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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK228 Jack Fritscherhide their true feelings. They never really cared what I did: go or stay. It%u2019s Your birthday, but I%u2019m the babe in the manger. I withdrew. They all lied to me. We fell into a drifted bank.My father, in tears, said, %u201cIf you had left Misericordia, ten years ago, five years ago, but now, so close to Ordination.%u201d My mother said to my father, %u201cHoney, Ryan didn%u2019t know for sure till now.%u201d Mother and child.%u201cWhatever,%u201d my father said, %u201cyou want, son.%u201d Kids my age, Danny and Barbara Boyle, stared at me. I had run from them after grade school. They never let poor Rudolph. I had not penetrated to the deepest fraternities of Misery. Play in any reindeer games. I was isolated, alone. Star of wonder. I had run from the seminarians at Misery. Star of might. The huge gap I felt separating the clergy from the laity was the same huge gap separating me from those pietistic twits at Misericordia. They would never change from how I left them. They lived to fight their tattling way up through the ambitious pecking order of opera clubs, the cliques of the Gregorian choir, and who was holy enough, with enough martinet snap, to be the showy Master of Ceremonies at Ordination services. Guide us with your perfect light. I was not Misericordia. I was not Peoria. I was on my own. Except for the draft board. The day after Christmas, I walked into the Selective Service office and asked to change my exemption from %u201c1Y%u201d for %u201ctheology student%u201d to a regular student deferment.%u201cA deferment for a big, healthy, strong boy like you? With Krushchev running around? And Castro? Ha ha ha.%u201d The lady who ran the draft board had steel-gray hair combed back into a D.A. %u201cI have 15,000 boys,%u201d she said, %u201cin Southeast Asia. Ha ha ha.%u201d She typed up a new draft card that said %u201c1A.%u201dSome group was always wanting me to join up body and blood.The huge snowdrifts across the flat land of the Midwestern winter cracked. My life was a silent movie. I faced an ice floe of dangerous bergs: Misery behind, Peoria present, the draft board tomorrow, girls forever. At Misery, my vocation was on the line. Ten days outside of Misery, my life was on the line. My draft card ticked in my wallet. Forces were at work. In silent movies the actors jumped across the river from one bobbing ice chunk to another. Life lay across the ice floe on the other bank.%u201cA penny for your thoughts?%u201d The blonde daughter of my father%u2019s rich Mason friend smiled. %u201cDo you like Paul better than John?%u201d%u201cThe Popes?%u201d%u201cThe Beatles.%u201dHer brother, home from college, came over to us with a bottle of wine. He reminded me of Lock. My brother, on leave from the Marines,