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I Wrestled a Pith-on
I knew this bench.
Hard marble. Set against the tile wall of the corridor, outside the Principal’s
Office. No back, but who cared. This bench wasn’t for lolling. It was for crying
... and shame … and waiting for your mother to arrive … because the Principal
had called her … again.
I knew this bench well. I had suffered its humiliation often, like a Puritan
felon in the public stocks.
Why? I didn’t know. I mean, I was just a kid. Seven-year-olds don’t judge; they
ARE judged. At least, in The New York City Public School System. At least, in
1950.
Why was I a bad kid? Well, I’d heard words: "Slow”, “Unruly”, “Discipline
Problem”. Never directed at me. Directed at my mother about me … by my
second-grade-teacher, Mrs. Lang.
I wasn’t quite sure what she was saying, but I knew it to be true. Of course it
was true. I was a kid; she was a Grownup. Not only that, I was bad.
I didn’t mean to be, you know. I just always found myself doing things that
weren’t right.
Painfully shy, I avoided playing with other kids. That made me "unsocialized".
When compelled to color-in my reading work book, I balked - sometimes going "way
outside" the heavy black lines that marked the borders of the shapes to color,
sometimes using “completely wrong colors”, sometimes refusing to color at all.
That made me "sloppy", "undisciplined", "lazy".
When I was called upon to read aloud, my shyness and anxiety made the words,
that seemed so comfortable and stable in private, dance and jump around on the
page – alien dervishes – completely incomprehensible.
That made me "slow".
I guess I was all those things. What did I know? I was a kid.
I was the bane of Mrs. Lang’s existence. Which was too bad. I really liked her.
After all, she was my teacher, and a Grownup. I would tearfully promise to do
better, and for a while, I would. But eventually, my unsocialized-sloppy-undisciplined-lazy-slow
nature would assert itself again, I would be sent to the Principal’s office. My
mother would be called in for consultation, and another tearful promise would be
extracted.
Nobody was happy with this cycle. Not Mrs. Lang. Not my mother. Not me. And
certainly not Miss Banks, the Assistant Principal, who got to officiate in the
cases of unsocialized-sloppy-undisciplined-lazy-slow second-graders – of which
mine might have been the sole example.
Miss Banks scared me. She was not a kid. She was not a Grownup. She was a "Old
Person". In the world of a seven-year-old, age carried authority. Kids had
little. Grownups had lots. And Old Persons were simply fear-inspiring.
Miss Banks’ appearance did nothing to help matters. She was tall, thin,
patrician, STERN. She never smiled. Her face was thin, hawk-like, accentuated by
iron-gray hair – which was always pulled back in a hard bun. She wore no make-up
except for the map of wrinkles which surrounded her hooked nose, and pointed
chin. Her compressed, pale lips were fringed by vertical lines, which made them
appear sewn together – much like Boris Karloff’s in “The Mummy”.
I remember a pair of earless, black glasses, which hung from a black cord around
her neck, and sometimes perched on her nose. She wore loose, black dresses with
the devotion of a Nun. She reminded me of Miss Gulch in "The Wizard Of Oz" – and
we all know SHE turned out to be the Wicked Witch. Miss Banks was a true object
of terror.
My latest infraction was pretty serious. I had discovered a copy of “Readers’
Digest” at home, on top of the toilet tank, where my father had left it. I was
curious, and had smuggled it into the classroom. While the "better" children had
been coloring, I had secretly held it under my desk, and had been reading it.
When Mrs. Lang discovered my treason, she had taken me to be pilloried, while my
mother was summoned, yet again.
Presently, my mother arrived. She looked at me sadly, cleaned up my face with a
spit-on tissue, and reported for the proceedings. A monitor was dispatched to
retrieve Mrs. Lang, and the three of us were ushered into the dark castle of
Miss Banks office.
Miss Banks sat behind a New York City Board Of Education oak desk. My mother and
I sat in two straight-backed New York City Board Of Education oak chairs, facing
her judgment. Mrs. Lang paced, behind us, on the New York City Board Of
Education linoleum floor – in the manner of all competent Prosecuting Attorneys.
“I don’t know what to do with Raymond.”, she began. “He’s simply incorrigible!
(Another word to add to my growing dossier.) I’m at my wit’s end. I think he
should be transferred to another school.”
My mother blanched. I sat - hot with shame, hollow with fear.
Miss Banks nodded for Mrs. Lang to continue.
Continue she did - reciting a long, humiliating litany of my short-comings and
aberrations. Oh God! They were all true!
“… and then, today”, her case had reached its apex, “while he was supposed to be
coloring, I found him playing with this, under his desk!” She waved "exhibit A"
at the courtroom in triumph, and let the silence punctuate her indictment.
Miss Banks’s eyes bored into me. “What were you doing with that?”
“Mfmenbld rdblgh ‘t.”
“SPEAK UP, young man!!”, she corrected.
“I was reading it.”
“You were READING it?”
“Yes, Miss Banks.”
“What were you reading?”
“A story.”
“What story?”
“ ‘I Wrestled a Pith-on.’ ”
“You see!!”, thundered Mrs. Lang in victory, “The Child is lying. He doesn’t
have the faintest idea of what he was ‘reading’ ”.
Miss Banks raised a finger to call a short recess, while she scanned through
exhibit A.
Presently, she looked up at me. “What IS a ‘Pith-on’, Raymond?”
“It’s a big snake.”
“Where did you hear about ‘Pith-ons’, Raymond?”
“I never did, but it was in the story.”
“And what was the story about?”
I told her about the man who had been trapped inside a big cargo ship with an
escaped Pith-on.
“And how did the story end, Raymond?”
“I don’t know. Mrs. Lang caught me, just before the end.”
Miss Banks turned her hard gaze toward Mrs. Lang. “This dull, sloppy,
incorrigible second-grader seems to be reading at a Junior-High School level.
He’s not dull, sloppy, or unruly. He’s BORED!”
She looked at me again, and – for the first time ever - I saw her smile. Her
eyes were actually kind. “Would you please wait in the hall, Raymond.”
I quietly rose.
She extended the Readers’ Digest toward me. “Why don’t you take this with you.”
“And it’s pronounced ‘Pie-thon’.”
“Yes, Miss Banks.”
I went back to my bench, and sat a long while, wondering what was to be done
with me. At last, the door opened, and Mrs. Lang stalked past me down the hall
toward her classroom. Then my mother came out, turned back, and thanked Miss
Banks.
As she walked me back to Mrs. Lang’s class, my mother hugged my shoulders very
tightly. When we got to the door, she stooped down, and kissed my forehead. “I
think things are going to be a lot better for you, from now on.”
Crayons, Letter Blocks, Apple and Books
Photographic Print
Kamp, Eric
Buy at AllPosters.com
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