A Wiseacre Student, Now a Star, Was a Handful Then

Had I somehow known of his future celebrity, I would have written down some of the things he said and did for posterity. If a student came in late, Bernie Mac called attention to his shoes or his pants. One word would do it--"Floods," he would mumble like a ventriloquist--and the class would crack up, the student would be embarrassed, and I'd lose a couple of minutes of instructional time. If a student were called on for recitation, he or she would immediately become the object of Mac's scrutiny for the former's speech, hairstyle or very smell. I would tense and the class would salivate, if a particularly portly female or a nerdish male would take the floor. Bernie must have felt our anticipation, for sometimes he said nothing, just let his clownish stare--an affectation of shock--explode the atmosphere.

He was tall and skinny at age 15--a stick version of his current self--so that physically he was all eyes: taunting, bedeviling, lightning eyes. It got so that no one even wanted to raise a hand to volunteer an answer about the sentence's predicate or the meaning of a literary term. And then my bright idea to put the instigator himself on the spot would invariably backfire.

"Well, then, let's see what you know about it, Mr. McCullough," I'd challenge.

"Huh?"

"Your interpretation?"

"Come again, Mr. Teacher, sir? In English, please."

General laughter.

"Quiet, everyone."

Buzzing and commotion.

"Do you remember what 'couplet' means?"

"Huh?"

"Couplet," I said louder, thinking I had the advantage for once.

"Oh, yeah. Couplet. That's a little bitty cup, ain't it?"

Bedlam.

I tried changing his seat. Sent a failure notice. Changed his neighbors' seats. Called his home. Flunked him for the first quarter. Sent him to the disciplinarian. Kept him after class.

*

One day, in a department-wide experiment encouraged by our English chairman, I traded eighth-period classes with another teacher who had more confidence and facility in dealing with the students. Returning through the hallway after I had proctored his class, I saw the teacher zigzagging through hallway traffic to confront me.

"I nearly hauled off on one of your students, McGrath."

"I'm sorry. Who?"

"Tall, dark-skinned guy, sits in the back. He taped a note on the back of my sports jacket. You better do something with him."

He turned on his heel, handing me the half sheet of notebook paper with the green ink inscription: Kik me if I is Ugly.