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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 73%u201cThat was earlier, much earlier, this year,%u201d I said. %u201cIt%u2019s probably the same hope every senior class begins with, to win the disciplinarian%u2019s heart.%u201d%u201cInstitutions don%u2019t have hearts,%u201d Lock said. %u201cNone of the faculty wants our opinions. But I thought we could change Gunn%u2019s personal hard-line attitude and maybe achieve an actual %u2018first,%u2019 a high-school graduation this year. That%u2019s what I%u2019ve been working towards. A graduation ceremony could symbolize our intellectual progress toward the priesthood. But no! Last night, Father Gunn told me in no uncertain terms there will be no high-school graduation this year, because there has never been a highschool graduation at Misericordia, and as long as there is an Ordination Day, there will never be a high-school graduation, because our focus at Misericordia is on the priesthood, and that, he said, closes the subject.%u201dThe next day the breach between students and faculty became even more strained. Gunn stripped Porky Puhl%u2019s last tatters of hierarchy. He shipped him out of Misery, on an hour%u2019s notice, for performing a scientific experiment on some sophomores.Porky had put eight boys%u2014each in a separate shower stall%u2014and measured their privates. One kid got scared and told in Confession to a priest who refused him absolution until he told Gunn.After that Gunn treated us like we all knew, I mean really knew, what Porky had done in the shower and all. Father Gunn rounded up the bunch of us senior boys and wondered, he said, about group guilt and one bad apple. It was one of his longest spiritual lectures, lasting over two hours.Lock sniggered that Porky must have really been concerned about %u201cthe shortage of priests.%u201dApril 16, 1957Late the following night, after lights out, I slipped out of the dormitory in my pajamas and robe. I carried my hard-heeled bedroom slippers in my hand until I stood barefoot outside Father Gunn%u2019s dimly lighted door, where I stuck my toes into them and stood on my sloppy crushed heels. I knocked and knelt down on both knees on his threshold.He opened his door and looked down at me, kneeling, looking up at him. %u201cTell me,%u201d he said, %u201ceverything.%u201d %u201cFather, I think you ought to know...in view of what%u2019s been going on and all that Hank and Ski...Mr. Rimski and Mr. Kowalski, that is...have been caught locked in the storage room...Sometimes Porky Puhl was in there with them. They%u2019ve been exercising, I guess, is all they%u2019ve been doing, because here%u2019s this book I found on gymnastics that%u2019s from the library