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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK98 Jack Fritscher%u201cI think I better not be a priest, Ryan. I think I been...I didn%u2019t know how much till this summer...pressured all my life. It%u2019s time I stopped.%u201dI pulled at my trunks that had long ago dried on me.%u201cDoc%u2019s always saying he thought I%u2019d be the salvation of this family. And Julia! She keeps reminding me she was pronounced barren forever after my older sister Julie was born. She prayed for a son, hoping, I guess, to change Doc. Anyway, to hear her tell it, Julie at the age of two was praying for a baby brother.%u201dHe slapped the arms of his chair. %u201cThen, of all things, some clairvoyant nuns told Julia she%u2019d have a baby and he would be God%u2019s child. That,%u201d he said, %u201cthat is when you start to find out where the pressure is.%u201d%u201cThat baby was you.%u201dIn the yard across the street, lines of shouting children ran circles across the lawn with burning sparklers.%u201cDoc really elaborated on all this crappy family history when I tried to discuss leaving Misery. That%u2019s why Julia was so glad when you said you%u2019d come visit. She thinks you%u2019ll be on her side. Your poems really convinced her you%u2019ve got the perfect vocation.%u201d%u201cUuuh.%u201d%u201cMaybe you do. Maybe she knows.%u201dHe lit his last cigarette, crushed the pack, and sent the smoke swirling through the moon motes. %u201cAnyway, I hitched down to Sauk City, right after my pastor made me quit lifeguarding at the beach, to see %u2018Man of the Cloth,%u2019 Arnie Roth, the only priest I trust. %u2018Be an adult,%u2019 he said. %u2018Tell them you%u2019re not going back, tell them you%u2019re going where you want to go, to Madison, the Twin Cities, Chicago, wherever. Transfer over to some Catholic university like Loyola. This is between you and God, not mommy and daddy. Get away from them and this dead tourist country.%u2019%u201d%u201cBut your father wants everybody to do what they choose,%u201d I said.%u201cDoc?%u201d he laughed, %u201che%u2019s the original big noise from Winnetka. With a bad case of moral amnesia. Anyway, after I left Arnie Roth, I went straight to the drugstore. After what you saw at supper tonight, you know my father is obviously an escapist. A man who was told by his own father and mother that he had made his own bed and could rot in it. Every Sunday without fail he closes the dairy bar and gets dead drunk. Julia flits around him, still wearing the dress she wore to church, trying to humor him. Normally he%u2019s cynical, but Sundays he%u2019s unapproachable.%u201dThe orange tip of his cigarette arced from his lap to his dark mouth, glowed brighter an instant, then descended.