Page 74 - What They Did to the Kid

62 Jack Fritscher

Annie Laurie’s eyes glistened. Charlie-Pop sniffed and choked.
Tears ran down my face. Poor dog. Poor them. Poor me.
“I always really miss you,” I said. I wanted to reassure them their
loss of my adolescence, all of us bowing our will to the will of God,
would gain them the honor of being the parents of a priest.
Leaving my life with them plunged me on my every return to
Misery into aching homesickness. Still, we laughed over the pie and
coffee. I felt sorry for them, storing me up, so obviously, for the
rest of the winter and the whole of spring. My father ran his hand
through my hair and down my neck to my shoulder and his touch
was the sweet, strong touch of a father.
During the last four years, I had come home seven times, and
still, despite the grandeur of their becoming parents of a young
priest, they could hardly understand the days and nights of my new
life. Their heads and their hearts had listened to sermons on detach-
ment from worldly associations, but actually letting go of my hand
after one last kiss at the train station was a great sacrifice. They
believed me without reservation that I knew I had a vocation to the
priesthood.
Their reward would be great as mine, each in our own way,
having given up, on faith alone, father or mother or son for His
sake. Oh, I wanted to reach out, to touch them, to take them away
with me. Instead, I ate pie in silence. I loved them. I wanted never
to leave them and their warmth, but Jesus was telling me to follow
Him, and that it would not be easy. He had left His home to die on
a cross. I had only to leave my home to go to a place where the priests
promised to make me into an alter Christus, another Christ.
No one, outside the seminary and in the world, could under-
stand such joy taken in such pain. I had to return from my visit to the
world to climb the fourth of the twelve rungs toward the priesthood.
With high school ending in the spring, I would be one-third of the
way to Holy Orders.
Thommy came in from the garage. He wiped his hands on a
red mechanic’s cloth. Charlie-Pop liked Thommy using his tools I
couldn’t touch. “Take care of yourself,” Thommy said.
“You’re the one,” I said.
“See you in six months,” he said.

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