THIRD YEAR ENGLISH

'Little Ritchie' was supposed to meet his friend, Johnny Andersen, in the first floor "BOYS ROOM" (the one near the staircase that led down to the boiler room that was right next to the locker room), between the fourth and fifth period. For some reason Johnny never showed up. Their plan was to cut their fifth period and hang out in the boiler room.
The boiler room was always kept locked, of course, even when Murphy, the super, was in there. They were very strict about that rule: that room was never to be left unlocked.
The thing was though, one day Murphy misplaced his keys and a friend of Ritchie's, Mel Cohen, found them. (Mel was a Jew but he was a pretty cool guy.) As soon as he found the neatly labeled key ring he sneaked out and had some copies made. Once the deed was done he left the key ring where he knew Murphy would find it, and no one was ever the wiser.

There weren't a lot of Jews in John Adams High School in 1956 (Except for the teaching staff) and there was more than a modicum of anti-Semitism and outright racism inherent in the student body. Mel had nicknamed himself 'The Cool Jew' and he prided himself on his ability to get along with almost everyone. Almost. He wasn't a big kid, he was maybe five-six and about 125 pounds. He had black, limp looking hair, black framed glasses, and more than his share of oily pimples on the back of his neck. He wasn't what you would call a good-looking guy, but he was cool.

If there was something that you wanted to know about the physical layout of the school, he was the guy to see. He knew which doors were always locked, which doors couldn't be locked, where every Janitor's room or utility room was; He knew where the dressing rooms behind the stage in the Auditorium were, where the seldom used offices behind the Science Lab were, as well as the location of every bathroom: boys, girls, or teachers.

If you wanted to sneak out of school, sneak back in to school, or just have a place to hang out while you were in school, Mel Cohen was the man with the answers. He was also the man with the papers. He had been known to sell blank report cards, late passes, and sometimes even phony bus passes.

'Little Ritchie' met Mel when they were both freshmen. The each had sixth period gym and their lockers happened to be next to one another. The were both a lot smaller and skinnier then, but the thing was, 'Little Ritchie' had pretty much grown up on the streets and he could handle himself well for a small guy. Not so, Mel. When asked about his fighting ability he always answered: "Hey, I'm Jewish, enough said?"

Aside from his ability to fight, 'Little Ritchie' had another thing going for him. He wasn't afraid to fight and that carried over to his demeanor. Somehow you just knew that if you pushed him too far you were going to end up in a brawl. He wasn't big but he did have a self-confident scowl, and that stood him in good stead all through his high school years.

Again, not so, Mel Cohen. He was a skinny, nerdy looking wimp, and every two-bit punk saw him as an easy target and it was a rare day when somebody didn't push him around.

'Little Ritchie' and Mel Cohen became friends one day in their second semester. Up until this point they knew each other but that was where the relationship ended. 'Little Ritchie' had never even met a Jewish kid until he got to high school, and at that point in his life the thought of hanging around with a Jew was as alien as hanging around with a Negro. Then, one Tuesday morning before Home Room, 'Little Ritchie' walked into the "Boy's Room" just outside the locker room and he saw two kids pushing Mel Cohen around. They weren't really hurting him, they were just pushing and generally humiliating him.

"What are you doing?" 'Little Ritchie' asked the two kids.

"What does it look like? We're just havin' some fun with this creep."

Mel looked terrified. He was at the mercy of these two and it never even occurred to him to fight back.

"Whyncha' knock it off?", 'Little Ritchie' said.

"Says who? What business is it of yours?"

"Says me", 'Little Ritchie' answered, "and it's my business because he's a friend of mine." If there had been only one boy hassling Mel 'Little Ritchie' would have never interceded. It would have been Mel's problem and he would have left Mel to deal with it. But that was not the case, there were two of them and that just wasn't fair. Ritchie was small himself and over the years a lot of kids tried to pick on him. He learned a long time ago that if you stood up for yourself then that was usually enough, the punks backed off. They did some blustering, but they backed off.
Apparently Mel Cohen hadn't learned that lesson yet.

"Ya' know", the taller of the two kids said, 'you got a big mouth for such a small kid. There's two of us, you know, and there's only one of you."

"No there aint", Ritchie said. He looked to the quivering Mel Cohen, and said: "There's two of us now, right Mel?"

'Oh God' Mel Cohen thought. He appreciated what this kid, 'Little Ritchie' was trying to do but did he have to get him in a fight to do it? Then for the first time in his life he sucked it up.

"Goddamn right", he said, trying to sound like a tough guy but knowing that he wasn't pulling it off. "Two of you, two of us."

"See", 'Little Ritchie' said, "so what now? You wanna' throw? We'll throw."

The two punks looked to each other, each searching for a clue from the other. Finally, the bigger of the two sniggered and said: "Next time, maybe", and walked out.

Mel Cohen's knees weakened and he fell into a squat with his head between his knees. "Jesus Christ", he said.

"Hey", 'Little Ritchie' said, "He's my guy."

They both laughed at that and a friendship, of sorts, was formed. From that day on Mel Cohen stood up for himself sometimes, and he was always proud when he did.

Two years later when he found the keys to the kingdom, he gave 'Little Ritchie' the first duplicate to the boiler room.

There were a couple of reasons why the boiler room was such a good place to hang out. The first reason was the fact that Murphy had to divide his time between Adams and another high school nearby. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at Adams; Tuesday and Thursday at the other school. The second reason was that Murphy wasn't the neatest guy in the world, and he smoked, too.

You could hang around down there, locked in all safe and sound, maybe drink some beer and smoke some cigarettes, and as long as you cleaned up after yourself, you were home free all.
Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was like you had a private room at the Waldorf.

The first bell had rung and still no Johnny. All the other kids had cleared out to get to their classes and 'Little Ritchie' was left alone with a decision to make. He could still make his next class, German, before the second bell rang, if he hurried. But he hadn't done the homework, and besides he was all 'psyched up' to cut the class. 'Fuckin' Johnny', he thought.

He decided to wait for a few minutes more and if Johnny didn't show up he'd probably still be able to get to the boiler room before anybody asked for his hall pass. It didn't take long, the second bell rang and now anybody caught without a hall pass would be taken to the "Dean Of Boys". He lit up one more cigarette and made up his mind that when the butt was finished, he'd split. It was only a few steps to the 'down stairway' and with a little luck he'd make it downstairs okay.

He finished the cigarette in near record time, taking deep lungfuls of smoke until the tip grew long and cherry-red, and then he flicked the butt into a nearby urinal. He picked up the only book he was carrying, a decidedly non-regulation 12 x 14 inch loose-leaf notebook, but before he could even take a single step, the door 'Whooshed' open.

It was Mister Hazelton, his English teacher, performing his sometime duty of inspecting the bathrooms in search of wayward students.

"Teach", 'Little Ritchie' greeted him with a big, innocent smile.

"Pupe", the teacher responded, but without a corresponding smile.

If there were a contest for the most popular teacher in John Adams High School, Mister Hazelton would have won it by a huge margin. The thing was, he wasn't that much older than his charges and he found it easy to empathize with them. He dressed funny, all double breasted and bow tied, and his horn rimmed glasses gave him a Milquetoast-ish air, but he was a good guy. A guy a kid could talk to.

He had one great habit, too; the way he spoke and the words he chose. He always referred to himself as 'your esteemed teacher', for instance. 'Esteemed' was a word you might write, or you might read, but nobody ever used that word in an actual, informal, spoken sentence. Nobody, except Mister Hazelton.

Because he was almost a contemporary of his students he also spoke the language they spoke, and he could be as hip as any jive talking teen with a twelve-inch peg and a new pair of 'Featherweights'.

Mister Hazelton took a quick look around the room and seeing that there were no other pupils about, he spoke to 'Little Ritchie'.

"Richard", he said, "it seems that you have finished your ablutions, why haven't you scurried out in search of wisdom?"

"I, uh, I…" 'Little Ritchie' stammered. His stammer wasn't caused by fear, though he knew he was in the wrong here. No, it was caused by his lack of ability to respond in kind. Though he knew the meaning of the words that Mister Hazelton had employed, he just couldn't seem to come up with a suitable, well-phrased response.

"I, uh, I…"

Mister Hazelton then looked at his watch. "Richard", he said again, "it appears that the fifth period has already commenced, and yet you remain immobile. Could it be that you do not possess the requisite hall pass that would legitimize your presence here?" Then he made a big production of sniffing the air. With exaggerated incredulousness, he asked: "Do I smell smoke?"
Finally, 'Little Ritchie' regained his composure.

"Ah c'mon', teach," he said with a face full of damaged pride. "You know that smoking in the bathroom is against the rules. How could you accuse me of such a thing?"

"Still…"

'Little Ritchie' was getting into the flow now. "Mister 'H'", he said, "how many years do we know each other?"

"Since you are in my third year English class, I would expect that it took you five years to get there, so, in answer, five."

"Three".

"Your point, then…?"

"For three years, that I know of, you've been checking the bathrooms and catching kids smoking. Now doesn't it make sense to you that if I had been inclined to smoke, you would have caught me before this?"

Mister Hazelton smiled at 'Little Ritchie's' glib defense.

"A valid point on this issue, I grant you that."

'Little Ritchie' allowed a smug, self-satisfied grin to appear.

'But now on to other matters. Just what class are you cutting now?"

"German", 'Little Ritchie' said with downcast eyes.

"Hall pass?"

"No" he admitted.

"Your reason for being in this cold, unattractive room, when you could be in a nice, affectionate classroom?"

"I was going to meet my friend here."

"Then what? Sneak out and go over to the Luncheonette for a smoke and a Coke? Oops, I forgot. You don't smoke. Lest I would have caught you by now. That about it?"

"Something like that." His grin had melted under the questioning.

"Richard, Richard, Richard," Mister Hazelton said, "What are we going to do with you?"

"You could forget that we ever met, this day." He added the 'this day' for its poetic inference and it didn't go unnoticed.

Mister Hazelton continued smiling. Then suddenly his demeanor changed and his voice took on a serious tone.

"There is something that I've been wanting to talk to you about," he said, "something relative to your last book report."

"Wait a minute, teach, that was legit! That wasn't a Classic Comics…"

"I know, Richard, I know. But everyone else in the class came up with a classic-usually one that we've mentioned in class-and you came up with a unknown work by a writer named Ker…?"

"Kerouac. Jack Kerouac. And I'm sorry that the rest of the geniuses couldn't come up with something original. You said the report could be on any book we chose…"

"…Kerouac then. Now don't be alarmed, you earned an unexpected 'A' on that one and I'd like to talk to you about it. What say, meet me in my homeroom after seventh period?"

"Seventh period! C'mon man, I go home after seventh period"

"…or let's see", Mister Hazelton went on, "we could go to the Dean, right now. There is the matter of having no hall pass, cutting German class, the utterance of an inappropriate honorific,"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Referring to you esteemed teacher as 'Teach' . Then there is the matter of inappropriate attire…"

"My dungarees?" 'Little Ritchie' asked.

"Yup, cowboy. That and your necktie. I'm happy to see that it has made an appearance today, but it's supposed to be knotted around your neck, not simply draped over your shoulders. What else? Of course, the smoking."

"But you didn't catch me smoking!"

"A hyperbolism", the teacher explained.

"Jesus Christ", 'Little Ritchie lamented.

"No need to invoke the deity…"

"After seventh period", 'Little Ritchie' sighed. Then, as if it was his idea, he said: "What say we meet then?"

"See you then", Mister Hazelton said. "And one more thing, Richard, I didn't see you in here and you didn't see me." He winked and walked out.

'Little Ritchie' waited for a minute after his teacher's departure and then he made his way down to the boiler room door. Just as he was turning the key in the lock, his friend, Johnny, appeared beside him.

"Where the hell you been?" Johnny asked him.

"Where have I been? Where the hell were you? You were supposed to meet me upstairs in the bathroom."

"Oh, yeah." Johnny said without guilt.

Johnny had brought along a half-pint of rum and two cans of warm Coke. As they sat in the boiler room sipping their drinks, 'Little Ritchie' told his friend about his run in with Mister Hazelton and how he had to see him after school.

"You copy that paper, or somethin'?" Johnny asked.

"No."

"You should do what I do", Johnny said, "don't do the book reports. That way they can't find nothing wrong with them."

"Genius", 'Little Ritchie' said.

"Thank you."

They sat in Mister Hazelton's room; 'Little Ritchie' in a front row seat, Mister Hazelton behind his desk. On the desk was Ritchie's paper with a huge 'A' scrawled across the face of it.

"Could you make that 'A' a little bigger", he asked when he first saw it.

"I thought it might have been the first 'A' you've ever received," Mister Hazelton had said, "hence the size. I thought perhaps you would like to revel in it."

'Little Ritchie' liked his teacher, liked his quips and put downs, and he particularly liked the repartee. He recognized that Mister Hazelton spoke the way he did in order to draw attention to what he was saying as well as challenge his students at the same time. But sometimes, he thought, the teacher could be a pain in the ass, that sometimes there was a cruel edge to his comments and he used his vocabulary as a weapon to put down people he saw as his inferiors.
"Naw," 'Little Ritchie' said, "I got one, one other time. It was in grade school and I taught my gym teacher the alphabet."

Mister Hazelton smiled a bemused smile at his students retort. Was he inferring that all teachers were as dumb as gym teachers were supposed to be; was his crack a put down of the whole profession?

"Be that as it may", the teacher went on, "we are here to discuss this remarkable paper that you have apparently written."

'Little Ritchie raised an eyebrow at the use of the word 'apparently'

Mister Hazelton saw the reaction and smiled a broad smile. "Just teasing", he said, "I know you wrote this paper. It has your signature all over it."

'Then why am I here if I didn't do anything wrong?"

"Because you did this so well." He nodded to the paper still on his desk.

A thin blush of red pride spread across the student's cheeks, but his eyes were wary

"Do you know why I find this report to be so remarkable, Richard?"

"No."

"First, I find it remarkable that you chose a book that we haven't discussed in class. This…", he looked down at the paper then to refresh his mind of the unfamiliar title, "…this 'The Town And The City' may well be a wonderful book, we'll see when I read it, but what made you chose it? As I said , all the other students chose familiar novels and they wrote familiar papers. 'This book is a story about…' he quoted, "blah, blah, blah. Now don't get me wrong, the blahs are fine, they are important, they show me that the book indeed was read and that the student has a rudimentary idea of what the writer was trying to say. It's okay, it's cool." He smiled then at his colloquialism.

"So?'

"So? So you took the paper one step further. Not only did you tell me all about the book you also had the temerity to compare this… Kerouac, with Thomas Wolfe. I don't recall ever discussing Wolfe in class. How is it you're familiar with him?"

"A friend of mine, Jimmy Dolan, suggested that I read some of his stuff."

"Was it this same Mister Dolan who suggested that you read this Mister Kerouac?"

"Yeah."

"We'll get back to that later. What I find remarkable is that I don't ever remember a student comparing the styles of two writers before. At least not without having been told to do so. What, may I ask, compelled you to do so?"

'Little Ritchie' was feeling comfortable now. At first he thought he was summoned here to be yelled at for something he had done wrong. But now he recognized that that was not the case, and he was beginning to enjoy this conversation.

"I like Wolfe," he answered. "I like his long, run-on sentences. Things just sort of flow out of him. He's comfortable, kinda'. He aint like, I don't know, Hemingway. With him it's like a race. You know what I mean?"

"To some extent. Go on."

"Well, this guy, Kerouac, he's just like Wolfe. He aint in a hurry and you can really enjoy what you read. There's this one part in the book where a little kid is looking through a window and he sees his mother at a party, and she's having a good time. And he feels sad. Cause he thinks his mother should be thinking about him instead of having fun. I don't know. It's like the kid's beginning to grow up and he don't want to. Kerouac sort of says that without really saying that. I don't know…"

Both the student and the teacher were silent for a minute as they both thought about what 'Little Ritchie' had just said. Then, Mister Hazelton asked: "This Mister Kerouac, has he written anything else.?"

"No, I don't think so. Not yet."

"You know, Richard, I was very happy when I read this report of yours. Happy and surprised. No, let me amend that. I wasn't really surprised. I always felt that you were capable of this kind of work, but this is the first time that you've lived up to those expectations."

'Here we go, the lecture…' 'Little Ritchie' thought.

"I've noticed that for the most part you only do as much work as is absolutely necessary. Beyond that you just kind of drift. I wonder, what spurred you on this time?"

'Little Ritchie' had a natural antipathy toward most teachers and all adults, in general. It seemed that they were never happy with the way you behaved, the way you dressed, or the guys you hung out with. They could find what they considered to be fault, after fault, after fault, and went on and on, on how you should change this or that. 'When I was your age…' Well, they never were his age, they were from a different age, an age where the pressures were different. And because they were from a different age the answers were different-'hell, today they don't even know what the questions are.'

As for the paper. Not even he knew what drove him to write such an in depth paper when a much shorter one would have sufficed. He could have gotten away with the usual crap, gotten his usual 'C+' or 'B-', and been done with it. But lately he had been thinking about things, about who he was and how other people perceived him. It was like his future was a murky, gray wall, and he was beginning to fear what might be on the other side of it.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind then, thoughts that he had never addressed before, but now that this teacher asked that question, he was beginning to see things with a new clarity. Still, he felt, he had to be careful about his reply. This guy was a teacher and an adult, and they had ways of misinterpreting everything.

"I don't know, Teach," he answered, "I guess I just got interested in it and tried to do a good job for a change."

'For a change'. There. He made the admission. It was unconscious but it was liberating. For the first time since he had grown up he exposed himself-made himself vulnerable-admitted that he was aware of his circumstances; That he knew he could do better, that he should do better, and perhaps was regretful that he wasn't doing better. He felt like he had just received a giant kick in the ass as this revelation made its way to the forefront of his consciousness, and he was a little bit embarrassed by his past behavior.

"I'm curious about one other thing, Richard," Mister Hazelton went on. "This friend of yours who introduced you to this Kerouac fellow…"

"Jimmy Dolan."

"Mister Dolan, then. He is an, uh, associate of yours?"

"Yeah, I hang around with him."

'Little Ritchie' sat there as Mister Hazelton seemed to be appraising him. "What?" he finally asked him.

"This Mister Dolan. Does he dress like you? The hair, et al?"

"Et al? Yeah, et al." Up to this point 'Little Ritchie' was actually enjoying the conversation. Somehow Mister Hazelton had gotten him to take a closer look at himself, and although he wasn't completely comfortable about what he had learned about himself, it was a non-confrontational and enlightening experience.

But now he brought up the matter of his dress. They always did that. The clothes and the long hair. It was as though, from their point of view, there were only two kinds of kids in the school; the kids that adhered to all the rules (the good kids) and the kids that sometimes broke those rules (the punks), and there was no gray area in between. You were either one or the other, and even within each of these designations there was no room for differentiation. You were all one or all the other.

'Little Ritchie' felt himself losing his temper then. He was angry with Mister Hazelton, but he was also disappointed that even he painted with such a broad brush.

"Yeah, et al", he said again, "inappropriate dress, long hair, and sometimes he rapes puppies." With that he stood up and asked: "May I be excused? There's a gas station I have to hold up."

"Calm down, Richard. If I offended you or your colleagues then I apologize. It's just that I don't understand why kids like you feel they have to play the outlaw. You have so much to offer, there is so much that we can teach you, and yet you deny it all. It's a battle, a constant battle, and I don't see the reason for it."

'Little Ritchie' understood where Mister Hazelton was coming from, but he didn't have the vocabulary to form a cogent answer.

"I don't know, Teach," he said, "I guess it's just where you grow up, how you grow up, and maybe even if you grow up. Maybe we're just condemned to be who we are because of who we are. Can I go?"

"Yes, you may leave now. But, Richard, I'd like to see you again. I feel that this has been a fructiferous…"

'A what? "

Both Mister Hazelton and 'Little Ritchie' were laughing now.

"I guess I went too far with that one," Mister Hazelton giggled. Can we have another talk sometime soon?"

"I'll see."

Mister Hazelton had given 'Little Ritchie' a lot to think about, but still it was easier not to think at all. On the way out of the school he ran into an excited Mel Cohen.

"Ritchie, man, C'mere. You'll never guess what I got."

"What?"

"Gold, man, gold. I got some of next weeks hall passes. Two bucks."

Hall passes were gold. If questioned all you had to do was flash the pass and be on your way.

Ritchie paid the two bucks.