Listen Ruben Fontanez (6 page)

“Four-twenty-five. The substitute is Miss Dabney—it's only her second time here. She's—”

I stand and take my briefcase. I push by Miss Teitlebaum, out the door. I walk to the right, then up one flight of stairs. I am pleased, I realize, to be needed in such a situation. I have been too gentle with my monkeys lately, I must admit. In the corridor I can hear the shouting. On the walls are pictures of Betsy Ross sewing a flag, of Washington crossing a river, of Lincoln dead in his memorial. A young woman stands outside a door. She is almost in tears. She tries to speak but I gesture to her to be silent. I do not want them to know I am approaching. I stop beside the room, then peer in through the window of the door. Ruben is standing on the teacher's desk, his arms outstretched, his short legs stamping out a wild dance as the monkeys clap for him.
“¡Mira! ¡Mira!”
they scream.

I push the door open.
“¡Cuidado!”
comes a shout from the back of the room. “Meyers!” I slam the door shut. Ruben laughs and does something with his hands. The students are quiet. Ruben is in another world, dancing furiously. He wears tennis sneakers. I set down my briefcase in the aisle and move toward him.
“¡Cuidado!
Ruben.
¡Mira!
… Meyers! Meyers!” come the shouts. They do not disturb my wild-eyed one. I time my attack and snatch him by his left ankle. He lurches backwards and, as he throws something over my head to the others, he laughs. I pull at his leg and he loses his balance. “Be careful—” I call as he falls from the desk. I let go. He seems to stop in midair, to twirl like a ballet dancer. He lands lightly on the toes of his sneakers. He laughs again. His eyes are blazing now and he dances away from me, his feet moving with incredible speed. I see other eyes at the door, peering in. It is Manuel. Some students clap for Ruben, but I glare and they stop. He tries to sneak by me, but I push him back, then grab him by the wrist. Nobody speaks. Ruben's feet stop moving.

“Why were you absent from official class this morning?” I ask, tightening my grip on his wrist.

“I was there,” he says. “You ask anybody.”

“He was there—he was there—!” the students shout.

I grab his hair on the smooth side of his forehead and tug at it. “Nobody plays me for the fool, Ruben Fontanez,” I say.

“I was there,” he says again.

I see something move across the back row, from lap to lap. “Juan—bring that to me!” I drag Ruben down the aisle with me. He plants his feet and resists. I let go of his hair.
“¡Ahora!”
he shrieks, and then he yanks his wrist from my grip, dances lightly over my briefcase, and dashes from the room.

I will not catch him, I know. I take two strides and seize Juan by the back of the neck. Now that Ruben is gone, the students are quiet again. I do not have to apply much pressure. Juan reaches into his desk and brings forth a tiny doll. The other monkeys giggle. “What is this?” I demand. They are quiet. I let Juan go and I walk to the front of the room. The substitute teacher starts through the door but I motion to her to stay away. I look at my monkeys. They keep their eyes down, their heads bent. I look at the doll again, on the desk in front of me. It is about seven inches long, constructed of rags and adhesive tape and pipe cleaners. The head is made of papier mâché and it has been painted. Two long hatpins are stuck in the chest.

I pick up the doll and my eyes open wider. The evidence is unmistakable. The monkeys watch my expression, I know, but I cannot conceal my rage. The eyeglasses made from a paper clip, the large crooked nose, the graying hair. “Talk!” I say, and look out at my monkeys. “Talk or I will know what to do.” They look down. “All right,” I say, and walk up and down the aisles. I stop next to Rafael Quinones He looks up at me briefly, almost smiles, then fixes his eyes on his desk. He is afraid. I grab the back of his flannel shirt and pull him out of his seat. “Hey—let go, manl” he cries. I twist his ear, then fix my grip along the sides of his neck. He squirms. “What you want with me? I no make the
muñecos
—” I squeeze harder. “Ruben—he make them of everyone. Last week he make one of me. He even make one of his mother—” He tries to sit, but knows it is no use. The others will not condemn him. It is no disgrace to give Harry Meyers information. “Every day he come in with a new one and go sticking pins in them.” I squeeze. “This the first time he do one of you. That the truth—”

The monkeys jabber. “Go on,” I say to Rafael. “More.” He shrugs, and shakes his shoulders. His neck, I see, is filthy. His mustache is almost full grown. He stays in school until he is old enough to get working papers. “Let me go, man,” he says. “I no make those voodoo dolls—” Behind me I hear laughter. I release Rafael and walk quickly to the door, but when I look out the corridor is deserted.

I stare at the doll. The room is silent. When the buzzer sounds, I let my monkeys proceed to their next class. I notice that the mouth Ruben has drawn seems to be smiling, curved around the bulbous head. I drop the doll into my briefcase.

The day moves on. Outside the sun is brighter. I assign written work to my classes and sit at my desk. I stare at the doll period after period, and find, despite myself, that I am developing an affection for my likeness. When the last period of the day is over and my official class returns to get their coats, Ruben is not with them. The bell rings and I escort my class to the exit. Across the street I see the old men. They are happy now. I return to my room and look at the doll again. It smiles at me. I remove the hatpins and let them drop to the bottom of my briefcase. I bend the two pipe cleaner arms forward, so that they are clasped, resting on the stomach, and I place the doll gently in the briefcase, beside my books.

In the main office I punch the time clock. I speak to no one but I am smiling broadly, more broadly than the likeness I carry with me. Students still linger near the school, smoking, talking, not wanting to return to their homes, to go to their jobs. I do not blame them. In a hallway I see a ninth grade Negro and a female monkey going at one another hungrily. That is all right also. I cross the street, toward the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Below the underpass there is fresh writing on the walls, in chalk, but I do not read the messages. The snow melts quickly. I feel strong. Harry Meyers is prepared to meet his cowboys.

THREE

I
N THE DISTANCE
, beyond the Expressway, I see the sun reflect from the dome of the Williamsburg Savings Bank. My body no longer aches. I unbutton my coat and walk past Broadway, under the pillars of the elevated subway. Perhaps, I think, I will even be able to sleep on my back tonight. The doors of stores are open now and the streets are busy with women shopping. From the open window of a Puerto Rican luncheonette come the odors of frying foods: bananas, pigs' tails, fish. I see one of my students, Jésus Martinez, of class 8-12, peddling his aluminum delivery cart in and out of the el pillars. His girl friend sits on top of the cart, chewing gum and reading a love-comic. Jésus sings.

I smile at them, but they do not see me. In the window of the
Botánica Religiosa
are statues of Jesus, gold crucifixes, religious candles. Beyond, where the sun dusts the inside of the store, herbs and hair applications and oils are arranged like medicines. A large black and orange sign advertises
Rocio Dama de Suerte
. An old woman smiles at me from behind a curtain, her face toothless. I cannot tell if she is Spanish or gypsy.

At the Yeshiva, I stop across the street and watch the cowboys playing in their schoolyard. The younger students are at work, pushing brooms across the concrete, cleaning the yard of puddles. It is like spring and once again I feel excited. My cowboys, with their black hats, their sidelocks, their fringed
tsitsis
flailing from their open shirts, are playing punchball and stickball and basketball as if they were ordinary American boys. They scream at the younger ones to keep the infield dry. A running cowboy is out as he arrives at second base. His hat falls to the ground. He picks it up, kisses it, tucks his sidelocks behind his ears and goes back to the sidelines, cursing. On the basketball court two cowboys are choosing with their fingers. Maybe, I think, maybe I will speak to Ruben and he will make Chassidic voodoo dolls. The thought pleases me. Mendel Kupietzky, reputed to be the great grandson of the legendary Reb Mendel, lofts a fly ball toward center field. It travels beyond the reach of Nachman Solovaychik, and lands in a puddle of slush and water. I laugh to myself. Mendel streaks around the bases, his hair uncurling from behind his ears. “Mad-Man Meyers!” I hear, and I know they have seen me.

It does not bother me, though. I swing my briefcase at my side and cross the street. Menachem Schiffenbauer sits on a folding chair behind home plate, waiting his turn, his head bobbing up and down as he reads from a huge leather-covered book. “Mad-Man Meyers! Mad-Man Meyers!” The cowboys are chanting in unison. Above the entrance to the Yeshiva, in blackening concrete, it is carved: “There Is Nothing in the World Which Does Not Contain a Commandment.” My cowboys have taken up a new chorus. “Meyers is a
momzer
… Meyers is a
momzer….”

I laugh at them, caged inside their wire screen, and I enter the building. I smell raisin wine. The aroma is powerful and it cuts through the heavy air. The corridor walls are chipped and stained, the tile floor slippery. I hear the sound of men, complaining in Yiddish about mortgages, leases, tenants, interest rates. They are huddled in a tiny room and I pass them quickly. In a room next to them, young boys with the faces of old men sway back and forth amid piles of books as they chant their arguments to one another. At the end of the corridor a Negro janitor leans against a mop, a paper skullcap perched on the side of his head. I pass him and smell bourbon. “How ya doin', Rabbi?” he says to me. His eyes are glassy.

I descend to the basement. I open my locker and a cat leaps forward. It lands on a seat in the front row. Its back arches. I move toward it and it scampers from the room. On my desk is a sack of rotten apples. I remove it and I realize that I am still smiling. My cowboys enter the room, Menachem Schiffenbauer leading them. They sweat from their games, their eyes dance with mischief, but Harry Meyers is unaffected. This afternoon, I know, they cannot touch me.

They begin as usual: they shout, they throw things, they refuse to work, but it is nothing to me. I smile at them and they sense that something has changed. Even Menachem Schiffenbauer ceases to translate the mysteries of the Cabala. He looks at me from his deep blue eyes, perplexed. “I know something also,” I say to him, and smile. My briefcase is beside my desk, my Spanish books are in front of me. I recite the lesson, lecturing to them on the irregular verb,
pedir. Pido, pides, pide
… My cowboys try to ignore me, but that is all right also. I continue.
Pida, pidas, pida, pidamos
… Old men pass our room, but they do not glance at us. They carry briefcases.

It is difficult to intimidate Harry Meyers, you see. The longer I go on, the quieter my cowboys become. I look at them, their shirts and vests covered with drippings of food. Their eyes begin to flicker. “Cowboys,” I say. “Cowboys of the schoolyard. Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays—they would laugh at you also.”

A piece of chalk flies by me, splintering against the blackboard. From the start it has amazed me, the passion they devote to their teams and heroes. I will tell you something: when it comes to memorizing statistics and records, they are geniuses. In the back row, Mordecai Fruchthandler rises and throws his Spanish book into the air.
“¡Bésame culo!”
he cries. The others giggle. I am unaffected. They stamp on the floor and pound on their desks.
“¡Bésame culo! ¡Bésame culo!”
they cry. “Cowboys,” I whisper. “Cowboys of the schoolyard.” They are listening to me, I know. “Sandy Koufax would laugh at you also.”

The madness leaves their eyes. They turn to one another, helpless. Menachem Schiffenbauer does not look up. My cowboys are monkeys. I continue with the lesson and they repeat the words with me.
“Llegue, llegues, llegue, lleguemos
…” I assign a written exercise and they work quietly. I do not smile anymore. Well. They are boys, also, I suppose. I look down at them, at their heads covered with silk skullcaps, at the locks of hair which curl about their ears. They seem very small to me. When five-thirty comes they wait for me to dismiss them. Then they slink from the room, their Spanish books under their arms. Morris would be proud of me, I suppose, but such a thought does not give me much pleasure.

I am tired. I rest in my chair, the empty desks before me. I arrange their papers in a neat stack and put a paper clip on them. Outside it must already be dark. I open my briefcase, and put their papers inside. I take the doll in my hands and lift it from the briefcase. The pins rise from its chest in a “V.” I tremble. The light seems to dim. The doll falls from my hands. It makes no noise. I look again, but I do not touch it. It rests on its back, smiling at me. I seize my briefcase and remove its contents, piling Hebrew books on Spanish books, papers on papers, but there are no hatpins at the bottom.

I replace my books, one by one, my eyes fixed on the doll. Its hands are clasped. The pins glisten. My heart pounds heavily. I put my overcoat on and then sit down to struggle with my galoshes. The doll watches me. I remember the note which came this morning and I feel Ruben's eyes, laughing at me. I place the doll carefully in my briefcase. I pull the zipper closed. I leave the room and start up the staircase. I wonder about the change that has come over my cowboys today. It was too easy, after all. Perhaps they were only pretending. Outside, they are waiting for me. I stop and go back down to the basement. The lights have been turned out and I feel my way along the corridor with my fingertips.

I turn the corner and in the Rebbe's room there is a light. I look in. The Rebbe sits in a large maroon chair, his fur-trimmed hat tilted back as he sips wine and sings to himself. His eyes are closed, his beard is caked with dried food. His eyes open and he looks my way, but in the darkness he does not seem to see me. He holds his own face between his palms and he sings of the bird whose song of praise burst its own body. I do not move. He stands up and his eyes glow. Only the love of God will heal the hearts of mankind. He turns slowly in a circle and claps his hands, dancing lightly on his aged feet. He hops silently on one foot, in a circle. Around and around. He prays for all those who died to smuggle him from Poland during the Nazi occupation, of the Rebbes who masqueraded in his place so that he could make his way from country to country. He sings a song about each man who died while pretending to be him: in Budapest, in Rumania, in Greece, in Syria, in Palestine. He throws his head back and drinks, wine running down both sides of his mouth, into his beard. He slumps back into his chair, smiling. His eyes look through me. They close. He begins to snore.