Page 79 - What They Did to the Kid

What They Did to the Kid 67

My greatest fear, anxiety, and thrill was to try and find out
what the other boys were saying about me behind my back. I didn’t
want my corners knocked off. Who does? I was no Dick Dempsey,
because Dempsey would do anything for any boy, even for Hank,
sometimes, even, especially, for Hank who ruled him. His charity
was noted by some of the priests.
Once in religion class Rector Karg asked Dick, what if some
boy vomited in the study hall and Father Gunn told him to clean
it up. We all, except Dempsey, started to laugh. He said, “I’d try to
see Christ in the sick person and pretend it was Jesus I was wiping
up after.”
Saint Dick.
“What’d you bring back?” I asked.
“Some records,” he said as we entered the senior locker room.
“They’re in my trunk.”
The stowed luggage lay banked on racks against the wall oppo-
site the door. In between in green rows stood the lockers, thirteen
inches wide, seven feet high, with one shelf and a tie rack inside the
door, stuffed with sweaters and jackets and black khakis. We used
to be glad when somebody left Misery, emptying a locker, though
using more than one locker per student was strictly forbidden by the
mimeographed rules.
If Father Gunn or Rector Karg had known what happened right
before Christmas, they would have wished all the lockers had been
filled with clothes: one free afternoon four seniors jumped the best
athlete in our class, ripped off his shower robe, and shoved him
naked into an empty locker. Everybody thought it a great joke except
the seminarian in the locker. He wasn’t released till after supper.
“Albums or singles?” I asked.
He pulled the records from his footlocker, shuffling through
an Oklahoma soundtrack, Mantovani’s Music from the Movies, and
three Presley singles.
“Gunn will never pass the Elvis records,” I said.
“I’ll play those when he’s sure not to barge in. He okayed Man-
tovani and Oklahoma, except for a couple of songs like ‘Everything’s
up to Date in Kansas City,’ that he made me promise to skip when
I played the score in the recreation room.”

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