Nuns, Fists and Arithmetic

I can still hear the chant, more than fifty years later. The voices, which echoed from the concrete schoolyard three floors below my fourth grade classroom, began as a low murmur. A flat, monotone sound, lacking any emotion whatsoever.  Three simple letters were repeated by the bystanders as they stood crowded around the two entrants of this midday melee, their origin or meaning to this day unknown. Though their affect for some odd reason, a perfect accompaniment to the event taking place.  And it sounded something like this, if a thing like that, could even be described:  “A- A- A.”  A two second pause between each shout of “A” was followed by a rhythmic clap.

These school yard fist fights, generally occurring no more than a few times a year, never excelled to more than a few punches being thrown, in the short time allowed before being broken up by a teacher. Egos bruised, more than body. Nonetheless they were a diversion and a welcome highlight on a non eventful day at St. Mary’s elementary school.

As my classmates and I scrambled out of our desks and raced to the window in the attempt to better identify the fighters, (generally boys from the fifth or sixth grade) our teacher, Sister Mary Alice, a tall, lanky bespectacled nun with a baritone voice, screamed for order. As she raced from the classroom, desperate to break up the cacophony below and bring the culprits to justice, her black habit flew boldly behind her, resembling some strange super-hero or large prehistoric bird.

With each passing moment, the chant increased in both speed and tone, finally reaching its crescendo; now, a frenzied roar, “AAAAAAAAA!!!!” Cheers and applause followed, signifying a winner was at hand, neither boy, no worse for the wear.

We remained at the window, my classmates and I, as the crowd dispersed. Below, Sister Mary Alice authoritatively attended to the boys, tucking in shirts and collecting a lone pair of eyeglasses that lay dejectedly on the school yard, having flown off during the match.  Making our way back to our desks, we opened our text books to the long division that lay before us, anxiously awaiting our nun’s return. She would no doubt be in a fury and we all secretly knew, to be on our best behavior or we would surely live to regret it. Though some bold prankster, fueled by the excitement, had drawn a sketch of Sister Mary Alice, in a pair of boxing gloves, on the classroom chalk board.

We returned to our long division, the school yard now silent below. Peter Foley, his shoulders hunched, painstakingly wrote, 100 times on the chalkboard, “Use words not fists.” Sister Mary Alice sat silently, in the corner of the classroom deep in concentration, her brow furrowed, sewing up a small tear in her habit.

All was well again at St. Mary’s.