defeat this foreign interloper whose popularity had soared into the stratosphere as a result of her having assaulted and banished the scourge of St. Aloysius, then she would try her damnedest to out-Zhenya her.
The race was on. The tableau vivant was upon us. The role of the Blessed Virgin Mary was up for grabs.
5
Meatloaf
M onday, December 7, 1964. I had awaited its arrival for weeks, little suspecting that it would become a day that would live in Felix Funicello infamy.
My classmates, too, had been anticipating the arrival of Monday, December the seventh, as Madame Frechette had told us this would be the day when, after Current Events and recess, she would announce her decisions about who would be who in our tableaux vivants . But for me, the casting of a Christmasprogram still two weeks away was of lesser importance than what would happen later that afternoon. I’d arrived at school that morning dressed not as a parochial school student but as a seafaring boy. (Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Junior Midshipmen had permission to wear their uniforms to St. Aloysius on the days when they had after-school meetings.) During Current Events, my current event was that in six more hours I would board a bus to Hartford with my fellow Midshipmen and, at 4:00 P.M ., appear on Channel 3’s Ranger Andy Show . Over the weekend, I’d rung doorbells up and down our street to let neighbors know about my impending television debut and had made a sign for Pop to post at the lunch counter alerting our regulars. When I’d suggested that he might also want to lug our TV down to the lunch counter again and pass out more free pie, Pop had nixed that idea, claiming that more heavy lifting might give him a “sacroiliac attack” and that the last thing he needed was for our customers to get too used to free food.
“Ah,” Madame noted. “First your mother was on télévision , and now you shall be, too, eh?”
“Yeah. Plus, my third cousin, Annette Funicello, has been on TV billions of times.” Turning back to the class, I asked if there were any questions. Zhenya’s hand went up. “Zhenya?”
“Who eez det? H’Annette Foony Jello?” (To Zhenya, I was Fillix Foony Jello, as in, while choosing sides at recess, “H’okay, I peeks Fillix Foony Jello.”)
“Well, she used to be a Mouseketeer on TV and now she’s a movie star.”
“Ya? Movie star at seenima? Wow-ee, Fillix! You cousin beeg shut, ya?”
I nodded. “Anyone else?” Turdski’s hand went up. “Rosalie?”
She wasn’t at her desk; she was over at the first aid station by the pencil sharpener that had been set up for the girls whose pierced ears had gotten infected. “Just a sec,” she said. Upturning the bottle of rubbing alcohol, she soaked a pair of cotton ballsand applied them to her inflamed and oozy earlobes. Then, instead of asking me something about my current event like I thought she was going to, she turned to Zhenya and phony-smiled. “Zhenya, I just want to point out to you that it’s pronounced ‘cinema,’ not ‘seenima.’ Like ‘mortal or venial sin .’ Say it: cinema .” From his seat in the back, Franz Duzio, who’d never quite mastered the art of whispering, wondered not-so-quietly who’d died and made her the teacher.
“Seenima,” Zhenya said.
Rosalie shook her head. “ Sin …ema. Try it again.”
“ Seen …ema.”
“En…ema,” someone mumbled. Giggles followed.
Rosalie smiled with patronizing patience and, turning to Madame, promised to work with Zhenya on her pronunciation during recess. Zhenya shook her head. “Uh uh. Nyet. At recess, I play bezbull or dujbull.”
As a parochial school student, I was, of course, well acquainted with the story of Jesus’s crucifixionand knew that a kiss or a sugary smile from a “friend” could be treacherous. And so, in defense of Zhenya, I smiled, too—at my nemesis. “Oh, that reminds me, Rosalie,” I said. “It’s ‘picnic,’ not ‘pitnic.’”
Turdski’s smile
The race was on. The tableau vivant was upon us. The role of the Blessed Virgin Mary was up for grabs.
5
Meatloaf
M onday, December 7, 1964. I had awaited its arrival for weeks, little suspecting that it would become a day that would live in Felix Funicello infamy.
My classmates, too, had been anticipating the arrival of Monday, December the seventh, as Madame Frechette had told us this would be the day when, after Current Events and recess, she would announce her decisions about who would be who in our tableaux vivants . But for me, the casting of a Christmasprogram still two weeks away was of lesser importance than what would happen later that afternoon. I’d arrived at school that morning dressed not as a parochial school student but as a seafaring boy. (Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Junior Midshipmen had permission to wear their uniforms to St. Aloysius on the days when they had after-school meetings.) During Current Events, my current event was that in six more hours I would board a bus to Hartford with my fellow Midshipmen and, at 4:00 P.M ., appear on Channel 3’s Ranger Andy Show . Over the weekend, I’d rung doorbells up and down our street to let neighbors know about my impending television debut and had made a sign for Pop to post at the lunch counter alerting our regulars. When I’d suggested that he might also want to lug our TV down to the lunch counter again and pass out more free pie, Pop had nixed that idea, claiming that more heavy lifting might give him a “sacroiliac attack” and that the last thing he needed was for our customers to get too used to free food.
“Ah,” Madame noted. “First your mother was on télévision , and now you shall be, too, eh?”
“Yeah. Plus, my third cousin, Annette Funicello, has been on TV billions of times.” Turning back to the class, I asked if there were any questions. Zhenya’s hand went up. “Zhenya?”
“Who eez det? H’Annette Foony Jello?” (To Zhenya, I was Fillix Foony Jello, as in, while choosing sides at recess, “H’okay, I peeks Fillix Foony Jello.”)
“Well, she used to be a Mouseketeer on TV and now she’s a movie star.”
“Ya? Movie star at seenima? Wow-ee, Fillix! You cousin beeg shut, ya?”
I nodded. “Anyone else?” Turdski’s hand went up. “Rosalie?”
She wasn’t at her desk; she was over at the first aid station by the pencil sharpener that had been set up for the girls whose pierced ears had gotten infected. “Just a sec,” she said. Upturning the bottle of rubbing alcohol, she soaked a pair of cotton ballsand applied them to her inflamed and oozy earlobes. Then, instead of asking me something about my current event like I thought she was going to, she turned to Zhenya and phony-smiled. “Zhenya, I just want to point out to you that it’s pronounced ‘cinema,’ not ‘seenima.’ Like ‘mortal or venial sin .’ Say it: cinema .” From his seat in the back, Franz Duzio, who’d never quite mastered the art of whispering, wondered not-so-quietly who’d died and made her the teacher.
“Seenima,” Zhenya said.
Rosalie shook her head. “ Sin …ema. Try it again.”
“ Seen …ema.”
“En…ema,” someone mumbled. Giggles followed.
Rosalie smiled with patronizing patience and, turning to Madame, promised to work with Zhenya on her pronunciation during recess. Zhenya shook her head. “Uh uh. Nyet. At recess, I play bezbull or dujbull.”
As a parochial school student, I was, of course, well acquainted with the story of Jesus’s crucifixionand knew that a kiss or a sugary smile from a “friend” could be treacherous. And so, in defense of Zhenya, I smiled, too—at my nemesis. “Oh, that reminds me, Rosalie,” I said. “It’s ‘picnic,’ not ‘pitnic.’”
Turdski’s smile
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