The Gathering

by William X. Kienzle

  “Anyway,” Mike said, “we followed you, hanging back as far as possible so you wouldn’t become aware of us right behind you. When we walked into the Grill we didn’t see you at first. But Alice had told us about the rear booth. So we took the next booth. We didn’t want to butt in unless it was absolutely necessary—but when we heard you pleading with him to no effect—well, we knew it was time to step in.”

  Her escorts were aware that Rose now seemed to be walking quite normally. “I think you can operate on your own now,” Manny said. “How about it?”

  Rose tried a few steps. She had her sea legs again. She turned to Manny. “I’ll never forget what you did for me today. Never. Without the two of you I would feel that I didn’t have anything to live for.”

  “Whatever might have happened would not have been your fault,” Manny said. “Can’t you understand that? He was the rat. You were his victim. Remember that, and don’t ever forget it.” He smiled at her. “I’ll split now.” He looked at Mike, then back to Rose. “We were supposed to call and let Alice know you’re okay. Would you rather do that? I think you might want to talk to her yourself.”

  Rose nodded. “I’ll do it. And again”—she grasped both his hands—“thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “Come on, sis,” Mike said. “And whatever you do when we get home, don’t let Mom and Dad get a whiff of your breath. You smell like a brewery.”

  “Still?”

  “Still!”

  Manny felt like punching something … smashing something. His adrenaline was high. He half wished that Jorgenson had gotten physical. They both probably would’ve been bloody by this time. But it would have been a relieving flow.

  His habitual instinct to throw himself into a fight hell bent for leather had been muted. He attributed that mostly to the seminary.

  Early on, the rector had made it crystal clear to the new seminarians in the ninth grade that fighting would not be tolerated. And that fighting was not only forbidden but could lead to expulsion.

  Manny did not want to be expelled. As a result, he tried as diligently as possible to suppress this combative propensity of his and to settle disagreements reasonably and without escalation.

  He sincerely thought today’s altercation might have been an exception to the rule. Still, he was glad he wouldn’t have to excuse himself for having come to blows.

  Manny decided to walk a bit before going home. He needed to cool off, dissipate the adrenaline so that by the time he got home he could act as if nothing had happened. Concealing his feelings would be easier now than it would be if he had to greet his parents with torn clothing and a bloodied face.

  Peace! There was a lot to be said for it. Getting through today’s confrontation without throwing a single blow seemed to him very definite progress in self-control.

  What would he do if Jorgenson followed through on that threat of getting even?

  I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

  NINETEEN

  LITTLE BY LITTLE, Stanley Benson was accepted into the fivesome of Bob Koesler, Mike and Rose Smith, Alice McMann, and Emanuel Tocco.

  There was no perceptible reason for his admittance to this coterie. Granted, Stanley was the classmate of Mike and Manny. But an onlooker wouldn’t have known it. Stanley just didn’t seem to fit in anywhere.

  With the exception of this small circle no one took him seriously. He occupied a seat in class. He participated in compulsory school activities.

  Occasionally, he attended varsity basketball games. Bob, now in college, played on the college varsity, while Manny starred for the high school team. Also on the high school team was Mike Smith, mainly in a benchwarming role.

  And then there was that walk around and around the huge playing fields. Now, albeit rarely, Bob and Stan might be joined by Manny or Mike, or both. But their addition to the core duo was generally the result of being in the company of Bob. And because, for short recreation periods, the walk was the exercise of choice.

  Bob was aware that when he and Stan were by themselves, the younger boy chattered on about many things. Those who knew him no more than peripherally—that would include most of the others—just drew a blank when it came to his evaluation.

  In class he was what might be termed mediocre—neither bright nor ignorant. He passed his tests with room to spare. Still, he remained little more than a body filling a space.

  Before Stan entered the seminary he knew practically no one in his age group. Aside from his parents, he was close to no one, not even schoolmates. As for those who were assigned to serve Mass, when they condescended to show up, Stan would have a few words of greeting. He was never abrasive or mean-spirited, but never offered more than a casual hello. He was grateful for their company; it saved him from having to relate to the once distant, now overly familiar Father Simpson.

  Because Bob Koesler willed it so, Stanley had his first peer friend. Stan had initiated the bonding. And, much as he would a poor waif, Bob had accepted Stan. In so doing, he had, in effect, invited the boy to come close and to open up.

  Each year, the seminary rector delivered a lecture on what he liked to call “particular friendship.” Since this sermonette was preached once at the beginning of each school year, any student who survived both high school and college heard the talk eight times.

  And such a student would eventually find the theologate rector lecturing on the same subject. So those who endured all the way through high school, college, and theology would have been exposed to the subject twelve times.

  During these repetitions, it might dawn on the student that the rector was referring to homosexual dalliance. Little time was spent treating heterosexual relationships. Thus, over the years, the seminarians learned, almost by osmosis, that females were the Enemy. Of course, as long as there were no females in the seminarians’ lives, there couldn’t be any problem relating to heterosexuality.

  As mentioned, the seminary’s objective was to form the asexual macho male. Not a simple task, but in a strange way it made sense. Quite simply, there was no expression of sex either in the seminary or the priesthood. Sexual activity was appropriate only within the state of matrimony. And then, only when the expression was open to procreation.

  Everything else was forbidden. And most everything else was “intrinsically evil,” a mortal sin. That included everything from masturbation to orgies.

  Stanley Benson learned all this in an incoherent way. The elementary school he attended tiptoed around the subject. In the seminary the teaching was confusing and embarrassing, particularly to the priest-teacher whose lot it was to explain the subject.

  Nor did he receive any enlightenment at home. His mother thought his father should be the author of one or more man-to-man talks. His father thought someone in Stan’s school would surely inform him about the birds and the bees. In fact, Stan’s dad was not even certain just how it worked for the birds and the bees.

  The bottom line was that Stanley knew little outside of the obvious fact that boys and girls, men and women, were different from each other—and that, somehow, women had babies.

  It was while he was in mid high school that Stanley had his first nocturnal emission, or wet dream.

  Bewildered, he didn’t know what to make of it. He couldn’t recall ever having wet the bed. If he had, he’d been too young to remember it. He was most reluctant to ask any of his priest-professors. Not one gave any indication that he wanted to be of help with this type of problem.

  So, in one of those walks around the playing field with Bob Koesler, Stan brought up the subject.

  Fortunately, Bob’s experience with wet dreams was a year earlier than Stan’s. And that seemed natural, since Bob was a year older than Stan. Bob knew, from his own experience, that what bothered Stan most was the accompanying sense of guilt. That Stan had brought his problem to Bob was a rare blessing for the younger boy.

  “Stan,” Bob said, as they rounded the turn, “I did some checking around and I asked some questio
ns. What I can tell you is that it’s a natural occurrence. It happens to everybody. It’s natural. There’s nothing wrong. It is not a sin.”

  “Girls too?”

  “Girls too, what?”

  “Girls have wet dreams?”

  Koesler stopped walking. So, also, did Stan.

  “I don’t know,” Bob confessed. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “If you find out, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  He did find out. And he did tell Stan.

  Even in the face of opposition from every side—home, school, Commandments, rules—nonetheless sex was a force with which to contend.

  One could suppress it, confine it under the surface—but, like a cork, it tended to resurface. And it continued to be mysterious and confusing.

  Stan had what might be described as a natural curiosity about the feminine sex. He had few resources to satisfy that obsession. For studies of human anatomy, there was the National Geographic—particularly when the magazine featured an article such as a study of equatorial tribes. For inhabitants of such areas there was little covering of breasts or buttocks. There was not all that much, if any, complete nudity in those pages. But the Geographic came closer to displaying the unclothed body than any other general magazine of that time. And the seminary library did carry the National Geographic.

  As copies of this magazine piled up, those issues that featured exploring the North or South Pole remained in pristine condition, while those that showed the state of undress in places too hot for clothing were dog-eared nearly to shreds.

  Sex was a subject that fascinated adolescent boys. And they reacted adolescently.

  However, it puzzled Stanley more than it aroused him. He seemed more interested in the near-nude males than the near-naked females.

  He wondered if something was wrong here. He might not have known that his reaction would be termed “unnatural,” “gravely sinful,” “barbaric.” All he knew was that he was more physically aroused by males than by females. He didn’t know why. Nor did there seem to be anything he could do about it.

  What was natural to him was unnatural to most others. Not knowing what was happening—or what had happened—to him was frightening. One thing he did know was that he had to fight this concern alone. This was not a case of lack of coordination, or awkwardness in athletics, or walking around that stupid circle.

  The question of whether he was homosexual was vital not only to his presence in the seminary but to his entire lifestyle. Stan had been presented with a dilemma that defied a facile solution.

  Granted that he would become a priest and that he would keep all the rules, he would never know exactly what his sexual orientation was.

  He would never know what sexual preference was his since he would never lie with either male or female. The prospect of “never” was so final. The thought caused him to question again whether he belonged in the seminary much less in the priesthood.

  Resolving the ultimate question, as it always did, as well as every correspondingly similar question, was the awareness of his mother, her joy in his vocation—and her bitter disappointment should her dream of his priesthood go down the drain.

  So, the only practical question was the public stance he would assume with regard to what he felt. Should he sympathize with the plight of the homosexual? Should he glory in the religiously correct stance of the heterosexual?

  But each time he pondered this, he came to the same conclusion: He must, he knew, straddle the fence, as he ended up doing in each and every case. He would take neither side.

  Stan was getting so tired of exhibiting a slithering backbone. But he had to face the fact that this would be his life, courtesy of his loving mother and his meddlesome, officious priest, Father Simpson.

  TWENTY

  IT WAS 1947. Bob Koesler was entering the second year of college. Mike Smith, Manny Tocco, and Stanley Benson were entering their first year of college.

  What was happening to them could not hold a candle to the changes experienced by Rose Smith and Alice McMann.

  They had been accepted as postulants, probationary candidates for membership in the religious order of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They were seeking acceptance by the same order of nuns who had taught them from grade school through high school.

  The postulants quickly learned that it would not be an easy life.

  Symbolic of their “death” to the secular world, they dressed entirely in black, in the first of the habits they would wear on their progress toward final vows.

  They would begin their academic study as college students, taking subjects such as English, history, and math. They would be affiliated with Marygrove College, while living full time at the Monroe Motherhouse. Academic success was of prime importance: They were seeking membership in a teaching order.

  Alice, of course, knew this going in. She was not strong in the three R’s. That was why her first inclination had been to join an order with the option of nursing rather than teaching. In the end, though, she went along with Rose to Monroe and the teaching nuns.

  In the early years in the convent, the postulant, and later the novice, would be testing this new life to learn whether this might be God’s will for a lifelong vocation. But much, much more than that, the IHM order would be testing these young women.

  The administrators looked for strengths and weaknesses. They looked for fidelity and humility. The spirit of poverty, chastity, and obedience—the three vows that would bind the professed to God in a special way.

  Having stood the test of all this scrutiny, entrants prepared to test their vocation as postulants—probationary candidates. If successful, the next two years they would be novices. The first of those years was termed a canonical year, during which they took no secular courses. Instead, they studied such Church-related subjects as theology, Scripture, and chant. After their second novitiate year they took the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, for a three-year period. This period was followed by temporary vows for another two years. Then came final vows—ostensibly forever.

  It was a program tested over centuries that gradually led to a total gift of self to God. After being received into the order, on the ring finger of the right—not left—hand the professed wore a wedding ring. This signified that they were “brides of Christ.”

  Where the priest on ordination became an “alter Christus”—another Christ—the professed nuns became brides of Christ.

  Other Christs and brides of Christ; two groups who in theory might be presumed to be made for each other, yet who in actuality could not be further isolated as far as marriage was concerned.

  Little by little, the IHM postulant was introduced to a swamp of rules and regulations.

  In the beginning, for instance, postulants could entertain visitors. However, the nuns themselves, after final vows, were not allowed to attend the funeral of both parents, only one. Rules such as these could test one’s wholehearted submission to obedience.

  Alice, Rose, and all the other young women, most of them fresh out of high school, walked through the doors of the motherhouse to study, to learn, to test, and to be studied and tested.

  Once inside the motherhouse, the postulants saw—most of them for the first time—the marble staircase that everyone was forbidden to use.

  Welcome to a mysterious life.

  This was the final academic year that Bob Koesler would be commuting between home and school as a day student. This would also be the final academic year that he would wear exclusively lay clothing.

  Beginning with their third year of college, seminarians would wear a cassock and clerical collar. As long as the young man was within the seminary property—and not engaging in athletic events—he would be expected to wear this uniform during all waking hours.

  On vacation, at home, or for a special occasion, regular clothing could be worn—preferably a black suit, black shoes, black hat, white shirt, and a black tie
. Ordinarily, there was no problem with this ensemble. But occasionally …

  Some forty seminarians were going to a University of Michigan football game. They—all of them—wore the prescribed black suit and white shirt.

  The problem began when their bus driver lost his way. The contingent arrived at the stadium approximately twenty minutes late. A block of tickets awaited them. In the otherwise packed stadium, a vacant section of forty seats stood out like a sore thumb. Then the black-and-white-attired group arrived and one by one filed into their seats.

  The sight of all those solemn-faced black-suited young men processing in made the crowd gasp, then laugh. Soon, members of the Michigan journalism class were joined by the opposing team’s journalists—both factions attempting to interview the young men. Each team figured the other had hired these young men to pose as morticians, there to bury the opponent’s team.

  The seminarians were thrilled—ecstatic—to be permitted to wear the cassock and collar, a distinctly priestly garb. For each seminarian, to one degree or another, desperately wanted to become a priest.

  Next year, this distinction would be Koesler’s. The following year it would include Smith, Tocco, and Benson. But for now, they dressed in civvies.

  It was just as well. On their commutes, they rode streetcars that were usually crowded. Had they been wearing clericals, things would have been awkward, to say the least. In civvies they were just students boning up for class. Which—after all, was exactly who they were and what they were doing.

  Koesler, Smith, and Tocco had long since perfected their scheduling. They almost always met simultaneously at the corner of Vernor and Junction to catch the streetcar and ride together to school. Frequently, depending on what extracurricular activities might delay one or another of them, they would meet for the homeward trip.

  Stanley Benson figured in none of this. The Redeemerites lived in southwest Detroit. Benson lived in west-central Detroit. Their commuting paths were separate.