Page 220 - What They Did to the Kid

208 Jack Fritscher

“What kind of strange little boy are you?”
He slapped me hard across my chest.
The flat of his big Iowa farmer’s hand stunned me. Nobody had
ever hit me before.
“Get downstairs with the other boys.”
My eyes burned with tears, but I held back, so tight, the tears
stung like steam evaporating.
“Why don’t you fit in here?”
“I fit in here fine.”
“Don’t contradict me.”
“I fit in here fine.”
“You’re not one of us.”
“What the fuck do you want?”
He slapped me across the face. He screamed: “Are you the Boy
Anti-Christ?”
Water, not tears, ran down my cheeks.
He hissed: “You’re the reason Jesus wept.”
He watched me silently vest, take my theology books, and leave
him standing alone in my room.
When I returned after class, the novels and plays were gone. The
driftwood sculpture was splintered. The bed lay ripped to shreds.
My shoe box was tossed spilled-out across the floor. I slammed the
door on the mess he’d made.
The Jesuit clucked and shook his red head. “When Rector Karg
calls you to his rooms tomorrow,” he said, “be honest.”
“You like contests, don’t you?” I said.
“Are you one of the fighting Irish?”
Rector Karg had focused my resolve. God had spoken to me, but
a man had slapped me. I meditated all night: Ryan, old boy, you
had enough emotional strength to survive ten years in Misery.
Hold together and win. He’s a stupid ass. Be careful: that stupid
ass has the power, stupid ass or not, to ship you out and ruin your
vocation for good. In the long run, Ryan old boy, that’s what counts.
It’s not God who decides you have a vocation, it’s Rector Karg. Dear
God, o-boy, help me now. You’ve got to, because if You don’t, no one
will. God helps him who helps himself, I repeated over and again. I
vowed to forgive him.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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