HILDRED SAINT CYR

Lili St. Cyr was a notorious stripper. And Hildred Cyr was my second-grade teacher. When I think of one, I think of the other. And not just because of the name.

They are complete opposites, at least on the surface.

My first exposure to Lili St. Cyr was through watching "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." The movie is full of great names from mid-century, like Charles Atlas, Janette Scott, Claude Rains, Fay Wray — and Lili St. Cyr. Susan Sarandon's character, Janet, mentions Lili in a song: "God bless Lili St. Cyr." So I looked up that name — circa 1984 — and found out she was a world-famous stripper. Hildred would HATE her, I thought.

And here's why: Hildred was a women's libber.

That's not a fact I fully appreciated in second-grade, of course. I had a burgeoning sense — circa 1973 — that girls got a raw deal, but I didn't know just how raw. And, of course, I had no women-libber role models. The women in my life — relatives, other teachers — were mainly about keeping their men happy and knowing their place. It wasn't ladylike to complain that for every dollar a man made you made 27 cents. Heck, it wasn't entirely ladylike to even be working at all. My mom (whom I have always loved more than anyone on the planet) didn't work outside the house while I was growing up. She worked her ass off inside the house — cooking and cleaning and keeping order — and every day at 4 o'clock or so she would throw on some makeup and fix her hair and have a cocktail waiting for my stepdad when he got home from work.

But Hildred, like Ani Di Franco, was not a pretty girl. That's not what she did. My first inkling that she was "different" was when I noticed the red, white and blue E.R.A. pin she wore on her blouse. I asked my mom what it meant. She didn't tell me it stood for Equal Rights Amendment. She said it was a "women's-libber thing," and I could tell by her tone of voice that it was not a good thing. I had also heard my parents describe Mrs. Cyr as an outspoken divorcee. So I naturally concluded that women's libbers were just a bunch of outspoken divorcees — ladies who couldn't keep a man because of their big mouths.

Nevertheless I always liked Mrs. Cyr. I felt an implicit kinship with her. She took care of me. She stimulated my 8-year-old mind. One time while I was reading aloud in class I came to the word "Egypt" and didn't know how to say it. There were a dizzying number of consonants. She told me to calm down and sound it out, but I was too flustered. After several inept tries, she reminded me that "y" was sometimes a vowel, and I finally understood how to say the word, as the other kids snickered. The next day she brought me a book about Egyptian mummies and told me it was in appreciation of my being such a "good little reader." I loved it.

Some other things about Mrs. Cyr: She was very tall and hefty. My mom described her as a "large woman," which is how polite people said a "big broad." She also had a large hairdo, one of those you get at the beauty shop once a week that requires a couple of cans of Aquanet to stay in place. Her hair was iron gray with a skunk-like streak of silver. She seemed old to me at the time, but I realize now that she was probably only in her 40s and just refused to dye her hair. She had funny glasses and a quirky smile where she'd raise one eyebrow in mock judgment, a characteristic I didn't appreciate until much later. She was Jewish; instead of a class Christmas party we celebrated Hanukkah, even though there wasn't a single Jewish kid in the whole school. We loved it. "Jews are fun!" We made Hanukkah candles using our little milk cartons and some gold tinsel, and we made pretzels that she had the crusty school cooks bake in the cafeteria. She had two brilliant sons: One went to Harvard and the other went to Oxford.

She was always involved in some vague feud with school administrators — a set of antediluvian misogynists who were no doubt oppressing her. There was this girl Patty in our class who had a bowel-control problem. She was always pooping her pants, and the other kids made merciless fun of her. Mrs. Cyr took Patty under her wing and made her feel like a million dollars. It was the first time I understood how unspeakably horrible it was to torment someone for something they couldn't help. I never did it after that. I befriended Patty because I wanted to be like Mrs. Cyr.

And there was a first-grade teacher, Mrs. Justice, who was in a wheelchair, and Mrs. Cyr would help her get around and run errands for her. I remember my parents saying things about Mrs. Cyr and Mrs. Justice, and I got the impression that running around town with your handicapped spinster friend was something you might do if you didn't have a man at home to take care of. One day some A-hole parked in Mrs. Justice's handicapped space, and Mrs. Cyr went ballistic and told the class that when we got old enough to drive we should NEVER EVER do such a thing —she made us all swear on it, in fact — and I bet not a single one of us ever, ever did.

My best Hildred moment, however, came when I was in junior high. I was leaving track practice, all sweaty and disheveled, when the calm and elegantly dressed Mrs. Cyr called to me across the elementary school parking lot. It seems she was having car trouble. She couldn't get her tiny, fuel-efficient Japanese ride to start. This was before tiny foreign cars were everywhere. This was when gas was like 49 cents a gallon and everyone drove enormous Buicks and station wagons. She was way ahead of the times. She thought if I could help her push the car out of the parking space and get it moving down the lot that it would start. So she got in the driver's seat and I got in front of the car and pushed with all my might. I couldn't budge the car. Mrs. Cyr looked perplexed. "I don't understand," she said. "It's such a light-weight car." We kept trying. I sat behind the wheel and she pushed. No go. Then I spotted Mr. Deterding at the other end of the parking lot. He was the boys track coach. I said to Mrs. Cyr, "Hey, there's Mr. Deterding. Want me to ask him to help?" And Mrs. Cyr pinned me up against the car and whispered, "I wouldn't ask that sexist pig to help me if he were the last person on Earth. I'd sit here all night before I'd lower myself to that." Now I didn't like Mr. Deterding either, but I didn't realize until just then that the reason I didn't like him was because he was sexist. I just knew I didn't feel comfortable around him, and now I sort of knew why: He treated girls differently. I thought, yeah, right on, let's not ask him. But what to do?

Finally, Mrs. Hilton came out of the building. I don't remember what grade she taught — it was first or fourth — but she was an outspoken divorcee, too, only in a more reserved and less humorous way. Unlike Mrs. Cyr, she seemed unhappy all the time. She asked what we were doing. Hildred explained that we were trying to push the car. And Mrs. Hilton looked perplexed, like "Well, how hard is that?" Hildred said we couldn't get it to budge. And I chimed in that we didn't want to ask that sexist pig to help. Mrs. Hilton frowned at Hildred, and Hildred gave a look like "Kids! They say the damnedest things." So Mrs. Hilton kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Let me try." She got in the driver's seat and about half a second later said, with perfect exasperation, "Oh Hildred! It's still in gear." And Hildred said, "I know. I put it in reverse because we're trying to move it backward." And Mrs. Hilton, all flustered, said, "You don't put it in reverse! You put it in neutral." At that, Hildred looked pleasantly surprised, like she just learned a very curious and useful fact. She smiled at me and arched her brow. And Mrs. Hilton looked even more distressed, as if to say, "How can we smash the patriarchy if you can't even understand how to drive?"

I have no memories of Mrs. Cyr after that. I don't think I saw her again. But I thought of her again — and again. My goofy high school friends and I would go to midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the mall. We learned all the lines that the audience would substitute for the film's real lines, like "Damn it, Janet, go get screwed," in lieu of "Damn it, Janet, I love you." You know the drill. Anyway, when Susan Sarandon's character would croon "God bless Lili St. Cyr," I — almost subconsciously — started substituting "God bless Hildred Saint Cyr."

And, even later, I realized that Hildred wouldn't have hated Lili at all. She would have loved her. She would have seen in her striptease and six marriages and sassy ways a kindred spirit who lived her own life, who refused to settle for just looking after a man, who ably supported herself financially and looked after her friends, and who, above all, did — and thoroughly enjoyed — a whole bunch of things that ladies weren't supposed to.