The Long Run Page 16

  The other day Father Cross tried to get Bug to say a novena before exams, and he got really angry. “I don’t get on your case about praying, so why do you get on mine about not praying?” he snarled.

  “Because we all need God in our life,” Father Cross said.

  “Oh, fuck west, Cross,” Bug said. “I’m an atheist and you’re a beaut.”

  And that was it. Father Cross never bothered him again about religion.

  Back at the bakery, Clare gives us all a few toutons, which we devour like we are starving to death. Two older boys, Edward Harvey and Evan Cowan, are working with Clare and Rose at the bakery. They do all the lifting and heavy stuff, like cleaning the big mixers. Evan’s nickname is Guns because he’s King of the Hop-Along Cowboys and wears Cross’s big black Hop-Along Cassidy hat. All he’s gotta do is toss his head back or tip that big black cowboy hat, and you’re in a Western movie. You should see him when he mounts up and lashes his rump, tugging the invisible reins as he races around the building. He’s just like Rory Calhoun. Every kid in sight mounts up and follows. Once I watched a posse of about fifty chasing after him, slapping their rumps as they rounded the big stone buildings in full gallop, stampeding toward the Rio Grande. There’s only one thing more thrilling than watching, and that’s being one of the riders trying to keep up with the golden palomino of the King of the Hop-Along Cowboys. And he has the best toy gun collection at the Mount.

  The four of them get along really well. Whenever I go to the bakery for a loaf, they’re usually horsing around or chatting up a storm. They love poking fun at each other and cracking jokes. Even Rose, who is so serious, horses around sometimes. I think Evan flirts with Clare and Rose. Once I heard him ask Clare if she would like to go berry-picking up near Major’s Path. Another time, I arrived at the bakery unexpectedly and they were alone there, behind the big tray racks. They had their arms around each other, and Evan was whispering something to her. I was startled and slipped away. Later on, I made up my mind that it was a beautiful thing to see. Clare with her thick blond hair in the arms of the tall and handsome King of the Hop-Along Cowboys. And I was happy for her, happy they’d found a time and a place to be alone together. And I hoped she would not become a nun but instead would run away with Evan. Mount up and ride off into the sunset, just like in the movies.

  It’s so nice to get to see Clare every day. Sometimes we sit at the long stainless steel table in the bakery, eating fresh bread and talking about baseball. She loves Ted Williams. “Home run kings will come and go,” she says, “but Ted Williams will be remembered as the greatest hitter who ever lived.” Or we talk about when we were a family, living together in Kilbride, just outside St. John’s. If the weather’s nice, she takes a break, and we grab some toutons and walk around the grounds and chat or go to her room, which is just a cubbyhole with a bed and a dresser over in the cook’s quarters. We have a big old chat about Mom and Dad. She was almost twelve when they died, so she remembers a lot about the Kilbride days, as she calls them. I’ve learned a lot about my Mom and Dad from her. She said the memory that hurts her most is the day after Mom and Dad died. A social worker took her down to Water Street to the Big Six to buy a dress for Mom and a suit for Dad, and she didn’t know their sizes. She started to cry, and the social worker told her to pick out the colors, he’d find out the sizes. Clare says it’s very important to hold on to all your memories, even sad and secondhand ones, because memories can be more real than things you see and touch. I believe that. And I believe it’s true of dreams as well. I told her about my vision, and she smiled and said it was probably fatigue. “You’ve been through a lot,” she said. “It’s probably taken a toll on you.”

  Clare is so glad we’re together for a while, because it’s her last chance to tell me things about Mom and Dad. In the winter she’s entering the convent at Corpus Christi, and I won’t be able to see her for a very long time. She’s becoming a postulant, and then she’ll get to be a nun. On weekends we often walk to Water Street, where all the stores are. Clare gets a few dollars salary for working in the bakery, and she’s allowed to keep some of it to spend. We go to Marty’s and have a big feed of fish and chips and gravy. They have really great french fries, always chunky and golden. Clare has promised to buy me a school jacket when she saves enough money. Last weekend, after we ate at Marty’s, we went to the Sport Store, which has tons of sports stuff, and there was a beautiful black baseball glove there with my favorite player’s name, Phil Rizzuto, written in silver inside. I was gonna ask her for the glove, but I knew it would be more expensive than the jacket. Clare says that if I dream hard enough I might find it one morning under my pillow. “Dreams have a way of coming true,” she says. “I believe in miracles. And visions,” she adds. I love Clare. I really, really love her.

  When we finish the toutons, Bug asks for more. I poke him, as Evan hollers, “Don’t be so greedy, Bradbury.”

  Clare tells him too many will spoil his lunch.

  “Pistil, I’m underweight, and I got a hole in my heart,” Bug says. “And I wanna be a champion sumo, so I gotta eat as much as I can.”

  “Have you mastered the seventy sumo moves yet, Brendan?” Clare asks.

  “Pushing, slapping, hoisting, tripping, throwing, pinning . . . ‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,’” Bug says, as he turns and rolls his eyes. “I’d like to grapple with Tokyo Rose in the ring,” he whispers. “Even though she’s flat as a board.”

  Clare smiles and slips him two more toutons, which he gobbles up in jig’s time. Clare gets such a kick outta Bug. I think she really likes him a lot because of his handicap. She sees him as one of the poor. We all do, I guess. And in his own way, he really is very loveable.

  I saw Evan and Clare touching again today. When I arrived at the bakery, the wooden doors were swung open. I stopped before entering and watched her oiling a row of freshly baked loaves with a paintbrush. She was whistling away, which she always does when she works, and brushing the loaves of bread, when Evan appeared out of nowhere. I thought she was alone, but he must’ve been helping another senior, Egbert Wall, dump the big bags of flour into the mixer at the far end of the bakery. He towered over her and smiled. Then he leaned into her and slipped his arm around her waist. She shoved it away, but he replaced it. She looked around shyly but did not move his arm.

  Later, while I was tearing into a fresh loaf, I asked her what it meant to be a bride of Christ, an expression she uses when talking about her vocation to become a nun.

  “It means you’re married to Jesus, and as His spouse you commit yourself to a lifetime of simplicity, celibacy, and service to the poor.”

  “What’s the difference between a bride of Christ and a bride of Evan?” I teased.

  She was startled, and looked at me like I’d just torn her dress off and she was standing there naked. She stopped brushing the loaves of bread.

  “A bride of Evan would mean a different commitment,” she said. “It would mean a vocation to the married life. Children. Motherhood. Raising a family. A very different commitment.”

  “Sex,” I said.

  She began brushing a loaf.

  “Is it a tough choice?” I asked.

  “Not really,” she laughed. “When you have a vocation, you are called. That’s what the word means. Vocare. From the Latin. ‘To be called.’ If Jesus calls you, you hear his voice. You have no choice. Jesus said, ‘I know mine and mine know me . . .’”

  I knew what she was talking about. Vocations was once the subject of Monologues and Dialogues. I told Oberstein after the class that I was worried I might get called. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Nobody would ever call you.”

  “Have you heard Jesus call?” I asked her.

  “Yes. I think so.” She stopped brushing.

  “Think so?” I laughed.

  “I know so,” she said firmly.

  I could see I had upset her, so I switched the conversation to baseball. “The Braves are playing next weeken
d. Warren Spahn’s pitching.”

  “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain,” she laughed and was silent.

  “The Rex Sox traded Pete Runnels last night,” I said, knowing it wasn’t true but wanting to keep her mind off religion.

  “You’re cracked,” she said. “Sister Kevin told me he’s batting .320.”

  “Shows you how much I know,” I said.

  “But the Tigers traded Harvey Kuenn to Cleveland for Rocky Colavito.”

  “I know less about baseball than I do about religion,” I said.

  “Close your eyes,” she said. Which means there is a surprise in store. “Imagine a picture of something you’d really like for your birthday.” As I’m imagining the colors green and white, the colors of the Mount Kildare Lions, she tells me she has permission to take me to town. My birthday is in a few days, and she has saved enough money from working at the bakery to let me buy something at the Sport Store.

  “You can have whatever you like,” she says, “whatever you want in the store.”

  I throw my arms around her. “You’re kidding,” I say. I really need a pair of runners for the marathon, but my heart is set on something special. “Can I have a jacket? A school jacket? A Mount Kildare green-and-white jacket?”

  I love school jackets. On weekends, when we go to town, I stare a lot at the blue and gold of St. Bon’s, the green and gold of St. Pat’s and the beautiful navy-blue and red of Prince of Wales. Almost everyone seems to have school jackets except for the boys at the Mount.

  “Of course you can have a school jacket,” Clare says.

  On Saturday we go to the Sport Store on Water Street. The store owner, a tall, thin man with a long, wrinkled face and a neat moustache that looks penciled on, leads us to the back of the store, where there are racks of school jackets. He is wearing a blue blazer with the Newfoundland coat of arms on the breast pocket. He carries a beautiful pair of white runners, which makes me think of Shorty Richardson.

  “There is every school jacket and uniform in Newfoundland on these racks,” he says proudly, sliding a hand along a double row of coats. “Whatcha looking for?”

  “A Mount Kildare jacket,” Clare says.

  “Mount Kildare? The orphanage . . .” he says. “What colors might they be now?”

  “Green and white,” I say.

  “Green and white,” he repeats. “Don’t think we’ve ever carried those.” He turns to his stocky assistant. “Melvin, we ever carried green-and-white jackets?”

  “Nope, never,” Melvin says.

  “Then you don’t have every school jacket in Newfoundland,” Clare says sarcastically.

  The stocky clerk turns his back to us. The owner looks at the floor, toys with an empty coat hanger and pushes several coats along the rod.

  “Would you be interested in another jacket?” he asks.

  Clare looks at me, and the tears start to come.

  “I want a Mount Kildare jacket,” I say, “I want a green-and-white one.” And for some reason, the thought of getting caught for stealing the wine enters my head and I cry harder.

  “Shhh. There are lots of other nice jackets,” Clare says. “Lots of other nice colors.” She bends down and whispers that they don’t make Mount Kildare jackets and that the red-and-white one is close to green-and-white. She urges me to try one on. Reluctantly, I do so.

  “That’s perfect,” she says, “a perfect fit. And it will remind you of Christmas.”

  “That’s a Bishop’s College jacket,” the owner says.

  “Those are Christmas colors,” Clare says, ignoring him. She tells me that if I like the jacket I can have it, and she will sew my Lions baseball crest on the sleeve. That makes me feel good, so I thank her and ask if I can wear the jacket right away.

  We look at the owner, who shrugs and says, “Sure, why not?”

  Clare pays him and asks where the jackets are made.

  “Montreal,” he says.

  “You should order Mount Kildare jackets,” Clare says.

  “They don’t make green-and-white ones, ma’am,” he says.

  “If they use red-and-white fabric, they can use green-and-white fabric,” Clare says.

  The man shrugs and says nothing.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to have a few green-and-white jackets in stock, would it?”

  “No, ma’am, I guess not,” the owner says, looking at the floor.

  “Then you should order some,” Clare says.

  Outside, I thank her again for my birthday gift. She passes me a tissue and tells me to wipe my face and blow my nose. As I do so, she watches and says, “I have numbered all your tears . . .” I ask her what she means, and she says it’s from the Bible. Like Oberstein, she’s always doing that, saying lines from the Bible and refusing to explain them. “You’ll read about it when you get older,” she says.

  We walk along Water Street for a while, commenting on how nice the jacket is, and how good it will look with the baseball crest on the sleeve. Clare says it’s a perfect fit, and it will keep me nice and warm during baseball playoffs next year. She tells me not to be upset that they didn’t have green-and-white jackets. “At St. Martha’s,” she says, “they don’t even have school colors. The girls wear white blouses and black skirts and saddle shoes.”

  I tell her I don’t mind. But deep down, I do. It just doesn’t seem right that a store would have jackets for every school in Newfoundland except Mount Kildare.

  10

  * * *

  ONE OF THE THINGS I hate most is shunning. It’s worse than the spells. Shunning can last for weeks. Or months. Once a boy was shunned for almost a year. Lately, since we’ve been on our guard about the wine stealing, it seems more cruel than ever. Brother Mansfield does it to Brookes one day when he catches Brookes wearing Whelan’s sneakers. He marches all the junior dorms, including St. Dominic’s, the five and six year olds, to the gymnasium and has us stand with our backs to the four walls. Brookes stands in the middle of the gym, looking at the floor. It’s a sad sight. I feel awful for him. Brookes has that monkey face that always looks happy. But this day he looks really sad. Brother Mansfield walks over and stands next to him, sticking out his little potbelly. Brother Mansfield is very small, small and wiry, with a long crooked nose and a long chin. He has crooked gray eyebrows, like a child painted them on, and he gets a new haircut every few weeks. But no matter how often he cuts his hair, in jig’s time it’s a thatch of gray, spiralling in a thousand directions. Bug says he should get it mowed. His haircut makes his chin look longer. He wears a hearing aid, which he’s forever tapping and rattling because it never seems to work.

  He’s always called for when two boys are caught fighting. He has a terrible reputation for being mean. His nickname is Moody Mansfield. You never know what mood he’s gonna be in. He could just as easily give you an ice cream from the canteen as the tweaks. The tweaks is when he pinches you by the sideburns and pulls hard. It hurts so much the tears come to your eyes. You don’t wanna get caught in Moody’s line of fire. Every boy at the Mount does his best to avoid the snake. That’s Moody’s strap.

  “I want every boy here to look at Mr. Brookes’s sneakers.” He orders Brookes to take them off and hold a sneaker up with each of his index fingers. “These sneakers are not Mr. Brookes’s. They are Mr. Whelan’s sneakers. Mr. Brookes has stolen them from Mr. Whelan’s locker. That makes Mr. Brookes a thief. And thieves must be punished. Thievery will not be tolerated at Mount Kildare. You all know the ten commandments. Commandment eight: Thou shalt not steal. Thieves must be made an example of. We shall all participate in Mr. Brookes’s punishment by shunning him. That is, by completely ignoring him. Every boy in this gymnasium will shun Mr. Brookes until the end of the month. This means, boys, that Mr. Brookes does not exist until that time. Until the end of the month he has become invisible.” Brother Mansfield turns to the St. Dominic’s boys, tapping his potbelly. “Do you all understand? When you see him, you must pretend he does not exist. If you see him in the cafeteria
or coming down the hall or outside on the playground, you are to close your eyes and cover your ears until he goes away. Is that clear? This boy is a bad boy. He is being punished. We are punishing him for stealing. We are punishing him by not speaking to him and by not seeing him. That’s what we call shunning.”

  He turns to the older boys and raises his finger and continues to lecture. “When you shun a boy, if he comes near you, you ignore him. If a shunned boy, like Mr. Brookes, appears in your path in the cafeteria, say, walking along with his tray, do not veer away from him. Do not stop in front of him. Do not move away from him. Prove to him, prove to me . . . most important, prove to your fellows and to yourselves that this shunned boy does not exist. Prove that he is invisible. Walk through him. That’s correct, boys. Walk straight through him, as you would walk through thin air. The only thing real about a shunned boy should be the sound of his tray crashing to the floor. Or the sound of his body falling to the floor. You will not be punished for such behavior. Quite the contrary! Boys who shun properly will be rewarded. Boys who refuse to shun properly will be punished. You do not have a choice in this matter, boys. Shunning is very serious stuff. There is an expectation here. And you must measure up. For the good of all.”

  “Do you have to shun him even in chapel?” Bug’s hand is a propeller.

  “Certainly, Mr. Bradbury. Shunning takes place twenty-four hours a day. There are no exceptions. Shunning should take place everywhere, everywhere, especially in chapel. A thief is being punished. Where better to do justice than in the House of the Lord?”

  Poor Brookes keeps staring at the floor, holding the sneakers until Brother Mansfield orders Whelan to come and retrieve them. Then he commands Brookes to stand by the exit as we pass by in single file.