Fingering Hamilton

Sometimes words aren’t enough

Summer will forever smell to me like Doritos, Sun-In, and Lemonhead candy. This is something of a testament to the processed nature of the 80s, because if I asked someone like my dad how he remembers summer as a kid, he’d likely recall the wholesome scent of grass clippings or white pine needles. We did admittedly have very different ways of passing the lazy days, what with his penchant for fishing and mine for sunbathing. Still, I will choose chemical summer scents over that of chalk every time, and this is because I once had to attend summer school.

Seventh grade nearly killed me. If it wasn’t the perpetual bullying that almost took me out it would have been the constant bouts of bronchitis, one of which landed me in the hospital. Many weeks were spent convalescing at home, wheezy and feverish and not at all inclined to catch up on the classwork I missed. The very real possibility I’d have to repeat seventh grade prompted my parents to hire a private tutor, and between him and my tremendously helpful teachers, I managed to pass every class but one.

My algebra teacher was as much of an old maid as any 30-something guy could be. He was scrawny, short, and burdened with a bushy red mustache and perfectly circular bald patch. Sweat stained the pits of his shirts and when he spoke, a thin trail of pure white spit would linger between his lips and vibrate like a piano wire.

He was in every way a self righteous, unpleasant man more inclined to dictate than teach. He took fiendish delight in humiliating kids for not being able to solve the complex equations he’d scratch on the chalkboard.

Math has never been my strongest subject. I am so horrible at it my parents didn't know if they should keep tutoring me or buy me an ice cream cone and cut their losses. This exponential jackwagon of a teacher did nothing to improve my skills. He gave my tutor cryptic notes about assignments and when I was finally well enough to return to school, spent the last few weeks of the semester mercilessly badgering and berating me for being behind.

Although I do have to confess for as much as this guy was a genuinely rotten teacher, I was not exactly an innocent student. Once I understood he had written me off, I fought back in the only way a 13 year-old knows how. I became a complete asshole.

Sample-size deodorant sticks magically appeared on his desk, chalk vanished from the room, and one day his textbook turned up coated in petroleum jelly. Although the pranks could never be traced back to me, everyone, including the algebra tyrant, understood I was to blame. Of course, the guy got the last laugh when I opened my report card that June and saw the glaring red I in the middle of all of my As and Bs.

An Incomplete was an automatic ticket to summer school. My parents tried to fight the grade and lord was that an ugly meeting in the principal’s office. They argued the grade was arbitrary and possibly capricious, and because I had completed every required assignment I should at least receive a passing grade, even if it was a D-minus.

They even suggested hiring another private tutor to ensure I had a strong foundation to begin eighth grade. The algebra tyrant snorts when he hears this and insists I retake the entire math year. He looks my dad dead in the eyes and says, “Your daughter is not smart.”

I can still see the hair bristling on my dad’s arms. He knew just how lacking my math skills were, but he was not about to let this creep call his firstborn a moron.

“Your class is the only one in her curriculum giving her any problems. So perhaps we should be questioning your intelligence, you ill-begotten gotten mole rat.”

It was one of the best insults I’d ever heard my dad hurl. The choice words send the algebra tyrant into an arm-waving fit.

“That is no way for a parent to talk to an educator,” he cries, putting extra emphasis on his title as if it somehow made him a better person. This is not lost on my dad, who raises the stakes by touting his own degree.

“You may call me ‘Doctor.’ And I have to wonder if you received your teaching license at a correspondence school because I’ve found better educators crawling under rocks.”

My teacher would have started swinging his fists had the principal not intervened with a compromise. He suggested that instead of retaking the entire year of math, I only retake the second semester, and even I had to admit it was a reasonable idea.

The tyrant realizes he has no argument. He nods to the principal, ignores my dad, and gives me snarl. “Don’t even think about getting sick this summer kid, or I’ll make sure you never make it to high school.”

If he had a cape, he would have twirled it like a comic book villain before he stomps out of the room.

My summer school sentence was set to begin mid-July, when I’d join three mouth breathers and one second-year seventh grader for five hours of algebra every day. Until then, I planned on enjoying every minute of my abbreviated summer with pool time, chip eating, and hair lightening that would culminate with the great Summer Fling carnival.

The Fling was easily the biggest event my suburban town hosted. More than a mile of food booths, craft stands, and games would take over the downtown area, with carnival rides and a large stage flanking each end. It was three days of pure summer bliss that all kicked off with a parade.

It was something of a rite of passage to be in the parade. I made my debut with my first grade Brownie troop, and my sister was making hers with my mother’s garden club. This would be the first year I wasn’t marching. Turning 13 put me in an awkward range where I was too “cool” to walk with the Girl Scouts, too tone deaf to be in a marching band, and too young to ride with anyone in a convertible.

That left me to watch from the sidelines with my dad. We staked out a prime viewing spot early and spent the morning waving to community leaders and neighbors as they passed. The guy who sold my dad his car drove by in a flaming red Lamborghini, the women from the library dressed as Jane Austen characters and handed out bookmarks instead of candy, and in the middle of it all was my damn algebra teacher.

He was marching with five other guys dressed as the founding fathers, and despite the knickers and the tights and the ruffled shirt, my algebra teacher carried himself less like Alexander Hamilton and more like Stalin. He wasn't waving, he wasn't smiling; mostly he looked annoyed.

I nudge my dad. “Look who that is!”

He turns to where I’m pointing. My teacher is on the other side of the street and when he notices us looking at him, I wave. It was a parade after all, and I figured if I was going to spend the rest of the summer locked in a room with him and an algebra textbook, I may as well make nice.

He has no such notion. My wave is met with an upturned chin and a quick head turn. His snub is so obvious and deliberate I’m not sure if I should be offended or laugh it off. Thankfully, my dad knew best.

He yells out, “Hey Hamilton!”

When my algebra teacher looks over, my dad raises his middle finger.

My dad wasn't a fighter and he wasn't a fan of profanity, but oh, did he ever love giving the finger. If some guy cut him off in traffic, he'd get the finger. When someone snagged the last case of St. Pauli Girl beer before my dad could grab it, he’d flip him the finger. Extending that middle finger got his point across perfectly, and every time I caught him doing it, he’d give me the same, simple explanation: “Daughter, sometimes words are wasted on people.”

That finger certainly wasn't missed by my algebra teacher. He immediately leaves his founding father procession to cross the street and confront my dad, who by that point had put his finger away and was cheering for the Shriners as they approach in their tiny cars and funny hats.

“I saw that! I saw what you did!”

His yells are no match for the motors of the Shriner cars, which everyone but him seems to be aware of. The mini go-karts have been decked out to look like flying carpets and they are looping the street in a figure eight formation as the parade pauses.

The Shriners were the highlight of every parade I attended as a kid. The crowd is waving in joyful glee as the cars continue their motorized dance, while the only thing Algebra Hamilton is waving is his fist, right at my dad.

He is a few feet in front of us. I can't hear him exactly, but I can tell he's yelling thanks to the disgusting elastic spit trembling on his lips. I try to shrink next to my dad because I am confident a new revolutionary war is about to occur right there on Main Street.

Hamilton looks ready for battle, but my dad is playing it cool. He ignores Hamilton, which seems to annoy him even more. He steps forward just as the Shriners are going into another turn, and as this serpentine procession curves around to the left, one guy in his cute little flying carpet car clips Hamilton and sends him stumbling into the path of another carpet car.

It hits him head-on, knocking Hamilton out of his buckle shoes and onto the ground. If I were asked to list one moment that perfectly encapsulates the definition of a decade, it would be this one. In true 80s unconcerned glory, Algebra Hamilton is left in the middle of the road a tattered mess. No one stops the parade. Not one person gets out of his flying carpet car, and there are no cameras filming the incident. Instead, the crowd yells.

“Get out of the road, you idiot! You’re ruining the parade!”

All it takes is one kid, just one kid to whip a hard candy at Hamilton’s head and the next thing you know, Algebra Hamilton is dodging a hailstorm of parade candy. Tootsie Rolls, Dum Dums, and Lemonheads pelt this pathetic fool as he frantically stumbles and searches the road for his missing shoes.

The high school marching band is fast approaching. Their optimistically wonky version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” provides the perfect soundtrack for the now-delighted crowd who roars at Hamilton. He’s managed to dodge the rest of the Shiner procession and crawl across the street only to be met, face-first by the hobby shop dog. One shoe is clutched in the beast’s jaw and it does not look excited to give it back.

I never did find out what happened to that shoe. By the time the marching band passed, Hamilton was gone. I started summer school three days later.

Neither of us said a single word to each other for those four weeks, which suited me fine. Imagining my teacher in his snagged stockings and candy coated Hamilton coat was plenty to keep me engaged enough to pass the class. I did, however, leave my teacher a small parting gift on my last day: A single Colonial shoe filled to the brim with Lemonhead candy. Not surprisingly, I had a new algebra teacher in the fall.