Page 103 - Demo

%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 91lying on white towels we had ink-marked MISERY, about theological problems and how the whole world danced around ignoring the true meaning of life.Seminarians either gossiped or talked obvious shoptalk. They bored me. I announced, %u201cIf our vocation could actually be explained, no one could ignore it.%u201d The other seminarians accepted the mystery of the priesthood so nonchalantly that I felt myself drifting away from them. They were unquestioning. My nagging analysis isolated me from them.On the opposite side, I felt myself defending my vocation from boys like Rip and Kenny who were worldly the usual way with alcohol, tobacco, cars, and girls. No wonder faith had to rule reason. Maybe these unanswerable questions Dick Dempsey and I had discussed so often had caused him to quit. At least he wasn%u2019t shipped off to the insane asylum where I was obviously headed.It was all too much on the hot beach. I wanted to plunge into the cold water, swimming out over my head to the raft. I wanted to watch the girls up close touch their blonde hair, wet in strings, finger-combing it, their arms lifting and tightening their small breasts under the swimsuits. I wanted to hear them scream and dive off the float, piercing the water around me when wild boys in red and blue and yellow racing Speedos pulled their arms or slapped at their hard little rears. They were golden angels chased by young devils and their play drew me fascinated toward them. If I were to be their priest, I had to understand them.%u201cMike, I%u2019m going into the water.%u201dHe groaned a bit, lying all lifeguard-tan on his white towel, stretched half asleep in the sun. I walked across the beach of hot sand through the wonder of half-naked flesh. They think nothing of tomorrow, I thought, circling the prone baking bodies, splashing into the green water. They%u2019re lost, nearly all of them, unless saved.I swam out into the water, almost as far as I could, until the rock %u2018n%u2019 roll pounding from the speaker on top of the bathhouse grew soft under the lap of the waves around my ears and was lost in the quivering heat and voices on the shore.I was out too far and began to swim back nearer to the diving raft. I hung on it, turned from the float, in over my head, treading water, feeling, feeling it warmer around my shoulders, feeling it bubble dark and cold around my moving feet. A girl swam up from the bottom so close to me her hands brushed my legs on her ascent and her solid breasts, wired in her suit, graded up my back.My God, I want no bad thoughts.