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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK152 Jack Fritscher%u201cMike has a great imagination. Nobody has actually proven Father Dryden committed any sins. In my vocation, I want to be sensible about hysteria.%u201d %u201cRyan,%u201d Lock said, %u201cIf you write stuff like that in our moral psychology exam tomorrow morning, I%u2019ll graduate top of the class.%u201d%u201cYou want to fight for number one?%u201d I said. %u201cYou can have %u2018Valedictorian, Misery, college class of 1961.%u2019 Help find me an extra packing box. Tomorrow I%u2019m taking home anything they can object to. I%u2019m purifying my life.%u201d%u201cRyan, you%u2019re afraid too, aren%u2019t you?%u201d%u201cIt%u2019s ironic. The minute I started to understand the requirements of a vocation to the priesthood in the Catholic Church...%u201d%u201cDeep down,%u201d Lock said, %u201cyou feel maybe Gunn and Karg and all the old fogies in this sterile hothouse are right to hold off change.%u201d%u201cA vocation happened to me this year,%u201d I said.%u201cHa! You...don%u2019t...want...to...change!%u201d %u201cI don%u2019t know whether I%u2019m protecting my vocation running with them or from them.%u201d%u201cThere%u2019s many kinds of priestly vocations,%u201d Lock said.%u201cSo which kind%u2019s mine?%u201d%u201cYou%u2019ll be the first beatnik priest. That%u2019s the beauty of the new Church.%u201d%u201cAs God is my witness,%u201d I said, %u201cI will be a priest, and if you want valedictorian, you%u2019ll have to kill me.%u201dLock jumped me with a full nelson. We wrestled and laughed and ran down to the swimming pool and raced each other in furious laps through the slapping bright chlorine water.Hank the Tank stuck his head out of the lifeguard%u2019s booth and flicked the overhead lights on and off. He was stealing a pair of flippers to go swimming himself down at the river, where he and his kind had started to hang out to separate themselves from our crowd, who had taken over the pathway circling around little Lake Gunn.%u201cI dare you to come race me down at the river!%u201dHe turned the pool lights out.%u201cI%u2019m the king of the river!%u201dHe slammed his way out the door, and left us bobbing in the dark.