Chapter 5

The carton full of paperbacks was on his desk the next Monday along with a small paper cup full of red rose buds with a card taped to it that said thanks. He put the flowers on the windowsill, the card in the middle drawer and handed out the books to his English class and asked them to start reading, right from the top, Act One, and said that it was a love story. He waited for it, knowing it was coming. That's what this is, we're all playing parts; we have our roles, our lines. It's ridiculous.

"It's Shakespeare," one boy said loudly. Several people groaned.

"It's a love story and a comedy," the teacher said, smiling and getting the projector ready. How many times have you done this, asked something inside him. He let them read for ten minutes and then told them to stop and killed the lights. "There are two or three movies of 'The Taming of the Shrew' and a musical called 'Kiss Me Kate.' Anybody seen one?"

No response.

"OK, here's a piece of one with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton from about ten years ago. Ever hear of them? I think they were married at the time." He pressed the button and the screen filled with Taylor's eye. He let that run for a few minutes, admiring Zefferilli's camera work, the clashing music and Taylor's over-ripe body as Kate threw things about, and then stopped when she fell back laughing, and put in another tape. "Now, this is different, it's Cole Porter and a musical, and if you'll listen, some pretty funny stuff." He played the "I Hate Men" sequence. Most seemed to watch, squirming a bit. Broadway was so old fashioned, words you could understand, rhythms and rhymes.

"That's Kate, the shrew, Katherine, Katerina, the story's heroine. Her sister is called Bianca. Her suitor is named Petruchio, and he has come to wive it wealthily in Padua. And Kate's father is rich. Please finish reading Act One for tomorrow, and I am going to ask you what a shrew is and whether or it can be man as well as a woman. OK?"

He wrote 'shrew' on the board, looked around and then tried to look serious, closing his eyes briefly, concentrating, making it neutral, relaxed. "Whom do I thank for the flowers?" He knew the 'whom' was English-teacherish, a bit forced.

A girl stood near the back of the room. "We wanted to thank you." She smiled and looked around. "He did something that was hard to do." She sat down. "Oh, they're from the cheerleaders, all of us."

He looked around. They were curious. "It wasn't, not really, not hard to do, we are going to share the gym, boys and girls equally. That's fair, isn't it?"

A boy raised his hand.

He nodded, thinking he had said that clearly.

"You're head coach now, basketball?"

"Yep. Mr. O'Neill moved over to the college."

"He was a PE teacher. Can an English teacher do that, I mean coach?"

He chuckled. "I think so. I hope so. It's not that hard. Easier than teaching Macbeth to high school kids."

That got a small laugh.

"Good luck," the boy said.

At the end of the day, when he went back to his homeroom and gathered up his work, a boy knocked on the door frame and entered. "Got a minute?" he asked.

He sat in one of the student desks, noting that it needed washing, and the boy sat facing him and produced a very small recorder. "I work for the paper," he said, "the school paper. Can I ask you some questions?"