Keeping a Code

I attended Yonkers Public schools until the fourth grade. And during my time there I knew a boy with very many vowels in his first and last name. The boy would often tell his classmates how his father, and his father’s business associates, carried guns. Yet, their profession was not in law enforcement.

And had my parents not moved to Dobbs Ferry and had I remained in public schools I would have attended Gorton High school, where my father would have been my principal.

And so, the boy with very many vowels in his name, who was my former classmate, came to be an enrolled student in Gorton High school. But the boy was not academically inclined and so when it came time for graduation he did not meet the requirements. This did not please the father who carried guns and so he conferenced with my father to see if his son’s record might be reevaluated such that his son might receive a diploma.

My father did not believe that such a revaluation was possible. My father was a man of integrity and believed in rules.

Soon after this meeting some Board of Education members phoned my father to urge the reevaluation requested by the father who carried guns.

But my father stood his ground.

It was like the Cuban missile crisis.

And the father who carried guns made a second appointment to see my father. And my father, understanding the business that the man was in, also understood how to appeal and appease him. And so he told the father that as a school principal he had a code. And that code was something he was obligated to live by. And so as not to bring dishonor to any of the parties involved, my father suggested that the boy with many vowels in his first and last name be allowed to process for the graduation ceremony. Upon arrival at the podium, the boy would receive an empty diploma case. And no one would be any the wiser—especially the boy’s mother and family members.

And the father who carried guns, agreed to my father’s offer. It was an offer he could not refuse. Codes and honor was something the father who carried guns understood. 

And the boy still had the option of attending summer school to meet the requirements if he so chose. But as the boy intended to follow his father into the family business, the profession required no diploma.

And after the crisis was resolved I asked my father if he had been frightened. I asked him if it wouldn’t have been easier just to have caved in to the Board of Education members’ and father who carried guns’ request. And he told me that doing the right thing isn’t always the easy thing. The trick is to find a solution that will allow you to look at yourself in the mirror.

And sometimes I deliberate over words that invite blisters.  And so I must remind myself that  while it would be easier to say nothing, that may not make it the right thing to do.  And at the end of the day, what matters most is to look at yourself in the eye-- and be comfortable with the reflection.