Page 144 - What They Did to the Kid

132 Jack Fritscher

“Atavistic, my ass,” he shouted, pitching another stone into the
small pond, rippling the mirror surface into multiple circles. “Why
do you think everything has a hidden meaning?”
“I think the reason people like the ocean so much,” I said, “or
lakes and rivers, is because one day man kind of crawled up on the
shore. Ka-boom.”
“Washed up,” Mike said.
“It was a beginning,” I said, “and we never forgot where we came
from.”
“If I was going to evolve,” Mike said, “I’d never crawl up out
of this pond on this shore. Little Lake Gunn isn’t even a real lake.”
“Gunn dug it with a road-grader.”
“I prefer the river,” Mike said. “It’s natural.”
We cut down the embankment through the undergrowth toward
Ski’s clearing.
“I mean,” Mike said, “you know the lake’s piss-poor.”
“Quite the contrary,” Lock said. “Boys piss in it all the time.
Even Ryan’s peed in it.”
Mike stripped off a low branch. He flailed away at the brush
ahead. We stopped.
Suddenly.
We stared at each other, uh, in one of those moments when truth
surfaces.
“I wanted to get along in the seminary,” Mike said to Lock. “Not
to get in trouble.” It was the first time Mike mentioned our talk of
the past summer. “Ry said to come back and talk to some priest.
I wanted to talk to Gunn, I guess, but I take one look at him and
know what he’ll say and do.” He whipped at a small buckeye tree.
“The rest of the faculty’s worse. Wind them up, they say Mass and
disappear for the day.”
“Unless they come to inspect your legs,” I said.
“Or to teach,” Mike said, “which is worse.”
“Congenital idiocy,” Lock said. “Misericordia’s holy reputation
hides a history of intellectual incest. Take one student. Train him
for twelve years to Misery’s way of thinking. Pack him off some-
where conservative for a bit of advanced theological study. Recall
him before he’s finished, so he can teach for free room and board.

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