I stood on 125th street, listening the rumble above me as the train rolled into the ground. McDonalds smelled behind me. Cabs, like giant ants formed an army up Broadway. Crossing the street, the sun staring between train tracks, I hear a voice laced with the Grant Projects and affection.

“Yo, Ms. D!”

I knew her as my own immediately.

Gisele Henriquez-woman. She had the same sexy Harlem gait that I remember being alarmed about when she was my student (a girl her age with a body like that shouldn’t walk like that). Her face was unchanged: she was still beautiful; black opal eyes against the backdrop of alabaster skin, the slight curly patch that joined her eyebrows in the middle of her forehead, her long thick black hair alluding Taino heritage was in a ponytail, exposing her small ears which hung “banji girl” gold doorknocker earrings.

She ambled toward me, glowing and very pregnant and kissed me hard on the cheek.

She had house keys and Chico Stix in her hand, and as her face re-emerged from the nape of my neck I watched her seductive lips exclaim some statement of happiness adorned with expletives. This is how Harlem girls address each other, in affection, in nostalgia. In profanity. The train gargled uptown on top of us and I grabbed the Chico Stix from out her hand. I couldn’t stop smiling. When the 1 ran past she repeated herself.

“Mira, Oh my God, how you doin? Oh fuck!!! Ms. D”!!!!

I grabbed her hand and crossed Old Broadway, the small inlet that gave itself over to Grant projects and grand tenements, that housed so many of my students. We walked towards the sunshine, away from our train, next to the bodega that sells loosie cigarettes to all the hard faced man-children that plant themselves on the corners under the train when they should be in social studies class. I stopped and opened up the Chico Stix, bit down, and took my beloved student in, fully.

She started talking slowly, holding my arm, she complained about her feet being swollen, I told her how beautiful her hair looked-it really did. We walked towards the diner before the firehouse, where cars park at an angle when the cops are busy stuffing themselves with Dunkin Donuts.

-The diner, where all the waiters speak Spanish, the corner where the Citerella just didn’t quite take.

I walked with her and listened to her tell me about her life, and him.

I know this beauty. I know this woman from her 15th year as an angry and sarcastic and beautiful hold over- an overage school kid- a hot mouthed, neck swinging thing with a chip on her shoulder and signature Dr. Jay jeans that were way too tight. I liked her immediately.

And she liked me too, Thank God. I never got cursed at or fought like so many other of my District 5 colleagues, and plus, she loved my music class. She had a beautiful voice- clean, chimy, but nasal, like a true Latina. She joined chorus, and my Saturday morning community service outreach, and got into a pretty good high school, thanks to two recommendations from the principal and guidance counselor that I almost had to sell my soul to get.

She was on her way, I thought. She was fixed. She was going to break the cycle of degradation and miseducation that has plagued far too many young women of color in Harlem or any ghetto in the USA for so long. She was the story I told to skeptics and naysayers who wanted to scrap NYC’s public education system completely.

Gisele went to A Philip Randolph High School, next to City College. She also won a scholarship to Harlem School of the Arts (HSA). She was a vocal major, excelling in her studies. She enjoyed high school, remarked how much easier it was that middle school, both socially and academically.

“There were girls there my age. None of these little bitches who gave me shit looks cuz they was jealous.”

She loved voice class very much, and was even crazy about music theory and appreciation class. She was asked to tutor students in the learning annex because of her prior community service experience. The end of freshman year found her on the Dean’s List. There was talk about putting her in accelerated college prep classes.

We sat down in the diner, she remarked about “Precious” being filmed there- I laughed when I remembered the bucket of chicken scene.

“Word,” I smiled bigger, and ordered some coffee to compliment her san cocho.
I asked her if her mother is still at 26 Old Broadway, where she was living in junior high school. She nods, and smiles.

“Yo, you remember when you showed us “Fame” the last week of school in 8th grade? I loved that movie, yo. “

“I remember, Ms. Thing.” I sipped my coffee slowly, watching her square-cut French manicured nails wrap themselves around the soup spoon.

“We was in vocal class last year tryna harmonize Body Electric n’ I thought of you. I sounded mad good too,” she smiled, and finished her compliment with a lip smack that would make all of West Harlem proud.

Then, She told me about Peter. She describes the first time he kissed her like she’s reading script from a novella, her street-Spanglish cascading out over tumescent lips.

“I fell in love with him the night he gave me this,” she points to necklace she wears, with a medallion, of Saint Peter, patron Saint of what, she isn’t sure. It was enough that he entrusted this necklace to her. From that moment, she entrusted her heart to him.

I asked her when she realized she was pregnant.

“I know from that day he would be the father of my children. We NEVER used anything, Ms. D, we just knew it was right.”

Peter subsequently dropped out of school, and has a job now at the new Costco that opened up in East Harlem. Gisele still lives with her mom and younger siblings in that house on Old Broadway and plans to attend Missions School, for pregnant teens. She says she still sings, and wants to name her baby, India, after her favorite Salsa singer.

“Its gonna be ok, Ms. D, you’ll see.”

I smiled again and looked away, not wanting her to notice the worry in my face. I stared out the window and I watched the baby banji girls on the corner headed towards the Old Navy and the braid spot, licking innocently on the deliciouso the Mexican woman pushes on the corner (“$1 mix coco/cherry”!). I eye them closely, like I did Gisele, and wonder if they really know what they’re doing, licking the ice like that, pretty sugar stained lips adorned beautiful ethnic faces full of attitude.

She reached across the table and touched my hand.

“He loves me.” She said it, I realized that after all these streets had thrown at her, after all the clawing over broken glass and racing under booming train tracks and fighting for a meager public school education has done to this girl, that was all she really wanted.

I told her I was happy for her.

Her phone rang, her face lit up, and she told me she had to go. She waddled up, saying her goodbyes way too loud for the small corner diner. She kissed me goodbye and left me with my coffee.

I sat for a minute, stared out the window, and watched this beautiful woman-child venture down a coolly-lit Harlem side street that seemed to me as precarious as her future.

Breeanne Elizabeth Daniels is a native New Yorker. She is taught middle school in New York City for 11 years and community college for 3. She is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the City College of New York.

“Let them see that big yellow head of yours,” Tiffany would say. We broke tradition only once, separating at a corner during a light summer rain in Greenwich Village. The ugly truth left me stunned and incensed. The cab, a canary yellow mini-van with sliding doors, slowed to a crawl. Tiffany reached for its handle just before the driver gunned his engine, bolting past her for a white couple thirty feet away.

We started taking cabs back to Brooklyn from Manhattan because, as Tiffany explained, I stared too much on the subway. If a father trained his son to do cartwheels for change on the Q train, I stared. If a man spoke to his wife in Russian while casually shaving his neck in the reflection of her compact, I was mesmerized.

I grew up in a suburb where everyone drove. Tiffany said my gaze wandered too much. I didn’t have my ‘train eyes’ yet. The two of us always enjoyed a healthy rivalry when it came to our respective upbringings yet it was the interracial aspect of our relationship, the burden and beauty it supplied, that needed to soak into our pores over a stretch of time. Regardless of how well my train eyes developed, I would never truly know what it meant to be black in America, but I was now part of a team that did.

We both taught English at a large high school in New York City under Michael Bloomberg’s mayoral control. When the Department of Education declared the building unsafe and its students failing, we vehemently disagreed with city politics and got to know each other better. Every year the building lost another wing to a trendy boutique academy and every year Tiffany and I grew closer. By the time there was nothing left of the place and our classroom belongings had all been packed, my ring was on her finger.

Initially, I just wanted to know the beautiful teacher who shared my classroom a little better. Yet when things progressed and it was time for Tiffany to inform her parents of the new boyfriend, she made a conscious decision to do it in stages. First there was a new man in her life, and his name was James. It wasn’t exactly a lie. James was indeed my first name. I just rarely used it, opting for my middle name instead. So now I was James on my birth certificate, James on my taxes, and apparently James to a loving couple in Brooklyn with strong Southern roots whom I never actually met. It was simply an easier crossover name than Bryan, which served Tiffany well until her parents demanded to know who this James character was exactly.

“You’ve been dating this guy for months now,” her mother finally said. “How come we’ve never met him?”

“Well, James lives very far. Way out on the Island.”

“Tiffany?”

“Yes?”

“Is James white, by any chance? Because you know that’s perfectly fine.”

Back in our respective classrooms, diversity was never handled quite so delicately. The students simply had no use for political correctness of any kind, producing an atmosphere of equal parts honesty and madness. Moments of tolerance could turn ugly and raw in a New York minute, occasionally taking precedence over a lesson.

“Okay, who can tell me why Macbeth wants Duncan dead..?”

“Hey, Mister, what are those white ladies doing?”
I peered down at my book. “What ladies, the witches from the opening scene?”

“No, those three witches outside!”

Heads turned. Desks and chairs groaned across the floor. Deep inside our texts, Macbeth waited patiently inside Duncan’s chambers, dagger in hand, for the twenty-first century to get back to him.

“Those aren’t witches, Tyrell. Those are secretaries and you know it.”

“But what are they doing out there?”

“Getting some sun on their lunch break.”

“Why?”

“Because they think it looks good.”

My answer was greeted with snickers and smirks. Someone said something about white ladies and wrinkles. Someone reminded the rest of us that ‘black don’t crack,’ then thankfully we were allowed to return to the much easier topic of Macbeth’s ambitious mayhem.

For the most part, my relationship with Tiffany or ‘Miss Young’ was greeted as a fun novelty item by the students. Although the union was never confirmed or denied, each year graduating seniors gleefully awaited their wedding invitations in the mail or demanded we start producing as many ‘Obama kids’ and pretty ‘Derek Jeter babies’ as possible. Light heartedness aside, Tiffany and I did plan on having children one day yet I still had much to learn about race relations. After seven years of teaching in New York City, I could not produce a suitable response whenever a student informed me that I was a ‘good white man.’

The death of a New York City high school turned out to be a long drawn out process. Once a building was declared ill there was nowhere to go for a second opinion. As the years wore on, the school’s troubles only increased. The population took its final plummet once the faculty was required to pass out flyers to students stating that we were a dangerous, failing institution and it would be best if they transferred immediately. For Tiffany and me, it was akin to studying for years to be gourmet chefs, landing dream jobs in a wonderfully diverse restaurant, then being forced to hand out leaflets saying PLEASE DON’T EAT HERE. Our student body changed dramatically. It was simply no longer the same place and it broke our hearts.

We received our letters of excess at the same time. The school where we found each other would close its doors for good in three years, operating with a small skeleton staff until that time. It was now a matter of finishing up the school year with dignity, to not let feelings of confusion and resentment filter into the classroom. Frankly, it was exhausting.

To offset the final months of our teaching time together, we began to see a lot of theater on the weekends. Here again was another lesson to be learned. Even the plays I selected for us needed to be done with an awareness I had never considered before. Tiffany had no problem sighting performances, even audiences themselves for a lack of true diversity.

She did have a valid argument. Just this past June we saw a performance of Larry Kramer’s 1985 drama, The Normal Heart, about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, less than twenty-four hours after New York lawmakers voted to legalize same-sex marriage. The audience that evening was so eclectic and charged with victory that when a wedding ceremony took place in the final act the house broke down and sobbed as one entity.

It would be foolish to deny ourselves similar experiences on a stage or even in our teaching lives. We’ve since made a point to seek out theater that will enrich our relationship, as well as our careers. It was at a recent performance of an August Wilson play, an author both of us have taught for years, where the audience mix was as interesting as the performance.

“Oh, Mom,” Tiffany said, making a quick phone call in the lobby. “You should see this. We’re out in full force tonight!”

So it was on that wet little corner of Greenwich Village where I suffered a momentary setback. As I watched the driver pull away, stopping quickly to retrieve his desired passengers, my immediate response was frustrated rage. It was our last weekend together as teaching colleagues. Rather than celebrating a job well done and looking forward to our future, I instead discovered the true nun-chuck capabilities of a closed umbrella. It bounced off the cab’s back window, skidding harmlessly into traffic. I haven’t thrown anything that hard since the little league all-star game.

My reaction was immature and slightly insane, and in the end only made me feel worse. I wasn’t the one the driver elected to pass by. Mine was anger by association, something I would simply have to process better in the future, especially once children were involved. I should have realized that Tiffany and I had long since formed a unit by then. We needn’t be concerned with foolish cabbie stereotypes or Department of Education numbers games for that matter. We didn’t have to teach together in order to stay together. And as I went through all the machinations of the angry male, the huffing and puffing, the bleating heart and racing adrenaline, a tiny hand rubbed the nape of my neck until I was normal again.

“What exactly did you think you were doing?” she said, smiling up at me. “That guy has nothing to do with us. You know that… Come on. We’ll take the train home tonight. Try not to stare, okay?”

J. Bryan McGeever’s essays have appeared in Thomas Beller’s Lost and Found: Stories from New York. He lives in Brooklyn.

Another man said, “Well, the world ends every day.”

“And it begins every day!” I said. I’m usually the optimistic one in a crowd. I also believe in everything: ghosts, King Arthur, Robin Hood, the Loch Ness Monster, conspiracy theories and true love, amongst other things. So May 21st was a challenge as it’s hard to be an optimist on a day you believe the world could end. There’s no denying the world can end on any given day, but I would much rather it be a surprise. I must admit that when I found out about the world ending in May of 2011 I felt a little gypped, as I had expected to enjoy a whole year of my life before having to worry about the world ending in 2012.

Of course, the End of the World is a common theme in humanity’s collective memory. We are obsessed with our own demise and our collective ego does not allow us to separate our fate with that of the Earth’s. So, naturally, during catastrophes like the Black Death we assumed the world was ending. In reaction to the forecasted doom, many practiced extreme penitence and flogged themselves. These flagellants rolled into towns carrying the plague with them. Since misery loves company, the flagellants claimed they could cure plague victims and perform miracles in an effort to persuade others to join them. Some people, seeing that the plague did not discriminate between sinner or saint, resorted to hedonism and debauchery so they could at least go out with a bang. Though the Earth has continued to continue, the world has ended in many ways already. The world as the Native Americans knew it, for example, ended the day Columbus landed on Hispaniola.

The first time I heard about the end of the world was in 2007. There was a special about Nostradamus on the History Channel and he predicted that the world would end in 2012. I found out the day before a test for grad school. I was a New York City Teaching Fellow getting my Masters in Teaching while working full time as a classroom teacher. To prepare for the test I was diligently Googling all the names and theories and laws that I had failed to pay attention to in class. After learning that the world might end in five years I saw the test not as a step towards my future, but as an obstacle preventing me from relishing every last moment of my life on Earth. I found my way to the nearest bodega and got some beer.

At the bodega a funny thing happened. The sliding glass door guarding the beer looked innocuous and the handle felt normal when I gripped it hard with all the weight of my new knowledge, but as I pulled it, instead of sliding obligingly to the right the door started keeling over right on top of me and I thought I would be one of the lucky ones to die before shit hit the fan. Though it would have been painful to be impaled by hundreds of glass shards, at least there would still be people around to mourn my passing.

The door fell on top of me knocking me against a shelf. But it bounced off my body as if I was made of plush before tossing itself to the floor and smashing into a thousand pieces; none of which touched me. Was it a miracle or was I just lucky? At any rate I was comforted by the fortunate outcome of this near death experience and took it as a sign that I shouldn't so readily believe in the worst.

Three years later, when I was still a teacher in the Bronx, I was in my classroom proctoring a state-mandated practice test. My students had already taken at least ten such practice tests in different subjects. This test came on the heels of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Some of my students, who didn’t have younger siblings or cousins, had been bringing used clothes to class to send to Haiti. My students were quite the humanitarians, but there isn’t a state-mandated test that measures that.

Five minutes after I had distributed the test booklets, one of my students, Eladio, turned to me and said, "Ms. Kilmer, maybe 2012 will happen."

It was not unlikely that my students equated all of these tests with the death of a certain part of their soul, and that perhaps Eladio was using a clever metaphor to express his feelings regarding all of this testing. But I wasn't sure.

"Why do you say that?" Though Eladio was taking a test and as the proctor I should have scolded him for talking, this was a matter of tantamount importance. After all, I know how hard it is to take a test while the end of the world is on your mind.

"Well, first there was an earthquake in Haiti, then there was an earthquake in Chile, and this morning there was an earthquake in some place called...Turkey?"

Eladio was one of the first students to know about the earthquake in Haiti and one of the first to vocalize his desire to help. He loved watching the news and telling me about it, and now he was informing me about this earthquake that I was not even aware of.

I told Eladio that many scientists say that 2012 is not going to happen. It was the least I could do. In retrospect, I should have told him that yes, 2012 will happen, right after 2011, and right before 2013. Not sure if his fear had been dispelled, I wondered if he was thinking of five thousand and one better things he could be doing with his limited time than taking that practice test.

In the hours that led up to the projected end of the world this May, I found myself wondering how I should spend my time before the apocalypse commenced. Believers quit their jobs and spent what they thought would be their last days at Columbus Circle passing out flyers. I, on the other hand, wanted to make sure I was at least enjoying myself. Conveniently, it was a Saturday, a day on which I tend to enjoy myself anyway.

My friend and I ended up spending the whole day walking along the Hudson River and working up an appetite. We decided to get pizza at an Italian restaurant. I’ve been trying to mind my budget, so I was going to pass on ordering wine. I explained this to the waiter since he looked offended when I declined to look at the wine menu.

“Ha!” He mocked my logic. “The world is going to end, so if I were you I would just buy wine and forget about the food!” My friend and I laughed and decided that, what the heck, we might as well get both.

As the day progressed I started using the Apocalypse as an excuse for mild misconduct. My friend and I left a bar without paying for our drinks, bought more beer at a bodega and drank it on a stoop. We saw people fighting, boozing, carousing and canoodling on the street. But then again, if there hadn’t been fighting, boozing, carousing and canoodling on the streets of New York City I might have been more likely to believe the end was near. And because this is New York City, where anything can happen, it was strange, but not too strange that I ended up sitting next to a white man in a Native American headdress after the deadline for the end of the world.

The man in the headdress confessed that he was an alcoholic. I wondered if alcoholism is another form of flagellation. Standing outside Columbus Circle all day passing out flyers certainly is, and debauchery is rampant in New York City on any given day. In some ways not much has changed since the Black Death. I thought about Eladio and what he might have done on May 21st. It was a comfort to know that since it was a Saturday he couldn’t have possibly been taking a test.

Sandy was a tall man, in size fifteens-- a gentle giant with a soft voice and a full smile, as befits a bookstore owner. He was a lover of chocolate, an easy conversationalist, who filled his store with classical music and a potpourri scent. He called himself ‘the neighborhood bookie,’ and he owned his labor of love and commerce, Mostly Books, on Cortelyou Road in Flatbush, from 1977 to 1999. Originally from Indiana, Sandy was looking for something to do after his job as a coordinator at a Brooklyn hospital was eliminated. He opened Mostly Books as a response to some of the residents who were clamoring for new businesses along Cortelyou Road, and fashioned it after a friend’s bookstore that he admired.

Certainly, opening a business in New York City in 1977 was not for the faint of heart. But while the dirt-ringed and arson-plagued New York depicted in movies existed, a seemingly contradictory spirit of community mobilization that grew out of the previous decade’s engagement with social justice, civil rights struggles, and activism counterbalanced it. Local organizing didn’t vanish when the murder rate soared and the Bronx started burning. The Flatbush Development Corporation was begun in 1975, organizing tenants, working to prevent arson, and creating business opportunities. Sandy and his wife, Hazel, were among those who worked to create the original Flatbush Frolic in 1976, patterning their Cortelyou Road street fair after the Atlantic Antic. On a city-wide level, it was in 1975 that the city created the 59 community districts and boards, functioning as we know them today.

In a 1997 Daily News piece, Sandy was still describing Mostly Books as “just a small neighborhood shop.” Novelist Richard Grayson called it a “country store gossip exchange for Flatbush,” but gossip travels a little differently in 2011-- it was in an email that my sister informed a group of us that Sandy had passed away. We remembered looking for new Babysitters Club books in the crowded aisles, his recommendation of The Phantom Tollbooth as a good sleepaway camp book, his steady smile and squint while he dispensed his recommendations. My sister recalled writing a report about Sandy in the 7th grade: the assignment was to profile a small business owner. A neighborhood blog quickly filled up with similar stories of childhood hours spent coveting the La Vie Bonbon tins for sale by the counter, and I flashed back to my own constant nagging for titles (any new Madeleine L’Engle books come in?), dragging my feet down the darkened aisles in the back of the store that held AP study guides, organized by subject. There we all were, readers and nerds of various intensities, coming to memories of the man who had stood like a friendly sentinel at the gates of our future reading lives.

Mostly Books survived the long decades in Flatbush. These days, I chafe at articles that take an overly simplistic view of the neighborhood in the 80s, describing it only as an area gutted by “white flight.” To a kid growing up there, most days it looked more like a run-down Sesame Street, with a train station, pizza place, school, bookstore, video store, playground, and fire station, all lined up neatly in a row.

Sandy’s store was adjacent to the bus stop where we waited for the bus to the P.S. 139 Annex. And when we were deposited there at the end of the day, we either wanted a slice from San Remo or a raspberry candy from the bookstore. We felt safe in Mostly Books, the kind of store where your mother told you to wait for her after school if she was late getting to the bus stop. For, while Flatbush has always had its charms, it's also always had the less-than-wonderful byproducts of urban life-- a place of overcrowded schools and streets inhospitable to biking around the block unsupervised. So many broken car windows, classmates getting jumped for their hoodies and nerf footballs and pocket change, burglaries and stolen bikes and middle-of-the-night break-ins, chains around the flower boxes and drug paraphernalia trashed in the school yard, car alarms, The Club and security patrol.

Sandy’s funeral was full of reticent mourners, eager to consecrate even the most inelegant of gestures, like the thud of his ice skates as they landed on the lectern during a eulogy. We were all very cramped in our winter coats, and around me women clung to the dark, woolen arms of their husbands. Someone read a Maya Angelou quote: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” It is a quote I had heard before, but seated in the cavernous funeral home, it wasn’t hard to feel the resonance of the words. I could hear the jingle of the bell atop Sandy’s shop door, smell the faint potpourri, see the goodies up at the front, and feel the incongruous safety of my childhood years. But as I listened to the memorializing, it was easy to wish that my relationship with Sandy hadn’t been restricted to childhood. I knew him as a street presence; I walked past the window of his shop, and dependably saw him inside, graying and smiling. Our conversations usually pertained to the latest antics of Jenny the Fire Cat. Hearing about his penchant for white wine, theatre, and grocery shopping suggested that he and I could have enjoyed a fruitful sequel, had we met up years later on a bench outside of Mostly Books (now a toy store). I was too young to know he made banana daiquiris once a year in the back of his store. I never visited his shop on Christmas, when he would stay open until the last frantic customer had left.

Sandy’s wife was my high school college counselor, who helped ease my path towards the shelves of libraries and bookstores far from Cortelyou Road, where Sandy remained, peering at ISBN codes and inspecting dust jackets. In my senior year of college I worked at a small bookstore in town, and I would hunch over a bulky wooden desk much like Sandy had, squinting into a boxy computer that the proprietor never had the funds to replace. I would stare at the blinking green cursor of the old word processor. Perched on the second floor, above a café, the front door faced a hallway, not a concrete esplanade. Every morning I propped up the placard and wheeled out a selection of $1 books, but most days, few people ascended the flight of stairs to our little sunlit store. We had a small children’s section, but usually, no children.

Hillary Miller is a writer from Flatbush, Brooklyn. She teaches at Baruch College and is Assistant Director of the Summer Writers Lab at Long Island University.

The Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson cuts through the crowd, trailing a small posse of +1s and scampering paparazzo with their flashing bulbs, and somebody carrying a walkie-talkie whispers, “I think there are models here,” to another carrying the same. Then, the music cuts out at the DJ platform––which is next to the open-bar and above the hopscotch and four-square grids––and the Hollywood humanitarian hyphenate Rosie Perez mounts the stage.

She wears a pair of wide-legged black trousers, a slim-fitting white blouse and teeters on high, leather pumps. Her skin is bright and whiskey-colored, and the expression Rosie broadcasts to the crowd posturing before her belies a concomitant reticence and rehearsedness.

“There are people out there who actually believe that the education system in America is working,” she begins. “But I ask, for whom?”

Rosie is a co-founder of the Urban Arts Partnership, a New York based initiative working to close the intellectual, social and artistic achievement gaps of underserved public school students through arts-integrated education programs. She is here to celebrate the opening of RE:FORM SCHOOL, the weekend-long pop-up contemporary art gallery-come-education reform festival––proceeds payable to the UAP––taking place at 233 Mott Street, in what was, until shuttering at the end of the ’09/’10 school year, New York City’s oldest operating parochial day-school.

Huddled figures loom from the propped-open windows that face the yard, their backlit silhouettes still and silent, pausing to hear Rosie deliver her rhetoric: “There is a disgusting and shameful prejudice, here in America, that if you are born into poverty, you must be stupid, you must have a lower capacity to learn,” she says. “I was one of those kids that they discounted. Just because I was poor and I was on welfare, no one took the time to realize that I was extremely intelligent––thank you very much.”

Rosie says this with a precocious sass in her punchy Latin accent; it’s meant to offer a bit of comic relief, but the crowd hesitates out of a practiced “post-racial” politesse.

“And what changed my mind––because I was a pissed-off young person––was that, one day, there was a special trip to see a performance of The Wiz. And when I saw this young, black girl up there, singing ‘When I think of home, I think of a place / Where there’s love overflowing’; me, the tough kid; me, the kid that used to beat up little boys––who was really, inside, a nerd, a smart nerd, who just wanted people to like me––cried like a bitch. Like a bitch.”

The crowd perks up to the profanity, taking this as its queue to cut loose a little. Of course, anyone with a pulse would see the irony here: Rosie, at her most sentimental, wasn’t looking for a laugh.

“Seeing art, live, up there, on the stage, changed me as a person. That’s why I’m part of Urban Arts Partnership. There’s a new way to teach kids, and the arts is a big part of that. I hope that tonight you reach into your hearts, but more important, I hope that you reach into your pockets and buy some of the art that’s here. Because every drop in the bucket counts, because someone’s drop in the bucket changed me for the better. Thank you.”

Beside me, a slim young man in a well-tailored pantsuit says to a leggy blonde fingering her iPhone, “So, I guess there’s art inside?” They share a mutual shrug.

* * *

The school’s interior, once populated by the bags and books and buoyancy of the student-body whose thinning number necessitated its closing, has metamorphosed into a three-story, goodwill gallery displaying work from over 150 of the country’s more prominent––publicity hungry?––contemporary artists.

The men and women milling about the halls and classrooms are a very different breed from those outside, who are mainly interested in playing catch-up and parsing party turnout. These are the collectors and gallerists and, conceivably, some are the artists.

In a cramped, coat closet-sized ex-classroom, a small audience has gathered to watch a somber man with chin-length hair play improvised cello suites––the pitch and tone of which send droplets of water leaping into the air from the two, shallow, rectangular troughs positioned on either side of the behemoth instrument. This is one of several “pieces” contributed by Michael Murphy, an artist and teacher based in Milledgeville, GA, who flew in a group of his students to help set up his super-sized installation art. The cellist was sourced and hired via Craigslist, several days prior.

Murphy’s “USA Pencil Install” is a divisive three-dimensional info-graphic comprised entirely of #2 pencils––which are wood with a black-paint coating, and capped with eraser-heads of either neon pink, green, orange or yellow rubber––and negative space. Into the clean white plaster of a high-ceilinged wall, a dot-dash system of holes has been drilled to form an outline of the United States, with like holes plotted within every square inch of the interior surface area of the nation. The pattern in which the pencils have been plugged into these holes is such that each of the fifty states is identifiable by not only its designated neon hue, but also its percentile average of high school graduates.

Beside this America, a key––written in pencil and coded with eraser-cap clusters––elucidates the value represented by each of the four colors. For the states with the fewest issued diplomas––California, Florida, and Texas, among others––the holes are left empty, bald and gaping, within the neon-orange rubber outlines of their intranational borders.

Murphy’s art is technically precise and of exceptional design; but, being location-bound––or, in the case of the cellist, human––none of it is for sale. Art über alles.

Upstairs, in a long, window-lit room with a particleboard partition situated at its center to create an ad hoc perambulate path of floorspace, framed mix-media pieces occupy just about every spare scrap of blackboard and wall. (The art here in particular, and throughout the entirety of the campus in theory, takes its inspiration from the sanctioned themes of the event––namely, Knowledge, Community, Creativity & Inspiration, and Teachers Who Inspire.)

Two art-rich seeming men in sunglasses and suit-jackets glide over to a set of framed woodcuts by the artist Scott Albrecht. One piece displays the message DON’T GIVE UP in primary colors, the other reads EVERY DAY IS A NEW DAY. They are, for a brief moment, quiet and contemplative, then one man says to the other, “I like these,” and a volunteer swoops in to inform the man that “they are $300 a piece.” “I want ‘em,” he says. The woman asks which, and Mr. Impulsive says he’ll take the pair. Purple dots are then placed beside each; they have been sold in under four seconds.

* * *

More art sells––most, in fact. Or at least that which is mobile and amenable to transit. There is live music on the blacktop, and, to the displeasure of the many parched patrons, little booze left in the ice buckets. One woman, whose skirt skims her knickers, with a neckline south of her navel, expresses audible resentment when someone luckier than she plucks a solitary cup of cabernet from within the sea of drained bottles and dropped dollar-bills.

The temporary step-and-repeat––which has been erected in the concrete alleyway between the playground and the curb––is plugged by a swell of artist-parents with babies Bjorn-swaddled to their chests; their older children zip around the playground’s perimeter on collapsable steel scooters. The party is not yet over, but it might as well be, and these children seem an odd late-addition to the after-school affair.

Curbside, at the school’s Prince Street exit, a broken-down school-bus rests upon cinderblock supports where its wheels ought to be. Layers of aerosol paint have been spritzed on its cheddar-colored body, cartoonish clouds of magenta, grape, baby-blue and silver; and for each smashed-in window, there is an open socket and a web of tempered glass that sags like twinkling lace. Above the windshield and the rear exit, and along the length of each side of its middle, a supplemental ‘T’ has been tacked onto the chains of decal-lettering; the text reads PUBLIC SCHOOL BUST in a bold, black font.

A troupe of four girls in their mid-teens swirls from around the corner at Mott and heads up Prince, toward the bus. They are shrill and sing-songy, and it looks like they are dancing even though they are not. They pause at the bus, unsure of what is before them, then move in concentric circles around its wide berth. “Fifty-four percent of dropouts ages sixteen to twenty-four are jobless?” one reads aloud, disbelieving, from the decal beside the door. Then: “High school drop outs have a life expectancy 9.2 years shorter than high school graduates?” She and her friends agree that it’s Gotta be a joke and Nuh-uh, not for real. And just as quick as they’d come, the girls again bob down the street, away from St. Patrick’s, cheeks fat from laughter, divorced from the four near-empty backpacks that flap and kick at their shoulders.

Molly Oswaks is a freelance writer and editor living in Manhattan's West Village. This is her first story to appear on the site.

Excited yet somewhat scared, I walked quickly and quietly through my parents’ bedroom, past the crib holding my sleeping baby sister to the narrow kitchen. I gazed at the round, old clock, calculating how long till I received my report card and then was dismissed for a summer of freedom and fun. My parents moved about, talking loudly, the baby started crying and the normal morning chaos of a too small house began as we rushed to use the antiquated bathroom, have breakfast and dress.

We were berserk with anticipation and dread—for we would be punished by our competitive and demanding mother if our grades were not top of the class. I threw on my uniform of white shirt, blue pants and knit tie and urged my brothers to hurry since I wanted to meet my friends early to plan today and the rest of our lives. During summer there was no more did you finish your homework, don’t forget to study your spelling, what’d you get on your history test. No more staring out the third floor classroom window at the broad green leaves and itchy balls on the tops of the London plane trees which lined our Brooklyn streets yearning to be outside playing ball.

As usual, we gathered in the concrete schoolyard with its six sorry metal hoops and the stickball strike zone chalked on the wall. Laughing and running about were hundreds of boys in their uniforms. On the other side of the school were the girls in their blue skirts milling about in a quieter, more dignified manner. In an hour or two we would all race out of the clean, worn classrooms onto the cracked sidewalks into the adventure and excitement of summer.

The familiar bell wailed, ordering us to line up quickly and quietly. But for once the din continued since it was impossible to remain silent with the promise of summer so close. We 6th graders talked and giggled our way into the massive white brick school with the polished marble floors and crucifixes in each classroom. Brother Warren, a vain and lazy man, smiled and joked as we climbed the stairs to our third floor classroom.

We squirmed in the small dark brown desks bolted to the floor and whispered about our plans or the Yankees or nothing on that hot June day in 1961. In his black habit with the large black rosary beads hanging down his side, Brother Warren was holding court with his favorites. His neat, slicked back white hair framed a ruddy face with shining white teeth. He was different—less serious, arrogant perhaps—than the rest of the Xaverian Brothers who taught the boys of Holy Name parish grammar, arithmetic and the Baltimore Catechism, all enforced with a sudden smack or wooden ruler across the hand. Since I was not part of his clique, I knew my report card would not be as good as usual. But it didn’t matter since my mother thought him a lousy teacher and all I could envision were endless games of stickball, stoopball, basketball and the other street games that were the addiction of all.

So I sat with 50 others until Brother Warren finished his lame jokes with the predictable responses of that’s funny Brother. Like a politician seeking applause, Brother distributed the report cards with a quip or a dig for each. Vinny, not bad for a tough guy. Frankie, you’re the best. Eddie, practice your foul shots this summer and cut out the butts. Pretty disappointing your spelling exam, Mr. Nolan, emphasizing my last name, a sly sign of contempt. Awards were given to the very smart and those who had lavished him with gifts at Christmas, his birthday and today. Cartons of cigarettes, cheap aftershave, Irish linen handkerchiefs, biographies of the saints and the like were opened as if he was 8 on Christmas morn. In a surprising bit of pluck, I refused to give any. Oh he doesn’t need anything, my mother said and I agreed, knowing he would hold it against me, but by then it was too late and I knew it.

Eventually this tiresome exercise ended, Brother Franciscus, a quiet older man, rang another bell by hand and we raced back to the schoolyard to compare our marks and plan the rest of the day. Brother Romanus, our 5th grade teacher, was standing amid the chaos and we gravitated toward this gentle, kind soul. Tall and thin, with a tuft of gray hair standing straight up, Brother always had a piece of candy or gum to hand out with his gravelly voice and quiet laugh. Kenny, Brother’s takin some kids in his class to Coney Island, wanna go, said my friend Haj. I have to ask my mother, knowing that she didn’t like Coney with its gangs, blacks, Puerto Ricans and crime. Com’on Kenny, it’ll be fun. Hey Brother, can I go? I asked. Of course, just make sure you ask your mother. Bring a towel and meet at noon in front of the Brothers’ House.

Riis Park in Queens was our family’s public beach, a step up from the teeming crowds and dirt of Coney Island. No subway stop near Riis and difficult to get there by bus. Although perpetually packed, there were none of the stories that you heard about Coney, the gang wars, the blacks from the nearby projects jumping kids for their money, announcing this is our beach now. Every Saturday and Sunday around 9 we would jump in the back of my Dad’s 1955 tank of a Pontiac and head through the streets of Flatbush over the silver steel Marine Parkway Bridge and park in Riis’ huge concrete parking lot. We would grab a blanket, a sandwich, our mitts and walk past the men’s huge bathroom with its perpetual stench of urine, the white washed refreshment sand onto the wooden boardwalk to Bay 14, the last one, where the Catholics sat with their coolers.

Like Brooklyn neighborhoods, each Bay at Riis was populated by a different group. On the other end a mile or so away near the bathhouse at Bays 1, 2, 3 were the blacks. In the middle 7, 8, 9, 10 were the Jews and at our end 12, 13, 14 were the Catholics. The crazy Puerto Ricans hung out on small worn patches of grass amid the scrub pine trees that lined the parking lot barbequing and blasting that bongo music. Why would they be so far from the water where there’s no breeze. They have to walk a mile to the ocean we smirked which only added to our sense of superiority

We ran to the surf, built sand castles, had a catch in the worn field of crabgrass, ate meager sandwiches and drank soda kept cold in an old metal Scotch cooler. Like everyone I knew, my parents liked to be with their own, away from the different, the threatening. And Coney was the future, crime and chaos, toughs hanging under the boardwalk, blacks everywhere, Puerto Ricans speaking Spanish loud. She’ll probably say no.

I joined other boys and girls marching the familiar few blocks from the schoolyard to the small red brick row house on Sherman Street. Well that’s not good, as she saw my spelling grade of 86. I braced for more harsh words from this woman who expected us to be the best: Only a 90, you didn’t study hard enough. 95, not bad, but what did Jimmy Dwyer get? I heard you got smacked in class, what did you do to deserve that? So I stood there in silent shock when she said, He doesn’t like you and I don’t like him. He thinks he’s something. You better do better next year.

Relieved. Hey Mom, Brother Romanus is taking some kids to Coney Island, can I go? Haj is going and Mikey Maronna, Frankie DeMarinis and some others from my class and kids from 5th grade, can I go?

I don’t know, she said wearily. You know I don’t like that place and how much will it cost?

I have money from my Tablet route so don’t worry, com’on Mom. I’ll be with Brother Romanus who she liked for his quiet faith and kind manner.

She paused which was always a sign of weakness for this short, tough woman of many loud opinions and few sympathies. Oh all right, just be careful and stay with him. Don’t wander off on your own.

Don’t worry, I won’t.

Before she could change her mind, I quickly changed into shorts, grabbed a bathing suit, a towel and made two thin spiced ham sandwiches with some Gulden’s mustard.

I ran out the door, up the block to the large red building adjacent to the church which housed the 12 or so mostly young men who joined the Xaverian Brothers and devoted their lives to God and teaching the snot nosed Irish and Italian kids of Brooklyn. They were revered and respected in this world of meatless Fridays, Communion every Sunday, statues of the Blessed Mother on every mantel and pictures of the Sacred Heart in every hall.

A motley group these Brothers were—saints and sadists, humble and vain. Mostly good actually. They coached basketball, baseball and track and made sure we were in the state of grace at all times. A few, however, should have never been allowed near children for they slapped a bit too hard, too often. Of course, in this working class neighborhood this was not unusual since parents often did the same and more. And Brother Romanus was
the mildest, most generous, a teacher who forgave when you forgot your homework, who took us to Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks or ice skating when Prospect Park lake froze.

I can’t recall whether the 20 to 30 boys boarded the Coney Island Avenue bus or whether we jumped on the F train, but eventually we arrived at Coney and headed to Ravenhall, a sprawling bathhouse on the boardwalk with its own lockers and enormous salt water pool. For 75 cents you were given a battered tiny locker, access to showers and pool. I shudda brought more money as I paid and pretended it was no big deal. I still had enough for a drink and the 15 cent token home. But now can’t buy anything else—no popcorn, cracker jack or cotton candy. All the other guys had plenty of money. I never had enough. We were given a key to a locker which was on an elastic band which fit around our wrist or ankle so we wouldn’t lose it.

We quickly stashed our clothes and sandwiches and joined the mob of people in the pool. We scattered about like sand in the wind, ignoring Brother’s pleas to stay together, don’t get lost and no trouble please. The saltwater pool was large and crowded and so much fun. We ran and splashed and played and left our towels where Bro. Ro stood in the sun. We saw others from our class and our school but stayed with my small group of four friends in and out of the pool until our skin wrinkled and hunger called. We returned to the lockers towels wrapped around shoulders to retrieve our warm sandwiches which we instantly ate washed down with a watery orangeade.

After awhile, Brother asked if we wanted to go to the ocean for a swim. So we walked to the exit, had our hands stamped with the ink you could only see under a special light and scurried onto the burning sand. The heat and the tightness on my neck and shoulders were signs that my too pale skin was turning pink and the anguish of sunburn would keep me awake this night. But that was later, now we ran into the surf with cheerful abandon, splashing and diving and getting tossed about by the waves. I knew how to ride the waves and loved catching one with my thin body and being driven to shore. I was careful to avoid the broken old clam shells and waited for the right wave—not too big or small—before I jumped headlong toward shore. Others, less experienced, were knocked about in the swirling surf, stood up spitting salt water, bathing suits filled with sand. The four of us rode the waves together, tossed wet sand and made sure each survived for we were taught to respect the ocean with its undertow and power.

In those days time was forever. Summer days were especially endless. You woke early and went to bed late. Minutes passed dropping slow and hours weren’t on fast forward as today. So who knows how long we were in the ocean and played in the sand. It seemed like hours but was probably much shorter. With friends, there was never enough time. Alone minutes were hours, days months. So eventually Brother Ro yelled that it was time and we slowly made our way back to Ravenhall. I was tired, burnt, sandy and wanting so much more as I turned away from the ocean.

The beach, scattered with litter, was mostly deserted as dinner time approached. We walked over the boardwalk with its flashing lights and noisy rides which couldn’t hide the age and decay of dilapidated Coney. We were waved through the Ravenhall entrance into a scene of cops in blue and medical personnel in white framing an empty pool. Wha’s goin on? Wha happen’d?

It was eerie, unusual on this happy, hot day to see adults whispering and moving with serious purpose in a place of escape, of fun. As we were taught, we gravitated to Brother Ro for protection and guidance as we pulled our wet towels tighter around our shoulders. A late afternoon breeze coupled with my sunburned body caused me to shiver. I wanted to change, wash the salt and sand from my body, put on my shorts and shirt and head home. I was tired now, afraid for we knew cops meant bad news, trouble. They rang doorbells and calmly stated Jimmy’s in the hospital or arrested.

Even though cops and fire engines and ambulances were common, racing through our narrow Brooklyn streets, we lived in a sheltered, insulated world of family, friends and faith. Holy Name parish was enclosed and protected by Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery. It was a parochial world of small row houses, smelly tenement apartments, large families where everyone knew everyone. Our parents and, in some instances, our grandparents played on these same sidewalks and stayed despite the allure and space of the suburbs. Familiar faces sitting on stoops guaranteed safety, security. Sure we traveled outside the neighborhood, but only when we had to—to work, to play other basketball teams, to drive to Long Island to see your cousins. And when you did, you lost the expected feeling of belonging, of home that you had as you walked up the subway steps of the F train on Windsor Place.

As such, we were used to a rhythm, a certainty of life. Our grandparents lived with us or around the corner so we knew sickness and death. But it was always grandfathers first, then grandmothers even though we were taught that God in his infinite power could summon you at any time which was the reason we slipped into the dark Confessional every other Saturday. We, however, preferred a compassionate Lord whose absolute love would rarely harm and then it was someone else, someone old. So we stood in the shadows and waited as the cops milled about and the medical personnel put away their equipment.

A cop approached Brother Ro and then gently guided him away from us where they talked quietly. Brother Ro slowly shook his head.

Wha happened, what’s goin on? We looked at each other, a bit unsure, anxious now to be told that someone fell, went to the hospital, broke an arm, he’ll be OK so we can head home to the comforting and usual sounds of neighbors arguing.

I don’t know who first mentioned Joey, Joey Pesce as I stood in the waning but brilliant afternoon, a perfect June day of sun and breeze, the sky cloudless blue where you could see forever. It could have been Haj or Mikey or DeMo or any of the others. I just can’t remember. Like waves that envelope your body as you dive into them, Joey, Joey Pesce echoed through our group, surrounded my mind, swirling about as I searched for my thin, dark haired classmate with the quick laugh and ever-present Spaldeen. I looked among our freckled faces, short hair still wet, chewing on towels. All eyes were darting, heads turning. Nope, not here. But I had no idea who had come, who had gone home early, who was with us.

Even though we were young and television screamed of robberies and murders, we rode the subways and buses to Yankee Stadium, to movie theatres, to shop downtown on Fulton Street, to the Garden to see St. John’s or NYU basketball. With a friend you could travel almost anywhere as long as you asked your mother. This was a time where you were on your own almost as soon as you could walk—my mother walked me to school just once, the first day of 1st grade. After that, I was with my brother or on my own. Back and forth for lunch and then at 3 o’clock. Mothers had no time; there were always other kids, younger, babies that commanded more attention. So maybe Joey, Joey Pesce went with his older brother, Anthony in 8th grade, or someone else on some rides, to Nathan’s, to buy cotton candy, left early to be home for dinner since his father was strict.

Yeah, that’s right. We were in the schoolyard, 50-75 kids, playing basketball, slapball, maybe punchball and stickball too. It was around supper time when a muscular guy in a white tee charged in, looked around and angrily approached Anthony in the middle of a basketball game.

Anthony, Joey, he screamed, I told you to be home for supper on time.

Dad, we were just…Before he could finish, the belt was off. Whack. As hard as he could. Games ceased, everyone quieted, we stared at the pitiful scene. Whack. Joey ran to his father and started to cry. Whack. Anthony leaned away. Whack. You had to stand there and take it. Run and it’s death. Whack.

Stop Dad, Joey pleaded.

Get home, the father yelled. Whack. Now. Whack.

They flew out of the schoolyard.

I told them be home for supper on time, he murmured. The man looked around defiantly, put his belt back on and walked home where he could eat with his family in peace.

Public displays of discipline were rare, but we were all hit by a belt or a hand so we knew the feeling and sympathized for Joey and Anthony. Wait till your father gets home were words that we dreaded. You did what? Whack. The same in school. You talked, fooled around, stick out your hand or touch your toes. Whack. And if your parents discovered you had been smacked, you were hit again. Except harder.

Of course he left early. Who would be late with a maniac like that? Those Italians always ate together with grandma doing the cooking. Joey, Joey Pesce just had to have gone home. Yeah he’s probably home already.

Except, except you would get permission to be late since it’s last day of school and Joey was smart, always got a good report card and his mom would explain that he went with Brother Romanus who’s a saint and you know those buses are always slow he’s a good boy Tony he was so excited how could I say no.

I roller coasted between the fear of tragedy that frightened as we read the lurid headlines of the latest murder in the Daily News to the rational and usual that a kid lost is always found, a broken arm always heals, a trip to the hospital is never really necessary. Of course at the same time I may have whispered a quick Hail Mary as we were taught and wont to do in any unusual situation. We knew the power of prayer, how we prayed to St. Anthony when we lost something, St. Christopher whenever we took a trip in the car, the Blessed Mother for peace, to convert Communist Russia. Like baseball players, we had our favorite Saints and relied on them to help us pass our quizzes, make the foul shot, hide the hole in our brand new pants and avoid death.

We stood there waiting for Brother Ro to return and assure us that it was a mistake, some other person, don’t know him but he’ll be OK, just some stitches, let’s not shower, let’s change and head home, it’s been a long day, very long. But Brother Ro remained apart, waiting with the cops.

Joey was here, right? He was in the pool. Did he go to the beach? Did he leave? Was Anthony here? No, Anthony didn’t come. Who was he with? You guys see him? Did he leave early? Remember the time his father came to the schoolyard. Had to go home early for dinner, right. That guy was fuckin nuts.

He was here and now he’s not. We looked around and at each other then back to the lonely and forlorn pool with its chipped paint and faded signs. The shadows were longer, the day running away. Go ask Brother, Haj, go ask him, ask the cop, you can do it, find out, yeah, go find out Haj, what are you chicken.

Before Haj could decide, Brother Ro returned with sadness on his face and silence in his eyes. They took Joey to the hospital. They say he may have drowned in the pool.

I understood the words but couldn’t comprehend the meaning. The pool wasn’t that deep. I looked to Brother for a sign, a word, something to tell me it was a mistake, I didn’t hear right. He stood a bit apart, unsure and all I saw was a flawed, ordinary man in his simple bathing suit and shirt, no habit now, no rosary beads.

Questions were asked in whispers, with eyes, with looks of no, can’t be.

I don’t know what I’m going to tell his mother. I just don’t know what I’m going to tell his mother, was repeated by Brother Ro who went with the cops to the hospital.

We somehow made our way home, exhausted, confused and so upset. I told my parents who told me to say a prayer. I lay in bed and prayed that I would wake up in the morning, tell Johnny about the nightmare and he’d laugh or call me a dope and we’d start an argument, get yelled out and everything would be the same.

Mike Smith’s was the funeral parlor across from our red brick church. Everyone was waked here except my grandmother who was put in Duffy’s on 9th Street a mile away because of some minor slight of Smith’s many years earlier when my grandfather right off the boat died before I was born. The Irish never forgive even an innocent transgression especially when it involves sending a loved one to eternal paradise.

Wakes were high drama and ritual, the family sad at the death but proud of the good life. He looks better than he did when I saw him last week. Beautiful dress, she looks like herself. They did a fine job. Thank God he doesn’t have to suffer anymore. You walked down the narrow corridor, stopping to chat with friends, terrible, just terrible and waited to say a prayer in front of the corpse whose fingers held rosary beads. Very sorry for your loss. Thanks for coming. And you would sit and gossip and laugh as you told stories about the good times and the bad and then turned around to see what Mrs. Murphy was wearing and where’s her husband, probably still in Farrell’s the bum.

Joey with his short black hair neatly combed looked small and thin in his blue Communion suit. New black rosary beads with the shining silver cross entwined in his neatly folded yellowish hands told me he was really dead. Yet, I still wanted to reach in, grab his arm and shake him awake as my aunt Rita did years later at my Dad’s wake. Jack, Jack, she cried, oh Jack.

Let’s go Joey, to the schoolyard, box ball, you can serve. Hail Mary, full of grace…

His father, awkward in his suit and tie, shook hands silently and closely watched his wife shake with sobs as she sat in the high backed chairs closest to the coffin. All in black, the family clutched white handkerchiefs. Friends, neighbors, schoolmates sat in the folding chairs and stood everywhere else, spilling onto the sidewalk outside. Anthony and the sister Theresa were in the back, talking nervously, trying to be brave and failing.

We never discussed that day ever again, never found out why it happened, never cared. And we only whispered Joey, Joey Pesce on occasion. In our prayers, of course. When playing slap ball or box ball, someone would blurt out, Joey was the best, he could really put English on the ball or he was really fast. We would pause and stare at each other with knowing and somber eyes. Ok, someone would shout, let’s go. The game would continue as we shook the sadness from our mind.

On the first day in 7th grade, we sat in rows in our starched white shirts and pressed blue pants, trying to figure out Brother Corby, a large, gangly man with a crew cut of black hair. Tough, but fair we heard. He was going on about doing our homework, the subjects and all the other study hard, be good crap that teachers always say on the first day. I was in the second row next to last seat next to Tommy “Ferry” Ferraiolo, a good friend whose quick hands could snatch a ball whizzing by and who had a mischievous streak which often got him into trouble. Oh yes, Brother said bluntly, this is the class of the Pesce boy, the boy who drowned.

The boy who drowned. I remember those words and that snapshot all too often. The silence that greeted that matter of fact statement. We just looked down at our desks and then at each other. Ferry with the cow’s lick in the front didn’t even try to make a joke. Then we probably had to take out our books, learn some English or history or math and, after a bit, our 12 and 13 year old minds thought of different and better things.

And we grew up, went to high school and all, married and worked and did what people do. Except Joey who never made it to 7th grade. And Ferry who never made it to 20. He drowned 7 years later in Rockaway.

Ken Nolan is a lawyer who has always lived in Brooklyn. His work has been published in The New York Times, Litigation Journal and many other publications.
 

All my hopes of becoming titillated by great literature were dashed when I noticed it was written in Middle English. In order to understand the sexual connotations, you had to read the footnotes. There’s something about a footnote that slows down the action. I usually skip them. Sex is about stripping bare, relating to the other person without any clothes. Footnotes are like wearing two sweaters, adding on what doesn’t need to be there. I trust authors. I don’t need to see proof that the facts the authors claim are true do exist. I know they wouldn’t deceive me unless they had to.

She wore two scarves. One of wool to match her coat. The other of cotton to match her dress. She looked stunning. But anyone who dressed up for a Chaucer class would definitely not find me appealing. Though, I appreciated her not changing her seat. Some women don’t like you sitting in back of them. They can’t tell what you’re fantasizing about. And I fantasized a lot about Cybill’s back. I’m embarrassed to say they were all of an erotic nature. I was never a ‘Back person.’ Usually backs don’t turn me on. But Cybill had an amazing back, one of the best that I had ever seen. Most backs beckon you to catch up to the woman so you can gaze at her profile. That’s their only purpose, besides holding the body erect. I kept staring at her back. Her shoulder blades were well defined.

She must have worked out a lot. And once in a while she faced me to say hello. But I felt safer viewing her from the back. That way she couldn’t see my face while I was having fantasies about her.

The teacher asked us why we were taking a Chaucer class. Most students said they were taking it because it was required. Cybill said she was taking it because she heard Chaucer was the father of English literature. And to understand the son, which of course was the greater of the two – William Shakespeare – you had to understand the father. The teacher was impressed. But he wasn’t impressed at how she recited Chaucer. She kept stumbling over Middle English. The teacher said she was being too emotive. The emotions were in the words, they were strong enough by themselves, they didn’t need a fancy delivery. "The line, ‘When that April with its sweet roots,’" the teacher said, says it all. She didn’t have to shout it.

One male student would greet her at her desk every morning. He’d try to make small talk. It seemed that his talk kept getting smaller, because for the most part he’d just stand there and gape. One time he got brave and revealed something about himself – he was a math major. Therefore, they had something in common – he wasn’t required to take Chaucer, either. ‘Why don’t we meet one night at a café and talk about our love for Chaucer,’ he said. She must have been thinking about her recital of the Prologue of the Canterbury tales, because she shouted, ‘No. I’m not interested in meeting
you after class to discuss Chaucer or anything else.’ He was embarrassed. He ran out of the class. She stood up, faced the class and said, ‘I can’t believe a mixed-up math major would have the nerve to ask me out.’ Then she sat down. It was like her social life was part performance. I knew better than to ask her out. And anyway, I was in love with her back. What kind of date would it be if I spent the evening sitting behind her. No one would think we were a couple.

The math major stayed away from class for two weeks. He stayed clear of Cybill. She never looked at him. A guy I knew in class said he didn’t think asking someone out on a date was a misdemeanor. He said it was mathematics – the more you ask the better your chances of someone saying ‘Yes.’ – which was something a math major would know. He was convinced that Cybill was going to be famous one day. She made a minor incident the talk of the class. No one talked about Chaucer anymore. They talked about Cybill. He was right.

Hal Sirowitz is the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. His first book was Mother Said (Crown). His latest book is Father Said (Soft Skull Press). In between he wrote My Therapist Said, and Before, During & After.

Every morning we have to leave the apartment — later on good days, early on rough ones. A time out before 8 a.m. and we’re out the door in the next fifteen minutes. Outside I can strap them in and keep them quiet and entertained — maybe even asleep. We all seem to drift off out there, Norah and Colin and I, lost in our own heads, watching the world go by. That morning we were out early and the sidewalks were crowded with city-bound commuters headed for the subway. Washed and ironed, they knew where they were headed, whereas that morning I was willing to take my babes anywhere the wind blew us.

“Doing, Mommy? Doing?” This is Norah’s favorite question these days.

“Walking,” I say, from high above her little upturned head. She wants to look at me, but the sun catches her eyes. She keeps turning away, squinting and frustrated. Then, a second attempt: “Doing?”

“I’m walking…and thinking.”

“Mommy’s thinking!” She squeals and kicks her feet in delight in the tiny space reserved for her beneath the baby’s car seat. Colin’s whole body reacts to her. He turns his head, stops sucking the pacifier, and tosses his arms up into the air. We have one of those conversation-starters: a high-tech two-seat stroller where the older kid gets the bottom seat (she could reach out her hand and drag it along the ground if she wanted to) and the baby’s car seat snaps in on the level above, facing the pusher — that’s me.

I thought, that morning, that we should leave the neighborhood. I’d already been scratched, pooped on, and yelled at, and so the idea of just taking off appealed to me. What if, instead of taking the same old right turn out the door, I took a left?

We walked away from 37th Avenue and ventured up toward Broadway as though it had never been done before. Norah continued to ask me what we were doing, apparently confused by all of the new things she could see from her spot down below: row houses, for-sale signs, a gay-pride flag, the Virgin Mary casting her welcoming gaze upon a lit red candle in the front yard. She sucked her thumb, furrowed her brow, and begged me to take her to the library. I had promised I would before we left the apartment, but really just to get her into our contraption of a stroller. There is such a small space for her down there that she has to be totally willing to get in it, which usually means I promise her cookies, “moo-cow” milk, cheerios, the park, the library — whatever it takes to keep the peace, which has been more and more difficult since Colin was born just three months ago.

Yes, the library. I found myself saying it even though I didn’t mean it. Each step was taking us farther away from the library, and I had no intention of letting her out of the stroller until I could release her back into the safety of our living room with the drooping eyelids and slurred speech of a worn-out two year old. At that point my own body would be at its breaking point and ready to flop onto the bed as well.

When we reached Broadway we were officially in the pulsing heart of Elmhurst, rushing forward in a throbbing crowd of pedestrians. There is very little English on this thoroughfare of Queens. This is a first-stop kind of place. It’s been crossed out and rewritten and we were used to seeing it through the dust-covered windows of our little Honda Fit.

“Mommy, this?” Norah points to a storefront, wanting to know what it is.

“It’s a…a phone store.”

“Mommy, this?”

“And this is a hardware store.”

“Oh mommy, look! This!”

And there, standing back from the street in the full, startling shade of oaks and sycamores, was the Elmhurst Library.

I turned us off the crowded sidewalk and found the side ramp so that we could roll in. Yay! Norah sang and clapped her hands. We were used to this kind of place, as the Elmhurst library wasn’t all that different from our Jackson Heights library, but there was something to the lighting in these rooms — it seemed to reveal more books, more silence, and perhaps more reading going on. Quickly, I rushed us toward the Cat in the Hat entrance of the children’s section before we could disturb anyone. I breathed a full sigh of relief when I found it empty, but for a few busy librarians; Norah could pull out books, climb on mini-chairs, and read out loud (“Oh, a kitty-cat! Oh, a cow!”).

We glided down the aisles, past the teen section, the pre-teen section, the early-reader section, and got settled at a small table in the back of the room next to a revolving bookshelf of bruised toddler books. Norah was beside herself with happiness as she wiggled over to the shelf and began removing the books from their proper places, exclaiming with each one, “Oh, mommy, this!”

I pretended to be as happy as she was about all of the books, while removing Colin from his comfy seat, shoving a cloth diaper under his chin, and pulling up my shirt. Colin’s mouth opened hungrily and he clung to me, looking like an old man trying to suck the air out of a balloon.

Once settled, I lifted my head and found myself in the spotlight of two dark eyes. He was a skinny, pale, teenage boy and looked as though he’d previously been quite comfortable in his spot on the floor behind the last stack of children’s books. In his hand was an open cell phone and he was held captive by it, leashed up by the ear.

Instantly, I knew he had a secret. At 11:15 AM, he should have been in school. This made him a truant, an escapee, a runaway who needed to be turned in for his own good.

I’ll walk over, whisper sternly in his ear, and send him running, I thought.

But that was the teacher in me, hidden beneath what I was at that moment — a scantily clad, partially exposed, post-partum woman with a toddler on the loose. Colin was dribbling and my shirt would be wet in spots when I stood up. A thin coat of polish was chipping off my toenails and my hair was unwashed. Norah had left the toddler section and was now taking all of the books off of the teen shelves and tossing them on the floor. Someone might think to turn me in as well.

Colin was beginning to drift off, cozy and all full up in my arms, but each time I tried to pull away he’d start to suck harder. Norah was now chasing a little boy who’d come in with his grandmother. The two of them were starting to swipe at each other over books beyond their levels of comprehension. The teenager had wandered off to a more distant corner, and began talking on his phone. He sounded like a good, responsible kid, telling a school aide that he was too sick to go in, or that he had some kind of doctor’s appointment. I imagined him afraid to go to school, to be harassed, to be lonely. The librarian called out, loud enough for all of us in the room to hear, that phone use was not allowed in the library. The kid ignored her and finished up his polite conversation. He insisted on his invisibility.

“No, no, no! Mine!” Norah was getting louder, gearing up for something. “Miiiiiiiiine!” She had a book tucked under one arm, her unhappy face on (pursed lips, chin tucked in, fierce eyebrows), and she’d begun beating her own chest — a threat to the little boy that if he got any closer she’d start beating on his chest.

“Norah! Be nice to the boy,” I called out. “Nice to the boy!”

I pulled my shirt down and dropped Colin into the stroller, rudely and without a burp. I had to turn away for a minute to make sure I was decent, and then I lunged for Norah, who had managed to intimidate both the little boy and his grandmother, neither of whom seemed to speak English. I asked Norah to say she was sorry. Nothing. I told her, I begged her, and then I gave up and said it myself.

“I’m so sorry about this! She’s going through a hard time right now, that’s all. I mean, we all are. She has a new little brother, see?”

The old lady just smiled at me demurely as she pulled the little boy behind her.

“Sorry. Sorry. Norah, say you’re sorry.”

“Mine!”

I went to pick her up, and she slapped me in the face and let out a scream that brought all reading to an abrupt halt — heads popped up over books and newspapers. “No! NO!” she began, and continued in a chant that ended in the loudest shriek this library has certainly ever heard. In an instant, she was slapping my face with two hands, curling her fingers to scratch when she could. I spun her around and grabbed her from behind, one arm around her chest and the other around her knees. She found new ways to squirm, new ways to hit. She aimed for my face even though I was behind her now.

“No mommy!” she cried. “I like daddy! I like daddy!”

She collapsed into sobs and turned into me, now for comfort, sucking her thumb, like the baby she still was. With her head tucked under my neck, her long legs hanging down the length of my body, I carried her in my left arm and pushed the stroller with my right. Okay, here we go, I whispered to her. Let’s just get to the door, let’s just get outside. She ignored me, but I knew she was listening.

As we left that children’s room, the librarian nodded to me, Norah, Colin, the contraption-of-a-stroller, the unwashed hair, the chipped nail polish, the tear-stained eyes, and the milk-stained shirt, as if to say, “You are strong.”

I let Norah slide down to her feet and held her hand as we walked down the ramp and back to the sidewalk, at which point she requested to be let back into the stroller. She climbed in easily and curled up on one side, with one hand at her mouth and the other between her knees. I pushed the stroller to the corner and, while waiting for the little walking man on the streetlight to appear, gathered up the loose wisps of her baby hair into a new tail.

Deirdre Faughey is a teacher and writer who lives in Jackson Heights with her family.

I had to hand in work to be accepted into the class. I dashed off several love poems. I got accepted. But I was expecting Ellison to praise my writing. He never mentioned it. On the first day of class he came with the secretary of his apartment, who attested that he was indeed Ralph Ellison. He was authentic, not bogus. I heard of James Dean imitators, but I had never thought writers were able to draw that much devotion.

Ellison took out his lecture notes and read about the philosopher Kenneth Burke. Burke said the most important word in life is ‘No.’ Some students disagreed. They said the word ‘Yes’ was more important. It was obvious by his response that he had never taught before. He told those students, ‘No. You’re wrong,’ and continued reading his notes.

One student asked him to put down his notes and tell us what it was like being a writer and how he became one. Ellison grudgingly took time off from his notes to answer. He said earlier in the day he saw a policeman giving a ticket to a woman whose dog peed on the sidewalk. Ellison claimed the dog did nothing wrong. In fact, the urine would help the grass grow. That was what should have been there, not concrete. The dog was just doing what was natural. It was the sidewalk, not the dog or woman who was at fault. But you can’t give a ticket to a sidewalk. He said that was why he became a writer – to take the side of the dog, to represent those who have no voice. Then he went back to the importance of the word ‘No.’

That was the way the class went the rest of the semester. Students kept interrupting him from his lectures, asking for anecdotes. (I stayed out of the power struggle and didn’t challenge him. I was trying to get on his good side. I was still waiting for him to make positive remarks about my poems.) He didn’t like that. He said he spent the whole summer writing those notes. Notes were difficult to publish. Therefore, if we don’t learn something from them, no one will. Then he’d force himself to tell another anecdote.

He told us he reads two books religiously the same time each year: ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘Moby Dick.’ I was amazed he could read the same books year after year. He read Mark Twain’s book to appreciate the first attempt by an American author to write in the vernacular. He read Melville’s book to remind himself that you can’t exhaust a subject. He wished that book was even longer.

He’d also piss off the Black students by telling them that no matter what they wear or what music they listen to, it’ll be watered down and taken over by society. Culture is vulnerable to outside forces. Whites will be dressing like Blacks and imitating their music. He thought of this idea long before it was proven true by the Beastie Boys. One Black student claimed it was biologically impossible for a White person to grow his style of Afro. Ellison said the stores will now sell Afro wigs.

For the term paper I wrote about the significance of the word ‘No.’ It was supposed to be ten pages. I ran out of original ideas after three. How much can you write about ‘No?’ To make up for this discrepancy I included seven pages of love poems I wrote the night before. I made sure each poem revolved around the lover saying ‘No.’ A week later I get a call to see him. He said I didn’t hand in my paper. I said I did.

‘That didn’t look like a term paper,’ he said. ‘There weren’t any footnotes.’

‘It’s all taken from personal experience,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t able to footnote it because I don’t want the woman to know the poems are about her.’

‘Is it okay if I give you a ‘C?’ he said. ‘That’ll solve this problem.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said. He still didn’t comment about my poems. Yet, years later I appreciated his silence. I realized he was being gracious. The poems were bad.

Hal Sirowitz is the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. His first book was Mother Said (Crown). His latest book is Father Said (Soft Skull Press). In between he wrote My Therapist Said, and Before, During & After.

I work in Midtown in a monolithic glass tower, one in a forest of same. In the mornings when I arrive and in the evenings when I leave, people in suits and tourists swarm the base of the building. But there must be a school nearby because at 3pm on any given weekday September through May, there is also a smattering of teens.

They gather on the sidewalk between a subway station and the vendors who line 47th Street hawking knockoff purses, watches, selling gyros. I look forward to walking past those kids in the afternoons. They remind me of the ones I used to tutor at an after-school program in Harlem. And those kids had always reminded me of myself. With cupped hands they whisper conspiratorially in ears, form alliances, test boundaries. The girls bat eyes, and smile at the boys who lope and blush. They are figuring it out, life. It’s exciting.

Today there are more kids than usual, 30 or 40 if I had to guess. Most days they sit scattershot on the concrete benches, steps, deep sidewalk but today they all stand huddled close together, focused on two of their cohort. In fact, their group is so big, I have to arc wide into the smoke of the Korean barbeque cart in order to get around them.

I glance back before sneaking into the coffee shop, and as I do, feel a strange tension in the air.

When I step back out into the high sun, drink in hand, I see that a few adults have stopped mid-mission and are staring at the nest of children. I look myself, and see two boys in the center of the mass. They are slinging words I can’t hear, small chests puffed out.

I walk past, consider stepping in to take control like I would when things got out of hand at the after-school program, act the teacher, wag a finger, but I hold no authority here.

Suddenly, as if a pot finally come to boil, one boy lunges at the other. The crowd of children surges, moving to maintain proximity. The passersby back up, clap hands over open mouths, but do not turn away.

The bigger boy forces the littler one back, back, back, across the sidewalk and toward the street, until they both fall against a vendor’s sheeted folding table, which collapses like a trick chair with one bad leg under their weight. Sunglasses and purses, brilliantly colored scarves, compacts all spill out into the street. Traffic stops. More stop to gape, old men crowded around a cockfight.

The boys roll around on top of the now flat folding table, throwing tiny punches. Their friends surround them. There is yelling. The vendor stares down at his livelihood now scattered across 47th street.

I am standing in the crosswalk, trying hard not to cry. Furious with the men who stand and gawk. DO something! I think to myself. And do nothing.

All of a sudden, from behind me two cops shoot through the street on foot. Who has called them, I have no idea. A wet mist precedes them and I am confused until the boys roll apart, clutch their eyes, and I realize that the mist is mace.

I look around to see if others are as appalled as I am. Wonder if we should call the cops on the cops. But no one makes a move.

When they get close enough, the policemen holster their mace and jump onto the kids’ backs, hold them down cheek to pavement.

I think about the suburbs of Kansas City where I was raised. How one wronged boy would push a finger against his aggressor’s sternum, “Meet me on the soccer fields after school.”

I remember, how we would all show up, wait with an excitement I couldn’t recognize as perverse at the time, but was. How the boys would show or not. How if they did, and if they began to tussle, inevitably someone would step in, probably more for their own ego than for the sake of stopping the fight, but they would step in nonetheless. That or the boys would simply get tired, collapse on top of one another, call a truce. And everyone would stand there and then someone would say something like, “You guys want to go to Circle K?”

And the boys would end up holding slurpees, not in handcuffs like these two boys sitting on the curb, heads down.

They look ashamed. They look like nice boys.

Midtown makes an awful soccer field.

Katherine Dykstra is a New York-based writer. Her essays have appeared in Poets and Writers magazine, Pology.com, and in the anthology 20 Something Essays by 20 Something Writers.