became dislodged showing slivers of scalp shiny as cellophane.
It made me shiver, to anticipate Mr. Sandman glancing sidelong at me.
Keeping an eye on you. “Vio-let Rue.”
Ever since you came to us. You.
These were quick, intimate glances. No one saw.
Staying after school, in Mr. Sandman’s homeroom.
This was a special privilege: “tutorial.” (Only girls were invited.)
Told to bring our homework that had been graded. If we needed “extra” instruction.
Mr. Sandman stooped over our desks, breathing against our necks. He was not sarcastic at such times. His hand on my shoulder — “Here’s your error, Violet.” With his red ballpoint pen he would tap at the error and sometimes he would take my hand, his hand closed over mine, and redo the problem.