The World in Pancho's Eye - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  Brother Damian slept in a loft in the shop. Mikey wondered about that. All the other Brothers except the prefects who slept in alcoves in the dormitories slept on the second floor of the main school building. Brother Prosper lived in the infirmary in case somebody needed doctoring in the night. Nobody needed Damian to be in the loft of the shop and recreation building, but Mikey did not know any boarder who was surprised that he roomed in a whole building by himself away from the community Mikey guessed that he was not wanted in the Brothers' community, either. He wore civilian clothes most of the time. Brother George, the senior shop teacher, wore his black robe everywhere with sawdust all over the front of it. Brother Damian wore his black robe for formal school ceremonies and daily Mass and benediction, but the rest of the time he was in khaki.

  Mikey did not need to have anything to do with Brother Damian and neither did any other Little Boy, or any boy who did not take shop classes. That was the way Mikey liked it. He was in the recreation and shop room one day playing doubles in Ping-Pong with the Enriquezes when a long-awaited electric saw was delivered to the shop. The day was cold and a wind was blowing, so all the boarders were inside during the period between the last class of the school day and first hour of study hall. Everybody was supposed to be glad the saw had arrived, and Damian purred as he set it up in the middle of the shop. He balanced it, fired it up, and sawed the length of a plank in half, then another and another. He took out the circular saw he had been using and installed a cylindrical planer. He shaved the bottom off a short board, then another. On the third board he shaved the ends of the fingers off his right hand.

  So Mikey saw him get his punishment. He had watched the demonstration with everybody else in the room; only he stayed farther away than anybody else. He always tried to keep a roomful of other boys between himself and Damian. Now the very fingers Damian loved the most had been shaved down to nubbins. Mikey watched Damian roll on the floor, howling like an animal and trying to stop the blood from spurting out of the stumps of his fingers and he thought, "See what you get for trying to play with my tallywagger?" He was sure the man had done the same thing to other boys and maybe was still doing it, so he got what he gave. Mikey's sense of dread that the monster would surprise him again had been bad, but the score was even now and Mikey could forgive him. He could not watch him roll and listen to him howl and not feel sorry for him.

  Damian became custodian of the music room after that. The destruction of those fingers proved Mikey's faith in his Nina's God. Nobody had better try to commit a sin with an innocent boy because, Lord, look what surely would happen to him. The hand of God would saw off the most sensitive parts that he needed in the performance of his sinful deeds because innocence would be protected. Tommy Franklin of the fifth grade was a tough athlete from La Canada street. He was a cousin of Skinny and Porky. The fifth grade was Mikey's fourth-grade team's toughest competitor. Tommy and Mikey liked each other because of this competition, as did other Canada Street boys from the public schools who played against Mikey. Mikey's bad luck was to always have the three worst weasels from Canada Street on his team.

  One Saturday afternoon Tommy was batting flies to the three Canada bullies on the playground. Mikey had never played the flies game. After a fielder caught three flies or six grounders, he took his turn at bat.

  Mikey stopped to watch and said, "Hit it hard, Tommy."

  Tommy took a full swing, batted Mikey over the left eye in the follow-through, and knocked him down with his blood pouring on the ground.

  Mikey was wide awake when he hit the ground and he looked up for help. Tommy turned his back, joined the three bullies, and ran away to Canada Street.

  The Enriquez brothers were nearby and saw the accident. Ignacio wrapped his shirt around Mikey's head and knotted it tightly. He and Carlos picked Mikey up by the feet and shoulders and ran to Brother Prosper's infirmary. Brother Prosper stopped the bleeding and taped the cut, then marched Mikey to Saint Joseph's hospital downtown at 12o per where a doctor put seven stitches above his eye cold turkey.

  Mikey never held the accident against Tommy Franklin, even though he was disappointed by his cowardice. He realized that Tommy acted naturally in the way of the other Franklins, as a wil goat would act in a crisis, a way that Mikey had never seen except in animals. He guessed that way of acting was a trait of cowards who were ashamed of who they were. They ran and hid in their holes when they were faced with trouble and might have to give their names.

  Tommy transferred to a public school where he did not compete in athletics against Saint Michael's. Toward the end of the year he came back, but he avoided Mikey and never looked him in the eye again. He did not compete in athletics again.

  The Canada bullies only smirked and turned away when Mikey asked why they ran away like cowards. He knew the reason. They would rather slink away and hide than be asked to help anyone who was bleeding. They never tried to hide the satisfaction they had enjoyed when they abandoned Mikey in trouble. Mikey knew personal victories in the individual sports of boxing and track. He did not have to worry about competition from the Canada Gang in boxing because a boy could get a bloody nose learning to box. He was a catcher in baseball and his foes certainly did not covet that position. Not one of them had the guts to be a catcher, especially after they all saw what an errant hardball tipped by a batter did to Mikey's face. Mikey kept the catcher's position, but he found a catcher's mask to wear after that.

  During boxing season Mikey did not see the bullies at all. They disappeared so completely that Mikey was not even aware they were in his classroom. They only reappeared after boxing was over. The Christian Brothers were fair, so no one could pass his classes as a gift. The weasels made their grades in class but did not put out any work anywhere else that anyone but the Brothers saw them do.

  Mikey threw in with the Brothers and took part in every activity they offered. Brother Louis said Mikey could be proud of the cut over his eye because its seven stitches were a school record. As far as Brother Louis knew, no varsity football player or boxer had ever needed more than three stitches to close a cut. Mikey had been so happy since Damian cut off his fingers that not even being laid low with a baseball bat could ruin his good humor. He did not miss an hour of his classes because of it.

  He had not been homesick or sorry for himself one minute since he arrived at Saint Michael's. He knew why Pancho turned away from him and was totally concerned with his own business when he was led away to work. Mikey was a colt in training like Pancho. He had been saddled, ridden, raced, worked, and taught on schedule continuously since the first day he arrived at Saint Michael's. He conceded that Maggie did right by putting him there. This was the kind of training he needed to be a good cowman.

  The Horsemen won the Thanksgiving Day football game against the Santa Fe High School Demons and that put a satisfying end to that year's football exertions of every boy at Saint Michael's. The victory gave Mikey proof of the existence of God and the power of prayer. If the Horsemen had lost that game it would have meant that God could turn his back on every Brother and boy at Saint Michael's, every nun and girl at Loretto, and all their alumni for all time. He hated to think about the sense of banishment they would all suffer if they ever lost a Thanksgiving Day football game to the Demons. He understood that the Horsemen had lost in other years, but he believed that was only because Mikey Summers was not there to bolster the team with his powerful prayers.

  The Day Shift basketball team was made up of little boarders from Mexico. Manuel Enriquez of Chihuahua and the Sonorans Michael Paul Summers, Rene Salido, Eugenio Sterling, and the Oviedo brothers made up the first team. Their only substitute was the little sissy boy named Forbes from Nogales, Sonora. He was two years older than Mikey, but only one grade ahead of him. This was his first year at Saint Michael's also. He was no athlete. He applied himself full-time to his studies, but he did not excel as a student. He wore glasses and was blonde, pretty, pink, and delicate as a girl. Mikey felt protective of him beca
use he turned to Mikey when bigger boys picked on him, and Mikey liked Forbes because he could talk in Spanish about home and friends on both sides of the Nogales line with him. Mikey, Forbes, and Manuel understood each other perfectly in Spanish, which they called "the Christian language."

  One Friday evening at the beginning of basketball season, the Day Shift played one fifteen-minute quarter against Harvey Grammar School before the varsity game. Rene Salido of the Horsemen Day Shift made the only basket scored by either team. The Brothers had issued purple bloomers and white undershirts to the Day Shift and the boys took such a razzing from their school-mates about the way their bloomers sagged that none of them wanted to play another preliminary basketball game. They had dreaded that they would have to play practically naked in front of the crowd, but when they were accused of wearing girls' bloomers,it was almost enough to make them quit basketball for life.

  Mikey bit his tongue and cut it during the game and Forbes substituted for him. At the infirmary, Brother Prosper sprayed the gash with Mercurochrome and turned him out.

  Forbes played the clarinet in the band, so he had gone to the music room for his instrument after the preliminary game. When Mikey came out of the infirmary, he heard someone call Forbes's name from the direction of the music room. Mikey thought every-body in the school except Brother Prosper and Brother Anect were in the gym for the game. All the buildings from the infirmary back to the dormitories were completely dark. The dim light over the door of the infirmary was enough so that Mikey could see the out-line of a black robe with the white bibbed collar of a Brother at the door of the music room. Forbes was running toward Mikey as though the owls were after him.

  "Come back, Forbes! It's no sin, it's no sin," the voice called, but Forbes kept running.

  "What's the matter, Forbes?" Mikey shouted when he recognized his friend.

  Forbes ran right by him toward the gym.

  Mikey saw the black robe go back inside the music room, then he ran and caught Forbes at the back door of the gym. He was crying.

  "What's the matter?" Mikey asked.

  "Nooo," Forbes said and jerked his arm away.

  Mikey grabbed him by both shoulders. "Tell me what's the matter, Forbes. I know what's the matter. Brother Damian tried to play with your thing, didn't he?"

  "Yes, Mikey, but don't say anything."

  "Don't worry. It wasn't the first time, was it?"

  "Don't say anything. I don't want anybody to know."

  "Don't worry about it. He won't do it anymore."

  The next day after their 1o AM shower and after they had dressed to go downtown to the show, Mikey took Forbes to Brother Benildus's office in the main building. No one was in the office, but the door was open. Mikey left Forbes inside, went to the Brothers' quarters on the second floor, and knocked on the door. Brother Adrian, another of Mikey's favorites, answered the door. "Well, hi, Summers,"' Brother Adrian said. "Whatchoo need?"

  Mikey's mouth turned down and gave him up by trembling at the corners, but he braced and said, "Brother, I have to talk to Brother Benildus."

  Brother Adrian looked closely into Mikey's face and said, "What's wrong, Michael Paul? Just one minute. Now, stay right there. Will you stay right there?" He closed the door and was gone. A few minutes later he came back, put his hand on Mikey's shoulder, and walked him back to the office.

  "Do you both want to talk to Brother Benildus?" Brother Adrian asked when he saw Forbes.

  Forbes only waited for Mikey to answer. "Yes, Brother," Mikey said.

  "You guys sit right there and Brother will be with you in one minute."

  Brother Adrian went out into the hall to watch for Brother Benildus and after a while he turned to the boys. "Here he comes," he said and walked away.

  The boys already knew Brother Benildus was coming. The brick building shook and he grunted, chugged, and huffed like a train. A great, fresh wind accompanied his arrival in the office. The boys stood up for him. He put his big hands on their shoulders, walked them to chairs in front of his desk, shut the door, sat at his desk, and looked Mikey in the eye.

  "Tell me," he said;

  Mikey was not one bit afraid or intimidated because he loved and trusted Brother Benildus.

  "Brother Damian has been bothering Forbes the way he bothered me when I first came here by trying to play with his parts."

  Brother Benildus was a dark-skinned Cajun. If a man could mirror a thunderstorm, Brother Benildus became the picture of a thunderhead at twenty thousand feet split by lightning. He waited a full minute for the storm to wane, and then said, "Thank you for coming to me. Go back to your group."

  He stood up, put his hands on the boys' shoulders again, ushered them out into the hall, and walked away toward the Brothers' quarters without looking back.

  That evening after Mikey returned from the show and before he was to go to evening study hall, he went to the main building to get a book from his locker. As he climbed the stairs to a side door of the building he saw Damian arrive on the other side of the door with his suitcase. Mikey opened the door for him.

  "Oh, good, thank you, Summers," Damian said. He was dressed in his black dress suit, black overcoat, and hat.

  "Where you going, Brother Damian?" Mikey asked.

  "Oh, I've been transferred again." The man sighed. "I love Saint Michael's, but we religious have to be prepared for a transfer at any time, you know. I'm needed at a new station."

  Mikey did not want to be a hypocrite, but he did feel sorry for the darned pervert.

  "I'm sorry you're leaving," he said, only because he thought the man might want to hear it.

  "Well, that's, as I say, the life of a religious. Good-bye and good luck to you." He went down the stairs and toward the front gate with his suitcase in his good hand. Mikey went inside, stopped in the hall, and sighed.

  Brother Louis took over as custodian and director of the music room and he drafted Mikey for Long John Silver, an operetta for the Christmas program. Mikey had a good voice, so he was to play Long John himself with a pirate's black eye patch and a wooden parrot perched on his shoulder. He made it to the first dress rehearsal a week before the main performance, came down with the mumps, and was interned in Brother Prosper's infirmary. Forbes was given the role of Long John.

  The weather was stormy for the next ten days. Mikey did not cope well with cold weather. He had only seen snow once in his life in Nogales and it melted after one day. A week after he had arrived at Saint Michael's he stepped out of the dormitory in the morning and found the whole world covered by two feet of snow. New snow fell every three weeks after that.

  Most of the boarders' recreation was outdoors. The Brothers thought like Maggie: if a boy did not have a good reason to be inside, he was expected to stay out in the fresh air. The Brothers spent all their own free time outside. On Sunday mornings and afternoons they played a game they called "bool" that was like snooker pool on the ground with small, heavy, wooden balls. They threw out a small ball and then took turns lagging larger balls as close as they could to the little one. They spoke French in low voices throughout their serious game. They celebrated or mourned their shots modestly They did not shout in triumph, moan in defeat, or jump up and down, but the boys knew they enjoyed the game. All of them played and were passionate about the outcome, only quiet and dignified.

  After supper, the Brothers often walked in a black-robed horde around the football field to talk and say their rosaries. Inclement weather seldom kept them from it. Once in a while a Brother would join the boys in a touch football game or a game of five steps football, but he only stayed in the game for a few plays, then smiled, thanked the boys, and left.

  One day Mikey, Forbes, and Manuel were playing five steps in front of the study hall building and the ball stuttered out of bounds near Brother Benildus. The big man wore sturdy slippers with elastic sides. To the boys' surprise, he turned and caught the ball on the first bounce. Mikey was only thirty yards away from him, so he thought Brother Benild
us would only throw it back or kick it softly. He took three steps with expert form and punted the ball straight up with all his might. The ball spiraled almost out of sight above a hundred-foot cottonwood tree as though it would just keep on going and Brother Benildus's slipper spiraled right after it. Then the slipper spiraled down into Mikey's hands. The ball returned to earth later and bounced so high Mikey was glad he had not tried to catch it.

  Mikey took a long time learning to protect himself against the cold. He could not keep his feet dry. He did not own a pair of overshoes or rubbers. He lost his cap, his mittens, his earmuffs, his jacket, and both his sweaters early in that first year and went on freezing at play. One day, Brother Prosper saw him playing outside in a foot of snow bareheaded, with sopping feet, and in his shirt-sleeves and ordered him to report immediately to the locker room. He then borrowed a jacket for Mikey and took him on a forced march all the way downtown to be reoutfitted with warm clothing. Mikey balked at the purchase of overshoes or rubbers. He was too vain about his fleet-footedness to harness his feet with galoshes. After that he kept a better eye on his winter clothes, but he still could not learn to keep his feet dry.

  After his mumps cleared up, Brother Prosper released Mikey from the infirmary in time to go home the first day of Christmas vacation. The time in the infirmary had given him a chance to think about home because the radio was full of Christmas music and he was completely idle while his mumps went away. The Christmas music and programs on the infirmary radio made all sick boys think of their moms again. Mikey could not wait to see Maggie, Nina, Maudy, and Baxter. He would be glad to see everybody else, but he did not miss them. He supposed he had missed his mothers, sister, and dog before this, but not consciously. Now, he wanted to laugh and have fun with Maggie, Nina, Granny, Maudy Marie, and Baxter. He had learned a lot of new ways to laugh at Saint Michael's.