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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK146 Jack Fritscher%u201cGod made us,%u201d Lock said, %u201cand He matched us.%u201dThey both laughed.%u201cWhat%u2019s that supposed to mean?%u201d I said.%u201cWe%u2019re worse off than Dempsey ever was,%u201d Lock said. %u201cHow did we become the Friends of the Friendless Friends?%u201d%u201cFub,%u201d I said. %u201cThe Fubs of the Fubless Fubs!%u201dHank the Tank, yodeling Gregorian chant, ticked up from his hymnal, eyes alert. %u201cI sniff the blood of long knives,%u201d he said.%u201cYou sniff your own shorts,%u201d I said.Hank noticed that the Reverend Father Christopher Dryden was sick and confined to his ornate rooms. The following Sunday afternoon Hank tried to sneak up to see him, but a do-not-disturb sign hung sideways from his door knob, and an old retired priest sat half-asleep on a chair by Dryden%u2019s door.%u201cWhat happens to priests when they get old?%u201d I asked.%u201cThey die,%u201d Lock said.%u201cI mean before that.%u201d%u201cNot much.%u201d%u201cThat%u2019s cynical.%u201d Father Gunn preached that cynicism ruined vocations.%u201cAs you live, so shall you die.%u201d%u201cI can live lonely, but I don%u2019t want to....%u201dLed by Father Polistina, Misery%u2019s priests showed up on the hour for each and every class, keeping to the Latin grammar and the Church history and the geometry theorems and the philosophy texts exactly. Discipline ruled work and work was ruled by prayer. Our school year ticked like the clock. Tick. Tick. The humming big hand crossed the little hand. Tick. Tick. Tension mounted, yet nothing extraordinary seemed to be happening. Tick. Tick. Classes dragged on toward final exams in Greek, physics, and the philosophy of German Idealism. I wanted to go home to Charley-Pop and Annie Laurie and Thom and my four-year-old sister, Margaret Mary.In the halls at Misery, I posted flyers announcing %u201cThe Theology Students%u2019 Year-End Musical Concert%u201d for the next Sunday night in May. Whatever performer had been scheduled was not canceled.%u201cAppearances are everything,%u201d Lock said.In the auditorium, I pushed Mike and Lock into theater seats directly in front of Hank the Tank and Ski Kowalski, so we could sit real tall, rock back and forth, hold up our programs, and generally obscure their view of