by RJ Martin
“I’ve been calling for half an hour. Where is Sister Matilda? Are you a student?” I guess all mothers liked asking multiple questions at once. It must be a tactic to fry the teenage hard drive and make it impossible to produce enough lies to cover everything. “This is Mrs. Hayes. I need Callie out of class at noon.”
“And why is that?” None of my business. Maybe Sister Matilda needed to know, or I was being nosy.
“She has to go to the orthodontist.” I knew Callie Hayes, and it was not a moment too soon. Her teeth were so jagged, you could open cans with them.
“I’ll leave a note for Sister Matilda.” I looked around for a pen and pad. On the desk was a pile of tri-folded flyers that read: BECOMING WORTHY. I flipped one open, instantly engrossed.
“Do I know your mother? Does Sister Matilda know you’re doing this? Hello?”
“Probably and no. Good-bye, ma’am.” When I hung up, not Sister Matilda but the principal, Sister Margo, was there and looking not very bride of Christ at me.
“Jonah, why aren’t you in your homeroom?” Like Russian nesting dolls, Sister Matilda could have lived inside of Sister Margo—the raisin within the prune—with a few sizes in between. She pulled a tissue from the box on the desk, spit-wet the tip and wiped my cheek with a storm-trooper look that was her usual sign of disapproval.
Sister Margo made a semibig deal out of showing me the lipstick on the tissue. “I was serving at Mass.” What did she think I was doing? For chaste women, these nuns had sex on the brain. I knew Mom must’ve seen the imprint she left, and it was her idea of a joke. I handed over the standard note Mom xeroxed a thousand copies of rather than rewrite all the time.
“You shouldn’t answer the phone.” Her face was round, as was her everything. She and Sister Matilda didn’t do the old-school penguin look Sister Helen still wore. Their habits were held on with barrettes and you could see just a little of their hair. Instead of those black dresses you could get lost in, the NC3 nuns wore blue polyester skirts and blazers that looked itchy. Their outfits, like the church I attended, were modern for the past.
“I was trying to pitch in,” I said. Sister Margo’s eyes narrowed. If I got busted for answering the phone, it would be so unfair, but I would try to accept it. Serving JC was never easy. St. Lawrence got roasted on a grill for real. I always wondered if they just used it for that purpose or some Roman goon had too many beers at a barbecue. Now, St. Lawrence is the patron saint of chefs. Whack, I know. Anyway, that was far worse than detention.
“You’re not the boss yet.” Sister Margo half smiled and tapped my cheek just a little too hard. I bet she used to thump kids with rulers, the last one to stop and only after the bishop promised to give her the boot if she didn’t.
“Someday.” I whole smiled back. “Sister, what are these?” I pointed at the flyers. I already knew. I just didn’t want her to know I did.
“The sign-up forms for the Lenten youth retreat.” She said it like—busted—she knew I knew. “They’ll be given out in homeroom tomorrow.”
“Can I get mine now?”
Sister reluctantly parted with one of the folded pamphlets she obviously had made herself. The call to repentance was on plain white paper, had black ink, and a basic font. Maybe it was her idea of modesty—or most likely she had no clue about graphic design.
“Three hundred dollars?”
“We’re going to Our Lady of the Hills this year. It’s a lovely facility overlooking Lake Champlain.” I got a feeling she was practicing her pitch on me before hitting the parents with it. “That price is actually discounted for our students. It includes meals and transportation.” It needed work. “I assume you’ll be joining us.”
“Money is kind of tight for my folks right now. You know, with the twins’ medical bills.” They came first always, and my sister Angie and I had to abide. Not that we wouldn’t anyway. It still sucked. “Are there going to be any scholarships or anything?”
“I’m not sure, Jonah.” The phone began to ring again. “There are a lot of young people who might share your predicament. I don’t think the school has the funds this year for all of you. Choosing one over the other just doesn’t seem… well, it’s not who we are, is it?” Sure it was. Bishops got chosen, popes too. She got picked to be the principal. The teams had tryouts, why not this? Was being holy outside the bounds of competition? Or was it that she knew I’d win? Forget a fair fight, it’d be a blowout. Maybe I just weirded her out too. For all the talk about being virtuous, I think clergy of both sexes have a hard time accepting it from anyone outside their celibate clique. That I planned to join didn’t seem to count too much either. I guess you had to be in the club before any members really took you seriously. “But we’ll see. Hmm?” she said, as in we really wouldn’t.
Both lines lit up with a steady electronic bleating that sounded as old as everything else around here. Sister Margo slapped down her clawlike hand on my shoulder. This was the way she talked to boys, gave us a Heisman with a hook, keeping room for the Holy Spirit but a firm grip too. “Go to class.” Where else would I go? She went into her office and clicked the first line. “This is Sister Margo.”
Alone in the outer office, I had a slight epiphany and scooped up a small handful of flyers: not enough for her to notice them being gone but ample for my plan.
THE DOOR to my homeroom was open wide, and that never happened after the bell rang. Also, one of my classmates, Bart Tack Jr., leaned against the doorjamb and surveyed the long, empty hallway.
“Where’s the Ng?” Our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Ng, was Vietnamese, but her family escaped on a raft after the Communists took over and outlawed JC. Somehow she found her way to NC3, taught sophomore English, and loved Shakespeare like he was in a boy band. She summed up all of his plays with “live by sword, die by sword.” An easy way to get an A on any book report was to take that as the theme no matter what Wikipedia said.
“Went home sick.” Bart yawned as he spoke. “She puked in the parking lot.”
I glanced past him and saw the wayward office nun, Sister Matilda, catching more z’s than in Father Svi’s name, behind the desk. She faintly snored, and her thin mane of whiskers rustled with each exhale. My classmates sat doing everything but the reading I’m sure the sister assigned before conking out. Then again who’d want to struggle with figuring out Shakespeare on their own at eight in the morning? Some played games on their phones. A few of the guys shot field goals with paper footballs through goalpost hands. Some girls put on makeup or sat huddled in the back sharing their daily gossip. All of this was done in low tones, as if any sudden noise would awaken the enforcer and cast aside the brief whiff of freedom.
I was about to just go inside, take my seat and resume my near-invisibility. That was what I should have done. Better to stay below the radar. I’d been popular once; tasted the joy of being one of the big fish in a parochial school pond. I knew it was kind of a sin, but I missed it. I let the flyer fall out of my hand.
“You dropped something.”
“The sign-up form.” I forced casualness into my voice. “For the retreat, thanks.”
Bart didn’t bite. Again I should’ve let it go, except he was the most popular guy in the sophomore class if not the entire school. He got decent grades, good-looking, I guess—though no stud—and Bart was a nonstar, starter for the basketball team. What really set him apart, above and beyond, was that his father, Bart Tack Sr., was the richest year-rounder in town. Some people, like my dad, said Bart Sr. was even better off than a lot of the summer people. Most of us never got close enough to them to find out.
“You should check it out.” I held the flyer out for Bart. If I could sign him up, then I might get half the class. They’d have to give me a scholarship.
“Of course you’re going.”
“I am the head acolyte.”
“You mean altar boy? Say altar boy, Gregory. You’re an altar boy.”
“So were you?”
“When I was nine.”
Bart didn’t sound angry, just superior as he rubbed his bushy, brown hair a couple of times.
He got the worst hat head of any guy in school. When he took off the baseball cap he wore everywhere, there’d be a furry dome up top that made him look like a Russian Cossack. No one busted him for it. He had that don’t mess with me aura that might have come from his dad being NC3’s biggest donor.
“All the more reason to go. To reconnect with God.”
“I’m not really into that stuff.” Bored now, he looked past me. This was a common reaction to my evangelical side.
“Then why are you in a Catholic school?” I tried, standing my shaky ground.
“So I can be the starting point guard.” Basketball was the sport at NC3. Football was dropped after the school got too small and everybody got tired of us getting whipped. Since then, Bart and the starting five were a small elite. All of them were after scholarships to Catholic colleges too small to play on television. They were well known academically, though, and still gave full rides. I knew because my father had explained it all to me when I told him I wanted to stop playing CYO basketball. That’s kind of an intramural league for Catholic kids. You don’t have to be good at the game—as I wasn’t—just show up. Anyway I bailed on it to devote more time to JC.
“I think you could count it as an extracurricular or something.” It felt weird selling JC to Bart. Maybe that was what evangelizing was. Rather than a shiny new car, I wanted to put him in the front seat of a sweet ride to salvation. “A lot of schools look for spirituality, especially the Catholic ones.” This was the longest conversation I’d had with Bart in almost four years. He’d been the first in our class to drop his balls (funny for a basketball guy) and never let me forget I was the last. His “slings and arrows” as Mrs. Ng would say, had been worse than the balls that got whizzed at my head on the basketball court. That was part of the reason I gave up hoops. I didn’t love it enough to make the abuse worth it. JC was no athlete either. I needed to keep focused.
Since we got to NC3 and Bart’s posse couldn’t use my late blooming against me anymore, hostility had mutated into total disinterest. That was how I should have left it. I didn’t give up because he owed me. This could be his penance, and he wouldn’t even know it. I didn’t like hating Bart, not very JC-like, and I wanted a reason to stop.
“You really think I should go?”
I nodded. Yes, just having his name on my list would advance my master plan. He wouldn’t have to actually go, just get Big Bart, what everyone called his dad, to fork over the three hundred dollars that was nothing to him. Then Bart could blow off all of the seminars and spend the weekend shooting jump shots or whatever. I didn’t want to admit it, but I also kind of knew if Bart actually got on my turf and, you know, participated, that might make things better for me. Not just as a sophomore but the rest of high school.
“It’s kind of like you’re asking me on a date.”
“No.” I cratered. What was I thinking? It was like a scary movie and his face got closer as the background went all blurry and far away.
“I’m not gay, dude.”
“I’m going to be a priest.” I should have said “me neither,” but I was gay and it didn’t occur to me to just lie.
“Then you’re full of shit, Gregory.” Bart sauntered back into the room as he crumpled my flyer and hurled it into the wastebasket like it was the winning shot at the buzzer.
My best friend Chad was kind of hiding just inside the doorway. No one else seemed to notice what Bart said, but Chad heard every word. I’ve known Chadwick Darvis since we were in diapers, but I don’t remember that far back. My cognition of him only dates to when we were well past potty trained but still little. His short chubbiness made him adorable to all the mothers. With his blond curls, he looked like a Cupid. His mom even sent Chad out like that once on Halloween: wearing a cloth diaper and carrying a toy bow and arrow she spray-painted gold. I was kind of jealous of all the attention he got that night. All of the parents made their kid pose with him and not me in my homemade St. Francis of Assisi costume. It consisted of carrying Angie’s poodle doll and wearing a burlap sack turned inside out. You could still read OATS AND FEED backward.
“The Ng’s out sick.” Chad made everything sound like a spy movie. “They say there is a bug going around.” Still short and chubby in a “never exercised in his life” way, Chad was even less formidable than me. That was saying something too because Sister Matilda could probably take me two out of three falls. Gentle and sensitive were perfect qualities for my choice of profession, just not useful in surviving high school. I was loyal to Chad even when I was on top in the lower grades, and he stuck by me when we had to start showering after gym and I still hadn’t developed down there.
“You coming in?” Chad shouldn’t have asked me that. Why wouldn’t I? But he did and that made me not want to go. I’d screwed up, huge.
“See you at lunch,” I said, mimicking his spy-like hush.
“I’ll come too.” Chad took a hesitant step my way, then stopped. His backpack and book were still on his desk. He gave me a wait signal, palm up and facing me. Chad rushed to get the giant Shakespeare volume into his bag, a book so heavy jocks used it to do bicep curls in class. He must’ve not shut the clasp on the backpack because when he grabbed the shoulder strap the brick of a book crashed to the floor. Sister Matilda rejoined the living with a wide-eyed glare that sent my classmates scurrying back into their seats. I took a silent step backward and then another. Unseen and intending to stay that way, I broke into a jog.
NC3 DIDN’T resemble a normal TV high school. You know, the kind with orange lockers, yellow plastic chairs, and an outdoor cafeteria where kids could sit year-round. It was more like a haunted castle. The iron railings of the stairwells had been painted over in black so many times the little designs on them now resembled tumors. Four stories high from basement to roof, their cancerous bars caged us at both ends. My locker was on the third floor. I’d get my Spanish book and be right outside the classroom when the bell rang. Bart and I didn’t share another class until gym at the end of the day. I just had to avoid him in the halls. Maybe by then he’d have forgotten about my lame attempt at selling him on JC. We’d been friends once. Not the hang-out-at-each-other’s-house kind, but Bart and I had become altar boys around the same time. We’d race in the aisles when left alone to pick up the bulletins people read during Mass and left in the pews rather than take them home like they were supposed to. Bart quit after a year or so as did most guys. He was hypercompetitive and probably figured I was the best, so why bother?
Gay or not, I had no feelings for Bart, not in my head, heart, or down below. He was solid, not buff, and his brown eyes were kind of cute. He just didn’t do it for me, not at all. Yet, he could out me here, ruin everything. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I actually hit my forehead with the heel of my hand. At last I knew the point and reason for that gesture.
When I started climbing the cancer stairs, Mr. Scully, the hairless janitor some kids called “Mr. Clean,” had placed his red rubber cone right in my path. “There’s puke.” He pointed at a puddle of milky blown chunks.
“Who?” I instantly worried. Chad had been right. Stomach flu was bad news in a small school. Odds of getting it: high.
“Does it matter?” He used his garden shovel to scoop the sick from the worn marble steps.
“I need my Spanish book.”
“Do you have a hall pass?”
“No.” If he challenged me, it would be worse. I was already not Sister Margo’s favorite today.
“Go away, Jonah.” I was always nice to him, but he still cast me out. Forgive Mr. Clean for he knows not how much you want me to succeed. You’ll be scraping up puke for eternity, buddy. It was not a JC-like thought, and I promised to say a rosary for it later.
CHAPTER THREE
IN GEOMETRY class we learned lines stretch to infinity both ways at once. Rays do too but only in one direction, and the other is fixed. Trapped
inside the pea-green cinderblock room that was the cafeteria, I felt like a line segment, clipped at both ends and going nowhere. I probably wouldn’t even get to go the eighty miles up to the retreat center with my only two friends. I’d been hoping to use the trip to try to make more. With no beers to refuse, or pants to not try to get into, I’d be on my turf. In JC’s house I would be cool. The natural order of NC3 was starting to congeal, and I knew I was running out of time.
I took one bite of my peanut butter and fluff and left it there in front of me. This was Tragic’s or Magic’s lunch. Right now at Holy R, one of them was pitching a four-alarm meltdown over getting ham and cheese while the other beamed at his beloved marshmallow gag on white. Angie must’ve made lunches last night. My older sister had my mother’s sense of humor. I’m sure she was having quite a good laugh at our expense.
I couldn’t worry about that now. My own life had just gotten complicated. That’s what adults’ lives did: they got complicated like my mother’s. Once the happy wife of a forest ranger with two healthy kids, she now shared her home with an unpleasant mother-in-law, two sick little boys, an underemployed husband, a wild-child eldest daughter, and a total closet case, future priest for a son. Complicated, and at last I understood.
I stared down at the pus-like ooze of white creeping out of the bread while all around me an array of carefully chosen saints stood guard. Life-sized, and made of plaster not stone, they each had a few nicks and dents as they stood over me along the walls. Saint Agnes was martyred (murdered made holy) to protect her virtue. Saint Monica stood beside her, the patron of moms everywhere, but she looked tough. Like she raised boys, which she did. At the end of the row, down by the dish drop-off, Saint Rita looked tired but calm. She had a bad husband, rough life, and was the patron of impossible cases. Next to her was Thomas Aquinas, an old dude that for some reason was the patron of students. It was he who said the light was already inside us; we just needed to turn it on.