Hail Mary Corner. Brian Payton
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Todd’s uniform didn’t fit him properly. Although he had been tall for as long as I could remember, he hadn’t gotten around to letting out the hem of his pants or moving up a jacket size or two. It wasn’t that he was bulking up or growing a gut; it was only that his hands and legs poked down three or four inches more than normal. I always thought that made him look as if he had just landed after jumping feet first out of an airplane. He once told me that blazers with short arms were all the rage. He even pushed his sleeves a little farther up to exaggerate the effect. I actually saw this in a magazine and was momentarily impressed. It didn’t, however, explain Todd’s pants.
“This isn’t a coffee house,” Todd finally said, wiping his nose on the back of his wrist. “Pinch it off.”
I suppose in any other school, where there was at least the appearance of democratic institutions, a president was elected through a popularity contest. Not at Saint John the Divine. The upperclassman who had been at the school the longest, in this case Todd, was the Senior Senior. Todd had been doing time at Saint John’s since grade nine. So had three other members of the senior class. In a circumstance like that the line of succession became alphabetic. Todd Fowler preceded Tony Morino, Rob Parker, or Francis Tate. Therefore, Todd was Senior Senior. There were only nine seniors at Saint John’s that year and they mostly kept to themselves, with this one notable exception.
“W-w-what’s your p-problem, Todd?”
The fact that Connor was about half a foot shorter than Todd, and a year younger, didn’t matter much. Connor wasn’t afraid of anyone.
“Look, I’m just trying to do my job. Can’t you guys see you’re the last ones in here? These guys’ve got to clean this place up in the next five minutes.” Todd gestured toward Michael Ashbury and another cowering grade niner, one of those little anklebiters I saw nearly every day but whose name I never bothered to remember. You had to earn that. They were holding dishtowels and brooms at the ready. “You guys are holding them up.”
As Senior Senior, Todd operated as housemaster and ensured everything was cleaned on time and put in proper order before the first bell rang. Being Senior Senior was his lot in life. Granted, having to make sure washrooms, dorms, hallways, and classrooms were up to scratch wasn’t the most sought-after career. Because there was no cleaning staff at Saint John’s, we all had a part in the daily upkeep of the place.
Todd turned and stuck his finger in Michael Ashbury’s face. “Make sure these guys clean up after themselves, or I’m taking it out on you. Ass-berry.” He poked him hard in the chest.
Then the unthinkable occurred. Michael took a swing at Todd’s finger, but missed. Todd quickly retaliated with a sharp slap across the back of Michael’s head. We all jumped out of our chairs in unison, Jon’s tumbling backward and crashing on the floor. No one moved. There were no monks, no other witnesses The power structure had crumbled in less than a second.
“He’s with us,” Jon said. “Leave the kid alone.”
Todd glared back with an expression that was supposed to make us think he was barely in control of his superhuman rage. His reign had barely begun and already his bluff had been called. Michael’s breathing was fast and audible. I sat down and took a sip of my coffee to signal the end of the standoff. Todd shoved past Michael, then stomped down the hall to spread sunshine someplace else.
The first bell rang loud and long as I sauntered along the hall. Freshmen intensified their scurrying, grabbing forgotten books, checking and rechecking the numbers on classroom doors. I knew all too well where I was going. I also knew that after the first bell there would be five minutes until the second. I decided to spend them all on Mary.
The phone booth in the foyer provided the only real measure of privacy in the entire seminary. The heavy wooden door closed tight. It was quiet in there below the one naked bulb, which illuminated a tiny wooden shelf, a well-used phone book, and a telephone from the Middle Ages—heavy and black with a cloth-covered cord.
“Hello,” I said into the receiver. “Is your sister home? Well, isn’t she supposed to be going to school in an hour? Okay, I’ll wait.” The seconds ticked by. Finally I heard Mary slide across the linoleum in her slippers. “I was just about to head to class and I was thinking about you,” I said. “I can’t wait to see you. Will you be here Sunday? Actually it’s 7:58. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that when I’m lying in bed tonight, just before I fall asleep, I’ll be thinking about you. If you think about me at the same time, it’ll almost be like we’re in bed together.”
The second bell rang as I approached the classroom door. I turned the handle and bounded in when the ringing stopped. Father Gregory looked up from his notebook, then back down again. “Our first class together and you’ve already used up your one and only favour. Take your seat, William, then you can tell us your thoughts on transubstantiation.”
“Transubstantiation,” I said, en route to my desk, “is...a...central tenet of our faith.”
“Sit down.”
“Turning bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ,” I said. “But the appearance of bread and wine remains.”
He flipped through his folder and read something, while we sat at our desks writing the date at the top of blank sheets of notebook paper. The entire junior class was there, staring straight ahead, waiting for the start of what should be the easiest course of the semester.
Usually, if you just took part in class discussions and did the homework, religion was a bankable A. The only problem was that Father Gregory hadn’t taught a course in over five years. He’d been too busy with administrative duties to teach a class. No one knew what to expect.
We waited and waited. Father Gregory was a great lover of the pregnant pause. Eventually he took a deep breath, then snapped into action. “My apologies for starting this class a week late, but as you know we’ve all had to make allowances in Brother Stephen’s absence.”
He grabbed a pile of papers and handed them to Eric, who was sitting in the front row. Eric got up and distributed them around the class, the intoxicating aroma of mimeograph fluid spreading like a billowing cape behind him. When I got my course syllabus, I held it to my nose and inhaled deeply. It was still wet from the machine. I practically inhaled the purple letters right off the page, and I wasn’t alone.
“Stop smelling the syllabus,” Father Gregory ordered. “You men are juniors now. Act like adults.”
The reading list was long and intense. The Council of Trent, Vatican I, and Saint Thomas More were among the highlights. We scanned the coming semester as Father Gregory revelled in our dismay. “Before we discuss the syllabus and the reading list, I want to start off the class with a discussion. I want to talk about Our Blessed Mother.”
Pens clicked in a well-conditioned response.
“No need for notes yet. I only want to talk. Tell me, is Our Blessed Mother the way to heaven?”
That was a heavily loaded question. While we could all see the trap he was setting, Eric was the one to raise his hand.
“No,” he announced. “She