Chapter XI: Les Misérables
Meanwhile, Mitchell Mitkin was in search of a new paradigm. Like me, he was re-examining his relationship with Raphaella, and like me, he just knew he was the one for her. He began to visit her regularly. Every time I visited, he was there. I often found his books stacked against the wall beside the couch, a couch on which, I surmised, he must have slept. They had apparently started a reading club of some sort, though later I found out it was not so much a club as a spontaneous clique; the two of them read poetry and discussed novels and essays. I saw Rousseau’s Emile on the floor behind the couch, a book that looked more like work than pleasure. Mitkin chose Thoreau and Wordsworth, Blake and Goethe. Exuberance and the “love of living” were the common denominator and Mitkin’s new definition for beauty. He loved that he could call himself an “uncontrollable animal” whose “great joy was joy” and whose “character was love.” He delved deep into the idea of intuition and inspiration; he began to make himself over again, and all at the feet of Raphaella. He imagined that she was all of these things. He believed that in her he had found the archetype of beauty, the vernal wood. Like a child he ran to her so that she might listen.
“Sometimes, Raphie, when I look at you, you’re like a light sitting there, a beacon, a sort of saving force for me. Do you know that, Raphie? I can talk to you.”
“Relax a little, Mitch. We’ve always talked together, haven’t we?”
“But not about this stuff.” He held up Songs of Experience by William Blake. “This is a drug almost, and we are doing it together.” Raphaella nodded. “I’m torn you know,” he went on but almost as if he didn’t know how to, “I want to tell you something, but…” He waited for her.
“Go ahead, Mitch,” she said, ever so slightly irritated. “It’s okay.”
“These last few weeks, ever since I started coming here, since school started and everything else, you’ve made me, well, I feel free here. I feel like the past is falling away, and I’m liberated.” He was beaming. He stared and smiled at Raphaella, and in his eyes she saw a manic happiness, the look of an unconvinced man. “I don’t know how to thank you for taking me under your wing like you have. I know that sometimes I’m maybe a little too talkative, but I don’t mean to be. I’m just, well, recovering I guess. You’re making it easier for me.”
Raphaella nodded awkwardly.
Together they read on and lived on, closer and closer each day, or so it appeared to me. Raphaella read his book choices obediently, and would often let him choose for her. Together they read Victor Hugo and then, very predictably, crowned their little reading club with a trip to Broadway and Les Misérables. At the box office, the salesman called them a nice-looking couple as Mitkin smiled and put his arm around Raphaella.
“I bought the best, Raphaella, we should be way down there,” and he pointed to the orchestra. “Only the best.” They took their seats and waited as the mid-size crowd meandered up and down the aisles behind them. Mitkin moved excitedly in his seat, turning and looking directly at Raphaella.
“I would never have gone to a Broadway show before. This is so artsy, but so perfect too. Are you having fun?”
Raphaella laughed nervously under her breath. “Yes, Mitch, I’m having fun.”
Mitkin had one thought. It conquered him and held him captive the whole night. When will I take her hand and hold it? Each minute that passed marked a missed opportunity. “Now?” he’d muse. “What about this moment? Do it.” He wondered if she was thinking the same, and in a fit of anxiety turned to her. The orchestra had not yet started to play the overture, but she was counting. One by one, she pointed and enumerated the marble gargoyles that stared down from the domed ceiling. Like a child unaware she counted, “…eleven, twelve, thirteen…” And then she began to count the figures on the walls, above the stage, and around the orchestra. “Counting?” thought Mitkin, “Should I take her hand while she is counting?” She turned around and began to count the carvings behind her. She counted to forty-one before Mitchell stopped her, riven with confusion.
“What are you doing?” he cried.
She was startled. “I’m counting.”
“What?”
“The details. If you look closely at the walls you can see that each section has sets of little sculptures, and each one of those has something religious in it, which, if you look closely, has its own little story to tell. Together they tell some big story.” She squinted, “The whole theater is like a giant narrative. Somebody really cared about this joint.”
“Or they cared about money,” he said from the side of his mouth.
“Money?” She grimaced. “All this for money?”
“No. All right,” he moved in his seat. “No, I don’t think so. You’re right, probably not.” He mumbled, “Not for money.” He turned away from her slightly and then back again, resuming his stare. Raphaella was heedless. Without looking, she tapped him on the thigh with her rolled up program and pointed.
“The show’s over there.” The lights went down and the show indeed began.
When it was over, he wanted to talk. He hurried her up the long row of seats and across the aisle out of the theater. He grabbed her hand (yes, he’d deferred for almost three hours) and pulled her through the thick crowd. They popped out on 42nd Street. Bright neon lights swamped the street and chased the night. A surreal setting ensued. Everything seemed bigger and better, brighter. Still holding her hand, Mitkin pulled Raphaella through the street and into a pizza shop where she politely wriggled free. He helped her with her chair, and then went to the counter to order. Standing there, with his back to her, Mitkin considered her thoughts. Maybe she had begun to love him, too? Maybe she saw their compatibility, their natural affection for one another? Maybe she saw his devotion for her, his desire to build a beautiful theater together? She had gone out of her way to help him, she had shown how much she cared by letting him into her life, and he liked what was happening to her, too. That she had questions about her own life made him trust her more. That, he told himself, was the center of their love. That they both asked questions and searched for meaning in the world would get them through it all, the whole of life, together.
Mitkin became very sentimental. He imagined the pizza as an offering, a primal gift, given from one heart to another, a ready-made offering. He pictured a simple life with her. He wanted to experience the vernal woods with this woman and do it now, right there, transported on the chariot of man’s good nature, into the heavens reserved for him and her from before all time. His heart was a fluttering feather. The show, with its eternal themes, themes he romanticized, repeated itself in him and he grew confident. He was convinced that she was ready to ride away with him, and that he need only ask. (Clearly she was too polite to ask him, even as she fought the urge to). He whisked the pizza sacrifice off the high counter and slid three one-dollar bills toward an unassuming prep cook. He placed the offering in front of her and gallantly sat down.
“Hey, Mitch, you tipped the counter guy three bucks. Do you always do that?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
She shrugged too. “Yeah, why not?” She hissed and hooed as the hot pizza rolled around in her mouth. “Oh, hot,” she managed, chewing delicately. “Did you like it?”
“The show? I loved it.”
“What was your favorite part?”
“You tell me yours first,” said Mitkin. He waited wide-eyed while she finished a bite.
“The part when the bishop gives him all the silver even though Valjean stole from him. There’s no story without that.” She smiled. “That’s what gives Valjean courage and everything else that matters for the rest of the show.”
Mitkin nodded, but did not agree. “That was a good scene.”
“Was it your favorite?”
“Sure,” said Mitkin.
“Come on, seriously. I can see you’re just saying that.”
“Well, all right. I liked the barricade. The fight. That was the center of the story for me.”
“Why?” she asked.
“They loved life, a great robust life. It was simple, too. I’m right, you’re wrong, the end, kill the ones who disagree. It’s refreshing.”
“But it’s the center of the story?” she asked again.
“Well, no. It doesn’t matter.”
She waited.
He saw that she was pressing him, and he liked the attention. “It’s the center for me these days, anyway. I’ve learned a lot. I think the key is the emotions, the wild belief, like the fighters of the barricade had. They loved freedom.”
“But Valjean didn’t. He… This whole thing is stupid. We’re idiots. This isn’t real life.” She rolled her eyes. “I just thought the center of it all was repentance, you know. Love.”
“I agree!” He was pleading nearly. “Love of life, of breath, of freedom. That’s what the whole story is about.”
Raphaella sat uneasily. “Yeah, but not like you’re saying it exactly.” She finished her pizza, wiped her mouth and put down two dollars. Mitkin pulled back suddenly.
“No way, keep it, please, Raphie,” he said pushing the money away.
“Mitchell,” she said, “take the money.” And then, trying to lighten the mood, added, “How about some ice cream? I’ll buy.” He sort of stared and nodded slightly. “Ice cream and then we’ve got to go,” she continued, “Dana’s sitter is expecting me by 11:30.”
Mitkin put his jacket on. He did not finish his pizza. He had not even touched it.
CHAPTER XII: Ripe
The bell rang and science class was over. It had gone much better this week, as a steady rain seemed to calm the students. Raphaella had told Mitkin that this would be the case. She was often right, and good and beautiful, he thought. She was exactly what he needed to survive his new life. As students filed out, one girl, a little girl in short-shorts, filed in.
“Sol, where have you been?” said Mitkin.
Snapping her gum the girl said, “I got a pass, Mister, here, it’s from Ed.”
“Ed?”
“Mister Taughtauer, dang. He said I could stay with him and then he gave me this note. It’s my pass.”
Mitkin was exasperated. “Could you be here on time from now on please,” he said as he shook his head.
“Dang, whatever, Ed just said you’d understand and that you weren’t such a little bitch, but I guess not.”
“Leave, Sol,” said Mitkin. She rolled her eyes and huffed off. Seeing her go, he rested his body against a table and began to read.
M. Mitkin:
The short version.
An organism is dying and must be put out of its misery. It is no longer able to continue the life it was designed for, and so, a few elite members of that organism do the noble thing and end the life of that organism. Its death is good for everyone involved. Its death is very good for the people the organism was designed to serve. In fact, death is so good that in the place of that dead organism truth blossoms, truth and tranquility and the root of goodness, a root long since withered. All of this is natural, it is all meant to be. One could say the organism needed to die in order for its seed to survive. One could say that, don’t you think?
I will be in my room after school waiting for you. I hope you will not be afraid to come. Please don’t be afraid, you are the man for the job. Your father told me so.
—ED
Mitkin dropped his hands and scanned the room. He read the last line again: Your father told me so.
“Taughtauer,” he thought, “has nerve.” He shook his head. “My father didn’t tell him anything, when would they have met?” He looked one more time at the letter and folded it into his back pocket. He meandered about the room. It was the letter that now occupied him and not the art of instruction. In fact, the letter blotted out the haunting image of his father’s dead body and, incredibly, resurrected his father. Mitkin pictured the two of them talking at Columbia over coffee, during some lecture series, or, he thought aloud, “At the conference Columbia had for teachers of science. Yes, that’s it! But Taughtauer teaches history doesn’t he?” He rushed all of this through his mind, but could not place Taughtauer with his father.
The next set of students barged their way into the classroom, but everything that Mitkin set out to teach was overwhelmed by thoughts of Taughtauer. He had traded one obsession for another, death for derangement, but he was not entirely unhappy with this trade. It was the mysterious tone that attracted him. It promised something, a forecast of hope. He decided that he would go see Taughtauer, and besides, he thought, he could always yell at Taughtauer for keeping Sol out of class. Yes, he could always do that. He turned the corner of the long corridor that led to Room 409 and Ed Taughtauer.
The paunchy man was at his desk, hunched over some papers and surrounded by a canopy of color that exploded from the walls, the floor, and from every corner and cranny. Taughtauer’s walls were the canvas for a giant collage. Anything a student accomplished Taughtauer put there. Portraits, posters, test papers and pictorials combined with maps, mosaics, murals and magazine covers. They were everywhere. A blanket-size relief map of Australia stared down from the ceiling. A giant timeline encircled the entire classroom running from 440 BC to NOW. A slide pointer rested at 1890. Mitkin was impressed. Still standing in the doorway, he saw Taughtauer’s red pen flying over white lined paper, scribbling even as Mitkin made his way in. He got as close as an arm’s length before Taughtauer spoke without looking up.
“I thought you’d come, I really did. It’s simply too good, too you, and I knew you’d know it. Yep, just too good.”
“Cut the crap. Don’t take my students out of class for your experiments or whatever it is you do in here. Do you understand?”
Still looking down, Taughtauer said, “Not why you came.”
“What?”
Gleefully, Taughtauer looked up. “That’s not why you came, Mitch.”
Mitkin huffed. “I want to know in clear and coherent terms what you want.” Mitkin stood nearly at attention, very taut and about to break. “And how did you know my father?”
“Well, geez Mitch, that’s all you had to say,” said Taughtauer, swiveling his chair and reclining with his hands behind his head, like an arrogant policeman. “Well, it’s like this basically. Actually why don’t you sit down.” He pointed toward a desk. Mitkin did not move. “Come on, Mr. Mitchell, just have a seat.” Mitkin acquiesced. Taughtauer smiled.
“He’s greasy,” thought Mitkin.
“I met your father about eight years ago. He ran a seminar for science teachers, something about how to get funds for science projects. He was in charge of a great deal of money. The chairman as you know, the chairman of Science Now.”
Mitkin shook his head. “He was the founder of Science Now, his way of paying back.”
“I know what it was. I talked to him that day for about an hour. We even went out afterwards, had a drink, talked shop. I was impressed with your father. He had many good ideas about this country, this very confused country. His best idea was science.”
“What is that supposed to mean exactly?”
Taughtauer grinned. “It means he loved, no, worshipped science.” Then he grinned and stuck his index finger in the air. “He was scienterrific!”
“You’re an idiot,” said Mitkin.
“No, not an idiot, just a guy who disagreed with your father about what he called a ‘reverential dedication to the natural sciences,’ or the ‘hard science’s salvation of public education.’” He pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger, itching it, grubbing at it. “I didn’t agree that a foundation dedicated to pumping private funds into public school science departments could save public education. No. But I did agree with him that public schools could be saved, I did agree with him, with his eyes really.” He paused and leaned over, and whispered ever so slightly. “He was a zealot, Mitch. I agreed with his love for the human mind. I liked him. I liked him a lot. But I never told him.”
“Why would he care?”
“I never told him about my plans, dummy, not that I liked him.” Taughtauer leaned forward, his nose seeming to grow as he got closer. “I never told him about the revolution.” He stayed fixed on Mitkin. “The revolution, Mitch. It’s why you’re here.”
Mitkin looked around the room. Taughtauer’s wispy voice made him very aware of himself and he suddenly felt subversive, and though this feeling was entirely alien to him, he liked it. He had spent his whole life outside, in the sun, spewing natural truths and holding his chin up high. But, with death had come visceral doubt and danger. Since his father’s death, the call to purpose had vanished, but in Taughtauer’s room, a novice to the veteran, Mitkin felt let in, accepted and welcome. He felt called again, even if by such an underground eccentric as Taughtauer, especially perhaps. He looked at Taughtauer, hoping to see a less greasy character and to hear more about the revolution. “It’s why I’m here?” he asked.
“It is why you are here.” Taughtauer said each word slowly as if to separate one from the other, and he pointed at Mitkin as he did so. “You are here to help me help these poor sons of bitches who society has left to a slow, intellectual rot. Look at the kids in your classroom, they are abandoned, every one of them, by this system. They’ve got no one who loves them in this system, Mitch. Oh don’t get me wrong, a few teachers here and there love them, a few give out their phone numbers and feel like martyrs when students call for extra help. Sure, there are some sweet apples in a sour lot, but let’s face some sound and safe facts ole Mr. Mitchell. These kids are screwed because the people charged with looking out for them don’t. They don’t care, try, love, teach, administer, budget, you name it, they don’t do it. I’m talking about the people at the top, Mitch, the gray-suited elite who move from office to office and school chancellery to school chancellery and those who call themselves principals, superintendents and board members—especially board members. They are the God-awful worst. The whole lot doesn’t give two shits about these kids, and so, to borrow from a rarely wise Founding Father, now that the school government has become unable to secure a student’s right to education it is the right of my students to abolish this government and institute a new one, one that secures a student’s right to knowledge and lays the foundation for the pursuit of individual happiness!” He grinned a self-satisfied grin. “Basically Mitch, I propose a mass rebellion of the governed against the governors—in this case, masters is more appropriate. And I propose that you help me in this endeavor. I want you to write for me, Mitch. I want you to be our mouthpiece.”
A portentous pause filled the room, and into it spilled the pounding a cappella of Carmina Burana. It had been playing the whole time, but now the music had grown to a crescendo and Mitkin was filled with what Taughtauer hoped he would be: purpose. Sheepishly, Mitkin spoke up. “You want me to work for the overthrow of the New York City Board of Education?” The words hung in the air. “It sounds like you’re planning to overthrow the Board of Ed, is that what you are planning? I mean, come on.”
Taughtauer smiled comically. “The Board of Ed, The Board of Me, The Bored Ed... Ha. I like that. I like that a lot.” And then dripping with bravado and much sarcasm, he continued, “You’re not doubting, not you Mitchell? The brilliant son, and I did hear of your brilliance from independent sources, sounding like every other partially dedicated functionaire who lives to work and loves his weekends as his life? Not you too, Mitch? You’re not like every teacher that’s ever decided he’d teach because he had nothing else to do, are you? You’re not like the everyday suit more interested in tie sales than students? You aren’t just every man, are you, Mitch?”
“I’m just asking.”
“I’m just answering. When a system no longer serves the people it is created to serve, it must be torn down. What is so difficult to understand about that? Your father understood it. He spent his whole life, his whole philanthropic life anyway, trying to tear down this system in order to replace it with something better. Didn’t he?”
“Sure, but he was missing the edge. You sound like you want to take something over, kill someone. I can see it in your eyes.”
“No, what you see in my eyes is courage to do what is right. What is right, what is true, and what is good. That’s what you see.” He was very earnest now. “And seeing it disturbs you, doesn’t it? Yeah, I can see it’s gone—truth is missing in your life, courage too. You look tired and worn down. Yep, looking at you I get the feeling you don’t believe in anything. Maybe I was wrong about you actually.” Taughtauer returned to his grading.
“But you haven’t told me anything. What, in concrete terms, are you proposing?”
Taughtauer’s head was down again. “Fire.”
“Fire?” peeped Mitkin.
“Fire.”
“You mean like lighting a fire?”
“Yeah, Mitchy, like lighting a fucking fire. But, first we’d take the building for a few days, maybe ten hostages, maybe more, and then the fire.” Taughtauer reached over and purposefully turned up Burana. A slow, trembling wail joined the two teachers in the room.
“Hostages?”
“Hostages. And fires, and destruction and jail, hey and maybe death. So what? Hello! When’s the last time an elected politician gave into the demands of underage niggers—and I use that phrase familiarly.”
“Nobody is going to listen to them anyway, fire or no fire.” Mitkin looked around the room into a sea of dedication. “Why give all of this up? You are making a difference here, Ed.”
Taughtauer mocked Mitkin with a whiny voice, wagging his head. “You’re making a difference here, Ed.” His eyes flashed. “Come on, Mitchy! Get some backbone.” Then, in a soft and disturbing voice he added, “You called me Ed. I like that, Mitch. Who knows? Maybe we can be friends.” He looked out. “You like my room?”
Mitkin nodded.
“It can be better. Look, I could sit here right now and tell you about the kids I’ve come to know in eighteen years on the job. I could tell you about drug dealers and valedictorians and the rest. You would get squeamish about some things, like incest and rape and addiction and concerning some other things you’d just nod. And then you’d nod a little bit more, and if I hadn’t brought up the fire and hostages you’d leave. By tomorrow my sad stories would become cheap anecdotes you’d use to impress girls at parties, and in two weeks my sad stories would be forgotten. But I guarantee you that in two years you’ll still remember the wacko who talked about burning down Livingston Street, and this, even though we didn’t do it! If we actually pulled it off, you’d be talking about it for decades, centuries, and in fact, and you know I am telling the truth, one day kids would read about it in their goddamned history books. That’s the truth, the truth, unadulterated, no bullshit. Incontrovertible.” Taughtauer stopped, turned his head and invited Mitkin to disagree. “Big words, big ideas, big truth. Am I wrong?”
“No, but—”
“But… Here comes the crap. Don’t but, just do. The only real question for you Mitch is, are you courageous enough to do what is right, to start over?” Taughtauer got up and walked to the back of the classroom where he stopped in front of a maudlin painting. It depicted rows and rows of sepia brick buildings, identical in design and stretching for miles into a sinking sun. Tawny yellows and rusty reds dominated the sky and a gloomy film covered it all. Taughtauer motioned Mitkin over with his chin. Mitkin walked over and stood square in front of the painting, trading glances between the painting and the grave, gray eyes of Taughtauer.
“Can you feel it?” asked Taughtauer.
“What?”
“The despair, Mr. Mitchell, the despair?”
Mitkin felt it. “Who did it?”
“James Clay.”
“Clay? I’ve got a student Willie Clay. Are they related?”
“Were.”
“Were what?”
“Related. Your Willie had a brother named James. James is dead. Died on the street a year ago. Couldn’t add, couldn’t subtract, couldn’t find a job, couldn’t do much. But he sure could paint. Of course, it didn’t help that not one school in this district offered art, real art where kids are classically trained. Have you seen our art room? A joke.”
Mitkin looked at the painting and admired the long straight lines and the dark mood. He felt the name James Clay in the painting, and he imagined what the boy was like. His own melancholia mixed with the despair of the painting and he asked, “Was he your student?”
“He was our student, Mitch, he was my student and yours, he was our responsibility and we let him down. Look at the talent wasted by the system. Look at it.” Mitkin, of course, already had. He turned and began to walk out of the room. “He’s the reason you came to teach Mitchell, don’t cop out now.” Taughtauer raised his voice. “Don’t be a coward, Mitchell.”
Mitkin reached the doorway and hung his head. “I don’t know why I’m here anymore.” He moved to leave but couldn’t. Curiosity held him there, it swelled against the stark realization that outside there was nothing anymore. He thought about amoeba worksheets and gravity quizzes and his putrid apartment and his intolerable mother with her pathetic tears. He thought about all his father’s causes, the foundations, the hundreds of thousands of dollars going round and round and never seeming to pacify the pain of the world. He thought about his father’s life again and then, as he always did when the memory of his father surfaced, he thought about his dead body and the lie. The urge to destroy something scurried out of his head and into his arms and to his hands and he balled a fist, raised it and smashed it on an empty desk. Taughtauer watched it all calmly.
“Why are you doing this to me?” cried Mitkin through clenched teeth. Taughtauer continued to stare. “What do you want from me?”
“I’ve told you.”
“But it’s all too crazy.”
“Then leave.” He pointed to the door. “Just leave and see how fast it all seems perfectly sane. Besides you’ve got nothing else now, I can see it. Your god is dead, yep. It’s time for a new paradigm, Mr. Mitchell.”
“But when you burn down Livingston Street, what comes next?”
“Chicago’s Livingston Street.”
“Come on Taughtauer, Chicago? And then L.A., right?”
“If that’s what the students want. And they do. We’re already there, too.”
“They’ll be dead on the streets before they burn anything down.”
“They’re already dead, Mitchy, at least as far as America is concerned. Besides, you’re missing the point. When a kid commits, you should see what happens. I’ve got one kid who has been in on the planning for six months now. Guess what Mitch? He’s an A student, a perfect honor roll kid, but guess what else? He doesn’t give a crap. What he cares about is the revolution, he cares about change and equality and justice and the big bombs of life. His grades are only a reflection of his awakened mind, don’t you get it? I don’t know what will be built on the ash pile, but I don’t care. Whatever it is, it will be built by renewed hands, renewed minds.”
“Are there others?” asked Mitkin.
“There are, many, but I am not at liberty to tell you who they are.” Burana clicked off in the background.
“How many students, Taughtauer?”
“Not at liberty,” Taughtauer said in a whisper and through a wry grin.
“What will I write?”
“Not at liberty.”
“So what do I do?”
“Come tonight. I’ll leave an address in your box downstairs. Don’t tell anyone. Be on time and bring a notebook.” His eyes narrowed. “Look for the note.” Taughtauer went to the door and opened it wide, inviting Mitkin to leave. As Mitkin turned and left, a loud, high-pitched bell howled in the hall.
***
“Did you go to Taughtauer that night?” I ask.
“No, David. Not that night. I still loved Raphaella.”
I think about how I loved her too, at that time, really loved her as I hadn’t loved her before. And so both of us had loved the same woman, we really had, in very much the same way. We had been in competition for her, just like I thought we were, just like I kept telling myself I was. I had been right. “So Raphaella kept you from going? How’s that though?”
“My hope for one life stopped me from joining another. Isn’t it always like this?” He eyes me.
“What happened then? Why’d you end up with him?”
He is light and airy. “The Cloisters happened, David. The Cloisters had to happen, didn’t it?”