The Long Run (17 page)

The brothers are always telling us stories about the lives of the saints, and how they had visions and apparitions of Jesus and Mary. My favorites are Bernadette Soubirous and the miracle at Lourdes and St. Joan of Arc burning at the stake. Rags used to tell us that we didn't have to say any prayers or anything if we didn't really want to, that it was fine just to kneel there and stare at the statue, that Mary would know our thoughts and our needs. Almost all of the boys at some time kneel before a statue of Mary or Jesus or one of the saints and ask for something. We're supposed to pray for protection against evil, or for the poor souls in purgatory. Ryan once told a few of the brothers that he did seven novenas asking Mary, Queen of Heaven, for a hockey stick, and one miraculously appeared at the foot of his bed the next morning. We've all been praying our brains out ever since.

Anyway, I was kneeling in the chapel in front of the blood-red candles at the base of the statue of the Virgin Mary, staring at Mary's long and graceful body and her beautiful face, which is polished to a butter-smooth sheen, and all of a sudden the glow disappeared. The swinging chapel doors creaked open, and a breeze rushed through, flickering the candles and seeming to rustle the folds of her sleeves. And her face suddenly turned dark, a sort of stormy dark. Even her golden hair turned fuzzy-looking. She looked more Halloween than holy. Outside, a light rain tapped at the stained glass windows. Her outstretched hands seemed to open wider, and her fingers extended as if to receive the rain. She seemed to stir, bend almost. And she spoke. It might have been my imagination. I don't think so. I was asking her for protection, and I heard her speak. I didn't see her mouth move or anything. I just heard her voice. It was a soft whisper. “
Felix culpa . . .
” She said the words in a sort of singsongy way, her lips seeming to curl in a bow of delight. It was all so strange.

The reason I'm sure I heard a voice, that it isn't my imagination, is because of the Latin. I hardly know any Latin words. I remember these words, though. How could I forget them? It was the first time I ever heard them. And she spoke in such a strange way, like in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, a really slow whisper, like she was singing all four syllables:
Feee-lix cullpaaaa
. . . Maybe that was her way of proving that it's real, that it isn't my imagination.

We head into study hall just in time to see McCann leaving the room. When we're sure he's a safe distance away, the rustling silence is broken by boys coughing, the lifting and closing of desktops and my soft whisperings with Oberstein. He doesn't want to talk about my vision. He's giving Blackie a hard time about his writing, using tiny circles to dot his
i
's, like Amos in
Amos 'n' Andy
. Then he wants to talk about our next night run. He's keeping all the times and is getting really excited about Ryan's progress. But I won't let up. I ask him again about the words. “You're the Latin scholar, Oberstein. C'mon, what's it mean?”

“O happy fault. It refers to the Garden of Eden. Original sin. It's the Church's way of saying Adam and Eve's fall was okay. It's called a paradox.”

I tell him about my experience with Mary.

“
Felix culpa
. It's used a lot during Lenten services. Never during Advent. You sound pretty confident. Are you sure she spoke Latin? It's all Greek to me.” Oberstein giggles and shakes.

“Chrissakes, Oberstein, get serious. Was it a vision? Did I have a vision?”

Oberstein covers his head with his hands in mock distress. “It probably wasn't a vision,” he says. “If it was, you may have to become a priest. You may be getting
the call
. You could be like James Cagney in
Fighting Father Duffy
or Spencer Tracey in
Boys' Town
.” He giggles and shakes again and says, “Don't sweat it, everyone around here gets pretty excited about miracles and visions and the lives of the saints. It's all that church mumbo-jumbo. And we're all pretty spooked about the wine and getting caught. Besides, you were there a long time. It could have been fatigue. Have you had the spells lately? You were probably dreaming, half daydreaming. It's called a semiconscious state.”

“I couldn't have dreamed it, Oberstein,” I say. “You can't dream words. You can only dream pictures. This wasn't a picture. It was a Latin phrase—
Felix culpa
—and I don't know very much Latin.”

“It's definitely odd. I don't think anybody in the Mount would have known that expression. Not even some of the brothers.”

“Then how did it get in my mind if I didn't know it and nobody else does?”

Oberstein looks at me and shrugs.

“Was it a vision?” I ask again. “Like the saints have? Did I have a vision?”

“Don't ask me,” he says. “I'm Jewish.” He turns away and pretends to study.

I'll never know if it was fatigue or my imagination or if I'd heard the words long before and had since forgotten. Or whether it really was a vision and she really spoke to me. Next Saturday, during free time, I'm gonna walk to St. Martha's and ask Clare. She believes in miracles. She'll know.

I turn to Oberstein to ask again, but he's asleep, his glasses standing on their lenses beside him on his desk top, his face in his folded arms. I poke him and whisper, “
McCann!
” His body twitches, and he lifts his head, his blue eyes meeting mine. “It was a vision, wasn't it?” I say. He turns a page of his notebook just as McCann re-enters the study hall and paces up and down the aisles before coming to a halt near Cross's desk.

“Well, now, what's this, Mr. Crosses? Required reading, is it?
Lively Saints
.” It's a fat red book Cross always carries around. Cross is always reading about the lives of the saints. He always has a story or two to tell at the Bat Cave about some saint who was boiled in oil or forced to sit forever on top of a two-hundred-foot spike.

“Required reading, is it?” McCann is wheeze-breathing and spraying spit, as usual. He shakes his jowls in disbelief, opens the book and begins reading about St. Stanislaus, the patron saint of Poland. He reads aloud about how poor Stanislaus was defending a tower and took an arrow in the head. “Interesting, Mr. Crosses, but not what you'll find on your physics exam tomorrow. Hardly Boyle's Law, is it?” He orders Cross to stand up and put out his hands. He begins wheezing like he's gonna have an asthma attack before giving Cross a whack on each hand. But they are only half-hearted whacks. You can hardly hear them. We all know that McCann doesn't want to strap him, that if we weren't around, Cross would be spared the strap. McCann is doing it to save face. Cross sits down, folds his arms, lowers his head and cries silently. We all feel pretty bad for him. It's really mean if you think on it. Strapping a boy who wants to become a priest and who is reading about the saints.

I know I'll never be able to look at Cross the same way again. When he gallops around the Mount in his Lone Ranger outfit, I'll only see the image of him weeping at his desk. From now on, he'll always be a weeping ranger to me. It's a very sad thing, and it really hardens me against McCann. We all feel he shouldn't have strapped poor Cross. We all know McCann isn't playing with a full deck, as Murphy puts it. We knew it even before he beat up Blackie. McCann always has this insane look about him. Out for the weekend, Blackie always says, referring to the Mental. It's nothing for him to flip out, even after a minor incident like the one with Cross. As if to try to undo the strapping, he strides up and down the aisles, foaming at the mouth while lecturing on study hall rules. He shouts that if he ever catches another boy with a book that isn't required reading, he'll strap him until the boy can't stand. He repeats the phrases over and over in his high-pitched, asthmatic voice, and each time he shakes his jowls. Then there is a long silence, and he says he has to leave the study hall for a few minutes, and heaven help the boy who isn't studying when he gets back.

Blackie looks around when he knows McCann is gone and whispers, “He got so excited he gotta snap the lizard.” Most of us laugh silently. Leave it to Blackie to take such a chance. About five minutes later, McCann returns and launches into another speech about study hall rules and the subject of discipline. He sprays spit bullets everywhere, raging that when boys misbehave they deserve but one thing and one thing only—a royal strapping. Writing out lines is no good. Extra chores are no good. A royal strapping is what is needed, he says. I glance at his face as he walks by my desk and notice the ever-present greenish white foam in the corners of his mouth. As he walks up and down the aisles, we can feel his eyes on our backs. He continues to shout wildly, seeming to find new energy as he roams the room. That is the only way to discipline such a scoundrel, the only way to teach him a good lesson. A bloody good strapping until the boy is black and blue. He says he will take great pleasure in being the brother who will administer such discipline. I glance sideways at the black soutane that stops by my desk. My heart is pounding with fear that he might ask me something, my opinion on what he said. And that I might blurt out the wrong thing and get strapped. So I don't dare budge. I can feel his eyes burning into my back, daring me to move, and I stiffen and recall what Oberstein told me about his grandfather, who had been in the German concentration camps during the war, how he had seen a man get shot in the head for taking a step. One step. Just for moving, Oberstein said. And
bang
. He was dead.

8

MCCANN HAS DECIDED
to have a sumo wrestling team. He says it will help us better understand our separated brethren, the Romans of the Asian persuasion, thus helping us to be more ecumenical, which is the wish of the Holy Father.

“The Church is changing, boys. There's talk of a Second Vatican Council, Vatican Two.” He looks at us as if he expects us all to cheer. “The Holy Father has informed us that our Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in the other great world religions. Less than 1 percent of the people of China and Japan are Christian, boys. And only 2 percent of the people of India. What percent, boys?”

“Two percent, Brother.”

“We are, I repeat, in the words of our Holy Father, a small church in a large world. Repeat that now, boys. A small church
. . .
”

“A small church in a large world.”

“Very good. But we look with respect on these other ways of life, those teachings, which, though differing in many ways from what Holy Mother Church sets forth, nevertheless often reflect a beam of that truth which enlightens all peoples. That's what Vatican Two will be all about, boys. And we must follow the will of the Holy Father. Now, many of you know that my brother, Father McCann, works in Japan. Some of you met Father McCann on his last visit to Newfoundland. A Jesuit in the tradition of Loyola and Xavier. The Jesuits have made great gains in Japan, boys.
Great
gains. And we, boys—you and I—will do our little bit to help out.”

McCann is always talking about his Japanese brother. He giggles whenever he says the words. His brother sends him tons of stuff from Osaka—kimonos, fans, chopsticks, cushions, origami kits, woks, Japanese comics. There's no end to it. McCann has become as fanatical about the Japanese as Brother Malone is about the Irish.

He reads from a huge hardcover book entitled
Zen and the Art of Japanese Wrestling
: “Japanese wrestling is an art which evolved from a primitive style of combat into a religious ceremony, before becoming a method of military training; it eventually emerged as sumo, a form of wrestling still practiced in Japan today. Its long tradition is highly revered and has been faithfully preserved.”

He tilts his head, which appears to be growing like a mushroom out of his black soutane. He listens carefully and stares at the ceiling as if expecting to hear a voice. Then he returns to the book. “Prior to the 1600s, wrestling was a form of combat, using lethal kicks and blows. It did not differ much from European styles of wrestling.”

“Does Father McCann have a black belt in karate?” Bug interrupts.

“In 1570, however, the ring . . .
dohyo . . .
” He ignores Bug and points to the tumbling mats on which he is standing. The mats are arranged inside a fifteen-foot circle marked out with masking tape. “The
dohyo
was introduced, and with it, basic rules. The
dohyo
is a holy place. In this sacred ring, the ancient pageantry and combative spirit of Japanese wrestling unfolds in the centuries-old sumo style. Sumo wrestling is ritualistic. It is part of the Shinto religion.” He holds the book against his chest and shouts, “Today's sumo wrestlers are powerful men selected for their size and then trained through discipline and diet. The most powerful of these is the grand champion, the
yokozuna
.”

His head droops to the side as he rolls his eyes again toward the ceiling, lost in thought. Then he stares at us, then back at the ceiling. He taps his finger on his lower lip. “Naturally, boys, I shall be your grand champion. I shall be your
yokozuna
.” He lowers his head. “Of course, you will have to wear loincloths, boys, to be proper sumo wrestlers. I shall provide loincloths,
mawashi
. All the way from Japan. From Father McCann, my Japanese brother.” He giggles as he raises the book and shows us a picture of a straw rope with white zigzag paper strips. “
Mawashi
. And I shall instruct you on the proper wearing of such.”

He reads, “All
sumotori
wear the classic silken belt around the loins which tradition attributes to the exploits of Hajikami, a wrestler of such strength and skill that in a tournament held in Osaka eleven hundred years ago any opponent who could merely grab a rope tied to his waist would win.”

“Needless to say, no one could do that.” He shakes his head. “Besides loincloths, boys, you will be expected to wear your hair according to the traditional sumo styles.
Oichomage
for the grand champion and
chommage
for all other sumos.” McCann closes the book and drops it. It lands on the floor with a loud thud. “The sound of one hand clapping,” he shrugs, stares at the ceiling and hums to himself. He then claps his hands sharply and shouts, “Who wants to be on the sumo team?”