The Mandylion – Chapter 5
Was I in heaven? Standing on the bridge above Triphammer Falls, a rare sunny day in Ithaca lifted my spirits as a wafting breeze carried the scent of the surrounding forest, and my ears sunk into the soothing roll of white water churning beneath me.
The day would’ve been worthy of bottling had my mind not shifted to the depressing realization that although I’d been accepted, I desperately needed a scholarship to attend Cornell. Selling my car wouldn’t put a dent in tuition. Working was a given, but a wait-staff position would barely pay for a one-room apartment with a community bathroom and shower. Without encouragement from the university officials I’d spoken to on the phone, I’d nonetheless driven six hours from Brooklyn to Ithaca hoping that a personal appearance and appeal would yield success, and spent a couple of days, sleeping in my car, bouncing around campus, interviewing with anyone rumored to offer financial aid or a teaching scholarship without luck. My last appointment loomed.
Having grown up in Brooklyn, I’d rarely smelled the bouquet of nature, more often enduring the odor of urine in hallways or diesel fumes amidst cacophonous traffic and jostling streets. Some guys were put down from birth for an Ivy League University. They’d had golf and tennis lessons as toddlers and developed the perfect physique for a lettered sweater. I played stickball and lounged around in an Italian T-shirt. Not being able to afford Ivy League tuition, I leveraged a modest scholarship and enrolled at City College of New York, graduating with an electrical engineering degree because my Italian-immigrant father, who was without a high school education, steered me away from liberal arts “basket weaving.” An MBA degree had emerged as the passport to a lucrative career, and Cornell’s business school accepted my application, but didn’t offer me financial aid.
I took my last breaths in paradise and with angst in my gut headed toward the appropriately squared-off Math Department inside Malott Hall for my appointment with the Dean.
His secretary, Ms. Gleeson, a prim woman in her fifties had the weighty countenance of a gatekeeper. I reminded her of my reason for the appointment. She rose from her desk, knocked, then opened the Dean’s door saying, “A gentleman is here to see you about a teaching scholarship.”
Dean Johnson stirred like he’d been daydreaming. Wearing a tweed jacket, he rose slowly from his desk and greeted me with a doughy handshake. Clean shaven, graying slightly, he moved with the relaxed manner of someone whose greatest urgency was solving the one hundred- and fifty-year-old four-color problem. He gestured for me to sit across from him, and he again took a creaking padded chair behind a carved wooden desk. The room smelled musty.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I said. “I’ve been accepted by the Business School, but I’ll need a scholarship to attend.”
He grimaced. “I wish I could be more optimistic, but the university is cutting back everywhere.”
My heart dropped. Still, this was my last chance, so I pressed on. “I dropped off my resume and transcripts with Ms. Gleeson. Might you have had a chance to review them?”
“Ah, yes,” he said, as he reached for a manila folder on his desk.
I held my breath as he donned onyx-framed reading glasses and reviewed my credentials.
His eyebrows rose. “Your name is John Morales?”
Although of Sicilian-Italian heritage, my Hispanic-sounding last name derived from Spain’s eighteenth-century conquest and rule of the island.
His expression brightened. “May I call you Juan?”
I gulped. “Of course.”
His smile widened. “I see that you graduated as an electrical engineer. You must know calculus.”
I sat up. “As you can see on my transcript, I scored an A in all my math classes.”
“Impressive. Fortunately, we have a teaching position open for a person like you.”
I almost leapt from my seat. “You’re offering me the job?”
“Absolutely. Full scholarship plus a small stipend.”
My elation was constrained by the realization that I may have been given the job, my ticket to attend the university, because the Dean thought me Hispanic.
I asked warily. “Must I sign something?”
He waved dismissively. “Just some paperwork Ms. Gleeson will give you enrolling you as an employee of the Math Department.” He stood and extended his hand saying, “Congratulations,” as he shook mine.
My heart pounded as I signed forms at Ms. Gleeson’s desk, then practically ran out of the building before anybody could ask more questions, resolving to avoid the Dean’s office lest Johnson would next try to engage me in Spanish conversation. Attending Cornell would change my life, but I hadn’t the financial means to matriculate. If I received the scholarship because the Dean thought me Hispanic, I wasn’t about to correct him. I’d been willing to sell my car and work two jobs, hoping, somehow, I’d find the means to continue past the first semester. A teaching scholarship changed all that.
I danced all the way to the business school singing the praises of affirmative action.
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Published by Freshwater Literary Journal. May 2024
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