The Long Run Read online

  Depending on the time of the discovery, the watchkeeper, who always has my Mickey, will say how long we’ve been gone. If we’re scheduled to be back in fifty minutes, the watchkeeper will say we left a few minutes ago. And Farrell, who is a really good sprinter and is always on red alert, will head out to warn the pack. If we’re to be back in ten or fifteen minutes, the watchkeeper will say that we said we’d be back in ten minutes. It is a great plan, and sometimes Blackie runs rehearsals in case we have to use it. Everyone has his part down pat, just like when Rags gives us roles in Julius Caesar.

  We run late at night, well before daybreak. Usually around three o’clock, before the brothers get up for chapel, and when Spook is fast asleep. Blackie devised a system called “stringing” for running in the dark so we can avoid obstacles like potholes. He uncoils a rope, and each boy wraps a strand around his wrist at ten-foot intervals. Blackie always runs ahead of everyone by about five minutes, his head to the ground like a bloodhound, intent upon the beam of light ahead of him. If he sees a rock or a hole or a fallen branch, he doubles back and warns Murphy, who jerks his string, creating a domino effect for the interval runners, so that the others know there is trouble ahead. Shorty Richardson always runs in the middle of the pack for protection.

  Sometimes, if the moon is really bright, instead of stringing, we play a game Blackie devised. The first one to the finish line gets eight points, the last one gets one point. Each pack adds up their points to see which team won. Shorty Richardson is always first, so we have to work really hard to win. And half the time we do, thanks to Ryan, who’s becoming a really good runner.

  Most nights, starting out is bitter cold, but ten minutes on we start to warm up. The sweat stings our eyes, and we wipe it off on our sweater sleeves. We move slowly, the flashlights throwing a jumpy glow on the ground. Past the outdoor swimming pool toward the soccer fields, on to Fort Pepperrell, Virginia Waters, and finally to Robin Hood Bay. When we reach Sugar Loaf, the halfway mark, we stop at the lake and lie on our bellies and drink greedily. On the way back we pass an empty cabin, and we all yearn to creep over and disappear inside, but instead we think of the big day, the Royal Regatta Marathon, and how Shorty Richardson must be prepared better than any other runner in the city, how he must prepare as if for a Comrades, a double marathon, just like in South Africa. Oberstein told us South African runners have a Comrades, a double marathon, every year.

  And so we soldier on. Ahead of my group, I’m close on the heels of Blackie’s pack, pushing them, Blackie urging his runners to beat yesterday’s time, if only by a few seconds. Our lips are dry and cracked. Our heads are spinning. Our feet are bloody and sore. We all want to stop and lie down and rest, if only for a few minutes. But Blackie’s voice is always ringing in our heads: Believe. We’re a team. A winning team. Believe. Believe. Some mornings, when we get back to our dorm, we are so dog-tired we barely have the energy to take off our clothes and wash, which Blackie always insists we do before falling into bed and sleeping the deepest sleep for a brief while. When the brother on morning duty sounds the buzzer, we do not want to get up. We lie there, exhausted, without will, until we hear McCann or Madman call our names, and we jump, fearful of what may happen if we are not dressed in time, to move with the herd toward chapel, where we will snatch a few minutes sleep here and there between the long prayers.

  Winter coats in your dormitory. Winter coats in your dormitory. Winter coats. Winter coats.

  The weather is turning a bit. It’s cold. But I know the criers are wrong. It’s still too early for winter coats. Despite the cold, I’m glad we ran last night. I love running. I’m even looking forward to doing it during the winter. The leaves are almost gone now. There aren’t as many robins around, and the pigeons seem to be spending more time in the big stone arches. I haven’t seen Nicky for days. I really miss him sometimes. One night I woke up in a sweat, thinking he had flown away.

  The dormitory is colder than usual in the mornings, and it’s still dark out when we walk single file to chapel. The brother on duty turns on the dorm lights until we are washed and dressed. Winter is only a month or so away. When the first snow falls, the brothers will drag out the big cardboard boxes with the mothballed winter coats and stocking caps and thick mittens. It’s a time when every piece of clothing, even socks, will be important. In winter, rarely a day goes by when I’m not cold. Even the classrooms turn cold. The building is so huge, and its only heat comes from a few radiators. Only the corridors are warm, and they always smell of the heated air that comes from the radiators, where we love to compete for a spot to warm our rumps during the time between meals and classes. More than a few drops of blood have fallen during a radiator scrum.

  There’s never a day when I don’t wear odd socks. For a while, my nickname was Odd-Socks, but it never stuck. The rule is every night you must put your socks in the box over by the Rat Locker. The socks box is a big plywood box. Each night, the boy whose turn it is takes the smelly box down to the laundry room, and Rags washes every sock. Rags is a saint. I’m sure he’s the nicest brother in the world. He has a great sense of humor. He’s always acting and horsing around, and he’s forever smiling. If he catches you running in the corridors, he stops you and asks where the fire is. Then he tells you it’s okay to run, just don’t go so fast, in case you bump into a little one. Rags treats us really well all the time, much better than the other brothers. And unlike them, he never asks you every five minutes if you think you have a vocation to the priesthood or the brotherhood.

  Oberstein nicknamed him Rags one day when he heard him say that most Americans go from rags to riches, but he joined the Christian brothers and was sent to Mount Kildare and went from riches to rags. Blackie got the idea for the Dare Klub’s motto from one of Rags’ expressions—the glass half-full. It’s written in Latin on a small plaque on Rags’ classroom door: Poculum semi plenum. “Rags, Rags,” Blackie always says. “He’s the man to listen to.” Blackie loves anyone who laughs, and Rags laughs all the time. Blackie says you can always trust a laugher. He refused to let some boys join the Dare Klub because they never laugh.

  Another thing about Rags is he’s always very fair. Unlike a lot of brothers, he doesn’t have chosen ones, Oberstein’s name for pets. And his classes are always exciting. He teaches science. Blackie gets a lot of his ideas from Rags. He’s convinced Rags has black blood. “Don’t need to be black to have some black blood,” Blackie says.

  “We all had black blood at one time,” Oberstein adds. “Adam and Eve came from Africa.”

  Blackie and Rags like each other, and banter back and forth a lot during class. They’re both from New York. Maybe that’s why. Blackie’s from Harlem, and Rags is from the Bronx. They’re like father and son in some ways.

  Rags is responsible for training the altar boys. You get up at six o’clock if you have to serve at the early morning Mass. About the only time you get matching socks, usually not your own, is when it’s your turn to be an altar boy. If it’s your turn to serve, Spook, the night watchman, wakes you about fifteen minutes before everyone else, before reveille, as Brother McMurtry calls it. You get washed and dressed and are almost awake as you rummage through the box for socks that look like yours. I hate waking up so early. It’s one of the hardest things, morning beating at you like a board. I’m sure that’s what causes the spells for some of the boys. If only we could sleep every day until seven-thirty. I think that would make a big difference for all of us. Bug is my altar server partner, and he’s a sleepyhead like me. We usually fight over the few remaining socks.

  We all love it when our turn comes round to serve Mass, because Rags usually asks the altar boys to stay behind after Mass and clean up, and we miss breakfast, so he takes us to the monastery, where we get bacon and eggs and orange juice and toast. There’s always a fight over who gets to be the paten server and who gets to be the bell server. Everyone wants to be the paten server. The paten is a perfectly round gold plate, the size of a saucer, with a wooden
handle. It is used during communion when the communicants kneel at the altar rail to receive the host. The altar boy holds the paten underneath the communicant’s chin to prevent even a speck of the consecrated host, the body of Christ, from falling to the floor. After communion, the priest spends about ten minutes wiping the paten clean to make sure not even a smidgen of Christ’s body is left there.

  Everyone wants to be the paten server for two reasons. You don’t have to pay very much attention during Mass. Once you’ve recited the Confiteor, you can kinda doze off, drifting in and out a lot. You just have to mumble a few Latin responses once in a while, blasting out the last line or two so old Monsignor Flynn thinks you are paying attention and not goofing off. When you are the bell ringer you really have to be on your toes. There is a special way to ring the bells throughout different parts of the Mass, like the Sanctus, the raising of the host, the Agnus Dei. If you miss one, or screw up the way you’re supposed to ring the bells, it’s really noticeable and you can get into big trouble. You could even get strapped.

  The other reason we all want to be the paten server is because you get to whack everybody in the Adam’s apple. The paten is really sharp all around the edge, and it really hurts. Oberstein calls it the guillotine. The trick is to whack everyone, but hit your buddies the hardest without the priest knowing you’re doing it. It gets really tricky when you’re trying to whack a guy harder than he hit you the last time he was paten server. The chubby cherub holds the record at whacking boys really hard.

  If you get caught, you’re a goner. Once Murphy whacked Ryan so hard he gagged and coughed up the host. Old Monsignor Flynn, who’s half blind and deaf, saw what happened and put down the ciborium and knocked Murphy up the side of the head. It was a really hard knock. It sent Murphy reeling.

  If the host misses the paten and falls to the floor, it’s a really big deal. During altar boy classes you’re told that you are saving God from dropping into hell. “You all know what a circus safety net is, boys. The paten is God’s safety net,” Brother McMurtry lectures every new altar boy. When Ryan coughed up the host, Monsignor Flynn stopped the Mass. All the brothers raced to the spot where the host had dropped. Brother McMurtry bolted to the sacristy and brought back oils and holy water and starched altar cloths to clean and cover the consecrated spot. Chairs and altar kneelers were gathered and arranged into a circle of protection around the holy area for two days. It was a really big to-do. They did everything but call in McNamara’s Construction to jack up the building.

  I always fight with Bug over who gets the paten. For some reason, this morning Bug’s nose looks longer, and he seems stuck on talking through it. Probably a touch of the flu. I really want the paten because I owe a big one to Oberstein, who nearly drove my Adam’s apple down my throat last time he served. Getting to be paten server is resolved in one of the usual ways: it’s purchased with a few cigarettes or canteen card IOUs or marbles or stamps or baseball or hockey cards. Or you fight for it by having a snap game of palms. I offer Bug a wrinkled Johnny Bower card, but he refuses.

  “C’mon, Bug,” I say. “I really want the paten. I owe Oberstein a hard whack.”

  He refuses again, saying he is too sleepy to take the bells.

  “I’m really tired too, Bug,” I say. “I feel like I’m gonna fall asleep.”

  So we play palms. Bug’s good at it. He wins a lot. In snapper palms, you play odds and evens once to see who has upper and who has lower palms. This time I’m lucky. I get lower palms, which gives me the advantage. One or two finger teases, Bug draws back, and wham . . . I nip him. I get the paten, and Bug gets the bells.

  When Bug isn’t an altar server, he always falls asleep. Sometimes he snores lightly in the pew, and the boy next to him has to poke him awake. He has never fallen asleep on the altar, until today.

  Just before Mass starts, I say five Hail Marys for the success of the marathon and a few Glory Be’s that we don’t get caught for stealing the wine.

  I glance over at Bug after the Introit, and he is looking kinda groggy. I point to the bells so he’ll remember to ring them as Monsignor Flynn climbs the altar steps, chanting Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Bug gives me the finger. He’s really tired and cranky. He picks up the bells and drops them before ringing them properly. Old Flynn turns and gives him an ugly look.

  I don’t pay much attention to Bug until the offertory, when he’s supposed to join me in bringing up the cruets of water and wine. He’s asleep, so I cough a few times, but he doesn’t hear me. I get up and walk over to get the cruets, kicking his feet as I pass by. I figure he’ll stay awake for the rest of the Mass, so I don’t pay much attention until right before the Sanctus, when he’s next supposed to ring the bells. He’s out like a light. And he’s swaying from side to side, slowly, like a ship at sea. Several times it looks like he’s gonna fall, but he doesn’t. But when I’m not watching, I hear a deep gurgle and turn to see him drop like a sack of potatoes, his head smacking against the linoleum floor. I race to him and bend over, pretending to help him up while whispering to him that he conked out and to keep his eyes closed and pretend that he fainted. Monsignor Flynn turns around and stares down from his perch as Brother Malone and Brother Walsh hurry to Bug’s aid. They help him up and walk him off to the sacristy the same way they would’ve helped an injured baseball player off the field.

  It is all very exciting. Bug is lucky old Flynn or one of the brothers didn’t catch him sleeping, or he would’ve been a dead duck. Monsignor Flynn motions for me to take the paten and move to the bells’ side of the altar. It is the first time I’ve ever served Mass alone. I don’t mind. It’s a bit of an adventure until we get to the Agnus Dei, when I remember I don’t know all the words, so I half-cough and half-mumble my way through. Then I sing the Laudate to announce communion, pick up the guillotine, wait for Monsignor Flynn to descend the steps and walk to the altar rail to administer communion to my prisoners.

  When Bug finally shows up at breakfast, white as snow, he gets razzed really bad.

  “What happened, Bug?” Blackie asks. “Forget to take your wakeup pill?”

  “Hey, if it ain’t Bug the Slug,” Murphy says. “He came, he saw, he conked out.”

  “Glory, glory, hallelujah,” Oberstein sings. “The Bug keeps marching on.”

  “Keep it up, keep it up, four eyes,” Bug says. “Your day is comin’.” And the whine of injury is louder than his words.

  St. Martin’s in the choir room. We’re doin’ a play by Skatespear. Martin’s in the choir room. Rags is doin’ a play by Skatespear. Martin’s in the choir room.

  The crier is Benny Long. He’s in grade six. Rags has sent him to get us. We’re doing a drama for the Christmas concert. Rags’ favorite play, Julius Caesar. One of the drama teachers from Holy Cross, which is way out in the west end of the city, is coming to the Mount three days a week to help him out.

  Today we’re practicing on the stage, which we love, because we horse around in the wings. Usually, the choir gets the stage, but lately, because we’re doing a play, we’ve been getting it a lot. Rags is a good director. He’s patient, and he puts up with a lot of shenanigans. Like the other day we were horsing around on stage, waiting for him to show up, and just as he did, Oberstein was booming out, “I’m a Yankee doodle dandy . . .” If it had been any other brother, Oberstein would’ve been a dead duck. But Rags just laughed and said, “Okay, okay, silly season’s not for another month. We have work to do. Act two, scene one, draw the curtain.”

  Father Cross is Julius Caesar, which is a good choice for the part, I think. Blackie is playing the role of Brutus. Bug is the soothsayer and Casca. He’s the only one with two parts. “That’s because he has a split personality,” Oberstein says. Murphy is Mark Antony, and Oberstein is the stage manager, which Rags says is the most important job in the whole show. I’m playing the part of Cassius, which is a very important role. “Type casting,” Oberstein says. “You have that lean and hungry luck.”

  Today we’re pra
cticing the stabbing scene, which we all love because we get to beat up on Father Cross. As we crowd in on him with our wooden daggers, we stab and punch and knee him until he falls to the floor. Once O’Connor grabbed him by the nuts, and he shrieked like a banshee. He’s usually in agony by the time Rags yells, “Wunnerful, wunnerful. Excellent blocking. Great stuff.” The conspirators do such a job on Murphy that Rags congratulates Father Cross every time. “Fabulous, Cross! You’re terrific! Just terrific! You keep getting better and better. Good stuff!” Each time the scene ends, it takes poor Cross about five minutes to get up off the floor and fix himself up, while we’re all in the wings howling with laughter.

  Murphy is really good as Mark Antony. He’d be really good in any part. He has only one serious flaw, according to Rags. He keeps pushing back his hair all the time. Rags says, not to worry, it won’t be a problem opening night because he’ll have a Roman crew cut. Murphy gets to give the famous “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech. Rags goes over the opening with him again and again, because the way Murphy speaks, it sounds like “Friends, Romans, Cunt-tree-men.” The first time Murphy delivered the speech, Rags stopped him dead in his tracks. He put his hand over his eyes and kept repeating, “Omigod! Omigod!”

  As Murphy delivers today, we are crowded in the wings directly in his line of vision, mouthing each word, trying to get him to screw up or crack. When he says, “Lend me your ears,” we all grab our ears or someone else’s and mime handing them to him. All except Bug, who reaches for his dick, which cracks us up so much that Ryan falls to the floor in fits as Rags yells, “Quiet in the wings, puh-leeze.” Bug’s as foolish as a capelin, but Murphy doesn’t waver. He stares straight ahead and rattles away, moving about in the pulpit. Only once does he almost lose it. Each time he says Brutus is an honourable man, Bug drops his pants and moons him. We crack up, but Murphy doesn’t miss a beat, which is really quite amazing. He’s a really good actor. He delivers a perfect speech. “Terrific, Murphy! Fantastic! Well done!” Rags is clapping his hands hard from the back of the hall. Murphy is beaming with pride as we all roll on the floor in fits of laughter.