by Leo Furey
“Well, Ladybug, you’re gone now . . . Flyin’ home. And with no warnin’. Nobody knew you were so sick. Don’t wanna talk about the Judgment Day or Jesus and Lazarus. Nor the Holy Ghost. Nothin’ like that. Just wanna talk to you, like you’re still here, listenin’. ’Cause, in a way, you are. I believe . . . believe . . . you are. Let’s talk like you’re in the cafeteria, washin’ cups and shinin’ plates. Like you’re fightin’ with Ryan for the first extra slice. Or saucin’ someone between classes. Or askin’ Father Cross for help with homework. Or yellin’ at us from your wheelchair or that high perch at St. Pete’s Bowling Alleys . . .
“You’re the sauciest one ever to come through the Mount, Bug. The sauciest of the saucy. That’s why we’ll miss you so much. That shrill tongue was always speakin’ the truth. That squeaky voice . . . always teasin’, always saucy . . . always there. It’s gone now. Gone.”
Blackie lifts his curly head up, flashes his gold tooth and chuckles, “We all got moments we had with him. Bug Bradbury moments. The one I remember most, my best Bug moment, hit me yesterday. Like lightnin’. It was a rainy day. We were playin’ baseball. We were in the dugout lazin’ during a break. Remember that old gray chair in the dugout at St. Pat’s Field, the one Bug loved to stand on so much? That day I pulled the pegs outta that chair, and when Bug stood on it . . . bang . . . like the walls o’ Jericho, he came tumblin’ down. I laughed so hard. Bug stared at me with blinkin’ eyes. I thought I was in for somethin’ real saucy. Thought he’d say somethin’ mighty mean. But no, he just sat there with his head cocked and said, ‘Blackie, how come black people don’t have no money? Whites have money . . . the English, the French, the Italians, the Russians. The Asians got money. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans. Even poor Newfoundlanders got money. But not black people. How come there’s no Bank of Africa, and nobody in Africa ever has any money?’ I was stunned. I said, ‘Bug, that’s a good question. But I dunno the answer.’”
Blackie looks down at the coffin, then looks up at us and says, “Bug was always squawkin’ about the good times.” He looks at Ryan and says, “What ’bout you? What was your best time with Bug?”
Silence.
“Ryan?” Blackie’s voice is thin and raspy.
Tears fill Ryan’s eyes. “The fires . . . at the Bat . . .” Ryan starts to sob, and rests his head on the pew in front of us.
“Yeah,” Blackie says. “Old Bug loved makin’ the splits as much as he loved makin’ the fires blaze up. What ’bout you, Oberstein? What was your best with Bug?”
Oberstein’s eyes are glassy, and he looks at Blackie dreamily. Then his cheeks flush redder than I’ve ever seen. Blackie knows he can’t speak.
“Your best, Murphy?”
“Once, he asked me if I was lost in the woods for a week, just me and my dog, would I kill him for food? I said yes, and asked Bug what he’d do, and he snapped back at me that he never would. He said I should be ashamed of myself for even thinking of hurting an animal, ’cause you can always depend on an animal, especially a dog.”
Blackie shakes his head in agreement. “Your best, Kavanagh?”
Kavanagh laughs as if he’s competing for a prize. “The time he lost his socks at Virginia Waters, and we almost drowned trying to get them back,” Kavanagh almost shouts the words. His jaw hangs wide open when he finishes, waiting for Blackie’s approval.
“Yeah. We all got our Bug moments . . .”
Without being asked, O’Grady’s voice sings out. “I loved watching him take a cigarette out of that little silver case he had. It was always so cute the way he slipped it out with one hand and tapped it on the case. And I loved watching him smoke it right down to the filter. He smoked harder than any of us.”
Blackie looks around the chapel. His thick lips tighten, and he smiles painfully. “Yeah, he smoked them suckers hard,” he says.
There is a rushing of hot steam from a radiator, like a faint cheer. Then Blackie looks at me. I think of telling a lie, but know it will be too hard to make something up, there in the chapel with the coffin so close I could reach out and touch Bug’s face. And the memories flood back. I feel really bad, worse than I did at the beginning of the Mass. All I can think about, my Bug Bradbury moment, is that time in the gymnasium during the examination of conscience when Oberstein and Murphy and me beat Bug until he could hardly breathe.
“Sumos. Sumos and bowling,” I stutter, and rest my head on the pew in front of me as Ryan had done.
“Gonna miss you, Bug,” Blackie says. “Fly away home, Ladybug. Never gonna be the same.” Then he whispers, “Goodbye . . . Goodbye, saucy boy.”
We all just about die on the spot. I look at Oberstein, then at my Mickey. The seconds that go by are death-row ticks. Three long minutes before old Monsignor Flynn starts coughing and gargling and starts up the Mass again. And then Oberstein starts singing the Laudate and there isn’t a dry eye in the chapel.
We couldn’t have picked a better person in the world to say what we all felt. Jesus himself couldn’t have done any better. And that’s a fact. Blackie’s the best. We’d all follow him to the moon and back. We are all so stung by him, by what he said, we stay frozen until communion time, when Brother McMurtry has to remind us to approach the altar rail to take the host.
Everyone at the Mount feels really bad after the funeral. A collective case of the spells, as Oberstein puts it. Every boy dresses in his school clothes, even the little ones, and we walk down Torbay Road to Mount Carmel Cemetery, where we bury Bug. Then we walk back. Nobody says a word going or coming, not even the little ones. To get my mind off Bug, I think about the big race. It’s a bad time to get a collective case of the spells, with the marathon only a few days away.
“Bug sure picked a bad time to die,” Murphy moans, raking his hair with his big fingers.
I can’t seem to hold the good memories at all. The times we fished Virginia Waters, the boil-ups at the Bat Cave. The nights we stole a fresh loaf or sneaked out for a smoke. The walks to Bannerman Park on weekends to meet with girls. Bug, the fire-eater. Bug, the human bowling pin, in full flight at St. Pete’s Alleys. The Mount Kildare Raffle. Bug racing around the floor in his white apron, a fistful of tickets high above his head squeaking out the prices: “Two for five, four for ten, ten big chances for twenty-five cents . . .” I can’t seem to hold a single picture in my mind for any length of time. And I don’t think I will for a long while to come. All I’ll ever be able to let in is that one picture—my Bug Bradbury moment—that day in the gymnasium during the examination of conscience when we beat Bug until he could hardly breathe. It’s funny how the worst things linger on when someone’s gone.
In the TV room after Mass we all tell Blackie that he gave a beautiful tribute. He just cleans his glasses with his sweater, taps his tooth and smiles that lazy smile of his. He says nothing.
“I think they’ll forget about the wine stealing now,” Oberstein says.
“Jury’s still out,” Blackie says. “But Saturday’s almost here. Everyone ready? No runnin’ the next two days. Sleep and eat.”
“What’s the weather forecast?” I ask.
“Rain,” Oberstein says.
“Shit,” Blackie says.
“Jesus, Bug,” Ryan starts to cry. “You Brutus.”
“Shhh.” Blackie raises his hand. “It’s done. Maybe not . . . Maybe he done us the biggest favor of all. Gotta hand it to the Bug. Never said a peep ’bout the marathon. Maybe a good thing you laid that beatin’ on him after all.”
We all look at each other and shake our heads. Then Blackie laughs the loudest laugh we’ve ever heard.
“Mayday! Mayday!” Oberstein whispers as McCann drags out the podium.
Brother McMurtry stands at the front of the cafeteria and claps his hands three times.
Silence. We watch the muscles working in his jaw, his wolf eyes gleaming.
“Mr. Neville, stand up, please.”
Blackie stands.
“It seems that Mr. Nev
ille has done something wrong, boys, something terribly wrong. Something sinful, in fact. Something he has admitted, by his own hand . . . and confirmed by Mr. Bradbury. He has performed a little trick on the brothers and Monsignor Flynn. We have another Houdini in our midst. But it was not an impossible trick, mind you. He hasn’t turned water into wine or anything like that.” McMurtry wrinkles his lip into a half smile and holds up the letter Oberstein and I wrote. “Mr. Neville has admitted that he is a thief. You all know your catechism, boys. You all know the eighth commandment. And what is the eighth commandment, Mr. Neville?”
“Thou shalt not steal.”
“And Mr. Neville has not simply stolen, boys. He is not guilty of simply stealing. No, boys. Mr. Neville has stolen from our chapel, thereby committing a more serious sin.”
“A sacrilege,” McCann interjects, looking on, one hand on his hip.
“No. No, not a sacrilege, Brother McCann. But quite a serious sin, nonetheless. More serious than stealing.”
Silence. Murphy bites his parched lip. Ryan is so tense he’s shaking. He rubs his sweaty hands along his pants. Oberstein stares at Blackie. We’re all thinking about the same thing: the day Ryan was led in on a rope and strapped.
“Come forward, Mr. Neville.”
Blackie walks to the front of the cafeteria. McMurtry uncoils his strap. Sunlight streams in through the window beside him.
“I’ve been told, boys, that there is an unwritten rule among you regarding strapping. A code of sorts, regarding crying or, rather, not crying. And I’ve been told that your ring leader, Mr. Neville, has a reputation of not even blinking when he is strapped. Is that correct, Mr. Neville?”
Blackie is silent.
“Well, we shall soon see if our young thief is capable of repentance. Hands up, sir.” Whack. The strap hits Blackie’s splayed fingers. Whack. McMurtry’s wolf eyes show no mercy. “So you don’t want to talk about . . .” Whack. Whack. “. . . Jesus or the Judgment Day.” He pauses and grins. Whack. With each swing of the strap there’s an angry murmur, a cop movie murmur. Whack. “Or about Lazarus.” Whack. Whack. There is a sheen of sweat on McMurtry’s face.
Oberstein keeps count. Tears are rolling down his cheeks as he raises ten fingers.
As McMurtry delivers another blow, I feel the pain. I know what it’s like. A bubble surrounds you, and you can only pray that it will soon burst. And that you won’t break the secret code: Be a member of a private Klub, the Dare Strapping Klub. Membership is free. There is only one rule. Don’t cry. Don’t even blink.
“Blink, Blackie,” Murphy whispers.
“Blink, Blackie,” Ryan echoes.
“Think of Floyd Patterson!” I want to scream. “There’s only a few seconds left in the round. Hang on.”
Blackie doesn’t make a sound. I close my eyes and see the blinking Celtic cross.
“Jesus, Bug . . .” Oberstein sighs.
Kavanagh says, “Blink, Blackie, please blink.”
Soon our entire table is saying it: “Blink, Blackie, blink.”
“Quiet!” McCann yells.
The strapping reminds me of the gunshots at the beginning of The Rifleman. I close my eyes and wish Chuck Connors would race in and save Blackie.
King Kelly’s table joins in: “Blink, Blackie, blink.” The chant drowns out the strapping.
“Quiet! Everyone. Quiet!”
The cafeteria becomes a perfect chorus. Even the little ones are chanting “Blink, Blackie, blink.” They think they’re part of a spontaneous game. There’s a smirk on McMurtry’s face that seems to say, See, even your friends are with me. But we’re not. We want Blackie to blink so the strapping will stop.
McCann races to a table and cuffs a few boys. He punches Kelly in the head. The chorus grows louder: “Blink, Blackie, blink!”
“Quiet!” McCann screams. “Quiet!”
McMurtry stops the strapping. Blackie’s hands are still held high. The chorus falls silent.
“You may go to your dorm, Mr. Neville.”
There is a deep silence throughout the rest of the meal and during the washup. Nobody says a word until chores are done.
“How many?” Murphy asks on the way to the dorm.
“Lost count,” Oberstein sighs.
“At least twenty,” Ryan says.
“But he didn’t blink,” Murphy says. “Bastard didn’t make him blink.”
“God-damn, Bug,” Ryan says.
Blackie’s in the dorm washroom doing what we all do after a good strapping: scrubbing down—running cold water on his burning hands. We do it after a really cold run too. It helps a lot. Ryan is really upset. He cries and mumbles all the way up to the dorm that Blackie didn’t blink. He’s remembering what it’s like to be strapped that way.
“He didn’t make you blink, Blackie. The bastard didn’t . . .”
Blackie lifts his head, looks in the mirror and stares at the four of us hunched behind him. There’s a terrible strain on his face. It looks swelled and cold with shock, and his eyes are red and shrunken.
“I blinked,” he says, lowering his head to hide the tears.
19
* * *
O’Grady’s found his marbles. O’Grady’s found his marbles.
IT’S A DECOY CRIER. O’Grady will never find his marbles. He’ll never have any to find. The crier is Kavanagh. It means there’s an emergency meeting for anyone who can make it.
Besides the checker system, we have a secret writing system for emergencies. If a Klub member wants to send a message to someone about an emergency meeting, but doesn’t want anyone else to know, we have a really good method. We write using pee on the back of an innocent-looking piece of paper—a drawing or a comic book cover. The dried urine always remains invisible until you hold it next to a hot radiator or some other heat source. It’s a great way to get a message around without others knowing about it. The day before the marathon, Oberstein passes me an odd-looking postcard, and I know right away that there is an important message and I need to get to a heat source fast. I hold the postcard near the flame of Rowsell’s Zippo and watch the words materialize: emerg mtn incnratr 5:00.
At the incinerator, we learn that Shorty Richardson has the flu. He isn’t in bad shape. It looks like he’ll be okay for the marathon, but Oberstein is worried that he might get sicker. “‘To everything there is a season,’” Oberstein says. Father Cross has taken his temperature a dozen times. And it’s always only slightly above normal.
Blackie’s beside himself. He’s resolved, as Bug would say. He’s downcast at the meeting. Like he could get the spells. He hasn’t been the same since Bug left the community, as the Kaddish says.
“Never thought there’d be cause for another meeting,” Kavanagh says, and looks helplessly at Oberstein, who organizes a team to make sure Shorty gets a good night’s sleep and liquids throughout the night.
“Father Cross, you’re now Doctor Cross,” Blackie says.
The peashooters, who are responsible for stealing their own beans from the kitchen storeroom, are given the job of stealing packages of Tang and cans of apple juice. O’Connor volunteers to steal aspirin from the infirmary. Blackie tells the peashooters to have extra ammunition for the marathon, just in case Shorty’s still sick and needs a little help to win the race. He puts Murphy in charge of the shooters.
“Tomorrow’s the big day. Practice all day and all night,” Oberstein says. “We want deadly accuracy, a bull’s-eye every shot.”
We think the meeting’s over, but we’re in for a surprise. Blackie gets that faraway look in his eyes and stares off into space. “I wish I was a ladybug,” he says. “I’d just fly away home.” He nods to Kelly and O’Connor to stand guard at each end of the swimming pool. Father Cross gives Blackie a new pair of Congress sneakers. “Thank you, Jesus,” Blackie says, and takes off his old ones and throws them into the incinerator. He laces up his new sneakers. “Goin’ all the way to New York City in these,” he says. “Gonna do the impossible trick.”
>
Sighs and murmurs all around. The two guards turn and look at Blackie.
“Last meeting of the Dare Klub . . . for Blackie,” he says, and lowers his head. “Soon I’m no longer gonna be with you.”
The runners sense what’s up. The others stare in astonishment.
“My last day at the Mount.”
More murmuring. There’s a long silence as he fixes his dark eyes on us, a steady beam.
“You know me. How I love the backup. In baseball. In life. Had a backup all along.”
I look at Oberstein. He knows what’s coming and he’s crying as if his heart is broken.
“Tomorrow I’m gonna slip away, run my own marathon, a Comrades. Got some runnin’ and some hitchin’ to do. To Argentia. The ferry to the mainland. Then to Harlem. Gotta make it to the ferry in less than six hours. Be slippin’ away in the mornin’ when we head out for the regatta. Marathon starts ’round noon. Ferry’s leavin’ at eight. The brothers won’t be back for the little ones till six. I’ll be long gone. On my way to Nova Scotia. To freedom.”
“I wanna go with you,” Kavanagh cries out.
“Me too,” Ryan says.
“And me,” Murphy cries.
Everyone volunteers to go.
“He’ll be killed if he’s caught,” I tell Oberstein. “We gotta stop him.”
“‘He’s as constant as the northern star,’” Oberstein says. “Since the strapping, nothing will change his mind. The rabbis say, ‘When one must, one can.’ Blackie must.”