Relief flowed warmly inside me. We floated together, suspended in the last few moments of freedom. Tomorrow classes would start and the whole heavy, antique machinery of the place would shake and rumble to life, then hum all the way to Christmas.
An indistinguishable black form emerged from the guesthouse two hundred yards away. We both squinted, unable to determine who it was. But when the hands went up and rested on the hips, we knew we were regarding Father Albert. He stopped and watched us floating in the Bog, staring back at him. Looking left and right down the empty drive, he started marching across the field.
The first thing to come off was his scapular—over his head and onto the grass. Then came the belt. He picked up the pace and unbuttoned his habit, shrugging it off halfway to the Bog and continuing his waddling jog in T-shirt, boxers, black socks, and shoes. Jon and I turned to each other, bug-eyed with surprise, ready to laugh but not knowing where to begin. Then off came the shoes and socks and finally, at the edge of the mud, the extra-large T-shirt. Skin that white shouldn’t be exposed to the elements.
“You’re the man, Pair!” Jon cried, nearly climbing out of the water. “You are the man.”
When the other monks weren’t around, we called him Pair because père was French for father and he hated teaching French; because he was shaped like a pear; and because he did things no other monk would do.
“Watch out for the tsunami, boys.” He displaced a surprisingly small amount of water, then floated on his back, his taut, hairless gut breaching the surface like the head of a beluga. Treading water with unnatural ease, he murmured, “Isn’t it great when you wait for something, wait a really long time, and it turns out better than you imagined? Must be a little like heaven.” He rolled off his back and scanned the hill to ensure the coast was still clear, then gazed up past the trail of clothes to the new abbey church. “It’s not every day the world gets such a magnificent new sanctuary. I feel like a kid again.”
I sighed, then dog-paddled a figure eight around to the two of them. “It’s just a fancy room for a pipe organ.”
Father Albert’s eyes narrowed slightly, then shifted in my direction. As a satisfied smile stretched across his face, he blew bubbles in the Bog and laughed. “Pinch me. I must be dreaming.”
Night in the dorm. The juniors’ dorm now, not the nursery. The freshmen and sophomores were down the hall, crammed together in the biggest room on campus. Although it was more permanent and less crowded, the nursery reminded me of one of those gymnasium disaster relief centres you see on television with people flaked out all over the floor after an earthquake or flood. Even in the relatively posh juniors’ dorm we slept side by side, partitioned off by flimsy chin-level dividers. Privacy was for people with something to hide.
The bed cradled me hammocklike on old sagging springs. Breathing in bleach, sweat, and dust off the sheets and thin mattress, I could see the lump of Jon in the bed across from me, with Saint Charles Borromeo staring down from his frame on the wall above. Connor, the other guy in our bay, had nailed St. Chuck up there. Aside from being the patron of seminarians, the saint, like Connor, suffered from a debilitating stutter. I couldn’t see him clearly in the dark, halo radiating around his piously cocked head, but I was aware of his gaze. Then someone whimpered in his sleep and I began to pray.
Five days, Lord, and holding. Help me keep my promise to turn away from sin. Help me fight myself and never give up. Make me strong. Make me strong. Make me...
I listened to our breathing. We all seemed to fall into a pattern. Finally I drifted away on a stream of Hail Marys, travelling away from myself, away from what was into what would never be.
TWO ROMANS AND CHRISTIANS
The close September evening gave no hint of the coming change of season. On its way down, the setting sun kissed the nipple of rock at the top of the large, full hill that was Mount Saint John. When the day finally slipped past the edge of the horizon, the last of the light pooled in the Bog in a blue-orange sheet like metal exposed to fire.
I wasn’t sure how they played it at other schools, but at the Seminary of Saint John the Divine, contestants concentrated on the apprehension, torture, and simulated martyrdom of Christians. Most boys wanted to be Roman.
Old foxholes were dug in the black forest soil. They had been there for generations, hidden behind bushes and under the fan of upturned trees. Everyone knew where they were, except the new kids. I stood alone inside one such crater, last year’s leaves rotting in a pool at my feet. It smelled like urine. I could hear hoots and hollers spread thin in the distance. Crouching down, I pulled out a Marlboro, tapped it on the crush-proof box, and lit it. Jon jumped in from out of nowhere and splashed some of the muck on my cheek.
“Scrupus,” I said, lighting the cigarette, then wiping my face.
“Nutrix,” Jon replied.
“Where’s Connor?” I asked.
“Dunno.”
“What’s the plan?” I took a long drag and tried to look like an army field officer discussing plans for an offensive.
“Eric’s a Christian,” Jon announced. “Volunteered again.”
“He’s so literal. He’ll go far.” There was a rustling of leaves and then choked laughter from behind a rotting log. We both heard it. I removed the cigarette, put a finger to my lips, and winked. “So maybe we’ll head back toward the gym,” I said just loud enough for them to hear.
“Yeah. We’ll surprise the little shits down there.”
Jon pulled my head close and whispered in my ear that he’d leave, making enough commotion for both of us. I should stay behind for the ambush. As soon as he heard me yell, he’d come flying back. I gave him a drag, pinched off the half-smoked butt, and replaced it in the deck. Jon disappeared into the quiet.
Half an hour earlier I had fished a folded little slip of paper with an R out of a baseball cap, which meant I got to hunt down passive apostles and bring them to justice. Roman justice. That should have been exciting, but I was getting a little too old for this kind of crap.
A few minutes later the new kids poked their noses over the rim of the foxhole and peered in. Fresh veal. I scrambled up the side of the hole, slipping and landing on my shin as they hopped away like deer. Jon saw them. He was waiting behind the trunk of an immense maple. We tore after them full-tilt.
Trunks whizzed by in the blue-black twilight. We were closing in. When they were almost to the edge of the Bog, one of them whined like a dog about to get whacked with a broom.
Jon already had his Christian subdued. In mid-stride I reached out just as my man turned around to see. I grabbed him by the collar and we both instantly tripped, tumbling over the mossy twigs into the tall grass. Quickly I jumped back up, hands in front of me ready to choke. The kid lay frozen on his face hoping that if he played dead long enough I might just sniff him, paw around, then wander back into the woods for some berries.
“Get up!” I ordered.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled straight into the ground.
“Sorry for what? Getting caught? Now you’re going to die for your faith.” I took out the now-crumpled deck of smokes and lit one.
“Who are you?” he asked, slowly sitting up.
“Who am I?” I blew smoke down at him.
“You never came to the Reading of the Rules.”
“Who am I? That should be one of the first things you learn here.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop with the sorry routine. Get up.”
He stood. I couldn’t