Page 64 - Demo

%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK52 Jack Fritscheryou set a library book like the Dictionary of Slang on its spine and held the covers between both hands and let go, the book always fell open to the dirty pages. So a boy could find them or skip them. Something like the dirty magazines in our neighborhood drugstore, Saga and Men%u2019s True Adventure, which I%u2019d never noticed, not once, not until Father Gerber warned us against them.For a few moments we sat silent in my room, my father smoking at my desk, Annie Laurie and I on the edge of my bed. My spread was brown. I had requested the monastic reserve of that, but it was chenille by her choice. I ran my hands over its tufts, conjuring the cotton covers at Misery, all with the faded sameness repeating itself on eighty beds in row upon dormitory row. An equality was in that and an austerity over all. I ached to leave all the luxury my parents offered me. They could never understand that worldly attachments to chenille of any color might keep me from Christ in His simple seamless linen.%u201cWell.%u201d My mother extenuated the word with a puff of breath, as if the grand show of the holidays were finally over.Parents, I thought, never like to let go. I must remember that when counseling.She patted her lap and rose. %u201cWe seem to have run out of things to say.%u201d%u201cMmm,%u201d I said.%u201cOr the right to say them,%u201d Dad said, grinding out his cigarette. %u201cMmm,%u201d I said, wondering what they meant. I knew Rector Karg sometimes sent general letters to parents instructing them how to act as parents of seminarians.They stood together near my door, waiting for me to speak or to rise, I didn%u2019t know which. They so much honored my vocation that they had surrendered themselves to let go of me even before I was fourteen, about the same age as Jesus was at twelve when He got lost at the Temple and Mary and Joseph went crazy searching for their lost Boy. On my desk, the forest-green blotter lay slightly flecked with ash. My father held his smudged ashtray in his hand. It was an awkward scene.%u201cWhat movie is this?%u201d I tried to lighten the moment.Annie Laurie recouped. %u201cRyan, would you like some banana-cream pie before we go to the train station?%u201d%u201cCut me two pieces. One for the road.%u201d%u201cMe too.%u201d My father seized upon the offer of pie and coffee together. He put his hand on my arm, lightly, then his full arm around my shoulders, and they walked me down the hall. %u201cGood as school is, Ry, I bet you won%u2019t taste cooking like your mother%u2019s for the next five months.%u201d