Confessions of
an Honest Liar
by Andrea Della Monica
I learned to
lie and cheat in Catholic grammar school.
And I did so
with utter conviction.
Mrs. Russo, my
8th grade math teacher, would collect our tests,
grade mine, and, at the end of class, hand them
to me sealed in a big manila envelope. The
expectation was that I would mark the rest, using
mine as a guide for the correct answers. Since I
usually scored no lower than a 98%, the task was
relatively easy.
Or so I
thought.
The first few
times I handed them back all corrected the next
day. No thank you required. In Catholic school it
was a privilege to do the teacher’s job
without pay. You were special if you were chosen
for this elite task.
Mrs. Russo
would roll my name after her tongue, “Annnndrea,”
in a operatic baritone. I would come up to the
front of the class and take the envelope.
I never told
my classmates. There was a tacit acknowledgement
among the few who suspected. No one asked for
confirmation.
After a few
weeks, the arrangement took a shadier turn.
The students
for whom she tutored for extra money after school
were marked by her. Strike that. They were
altered, to achieve the desired result: not only
a passing grade, but a score that would ensure
those tutoring dollars were being well spent.
Our mini-conspiracy
seemed as familiar as my brown loafers but as
uncomfortable as my wool uniform skirt. However,
this was not grist for the confessional. “Bless
me Father for I have sinned…” There was
no amount of Hail Marys or Our Fathers to achieve
absolution.
It was
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a neighborhood where
forgetting certain circumstances tested well on
the streets. And as I mentioned I was a
good student.
My guilt
melted as quickly as Jahn’s ice cream parlor’s
banana split paid for by Mrs. Russo.
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