Page 265 - What They Did to the Kid

What They Did to the Kid 253

back. Always I had set impossible tasks for myself, because the thrill
of defeating the threat of failing caused in me a rush that always
caused me to succeed at the very last moment. When I was a little
boy, I often laid on my stomach lengthwise on the edge of my bed,
whispering nobody loves me, inching over bit by bit, till half my body
was on the edge, then half was over the edge, nobody loves me, then
more than half, and still more, as my pajamas clung to the sheets,
until in a slow tense avalanche of bedclothes, nobody loves me, I slid
ever so quietly, ever so thrilled, chest, stomach, thighs, knees, and
ankles, to the floor. I had fallen in love with anxiety. Oh God, life
would be perfect if I weren’t mentally ill.
The clock was ticking.
I had known, felt, for four days, at least, that, as sure as Tank
sank, I must leave Misery. Hank the Tank had got out easy. Come
our Ordination Day in fifteen months: subtract me, one less boy.
I would not be white-robed in the chapel. My impossible task was
to escape Misery even if I had to delay or deny my vocation to the
priesthood. I had been sliding out of this miserable bed for three
years. My breathing stopped. The difference between my vocation
and my seventeen classmates was a simple matter of talking out tim-
ing with the Jesuit. For a month or two. Until Christmas. To be
certain. Wait until Christmas. Eleven years. My parents. My uncle.
My brother. My little sister. Me. Knowing nothing of the world.
What I will do, oh Lord, I prayed deep in the night of my room,
the secret my own—no one else’s—I do not know. Why, my God,
are You doing this?
I have a vocation, but this is the wrong time in the world and in
the Church to become a priest.
Vatican II is an earthquake.
The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome shakes over the epicenter.
Misery is trembling under my feet.
Priests, once simply Catholic, good Catholic priests, are shaken
by Vatican politics, scurrying right to tradition and marching left
to change.
Maybe I lack real faith, my Lord, but how dare I promise a
permanent vow of celibacy in the sacrament of the priesthood that

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