An Accidental Education

      I admit that it took me over a week to even consider looking for “Personal Hygiene” class. I'd entered the battered, steel doors of Julia Richman High School on a warm Tuesday morning in late March, a month or more after insoluble disagreements with my former New England prep school prompted a hasty departure. It was the Spring of my junior year and after pretending for several weeks that further schooling was unlikely if not unnecessary, my parents and I agreed that absent that structure, things were unraveling fairly quickly. I'd spent a few afternoons a week at the Art Students League, enduring the humiliation of incompetence under the stern gaze of such old-world notables as Frank Mason and David Leffel, but most days found me hanging out at the Bethesda Fountain, searching through ads in the East Village Other and the Voice for anything I might be capable of doing other than returning to school. After a particularly dreadful week passing out bright pink fliers for a massage parlor called Pandora's Box - “Pandora Loves You and You'll Love Pandora's Box” - on the corner of 7^th Avenue and West 57^th , it was clear to all involved that the jig was up.

      

     And so I found myself at Julia Richman faced with a course of study consisting entirely of those classes I'd thus far avoided which the State of New York deemed necessary for completion of the eleventh grade. Among these were American History 1, Algebra 2, Chemistry and, yes, Personal Hygiene. I actually rather liked history and had taken many varieties at prep school, from African to Asian, but had skipped American because I couldn't face it after all those silly books featuring majestic illustrations of Cortez or Sacajawea common in elementary school. Algebra and Chemistry were classes I had already started in the Fall so there was no avoiding them, and Personal Hygiene brought to mind such a wide range of unpleasant possibilities that even looking for the classroom was out of the question.

   As luck would have it, the movie, Love Story had come out the previous winter and the term “Preppy” had suddenly become a major part of the American lexicon. Needless to say, no one at Julia Richman had ever met a preppy and I stood cowering in the hall that first day as my “adviser” gleefully proclaimed me one before the masses. From that moment on I was likely to be addressed that way by both faculty and students.

    

     There were maybe thirty kids in my Honors English class and whereas the first two rows were attentive, even interested, the back of the room was given over to mayhem. A small, bird-like woman in her twenties, our teacher had long since given up any hope of controlling or inspiring more than a handful of her students and all she really asked was that we stand up in turn and read out loud a paragraph or two of The Great Gatsby. Never a fan, this was my third time around finding Christ-figures in Gatsby and I could barely contain myself as one classmate after another rose to stumble through a sentence: “ …. the, the, the trees that had ma-ma-made way for Ga-Ga-Gatsby's house had once pa-pa-pa-pandered in whip-whi-whispers...” This was excruciating and provoked in me an unfamiliar sympathy. In fact, whereas faculty in prep school were regarded as either harmless or dangerous and certainly not worthy of compassion, a few of my teachers at Julia Richman would throw themselves into this futile endeavor every day determined to gain ground and it was hard not to respect them for it.

    

     The entire three months I spent in American History were devoted to the dubious understanding of one article of the Constitution. After two days of this the teacher told me I wouldn't be required to attend if I would just write something – anything – for him twice a week. After the second week he said, “Hey, Preppy. I've got Scholastic Magazine coming tomorrow and they want to interview a few students from various classes. I have to produce someone and, I ask you, who can I send? Won't you please do it?” Of course, I was flattered and did the interview, despite the fact that I'd only been there for a week or two. I can't recall this man's name but I will always remember him as one of my finest teachers.

    

    

Most of what I knew of chemistry at the time was recreational. In the first half of the year, at boarding school, I had barely managed to memorize the Periodic Table. Imagine my delight, then, to discover that this feat was pretty much all that was required for passing Chemistry! There were no labs, no foaming beakers and no time, really, for any of that. Julia Richman was so huge -  its district encompassed the East Side from 14^th street to Spanish Harlem – that we were only there from eight until noon, at which time an entirely different student body would take our place until four. The Chemistry teacher, Sheldon Leonard  (or Leonard Sheldon ) reminded me of the bald producer, Mel, from the Dick Van Dyke Show and took a particularly annoying delight in my pedigree. “Hey, Preppy,” he would ask, repeatedly, “Whaddaya want for a mark in Chemistry this year?” To which I would always answer, cringing between hope and despair, “ I'd like an A, Sir.”

  

      Eventually, fearing that something had to be done about Personal Hygiene, I set out to find Room A122-E. Working my way through the bedlam of the hallways to the main stairs, I started up. Ascending past levels B and C, I couldn't help but notice fewer and fewer students around; by the time I reached D the paint was peeling and the railing rusty. There was no E. There was a fire-door where E should have been and, well, having come all this way, I took a deep breath and pushed it open. The instant it took to realize I'd found the roof was punctuated by the nearly audible snapping of a dozen heads in my direction. “Yo, shit, Preppy, the fuck you want?” someone barked from within a haze of smoke. As far as I knew, I'd never met any of these gentlemen, but they appeared to know who I was. As they began to stand and move towards me I croaked, “Is this Personal Hygiene?” then turned and fled down the stairs amidst a chorus of curses and threats.

  

      I'd learned my lesson. I knew I couldn't stay at Julia Richman. As June dragged on to its final, excruciating week I reapplied to private school for my senior year. My family left the City for summer vacation, leaving me behind to take the New York State Regent Exams in Math and Chemistry on a Saturday in July. Convinced that there wasn't much point in my taking the Regents, I spent that Saturday in the Park, hanging out at the Fountain. Some weeks later my report card arrived. My father asked me to explain what N/A meant under the “Regents” heading.

     “Never again” I told him.

     I never did find Personal Hygiene.

     I got an A in Chemistry.