The Great Santini (42 page)

After he polished his glasses, Mr. Loring put them back on and stared unsteadily at Ben. It had been a day of undiminished triumph for Ben so far. A single basketball game had given him a name, a face, and an identity. He had been invisible in the halls of Calhoun High for too many months not to enjoy it.

"I reckon you just think you are plain wonderful, don't you, animule?" Mr. Loring said.

"Pardon me, sir," Ben answered.

"I bet you just woke up this morning, looked at your wonderful self in the mirror, and gave yourself a standing ovation. Admit it, creeter. You think you're the cat's meow now that you're the big basketball jock."

"No, sir."

"A jock," Mr. Loring sneered. "A worshiper of muscle? A salesman of speed? I think it's absurd. Yes, absurd. Here I am, Mr. Meecham, teaching my guts out, trying to the best of my ability to make a scholar out of you, and in one night's time, I discover that you are a jock. A resident of those smelly, nasty locker rooms, trained by those brainless chimps called coaches. Extraordinary. I think I'll faint. I might just die. Or sing a song to the Lord. I just think it's wonderful that you think you're so wonderful."

"We're going all the way to State this year if Ben keeps up the good work," Philip Turner said, sitting directly in front of Ben.

"All the way to State!" Mr. Loring gasped. "I'll just expire if we don't get all the way to State. Yes, I must go there myself. I must go to State."

"You know what I mean, Mr. Loring," Philip said.

"Everybody in this town thinks you're as crazy as Crowder peas, Mr. Loring," Sue Ellen Rodgers said.

"That's right," Jim Don Cooper said from the last row. "My daddy wants to kill ol' Loring with his bare hands. Just strangle him until his eyes pop out of his bald ugly head."

"My mama says they ought to lock up ol' Loring and throw the key into the Pacific Ocean," Sue Ellen said.

Mr. Loring, unperturbed, answered Sue Ellen with calm and dignity. "It is because my students love me that I can remain in this bleak town teaching the King's English to creatures damaged geographically beyond repair the very moment of their birth. I remain here because some of you idgits will go from this class with a rather vague notion that there is a small difference between a verb and a spark plug."

"I want to learn some real English, Mr. Loring," Philip said. "We haven't diagramed a single sentence all year. I'm getting worried about the College Boards."

"Yeah, all we do is memorize these three million dollar words that I can't even pronounce," Sammy Wertzberger said.

"Quit pretending you're stupid, Samuel. Of course you can pronounce them and they'll be valuable in the future," Emma Lee Givens scolded.

"Uh oh. The daughter of God has spoken," Pinkie said. Emma Lee Givens was a stern-visaged, bespectacled daughter of an Assembly of God preacher. Her face was pretty and her sense of humor more finely developed than she revealed to most of her classmates. She sat across from Sammy and made no secret that she thought he was hilarious. Ben had found out from Philip that she was the senior class's runaway valedictorian with Philip himself an earnest but distant second.

"Yeah, why do we have to learn all these big words? Us people with normal brains. Not geniuses like Emma Lee and Philip," Sue Ellen said.

"Because you are verbal cretins," Mr. Loring shouted," and because I have tyrannically and arbitrarily decreed it, and because you will not graduate if you don't."

"I'm going to incarcerate you, Loring. Then I'm going to decimate you," Jim Don cried out, utilizing the only two words from the vocabulary list he could remember.

"My mommy told me that Loring is one of those things," said Carol Huger, sitting across from Jim Don.

"I feel grievous when I ruminate about your idiosyncrasies, Loring," Pinkie called out proudly.

"Don't listen to them, Mr. Loring. They are less than thee," Emma Lee Givens said in a voice full of pronouncement.

"You sound like a letter to the Ephesians, Emma Lee. Who do you think you are?" Sue Ellen flared.

"No friend of yours, Sue Ellen," Emma Lee said quietly.

"You're always defending that thing," Carol Huger called from the rear of the room.

"I like him," Emma Lee said," and I would appreciate it if you would let him teach me. And thee."

"Thank you, Emma Lee," Mr. Loring said," but you do not have to defend me against the poor creeters."

"I didn't understand the assignment last night, Mr. Loring," Sammy said. "And when a brilliant scholar like me doesn't understand it you know it's got to be complex."

"Samuel," Emma Lee whispered and Ben overheard, "you know you did not read the assignment."

"Creeter," Mr. Loring said speaking to Ben again, "you think you are just wonderful this morning. You think you are the greatest thing that ever hit this high school, don't you? Admit it, so we can get on with this class. What did you think when you looked at yourself in the mirror this morning?"

"He's the star," Sue Ellen announced and Ben winced with a small pain and an exquisite, consuming pleasure.

"The star?" Mr. Loring hooted. "The star? My word. Lawdy, lawdy. The star? Here in my room. Little ol' Og Loring teaches a star. I thought stars were parts of constellations and galaxies. I didn't know they could sit in classrooms. I thought they were heavenly bodies that gave off light and heat and energy. I thought they had to be studied through telescopes. To think I'm standing up here and gazing at a star less than ten feet away. How blinding. What did you think when you woke up and looked in the mirror this morning? Were you surprised to see a star?"

"I didn't think anything, Mr. Loring. I just gave myself a standing ovation."

After he had laughed, cleared his throat, and cleaned his glasses one more time, Ogden Loring began the class.

"Animules, cracker trash, and star," he began, "today I will continue to show you how teaching can be an art form."

From long experience in deciphering the arcane ways of nuns and after hearing Sister Loretta end two successive catechism classes with the admonition," And remember, boys and girls, your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost," and the sudden descent into hushed reverent tones when she mentioned the last CCD meeting before the Christmas holidays, Ben and Mary Anne knew that the cloven-hoofed topic of sex waited in the wings for its sordidly concupiscent introduction.

They discussed the probability on their walks home. "There's no doubt about it," Mary Anne said," ol' Loretta Lou is going to hit us with the ol' facts of life. That 'your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost' routine is a dead giveaway. Of course, it's always irritated me that my temple has freckles."

Ben said," I bet the Holy Ghost hates living in the crummy temple you got for Him."

"It's better than living in the temple of zits."

"I bet Father Pinckney will be brought in to talk to us boys and Sister Loretta will take the girls," Ben said.

"I've seen that nasty film on menstruation four times and that disgusting film on birth at least three."

But the day before the appointed class, Ben heard an argument between Father Pinckney and Sister Loretta after 6:15 Mass. It was still dark, although the sun was beginning to shimmer and stir the rim of the eastern horizon and Ben was extinguishing the candles on the altar when he heard Father Pinckney's voice.

"I shall not do it, Sister. And all the Sisters of Mercy in all of their thunderous battalions praying nonstop, twenty-four hours a day could not make me do it. I get embarrassed, Sister. I have tried to do it before and I just get embarrassed. I am a man of keen sensibilities and a total lack of experience in the subject matter and I shall not make a fool out of myself in front of twenty boys. My God, Sister, they know more than I do."

"They don't know it from the Catholic viewpoint. They don't know what is sinful and what is not."

"Nor do I, Sister. Nor do I."

"Of course you do, Father. You hear their confessions."

"I will not do it, Sister. I will not teach sex to those loose-limbed satyrs. I'll make them memorize the Act of Hope instead."

"Then I'll have to do it myself, Father, if you insist on shirking your responsibilities."

"Sister, good Sister, merciful Sister," Father Pinckney had said as Ben remained near the altar immobilized with a sense of guilt as though he were overhearing a conversation between heavenly figures, "you have prodded me in a vital spot, for I do indeed shirk too many of my responsibilities. But do believe me that I cannot do what you ask. I don't know what to say to teen-age boys or girls about this tenderest of all subjects."

"I know what to say," the nun said darkly.

"Then say it, dear Sister. Say it and praise the Lord."

On the next night, Sister Loretta entered the room on the coldest night of the year and began the class with a prayer for chastity that she read from a black manual. She then announced that a registered nurse from the naval hospital was upstairs to speak privately with the girls while she herself would lecture the boys on a subject of great importance to all of them in later life. The girls rose and were herded out of the room, giggling and turning shyly back toward the boys, some of whom whispered with each other as the footsteps of the girls pattered on the staircase as they escaped the gaze of boys whose minds trembled with forbidden imagery, and a sadness seized them as they listened to the exile of their companions entrapped and made holy by the mystery of the blood flow. Ben did not understand why his mother, his sister, and his friends had to bleed, hurt, and cramp; the separateness was an abyss, a continental divide that kept them apart. When the girls had settled into the upstairs classroom, Sister Loretta began to speak to the boys.

"Tonight," she said in a lemony voice," I would like to discuss the subject of sex with you. "She mouthed the word "sex" with a visible distaste as though it were part of a most bitter and unsavory language. "Now I am going to speak to you as if you were young men. Mature young men. If anyone feels he might laugh or be embarrassed with what I have to say tonight, he is free to leave the room."

Every eye in the room focused on Sister Loretta; no one moved and not one boy tried to attract the attention of another boy.

"Now most of you probably think that nuns all have faces that can stop clocks and have no sexual urges at all. This is not true. All human beings have sexual drives because all human beings are animals. But nuns and priests have wed themselves and consecrated themselves to the memory of Jesus Christ; they have made the supreme sacrifice of negating these urges to better serve their Master. They have purified themselves so that their prayers will be more pleasing in the sight of God. Their reward will come later and will be far greater because of their sacrifice. Their place in heaven will be higher than those who yielded to the temptations and petty cravings of the flesh."

Her voice was bloodless and her eyes seemed drawn and unlived in as though the capillaries that fed them were filled with the dust from the Catholic centuries that sustained her.

"Of course it is important for you to remember that sex is beautiful. It is God's way of perpetuating the species. But it is only beautiful if it takes place between two people duly married by a priest under the sight of God. Because of the holy act of sexual intercourse, children are brought forth on the earth. Sex in marriage is only holy if it is done for the procreation of children. If it is done for simple animal pleasure, then it is sinful and repugnant to God and his chaste Mother."

Two boys began to giggle uncontrollably at the front of the room. It was P. K. Hill and Gilbert Fewell. Both were in the tenth grade and both of them had turned a fine shade of scarlet during the course of Sister Loretta's presentation. They tried to muffle their laughter with their hands, but this only made it worse and they grew desperate as the nun glared at them with a glance that had known glaciers, tundras, and the bottoms of oceans.

"Children giggle at topics of utter seriousness, Mr. Hill and Mr. Fewell. If you insist on being children, I suggest you hold hands with one another like baby boys do. Go ahead. Hold hands and then I'll continue."

The two boys looked at each other, then at the nun. Painfully, they took each other's hands and blushed again as the other boys laughed.

Then Sister Loretta got to her point. "There are some boys in here who probably play with themselves at night. Abuse themselves. I am sure all of you know what I mean."

"Yes, Sister," Ben thought, hating her," I know what you mean."

"Always remember that your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost and when you abuse yourself sexually, you are also abusing the house of God. Scientists call this vile habit masturbation, but it is more aptly referred to as self-abuse," she said, glaring into the collective face of adolescence which suffered before her. "Self-abuse," she repeated. "Just think of these two words and you will never be tempted to engage in this again. God knows if you abuse yourself. He watches you. He sees you do it. It disgusts Him. It disgusts Him so much that He calls His mother, the Blessed Virgin, to His side to watch the hideous spectacle. Then He calls His angels to watch and all the Saints in heaven. Thousands upon thousands of Saints and Angels are watching you every hour of the day. They especially watch you when you are alone at night. They see the dirty things you do with your hands and private parts. All of heaven: God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, the Blessed Mother, the Seraphim, and all the other Angels scream out their hatred of you, chant and sing that they despise you as they watch you flaunt yourself and weaken yourself with your filthy acts."

As Ben listened in pitched horror at Sister Loretta's portraiture of heaven's entire populace jeering at some thin lad's whacking off in the privacy of his room, not knowing he was being observed by the entire celestial civilization, Ben thought of himself, his sinfulness, and his innocence. He had received no preparation—none—for his entry into the arena of a Catholic adolescence. Sedulously, he had once avoided the clusters of boys who haunted the locker rooms with their salient, knowledgeable talk in which his finely honed sense of morality denied him participation. No one had told him that anything but urine would ever come flying up his penile tract. So on one night, one miraculous night he awoke tingling with a pleasure that turned soon into a divine madness as though God Himself had come into his center, invaded his source, as hot sperm shot into his hand and Ben ran to his bathroom amazed and afraid that he was bleeding to death. And there he had found it and, though it was still a mystery, snatches of locker room conversation came back to him, and paragraphs in forbidden books, and in an instant, he knew he was a life-giver. For the next hour he studied the sperm, analyzing it, as it cooled, thickened, and dried; the white gold mined from interior rivers, his body that tingled with mystery and the knowledge that a sweet dark angel lived in his body, lived in his body deeply.