Page 67 - Demo
P. 67


                                    %u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 55%u201cFub duck!%u201d We all laughed. %u201cFub duck!%u201d We could not stop laughing. Riding all the way back to Misery and up the formal drive where freezing freshmen with shovels were clearing the snow, we chanted, %u201cFub duck! Fub duck!%u201dThe taxi drove off and we looked up at the huge front door of Misery. %u201cFub,%u201d a boy said dragging his suitcase up the stairs. The Christmas vacation of our senior year slammed closed. Within two hours, Dick Dempsey and I witnessed a shocking scene between three priests that happened so fast that we ran for cover without losing a single detail. %u201cI%u2019ve never seen anybody so mad,%u201d Dick Dempsey told Mike Hager. He pointed toward the main entrance to Misericordia Seminary where Father Arnold Roth had made a scene. %u201cFather Arnie went storming down the main hall, red in the face, blown up to twice his size, and stalked right out the front door, straight to his car, dragging two grade-school boys he had brought as visitors to see the seminary.%u201dThe halls had echoed with the young priest%u2019s shouts.%u201cArnie struck a nerve,%u201d I said to Mike Hager. %u201cHe stood up to that cadre of old priests and their prehistoric rules.%u201d%u201cThey think this world is their cloister,%u201d Dempsey joked. %u201cThey%u2019re so fub duck.%u201dLock ran up the stairs towards us. %u201cI was leaving Rector Karg%u2019s office,%u201d he said. %u201cArnie Roth told off Father Gunn right in front of Rector Karg. Arnie said it was too damn bad if the faculty couldn%u2019t arrange for the two kids, as special guests, to eat dinner here with us in the refectory to see what seminary life is like.%u201dFather Arnold Roth, ordained from Misery only two years before, was from Mike Hager%u2019s Wisconsin diocese. He had driven Mike in from vacation only hours before, along with two eighth-grade boys interested in the priesthood.%u201cHere I miss the fireworks after traveling with him all day long.%u201d Mike said. %u201cThose two kids are okay%u2014one%u2019s maybe too pious, you know?%u201d%u201cRector Karg and the faculty insisted Arnie eat in their refectory,%u201d I said, %u201cbut they didn%u2019t want those kids in there and Father Gunn refused to let them eat with us.%u201d%u201cWe might clue them in too much and scare them off,%u201d Dempsey said. %u201cSo Arnie says what was he supposed to do with the kids anyway, leave them in the car with the heater running?%u2019Lock said he thought Arnie was even more rebellious as a priest than he had been as a seminarian. %u201cThat%u2019s one great thing about Ordination to 
                                
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