The Long Run Page 13

  “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 traditi
onal 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?”

  When nobody raises a hand, McCann says that to be a sumo wrestler, you have to put on a lot of weight. “About two hundred pounds,” he says, “and this means every boy who joins the sumo team will receive extra meals each day and double servings. As well, all sumos will be released regularly from class for special trips to the canteen. Sumo wrestlers will receive special canteen cards.”

  Every hand in the class shoots up.

  “You may dialogue among yourselves about the advantages of becoming a sumo.” McCann walks to a chair, sits down and lowers his head. The class becomes a beehive.

  “I put my hand up, but I wouldn’t be caught dead walking around with a diaper stuck up me arse,” Ryan whispers.

  “Fuck the loincloth,” Murphy says. “I’m in it for the grub. Extra meals and free trips to the canteen’s good enough for me.” Unlike poor Ryan, Murphy doesn’t need the extra weight.

  Oberstein looks downcast, the way he does when he gets the spells.

  “What about you, Oberstein? You in?” Murphy says.

  “I dunno,” Oberstein says. “The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. My president declared war on them for that. I dunno if I can promote their rituals.”

  Blackie urges Oberstein to join. “Oberstein, there’s two kinds of people in this world. Them that says, I’m gonna make it happen. And them that says, What the hell’s happenin’?”

  “You’re an American, Blackie,” Oberstein says.

  “One hundred percent. Stars and Stripes forever,” Blackie says.

  “What about Pearl Harbor?” Oberstein says.

  “Ain’t nobody from Pearl Harbor livin’ in Mount Kildare,” Blackie says. “We’re POWs, Oberstein, POWs, and we’re AWOL, just like in the movies.”

  I look at Oberstein and imagine him two hundred pounds heavier.

  McCann claps his hands twice. “There are seventy sumo moves. You must master all seventy. The first tournament of the Mount Kildare Sumo Wrestling Team will take place tomorrow after school. Besides the grand champion, there will be junior champions and pre-champions. These will be followed by senior wrestlers, contenders, beginners, and recruits. Right now, you are all recruits. After tomorrow’s tournament, you will be ranked. And who knows? Maybe there will be tournaments in town. Against other schools. The Protestants. Maybe there will be Protestant sumos. But Mount Kildare sumos will be the best sumos in the province. Just like our band and our choir and tumblers. Please show up half an hour early for hair and loincloth demonstrations, chommage and shimenawa. And remember, boys, once you come to the ring, you always refer to me as your grand champion, your yokozuna. Your what, boys?”

  “Yokozuna, Brother.”

  He claps his hands again, sharply, like a Chinese mandarin, raises them palm to palm, says “Gassho,” bows a deep, slow bow and leaves.

  “I don’t think we really got a choice.” Murphy nods his head in McCann’s direction.

  Bug rolls his eyes and cocks his head. “Yokozuna,” he mocks.

  “Yoko loco,” Blackie says.

  There are twenty-seven boys on the sumo wrestling team. Each practice Brother McCann begins roll call by shouting the number one in Japanese, ichi. Each boy shouts his number in turn—ni, san, shi, go, roku—until twenty-seven is called. McCann refuses to allow numbers four and nine to be called out during the same class. They must alternate, he says. Shi, number four, has the same pronunciation as “death.” And ku, number nine, has the same meaning as “to suffer.”

  “Kurushimu, four and nine, a very bad combination, sumos. Very, very bad. Forty-nine, as you know, is the worst mark you can get on a test. A limbo mark. Better to get one or zero. Forty-eight means you definitely failed. Fifty means you barely passed. But you passed. Forty-nine means you almost made it. You’re in a sort of limbo. It’s the worst mark a student can possibly attain. Also, 1949 was a very bad year, sumos, a very bad year. You are all students of Newfoundland history. You all know your Dictionary of Newfoundland. You all know what happened to our great country during that fateful year, 1949. That was our Pearl Harbor, sumos. The year we joined the Canadians. April Fool’s. Ha ha! A terrible, terrible year. We might as well have become communists. We surrendered our souls, our independence. Shameful. We gave up everything, our government, our stamps, our Bank of Newfoundland, our currency, our ambassadors, our pride, sumos. Our pride. Forty-nine . . . a very bad year. Four plus nine equals thirteen, unlucky thirteen, sumos. Never ever let me hear shi and ku called during the same class. Never, ever, ever.” He is extremely angry.

  I am number nineteen, ju-ku. We all shout our numbers. For some weird reason, McCann thinks shouting is synonymous with being a Japanese sumo wrestler.

  “Kavanaghs-san, you’re over the line,” he screams. “Review your seventy sumo moves. Murphys-san, bow deeply before your bout.” During sumo sessions he always adds san to everyone’s name. Bradburys-san, Ryans-san, O’Connors-san. He has an English–Japanese dictionary his brother sent him and he’s always looking up Japanese words and shouting them at us.

  “Sayonara, Kavanaghs-san, you’re over the line again. Westcotts-san, Ryans-san, all sumos, straighten your shimenawas.” As he sprays, a strand of slime sticks to his chin.

  Ryan and Kavanagh never get their loincloths on properly. They’re always half falling off. Poor Kavanagh’s droops so low you can usually see his pubic hair. But it’s not just Ryan and Kavanagh, all of us, one time or another, have difficulty with our diapers, as Oberstein calls them. We all look pretty foolish.

  Brother McCann wants every sumo to be properly loinclothed and haired for the opening tournament. He has arranged the competition according to weight. The winners will receive prizes in the form of extra canteen privileges—bags of chips, candy bars, Tootsie Rolls and soda pop. Everyone wants to win. All matches will be fought in the dohyo, and McCann instructs us to gather in a circle and clap our hands over and over, while bowing to each other, until our necks are sore.

  “The match begins,” he shouts, “when two sumos enter the ring.” But first, he has to explain the chiri-chozu ceremony, which we call the Cheerios ceremony. “Squat at opposite ends of the ring, extend your arms, clap your hands once.” Then he performs the foot-stamping ritual, which is like a war dance the Apaches do in the movies. “Next, the purification ritual,” he shouts, and takes a handful of salt from a bowl Kelly passes him and throws it into the dohyo.

  Finally, he teaches us the glare-off. “The glare-off is high noon with Gary Coopers,” he says. He pulls Kavanagh and Ryan, the scrawniest sumos, aside and tells them to crouch down at marked white lines. “Clench your fists and glare at each other. Try to break each other’s concentration. Glare as hard as you can. It’s like a faceoff in hockey.” As he turns and tells us the importance of keeping our focus, Kavanagh bares his teeth at Ryan, who sticks out his tongue. “The glare-off takes four minutes, sumos. You may lunge at any time during the glare-off.”

  Every day now, McCann has a new Japanese item, as he calls it. Mostly clippings taken from papers and magazines sent by Father McCann. Yesterday, he read to us from a newspaper clipping sent from Tokyo on the Japanese Noh theater about a Mr. Tetsunojo Kanze, who was born into a family of Noh actors. Today, he asks who Mr. Kanze is.

  “Head of one of five major troupes of Noh, a six-hundred-year-old form of musical dance drama that uses measured chants and movements,” Oberstein answers.

  “Mr. Kanze is very famous. In Japan he is considered a living national treasure, and he is extremely well known worldwide. He made his first performance at the age of three and currently performs with his two older brothers, Hisao and Hideo.” Today, McCann catches Rowsell daydreaming and asks him to properly pronounce the name
s of Mr. Kanze’s older brothers. Rowsell can’t pronounce his own name. He keeps stuttering the word Kansas until McCann gives him a whack on each hand.

  Mr. Kanze stages performances for peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons because of the horror of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which I like to remind Oberstein about when he mentions Pearl Harbor.

  Today at practice, McCann reads a piece from a book called Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenko, a fourteenth-century Buddhist priest. It’s about how the Japanese imperial bedchambers always have the pillow facing east in order to receive the influence of the light. McCann asks Oberstein, who is a crackerjack in geography, what direction the east is, and when Oberstein says Virginia Waters, McCann tells us all to change our pillows before bedtime so that all sumo pillows face east.

  When he finishes reading from Essays in Idleness, he reaches for a game box and holds it high above his head. “Another Japanese item,” he shouts, “from Father McCann. Samurai Sabres, a game of high adventure, which all sumos must master.” He is extremely excited, shouting and spraying spit everywhere. “The time: Sixteen hundreds. The place: Feudal Japan at war. The challenge: Command an army of samurai warriors, battle for provincial control, eliminate your enemies and become shogun. It is a game of strategy, secrecy, diplomacy. Plan your moves in the cafeteria, during recess, before going to sleep, everywhere, except chapel. Cloak your campaign in secrecy by hiring temporary mercenaries or the ninja to spy and assassinate. Form mutual bonds of loyalty with an enemy warlord. But be constantly wary of the knife in the back.”

  “So, what’s new?” Bug whispers.

  McCann passes the game to O’Neill. “This is a game for sumos, all sumos, to master.” He chops his hands sharply, drops his jaw and stares at the ceiling.

  Before the tournament tomorrow we must all memorize a Japanese Zen meditation, which we’re to recite before every wrestling match. And Brother McCann has talked Rags into teaching us the art of Japanese haiku. That’s a form of poetry that has strict rules: three unrhymed lines totalling seventeen syllables, with a pattern of 5-7-5. But Rags says you don’t have to stick to that strict pattern. Haiku written in the States usually ignores the rules. Rags says not to worry about the rules, just have fun. He wrote a couple of examples on the blackboard. They’re short and cute and fun to write. Most of us really like them. We trade them like baseball cards. My favorite is: