Page 79 - Demo

%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 67%u201cHis Ordination picture%u2019s in an old yearbook,%u201d Dempsey said. %u201cI saw it.%u201d%u201cLooks full of tricks, doesn%u2019t he?%u201d Porky Puhl asked.%u201cHe%u2019s a friend of Arnie Roth who%u2019s no longer a friend of the faculty,%u201d Hank said, %u201cafter that shouting scene over those boys.%u201d%u201cPass the bread.%u201d Lock was not interested in the gossip.%u201cI think he looks tricky,%u201d Porky insisted.%u201cBull!%u201d Hank said. He skimmed the enameled metal bread plate across the table toward Lock. %u201cPeter says he%u2019s a real good guy. He can tell.%u201d%u201cHow?%u201d I asked. %u201cWhite horse? White hat?%u201d%u201cFunny as a wicker bedpan, Ryan, that%u2019s what you are,%u201d Hank said.%u201cCompared to the professors we have now, anybody%u2019s better.%u201d Dempsey ticked me off sometimes agreeing with his own enemy. I liked him better talking about movies or something innocuous like his family%u2019s peanut farm and how one summer during a drought it was so hot they planted hay in Lake Dallas.%u201cLook! It%u2019s alive!%u201d Ski pulled a hunk of meat, gristle organ attached, dripping with gravy hemorraging from the noodles. %u201cWhat is it?%u201d He threw it down on the plastic tablecloth. It wriggled and shook and I turned away.Porky muttered something low. Boys nearby laughed.%u201cWhat%u2019d he say, Lock?%u201d Dempsey asked.%u201cI couldn%u2019t care less,%u201d he said, %u201cabout the cheap double entendre%u2019s.%u201d Lock was senior class president and an A student, who had spent the previous Christmas and New Year%u2019s with his pastor, who was his mentor, at a ritzy hotel in Havana, Cuba, where they had seen stage shows that were probably a mortal sin, at least for me, because at the New Year%u2019s eve show at the Tropicana Hotel, a nearly undressed showgirl had been dropped into Lock%u2019s lap and make-up smeared on his good suit.Hank, who had spent Christmas in New Jersey, pushed his plate away after two helpings. %u201cThey call this food?%u201d%u201cLook,%u201d Lock said flatly, %u201cI went to Gunn officially last week and complained about the food.%u201d%u201cSo go again.%u201d%u201cThe kitchen nuns need time to reorder.%u201d%u201cIt%u2019s your duty as class president,%u201d Ski said to Lock.%u201cI%u2019ve got a lot of duties,%u201d Lock said. %u201cLay off.%u201d%u201cThose Hun-nuns from Deutschland only give us more of the same.%u201d Hank was working his way up to one of his stentorian scenes. He took a plastic serving plate and licked the lead of one of the dozen pencils he always carried with his slide rule in the plastic pocket at his chest.