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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 231intent around the raised hood of a truck, absorbed in tangled wires and steaming radiators and universal joints. They were in the world, unbeaten, unbowed, heroic, anointed in crankcase oil, unafraid. They were workers, not priests. They knew how to make motors work. They were serious about their women and children. They had focus, fraternity, codes, secrets I wanted to learn. This time I would penetrate the tightest circles. I promised to know their essence and match it. I would no longer be Saint Analogus, the Patron of Those Who Always Stand on the Outside Looking In. Ryanalogus, the Latin word for fool. I would be the real thing if it took alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and Masonic women. I knew how to make ready the way of the Lord, to make straight His paths.I must have looked fierce at our supper table.My father put his hand on my shoulder, looked at Annie Laurie, and announced, %u201cHe%u2019s a solid man.%u201d He said what Lock had said. That compliment was the supreme compliment to an Irish boy. %u201cYou can do anything,%u201d he said. %u201cSolid you are. Solid enough to calm down.%u201d%u201cYou are,%u201d Annie Laurie said, %u201cthe spitting image of Charlie-Pop. He decided to quit smoking. Period. Cold turkey. He stopped.%u201d%u201cSo indeed I did,%u201d Charlie-Pop said. %u201cHe can do anything,%u201d my mother said. %u201cSo can you.%u201d Somehow Christmas made me feel as turned away as Saint Joseph searching for a room at an inn. Jack Kennedy was dead. All connection to Misery was dead. I was dead like a stillborn child needing aid to breathe and kick and scream. Freedom%u2019s slap was shocking glorious. I flew up in free-flight. I hung on the edge of the bed, nobody loves me, sliding out of the bed, nobody loves me, hitting the floor. Accidentally, I touched myself during the night and the accident repeated every night two or three times. I felt no guilt. How strange. After all I%u2019d been told. I would never confess it. Nobody loves me. Who cares! I felt the wild way the whole world had felt, flown up in joy, when the war had ended. I was capable of choosing anything. I had free will. Potency veined sensuously about me in my bed. I would never go to Confession again.Pine and mistletoe twisted into sweet peas and myrtle. How could such a grasp of self be a sin? Had I won some race? In the mirror, vine leaves twined time-lapse through my hair. Hell did not open up and swallow me. I loved the world and the world loved me back. Had those priests lied about grasping yourself? The world vamped me. I had always gone starved to bed. What else had they lied about as well? On the streets, billboards, small at a distance, loomed up large showing how much I needed all the world could offer. I understood the last temptation of Christ: Satan took