The Long Run (20 page)

As McCann disappears through the door, Oberstein points to the pale brown spots on the backside of his loincloth.

“He shit himself,” Oberstein says, when McCann is safely out of sight.

“I think he only farted. It was a giant fart,” Ryan says.

“No way! Didn't you see the brown spots on his diapers?” Oberstein says. “He shit himself.”

We're only back in class a few minutes when Brother McMurtry pounds on the door. It's clear from his sour expression that we're not in for a surprise wingding. He walks the aisles silently for a minute before removing his steel-rimmed glasses and biting the tip of an arm.

“The culprits will be exposed. It's just a matter of time. You understand that, do you not, Mr. Ryan?”

“Yes, Brother.” The gap between Ryan's front teeth seems wider.

McMurtry asks me if I understand.

“Yes, Brother,” I say. I want to tell Ryan to stop biting his nails.

“Mr. Kelly?”

“Yes, Brother,” Kelly says.

“We accept, Mr. Ryan, that you fell asleep on the toilet and were missing from your bed for a period of time. What happened to you can happen to anyone. We all get tired. We all need sleep. Isn't that right, Brother McCann?”

“That is correct, Brother McMurtry.”

I'm starting to feel weak.

“We are not accusing you of anything, Mr. Ryan. Every boy is innocent until proven guilty. Now, what do you know of the wine missing from the sacristy?”

“Nothing, Brother.” Ryan coughs and keeps rubbing his sweaty palms on his knees, which he always does when he's nervous. He looks as guilty as sin.

“Nothing?”

“Honest to God, Brother. First I heard of it was the time you mentioned it in class.”

“There has been no talk of it among the boys? Not a hint of it?”

“No, Brother.”

“No talk of boys drinking stolen wine on the weekend?” McCann interjects.

“No, Brother. Honest.” Ryan's really nervous. His baby face is getting paler by the minute.

I cough to try to break the tension. They look at me.

“First I ever heard of it is when you mentioned it in class, Brother.” I stare at McMurtry's swollen forehead.

They are silent. Then McCann turns to me and says slowly, “Mr. Carmichael, would you place your hand on the Holy Bible and swear to it?”

I'm so scared I'd swear to anything. “Yes, Brother.”

“By all the saints? Would you swear by all the saints?”

“Yes, Brother.”

“And you, Mr. Ryan? Would you swear by all the saints?”

“Yes, Brother.”

They seem to believe us. Ryan sits silently. I can see the sweat on his forehead. He's really frightened, and the tears are beginning to come into his eyes. I'm worried that he might crack, so I invent a story about how I hate alcohol because my sister told me that it is the devil's poison and that she saw my father and Uncle Will Carmichael get so drunk one night they nearly burned the house down. I tell the story so quickly and with such speed that I almost believe it myself.

Ryan stares at me. He believes every word. Brother McMurtry seems to believe me too, but there is doubt in McCann's eyes.

“It is surely demonic, a tool of the devil,” Brother McMurtry agrees.

McCann asks if we've ever seen any of the altar boys taking a sip of wine, from the bottle or from the cruets when they are filled up for Mass. We both say no.

Brother McMurtry scans the class.

“Does anyone have anything to say?”

Silence.

Blackie and Oberstein and Murphy have been staring straight ahead the whole time.

“Now, before you leave, I want you boys to promise me that if you hear a word about drinking you will report it to me or Brother McCann right away. The minute you hear it, is that clear?”

“Yes, Brother,” we all say in unison.

“I want you to promise me, Mr. Carmichael. Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

“Mr. Ryan?”

“I promise, Brother,” Ryan says.

“Mr. Spencer, Mr. Kavanagh, Mr. Brookes? Do you promise?”

“Yes, Brother.”

McMurtry looks at his watch. Class is almost over.

“Very well, you may go.”

As we leave, he passes each boy a holy card of the Sacred Heart. It's a picture of Jesus standing on a globe. He has long hair, and there's a perfect gold circle around his head. From his exposed burning heart, rays of light pour out. In the background is the moon, and a million stars.

“Say the prayer on the back of the card every night when you go to bed. Say a special prayer that we find the wine culprits.”

“Yes, Brother,” we say as we leave. Our heads are bowed as we walk away. And we are thinking the same thing. How much longer can we hold out? I can feel the pressure. And I know that Ryan is feeling it too.

Daydreaming in study hall that night, waiting for the altar bells for rosary and Benediction, I think about the wine stealing. Blackie and Oberstein are right. It hasn't been a bad week. At least, not as bad as we expected. There was only one close call, when Rags asked Blackie and Ryan why they were doing laps around the soccer field and running around the grounds so much. Ryan shot back that they were getting in shape for the hockey season, and Rags laughed and said they'd be in better shape than Gordie Howe. That's always best when you're in a jam like that. The simplest answer is always the best. The brothers still have no idea about the wine stealing, and all we have to do is stick to Blackie's advice and play dumb. Only the Klub members know anything about our wine raids. A Klub member would never squeal. If we just continue to play dumb, they'll have to give up questioning us eventually. But I'm really worried about Ryan. He may crack. He's so nervous. Out of nowhere, Blackie's words come back to me: “Ryan's a lot tougher than all of us.” I think of the terrible strapping he got, and only days later he was on his first wine raid. And as the buzzer sounds for chapel, I come to the horrible realization that I might crack. If it comes down to taking a beating or spilling the beans, I don't think I'll be as brave as Ryan.

Lights out takes place at nine-thirty. By ten o'clock we're usually all asleep. Oberstein and I plan to stay awake as long as necessary tonight to find out who the night walker is. Oberstein thinks it's one of the older boys, stealing from our lockers. We know for certain it isn't Spook, the night watchman. He's always asleep.

I am starting to drift as I squint at my Mickey around midnight, when I hear the footsteps. It isn't one of the older boys. The steps are heavier than a boy's. This is the sound of soft shoes, squeaking now and then along the hardwood floor. A boy would be barefoot, his steps lighter. I tense up, straining with all my might to listen. The sound of the footsteps is heavy and measured, stopping, starting, stopping. The night walker moves slowly and confidently, a few heavy, squeaking steps, then stopping to drink in the silence. The walker has to be one of the brothers. But which one? I pray Oberstein is still awake. I want so much to talk to him, to compare notes later on, when the night walker has gone.

The footsteps start again, five even squeaks that stop on my side of the wooden lockers stretching the length of the dorm. I pull the bedsheets up to my chin, snap my eyes shut and pretend to be fast asleep as I wait to count the night walker's squeaky steps again. After what seems like forever, the heavy steps pause by my bed. I think of the death camps and Oberstein's grandfather. Auschwitz and the Nazis. Late at night. A guard's creaking steps patrolling the sleeping quarters. I clench my teeth and count: one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . Stop. . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . Stop . . . eight . . . nine . . . Eighteen footsteps, followed by a deadening silence. I reckon about three to four steps per bunk, which means the night walker has stopped about five bunks away, at Nowlan's bed. Nowlan has the top bunk, but the bottom one is empty. Nowlan is a tiny boy with a small pointed face. He has dark brown eyes, dreamy-looking eyes that make him look innocent and sad.

I turn ever so slowly onto my side, careful not to make my mattress squeak. Ever so slowly, I lean my head out over the side of my bunk, but all I can see is the night-light at the far end of the dorm, as usual, blinking madly off and on. There is a deep silence for a while, and I hear a bedspring squeaking and a soft, sweet moaning down Nowlan's way, as if he is sighing in his dreams. I freeze. Someone snores gently on the opposite side of the dorm. Someone else tosses quickly. Then, silence again, before the sweet sighing gets louder and quicker, becoming a weak moan, turning into what sounds like a strange cry. Followed by long silence before the sound of the squeaking footsteps starts up once more, moving in my direction. As he walks, his soutane whispers. I freeze again and hold my breath until he passes. When I am sure the fading steps are far enough away, I lean out over my bunk to see a black soutane disappear through the doorway. I snap back into my bed instantly, as if I've been burned. And wait a long time. To be sure the footsteps will not return. Before I get out of my bunk and tiptoe to Oberstein, who's sound asleep.

“Obee,” I whisper.

When he doesn't answer, I shake him.

“Oberstein, Oberstein,” I say. “He was here. The night walker was here. Did you see him?”

“‘And Isaac's mother said go . . .'” Oberstein mumbles in his sleep. “‘Go into the fields . . . take your brother . . .'”

“Y'wake, Oberstein?” I say, shaking him.

“Tryna sleep. What the hellya doin'?”

“Whaddaya mean, what the hell am I doing? We had a plan. Did you see the night walker?”

“McCann? Is it McCann?” he asks.

“Dunno,” I say. “He stopped by Nowlan's bed again. Only Nowlan's.”

Oberstein sits up in his bunk and rubs his eyes. He reaches for his norph glasses, which he keeps in his sneakers at the foot of his bed, and puts them on.

“I thought as much. Does anyone else know? Did you tell Blackie?”

“No. Nobody else knows.”

“You'd better get back to bed,” Oberstein says, “in case he comes back. We'll talk to Blackie in the morning.”

The next morning at breakfast we tell Blackie what happened, and he says he isn't surprised there's a night walker. And he isn't surprised that he stopped at Nowlan's bed either. He said he knew as much. “Nowlan's goin' to the infirmary a lot. Always sick. No, not sick,
sad
.”

“But if Nowlan isn't sick, if he's just sad, why's he go to the infirmary all the time? Does he get the spells?” I ask.

“Nowlan's always sad,” Oberstein says. “That's a kind of sickness, always being sad.”

“It's deep . . . deep inside him,” Blackie says. “It's soulful, a different kind of sickness, the sadness sickness.”

“He's come twice now. First Friday of the month,” I say. “Only First Fridays, always around midnight. I know him by his footsteps. He stays around ten or fifteen minutes, no longer. I counted his footsteps. And the seconds. It's creepy.”

“You best be still. Don't count nuthin' next time,” Blackie says. “And keep your eyes shut. Ain't a good idea to be awake when the angel of death passes by.”

Winter 1960

9

IT IS LATE NOVEMBER
. And freezing cold. Frost is on the ground. It's beginning to look like winter. Light snow is falling on the naked trees. Long, dark winter days are ahead. Soon the ground will be completely white, and the gray stone buildings will be painted with thick swirls of white. There will be snow on the blinking Celtic cross high above the Mount, and all the windows will be frosted over.

The sky seems to be bleak and gray all the time now. And some of the fading grass is almost the color of the buildings' gray stone. The yard is icy, and every pothole has frozen over. Running, especially night running, will be more dangerous with snow on the ground. This time of year is always hard. The next few weeks there will be extra study hall in preparation for exams. There will be an exam in every subject, and they will be long and hard. Even Oberstein doesn't like them. It'll be especially hard for Rowsell and O'Grady. They'll have that daydreamy look for weeks. The dormitory will be freezing most of the time. It will still be dark when we get up and wash and dress for chapel. And even the chapel and the classrooms will be cold. Looking forward to Christmas is the only thing that saves us all from getting the spells.