Teacher’s Pet

Many decades ago, Tim had spent eight years staring at the back of Edmund’s head. He had no choice because their surnames began with the same letter and they had been seated alphabetically by the nuns who taught them in grammar school. It was the Fifties, and their neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago was home to immigrant families from all over Europe. 

Many of the children had parents who struggled to speak English. Not so with Tim. His parents had come to America from Ireland speaking fluent English delivered in a musical brogue. Edmund’s parents, however, had come to the United States from what was then known as Bohemia and is today Czechoslovakia. They spoke what was called “broken” English but had no trouble adjusting to life in America. They worked hard, as did most of the immigrants in that neighborhood, to realize their American dream.

Both Tim and Edmund were very intelligent but beyond that, it seemed they had only one thing in common. They were invariably the last boys standing at the end of the monthly spelling bees held in every grade for all eight years. Girls did very well in these contests. On occasion, however, Tim or Edmund would win but neither one ever congratulated the other. In fact, as far as Tim can remember, he and Edmund had never spoken to each other all through grammar school although they had had no disagreements. But Edmund was a teacher’s pet and Tim, if anything, was a teacher’s headache. 

Tim understood why Edmund was popular with the nuns. He was quiet, studious, always came to school with his homework done. Plus, he had good handwriting. Tim usually had all his homework done, and he was studious enough to pull good grades in everything except conduct and handwriting. But he was always involved, it seemed, in creating commotion in the classroom or out on the playground at recess. He also played all sports with his fellow classmates while Edmund, despite being big for his age, played neither football or baseball. It must have been a solitary life for Edmund, having no obvious friends and never getting into trouble with the nuns. 

In the classroom, Tim was known for his accuracy with spitballs and at recess his snowballs were accurate and rock hard, according to any girl struck in the backside by one of them. Deeds like these often led to extra homework for Tim. In the case of an especially egregious offense, the nun involved would call his father at night, and he and Tim would then walk the six blocks to the convent with his father bellowing all the way there, cataloguing a variety of possible punishments that awaited Tim depending on the nature of this particular offense.

Now many decades later, with the lives of the two boys almost lived out, Tim began to wonder whatever happened to Edmund so he decided to Google him one day when he had access to a computer. Tim was computer literate but his current circumstances made access to a computer limited compared to what it had been when he was working. This was not a problem for Tim but whenever he did have access to a computer, he would Google the names of old classmates just to see how they had turned out. Some had done very well in life, but many of them, thanks to age and illness, were now dead. But Edmund, according to Google, was alive and living in rural Wisconsin, with a post office box for an address.

According to Google, Edmund had succeeded in life professionally, the holder of several patents and many good jobs, all in ascending order, prior to his retirement and life in Wisconsin. Maritally, however, Edmund had not done so well. 

Google indicated Edmund had been divorced three times in Texas. The state apparently has a policy to publish divorce documentation online. Decrees from Edmund's three divorces all appeared in Tim’s Google search as well as information on several lawsuits by former wives seeking more child support from Edmund.  

Edmund’s domestic difficulties surprised Tim because he didn’t recall Edmund ever throwing snow balls at girls in grammar school or dancing up a storm to Chuck Berry’s music at basement parties in eighth grade. Tim discovered early on that if a boy knew how to dance—the jitterbug as it was called in the Fifties—he would be invited by girls to their parties. There was always great food and plenty of soda pop, as soft drinks were called at that time. For good food and soda pop, Tim would dance with any girl all night. He didn’t care if the music was fast or slow and he would stay at the party till the food or soda pop ran out. 

Tim was just getting interested in his Google discoveries on the life of Edmund after grammar school when his time on the computer was interrupted. It always happened this way but Tim was surprised by the interruption on this occasion because he had become immersed in memories of a life as a youngster so long ago. Nevertheless, he stopped typing and stood up when the guard tapped him on the shoulder and told him it was time to go back to his cell. Tim had done very well in life as a financial officer and he hadn’t really needed the money he had been convicted of embezzling. Unlike Edmund, however, Tim took some solace in having been married only once. And his wife was waiting for him to be paroled in perhaps five years.

Donal Mahoney