The Long Run

by Leo Furey

  “Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. And they are commonly called deadly sins.”

  “You see, it’s on the list.”

  “Whose list, Brother? Who makes the list? Who says it’s a deadly sin?” We all look at each other as if to say “Bug’s gone bonkers.”

  “Holy Mother Church’s list. Lust,” McCann growls. “Lust . . . Lust is a deadly sin.”

  “But I masturbate, Brother. All the time. I can’t help it. Every time I think of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield. I think it’s only normal. Everyone does it some time or other, including brothers. Only animals don’t do it. Do you want us to be like animals? I think even priests do it.”

  “Priests! You should be saying what you’re saying to a priest. Not to me! To a priest. And in the seal of the confessional box. Not to me. And certainly not to your classmates.” McCann’s voice becomes soft. It takes on a strange tone, almost defeated, as if he’s becoming embarrassed.

  “Brother McCann, if God is a loving God, why would he be mad at me for masturbating when I can’t help it? It’s natural. That’s the way He made me.”

  McCann’s eyes seem to be wondering what Bug means. “Masturbation is on the list of sins deemed by Holy Mother Church to be mortal. And a mortal sin deprives you of . . . of what, class?”

  “God’s grace, Brother.”

  “Precisely. And no sacrament, no amount of holy communion, will help you. You’ll not receive God’s grace. You’ll go straight to hell. Now do you understand the danger to your soul caused by masturbation, boys?”

  “Yes, Brother.”

  “That’s why it’s a deadly sin, boys. Why it’s on the list. One of the seven deemed by Holy Mother Church—”

  “The Church is wrong!” Bug shouts. He’s saucier than we’ve ever seen him. We’re all amazed. Ryan shudders at the punishment to come. Blackie looks at me and goggles his eyes. We’re sure McCann will knock Bug’s head off any minute. He’s strapped us for a lot less.

  “The Church is right,” McCann says.

  “Wrong,” Bug says. “It’s stupid. The Church is wrong about masturbation. Or we’re all going to hell, every last one of us. You included.”

  There is a long silence. We know Bug’s a dead duck.

  McCann turns to the blackboard, picks up an eraser and begins erasing the words “DEADLY SIN.”

  “Perhaps . . . perhaps, Mr. Bradburys, you are right. Perhaps God . . . Perhaps God meant for us . . .”

  He finishes erasing the board and tells us to study questions twenty to twenty-five on the sacraments. Then he sits down behind his desk and stares off into the distance, like a boxer who has been stunned by a blow. Nothing happens the rest of the class. He doesn’t say anything to Bug. He doesn’t strap him or punch him. He just sits there in a daze until the buzzer sounds. Then he leaves the room, and Brother Walsh comes in to teach Latin.

  After supper, we ask Bug if he’s lost his marbles. Blackie and Murphy say he’s lucky he never got his head handed to him. Bug grins and calls us a bunch of chickens, and says he knew McCann wouldn’t do anything to him. When we ask why, he says because the night before he caught McCann in the act.

  “Whaddaya mean? What act?” Ryan asks.

  “Caught him down in the laundry room. Snappin’ the lizard. By the big dryers. I was talkin’ to him during class. Not anyone else. And he knew it. He’s happy I said he ain’t goin’ to hell. I was tellin’ him it isn’t a sin. I knew he wouldn’t hit me. I knew, because I was tellin’ him that I saw him, caught him red-handed in the act.”

  “You got more balls than I have,” Murphy says.

  “Like Oberstein says. It’s common sense. Oberstein’s right about that. Common sense is more important than Church rules. I know it. And McCann knows it. I knew deep down he’d be glad to hear me say what I said. That the Church is wrong, that it’s not a sin to snap the lizard. And he needed to hear it more than anyone. He needed to hear that it’s normal. It is. You’re not goin’ to hell for that. Nobody’s goin’ to hell for that. Not even McCann.”

  “You took an awful chance,” Oberstein says.

  “Don’t think so,” Bug grins. “He won’t ever bother me again.”

  “You’re lucky,” Blackie says. “Could of turned on you.”

  “Don’t think so,” Bug says. “And you wouldn’t either if you’d seen his face when I walked in on him down in the laundry room.”

  “He’s gonna getcha. Tomorrow, maybe next day. You’re walkin’ on thin ice. You’re gonna get it,” Blackie says.

  “You didn’t see the look on his face,” Bug brags. “He won’t be botherin’ me anymore.”

  “You got balls, Bradbury,” Murphy says.

  Bug puffs out his chest.

  “‘The sorrow of death compassed me,’” Oberstein says, “‘and the pains of hell got hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.’”

  “You’re in deep trouble, Ladybug,” Blackie says. “You better fly away home.”

  Summer 1961

  * * *

  17

  * * *

  THE MARATHON is getting so close. Blackie and Ryan and Richardson ran over thirty miles last Saturday. Our times have never been better. Ryan almost beat Richardson last time out. He’s gonna be a great runner one day. Maybe even better than Richardson, Blackie says.

  Summer’s on the way. We can’t wait. Like Christmas, there’s no school. Only this time, for two whole months. No study hall, no homework. That alone is enough to put you in seventh heaven. The outdoor swimming pool is open every day, and we have a lot more free time. We spend a lot of time at the Bat Cave, and in the woods building bough huts. We fish and have boil-ups at Virginia Waters. There are picnics at the canyon at Manuels River. The brothers pile us into a big yellow school bus and take us there, or to Power’s Court, where we fish and swim and light fires to roast hot dogs. There’s always plenty of hot dogs every time we go anywhere. And we get an increase in our weekend allowance this summer. We’ll all get fifty cents each Saturday for free time. That means we’ll be able to buy the famous Newfoundland Spruce Beer. I’ve never had it. Murphy says you can get drunk on it, but Oberstein says you can’t. It has the same froth as beer, but it stinks to high heaven and tastes like branches from a tree. It costs twenty-five cents a bottle.

  The best parts of the summer are the regatta and the camping trip. The regatta is always the first Wednesday in August. It’s six weeks away. We’re all counting the days. That’s when we’re allowed the most free time of the whole year. The regatta starts at nine in the morning and goes till nine at night. It ends with an hour of the most amazing fireworks. You can see it from anywhere in the city. The regatta is the only time during the year that the brothers have off. They meet up with brothers from the other schools and spend the day at a cabin on Hogan’s Pond. The senior boys are given money to take the little ones to the regatta. The little ones have to be back by six, but we can stay out till nine, after the fireworks. There are boat races all day, and games of chance, and clowns and cotton candy and hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and candy apples. The older boys always buy spin tickets to try to win teddy bears for the little ones. Sometimes they steal one.

  The regatta marathon starts at noon. The regatta is cancelled only if there are high winds. The marathon is never cancelled. Oberstein and Blackie have been arguing a lot lately about how many runners should enter. Oberstein wants everyone to run. But Blackie wants just Richardson and Ryan to run. He wants the other runners to ride shotgun, as he calls it. He’s set up specialty teams for running supplies, and he’s dreamed up schemes for slowing down the really good runners who might get too far ahead. The peashooters have been practicing for weeks. Father Cross made them tiny straight tubes out of copper for spitting their darts. Blackie says he read that in Africa a pygmy can bring down a lion with a peashooter. If the St. John’s runners get too much of a lead, Blackie wants to have obstacles in place to slow them down, even knock them out of the race.
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  Our summer camping trip takes place the last week of August. We go to Ferryland, a small fishing village on the southern shore, and stay at the Holy Cross Cadet Camp for a whole week. It’s the best fun you could ever have. We stay in bunkhouses, six to a house. And the food is amazing. Dick the Dutchman cooks all our meals. And just like Christmas, no Diefenbaker meat for a whole week. Breakfast is bacon and eggs every morning. And Dick the Dutchman lets you eat as much as you want. In fact, he gets kinda upset if you don’t eat a lot. He makes big vats of black coffee. And you can have all the orange juice you can drink. There’s toast and real butter and partridgeberry jam. Murphy and Oberstein eat a loaf of toast every morning. And you can have your eggs fried, boiled, scrambled, or poached. And there’s always sugar and honey and salt and pepper and ketchup and mustard on the tables.

  We play softball and baseball and soccer. And we get to go to the Ferryland Garden Party, which is always great fun. We build forts and go mountain climbing and hiking and fishing. And we swim in the ponds nearby. And every now and then, on a bet or a dare, someone swims in the freezing ocean. And we borrow the cadet boat, an oversized dory, and row outside the bay and catch tom cods and flat fish and even sculpins. It’s always such fun. Last year we built a sail and sailed the dory around the bay for hours. Oberstein used an old goalie stick for a rudder. Blackie says that when he dies, if he gets to the pearly gates, he’s gonna ask St. Peter to send him straight back to the Holy Cross Cadet Camp forever. “That’s my idea of heaven,” he says.

  Bug has the best time of any of us at camp. He spends all his time chasing the girls up the shore. One night last year, after supper, he brought three girls and a few bottles of spruce beer to the bunkhouse, and we played strip poker. But the girls wouldn’t take off their underclothes. Bug deliberately lost every game of blackjack so he could strip down fast, which made the girls giggle a lot. “Oh no,” he’d say, “I’m busted again. There goes another sock.”

  If he keeps up his shenanigans, Bug might not make it to camp this year. We’re all getting really worried about him. Ever since he caught McCann in the laundry room, he’s acting really crazy. Blackie was right. It was too good to believe that Bug wouldn’t get strapped. McCann said he was strapping him for what he said in class. But Blackie says he got it for blabbing about catching McCann in the act. He’s starting to act weird. Oberstein thinks there’s something seriously wrong with him. A disorder, Oberstein says.

  The first time it happened, we couldn’t believe our eyes. “Firebug,” Murphy howled with delight. Bug clicked a cigarette out of his case, lit it, put the lit end in his mouth and kept it there while I counted out a full twenty seconds on my Mickey.

  “He eats fire,” Kavanagh said. “He actually eats fire.”

  “The incombustible man,” Oberstein called him.

  The next incident was out behind the soccer field. We were at the incinerator, roasting potatoes on hangers, and Bug bragged that he could pass his hand through the fire without getting burned. Blackie told him not to do it, but we all dared him, and he did it as we chanted four Mississippis. He got a bad burn. Soot blackened his skin, but he just laughed and squeaked that it didn’t hurt him one bit. But we all knew it did. We were all thrilled at first, then upset. Blackie brought him to the infirmary, where Rags bandaged his hand in gauze and salve. Rags was really concerned. He said it was a pretty bad burn, and asked them a lot of questions. Bug said he did it playing by the incinerator. Rags said Bug would have to go to the hospital for a checkup if it didn’t heal quickly.

  “I’m fireproof,” Bug bragged all week.

  “You’re mad,” everyone said.

  All week we told him he was crazy. But he just laughed at us, craving all the attention and getting saucier by the second.

  Then it happened again. At the Bat Cave. He tried the cigarette trick again and burned the inside of his mouth. “The most unkindest burn of all,” Murphy said. It musta really hurt because Bug was hell to live with all week. When we told him he was really gonna hurt himself, he taunted us by taking off his shoes and socks and wiggling each bare foot close to the flames. He put them so close, the skin around his toenails became an ugly red. Oberstein insisted he had acquired some abnormality. The more attention we gave him, the cockier he became.

  “You can roast a wiener while I put my foot in the fire,” he boasted. “I’ll keep it there till the wiener’s done. If my foot burns, I’ll stick my own wiener in the fire.” He wanted to try it, but we wouldn’t let him.

  “Gotta stop playin’ with fire, Bug,” Blackie almost begged. “You better not let the brothers know about it. The brothers find out about it, you’ll go to the Mental.”

  “How can you even think of putting your hand over a flame?” Ryan said. “Christ.”

  “I told you, Einstein, I’m like the superheroes. Invincible!”

  “Jesus, this’ll be a real problem for all of us if the brothers find out,” Blackie said.

  It was a while before Bug played with fire again. Dared by a few doubters at the Bat Cave one day, he took a hunting knife and heated it until it scorched the wood. Then he stroked his arms with the red-hot blade. He dropped the knife after a few seconds, but got another bad burn.

  With each new gamble with fire, he became more arrogant and smart-assed, looking down his nose at the dumbos, as he calls us.

  Blackie has started protecting him more than ever. Anything his heart desires, all Bug has to do is hint at it and it is his. Blackie treats him like a prince, even though his sauciness never changes one bit. In fact, it has gotten worse. Bug takes advantage of our kindness. If there is an extra slice of bread on the plate at mealtime, in unison we ask him if he wants it. He curls his lip and sneers and says, “Naw! Gimme Ryan’s. He’s got the fattest one.”

  It’s an odd situation to be in. One minute you want to punch his lights out, but every other minute you’re looking over your shoulder to make sure he isn’t trying to play with fire.

  Worst of all, Oberstein’s worried that Blackie’s spending too much time worrying about Bug. “It’s taking his mind off the race,” he says. “It’s getting close. We gotta concentrate 100 percent on the marathon.”

  Bug Bradbury’s out on the window ledge. Bug’s on the window ledge. Bug Bradbury’s gonna kill himself. Bug’s on the window ledge. Bug’s gonna kill himself.

  The most criers I’ve ever heard. The word spreads fast. Bug’s out on the second-floor window ledge of St. Luke’s dorm, threatening to kill himself.

  At first, I think it’s a dare. Our new game, madman of the mount. Lots of summer days, after swimming in the pool, we change into our play clothes and play games in the big yard. Lately we’ve been playing a lot of madman of the mount. Bug usually wins. The way it works is somebody makes a crazy dare, like climb up on top of the fire escape and jump off. Once Ryan dared everyone to strip to their underwear and race around the yard yelling, “The British are coming. The British are coming.” Bug was buck naked before you could say Jack Robinson. Another time he jumped down the long flight of stairs by the chapel on a dare from Blackie and bloodied his head on the archway. Boom! Right in the forehead. Knocked him cold. We thought he’d never get up. But Bug’s tough as nails.

  I race to the window ledge and can tell right away it’s not a game. Bug is there, plain as day. And he’s dead serious about jumping. Nobody knows what got into him, why he went out on the ledge. Oberstein says he flipped because Madman Malone strapped him for telling lies. Bug has taken to telling a lot of lies lately. He can’t open his mouth without shooting the shit. And he’s become a Mount crier—the worst we’ve ever had. Canteen’s open. Canteen’s open. Canteen’s open. His favorite chant is always a lie. And he’s started stealing too. He steals things out of pockets and desks and lockers, but if you catch him in the act he yells “Fifth Amendment” and argues with you till he’s blue in the face. If you insist long enough, he hands the thing back to you, always shouting the same expression: “That’s your right
. To have it back. Take it, it belongs to you. That’s your right.” It’s like a game, and everyone except the brothers plays along.

  Murphy says Bug told Madman that Brother McMurtry wanted to meet him in the infirmary, it was an emergency. Madman raced to the infirmary for a meeting with a few empty beds. He’s become a compulsive liar, Oberstein says. He can’t help it. You might be walking to the cafeteria and bump into him, and he’ll tell you that Kelly’s been looking for you all day or that there’s mail for you, Ryan has it in his locker. Or he’ll tell you he saw a rat in the washroom. Or he’ll ask, dead serious, “Where are you goin’? We’re all spoze to be goin’ to the gym. C’mon, hurry up. Brother so-and-so just announced it on the PA when you were outside playing.”

  He lies like a trouper. One Saturday afternoon Ryan and Murphy were headed to Virginia Waters, and he gave them a couple of cans of beans and a loaf of bread and tea bags for a boil-up. He told them Brother Foster allowed him to take the supplies from the kitchen stores for a camping trip, and that they could take whatever they wanted. They took a ton of stuff and went off to Virginia Waters. When they got back, they got strapped for stealing.

  He not only lies all the time, he does crazy things. He’s constantly licking his hands. He has a really long tongue, and he licks one hand after the other. Starting with each wrist, he goes all the way to his fingertips. We’re all worried there’s something really wrong with him. Once he showed up for Chapel wearing only his shoes and socks. And he’s always burping in people’s faces. He told Oberstein that he burps because he got his tonsils out, which is a lie. He says before he got his tonsils out the gas bubbled up and used to go to his tonsils, hit them, and go back down. Now it just goes straight up and out through his mouth and into people’s faces.