by John Grogan
It wasn’t going to be me. I was happy to be the coward and was the first to back away. So did Sack and Rock and Doggie. Finally, Tommy grabbed the matches out of Poison’s hand. “I’ll do it,” he said.
His hand was trembling as he lit the match and held it to the fuse, which protruded from just below the missile’s nose. For a second nothing happened, and I thought, with some relief, that we had a dud. I was just starting to exhale when the fuse caught, just like a sparkler, and began burning toward the rocket. Tommy jumped back with the rest of us, but as he did, he bumped the tube. Now it was no longer pointing skyward with just the perfect arc to bring the light show directly overhead. Now it was pointing directly at the Pembertons’ roof.
“Holy shit!” Tommy cried.
“Holy shit!” we all echoed.
Without another word, Tommy dashed forward, grabbed the clay tube in both hands, the sparkling fuse lighting his face, and tugged it back into position. The fuse was two-thirds gone. He let go and the tube again slumped down. There were just a few seconds left. Tommy straightened it again and this time pushed it down into the dirt with all his strength. Then he dove back with us and lay on his stomach. That’s when we saw that Tommy’s best had not been good enough. The tube had again shifted, this time pointing even lower than before. It was pointing so low, in fact, that it looked like the rocket might plow into the lawn a few yards ahead of us.
We held our ears. I said a prayer. With a deafening boom and blinding flash, the firework screamed off in a near horizontal position. It skimmed over Mr. Pemberton’s perfect lawn and nipped a shrub, gaining elevation as it went. We stared frozen, holding our breath as it zeroed in on the front of the house, spiraling di-
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rectly toward those giant plate-glass windows. The rocket’s total journey could not have lasted more than a second or two, but it unfolded before us in slow motion. I could picture Mr. Pemberton lurching back in his chair in the window. I could see the terror on his face, the dawning realization that he was going to die. Dear God, what have we done? I thought.
Blam! The firework slammed into the brick wall, right between the two windows. Another three feet in either direction and it would have crashed through the glass and into the house.
It disintegrated into the bricks with a loud blast, followed by a series of shrieking, burning streamers flying in all directions.
Bursts of multicolored sparks sprayed outward, catching the grass on fire. The explosions kept coming. In plumes of green and red and blue and blinding white. Whirling, whistling flares corkscrewed out and skipped across the lawn. Glowing balls of fire catapulted in all directions.
And then it was over. We all lay there for a moment, staring at the pall of smoke hanging a few feet above the ground. “Fuck!”
someone whispered. Then Poison was on his feet and sprinting toward the beach like I had never seen anyone run before. The rest of us bolted after him.
“Holy shit! Holy shit!” Tommy kept saying.
Dear Jesus, dear God the Father, dear Holy Spirit, I prayed silently. Don’t let us have killed Mr. Pemberton. Don’t let his house burn down. Please, don’t let him die. Please, don’t let us get caught.
We waded into the lake and, hugging the shoreline, made our way up the beach, not stopping until we reached the vacant lot where the smoking tree stood. No doubt the police were in the neighborhood by now. We crept up the bluff and peered over the edge at the street. All dark and quiet. Silently we crawled through the empty field and were almost to my street when we heard a car engine. “Down!” Tommy hissed, and we lay flat in the weeds, our breath ragged and nervous, so loud I was certain it
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would give us away. First a pair of headlights swept over us, then a spotlight. The police cruiser continued down the street, raking each lawn with its powerful beam. After it was out of sight, we scurried across the street and divided up without a word, each heading to his own home.
Inside, Dad was still up.
“How were the fireworks?” he asked.
“Great,” I said. “Incredible.”
“Well, good,” he said. And with that, I walked upstairs, washed my face and hands, and turned in for the night.
The next morning I paced nervously around the house, acting as nonchalant as possible but dying to find out just how much damage we had done. I watched my parents carefully, but they showed no signs of knowing anything. Each time the phone rang I jumped, but they were all false alarms. Finally I put on my trunks and announced I was heading down for a swim.
“Okay, honey,” Mom said. “I’ll have lunch ready when you get back.”
Down at The Outlot I concentrated on not staring over at the Pembertons’ house. Only a guilty man would show up the next morning to gawk. I could not stare. I must not gaze. The briefest momentary glance was all I dare risk. After all, I just happened to be strolling by on my way for a refreshing morning dip. I looked up at the trees, marveled at the blue sky, paused to admire the water. Then, as subtly as I knew how, I let my head drift in the direction of the Pemberton property, and that’s when I saw it. The brick wall where the firework hit was charred black. The hedge below was burned lifeless. The eves and awnings were scorched, and the lawn was marred with trails of blackened, seared grass. There in the midst of the carnage was Mr. Pemberton, raking up the debris as best he could. Just as I looked at him he looked at me, and what I saw staring back was not steely defiance or suspicious accusation, but defeat. He was a broken man. In his watery eyes, I saw only a question: “Why?
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Why would you kids do this to us?” I didn’t have an answer. I looked away and continued down to the beach, being careful to stay on the outside of Mr. Pemberton’s arrow sign. I wanted to turn back and apologize, to tell him we never meant for it to turn out this way. Instead, I kept walking and did not look back.
After my swim, I cut through the neighbors’ yards so I wouldn’t have to face the old man again. By the time I arrived home, Dad knew about the fireworks at the Pembertons. He had heard from Mr. Cullen, who had heard from Mr. Sacorelli, who had heard from another neighbor. The news was all over Harbor Hills.
“Do you know anything about this?” Dad asked.
“No, Dad.”
“You don’t know anything about this?” he said.
“Not a thing, Dad.”
He studied my face. “I better not find out that you did, do you understand?”
“You won’t, Dad,” I promised.
That night I lay on top of the sheets in the July heat, the crickets’ symphony drifting through the screened windows, and squeezed my eyes shut. “Dear Jesus, dear God the Father, dear Holy Spirit,” I whispered. “Tell Mr. Pemberton I’m sorry. Tell him we didn’t mean it. Tell him it wasn’t as cruel as it seems. It was just a dumb idea. And thanks for not letting it turn out any worse.”
Chapter 10
o
The nuns at Our Lady of Refuge were renowned for their cruelty. With the relish of medieval torture masters, they imposed a strict discipline that relied on physical pain and the constant threat that it could be visited on anyone at any moment for any reason. Corporal punishment was an important part of the Catholic education experience, and the tool of choice was the twelve-inch steel-lined ruler, which every nun carried at all times like every police officer carries a gun. Small and compact, it allowed Sister to make her way among our desks, delivering welt-raising blows without warning other than the brief shrill whistling sound the ruler made as it rushed through the air in the instant before impact. The knuckles were a favorite target, followed by the forearms, kneecaps, thighs, and occasionally the back of the head. Passing notes? Whack! Chewing gum? Whack!
Staring absently out the window? Whack! Holding your pencil wrong? Whack, whack, whack!
For the bigger discipline jobs, the nuns brought out the heavy armaments—stout wooden yards
ticks and the even more deadly
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rubber-tipped pointers. Punishment was styled after the public flogging of old and involved both pain and humiliation. The guilty student was ordered to the front of the class to assume the position: back to the class, feet spread, palms pressed on the blackboard. He—I can’t remember a girl ever being up there—would be forced to wait while Sister fetched her yardstick. She always took her time. The waiting was torture. One sharp, withering whack across the back of the thighs, and it was over. But the worst part was yet to come—the public humiliation of turning to face the class. Some boys cried, some merely blinked back tears; the strongest managed to stay dry-eyed or even smirk defiantly.
But there was one thing no one could hide, and that was the wet, clammy palm prints left behind on the blackboard. They served as a sort of corporal-punishment fear detector. You might be able to fake a brave face, but the sweaty palm prints told the truth.
The class would roar with laughter, and Sister would chortle with approval. Look how smart the smart aleck looks now, class.
The nuns had other tricks, too. Over the years, I had my ears twisted, hair yanked, and face slapped. One nun, with a major leaguer’s accuracy, wound up and hurled a chalk eraser across the room, nailing a student on the forehead. In seventh grade, I spent hours decorating an old cigar box to hold my pencils and pens. I was working at my desk with it open beside me when the perpetually angry Sister Mary Edward, for reasons I never determined, slapped it to the floor, sending the contents flying.
“Now pick it up,” she sneered and walked away, leaving me to crawl on my hands and knees among the desks as my classmates snickered. This kind of treatment was nothing new. My mother remembered—with great humor, for some reason—a nun at her Catholic school forcing her younger brother to eat a dead fly he had been caught playing with. Forcing an insect carcass down the throat of a second grader—now, there’s the Christian spirit! Nuns and abuse just seemed to go hand in hand.
The only thing was, none of us considered it abuse, least of all
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our parents, who had the same basic response to every reported atrocity: “Well, if Sister decided you deserved to be hung by your thumbs while she flogged you with a cat-o’-nine-tails, then Sister must have had a good reason.” The nuns were not quite as infallible as priests, but they were close. If they chose to smack or ridicule us, we obviously got what was coming to us.
I became convinced that the only real joy in the nuns’ austere, lonely lives was the terrified yelps of small children. There was one exception at Our Lady of Refuge, and that was Sister Nancy Marie. She was young, mid- to late twenties, and plain but with a beatific smile and shiny complexion that combined to give her a preternatural glow. Unlike the older, more conservative nuns with their scratchy habits and starched face boards, she dressed in a knee-length skirt with a blouse and jacket. Except for a crucifix around her neck and a small veil on her head, which allowed a shock of hair to tumble onto her forehead, she barely even looked like a nun.
All the students loved Sister Nancy Marie. She was one of the original “What Would Jesus Do?” disciples, and took seriously her vows to act like Christ. No matter how serious your transgression—forgotten homework, chatting in class, playground fisticuffs—she would never strike, never scold, never even raise her voice. Her response to almost any situation was to fix those earnest brown eyes on you, clasp her hands together, and say,
“Now, let’s see how we can resolve this.” In her vocation, she was a lamb among embittered wolves.
I suppose we should have gone easy on her.
Sister Nancy Marie was the religious-education instructor, and it was her job to infuse us with the wonders of our faith.
It was in her nature to win our hearts with sweetness, and she sometimes managed to make religion seem fun. One of her innovations was to let us choose popular songs by our favorite
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bands to play during Mass. We would bring in our record albums and listen to the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel or Bob Dylan or The Doors, discussing any themes that might apply. Most of the songs were complete stretches, but she gave us latitude. I remember playing The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, at one student Mass. At another, I suggested “Tired of Waiting for You” by The Kinks, and Sister approved it. What this song of boy-girl longing had to do with religion, I didn’t know, but Sister Nancy Marie was game. She was always looking for ways to blur the line between the secular and the spiritual, to demonstrate that God could and should be integrated into every part of our lives. It would be up to Tommy, with wholehearted encouragement from me, to determine Sister Nancy Marie’s limits.
We had no cafeteria at Refuge and ate lunch at our desks. One day in seventh grade, Sister Nancy Marie announced a new idea: Record Day, at which we could bring in albums to play during the lunch hour. When Record Day arrived, she rolled in the record player on its cart, plugged it in, and invited us to take turns playing our favorite songs while we ate our sandwiches. “Listen carefully to the lyrics,” she beckoned. “Contemplate what the artist is saying. What is his message? How does it touch your lives?” And then she left the room. Sister Nancy Marie operated on trust.
No need to stand over her students with a club. Treat them like adults, and they will act like adults. One girl stepped forward and put on “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Another dropped the needle on Peter, Paul, and Mary’s version of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” A third offered The Byrds’ rendition of “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Then Tommy stood up. He, too, had brought a favorite album, carried inconspicuously into school between his books.
The album was by The Fugs—and The Fugs definitely were not what Sister Nancy Marie had in mind for contemplative lunch-time listening.
They were the raunchiest, most indecent band I had ever
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heard. Some critics would later hail them as the original punk band, bravely paving the way for the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and all the others to follow. But on this day, they were just one thing to Tommy and me: the biggest Catholic-school no-no we could imagine. One song opened in a yodeling voice, sustaining an obscenity. Another had the catchy title “Boobs A Lot.” A third sang the praises of marijuana and cunnilingus.
But the coup de grâce, the album’s pièce de résistance, was track three, a song called “Supergirl.” Unlike relationship songs by the Beatles or Monkees or Stones, this one did not waste time on holding hands or gazing dreamily into eyes or even spending the night together. It got right to the point in the opening line.
I’m not sure whose idea it was to play “Supergirl” in class. My memory is that it began as an abstract hypothetical. Just imagine the look on old Nancy Marie’s face if “Supergirl” ever came on. From there, it was elevated to an idea. What if we sneaked Supergirl on? My God, how hilarious would that be? And from an idea it graduated to a dare. And if there was one thing I already knew about Tommy, it was never to challenge him to do anything you did not want to see him try.
Tommy carried his record to the front of the room and peeked out the door into the empty hallway. All clear. He pulled the vinyl disk from its cardboard sleeve and placed it on the spinning turntable. As always, I was rapidly losing my nerve. Don’t do it, Tommy, I telegraphed. It’s not too late. Don’t do it. Leaning over for a better view, he balanced the needle over the vinyl.
“Now, boys and girls,” he called out in a high voice that was his imitation of Sister Nancy Marie. “I want you to contemplate what the artist is saying. Listen to the words. How do they touch your lives?” He hesitated for a moment, then expertly dropped the needle onto the empty band between tracks two and three.
Tommy reached for the volume knob and cranked it as high as it would go. Amplified pops, hisses, and crackles filled the classroom. He raced bac
k to his seat, and the song began, first with
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clashing guitar chords and then with the opening lyrics. At full volume, the music was badly distorted. But the words remained perfectly understandable. They boomed through the room and out the open door. And this is what they said:
“I want a girl who can fuck like an angel.”
The F-word stood above the rest, and screamed down the hallway like a fireball, filling every corner, crack, nook, and cranny of Our Lady of Refuge. It was so loud, I wondered if Mom could hear it back home in our kitchen four doors away. “I want a girl who can FUUUUUUCK like an angel.”
The second verse began: “I want a girl who can—” The class never found out what. Sister Nancy Marie, her face as red as I have ever seen a human face, sprinted into the room. She was running so fast her veil actually flew out straight behind her, like a flag in a stiff wind. She dove at the record player, arced her arm like a tennis pro executing a perfect backstroke, swung it around, and smacked the needle with all her strength. It skid-ded across the vinyl with the sound of ripping fabric. Then the room went silent. She picked up the album in both hands, raised it over her head, not unlike the way the priest raised the host to heaven during the consecration, and brought it down hard on the side of the cart. The Fugs shattered into a hundred pieces. She threw the chunk still in her hands to the floor and stomped on it.
She was screaming and shaking, her face now a deep crimson.
The crucifix had flung around her neck and somehow ended up behind her, hanging between her shoulders. She stopped, bowed her head, and stood there silently for a few seconds, eyes closed, breathing heavily. Then she reached around and retrieved her crucifix, raising it to her lips and kissing it as she blessed herself.
Her voice was calm again. “No one is leaving this classroom until I know who did this,” she said. “This . . . this . . .”—and her voice rose again—“this . . . disgusting . . . filth.”