By William K.
But not until I was standing in rubber boots on the frozen lake, my eyes locked on a Styrofoam bobber floating in a six-inch hole punched in the ice, did the reason for that odd sequence of events finally surface.
I wasn’t a whiny kid or one of the kids who arrived late and left early on the special bus. I was a pretty regular third-grader. Once the janitor caught and dragged me, and Randy, to the principal’s office for stealing cartons of chocolate milk from the cooler.
Back then I hadn’t puzzled out what Father Mark derived from our family, though it seemed as if he were my godfather. He was always sending me presents, writing me letters, teaching me things. I was proud of how he singled me out, and I thought Bobby was envious, even though I’d given him an electric train and a transistor radio Father Mark had sent me, after I used them both for a while.
At home that afternoon I repeated Randy’s remark to my mother without attribution. My head jerked back, my face burned, and when my eyes refocused she was standing over me, her right hand on her chest, her gray eyes searching mine in horror. Usually she would just spank me, so this slap on the face impressed upon me that referring to a religious personage with third-grade hyperbole was a heinous sacrilege. Being Father Mark’s little pal gave privilege but not license.
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He’s reading me “Hansel and Gretel” from the red dictionary-size volume he gave me last winter, and I’m getting sleepy, almost don’t even know his hand’s in there. It just naturally, slowly went there, and he just kept reading, with expression and everything. But it doesn’t feel good, probably because it’s too tight. If only it weren’t so tight, I wouldn’t have to lie, to pretend I’m asleep, to edge away from him. I smell cigars on him, and salt, and something sour. Tomorrow he’ll be gone and saying mass and being revered by all those people before I wake up and get out of my pajamas, and here I am doing a dishonest thing to this churchman.
