Читать книгу Stories I'd Tell My Children (But Maybe Not Until They're Adults) - Michael N Marcus - Страница 13

If you’ve ever spent any time wandering around airports or municipal buildings, you’ve probably passed by a Freedom Shrine.

The shrine can be a spotless and spotlighted room, a few feet of hallway or a dust-shrouded basement corner. It displays framed replicas of historical documents provided by and possibly maintained by the local Exchange Club.

The documents range from obscure articles of surrender and presidential correspondence to the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

Several dozen different pieces are usually displayed. There is seldom any discernable order, sequence or pattern; but the unmistakable themes are FREEDOM and rebellion against tyranny.

Hillhouse High School had a Freedom Shrine Room. It measured about eight by eight by twelve feet, had bright and hot lights, a glass wall and no ventilation.

In the ultimate perverse irony, our shrine to freedom was our detention room—the place where the bad kids were kept and freedom was denied.

The shrine was not quite as inhospitable as a Viet Cong “tiger cage,” or a prison cell in Abu Ghraib, but the temperature was often above 100. And, of course, boys in Hillhouse—a public school—were required to wear ties and either sportcoats or sweaters.

Each morning during homeroom period, crew-cut Assistant Principal and Gestapo Kommandant George Kennedy’s voice would boom over the PA system: “The following students will please report to the Freedom Shrine Room,” and we’d hear the names of hooky-players, class-skippers, test-cheaters, glue-sniffers, toilet-stuffers, library-smokers, fire-alarm-yankers and sundry suspected terrorists.

There was a regular group of hard-core Shriners.

Camille, John and Gus made the list almost every day. Occasionally there’d be a new name, but not always a real name.

In an effort to free the Freedom Shrine, the class of ‘64 took the “Who’s Dick Hertz?” joke to a new level.

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When a substitute teacher circulated an attendance sheet for students to write their names on, someone would write “Dick Hertz.” The next day, the substitute would use that sheet for roll call, and if no one responded to the false name, the naïve teacher would inevitably ask “Who’s Dick Hertz?” All of the guys in the class would immediately raise their hands and yell “Mine does!” This was particularly effective with young female subs.

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Our school had a nice swimming pool, and we went swimming each week, with instruction available for those who needed it. At the first class in September, teacher James J. (“JJ”) Davin distributed index cards for us to record our name, homeroom, division number, swimming ability, next-of-kin, etc.

Someone got an extra card and signed up a phantom student named Steve Schmuck. (“Schmuck” is the Jewish term for a penis or a fool.) Steve became part of the official class roster, and JJ read his name when he took attendance at the beginning of each class.

For the first few weeks, one of the co-conspirators would yell out “yo” or “here” to establish credibility for our invisible classmate. But there was no way we could come up with an extra body to take the upcoming swimming test, so we stopped answering when Steve’s name was called.

After Steve seemed to miss a few classes, JJ inquired about his welfare and whereabouts, and some of the guys said that they had seen Steve earlier in the day in English or algebra. JJ reported Steve for skipping class, and the next morning our phantom friend achieved a new level of legitimacy and fame.

More than 3,000 students and teachers heard official tough guy George Kennedy announce through the loudspeakers in every classroom, hallway and other place of habitation, “Steve Schmuck, please report to the Freedom Shrine Room.”

That was the only time our Freedom Shrine ever deserved its name.

The Shrine was freed by the Schmuck.

I still hear the cheering, the applause and the laughter.

YAY, STEVE!