The Trials of Ms. Keller

My 4th grade teacher, Ms. Keller, hated me.

She had it in for me.

I'm serious.

My 4th grade teacher, Margaret Keller, at St. Louis King of France School was a former nun. Overweight. Sexless in appearance. Drab clothes. Exactly what you would think a former nun would dress and look like.

She was strict. She was dogmatic. The nickname she had amongst the kids in school that I'd heard for her since the first grade was Killer Keller. Hearing this, of course, I prayed hard every day starting the last day of 3rd grade (where I'd had the most angelic sweet teacher, Mrs. Johnson- who also did voices for every single character for every story she ever read us, especially the Ramona Quimby stories) through that summer that I would get Mrs. Sherrell instead of Ms. Keller. Killer Keller.

You can imagine my disappointment, then, when I found my name on Ms Keller's roster the first day of 4th grade. So much for constant praying...maybe once is enough? Anyhow, Killer Keller didn't seem to like me from the start. Within a month, Ms. Keller had decided she was going to fix the way I sat in my desk chair. Which- like many young hyper kids- was on my legs. She would stop her lesson right in the middle and call me out in front of all the other kids and say things like "We'll wait, Nate, until you get off your haunches" or "You know, you're going to cut off the circulation in your legs and have a heart attack if you continue to sit like that."

Once, she even threw chalk at me- which I thought was awful and terrible until my later years when Coach Frazier used the same tactic in High School Biology class sometimes 2 or 3 times a class to wake up nappers. Then I realized Chalk Heaving was a well-known educator tactic in New Orleans.

No other teacher before or after ever called BOTH my parents as much as did The Killer. This was especially dirty...cuz my parents were divorced. So, she would call one- make that one angry, or worse, disappointed- then she would call the other one, just to make sure it got back to me. I actually got the sit-down talk from the parents AT THE SAME TIME telling me I need to straighten up.

As the only child of divorced parents, I was NOT used to being scolded by them BOTH at the same time. My mom yelled with those hot, angry Italian eyes burning into me and making me hurt all over and my dad just glared at me while biting his lower lip--- a sign that my usually cool, calm and collected mellow dad was PISSED. That was perhaps one of the only times in my life that I thought I was going to have to actually physically fight my parents in order to see tomorrow.

But, I think the worst offense came one day during lunch detention. She gave me many of those during my tenure in her class--- I think throughout the whole year, I had maybe 6 complete lunch periods. I remember standing in the back of the class as we were supposed to, hearing the laughter and shouts of my free comrades outside- playing football or kickball or, shit, hopscotch. Point is, they were free and I wasn't. In detention with me was Ben (someone who was as bad as I was and who was often in detention with me) and Hamilton (a very quiet kid who I was surprised was on the teachers' radar enough to be in detention) and one other kid, though I don't remember who.

At some point, I remember- with literally 2 or 3 minutes remaining in detention before I could go eat and enjoy maybe 1 or 2 minutes of recess- Ben farted. Yep...that's right. In the prescence of Killer Keller, Ben ripped one that was loud enough for us to hear but not her. Being 4th grade boys, we all burst out laughing whilst simultaneously gagging. Killer wasn't happy. In her eyes was the fury of a thousand suns, as she scanned the back of the class to see who she would pick to go down.

"Nate," demanded Ms. Keller. "What's going on?"

Through tears of laughter: "Nothin' "

"Nate, tell me." More laughter, my stomach was killing me. "Nate..."

Remembering the Frizzell version of The Geneva Accords that had been held earlier in the year with my parents, I tried to pull myself together enough and managed to say: "Ben farted."

"He did what?"

"He farted." Everyone burst out even harder. This must have been embarassing for her...

"Nate, the correct term is flatulated. Breaking wind is also acceptable, though crude. The rest of you may go to lunch. Nate, you will stay until 5 minutes before the end of lunch."

Even now, I want to find her and somehow make her understand the embarrassment that made me feel. That was the apex of her unfounded disdain for me. That proved to me what students since the creation of school have been trying to prove...that she had it out for me. That whatever it was- something along the way painted a target symbol on me for her. Seriously...HOW ELSE do you expect a 9 year old boy to respond to an occurence like that??? So, I just let it be- though I was furious and tried to stay out of her way for the rest of the year.

Though an interesting thing happened...St. Louis King of France School gave out Student of The Week to a boy and a girl every week of the school year. And Student of The Month to each every month of the year. While I had received many Student of the Weeks during my 8 year residence at SLKF, I only received Student of the Month once. Once....

in Ms Keller's class.

I don't know why or how. But I know that, for whatever reason, at the end of the year- maybe as a reward for putting up with Killer Keller and never really blowing my top in her prescence, I was called up during Morning Assembly and named Male Student of the Month by Ms. Margaret "Killer" Keller.

And I looked back at my classmates- most were amazed, some were happy, some didn't give a shit. But Ms. Keller, way in the back, had the closest thing to a smile she could give written across her face.