So many mistakes, so many regrets, so many things that should have been unsaid, so many feelings that were hurt.
Sister Carla Marie, Mrs. Santoro, Sister Kristen Marie, and the dreaded Mrs. Maria Luciano. Sister Carla was my home room teacher for 7th & 8th grades. She was a nice young woman, perhaps close to me and my classmates in age. She was a sensitive type and we were somewhat respectful. Mrs. Santoro taught the other 7th grade class that I was not in. I do not remember what her subjects were. Mrs. Santoro was not as sensitive as Sister Carla.
Sister Kristen was the school principal and she was nice. She followed Sister Althea who was a force of nature. You could hear her footsteps coming down the hall and the speed of her heels on the floors gave us a clue as to what her mood was. Mrs. Luciano was not a nice person. I didn’t realize it at the time but in hindsight I saw how she was especially abusive to me.
One time she had me sit on a garbage can for some reason when my class left and a new class came in. She was fond of saying there was no such thing as a mafia which was a clue that there was such a thing and she more than likely knew some members of that organization. She was also into telling us about the Manson family and how they would creepy crawl though unsuspecting peoples homes.
One time towards the end of my time at St. Francis de Sales there was a party for my graduating class. We had been learning to do a dance called the Continental which was set to the Hustle by Van McCoy. During the party Mrs. Luciano poured some soda on me. I, in turn, took my napkin and dipped it in my soda and rubbed the wet napkin on her bare arm.
This of course, made her do what any teacher would do. Shove my face in the cake in front of me. I decided to take a slice of cake and shove it in her face. It was all in good fun I thought but it was not. The class went wild and the party ended abruptly. I was called to the principal’s office and was told my graduation was in jeopardy.
I went home and told my mother who made sure I wrote a letter of apology to Mrs Luciano, telling her how wrong it was for me to do such a thing and mentioned a few times what a good teacher she was. Thankfully I was a creative writer then (as opposed to now) and hand wrote about 5 other copies of the letter in case she tore up the first one. I could give one of the letters to the principal.
I was able to graduate that year with my classmates. I was the star student, at the height of my powers, academically and socially. The graduation party was at the North Pole Restaurant in Lodi and my class all did the Continental once more, for the last time to Van McCoy’s The Hustle. I took a photo of Mrs. Luciano, who resented the fact that I had gotten away with shoving cake in her face. Mrs. Luciano hid behind the cloth napkin, not wanting to have anything to do with me, the boy whom she had abused for 2 years.
I never went back to St Francis de Sales, and why would I? It still pops up in my dreams from time to time.
The Google Gemini rewrite as a David Sedaris essay
There is a specific, rhythmic clicking that a nun’s heels make on linoleum—a sound that carries the weight of both the Holy Spirit and a pending physical assault. At St. Francis de Sales, that sound belonged to Sister Althea. She was a “force of nature,” which is Catholic-school shorthand for “a woman who could make you confess to a heist you hadn’t even planned yet.”
When Sister Althea moved on to presumably more fertile grounds for intimidation, we were left with Sister Kristen Marie, who was actually nice, and Sister Carla Marie, my seventh-grade teacher. Sister Carla was young and sensitive, existing in that precarious state of grace where she was nearly our age. We treated her with a level of respect that bordered on confusion. We didn’t know what to do with a nun who didn’t seem to want us dead.
Then there was Mrs. Maria Luciano.
Mrs. Luciano was a woman who lived in a state of permanent, vibrating agitation. She had two primary pedagogical interests: the Manson Family and the non-existence of the Mafia. “There is no such thing as the Mafia,” she would say, with the kind of intense, defensive certainty that practically guaranteed her Uncle Tony was currently disposing of a body in the Meadowlands. She spent an alarming amount of time describing “creepy crawling”—the Manson Family’s habit of slithering through the homes of unsuspecting people. It was a strange choice for a curriculum, but in New Jersey, one learns to take their life lessons where they can get them.
She once forced me to sit on a garbage can as my class filed out and a new one filed in, a human lid to a vessel of literal trash. At the time, I thought it was just school. In hindsight, I realize it was a masterclass in psychological warfare.
The climax of our shared history occurred during our graduation party. This was the era of The Hustle. We had spent weeks learning a dance called the Continental, which was essentially a series of synchronized steps designed to make twelve-year-olds look like miniature, middle-aged divorcees at a wedding.
During the festivities, Mrs. Luciano, in a fit of what I can only assume was unbridled malice, poured soda on me. Naturally, I did what any rational, terrified child would do: I dipped my napkin in my own soda and rubbed it on her bare arm.
The response was immediate. She grabbed my head and shoved my face into a sheet cake.
Now, there is a moment in every young man’s life where he must decide who he is going to be. Are you the boy with the frosting-covered nose who slinks away to the bathroom? Or are you the boy who grabs a handful of industrial-grade sponge cake and smashes it into his teacher’s face?
I chose the latter.
The room erupted. It was the kind of chaos usually reserved for prison riots or the arrival of a new shipment of Beatles records. The party ended abruptly. I was hauled into the principal’s office and informed that my graduation was “in jeopardy,” a word that, at twelve, sounds significantly more legalistic than it actually is.
My mother, a woman who understood the power of a well-placed lie, insisted I write a letter of apology. She coached me to tell Mrs. Luciano how wrong I was and—this was the chef’s kiss of the performance—to mention several times what a “wonderful teacher” she had been.
I was a creative writer then, which is to say I was an excellent forger of sentiment. I didn’t just write one letter. I wrote five. I had them in reserve, like a gambler with aces up his sleeve. If she tore one up, I’d simply produce another, or hand one to the principal as proof of my bottomless contrition.
I did graduate. I was the star student, the king of St. Francis, at the absolute “height of my powers,” which mostly meant I had survived. We had a final party at the North Pole Restaurant in Lodi, where we performed the Continental one last time to Van McCoy’s disco beat.
I took a photo of Mrs. Luciano that night. She hid behind a cloth napkin, refusing to look at the camera, a woman defeated by a boy and a piece of cake. I haven’t been back to St. Francis since. I don’t need to. Mrs. Luciano and her Manson stories still visit me in my dreams, “creepy crawling” through my subconscious, forever looking for a napkin to hide behind.