Dear Mr. H:
Raphael Simon here — Rafi, as you may remember.
We last saw each other in 1982 at a magnet school in Los Angeles, where I was your student.
You were a wonderful teacher, Mr. H – intelligent, witty, sometimes tough, with real enthusiasm for the subjects you taught. But I am not writing to thank you for what I learned in your course; This is not one of those letters. Nor am I writing to accuse you of anything; nor is it one of those letters.
I am writing to apologize.
Like most excuses, this one is purely performative. It doesn’t change anything. However, I feel obliged to admit it.
The belly dancer? My fault.
I found it. I hired her. I was responsible for everything except the belly dancing itself.
You remember the belly dancer, right? Let me back up.
When I was in ninth grade, I took your hybrid history and English class called Research Writing, in which we learned about things like how to use card catalogs, document sources, and footnote format – once vital skills now lost to time and ChatGPT.
For my first article, I chose to write about the Calcutta black hole, only to discover that the name had nothing to do with astronomical black holes, much less the all-nude musical “Oh! Calcutta! For my historical fiction project, I wrote a mystery story about Napoleon’s exile on the island of Elba – a subject I chose mainly because Napoleons were a type of pastry I loved.
To state the obvious, nothing we covered in your class warranted a half-naked woman dancing around our desks.
You were in your thirties. Fine, light-skinned, wavy brown hair. Nonchalantly preppy.
I was 14, spotty and bookish. A typical, albeit slightly effeminate, Jewish teenager, Californian version. At that point, I was just beginning to suspect something about myself, or I was just beginning to suspect.
In any case, I liked you. All your students loved you. Research writing was a specialized class. We sat in a circle rather than in rows. Naturally, we wanted to celebrate your birthday. A birthday surprise is the pretext under which I sold my classmates.
Why a belly dancer and not, say, a birthday cake?
On the one hand, belly dancing has played a bigger role in my imagination than one might think. This was mainly due to my grandmother Esther, who had a lasting fascination with belly dancers. She would describe the way they magically moved their bellies with muscles unknown to the rest of us. A powerful, sexy, non-servile feminine force.
I first saw belly dancers at my favorite restaurant, Moun of Tunis, on Sunset, where diners sat on low booths and ate at copper tables. Every hour, music would begin to play and women dressed in sequins and silk would emerge from behind a curtain to make their way through the room – heaven.
It is from the Moun of Tunis that I took the name of your dancer. It’s funny to think what a difficult task that must have been. I should have consulted the Yellow Pages, or more likely, called the Information – something my parents disapproved of because of the toll. When I called the restaurant, I should have spoken to a live human and explained what I wanted. All this before cold calling a belly dancer.
On your birthday, I remember being nervous, unsure if she was coming. I jumped when I heard a knock on the door.
Our class was in a bungalow and she was standing on the front porch, her hair dyed black, bright red lipstick, a trench coat covering her suit, and a boombox under her arm.
I was so excited; now, too late, doubt invades me. I brought him into the room. My classmates laughed. I pointed at you. “Here’s the birthday boy.”
Without a word, she put on her music, unbuttoned her coat and began to twirl.
The dance is blurry in my mind, a blur of translucent black veils and long silver scarves.
She walked around the room, then to you, then around the room again – sexy but never Also sexy.
While the rest of the class hooted and screamed, I watched your expressions. Your face turns pale, then red, then turns pale again. It showed a flash, but nothing more, of intense anger and embarrassment, and ultimately, polite patience and forced good humor.
Of course, it was precisely to read your reactions that I organized the surprise. And that’s the real reason for these excuses.
Your possible homosexuality had been the subject of debate among your students, not in a malicious way, but rather in an amusing, if talkative, way. Then, a month or two before your birthday, you almost voiced our speculations out loud.
I don’t remember the context. Maybe we were talking about Anita Bryant or some other anti-gay crusader. Or, closer to home, the Briggs Initiative, which almost succeeded in banning gays and lesbians from teaching in California a few years earlier.
I only remember the phrase you used at one point: “my gay friends and my straight friends.” As if they were equal categories. As if friends – anyone – could be gay as well as heterosexual.
As if you, our teacher, could be.
In 1982, the idea of an openly gay teacher was controversial in a way that’s hard to imagine in California today — or California at all. rooms from California today. (The attempt to ban LGBTQ+ books and stifle LGBTQ+ speech has recently spread to neighboring communities like Glendale and Huntington Beach.) For you to suggest that you might be gay, even ambiguously, required a lot of courage.
And I rewarded your courage by harassing you, with a belly dancer.
A test, as I called it, when I presented the idea to my classmates. What was I waiting for? Were you supposed to pant like a horny cartoon character if you were straight? What if you were gay, so what? Go green?
Whether the word “test” came to mind or not, judging by your reactions, you felt like your sexuality was being questioned. I’m so sorry. The premise of the stunt was as offensive as it was absurd.
I didn’t have the courage to claim credit for it, but I suspect you suspected it. In my memory, one or two knowing glances passed between us. Perhaps you understood what I didn’t: that by testing you for signs of homosexuality, I was trying to inoculate myself against the same condition.
When the belly dancer finished dancing, you clapped, as if you were having fun. You thanked us for your birthday surprise, even though we all knew it was more of a birthday prank than a birthday present.
So I guess it’s a thank you letter after all. Thank you for being more forgiving than angry. Please don’t question too closely who hired the belly dancer, or why.
And most importantly, thank you for instilling in your students the idea that homosexuality might be acceptable, even if it would take several more years for this gay student to absorb this simple lesson.
Kind regards, Rafi
Raphael Simon is better known as children’s author Bosch pseudonym. He and his husband live in Pasadena with their two daughters. It turns out that Mr. H remembers the belly dancer. He and his husband just celebrated 30 years together.
California Daily Newspapers
