Tale 2-Mrs. Finnerman bending over

Tale 2
Mrs. Finnerman bending over

Wiseguys in New York City either attended school in parochial schools where they were indoctrinated and sometimes beat into it or public schools, the great social experiment. We were really all numbers, especially in public schools. In fact we didn’t even have names for our schools. They were identified by numbers, P.S.98, P.S.152, JHS 52,etc. The public school was our opportunity to be with people of different ethic, racial, and societal backgrounds from us, kids we would never hang out with normally.
The hierarchy of the classes were interesting too. Generally the kids in 6th grade in 6-1, for example, were smarter and caused less trouble than the kids in 6-5 or 6-6. In junior high school it was even bigger and more obvious. We had these “special gifted classes”, the 7, 8, and 9 SP and ESP classes like 7SPE-1 and the classes went up to 7-10 or 7-11 which really had the winners in them. Everyone knew it too so kids generally hung out in their own class levels. It would’ve been unheard of for an SP kid to hang out with a 7-10 kid, at least not in the open.

Mrs. Finnerman was a bad-ass teacher, a 4th grade teacher, who looked like a pug-nosed truck driver AFTER an accident. She was big, broad, nasty to look at and tough as nails. NOBODY messed with Finnerman. In fact, if God had a bouncer in heaven, she would at least be applying for the position.
One day after lunch and recess when we had to line up outside the gym (we’re about 9 years old), Finnerman was in charge of lining us up to bring us back to class. There was a long line of almost all boys since we had all just finished playing dodgeball and got in line en masse. Finnerman looked at us with those Bronco Nagursky looks and we all pushed and shoved each other into line so not to get beat up by her. When she looked and was satisfied that we were all lined up right, she made a motion for us to be quiet, then turned around. I was about 5th or 6th in line and as soon as she turned around she dropped her keys and when she bent over to pick them up, with her bad behind staring right at us, I let out a huge Bronx cheer (that in local terms was a fake fart with my hand cupped under my armpit and done with a quick downward motion of the arm). It was perfectly timed and everyone up front heard it, especially her. All the little New York wiseguys started to bust out laughing until she turned around and gave us the death stare. Man did she look pissed off! You never saw so many kids wipe smiles off their face that quickly, including me. Then, the unthinkable once again. She proceeded to walk the line from the beginning and when she got to me she took me by the hand with her blacksmith arms and pulled me out of line saying, “You! You wait with me.” Oh, God, I was screwed now. I would rather have been with the devil himself than Ms. Finnerman and I was absolutely shocked that she knew it was me. To this day I have never figured out how she could possibly have known it was me. I was baffled, in shock, and terrified.
So while all my wiseguy friends disappeared one by one towards their classes, I had to walk by Finnerman’s side, held with the vice grip on my skinny little arms, scared to death. She brought me to class and told me that I was going to have to stay after school and write 300 times, “I am sorry Ms. Finnerman. I will never do that again.” 300 times! She must’ve called up my mother to tell her about the after school thing and while all my friends were going home at 3pm, I had to stay in the valley of death with the most feared teacher in the school, alone, in her room, a fate worse than death for a young kid.
I sat at that desk and wrote those words 300 times. After about 70 times I felt like my arm was gonna fall off but I prevailed and finally turned in all the sentences to Finnerman. She let me go with a strict warning NEVER to do such a think again or I’d be “sorry.” Wow. To this day I wonder what I’d be “sorry” would’ve entailed. Would she have hit me or even killed me and lost her job only to be imprisoned and be the toughest inmate on “the bloc?” We’ll never know. Now, some 45 years later I can laugh and admit that on that day one of my greatest Bronx cheers was carried out and after some dread and punishment, I survived.