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This image of my father was printed in the Philadelphia Daily News on December 5, 1996. The photograph shows him talking to a little girl in the schoolyard. Remarkably, he seems to be meeting her at her level. His hand is gentle on her shoulder, and there is an unexpected spring in his step as he looks down on her, and she beams up at him. There was a framed color copy of this picture in his office at the Philadelphia Academy Charter School—and on an altar at his funeral.
The picture was printed to accompany a two-part series of feel-good articles about the “Public School Miracles” transpiring in Northeast Philadelphia at Farrell School, where my father was then principal. The first story was about a Ukrainian immigrant who found comfort in the voices of children. In the old country, she had taken great pride in her work as a teacher, but since coming to this country, she worked a menial factory job and had been told that she did not speak adequate English and would never teach again. Broken-hearted, the woman would linger at the entrance of the schoolyard. Some staff members worried she was unstable, but instead of turning her away, my father took her into the school community as a volunteer tutor for immigrant children acclimating to the public school system.
The woman credits my father for helping her regain her sense of self and purpose. “I like this person who saved me from depression. I lost my smile. After two years here, I start to smile again.”
The story keeps circling back to my father, the noble educator and benevolent patriarch working “miracles” with a tight budget. It describes how he cut his administrative assistant and secretary to free up money to hire a reading specialist and half a dozen part-time retired teachers to provide small-group remedial support. Farrell School is described as a well-organized and supportive community with a dedicated staff, a proactive parent association, and a steady captain at the helm of the ship. In the article, my father is characterized as “highly caffeinated,” a “rebel,” and a “godsend,” determined “to touch as many young lives as he can before the day’s final bell.” Refusing to let bureaucrats and austerity measures get in his way, he strategically made the most of the school’s limited funding to maximize the educational experience of his students.
The article is accompanied by a graphic that captures Farrell by the numbers. There were 930 students in grades K-8. 70% lived in poverty, 40% were minorities, 33% were English Langauge learners, and 25% had physical challenges and disabilities. When my father stole from the schools, these were the children he robbed and the communities he plundered. The breach of trust is stunning.
A second article was published the following day, detailing how the school community rallied around a second grader who suffered a brain hemorrhage in the schoolyard. The child was rushed by ambulance to Frankfurt Hospital, and when she arrived, my father was already there. The girl needed multiple surgeries, and it was a miracle she survived. Months later, she returned to school in a wheelchair. “‘Mr. Gardiner said all along that she would be back,’ her mother remembered, sitting in the principal’s office, getting moist in the eyes. ‘On [her] first day in the hospital, when we were waiting for her to come out of her first surgery, he said, “She’ll always have a place [here] at Farrell.
Dad was always quick-thinking and authoritative in emergencies and the daily workings of the school and the household. He prided himself on punctuality and order, and our home ran on a clear, predictable schedule.
He was an early riser, always up first to make the coffee and feed the cat. When I was a child, he dressed me for school, made my lunch every morning, and was out the door by 7:00 am. He was well-dressed and always wore a shirt and tie, though he was not the type to roll up his sleeves. Instead, in warm weather, he wore short-sleeved button-ups. He worked long hours but was generally home by 5:30 pm. When the garage door yawned open, I knew it was him because of his haunting, distinctive whistle. He was tired after a long day’s work and lay on the couch until dinner.
Television was his primary vice, though he didn’t actively watch TV. Instead, he turned on the news and lay perfectly still on his back, allowing the sound and flashing lights to wash over his body. I believe he was aware that this was an altered state because he regularly reminded me that if I watched too my TV, my “head would go soft,” and at least once a week, he would massage my temples to see if my mind was turning to mush.
He did not drink though not out of principle; he simply did not care for alcohol. He was social but didn’t have any intimate friendships, and he liked to be in control. At dinner parties, he would hold a drink in his hand, nursing the same beer for over an hour to keep up appearances. When I cleared the table at the end of the night, half of his drink would still be in the bottle. More than once, he warned me, “Alcohol is the most dangerous drug.”
We lived in a big yellow, split-level house in the suburbs with an unlisted number. Actually, our number was listed in the phone book under my mother’s maiden name and initials. That way, Daddy avoided paying the fee associated with an unlisted number, and we would always know when a telemarketer was calling. We were, as a family, ruthlessly cruel to telemarketers who interrupted our dinners.
We always said grace and ate together as a family. My mother came home from work and cooked a balanced meal of meat, potatoes, and vegetables every day of the week, except on Fridays when we ordered pizza. Daddy always drove to the pizzeria to pick it up. At the time, I thought this was a matter of principle, and he did not want to pay extra for the tip and delivery. In retrospect, I think it is possible he did not want people to know where he lived. At the dinner table, my mother and father asked us about school and talked about work. They both worked for the School District of Philadelphia, and my father ruminated endlessly about the endemic incompetence. By the time I was ten years old, I was conversant in local educational politics and could name the key policies and administrators.
After dinner, Dad usually went straight to bed, but sometimes he would watch a movie or play a game with me. He was an adequate card player, who taught me to play gin rummy, pinochle, and poker, though I watched him cheat at solitaire on more than one occasion. He was good at Boggle and Scattergories, and his favorite game show was The Price Is Right because he could estimate with uncanny accuracy the MSRP of most household products and consumer goods.
I was Daddy’s Little Girl, and he was a doting father. He took me everywhere: to the grocery store, to the bank, to meetings, and to Farrell School, where he showed me off to his dedicated team of office ladies and teachers.
I went to a suburban school on a different academic calendar from the School District of Philadelphia, so when I had a day off, my father would often take me to work with him. I felt special, sitting in his office while everyone bustled around and he made the morning announcements. After he had introduced me to the office crew and sugared me up with a soft pretzel and a box of orange drink, he would send me to the resource room, the library, or the gifted and talented program. The teachers seemed to dote on me. They told me I was beautiful, smart, and remarkably mature, perhaps because I was the boss’s daughter or perhaps because I asked insightful questions and was able to sit still and listen for long periods of time. When it was time for recess and the children rushed out to the playground, I preferred to stay indoors. I could not run and jump like the other children, and I preferred the company of adults, who did not seem to notice my limitations, to that of children who knew intuitively that something was wrong.
My clearest memory of that school was a science lesson in a fifth-grade classroom. The students were studying animal life cycles, and, in the corner, there was a glass cage filled with newborn chicks. I peered through the glass at their sticky down and luminous eyes, glowing red under the heat lamp. There were still bits of shell mixed in with the cedar chips, and the teacher fed the baby birds with an eyedropper. I watched the demonstration with a nagging dread. I sensed, on some level, that the tiny chickens would not live very long. Their lives were not their own. They were disposable—a science experiment—born to die.
We didn’t talk much on the drive home from school, but Dad and I did stop for ice cream. I was his favorite person, and he bought me whatever I wanted.
I have a few memories of him racing me up the driveway and playing catch with me in the backyard, but he had pink skin that burned easily and did not like to be outside. Nothing made him more irritable than yard work. He had a tool collection, but he was not handy and did not do any household repairs. He didn’t golf or bowl or do crossword puzzles or go fishing or play the guitar or read the classics. He went to work, read the newspaper, took long naps, and “blew the stink off.”
To blow the stink off was my father’s private activity. He wouldn’t say where he was going or what he would do when he got there. He wouldn’t say when he was coming back. He was going out, and it was understood that we were not to ask questions, but when I was a child, he would sometimes take me with him, so I knew something about the mysteries of this activity that my mother and, later, my stepmother did not. To blow the stink off was a ritual that involved driving between the usual haunts and buying something. He might buy a hat or Christmas flatware or a leather chair. One time, he bought a boat. He drove purposefully and knew all the shortcuts. He always entered the Willow Grove Mall through the men’s department at Bloomingdale’s, and when he found a good parking spot, he said, “See Neine? They saved my spot for me.” He banked at several locations and frequently visited the safe deposit box. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on his knee during his regular chats with a middle-aged banker named Beth who gave me lemon-yellow lollipops. He frequented a strip mall in Southampton, where he always parked in the side alley by the dumpster. This was my favorite destination because he would drop me off at the bookstore while he took care of other business. I don’t know what he did while I read. Maybe he was just on the other side of the store, flipping through magazines and biographies. Maybe he was meeting someone out back. I was happy to browse the shelves, settle in the corner, and read until he appeared at the end of the aisle. “Alright, Neine. Time to go.” At this point, I could pick a book to bring to the register. He did little to direct or correct my reading—which centered mainly on trashy serial young adult storybooks—and he would buy me pretty much any title I wanted.
At home, he often threatened to “tie a book on my head” and “put me in the rewinding machine” to keep me from growing up. He had code words and catchphrases for everyone and everything. Dinner was “din-din,” gifts were “prennies,” and the police were the “Politburo.” It was like he spoke a secret language, but it was never clear if he didn’t know how to express himself, so he made up words for things that he could not say plainly, or if everything was encoded and slightly off-color. It was equal parts endearing and menacing, the way he could say something without saying it directly.
His middle name was Noel because he was born on the day after Christmas, so, naturally, the holidays were a big production. He started shopping in July at the summer tent sales at the outlet malls. He bought perfumes, scarves, and wallets on clearance without knowing exactly whom the gifts were for. The packages sat in the closet until after Thanksgiving when he would set me up in front of the TV in the guest room with rolls of wrapping paper, ribbons, gift tags, and a list of teachers, staff, and parent volunteers. I would sit for hours and days on end hypnotized by the television, watching Christmas movies and neatly wrapping dozens of gifts. I have an artistic nature and found satisfaction in crisp edges and clean folds. I labeled the gifts and arranged them under the Christmas tree until it was time for Daddy to distribute them like Santa in the schoolyard.
Of course, Santa’s reindeer left a mess of oats on the kitchen floor, and I got everything on my list every year, but as much as he loved Christmas, my father was always sullen and withdrawn the next day. Somehow, he never received as much as he had given, and he made sure I knew how lucky I was.
“You ungrateful shit,” he would say. “Don’t you know people would kill to live like this?”
He had a temper, a tendency to rage. Red in the face. Eyes bulging. Sometimes he would storm out of the house. Sometimes he would scream in my face, strands of spittle forming like fangs in his mouth. When I was in trouble, his eyes were blue metal discs, and he said, “Get the stick.” If I hesitated, if I didn’t know what I had done wrong, the vein in his neck would begin to pulse. His voice became a weapon. “GET. THE. STICK.” He didn’t move from his place at the table, but his eyes followed me as I slumped to the pantry to get the yardstick he kept for moments like these. My hands shook as I handed it to him. “Turn around,” he said. I turned my back to him and waited. I don’t remember that he ever hit me very hard, but my hands are shaking, and my breath is tight as I write this. I can still taste the terror and humiliation. My voice would catch in my throat, and I wasn’t allowed to cry.
I was very ticklish. Sometimes he would tickle me until I couldn’t breathe. I begged. “Stop! Please stop.” But he wouldn’t stop.
I could have anything I wanted, except what I wanted the most.
I grew up when I was eleven years old; that was the year everything happened, and I started to bleed. It was also the year my father ran for the School Board in our suburban township. He announced his candidacy on a ballot with three other candidates running on a Democratic ticket. He brought me with him to meetings. I remember marveling at these strangers’ houses, which seemed much cheerier than the house we lived in, with cozy furniture and warm, bright lights.
The campaign ran for several months, and my father put me to work. I remember sitting on the floor of the family room, folding hundreds of colored flyers and stuffing them into envelopes. I liked the steady ritual of the work, the repetitive precision, and the quiet monotony. I worked for hours, efficiently—my own singular assembly line. First I folded; then I stuffed; then I used a blotter to wet and seal the envelopes as images of sitcom family life flashed on the TV screen. I peeled address labels and affixed them to the envelopes, which I transferred into neat stacks and packed into trays.
As we drove to the post office the next day, Daddy did not take the opportunity to educate me on the democratic process; instead, he told me the election was in the bag. He was totally confident and assured he would win. No contest. Piece of cake. The election was a mere formality. The way my father talked about it, all we had to do was mail the flyers, and the contest was decided. The next week, we drove house to house, dropping off signs for acquaintances to display on their lawns. I can still see the lettering; his name was printed in capital letters, indigo ink on a white background.
I don’t know if he truly believed he would flip a township that habitually voted red to go blue. He just gave me tasks and put me to work, and I played my part with the understanding that the outcome of the election was predetermined.
“My father is on the school board,” I said one day to a circle of girls in my class. I can still see a corridor of bright red lockers and the square gray tiles on the floors.
“No, he’s not. He’s running for school board,” one little girl said. Her parents also worked for the public school system, and she knew how things worked. “He hasn’t won yet.”
I had no context beyond home and school, and my father was the master of both worlds. I doubled down on my claim.
“My father is on the school board,” I said it again. He told me so, and I believed it was true.
My father was quiet when he lost the election. The Republican incumbents took all four seats, and my father came in dead last in the contest. For several days, he sulked and lay comatose in front of the television.
I hung my head in school the next day, staring blankly at the gray tiles and the dull reflection of the fluorescent lights. I felt sick. It was a hollow feeling to know that my father had deceived me. He had lied to me, and I had repeated the lie, which made me a liar too. I didn’t want to be a liar, but somehow that seemed inevitable. I was caught in a trap, but I had also caught him in a lie. This meant he was fallible; this meant it was just a matter of time before someone else found him out.
Join me as I unravel my father’s crimes, examining the price of shame and the consequences of our lies.
Because “Poetry is what survives.”