Saint Somebody Central Catholic

Every ghetto, every city, and suburban place I’ve been
Make me recall my days in the new Jerusalem
-Lauryn Hill

I – ORDINARY TIME
The name of the liturgical season comes from the Latin ordino: to set in order, regulate, arrange, appoint, or govern. Ordinary Time marks the passing of a measured fragment in the life of the church, the people of God.  It is not ordinary in the English definition of the word: plain or simple or unadorned.  Examine any passage of time in your life or in the life of the world and you will find it filled with the extraordinary and the divine.  If you look, you will see the presence of God in the people, the places, and the events of everyday life. Every day is sacred. Every moment is a miracle.  There is darkness, but there is also joy and love. Ordinary Time is extravagant, complex, and decorative. We mark its passing because it is so special.  We measure it because it is to be savored – all of it savored – the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow, the holy and the not-so-holy. Ordinary Time says: “Take note, for this moment is full of grace and will never come again.”  Ordinary Time says: “You are God’s beloved child and you are extraordinary.”   Ordinary Time says: “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world, but I make no guarantees the going will always be easy.”
The liturgical color of Ordinary Time is green, the color of those who are new and inexperienced.  Just about right for beginning a new job.

Chapter 1 – Teacher’s  First Day
“Are you a virgin?”
“What? Is your brain a virgin? He just said he got a wife and kids.”
“Maybe his wife don’t like to do it and the kids are adopted.”
Theo, Yahira, and Raul. I answered before this started to run away from me.
“No, I’m not a virgin. As Yahira pointed out, I have a wife and kids. My children’s names are Rafael and Gabriella. They are three and five, respectively, and they are not adopted.  My wife’s name is Marie and whether she likes doing it is more sharing than is required or even acceptable from a teacher to students, so let’s stop there, OK?”  I picked up pictures of Marie, Gabby, and Rafe off my desk and sent them around the class. “Here are their pictures.”
“Mista, your wife is pretty!”
“And your kids are cute.”
“Does your wife color her hair?”
“Can I baby-sit for you?”
“Thanks, I think so, too,” I was answered to the first question as more were thrown at me. It felt like being pelted with jelly beans. I couldn’t even keep up with who was speaking or which face went with which name and which face and name with each question.  This was not the first time I had ever taught high school. I taught for a year in the Archdiocese of Chicago and then a year in the Diocese of Fall River, but in each situation I spent the first class giving a lecture on my syllabus.  This year, I took the advice of Annette Jean, the Haitian-born chair of the theology department here at St. Somebody’s, and I was trying to get to know the students first and teach second. I think it was Anita who said Marie is pretty and Yahira who said Rafe and Gabby are cute. I was lost by the time one of the girls asked about Marie coloring her hair. I was looking over Yahira’s shoulder when the baby-sitting offer came at me from a girl whose name I couldn’t remember from homeroom. Carmen, I think.
I wasn’t afraid of the questions or the kids asking them like I would be a swarm of bees. I did, however, feel like I was caught in a swarm of mayflies or mosquitoes and just wanted to get myself into a breeze or inside a mosquito net.  Yahira shoved the picture of my children back at the girl behind her.
“Carmen, look how cute.”
I jumped back in.  “Aren’t they? Now that they’re both out of diapers.  I am definitely going to like the out-of-diapers stage better.” I pinched my nose. “I hated changing diapers.”
The girls laughed.
“How old are you?”
I held up my hand. “Not until I get your name and one thing about you,” I said.
“My name is Janet. I got sickle-cell. I’m gonna be absent a lot. Oh yeah, and I’m Trini, baby!”
“Trini?”
“Trin-ee-dad and Toe-bay-go, honey. So how old?”
“I’m thirty-three. And don’t call me honey, my wife will get jealous.”
“Wow! I thought you was younger, like twenty–one or somethin’.”
“You’s so freakin’ stupid. He can’t be like twenty-one or he’d still be in college   or somethin’.”
“Easy,Yahira.  Thanks, Janet. Next?”
“I’m Vanessa and I’m Trini, too.”
“Not good enough. Trini is taken. You must tell us something about yourself that has not yet been used by another person. So…”
“I play pan.”
The look that passed over my face told her that I have eight years of post- secondary education and have absolutely no clue what pan is because she said,
“You know, steel drums.”
Vanessa proceeded to snatch a pen from the guy next to her and tap out a complex rhythm on her desk. Even though her performance lacked pitch and the brilliant tone of the steel drum, it was impressive.  A hand went up across the room.
“Yes?”
“My name is Royale.  I like to read. I want to ax you if you like to read.”
“Good for you, Royale. I like to read, too. What kinds of books do you like to read?”
“She likes to read fairy tales,” said a male voice from the back of the room.
“Yeah,” replied another male voice, lost in the back corner, “You know, like Cinderella.”
This brought high-fives and laughs from all the guys and most of the girls.
I locked in on Royale. “Never mind them. What kinds of books do you like to read?”
“I especially like books by African-American writers.  Have you read books by African-American writers?”
“Yes, I have.  I’ve read Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. Have you read those people?”
“No, but I heard of that Maya person. I like Omar Tyree books. An’ Miss Quinn, she give me a book called Clover that I liked.”
Hints galore. Ms. Quinn is the special education tutor. I’d never heard of Omar Tyree, but I was pretty sure Clover was for younger readers.
“Ladies?”  I looked down at the small shy girls in the front row, nodding my head and motioning for them to speak to me, inviting them in as best I could.
The Asian girls in the front row smiled and looked down at their desks.  Carmen, who seemed to be Yahira’s best pal, walked up to the front of the room.
“Mista, this is Vo and this is Hang,” Carmen said, making the game show Prize Girl gesture first to her left at Vo and then to her right at Hang.  “They are Vietnamese, they are very nice, and they are very quiet.”  Vo and Hang smiled at me.  Hang said she liked Vietnamese food, but also pizza and speaking English.  She also said Vo is very shy, but likes to draw and her English isn’t as good as Hang’s own. Vo didn’t say anything.
“Nice to meet you both.”
Running out of time, I thought I’d better press the guys. Homeboy row sat stoically in the back.
“Guys, we haven’t heard from any of you. How about it?”
“They already know us.”
“Maybe, but I don’t.”
“That’s your problem.”
“True enough.  Look, there are twenty of you and only one of me.  If even two of you want to make my life in this room miserable, you will be able to just by outnumbering me.  As far as I can tell, I have asked little from you: a name and any other piece of information you can share.  Your favorite sport or favorite food will do.  In return, I’m telling you a lot about myself.  I am trusting you with my information.”
“I’m Korey.  I like fine women.”
“And your question for me?”
“Ain’t got one.”
“Fine by me. Next?”
“No takers?” Pause for effect. “Yahira?”
“I’s already went.”
“I know, hon. I just need a direction from you. Left or right. A la izquierda o a la derecha?” Points for me, maybe, until they find out my Spanish effectively ends at directions, numbers, colors, telling time, dates, and the present tense of the verb ser.
“A la derecha.”
“Great. Moving along to Korey’s right, brings us to you.”
The incredibly large, Shaq-like boy-man in the oversized Fubu calf-length cargo pants and Michael Jordan’s UNC replica tank top stared at me. I stared back, looked away, then stared again.  It felt like therapy and as the therapist I can’t talk first. But this was school and I had more than one head to get into in my fifty-minute hour.
“Come on man, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I ain’t scared of nobody, ‘specially not you.”
“Well, then?”
More silence. Finally Yahira got up and stomped to the back of the room. She slapped the Shaq boy on the shoulder.
“He’s nice. Tell him your name, Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah tried to shoo her away.
“So your name is Jeremiah?”  The scene from Roots of the overseer trying to make Lavar Burton say Toby instead of Kunta Kinte shot through my brain.  Yahira slapped at Jeremiah again.
“Chill,” he snapped at Yahira. He turned to face me at the front of the room. “Yeah, I’m Jeremiah.  I like basketball.”
“You like to play ball?” asked the guy sitting next to him. A break in the ice. I dove in. The water was still cold, but I wasn’t about to let on it felt so.
“Like to play? Yes. Any good? Well, I can shoot from about fifteen feet in, but I’m slow and have a vertical leap of about three inches. I am better at tennis and I played football and tennis when I was in high school.”
Being seen as an athlete without a uniform was better than being seen as a priest without a collar and homeboy row started to loosen up.
“I’m James. I play football. This year I’m going to be quarterback. What position did you play?”
“I played right guard.”
“My name is Skinny and I like hip-hop. I rap.”
Yahira jumped in again, “What kind of music you like, Mr. C? You like rap?”
“Some, not much.  I used to listen to the Beastie Boys and Run DMC, now that’s old school.  I like The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill a lot. My favorites are Bruce Springsteen, U2, and Bob Marley and the Wailers.”
“My name is Thomas. I hate religion and I hate you.”
“Well, since I am your religion teacher, your hatred of religion may be difficult from a purely practical viewpoint. You’ve only known me for twenty minutes and don’t know me well enough to hate me yet.  In a few weeks, you can hate me.”
And so it went. Fifty minutes at a time, five times that day -  day one in a new school.  They learned about me – more than they needed, but less than they wanted to know – and you should get at least what they got. I was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to a very much 100 percent Azorean Portuguese mother and an Irish/English alcoholic father. I graduated from New Bedford High School and Worcester State College (also in Massachusetts) and then spent two years in the Peace Corps in Zimbabwe where I met my Franco-American wife Marie.  I then entered Harvard Divinity School and graduated with a master of divinity degree. Not knowing what I wanted to do, I applied for the doctor of theology program at the University of Chicago and to my surprise, got accepted. I dropped out, over Marie’s vehement objections, because I was tired of academic theology.  It is probably closer to the truth to say that the more theology I learned the more of an atheist I was becoming. I felt I needed a break to get back in touch with all the values and ideals that sent me to study theology in the first place -  God is love, a keen sense of and yearning for justice, and the need for peace in the self and in the world. I worked at a Catholic high school in Chicago for a year and then as a hospice chaplain for a year at St. Lucy’s Hospital in Worcester, where Marie had begun to put her nursing degree to good use.  Then I started teaching back home in New Bedford at Bishop Resendes High School. I got fired when I was caught being open-minded and ended up in Boston at St. Somebody just before I was ready to give up on teaching and the Catholic Church entirely.
I like sports. I play guitar. Marie and I have a son and a daughter, and we just bought a house in Bethelle, a small city about 30 miles west of Boston on the Pike.  I also have absolutely no idea how I got from my own days in high school as a football-playing, punk-rocking, beer-drinking, drug-taking, and depressed angry young man to teaching religion in a Catholic high school. The short answer is God, but the details… Christ.

Chapter 2 – Mass Confusion
The church building is huge – a monstrous, neo-Gothic, nineteenth century creation of the Boston Irish. St. Somebody’s is tall, majestic, arrayed in gold and colored glass, and dedicated to a saint I have never heard of before or since, Lorcan Ua Tuathail.  It is also utterly and completely lifeless.
When I interviewed for the job, I learned that St. Lorcan’s name was Larry O’Toole. I was never much into the cult of the saints.  About twenty years ago, a chunk of granite over the door with Larry’s name fell off and has never been replaced. All that’s left are the letters T-H-A-I-L.  There is a signpost naming the church St. Lorcan’s, but there is nothing at the school, which connects to the church and the rectory and extends down the block.  A religious order once ran both the church and the school, but when the Archdiocese of Boston wanted the church building for use as the cathedral in the middle of the nineteenth century, the religious order sold the church and the rectory, but not the school.  In the 1920s, the Archdiocese built a new cathedral closer to downtown and the parish of St. Lorcan and its church and school were left behind in a left-behind section of the city. Today, just about everyone refers to both the church and the school as St. Somebody’s.
The day of the school’s convocation liturgy, I was praying once again in a front pew of a place that I want to claim precludes such activity in me.  I was, in fact, sitting in the same spot where I spent most of an entire afternoon (all right, all right, a couple of hours) two weeks earlier, contemplating my future, or rather God’s future, which happened to feature me in this particular instance.  I don’t believe God is a cosmic puppet master, at the controls of a vast computer game of the universe, and yet I sometimes find myself in the most implausible of circumstances.
Two weeks before school started, I sat in this pew and prayed.  I had just come from an interview with David Martin, the headmaster of St. Somebody Central Catholic High School and Sister Eunice Brideau, the dean of students.  It was the most bizarre job interview.  Neither of them seemed to want to know much about me. Rather, they seemed over eager to sell the position at St. Somebody.  I felt like a sucker at a used car lot.  What was so bad about the place that they seemed to be begging me to take the job?  Who was interviewing whom?
I attempted to show them my portfolio. I attempted to demonstrate how I use juggling in class.  I attempted to show them examples of my work using web design and Power Point slide shows as both methods of presentation and assessment.  After all, allowing students to turn in reports as Power Point presentations instead of written essays and teaching my students to juggle were some of the things that got me axed from my last position. I wanted to be sure, before the discussion went very far, that they were going to let me be, well, myself.  I was ready to give up on the teaching thing.  What the hell, I had tried it, but the Church did not seem to want me.  The Church didn’t want me as a priest because I was married and they didn’t want me in a Catholic school because I taught my students to juggle.  Kick the dust off your shoes and move on. Or so I thought. Every job I applied for that summer was a bust.  Either the place didn’t want me or I knew I would be miserable working there.  All of a sudden it was the end of August and the last paycheck from my previous school had just arrived in the mail.  My wife, my kids, and my mortgage lender were not going to stand for me being unemployed come the first of September.  My mother called me and said some high school in Boston named, “Saint….Saint…Saint…Oh hell, John, Saint Somebody or other,” was looking for a religion teacher.  She saw the ad in the Standard Times and figured it couldn’t hurt me to apply, seeing as I hadn’t found anything else yet.  I couldn’t fault her logic, so I called David Martin.  He set up an interview for the next morning at 8.
“Look,” Dave told me, “I read your resume and called the previous schools you worked for.”
“And you still want to talk to me?” I said.
“No, look,” he replied, “I don’t want to talk much. I just want you to take the job.  Look, we don’t get people with your academic background and open approach to reaching kids applying to St. Somebody very often.”
“More like never,” added Sister Eunice.
“Right. Look, never,” repeated Dave. “So we really want you to consider teaching at St. Somebody.  I know it’s not much, but we can start you at 37k with your education and your experience.”  I didn’t hear some of what he said next because 37k was a fifteen grand raise over my last teaching salary and the blood rushing through my ears as I prepared to lapse into shock was drowning out his voice.
“Look,” Dave pleaded. Dave Martin says “look” a lot. It’s annoying, but you get used to it. “I don’t know why God sent you to us, but God sent you to us.  St. Somebody needs you. Take the job. Please.”
I told him I needed to think about it. He told me he could give me a couple of days, but he had to have someone by the start of school. I told him a couple of hours would be fine.  I don’t know why God always plays this damn Nineveh game with me. I didn’t want to run away from a gift that God was trying to drop in my lap, but it seemed too easy, too convenient. I needed a moment to think. I wanted to drive around and blast the rock-n-roll evangelist Bruce Springsteen on the car stereo and let the situation settle into my soul.  I didn’t have time for that, though. I had parked at Alewife out on the end of the Red Line and it would take me forty-five minutes just to get back to the car.  I strolled out of the school and walked down the street to the church. Later, I would learn of a basement passageway that led from the school to the church hall. The kids called this “the Cave.”  It was the only connection between the church buildings and the school that hadn’t been sealed off. I walked down the long corridors of the school, my feet echoing on floorboards so old they rose and fell like small wooden waves.  I emerged onto the street and shaded my eyes against the August sun. An ancient, rusting iron fence ran along the sidewalk separating the sacred buildings from the secular city street. I climbed the monstrous steps and entered the rear of the nave. I walked to the front pew, sat down, and prayed.  The way I remember it, it went something like this:
“Listen up, Big Guy. I was certain this kind of gig was over for me, but if this is what I should do, I will do it. I need a job, they seem to want me, and it seems to me that YOU want me to do this.  I’m just gonna sit and listen for a while.  If you got anything against this, let me know.”  And I sat for two hours.  The gold angels blew silent trumpets high up on the corners of the transept. None of the statues came to life, the crucifix didn’t start bleeding, and no heavenly light illuminated me through the stained glass windows. I wasn’t really expecting a burning bush moment, but every one in while, it’d be nice to have one, just to be sure of things. I walked back outside and called Marie on the cell phone. I told her about the school, the job offer, and the prayer.  She told me she had three questions to ask me.
“Do you have a wife and a family?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Do you have a mortgage?”
“Yes.”
“Are you currently employed?”
“No.”
“I swear you’re dumbest smart man I’ve ever met.”
I walked across the street and told Dave I’d take the job.
“Super. Super. Look, that’s just super!” Dave said, slapping me on the back and pumping my hand with his as if I’d just joined his frat and not his faculty.
Two weeks later, as I joined the students and staff for the opening Mass of the school year, the architecture was annoying me. The sanctuary is far removed from the first row of pews in the nave and up a flight of stairs.  The altar space is a physical embodiment of the transcendent deity. For all its majesty, size, and grandeur, it strikes me as a museum, not a place for encountering a living God.  Its enormity makes one feel small, insignificant, and less important than the divine beings that inhabit the sanctuary.  We were all lost in the nave, spectators removed from a distant ritual that supposed to bring us together.  One thing I learned about my students in the first two days of school was that they needed community desperately.  Most had none at home. For communion to lack community wasn’t just a spiritual loss for them, it was a psychological one as well.
I walked in with Annette Jean, the chair of the theology department, and we sat behind Royale.  As we took our seats, Royale was politely, but firmly, asking the row of guys in front of her to be quiet and to please, “Behave yourselves in chapel.”  They mocked her and called her Cinderella.  They quieted down when we sat next to her and Royale smiled and folded her hands in her lap.
Mr. O’Grady was screaming at a group of senior girls, “Sit down and shut up in God’s house.” The girls looked at him with a mixture of horror and hatred and it became increasingly clear how this man had accumulated his aliases.  I had been at St. Somebody’s a grand total of two days and I had learned the following names for the principal: Mrs. Ol’ Lady, Mr. O’Gravy, Mr. O’Greedy, Mr. Shady, Six Head (“Way bigga than a forehead, Mr. C!”), and my personal favorite – Frankenhead. Frankenhead fittingly described both his enormous square-shaped head and his reputation as a monster among both students and faculty.
The faculty room had been full of talk about what a horror this opening day Mass would be.  Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Luther, and Mrs. Frogman droned on about how misbehaved the kids would be and how none of the “brats” knew how to conduct themselves in church.  Mrs. Frogman vented raw heat about how she absolutely loathed having to “patrol those aisles like a prison guard.” This duty, of course, stopped her from “watching the sacrifice of the Mass with sufficient piety.” Do people really use the expression “sufficient piety” in casual conversation?
Sure enough, however, she was right. Corrections Officers Luther, Smith, and Froggie, along with Warden O’Grady, did not so much supervise as patrol the nave.  This was not worship; this was lockdown. Not one wayward glance, wave to a friend, inappropriate smile, or unbent knee went unnoticed.  When the school’s gospel choir began to sing, anyone who dared to move, sway, clap or sing along was reprimanded with God’s own speed.
Monsignor Scanlon’s directive before distributing communion was mesmerizing in its repulsiveness.   “Those of you who are confessed Catholics may come forward at this time to receive the sacred host, which is the body of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Non- Catholics are encouraged to remain kneeling and pray for the unity of all Christians, that we may all one day share in this sacred sacrifice.”
I’ve heard this little speech in various forms, mostly at weddings, occasionally at a funeral, in dozens of Catholic churches.  Aside from being bad theology (if not, sadly, incorrect in its orthodoxy), it is downright rude.  I call it the uninvitation to communion. I wonder if Monsignor Scanlon would invite someone to dinner and then not serve them any food. You know those posters with the loaf of bread and the wine glass with the statement about Jesus of Nazareth inviting you to a dinner in his honor? I have never seen one that adds, “but he will only let you eat with him if you are a confessed practicing Catholic in good standing in the eyes of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the local Opus Dei chapter, and your nearest conservative bishop.”  Monsignor, however, must own a copy of this version of the poster.
The Monsignor was worrying about who’s having communion when we have students from families worrying about what or even if they are having dinner.
The good Monsignor would not have any trouble giving the host to any type of confessed serial killer, but a Baptist – God forbid!  They tell me only forty-five percent of the students at St. Somebody are Catholic.  Yet, on the second day of classes, during the first time we gathered to worship, we started the year by excluding more than half of our students. This made absolutely no sense to me.  The Baptists, AMEs, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Methodists, Four Square Gospels, Assembly of God-ers, and all the rest of them wouldn’t even think twice if I showed up at a service and received communion.  But then again, they are not the One True Church.
“The Body of Christ,” droned Monsignor, as he placed the host in my hand.
“Amen,” I replied, trying to remember how I got up to the front of the church.  I was going on to myself about inter-communion issues and had tuned out the entire proceeding.   Walking back to my seat, I thought about what my friend Mona used to say about communion. “I can believe that the bread is the body of Christ, but I have trouble believing those little wafer things are bread.” Mona was a convert from Lutheranism (kind of like being traded from the team that lost the World Series to the team that won) and just finishing her Th.D. at the University of Chicago.
Then I saw Yahira.  Tears were streaming down her cheeks. O’Grady was screaming over the choir and into her face, “If you won’t kneel, then get up and walk! Walk right across the street and into my office!”
Yahira started yelling right back at him.
“I ain’t walkin’ nowhere.  I ain’t invited to have no communion so I ain’t gonna kneel like I was.”
“You will kneel at communion and you will walk when I say so. Across the street! Now! Or so help me God I’ll call your father and have him come down here and carry you over to my office.”
Yahira wavered.  She was obviously weighing every pro and con of holding her position.  O’Grady hovered, stammering, “Well, Señorita? Well, Señorita?” Slowly, she rose.  Eyeballing O’Grady all the way to her feet, one deliberate step at a time she strode toward the exit. Martin Luther’s theses on the door may have been a more demonstrative dissent, but Yahira’s was just as courageous.  And more mysterious.  I swear she had said that her dad was dead. What was her crime? Heresy or hubris? All she did was point out the obvious inconsistency in what she was being required to do.

Chapter 3 – The Aftermass
“So, what did you all think of Mass?”
Silence.  Eyes cast down.  Some were smiling; others buried their faces in folded arms upon their desks. The implication being that if we’re going to have to go to church and then talk about it, then we’re going to catch some Zs.
I waited. Nothing.  I had to go for it.
I thought it sucked.
“I thought it was absolutely, completely horrible.”
Silence.  Now, it was due to shock.  The religion teacher was dissin’ church.  This woke people up.
“Yeah, man,” said Antawan, “Dat was wack!”
“Wack?”
“Yeah, you know, it….uh….. it sucked, man.”
“It stunk?” I offered.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Not whatever, Antawan. It stunk. I agree.  Now we have a choice.  We let it go or we change it.”
“Change what?” Antawan hit back, “They ain’t gonna let you change nothin’.  And even if they let you, how you gonna change it?”
I shelved my lesson plan for the day. The opening of school Mass was a crime.  People should be arrested for bad liturgy. I needed to know straight off just how bad the kids thought it was.  I needed to know if they were so used to such a poor experience of church that they had the ability to reach total blockout, a state where they are able to ignore what’s going on around them totally, even if what is going on is an abuse of the soul.  If they noticed how bad it was, however, we had a chance – perhaps a tiny chance, perhaps a better than average chance – of changing the sad liturgical circumstances.  Thankfully, we were in the middle of a mass Mass critique.  There was enough disgust to work with.  My major fear was apathy.  This was not apathy. We were on the same page – the wack/sucked page.
“Mr. C?”
“Yeah, Lydia?”  Lydia Cummings’s dad was a Pentecostal preacher with a church on Blue Hill Avenue.  St. Somebody had a lot of students from the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches in Boston’s black neighborhoods.  These churches didn’t have their own schools, at least at the high school level, and many parents thought it better to send the kids to the Catholics than to Godless public schools.
“Can I ax you a question?”
“Yes, Lydia, go ahead.”
“Do y’all Catholics believe in the Holy Ghost?” asked Lydia.
“Yes, we do.”
“Ya wouldn’t know it from that Mass thing y’all do.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Lydia. That’s my point.”
“Knowmsayin’? Mr. C, y’all wants us to sit there and watch the minister and not do nothin’. It’s so borin’.  My dad says you all Catholics don’t let the Holy Ghost work on ya cuz’n y’all’re uptight and think religion is all about the Pope’s rules.  At my daddy’s church people get into the Holy Ghost.  I like it. Peoples singin’ an’ prayin’ an’ movin’ an’ swayin’.  I hate that Mass thing.  It’s like you tryin’ to pray in Hell. Mr. O’Grady always tellin’ me to sit down and be quiet when the choir’s singin’.  I can’t go to choir practice after school on Thursdays so’s I can’t be in the choir, but then I try and sing wit’ ‘em and O’Grady’s tellin’ me to shut up and sit down. I don’t get it.”
“Lydia, O’Grady wouldn’t recognize the Holy Spirit if it jumped up and bit him on the ass.”  This received general and sustained applause.  Not only was the religion teacher dissin’ church and O’Grady, now he was using the word “ass” in class.    “Seriously people, O’Grady has a common disease. He’s one of those people that think how you pray is more important than actually praying.  It’s not entirely his fault. That’s the religion he was raised with and like many Catholics his age, he acts as if he doesn’t believe in the Holy Spirit because no one probably ever taught him about the Spirit.  The religion he grew up with wasn’t about feeling the Spirit, it was about following the rules. Now rules can be good things, but following rules for the sake of following rules is stupid.  Just the same, breaking rules just to break them is stupid.  What we need to do is change the rules.”
“Like how you gonna do that, huh, Mr. C?”
“I’m not.  I can’t. But you can.”
“How’s that?”
“Any of you guys rap?”
“Mr. C?”
“Lydia?”
“You can’t rap in church. My daddy says that rap is from the Devil. It’s all about hatin’ police, hatin’ women, an’ takin’ drugs and all.”
“Stop hatin’ on rap, Lydia.”
“I’ll hate on you, Leon.”
“No, Lydia, you won’t hate on anybody,” I said. “What we’re all gonna hate on is hate. Now, back to the action. Can any of you guys rap?”
“You mean like Kirk Franklin gospel rhymes and dat shit?”
“A bit, but more like your own words for what’s happening in the scripture or in your own lives that teaches something positive.”
“But Mr. C,  you can’t rap in church.”
“Why not, Lydia?  You can’t sing about hating women and taking drugs and all that, but you can rap. You can use hip-hop style and beats to sing appropriate words.  Come on, guys. I’ve seen some of you outside at lunch free-styling.  Somebody give me a rap.”
Nobody moved. They just stared at me. I was just some corny white guy fronting my hip-hop.  I picked up a Bible and flipped to the Psalms.
“If you have your Bible, open it up,” I said to the congregation.
“The Psalms begin on page 619 in your school Bibles.”
Lydia and two or three other girls opened their Bibles. Skinny peeked over Lydia’s shoulder.
“If you don’t know where to begin, just take any of these Psalms, pick out something where the message is simple and re-write it into your own words.”
It started out low. Then it started to grow. It was Skinny.  I was waiting on him, but didn’t want to single him out and put him on the spot, but he came through on his own. He just followed Psalm 1 and spoke it in the tongues of the street. Nice.

I’m straight, I’m chillin’ with the holy, not the wicked
I’m hangin’ on the block with saints wearin’ crowns,
Where we all know not to hang with the clowns
Who are dissin’ the mission of God’s holy word
Because the righteous will be saved while the wicked go down.

“Nice, Skinny. Awesome!”  I raised my voice so that my praise would be heard above the laughter of homeboy row.  “That’s it! Will you do that at a Mass?”
“Yeah, I guess, but like O’Grady and Sister Eunice will let me.”
“I’ll take care of Sister Eunice and O’Grady. You just be ready.”
The door creaked open.  My worst fear when the door opens like this in my classroom is that some elderly Sister in the administration will wander in, and hear me say something like the word “ass.”  As in, “O’Grady wouldn’t recognize the Holy Spirit if it jumped up and bit him on the ass.” But it wasn’t a nun. It wasn’t scary. It was serious, very serious.
“Yahira!” Dolores, Anita, and Carmen yelled as she stood in the door, half-covered in shadow by the hallway.  Yahira’s amigas ran up to her. Dolores grabbed her hand.  Yahira was crying. Anita put an arm around her and Carmen cupped her hands together under Yahira’s chin, cradling her face, yet locking it eyeball-to-eyeball with her own.
“A dios! Yahira, dígame, que el lo dijo a tu, que? Que? El llama a Roberto?” This was followed by a torrent of Spanish. The words passed back and forth between Yahira and her best friends like bolts of lightening – sharp, distinct, bright with energy and not devoid of thunder.
“A quienes es Roberto?” was the best Spanish I could manage.  The name Roberto had been uttered numerous times during the exchange, each time with an angrier tone, wider eyes, and greater contortion of the facial muscles.
“He’s her mother’s boyfriend, Mista,” hissed Anita.
“Carmen, I don’t think…” I started
“No, Mista, he is the biggest, worst asshole on this planet and I’s ain’t sorry for it.  Men suck, they’re evil, ‘cept you, Mista. You’re nice. Roberto es el diablo. And I can’t say it no other way an’ be true.”
Yahira was still crying when the bell rang.  She looked like she’d been hit, but O’Grady wouldn’t do that, would he?  The three amigas began to hustle their numero cuatro out of my room. I called after them.
“Yahira!”
“I’s OK, Mista,” she sniffed. “See ya later.”  And she was carried away by a sea of students. I looked after her, following the back of her head down the hallway until she disappeared in the current of her peers.

Chapter 4  –  Trust Fall
“Ready to fall,” called Skinny.
“Fall away!” responded the chorus of catchers.
“Falling,” said Skinny. But he just leaned a bit and stayed put atop his perch, a classroom chair on top of a cafeteria table. If his hair wasn’t in cornrows, it would have touched the ceiling.
I said, “Come on, Skinny. You can do it. Look at me.”  He did not look at me. He just shook his head from side to side, raised his eyes and repeated, “Oh, man,” over and over and over as if the mantra would bring him peace of mind and eliminate his fear.
“Look at me Skinny.  I weigh two hundred  and twenty-five pounds and they caught me. You weigh half of what I do. They will not drop you. You will be OK. I would not let you do this if I knew you would be hurt. You can trust me.”
“I don’t trust no one, Mr. C.”
“You can trust me, Skinny,” I repeated.
“Maybe, Mr. C, but I don’t trust them,” he said, pointing down at his classmates.
“That’s not fair, Skinny. You caught them and they trusted you. You’ve got to trust them back.”
“I’m nervous, man.”
“No, you’re scared, Skinny.”
“I ain’t scared of nothing.’”
“Yes, you are. You’re scared of falling. Tell ya what, though.”
“What’s that, Mr. C?”
“It’s not brave if you’re not scared.”  That’s a favorite of mine. I don’t know where it comes from, but I love that line. “You know when Frankie fell at the beginning of class and it was no big deal for him, because he did this last summer at youth group at his church. You remember he said that, Skinny?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Well remember how he was smiling and thinkin’ he’s all that because he went first and he wasn’t scared and how he said he was the brave man?”
“Yeah, so what, Mr. C?”
“Skinny, he wasn’t brave at all. Not a drop of brave in his whole act. He wasn’t scared. If you’re not scared then it’s not brave. That’s the way it is.”
“I still ain’t fallin’, Mr. C.”
“Yes, you are. You will do this fall.  You must do this fall. This fall is all that counts right now.  It is what you must conquer.  You can do it. I would not ask you to do anything I knew you were incapable of doing.  Now, grasp your hands, fold them up and in, close your eyes, and tell these guys you’re ready to fall again.  Guys, make your net.” They were goofing off, damn them. Time for teacher voice.
I yelled, “Make the net, gentlemen. NOW! This man is on the chair and ready to fall. You do nothing to make him feel safe if you are not constantly ready.”
They pulled it together.  The net reassembled itself.  Young men took their positions opposite each other in parallel lines, reached across and grasped each others wrists and held tightly.  A spider’s web of interlocked brown arms blocked Skinny’s path to the floor.
“OK, Skinny,” I said. “Tell them you’re ready.”
“I can’t, Mr. C.”
“You can. Tell them, they’re ready to catch you.”
“Ready to fall,” he whispered.
“Snap to it guys, he’s ready,” I said.
“Fall away.”
“Falling,” said Skinny.
“Stop!” I grabbed Skinny’s hand and pulled him back toward standing. Antawan, who was in the catching net at Skinny’s feet, saw he was slipping and hugged his lower legs.
“You see, Mr. C? I told you I can’t do it.  This is messed up shit. You’re trying psychological torture on us. Damn.”
“I am not torturing you. You can not fall with the ‘Oh Shit!’ response.” This got laughs, but I was serious. No shit serious. “You can’t let go of your arms. If they go out to the side and wack someone in the net in the head you will all tumble to the ground and someone will get hurt. You have to trust them. They will catch you. Keep your arms in. Now start again.”
Skinny was quiet. He closed his eyes and curled his hands up and into his chest. I wind-milled my arms motioning for everyone in the net to lock forearms and get ready.  Skinny stayed quiet for a long time.
“Ready to fall,” he said.
“Fall away.”
There was no reply. Skinny unlocked his arms and jumped down to the table and then down to the floor in one fluid motion. He was so quick it seemed he vanished from the chair and reappeared on the floor.  He stood silent.
Antawan said, “Come on, man. You’re takin’ the whole class.  Just fall already, nigga. Ain’t no big deal.”
“Folks,” I said, “When someone is afraid to fall, they need encouragement, not harassment.”
“You can do it,” said Royale. Her voice was so soft, no one heard her the first time but me. She walked over to Skinny, looked him in the eye and said it again. This time grabbing his hand and patting it like a grandmother assuring her grandchildren. She walked back around the table and wedged her way into the catching net.
“Come on, Skinny,” she said. “I’ll catch you.”
Skinny climbed back onto the chair.
“I can’t look down,” he said.  He seemed on the verge of tears.
“Then don’t look down,” I told him. “Just close your eyes, wrap your hands up and into your chest, and tell them to get ready to catch you.”
“Ready to fall,” said Skinny.
“Fall away,” said the catchers of the net.
“Falling.”
Skinny screamed as he fell. The catchers screamed back at him. But he was safe in their arms.  Bravest man in the room.
“Who’s next?” I asked.
“I will,” said Royale.
Everyone snickered, but Royale climbed up and stood on the table and then on the chair and then turned around, closed her eyes and folded her hands and tucked them up and into her chest. Skinny worked his way into the net so that he would be catching her head.
“Ready to fall,” she said.
“Don’t fall away,” said Janet.  Some of the other girls laughed.
I made Janet get out of the catching group. They were always doing this shit to Royale.  She was not smart, but she was good-hearted.  Too much like a little girl among adolescents. She was what they were afraid of being: not pretty, dumb, fashion by grandma.
“Ready to fall,” said Royale again.
“Fall away,” said Skinny.
“Falling.”
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGGGGGGGGGGG!
Royale fell, but there was no one there to catch her but Skinny.  I dove and managed to get my arms under her, trying to cradle her back, but it must have hurt.  Skinny, staying in position, caught her head so that it didn’t splat on my classroom floor.  The bastards walked away when the bell rang. I laid Royale down as gently as I could, a crash landing being better than a crash, I guess. I leapt for the door.  Some of the students who were not in the catching net were out already, but I caught most of them. The net hadn’t walked too far from their places when the bell rang, but all they needed to do was turn their backs.
“Get back in here.  Don’t even try to leave this room. Sit your asses down right now and shut up.  What the hell do you think you were doing?  You can’t just walk away from a person like that. Royale was trusting you. She could have cracked her head open.
What were you thinking?”
“It was just Royale, Mr. C.”
I didn’t even know who said it, but as soon as it was said, it was an explanation and a license to leave. And they left. Damn.  I was so stunned by their coldness I was at a loss for a disciplinary rejoinder. After a minute or so, my wits returned and I took Royale down to the school nurse. On the way to the nurse’s office, Royale was insistent that she was OK and it was all no big deal.  I told her I thought it was a very big deal and that no one was going to get away with treating her like that in my class.  She told me it was OK, they did that kind of stuff to her all the time.
“At least you and Skinny caught me, Mr. C.”
After checking Royale in with Mrs. White, the school nurse who happened to be black, I grabbed my mail from my box in the main office.  On top of a bunch of textbook catalogues was a memo from O’Grady.

TO: Mr. John Christopher, theology department
FROM: Mr. Sean O’Grady, principal teacher
RE: Student Mass Proposal
I have read your proposal to organize a student Mass using rap music. Permission denied. You should have run this by Brother Ernest first because he is campus minister.  I told Brother that rap music is completely unacceptable as sacred music and, as I am sure he agrees, the matter needs no further discussion.
Shit.  What was I going to tell Skinny? He trusted me and I couldn’t deliver.

Chapter 5 – Covenant
“Does anybody know what a covenant is?” I asked.
Silence. And then the room flooded with students trying to be heard. Unfortunately, this was due to the fact that they were all trying to talk to their friends and had to talk over other people talking to their friends, not because a sizeable number of them wanted to be first with an answer to my question.
“Whoa,” I interrupted. “Can I get everyone’s attention please?”
Noise.  Now that they had started a conversation, they figured, why stop? I strolled to the middle of the room, clenched my right hand into a fist, raised it slowly over my head, and waited.  I must have stood there for about five minutes with my right fist held up over my head when Skinny asked, “YO! Whatcha doin’, man?”
I didn’t answer. I just stared straight ahead with my fist raised.
James stood up and moved in.  About an inch from my face, he said, “Hey, you catatanic, dude?”
“You’s so freakin’ stupid, nigga,” Yahira snapped. “The word is catatonic.”
“Chucha cuerera!” roared James, moving away from me and toward the young female Puerto Rican powder keg.  James stared at her menacingly.
“Don’t grill me nigga,” Yahira roared back. “Sitcha ass down ‘fore I smack you.”
“Bitch,” mumbled James as he slid back into his chair.
Yahira Jiminez commanded attention.  Even large teen-age boys, indoctrinated by the misogynistic ethos of gangsta rap, yielded to her.  She was fifteen, but could have passed for twice her age if her eyes didn’t occasionally give her away.  She was the epitome of Latina hip-hop fashion. Every day she dressed to kill, emphasizing all the curves – hip, butt and bust.  Her breasts were large, high and firm.  They were almost, but not quite, too big for her torso.  And they gained her as much attention as her equally sizable attitude and intelligence. When going over my class rosters to brief me on my students before the first day of school,  Annette Jean, in her elegant Haitian accent, described Yahira as, “One you cannot miss hon’. Even if you could ignore her glorious young breasts, you could not ignore her equally inglorious attitude.” Indeed.
Yahira’s skin was immaculate. It was a Boricua bronze and without blemish. Her hair was straight, midnight black, and perfect.  She wore make-up sparingly and expertly applied to emphasize her cheekbones and her lips. But her eyes gave her away. As womanly as the rest of her appeared, her eyes cried out like a frightened little girl.  Most of the time you didn’t notice this, but if you were able to look at her and catch her not engaged in conversation or posturing for her peers, you saw it.  Her eyes were two little girls afraid to leave the house, terrified of what they might see outside – or of what they have already seen and never want to meet again.
Yet, as Annette had pointed out, Yahira’s attitude was as ugly as her body was physically beautiful. She appeared reserved to the point of removed.  Snobbish, it seemed, to many of her classmates. Her language was foul in both Spanish and English. She lost her temper quickly, and her acid tongue was both razor sharp and used far too often on those she deemed beneath her, not socially, but intellectually. She seemed to have few friends other than the three amigas. Had she been uglier she could have been me at fifteen, had I been a girl, of course.
The staff said that Yahira’s grades didn’t match her brains. Annette told me this was partly due to the way some of the staff actually followed the policy of flunking students with more than five missing homework assignments, an O’Grady mandate.  “The religion department doesn’t follow this policy, Sunshine,” she told me. “It would be un-Christian to flunk a student who doesn’t turn in every homework assignment.”  Yahira’s intellect was as strong and noticeable as the rest of her.  She knew why my fist was raised and had an idea of what covenant was as well.
“Mira, woodcha all shut up.  He wants us to be quiet.”  They didn’t respond to me and they weren’t responding to Yahira either.  Until she let go with the full force of her lungs, “Shut the fuck up, you stupid niggas!”  Silence.  I can’t say I approved of the language, but I did like the effect: absolute quiet.  Just for a second, but it was long enough for me to jump in.
“Yes, I need you to be quiet,” I said. “And I need you to stop verbally abusing each other and I need you to stop using the words “fuck” and “nigga.”  What just happened in here is but one example of why we need a covenant. What you all pulled on Royale yesterday is another example of why we need a covenant, need one badly, and why we need one now.  To begin again, does anyone know what a covenant is?”
“Yes, Mista.” Yahira raised her hand, “I know what it is.”  Her voice was soft, different, like a sunset over a Caribbean beach instead of a hurricane. I had never heard this tone from her. It was almost as if it were another person or another personality.  If it wasn’t unmistakably her voice, it would have been spooky.
“Go ahead, Yahira.”
“A covenant is like a sacred promise… like Abraham… he made one with God and so’s did Moses.”
“Very good.  Yes, a covenant is a sacred promise, Yahira.”
James spun around to look at her. “How you know dat?” he asked with genuine dismay in his voice. He truly seemed impressed that anyone would know the answer to my question, even if that someone was Yahira.
“You niggas is so… sorry, Mista. You’s all so dumb. Didn’t none of you listen to nothin’ last year in Miss Jean’s class.”
Silence. Time to jump in again.
“Sacred promise is excellent,” I responded. I snatched up a stack of papers from my desk and began to pass them out. “I am passing out to you a copy of a covenant I would like to propose for our class.”
Skinny had looked at the bottom of the page and noticed the place for the students and their parents or guardian to sign on as a party to the covenant.
“Is this a contract class?” asked Skinny.  “I hate contract your grade classes.  I ain’t signin’ nothin’.”
“No,” I answered, “This is not a contract, it is a covenant.”
“Same dif, man,” Skinny shot back, shrugging and flipping his copy of the covenant down on the nearest desktop.
“No, Skinny,” I said, locking his eyes with mine. “There is a huge difference between a contract and a covenant.  A contract is a legal thing.  It involves lawyers and if it is broken, the contract dispute is settled in courts by judges and juries. The penalty for breaking a contract is a fine or a lawsuit settlement or some such thing.  A covenant is different.  A sacred promise is something of the heart, something of the soul. If you break a covenant, you damage a relationship, you lose face, you lose trust, and you lose someone’s respect.  These penalties are much worse than paying a fine.  We need to make some promises to each other.  We all have to work together in this classroom this year.  We don’t have to like one another, but we do have to respect each other.    I propose a list of rights we should all have and a list of responsibilities we all need to live up to in order to ensure everyone enjoys their rights.  Read it and let’s discuss it. If we need to add something, we will. If we need to take something out, we will. We can do nothing else until we unanimously agree to accept a covenant.”
This is what I gave them:
You have the right to:                You have the responsibility to:
Be respected                    Respect others
Be heard                    Listen
Express your ideas and opinions    Consider the ideas and opinions of others
Be yourself                    Control yourself
An orderly classroom                Help create and maintain order
Be given clear directions            Follow directions
Be given clear deadlines            Meet deadlines
Be given choices                Choose wisely
Work at a reasonable pace            Finish your work
Criticize the course and the teacher        Participate before you evaluate
Be evaluated fairly (by yourself and others)    Give your best effort at all times

Moment of truth.  “So,” I said, “Any questions or comments?”  Most heads were slowly shaking side to side.
“Mista?”
“Yes,Yahira?”
“It’s nice and all, but it could be much shorter.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, to my opinion the whole thing is about respect.  We could just make a covenant to respect each other.”
“We could, yes,” I said. “But the reason I proposed the other statements, not just the one about respect, is so we could describe a little bit what respect looks like as we work together every day in the classroom.”  She seemed satisfied with that.
“What if I don’t want to be making these promises?”
“Well, James, then we need to know why. If there is something in this covenant you, or anyone cannot agree to, we must edit the covenant and come up with a set of promises we can all agree to make to each other.  Is there any special reason why you don’t want to make these promises?”
“Yeah. How do I know everybody’s gonna keep ‘em? How do I know you’re gonna keep ‘em?”
“You don’t know, James,” I said. “Not one of us can guarantee we are never going to break these promises.  However, if we all agree to try to keep them, then when one of us, including me, breaks one of them, someone can tell us that we promised not to do that.  If we all make a covenant with each other, we are giving each other our word that we will keep it. If someone breaks the covenant repeatedly, they will have to ask themselves if their word is just a meaningless lie. If we have all agreed to try and keep these promises and someone is breaking them all the time, then we, as a group, have a legitimate request that the person breaking their promises all the time be moved into a different class.  That way, if someone is causing real trouble, it is not just the teacher or the school administration enforcing a disciplinary rule, but our class taking action to maintain the environment we want in our classroom.”
“Yo, man,” blared Skinny from the back of the room. “You mean we get to kick each other out of class?” He appeared thrilled at this possibility.
“In a sense, yes,” I told him. “We get to ask someone who repeatedly breaks their word with us to leave.”
“That’s cool.”
And it was cool, the first class.  And the other classes saw it and said that it was cool, and it was cool.  By the end of the day, all five of my classes had agreed to the covenant.  I asked them to sign a large copy of the covenant that I had posted on the front wall of the classroom. I had ninety-eight student signatures on the over-sized document at the end of the day.  Not one student had refused to make the promises.  Keeping promises, however, is much more difficult than making them.

Chapter 6 – This Little Light of Mine
St. Somebody drew a lot of students from black Protestant denominations around Boston. There were quite a few Pentecostal and Baptist students and a fair number from the Boston Assembly of God churches. We had some Greek Orthodox students whose church also doesn’t have an inner city school, but most of the white students at St. Somebody were Irish kids from South Boston.   The Haitian and Latino students came from the most traditional Catholic backgrounds and had a great awe and respect for priests and nuns.
When I took the job, Dave Martin had spoken in revered tones about the duty of a religion teacher, as if I had not only volunteered for combat duty, but accepted a military suicide mission.  “What it gets down to John, is that the religion class is what makes this school different, yet it’s the hardest course to teach. Religion is the course the kids resist most.”
“I think I can make religion more fun than algebra,” I joked.
“Look, John, we burn through religion teachers here in the Archdiocese,” Dave, had told me. “Whether you think so or not, you’re in for a tough start.”
He was right. The thing I liked about teaching. The thing any teacher likes about teaching anything is seeing the light go on; seeing in the student’s eyes that he or she gets it is one of the few cases of instant gratification in the professional world.  St. Somebody’s was proving as tough as Dave suggested.  In my other two brief teaching gigs, I had taught rich white Catholic kids in schools with a lot of resources, if not a lot of tolerance for the left wing of the Church.  St. Somebody had no resources and a student body that was as religiously diverse as it was ethnically and racially diverse.
My course was different, but still dark. So far I had succeeded in getting some attention by dissing the school liturgy and using youth group activities, but the lights were still out.   I had decided my best tack was to blow all assumptions completely out of the water, and to do that I had settled on the idea of facing my problem head on.  I planned to hit ‘em with the big questions.
“What do you think about Jesus?” I asked one day near the end of September as they settled in after the bell.
“Oh, man, you are so corny. You know that?” said Antawan.
“I know everything ‘bout Jesus. How he’s the son of God and died for our sins and if’n you don’t believe in him you’re goin’ to hell,” said Lydia. “My dad’s a pastor and he knows the Lord and teaches us all ‘bout him. I knows how it is.”  Lydia’s dad was a pastor of a storefront Pentecostal church in Boston’s Calle Diablo neighborhood. Named after its main thoroughfare, Calle was one of the city’s poorest and most violent areas.
“Mr. Christopher, sir, if I may?”
“Yes, Thomas?”
“You are cornier than a cob.”
“Jesus loves me, this I know, cuz the Bible tells me so.  I know Jesus loves me, Mr. C,” said Royale.
“Cut that shit out, girl. This ain’t first grade,” Janet snapped.
“Leave her be.”  Yahira and I said it at the same time, looked at each other as we heard the other speak, and smiled.
“What was Jesus’ birthday?” I asked.
“That’s easy, Mista. Come on, y’all knows it’s Christmas on December 25th,” said Lydia.
“Actually, we have no idea when Jesus was born,” I said.  “And we only celebrate Christmas on December 25th because that’s the time of the year the Romans used to celebrate the feast of the sun god.  That time of the year marks the seasonal turning point at the winter solstice,  the shortest day of the year, and in the northern hemisphere anyway, the days begin to get longer again, the sun making more and more of an appearance each day.  When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, they started celebrating Christmas at the same time of year to match up the old Roman symbols with the new Christian ones.  The sun in the sky coming more into the world and the Son of God coming into the world, get it?”
Some did and some didn’t.  I went over it again, getting more nods and a smile or two.  Hell, I was boring myself.  There had to be light switch in here somewhere.
“Why didn’t Jesus have any black disciples?” I tried.
“Cuz Christianity is a white racist religion, trying to get niggas to worship a white man,” said Korey.
“Then, tell me why Jesus didn’t have any white disciples?” I offered.
“What you talking about? Look at the pictures on your wall, man.” I had a reproduction of DaVinci’s last supper on a wall near my desk, left over by the previous tenant.
“What about it, Korey?”
“Man, look at it. The dude is white.”
“What does that prove? Was the guy who painted it an eye witness to the event? Was he working from a photograph? Somebody email him a jpeg? Come on, Korey. Think.” I said.
“So what, man? What’s the dif anyway?”
“Well, you ever wonder why all these pictures and paintings of Jesus make him a white man with blonde hair and blue eyes?”  I had them. Well, I had a few of them. I continued. “Jesus looks white because these paintings and photos were done by white people.  These old paintings were done by guys from Italy in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, so not knowing what people from the Middle East looked like or not caring about it, they made everyone to look like themselves.  They were white Europeans so they painted Jesus as a white European.  Jesus and his first followers were all Middle Eastern Jews, they looked more like Yasar Arafat then you or me.”
“Whose ass is fat?”
I ignored Thomas and so did everyone else.
“So why ain’t there pictures of Jesus that look right?” asked Korey.
“There are. You just don’t see them all the time. People from different parts of the world make images of Jesus to look like themselves.” I said.
“We gots a black Jesus picture at my dad’s church,” said Lydia. “You wanna  come to church and see it?”
“No,” said Korey.
“Suit yourself, but maybe if’n you’d come to church you’d be saved and wouldn’t be doing the other stuff you do.”
“Saved from what? I don’t need no savin’, and if I did the only people be saving me are my boys. You got to take care of yourself and you need someone to get your back.  I look out for me.  My boys got my back and that’s all the saving I need.”
“Yes, you do needs savin’,” preached Lydia. “I’s seen you on Calle. I knows what you do.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“All right, that’s enough. Was Jesus a Christian?”
Korey spoke again. “He was Jewish.”
“Right, how do we know?”
“I don’t know how you know, Mr. C, but since he was always doing Jewish festivals and all in the Gospels and he don’t ever do no Christian stuff, they must have started the religion after him.”
“I’m surprised you read the Gospels. From what you’ve been saying, it doesn’t seem like you’d be interested,” I told him.
“You assigned the Bible, right? So I read it.”
“The whole thing?” I asked.
“Yeah, the whole thing. You think I can’t read a book?”
“No, Korey, just…”
“Just shit, man.  Just get back to your corny Sunday school stuff, all ‘ight?”
“No, let’s skip Sunday school, that’s my point.  Sunday school makes Jesus all neat and clean and white and nice.  Sunday school is Jesus saying nice poetic things to his nice clean followers on a nice clean, grassy hillside in perfect spring weather, but that image of Jesus is mostly bullshit.”
Korey leaned forward a bit in his chair, trying to pretend he wasn’t pretending to not listen.  Korey was cool, icy. You could keep the perishable groceries in him. At least that’s what he wanted you to think.  He wore his hair in thick cornrows, most of the time covered in a do rag. His skin was smooth and dark, a deep mahogany.  He wasn’t tall, short, fat or thin, but his arms and shoulders showed a lot of muscle definition. He had big eyes, high cheek bones, and bright white teeth. When he bothered to smile, his smile filled his face. He reminded me a bit of Isaiah Thomas.
“Jesus lived in an occupied territory,” I continued.  “Most Roman soldiers would just as soon kill you as look at you.  Some of his people wanted armed revolution against the Romans to get them out of town.  He scared the Romans and he scared the leaders of his own religion because of what he was saying.  He was seen as a rebel, and those in power didn’t like him because he made the powerless feel human.  And when the powerless feel empowered they rise up against what’s putting them down and that was what the Romans didn’t want and that was what the religious leaders didn’t want because they depended on the Romans for their position and power.”
Korey was nodding now and again from his seat in the back.  “So how come no one ever tells us this stuff?”
“I don’t know why you’ve never heard it, but I know that some people do teach this stuff. The problem is that Christianity is old and over the last 2,000 years, Jesus has been interpreted and reinterpreted over and over again. Religion is also political. Throughout history, those in power in governments and those in power running religions have used their power to teach the versions of things they want people to believe in order to give the people a view of things that keeps them from resisting the powers that be. It’s all about perception. Let me give you an example. Draw this puzzle on a piece of paper.”
I drew three rows of three parallel dots on the white board with all nine dots making a square, with equal spacing between the dots.  I told them to try to connect all of the dots without lifting their pencil off the paper.  The only catch was they could use only four lines and retracing counted as a new line.  It seemed easy enough, but soon grew frustrating.  Finally, Korey smiled, put his pen down, and watched the others continue to struggle with the puzzle.   I could tell by his eyes the lights were on.
“This is impossible, Mista,” said Carmen. “You can’t do it.”
The babble began. They wanted the answer. They swore it was a trick. I urged them on and told them to work on it until they got it. I insisted that it was not a trick and that it really did have a solution.  As the cacophony in the room grew, Korey walked up to my white board and drew the solution over my dots. He began by drawing a line from the bottom left corner dot to the top right corner dot. Then he drew a line straight down the right side of dots past the bottom  dot and continued with a line passing through the bottom center dot and the left side center dot and on out to the side. He finished with a line across the top.  He turned, smiled and went slowly back to his seat, giving some high fives and getting some dap on his way back.  He had the answer.
“What did you need to do to solve the puzzle, Korey?”
“You had to go outside the lines, Mr. C.”
“Exactly. You had to break the barrier. You had stop seeing the puzzle as a square made out of dots. And folks, that’s what you need to do in this class. You need to open your minds and go outside the lines. You need to put away what you think you know about Jesus, what you think a religion class is about,  and look at it all with fresh eyes and a new perspective.  You need to go outside the lines.”
The lights were most definitely on.

Chapter 7 – Department Meeting
“God of goodness, God of hope, God of light, God of longing, God of love, God of all, – send your most Holy Spirit down upon us as we gather in this most sacred place.” Annette Jean lit a scented votive candle as she prayed. She waved her hands over their flames as a Jewish woman would to welcome the Sabbath to the family table. “We come before you and before each other to put our students before ourselves.”  Annette paused.  She was regal. Her skin was black as midnight and looked satiny smooth, her hair in tight cornrows. Her eyes were as alive as anyone’s I’ve ever seen. She favored jeans and T-shirts when she wasn’t dressed a bit more in her Afro-Caribbean style.
She continued, “We ask your help as we seek ways to touch the hearts of your children.  We thank you sweet Lord, for blessing us through the lives of our students.  Help us to help them and each other. We ask this in the name of Jesus, our friend and brother. Amen.”
With candles, a cloth, a wooden Madonna statue from her native Haiti, and her presence she had transformed a corner of her ancient and dilapidated classroom into a chapel.
The religion department was meeting in Annette’s classroom.  Department meetings were on the last Thursday of every month.  The first Monday of each month, the department chairpersons met with Dave, Sean, and Sister Eunice, and the first Wednesday of each month were scheduled faculty meetings.  After finishing her opening prayer, Annette sang “Oh Happy Day.”  I quietly got up and went for my “travel” guitar (an old beat up Yamaha student model) that I kept in a closet in my room next door.  I returned in time to join Annette for half of the song.  As soon as we finished, I played an acoustic slide guitar version of “Amazing Grace” and Annette sang that as well.  Annette held the last note of the song and slid into the first note of song in Haitian Kreol. I’m guessing that it was a gospel acclamation because I heard the word “alleluia” a lot.  As soon as she finished, I played and sang “Redemption Song.”  The mini-concert took all of fifteen minutes and created a bond between the department chair and myself.  We locked eyes as we played and sang and it was as prayerful a moment as I have ever shared with anyone.  Annette got it, whatever it was.  Our colleagues, Mrs. Angelini and Brother Ernie, did not get it, whatever it was, and it showed on their faces. It showed, or rather it didn’t show (depends on how you look at it I guess) in their half-open mouths, glazed over eyes staring vacantly across the small classroom, and in their twitching noses. Neither of them had tried to sing along or even so much as clapped or smiled during or after the music. There were four people at this meeting, but two of them weren’t there.  Annette and I were not in their world and they were not in ours.
Rosa “Rosie” Angelini was 50 and the mother of five.  The oldest was a son, Guido, a 28-year-old investment broker at Boston Bonds and Securities. The youngest, Angela, was 15 and a sophomore at St. Somebody’s Central Catholic, and had yours truly for religion.  Angela had luminous black hair, deep eyes, and a perpetually guarded expression. Students at St. Somebody were not required to wear uniforms, but Angela’s mom dressed her in one anyway. Angela wore plaid Catholic school girl skirts with matching tights and blouse combinations, her hair tied back in a ponytail.  She wore no make-up and no jewelry.  Instead, Angela wore scapulas, which she hid by tucking into her shirt as she entered a class and pulled out again when she entered the hallways, lest her mom catch her.  I half expected her to have a Mother Angelica lunchbox.
In between Angela and Guido were Mark, 26; Ann, 22; and Rocco 19, all of whom worked for their father Vinny at his bakery in the North End.  Rosie Angelini actually looked like the comedienne and talk show host with whom she shared a name. Rosie came to St. Somebody four years ago when Rocco was a freshman.  She had been the director of religious education at St. Anthony of Padua parish in Somerville for the ten years preceding her arrival at St. Somebody.  She talked quite a bit about the will of God, saying things like, “If the cafeteria is serving chocolate cake for dessert, it must be God’s will I have chocolate cake,” and “If it’s God will that I have hemorrhoids, then I have hemorrhoids,” which I heard her mutter to herself coming out of the ladies faculty bathroom one morning.  She taught her freshman the way she must have taught the poor children at St. Anthony’s:  she led readings and fill-in-the-blank exercises from her Golden Catechist series textbooks.  She taught standing behind a podium with a large crucifix on the front and rosary beads wound around her left hand.  About once a week, she found it appropriate to play a cassette tape of Whitney Houston singing “The Greatest Love of All.”  This wouldn’t have been so horrible had her classroom not been across the hall from mine. Unfortunately, her room was across the hall from mine and having to listen to Whitney Houston once was bad enough, but once a week was intolerable.
Brother Ernest Wills, ROSHC (Roman Order of St. Helena’s Cross), was tall and thin and old.  Exactly how old was hard to tell, but even Sister Eunice had more mobility, energy and spirit and she has two bad ankles and a double hip replacement.   His eyes have the look of someone who has survived torture or witnessed severe human atrocities.  He walks stooped over so that he gives the impression of being shorter than he actually is. He appears perpetually afraid, as if demons only he can see are tormenting him constantly. I asked Annette why he seems to look so scared all the time and she told me that, “He looks so scared, Sunshine, because he is scared.  He is terrified, actually.”
“Terrified of what?” I asked her.
“Our students, honey.  He’s absolutely petrified of them. He admits it himself.”
“Isn’t he the campus minister?” I wondered aloud.
“Oh, but the Lord works in mysterious ways,” whispered Annette.
Brother Ernest was not only the campus minister, but he was also teaching senior religion because Brother Ross left to minister to retired brothers in rural New Hampshire. Ross is now the chief caretaker of his order’s retirement facility and retreat house outside of North Conway.  Brother Ernie was a math teacher at St. Somebody before becoming the campus minister five years ago.  Annette heard rumors when she first came five years ago that he cried like a baby when told that the order wanted him to retire to North Conway.  “I was told,” Annette had said to me, “that he was so pitiful they made him campus minister just so he could stay, but it’s hearsay,  I’ve never talked to him about that.”
“But Annette,” I asked, “Why would he want to stay if he’s afraid of the students?
“Oh, the Lord, she works…”
“In mysterious ways,” I finished her answer to my question. “So you’ve said.”
Everyone but me called him Brother Ernest, but he looked a bit like the late Keith Moon so all I could think of was Uncle Ernie from the Who’s Tommy, so he was Brother Ernie to me. He cowed when near the larger boys in the school and actually raised his arm as if about to ward off a blow when he walked past them in the hallways.  He never, ever looked at any of the young women.  When forced by circumstance, say in the lunch line or being asked by one of his young female students for permission to use the ladies’ room, he looked at the floor or turned his head away. It wouldn’t surprise me if he considered these situations an occasion of sin.
The topic of today’s meeting was the retreat schedule.  Brother was telling us how he was having trouble finding someone to run the senior and sophomore retreats.  “I’ve called the people from last year, but they said they are booked.  The folks who run the freshman retreat aren’t interested because they are actually a junior high youth ministry and feel freshmen are their upper limit.” His voice was a low hoarse whisper and yet he whined every word.  This was his only voice.  He never raised it or lowered it.  When he recited Morning Prayer over the school PA system every day during homeroom, all you could hear was some mumbling mixed in with the static.  It was virtually impossible to make out the words.  I once saw a breviary in Dave Martin’s office on the shelf next to the microphone.  Dave confirmed for me that Brother did indeed read the morning office (actually parts and pieces thereof) as the building’s Morning Prayer.  Maybe it was better that we couldn’t hear it.
“I just don’t know what I am to do.” He gently raised his hands, palms up, and lowered his eyes.  “May the Lord be with us on this one.”
“Uh, Brother, why don’t you run the retreat?” I asked what I thought was an innocent question.  Brother Ernie turned to answer me.  Behind him and off to his right Annette was imitating a football referee making the extra point is no good sign across her lap and shaking her head.
“Oh, I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that,” he whispered. “Leading retreats for young people is not my gift.”

My brain was as blank as the space above these words.  I can’t recall what happened immediately after Ernie’s last remark.  It was so incomprehensible that white noise filled my aural universe and I fought for conscious thought.  But……………but ………. you……are…..the…….the……campus……….the…….. campus… ……. min…… min…minis…………….minis………….ster.

“John? Johnny? John, are you still with us? Earth to Sunshine. Hello Sunshine. Johnny Sunshine.  Hello, are you still with us?”
It was a woman’s voice. Familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Would you like to run the sophomore retreat, Sunshine? You do teach all the sophomores.”
Retreat. Sophomores. A high school. St. Somebody Central Catholic High School. I knew the voice. It was Annette Jean, the department chair of the theology faculty.
“Uh,” was all I could manage in response.
“Is that a yes or a no, my articulate, Harvard-educated friend?”
“Uh, yeah, I’ll do the sophomore retreat,” I offered. “When is it?”
“It hasn’t been scheduled yet,” informed Brother Ernie. “Because I haven’t been able to find anyone to run it nor have I been able to find a place to have it.”
“It is usually in May with the other class retreats,” chirped Rosie.
I thought May was a bit late in the year for a retreat.  The school year was almost over at that point and any bonding or benefit might be short-lived.  I offered this and Annette told me, “Sunshine, if you are running it, you can schedule it whenever you like.  Now, let’s get to Rosie’s item about the textbooks.”  Somehow I had just been assigned scheduling and leading the sophomore retreat.
“It seems,” Rosie began, “That my daughter says she hasn’t yet been issued a textbook for your class.  What do the kids think?  We ordered those books special, just for you, so that you would have a curriculum and not have to create one for yourself.  We tried to save you a lot of work.  I really think that we should all be on the same curriculum and Golden is so nice, especially their worksheets for each lesson.  Annette doesn’t seem to use them much either and I thought that if you two are not using them, perhaps we could ask Sister Claire to come in and suggest a new text program.”
“Rosie, I don’t use the text much because I think the students don’t like it.” Annette sounded a bit like Mother Superior. It was almost as if she could change personalities.  “Now if John doesn’t want to use the books, it probably has nothing to do with spite for your hard work in making sure he had a resource.  Remember that a text is not a curriculum, and since a text is not a curriculum, it doesn’t matter if we all use a different text or resources for our courses. We talked about this at the end of the year meeting last June.  Perhaps John just wants to feel his way through the course this year so he can get an idea for what he wants as resources next year. “
“All I see in the textbook is someone writing about the New Testament,” I explained. “I figure that if I am teaching the New Testament, I don’t want the students reading about the New Testament, I want them reading the New Testament itself.”
“That sounds fine, Sunshine. Any problem with that, Rosie?”
“No. I just thought it was worth bringing to your attention, Annette.”
“And you did so. I thank you for that. If we are done on textbooks, let’s get on to some scheduling items.  We should, I think, take turns at this monthly meeting with the following jobs: leading opening prayer, chairing the meeting, and taking minutes.”  We made such a schedule.  I had opening prayer next time.

Chapter 8 – Faculty Meeting
There are three types of faculty meetings and all are pretty much useless.  The first kind is the group therapy meeting, where everything and anything is up for discussion. This is infuriating because a bunch of teachers will kick around topics for thirty or forty minutes that could and should be decided by administrative fiat. The second meeting type is the dictator’s speech. This is infuriating because an administrator will inform the assembled faculty of decisions already set in stone about things that in a rational world could and should be discussed openly and honestly by those being affected by the decision. St. Somebody had the rare third meeting option – the combination platter.  The combo platter is infuriating because it combines the worst elements of the group therapy meeting and the dictator’s speech.
St. Somebody faculty meetings are an obscene and twisted twin bill of sanity testing inanity.  First, Sister Eunice presides over the group therapy sessions, which commonly include items that would be better left up to Dave’s discretion as the headmaster.  Then Sean O’Grady informs us about things that really should be discussed by the entire faculty.
I asked Dave, shortly after the first faculty meeting, why he didn’t attend. He said, “One of the perks of being headmaster is no one can write you up if you miss a meeting.” Then he smiled.
Today’s gem of an agenda:
Student Related Topics – Sister Eunice
I.    Students wearing crosses as jewelry
II.    What to do with hats confiscated from students in class
III.    The correct procedure for reporting students who are without their IDs
IV.    Girls braiding boys’ hair at lunch time.
Teaching Topics and Administrative Updates – Mr. O’Grady
I.    Block Scheduling
II.    Teacher Evaluation Process – Observations
III.    Keeping Good Gradebooks: Academic Accounting and Bookkeeping
IV.    Frequent Quizzes: Got to know what they know

Sister Eunice began by asking us what we thought of the oversized crosses worn by “so many of our nice young men and women.”  Rosie Angelini said she was glad Sister had brought up this topic because it had been troubling her for quite a while. Rosie never actually brought up anything in a faculty meeting, she just pressed her issues with Sister Eunice or Sean until they showed up on an agenda and then she said her piece.  Her piece on this was Mother Angelica-esque, as usual.
Rosie was distraught because the kids who wore oversized crosses and crucifixes hardly ever behaved in a Christian manner, inside or outside of class.  She noted that some of these kids wearing crosses were our biggest discipline cases and obviously do not care “one whit for the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  Jesus should not be jewelry. Various folks, including Mrs. Frogman and Brother Ernie spoke about how irreverent it is for kids to wear crosses and crucifixes. I listened to this nonsense for about fifteen minutes and then raised my hand.  Another five minutes later, Sister Eunice got to me.
I said, “How many of you are wearing crosses and how many of you gave any serious thought to why you put on the cross? Some of you, in fact, probably chose the gold cross or the silver cross because it matched your blouse better than the other.  None of you, I wager, gave even the slighted pause for piety or prayer before donning the cross, which you are wearing because it is jewelry first and because you’re a Christian second.”
Rosa Angelini put her hand to the rather large silver cross on her throat, the sleeve of her black blouse getting caught in the silver bracelet on her arm as she did so.  There was an uneasy silence.  No one said a word for about thirty seconds and Sister Eunice moved on to what teachers should do when they confiscate hats in class.
The discussion on whether to send the offending hat and hat-wearer directly to Sister Eunice or Sean or to hold the hat and send the offender for discipline or to hold the hat and let the offender remain in class to be dealt with later lasted twenty minutes.  I kept my mouth shut. So many kids wear hats that if I spent time on hat patrol I would do little else during a class period. I also didn’t care if the kids wore hats. Hell, Sister Eunice tells me to take off my Red Sox hat about every other day when I come into the faculty room in the morning, with a crisp, “Mr. Christopher, it just doesn’t set a good example.”
The next twenty minutes were spent discussing what to do with students caught without their mandatory student ID. In an inner-city setting like St. Somebody even the staff was on a mandatory ID policy. Probably a good thing, actually. Should they be sent to Eunice or Sean immediately? Should they be reported later but allowed to remain in class? If they are caught without ID in the halls or the cafeteria or the library, is the procedure different?  I read the sports page of the Globe.
When I resurfaced from the latest on the Sox and the Patriots, we were discussing why it was inappropriate for young women to braid the hair of young men into cornrows at lunchtime.  Some folks thought cornrows should be banned because only gangster blacks and rappers wore cornrows.  Annette, who wore her hair in cornrows, silenced that part of the discussion by slowly standing up and looking around the room.
Annette’s action did not end the discussion and I found myself ten minutes later, leaning over to Annette like a student chatting with a friend while the teacher asked questions about Beowulf, whispering my bewilderment to her, “Who gives a crap, really?  Why the hell are we wasting our time on this bullshit?  You proved that being concerned about cornrows is pretty much racist. If the kids want to style each other’s hair on their own lunch time, you’ve got to ask yourself why anyone even gives a crap.”
“Oh, Johnny Sunshine, shush.” Annette whispered back. “It’s only the first week of October, there are eight more of these to go.  Breathe, meditate, pray.”
“That is enough from you, Christopher. You’re as bad as the students,”  said Frankenhead.  “We wait our turn to speak here. I will see you after the meeting.”
I grumbled. I heard Rosie mention something about me being the most impious religion teacher she had ever heard of and whatnot? The issue of cornrow braiding eventually passed away. Like hats and IDs, it was discussed to death.
Sean O’Grady then strode to the podium, produced a paper from a file folder, placed it in front of him and read from it. He said, “One: Headmaster Martin has decided to explore a new school schedule using long blocks.  I disapprove, as I am quite sure you do as well, and I will have discussions with him about not pursuing this idea and get back to you. Two: Observations will be scheduled the same as last year. First-year teachers four times, second and third years twice, and veterans once. The schedule of observations will be posted on my office door and in the faculty room along with the form I will use. Three: Once again this year all faculty are to keep numerical grade books with every assignment weighted on a 100 point scale. Final term grades are to be submitted for each student as a letter grade with 90 plus equaling an A and 80 plus equaling a B and so on.  Homework should count for no more than 20 percent of the grade and tests should count for at least 30 percent of the grade. Four: Don’t C-STUB your toes. It’s that time of year again where the misguided socialists among you try to convert the new hires to join your subversive un-American, and un-Catholic union.  Let me say this: Barbara Hartman is no doubt going to ask you join this so-called “collective bargaining” association. Before you agree to join, please consider that your obligation to the Bishop and the Archdiocese of Boston. Your loyalities should be there, not with this group that will take some of your salary as dues and use the money to harass both our school administration and the Archdiocese of Boston over frivolous matters. Every year C-STUB stirs up non-issues that distract us all from our jobs and our students. So, again – Don’t  C-STUB your toes.”
O’Grady was right about Barbara Hartman. The St. Somebody union rep had held a meeting the second week of school. I signed up on the spot. Unions may have faults, but the folks responsible for the eight-hour day, and the five-day workweek have my intellectual, moral and monetary support, especially when, like C-STUB, they’re working to get me more benefits, more salary and better working conditions. Hell, thanks to C-STUB my St. Somebody salary was nearly double the salary I made at the other two Catholic schools where I’d taught.
“And lastly,” O’Grady continued. “Five: Quizzes are the backbone of good teaching and every course should have quizzes weekly. Quizzes should count for at least 20 percent of the term grade. That’s all.”
I raised my hand, “Excuse me, Sean, but you can’t tell me how to evaluate students.”
“Yes, I can tell you how to evaluate them Mr. Christopher. I just did.  You would be smart to follow my directives.”
“But Sean.”
“You may call me Mister O’Grady in front of the faculty assembled, Mr. Christopher.”
“Sean, I can’t give weekly quizzes in my classes. It’s just not appropriate and…”
“The meeting is adjourned,” said O’Grady. “Mr. Christopher, to my office, please.”
This guy was a trip. He sent the staff to his office just like students. Nuts.
O’Grady slammed the door to his office after he had followed me in and began his whiny screaming, telling me he was my boss and that I would evaluate students as I was told.  I yelled back, telling him the Pope couldn’t make me give weekly quizzes. Eventually Dave came in from his office and listened to O’Grady assault me for about five minutes before telling the Frankenhead that he was writing me up and taking me to his office for a chat.
“Look, John,” he said. “I know Sean’s an asshole, but that doesn’t give you the right to be one as well. I can’t fire Sean because the diocese has control over all administrative personnel.  I am not writing you up for this, but I should. The next time O’Grady wants you warned I’m going to have to put something on file. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
“And look, Sean is not the best principal in the world and God knows he’s not terribly bright or creative, but we’re stuck with him. You, on the other hand, are too smart to let him win. Got that?”
“Got it,” I said.
“And since you seem to be a good teacher and the kids seem to be responding to you, I will cover your ass as much as I can, but I can’t cover it all the time. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
“Good.”

Chapter 9 – Juggling
“Pick up all three beanbags,” I began. “Throw them up into the air, and let them hit the ground.”  A hailstorm of beanbags thudded onto the classroom floor.  These were not cheap beanbags. These beanbags were the size of small apples and made of crushed nut shells packed tightly into cloth covers.
“Excellent!  I will make you all jugglers in no time.”
“This is mad corny. I ain’t doin’ this wack shit.”  Jeremiah stood a good six foot eight and thought only about basketball, gansta rap, and young ladies, not necessarily in that order.  Throwing beanbags into the air and letting them fall was something that no masculine ghetto bone in his body would let him do.  He continued to grumble, but he continued to throw brightly colored beanbags into the air and let them fall at his feet.  He, like the rest of his comrades, then dutifully bent over, picked up the beanbags, and repeated the procedure.
“Mister C, man, I’m getting sick of this pretty fast,” said Korey.
“Good, that means you’re ready to learn to juggle so that you don’t have to keep picking the bags up off of the floor.”
“Mister C, how’s about we stop dropping these things and we don’t learn how to juggle?” said Korey.
“Why do we have to learn how to juggle?” asked Skinny.
“Ah, that’s a good question and I was hoping someone would ask it.  Why do you think I am asking you to juggle? Anybody got a good answer?”
“Man, can you just tell us this one time? Ain’t no one in here got a freakin’ clue about why we’re jugglin’.”  Skinny just stared at me, his eyes pleading for mercy.
“OK, then,” I offered, “What class is this?”
“This is sophomore religion, Mister C.  New Testament or whatever,” answered Skinny. “And that’s the answer? We’re jugglin’ cuz this is religion class?”
“In a sense,” I said. “But what does juggling have to do with religion or the New Testament or Jesus?”
Jeremiah backed Skinny, requesting clemency from the Socratic Method. “We have no idea, Mister Christopher, please just tell us.”
“Answer me this then,” I said amidst the groaning group sigh. “How do you expect to get better at juggling?”  I picked up three beanbags and began to juggle.  They watched me.  I snatched up another and had four beanbags going.  I switched from an inside cascade toss to circle juggling and asked Korey to throw another beanbag toward the center of my circle.  I just managed to get it and I had five bags going around in a circle.  Five was my upper limit and I knew I would not keep it going for long. Finally, I tossed a bag too high and lost the rhythm. A cheer rose up to greet my next question.
“How do you think I learned to do that?”
“You must juggle a lot,” said Angela Angelini.
“Yes!”
“Yes what, man?”  Jeremiah had had enough.
“Yes. In order to learn how to juggle, I had to juggle a lot. I had to practice.  The way to become better at anything is to practice.  This class will study the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. Much of Jesus’ teaching is about moral matters. Morality is about being good or evil, trying to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong.  Morality is about becoming a better person.  And the only way to become a better person is to practice.  Juggling is a living analogy to this course.  If you want to be a just person, a person who treats others fairly and gives them what they deserve, then you must practice justice. If you want to be an honest person, you must practice honesty. If you want to be a loyal person, you must practice loyalty. If you want to be a loving person, you must practice loving. Every time you act in a certain way, you become the type of person that acts in that way.  It becomes easier and easier to act in that way. In a very real sense, the way to become a better person is to practice.  Every time you make a decision, every time you act in a certain way, you are molding your character, building your inner self.  You are what you do and you do what you are.”
“Dat’s some deep shit,” said Korey.
“Yes, but I’m a deep guy.”  As I said this, I noticed Mrs. Angelini staring at me from across the hall. It was her prep period and there she stood, hands on hips, staring across the hall through her open door and into my classroom. I began to juggle again and she picked up a notepad and scribbled something.  I moved away from the door, juggling my way to the whiteboard.  When I reached it, I stopped tossing the beanbags and grabbed a Dry Erase marker.  I wrote a list on the board in my barely legible scrawl:

Whether to have sex with your girlfriend/boyfriend

Lying

Cheating on a test at school

Whether to eat at McD’s or BK or have a salad made of organic vegetables

Killing

Whether to return a wallet with ID you find on the street

Buying clothes

Exercising

To go to war

Not doing your homework

“OK,” I said finishing my list, “Which of these things on the board are moral decisions or actions and which are not?”
“Killing isn’t right, Mista,” said Alisa, a small, cute girl from the Dominican Republic.
“I agree.  Anything else?”
“Having sex with my girl is jus fine, Mista C,” Jeremiah stood as he spoke with a Cheshire Cat shit-eating grin on his face.
“It may feel good, but whether it is the right or wrong thing for you to do is another matter, yes? No?”
“Yeah, whatever, Mista C.”
“Well, Mister Christopher, most of ‘em are moral stuff.  The ones that aren’t are buying clothes, where you eat, and exercising.”  Irene, a small girl from South Boston, nodded her head as she finished speaking to emphasize that she had said all that needed saying and we could move on.
“I disagree.”
Irene did not like to be wrong – ever. “What do you mean Mista? I mean really, what the heck is moral about what you eat or exercising, and how can buying clothes at GAP or Old Navy or Salvation Army or Wal-Mart be right or wrong or whatever. Seriously, Mister Christopher, you overpaid for your big college education.”
“I see, but if I may explain my disagreement, counselor. You may be swayed.”
Irene shrugged her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest. Her words were, “Give it a shot, Mister,” but her posture said, “You’re wasting your time.”
“Every single decision a person makes and every single act a person commits is a moral one.  Everything is morality.  Every thing you do and decide makes you into a certain type of person and helps determine how you will act or choose in the future.  Some things are small matters of morality and others more serious maybe, but all things are moral.  What you eat tells us what kind of person you are. Are you a person who cares what they eat, whether you eat healthy food, whether you eat food produced and served in a way that doesn’t oppress a labor force or harm the environment?  What clothes you buy matters.  Do you want to buy clothes that are made by slave labor in sweatshops by children in Third World countries or by illegal immigrants in the US who can’t even turn in their crooked employers for fear of being deported?  Do you think it important to take care of yourself by eating right, getting enough sleep, and exercising? It’s all moral matter and it all matters.  Think about it.”
The door banged open. “Christopher!”
I wheeled and faced the door.  Mr. O’Grady was scowling and puffing himself up like some aquatic animal that inflates itself when threatened to make itself appear bigger and more fearsome than it actually is.
“In the hall for a private word on the double!” he yelled.  He was clutching a clipboard to his chest.  He was a caricature of an Army drill instructor from a bad action movie.  The plaid pants, yellow shirt, and white tie with shamrock tie-pin didn’t help.
“Mr. O’Grady,” I said, speaking very softly because I was ready to let him have it and I knew this would not be to my benefit. “I am in the middle of teaching a class right now.”
“From what I hear Christopher, you are running recess or a toddler’s birthday, but you’re not doing any teaching at all.”
I raised my index finger to the class, indicating I needed a minute.  I walked deliberately to the door and as I drew close, O’Grady took a step back into the hall to make room for me.  This was just the room I needed and I shut the door and turned my back to him.  The doors to our classrooms didn’t lock, so I had to stand guard to keep O’Grady out. I continued class as best I could and it was a bit of a workout, more mental than physical.  I played guard and linebacker for New Bedford High School and Worcester State College and had two inches, a bunch of pounds, and tons of muscle power on O’Grady so there was no way he was going to open the door.  He slammed his fist into it two or three times, kicked it once and shouted all the while.  He gave up after five minutes or so, but I didn’t move away from the door until the bell rang, just in case he returned.
The kids cheered initially, but I gave them the hometown quarterback – arms out a bit, palms down and moving my hands downward – asking for quiet.  I explained to them over O’Grady’s yelling that I will not tolerate being yelled at or verbally abused by students, nor will I tolerate it from any one else.  I told them I thought that what he had done was a danger to my relationship with them, since whether he intended to or not, treating me like that says it is OK to treat someone like that and it isn’t.  I told them I would talk to him about it later.  I continued to talk with them about every choice being a moral one. Irene argued with me, but I think they all understood.
When the bell rang, I stopped Skinny on his way out and had a whispered discussion about the memo from O’Grady regarding the rap Mass.  His face dropped but he picked it up quick, smiling. “It’s OK, Mr. C, but I told you so, you know.”
“I know you did, Skinny, but I don’t give up so easily. Let’s keep working on it. When we’re ready, we’ll record you and I’ll play the stuff for Mr. Martin. I think he’ll overrule O’Grady. OK?”
“’S cool, Mr. C. Peace out.” He was saying right things, but his eyes said more than his words. I had to come through on this.
As he left, I poked my head into the hall half-expecting O’Grady to cut it off with an axe. It was not O’Grady waiting in the hall for me, but Dave.  I looked him in the eye.
“I’m being called to the principal’s office again, I assume?”
“Yes, John.  Look, you…”
“I have lunch duty now,” I interrupted.  I sounded like my students, making up any lame excuse.
“No, you don’t. Eunice is taking care of it. We’re going to go and meet Annette and Sean in my office.”

We walked past the main office and then O’Grady’s office. Yahira Jiminez was sitting slumped in a chair in the corner of O’Grady’s office. A woman and a man were standing over her, arguing loudly in Spanish.  Her mother and the Roberto guy, I assumed.  I tried to catch her eye for a clue to her situation, but she didn’t look up and then we were in Dave’s office.
O’Grady was beyond enraged.  The expression “a caged animal” comes to mind.  I mean we have all heard that expression and – cliché as it sounds because it’s, well, a cliché, – I never truly understood what it meant until I saw O’Grady storming around Dave’s office.  I have never, for example, seen a Siberian tiger stalk around a small enclosure, trapped inside by iron bars and not liking it very much, baring its teeth, growling, making you feel like God created steel bars solely and especially for your very own personal protection.  O’Grady was that tiger. The first such animal I had ever encountered up close and personal in the flesh.  Normally, I hadn’t been taking much notice of  O’Grady, except to note that he had a big head, yelled a lot, and acted like a jerk. I’m a good club jerk at times, but O’Grady is Olympic jerk material.
Sean Patrick O’Grady was mad. He was mad at me.  I was mad at him.  I was still cool enough to let him be mad first.
“This insubordinate degenerate will NOT teach again in this institution – not that he has been teaching.  David, he must be reprimanded. I will not stand for it. The way he treated me in front of the children today is unacceptable.  He must understand who is boss and…”
“And that boss is me,” said David. “Look, Sean, I don’t approve of what
John did, but I am the headmaster and all of you need to understand that. Is that clear? John? Sean? Annette?”
“Yes.” O’Grady.
“Yes, sir.” Me.
“Of course it is, David.” Annette.
“Look, everybody have a seat and let me see if I have the story straight. This way I can make sure we are all on the same page.  First Rosie went to Sean and said that John was showing the kids how to juggle and complained that juggling was not in the curriculum.  Sean told her he’d check it out and went to John’s room.  Sean asked John to step out into the hall and John shut the door in his face. How’s that? Are we all on the same page?”
“Not quite, David,” said Annette. “There are some important details you left out. The most important is that Sean did not simply ask Johnny Sunshine to step out into the hall. He ordered him into the hall with that abusive yell of his. I heard him next door as if he were yelling in my own face.”
The way Annette said this and the way she peered at O’Grady, like a chastising mother peers at an errant child, left me thinking that O’Grady had yelled in her face before, maybe even many times.
“Look, is that true Sean?” asked Dave.
“I used the appropriate tone one needs to take with one’s underlings, especially a first-year teacher in the building – AND it is no laughing matter that he is wasting instructional time with juggling.  These kids will not learn their catechism by watching Mr. Christopher’s circus act.  They can only learn it if it is taught to them properly.  These are the least of his offenses. He SHUT THE DOOR on ME, David.”  O’Grady raised his voice again. “He HELD THE DOOR AGAINST ME, David! I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!”  By the time he finished, his face was red and he was in full voice.
“If you raise your voice like that in my presence again I am leaving – leaving this room, leaving this school, and leaving this job.”  It wasn’t me that said it, it was Annette Jean. And she got better. “Sean, you may be right to be angry at Johnny for shutting the door on you in front of the students, BUT you yelled at him in front of his students.”
“And that’s why I kept you out of my room.  Whatever problem you have with me…”  I wasn’t allowed to finish. Annette leaned toward me, locked eyes with me and said sternly, “Hush Johnny. Just hush.”  I hushed.
“Whatever problem you have with Johnny, you talk to him about it. Talk, not yell, out of ear shot of the students. As for the juggling, if you have a problem with what is being taught in the theology classes you can talk, talk not yell, to me. I am the department chair and those issues should be brought to me.”
“Miss Jean, you mean well I am sure, but you do not quite understand the seriousness of the offense here.” O’Grady was perspiring and getting redder. It was all he could do not to yell once again.  “Mr. Christopher is undermining my authority over these children by treating me like this in front of them.”
“And what, Mr. O’Grady,” asked Annette, “are you doing to him by yelling at him in front of the students as if he were just another student himself and not a highly educated and well trained theologian and experienced classroom teacher? I will tell you what you are doing, Mr. O’Grady. You are telling the students that they need not respect the teacher because you do not.  You may also call me Ms. Jean for I find the title Miss offensive. I am not a young maiden, nor am I any less of a person because I am not married.”
“Well put, Annette,” said David. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“David, surely you will not let the matter rest at that?” asked O’Grady.
“Well, look, no.  I have some more to say to both of you.  John, you are never to shut the door on any administrator or fellow teacher in this school ever again.  Nor are you to hold a door shut or impede the legitimate movement of any staff person ever again.  I will write a letter of incident and go over it with you. You will sign it and may make any written statement you want to go in your file alongside it.  This will count as a written verbal warning for insubordination according to your union contract. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.” What else could I say? I kept my mouth shut for once. I figured that even if I didn’t deserve to be written up for treating O’Grady the way I did, at least this isn’t the formal written warning. The count was 0-1, not 0-2.  What’s one called strike, right?
“As for you, Sean.”
“ME? DAVID, YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!”
“Look, Sean,” said David, “Pay attention to what is being said and quiet down.  As for you, you will not address any teacher in this school with an inappropriate tone of voice. You will most certainly not yell at them. Annette is right. You will go through proper channels about curriculum and you will speak in a civil manner to my staff. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. Martin.”
“And another thing,” David continued. “Mr. Christopher may do anything he wishes as far as instructional methodology goes in as much as he acts within legal boundaries and conducts himself as a professional educator.  When he interviewed for this job, he juggled.  Eunice thought the kids would love it.  I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, John, that you said you do the juggling bit in class to teach the kids that just as you need to practice in order to learn how to juggle, you need to practice being a good person. Is that correct, John?”
“It is.”
“Well then, after today’s incident, I think both of you could use some practice,” said Dave. “Now get out of here.”

Chapter 10 – Royale Flush
“Royale, are you asleep?” I thought it was an innocent question.
“I tink she be dead, Mr. C,” said Linda, a tall, thin black girl from Jamaica.
“Wouldn’t that be nice? She fucking freaks me out, the crazy bitch,” said Janet.
“Royale, do you feel all right? Do you need to go to the nurse?”
“I’m OK, Mister Christopher. I’m just really sleepy. That’s all.  My mom made me go shopping, clean the apartment, and visit Uncle Pete last night.  Then I had to meet her at work and help her finish. I didn’t get to sleep until 3 a.m.”
“Royale, you can’t be doing that stuff.  Why don’t you go see Sister Eunice?” I said. “You know my policy. It’s either that or the nurse. No sleeping in class.”
“Mister Christopher, it wasn’t so bad, but she woke me up again at 4:30 cuz I missed a spot washing the kitchen floor.”
“Royale, your mom shouldn’t be keeping you up at night like that. What’s going on?”  Before I finish asking her what’s up, Royale starts crying.
“Don’t be buyin’ that Cinderella bullshit, Mr. C,” said Antawan. “She’s been going on about dat wack shit since she got here last year.”
“Shut your nigga ass up, Antawan,” said Yahira. “You don’t know shit. You don’t know shit about Royale. You don’t know shit about nothin’.”
“All right. Enough.” I was yelling. I needed to calm down. The kids already had one O’Grady in their lives.
“C’mon, Royale, you and me and are going to see Mr. Martin,” I said.
I checked in with Annette next door and had her watch my room.  All the way to Dave’s office, I listened to Royale jimmajammer, but I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or to herself or entities or voices only she could see and hear. Some of it sounded like it made sense. She loves her momma, momma loves her, her comic books were not a mess, she will too listen to Britney Spears even if she is white, Uncle Pete is not a nice man, why can’t I have a dog, I don’t care if we live in an apartment.  Shit, this girl was a mess.

“Look at her, Dave,” I said. “She’s fifteen going on nine. She comes to school in pink dresses with her straightened hair in pigtails for God’s sake.  She’s asleep in class half the time and when she’s awake, simple directions, never mind simple concepts, fly right over her head.  Every single kid in the school gives her shit.  What the hell is going on with her?”  Dave and I were talking in his office while Royale doodled in her Britney Spears spiral notebook in his waiting room area.
“I know,” said Dave. “Look, her mother’s a nut case, too, even worse. The mother won’t let us test her for learning disabilities and she won’t let her join the after-school counseling group for girls.  We called Mass Youth Services three times last year and filed complaints, but when they went to the house, it all seemed normal and Royale won’t say a thing against her mother.  There was no evidence or accusation of abuse. Something’s not right, but the kid loves it here, in spite of the fact that I suspend someone about once a week for taking the piss out of her.  I’m most worried about Uncle Pete, because we have no clue who this guy is or even if he is. Look, I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re doing what we can.  MYS said to call them again, but we got nothing new to tell them.
“Tell them, tell them… shit I don’t know, Dave,” I said, “Tell them anything just, just, just…”
“Fix it? No shit, John, that’s what we’re trying to do, but we just can’t order her out of her home.  Right now St. Somebody is the only home she’s got.  She won’t talk to most of her teachers. She talks to Eileen Quinn and Eileen is waiting and listening for anything new we can use to get her help. From what you’re saying she seems to say stuff to you, at least she talks in class.  Pay attention and see what you can learn. The poor girl doesn’t even talk to her other teachers. Mrs. Delguidace has had the girl since she’s been here, all last year and this year and the child hasn’t yet said one word to the woman. Not one word. Betty Del does not exaggerate for effect. The child has not spoken once in the woman’s class.  Sometimes you can’t help them all, John. You know that.”
“I know,” I admitted. “I just don’t like it.”
“Look, it’s good, you know?  It feels like shit, but it’s good. This is a tough job when you’ve got a caring heart, but if you don’t have a caring heart you shouldn’t do this job.”
I walked Royale back to class.  Tears had left streak marks on her face. I pulled her over to the bubbler and took out my handkerchief. I wet part of it and washed and dried her face.
“Are you OK, kiddo?” I asked her.
“I’m OK, Mister Christopher.  You’re a nice man. You and Miss Quinn. She’s a nice man, too. I mean a nice lady, too.  I wish I had you and her for all my classes. Maybe if I ask Mr. O’Grady, he’d let me have you.”
“Well, Royale, I don’t teach much math or history, so I guess it’s just New Testament for now.”
Her face was still flush from crying.
“Do you cry a lot, Royale?” I asked.
“Not every day,” she said.
“That’s good, I guess, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes crying is good, you feel better after it, but sometimes you cry and still feel awful no matter how much you cry.  Do you think it helps to cry, Mister Christopher? Momma says crying don’t help nothin’ so stop it.”
“I think crying is necessary, Royale. We’ve got to let our emotions out or they get stuck up inside us and make us feel even worse, but I don’t know if crying helps us solve what’s bothering us. I think we need to do that in different ways.  If just crying alone solved our problems, I’d start crying right now. Heck, kiddo, I’d cry all the time.”

Chapter 11 – St. Somebody Central Catholic Football
Watching our school play football was painful. My father was a football coach. His father was a football coach.  I was asked to be an assistant football coach due to my high school and college ball experience, but had to turn St. Somebody down due to my commute and two kids.  It was late October before I got to a St. Somebody Giants football game and it was not a fun thing to watch, especially if you know how to play football and have even a small sense of how to coach the game. For me, it was pure torture.  I was embarrassed for our kids. I was afraid our kids were going to get hurt. We sucked. There was no way around it. There was no denying it. There was no other way to put it.
The Giants of St. Somebody were not just bad, they were sorrowful. Not in a Bad News Bears play football way, but in a can-someone-stop-this-game-before-every-player-on-our-team-is-hurt-and-the-scoreboard-needs-three-digits kind of way. I arrived at O’Keefe field just before the end of the first quarter.  St. Somebody was losing to the Cardinal Medeiros High School Cardinals 24 – 0.  At least it looked like 24, some of the scoreboard lights were out and the four could have been an eight or a zero.  The Cardinals had the ball first and goal, and by the time I had walked over to the sidelines near our team and got Rafe and Gabby juice boxes and pretzels out of my backpack, the Cardinals had scored again. I looked up from handing Gabby her juice to see a few of our players throwing their helmets over to the sideline. Flags went down; penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct to be assessed on the kick-off.
“How are we doing?” I asked the adult standing closest to me.
“Great.  We’re up 32-0.  This team is horrible. We should score 100 today, even with the second string. Hell, the third string. And get a load of this field.  If there wasn’t some grass here and there, they might as well be playing in a parking lot.”
“Oh,” I said. It took me a minute, but I realized I was the only adult present from the St. Somebody side.  I noticed that the two dozen parents walking around were all wearing red and white. St. Somebody’s teams are orange and white.  Not a Cleveland Browns orange, but a public works orange. It doesn’t really work. Great for a road sign maybe, but not for sports uniforms.
I took Rafe and Gabby each by the hand and walked toward where our team bench would be if we’d had a bench.  Trying to sit in the stands where the stands would have been hadn’t worked out well, so I figured we’d be better off behind the team, see and hear what’s going on, and whatnot.  On the way, I was mobbed by cheerleaders. Why didn’t this happen to me when I was in high school? Offensive linemen never get mobbed by cheerleaders.
“Mista, Mista, your kids are soooooooo cute!” said Yahira. Yahira and her three amigas were cheerleaders.  So, it seemed, were half the girls in the school.  There were fourteen girls in orange skirts with white pom-poms.  They outnumbered the football team. There were only thirteen guys in orange helmets.
The cheerleaders surrounded us and gave Gabby some pom-poms and showed her how to shake them and such.  Carmen found Rafe a football and kicked it around with him. The cheerleaders were ignoring the game.
“Shouldn’t you girls be cheering?” I asked.
“What for Mista C?, said  Janet, “We always lose.”
“Then why are you all cheerleaders?”
“Cuz we like to dance, Mista,” said Carmen. “Let’s show him ‘Downtown Team.’”
The girls broke into a routine that was sharp, crisp, and tight.  It started with a standard cheer type of thing with pumping fists and then moved into a pyramid, but the pyramid broke apart into a step routine and then into a wild jam. It would have been more at home on the MTV Grind than on a football sideline, but that was almost beside the point. They could dance. They were good. Very good.   Gabby, Rafe, and I applauded.  The girls smiled. I pointed over to the field.
“Uh, girls, they’ve started up again,” I said.
The cheerleaders ran over to their spot on the sidelines and began their DEE-FENSE chant.  Our team was on offense.  The opposing team, its cheerleaders, and its parents and fans laughed out loud. I motioned to Carmen, who seemed to be the captain, and she came over to me. I explained the difference between offense and defense and she ran back to the girls and told them to shut up.  They stop the DEE-FENSE cheer and began a “Block that kick!” cheer.  Rafe was still kicking the football around so I grabbed Gabby’s hand and walked over to our cheerleaders. I motioned to Carmen again and she walked over. I explained that another cheer was needed and she turned around told the girls to do “Downtown Team” again.
“Don’t you have a coach or something?” I asked the girls.
“Yeah, Mista, we got a coach, but she don’t come on Saturdays. She’s a cheerleader at Northeastern and she can only come to Friday night games, but we only play three Fridays. She can’t come Saturdays because she cheers for Northeastern games on Saturdays.”
“I see.” What else could I say? St. Somebody is not the type of school with a large athletics budget.  The football team shared the field with our soccer team and the teams of South Hancock High School.  There was some grass near the sidelines between the 30-yard lines, but most of the field was dirt.  The scoreboard, I found out from the cheerleaders, worked about half the time.
Our Giants had punted and the Cardinals returned the kick for a touchdown.  St. Somebody was back on offense.   I walked over and stood by our coach.  He was a small black man, bent and tiny.  He walked with a cane.  He wore a battered and oil-stained, Giants Football windbreaker and a dilapidated Cleveland Browns baseball cap.  He reminded me of Mickey from the Rocky movies; a black Burgess Meredith coaching football instead of footwork. I didn’t know his name. I’d only heard the kids call him Coach.
“How’s it going, Coach?” I asked.
“You been watchin’?” He grunted.
“Yes.” I said.
“Then you know it ain’t goin’.  It friggin’ stopped ‘round about the openin’ kick-off. Ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Antawan was dropped for a loss trying to run around left end.
“Got the slowest damn black kids in America on dis team.  Getting’ chased down from behind by white boys in a ghetto parkin’ lot. Damn shame,” said Coach.
James was at quarterback. He dropped back to pass, but as soon as he hit the last step of a three-step drop he was swarmed by four white shirts wearing red helmets and went down in a heap.  It looked vicious. I was surprised to see him get up.
“30 Dive,” said Coach. Skinny, one of the receivers on shuttle duty, ran the play in. James listened to Skinny and then looked over to the sideline as if to ask the same question I had for the coach.
“Dive?” I asked.
“Yep. Send the full back into da line, maybe lose a yard or two. Punter won’t have to kick from our end zone dat way,” said Coach.
I didn’t know whether this was a smart, strategic concern for a hapless team or a stupid way of throwing in the towel from the trainer’s corner. While I was puzzling this out, Antawan fumbled the ball as he hit the line.  A Cardinal lineman scooped up the ball and ambled in for a touchdown.  Three or four of our players slammed their helmets down.  Antawan was not one of them.  He hustled off the field and was met by Coach.
“What was dat play?” Coach asked Antawan.
“30 Dive, Coach.” said Antawan.
“Exactly,” says Coach, “30 Dive.  Where in dat play does it say to fumble da ball? Huh? Where?”
“It don’t, Coach. I’m sorry,” said Antawan.
“Don’t be sorry boy. Don’t fumble da ball. You don’t fumble da ball, you ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry for.”
“Yes, Coach.”
I spent most of the second quarter playing around with Rafe and Gabby, kicking the football.  I couldn’t bear to watch the game.  The score was 64-0 at halftime. St. Somebody had run one offensive play for a gain.  Just before the half ended, James let fly an inhuman pass, a tight spiral some forty or fifty yards downfield, a second before he was buried once again beneath white and red shirts.  Skinny was all alone down the sideline and caught the ball, standing under it like a center fielder waiting for a fly hit directly to him. Skinny was all alone because the cornerback covering him had tripped on one of the dozens of pieces of blacktop littering the dirt playing area.  Skinny turned to run with the ball, but was hit immediately by the safety catching up with the play.  Skinny was hit so hard he didn’t get up. EMTs took him to the hospital. Monday morning we’d learn it was a minor concussion.  Skinny’s injury was the second of the half.  St. Somebody was left with just eleven players for the rest of the game.
We began the second half with a three and out.  Cardinal Medeiros High scored in two plays, both long passes. The two-point conversion made it 72-0.  The Medeiros coach sent in his first team defense again after the kick-off.
“This is nuts, Coach,” I said, “Doesn’t he have a second, or even a third string, to put in? He must have sixty players over there.”
“Ah, this guy, he runs up the score on everyone. I been coachin’ here twenty years. He’s been on the other sideline for twenty-five. I ain’t never scored ‘gainst him.”
I decided to walk over to the other sideline and find out why this guy wouldn’t put in his subs.
“Hey coach, why don’t you put in the second string? Heck why don’t you put in the freshman?”
“Who the hell are you, asshole, the White Shadow?” snarled the Cardinals coach.
“No, I’m actually the religion teacher at St. Somebody,” I told him as two of his assistants made like bodyguards and ushered me away.
“Religion teacher,” said the coach, “The way those kids play you should teach them to pray that they don’t get killed out there.”
“Why don’t you just put in some subs coach? It’s obvious you’re the better team.” I said.
“You just tell your coach to take a knee on offense and stop trying to score and I’ll send in my subs to do the same. As long he tries to score, I try to stop him and as long as he tries to stop me, I try to score. Now get outta here and go back to your ghetto boys,  you sorry-ass prick,” said the coach.
The game ended 96-0.  Our coach was happy. St. Somebody had gone the distance. Medeiros actually topped 100 against us last year. St. Somebody played the fourth quarter with one player standing near the sidelines not moving on his sprained ankle, just so we would have 11 players on the field.
I gathered up Rafael and Gabriella and headed off the field for the subway ride back to St. Somebody, where I had parked the car.  As I hit the street, I saw Yahira arguing with an older, muscular man in a Boricua sweatshirt who has just pulled up next to her in an old beat-up car.  He yelled at her to get in the car. I picked up my backpack and the kids, scooping up one off-spring with each arm, but I was slowed by having to carry them. Yahira and the car were gone by the time I got down the block.
Carmen was standing in the road looking down the street at the car as it moved away.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“That fucking bastard was Roberto, Mista,” said Carmen.

Chapter 12 – My Little Angel
Having Angela Angelini in my class was tough on both of us.  At first, her mother Rosa demanded I give her all of Angela’s corrected assignments instead of giving them back to her daughter. I refused, of course, but this caused Rosie to have a fit and run straight to Sean O’Grady.  I countered by going straight to Dave Martin.  Rosie pleaded with Sean, wondering why, since Brother Ross had given her all of her son Rocco’s work, I couldn’t be made to do the same with Angela’s.  Annette intervened on my behalf, and on Angela’s, telling David that she had not given in to Rosie on this issue last year and saw no reason why I should do so this year.
Although reserved and shy, Angela was an excellent student. She was bright, liked to read, had a photographic memory, and actually liked studying most subjects, especially religion and English.  We all struggled through the first month, but when I started teaching the kids to juggle, Rosie’s meddling motherhood kicked into high gear.  Not only was Angela a good student, she was a talented juggler. Not one student in the class caught onto juggling more quickly.  Angela was doing four objects and circles before half the other students had mastered the inside cascade with three objects.  I wasn’t quite sure if Rosie didn’t want Angela juggling because Rosie didn’t consider it academically appropriate or if she didn’t want Angela juggling because Angela was good at it and seemed to enjoy it.
“Mr. Christopher?”
I looked up from a stack of reflection papers I was going through before heading home.
“Yes, Angela.”
“Here,” she said, placing her juggling balls on my desk.
“What’s this about, kiddo?”
“Mom says I can’t juggle anymore because it’s got nothing to do with learning the teachings of the Church and it’s disrespectful to pretend that it’s a form of prayer.”
“What do you say, Angela?”
“I like juggling, Mr. Christopher. It’s fun.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“You know my mom. She can be so mean. I don’t know how anyone who goes to church as much as mom can be so mean.  Why is she so mean, Mr. Christopher? She knows I like juggling. How come everything I like is wrong or sinful or disrespectful? I do everything she wants me to do.  I get good grades. I go to church. I joined the CYC. Everything. But as soon as I like something that’s not church, it’s always wrong and I have to stop. Why?”
Whoa.
“Whoa, kiddo. Slow down.”
“Sorry, Mr. C,” she sniffed, holding back the tears.
“Now let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re mom wants you to stop juggling because she doesn’t think it’s an appropriate assignment, right?”
“Yes, and she says it’s not prayerful either.”
“Well, Angela, I don’t think she has a problem with you. I think she has a problem with me.  She doesn’t think I should be teaching juggling, but Mr. Martin and Ms. Jean say it’s OK, so what’s she do?  She can’t stop me from teaching it, so she’s gonna stop you from learning it.  She’s using you to get back at me.  Why don’t you tell her that and tell her you’ll fail religion if you don’t juggle.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not you she’s mad at kiddo, it’s me.  Wait a minute.”
“Sure, Mr. C.”
I grabbed a piece of school stationery from a desk drawer and wrote Rosa Angelini a letter.  I started it off, “Dear asshole parent.”  I scratched that out and got another sheet.  I wrote a quick, polite, and simple letter explaining that the juggling assignment had been approved by the department chair and headmaster and that it was a requirement for the course. I told Rosa that her daughter likes juggling and since it harms no one, maybe she could let her daughter enjoy her success with this as she enjoys her other academic successes.  I signed it and put it in an envelope. I sealed the envelope and handed it to Angela, saying, “Give this to your mom.” Then I scooped up her juggling balls and handed them back to her. “You’re going to need these for your assignment.”

“How dare you?” said Rosa Angelini, as she waved a paper at me in the teacher’s room. She had been waiting by the faculty mailboxes for me. The moment I appeared in the doorway, she was upon me, smacking me on the arm with the letter I had sent to her about Angela’s juggling.
“If I wasn’t a good Catholic Christian woman and mother, I don’t know what I’d do.  You are completely out of line.”
“Rosie, you’re hitting me.”
Rosie balled up the letter and threw it at me. I tilted my head to the side and my letter to her, or what was left of it, weakly dropped to the floor.  Rosie stormed out of the faculty room.   I bent over to pick up the paper and throw it in the trash. Just as I did, Sean O’Grady stepped into the room.  From the position I was in, I saw his feet.
“He is trying to turn my little angel against me.  He is encouraging her to break the commandments. He is advising her to not honor her mother.  How much is he going to be allowed to get away with?”
Rosie was getting hysterical. I wedged my way between Sean and Rosie and forged my way out the door.  Not surprisingly, I was called to Dave Martin’s office during my prep period. As Dave Martin had instructed, I sat through Rosie’s rant and then explained, yet again, the purpose, method, and reasoning behind the juggling assignment.  Dave explained to Rosie that he saw no reason why Angela couldn’t be required to do the assignment, just like the other students.  After she left, Dave Martin closed the door and had me sit.
“Look, John, you might have been better off calling this meeting yourself instead of writing that letter.  Rosie’s the only person who doesn’t understand she’s taking out her dislike of your methods on her daughter, but her little angel is the one who’s going to pay the price in the end, not you. Got that?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. And then more to myself than to Dave, I mumbled , “The world’s dumbest smart man strikes again.”
“What’s that, John?”
“Oh, sorry, Dave. Just something my wife says when I do things like this. She calls me the ‘world’s dumbest smart man.’”
“She sounds like a smart woman. Can’t wait to meet her.”

Chapter 13 – The Ancient Greek Letter
The day the kids’ ancient Greek letter projects were due, Korey Constant wasn’t in school, but his assignment was on my desk when I got to my room that morning.  For all our study of St. Paul and his rhetoric, I think Korey was the only one who truly understood the apostle’s style as well as his content.
I. Introduction (A. – identification of sender) Korey, aka KC-Rip, (B. – identification of recipient) to my brother Rayzas, (C. greeting) what’s up, niggas (negative expression used to convey a positive meaning)?
II. Prayer and Thanksgiving  Yo, y’all are my dogs (negative expression used to convey a positive meaning). I give thanks to God that y’all got my back in every situation.  I would not be the survivor I am today without y’all. I pray we will all survive and conquer, both as a family and on our separate paths.
III. Body  I write to you all to say that I am not going be down wit y’all any longer.  (Begin autobiographical section) I know I came to you when you summoned me in the sixth grade at Missionaries Grammar School.  Jonathan Cleveland kicked my ass and Jesse Pinks came and told me not to take that shit no more. He said his boys would stand up for me, if I stood up for them.  They did that and more, and Jesse himself cut Jonathan down, and I was happy and safe.  That was what happened to make the Rayzas my family (paradox – a gang can’t be a family, but it is).  I have ran wit y’all and smoked wit y’all and hung wit y’all and been in business with y’all and watched y’alls backs liked you watched mine (grouping things in a list for dramatic effect) and everything for the last four years, but now it is time for me to go solo.  I know this won’t sit well with you, so let me explain.
Why am I leaving the Rayzas?  It is for good reason and not betrayal.  Ever since I moved out of my dad’s house to live with my mom it has been hard to get over to the old hood.  As you know, my moms lives next to my new school, St. Somebody Catholic, and I like this school.  I ain’t no Catholic and don’t like church anyways, but the school is different from my old one.  There are actually some teachers here who don’t hassle you.  My mom also needs me to keep clean or she goes back in so I need to give up my responsibilities to you (diatribe).
You need not worry about our business enterprise.  I have told no one anything about our business and have given my inventory to Big T.  Big T will hold my share of the product since he’s the only one who knows what’s up with me. The business is safe – I tell you I would never betray it (chiasm)!
My moms just got out of Framingham and she can’t have me doing nothing.  I know it ain’t the same KC, but sometime you just gotta change something.  I ain’t hangin with no one at school  so my colors are silent and hung up for good.  Don’t kill me.
IV. Conclusion (A. greetings to and from others) Tell Jesse especially I said thanks and Big T says, “Yo.”  (B. final blessing) God bless you all and have mercy on me.

Self-evaluation: Mr. Christopher, I deserve an A on this project.  I met all the requirements for an A on your evaluation form. I used all four parts of the outline and format of an ancient Greek letter correctly and I labeled all the parts correctly. I used at least three of the rhetorical devices common in St. Paul’s letters (I actually used six) and I labeled them all using parenthetical notes.  I believe there are fewer than three English mistakes or typos. The letter is double-spaced and includes a self-evaluation. It was turned in on time, stapled, and presented as requested. It is addressed to a real group of which I am a member and it discusses a real situation and issues.  So – an A for Korey. Peace out, Mr. C.

It is addressed to a real group and it discusses a real situation. Oh shit. Are teachers mandatory reporters of gang involvement and drug dealing? I suppose we are. My first instinct was to go to Dave, but my second instinct was better. I had to talk to Korey first.  Korey Constant a gang-banger?  I never in a million years would have guessed.  He dresses smartly, he’s super intelligent, and he says all the right things.  The book and the cover do not match. Come to think of it, though, he doesn’t seem to have many friends, if any, here at St. Somebody and he hardly ever passes in his work.  When he does do his assignments, they are first rate.  So good in fact, that I bet he is bored by school.  A gang-banger. A drug dealer. Does he mean it when he says, “Don’t kill me?” It’s almost too cliché to be real.

I asked Korey to stay after school on Friday the week he turned in his ancient Greek letter project.  He showed up like a thief in the night. I was working furiously on composing a personal web page to post as part of the school site.  He was right behind me looking over my shoulder when he said, “Mr. C?”
I never heard him enter the room and he scared the living hell out of me. It must have shown on my face because he repeated himself, “Mr. C, man, you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Korey. You just startled me. Come on in. Have a seat.” Korey put his beeper inside his pocket (students aren’t allowed to have pagers or cell phones at St. Somebody) and sat down.
“I don’t know how to ask you this except to jump right in.  Was your Greek letter project for real?”
“Oh shit, man.”
“Yeah, that was my reaction, too. So again, was that business real?”
“Your instructions said the letter had to be real, man. I ain’t messin’ around, so don’t mess with me, straight?”
“I’m not messing with you Korey, but I need to know if you meant it when you asked the Rayzas not to kill you.”
“Shit, man, don’t……. I can’t……don’t mess with it……you need to let it go….. I can’t. You don’t know what it’s like on the block. Let it go.”
He was starting to babble. If crying were something he’d done since he was five years old I would have expected him to start crying. “Korey, what is going on? You need to tell me. You aren’t making any sense, son.”
“I ain’t your son! I ain’t nobody’s son. And the Rayzas ain’t none of your business. Let it fucking go, man.” And he got up and sprinted out of my room. I followed as best as I could, but he was young and angry and I was old and stunned.  I got outside the school just in time to see him jump into the 51 bus.  Shit.

“Dave, I need Korey Constant’s phone number and address.”
“What for?”
“Is it OK if I don’t tell you?”
“Look, John,” Dave stared at me. “Unless it’s about his grades we need to know what’s up.”
“Yeah, Dave, that’s it, I just need to talk to his mom about his grades.”
“You’re full of shit, John. We both know he hasn’t been in school half the days we’ve been in session this year. He can’t possibly have any grades, so what’s up?”
“I’m not saying. I just need to phone him or get to his house. You can give me the information or I can go into Sister Judy’s office and flip through her index cards. As soon as I talk to him and know what’s up, I’ll let you know.”
Dave scrolled through the student information database on his computer. He scribbled down some quick info on an scrap of paper.  “123 East Dudley, the phone number’s here on the Post-it, and if you’re hiding anything or anything happens and you haven’t yet told me, I will kick your ass from here to the Vatican and then fire you.  No, scratch that. I will fire you first.”
“Thanks, Dave.”

East Dudley Street – for God’s sake, that’s two blocks away. The St. Somebody neighborhood used to be a happening kinda place about 150 years ago when the church was built.  Maybe even 80 years ago when the school was built, but not now. Now the church and the school are the only buildings in the entire neighborhood that don’t look like they should be condemned. If it weren’t for the students and staff, and the meager personnel over at the rectory, the only people on the streets would be either homeless, strung out, selling drugs, selling themselves or some combination of these.  It was not, let me tell you, a pretty place. Four blocks away is the South Hancock district (not Southie, mind you, that is Irish South Boston), a neighborhood of gentrified brownstones and town houses that might as well be on another planet. East Dudley and St. Somebody are not in South Hancock.
123 East Dudley was once a beautiful brownstone on a tree-lined street.  Now it was a rundown pile of bricks and sandstone, full of broken windows. Laqueesha Wilson, Korey Constant’s mom, was once a beautiful woman. There was a photograph of her and Korey and Adam Constant, Korey’s dad, on top of the television.  Laqueesha is holding Korey, and Adam is holding her.  Korey couldn’t have been more than two or three years old.  All three of them were smiling and handsome.  Whatever the absolute opposite of handsome is, Laqueesha Wilson is its poster girl. Her eyes were empty, like someone had ripped her soul out through them and boarded them up with scrap wood. Years of change had wreaked havoc on Laqueesha just as they had on 123 East Dudley Street.
She had once been a model student at St. Somebody and had traveled from the far reaches of Roxbury to attend our high school. She had been a star on the girls basketball team, making the all-league team her junior year. She had also been vice-president of her class, an honor roll student, and prom queen.  A year after she graduated from St. Somebody, she dropped out of UMass Boston, met Adam Constant, had a baby, and started alternating and then mixing her drugs of choice, crack and heroin. By the time Korey was eight, Adam was gone and Laqueesha was in the state women’s prison in Framingham.  Korey had lived with Laqueesha’s mom until she died and then lived with his father. Korey attended a series of schools, including Missionaries Grammar, from which he was booted one day when they found a gun in his bookbag. Laqueesha had been out of Framingham for about six months, and still didn’t have legal custody of Korey, but he’d been living with her for the last five months.  She didn’t know where he was most of the time and she didn’t like the look of the guys that dropped by unexpectedly at anytime of the day or night looking for him. She knew Korey was dealing and she was scared.
It took me about an hour to get this information out of her.  Minutes at a time would go by without her saying a word or without her making sense, and I had to ask a series of questions to lead her back to the point in her narrative where I could pick up the story again.  The long and short of it was that she didn’t know Korey was in a gang, but did know he was dealing and this scared her.  I’m not sure if it scared her because of the trouble it could bring Korey or because of the trouble it would bring her if she was involved or implicated in her son’s criminal activity.  I extracted a promise from Laqueesha that she would phone me any time of the day or night as soon as she heard from Korey and gave her the school’s number, my home number and my cell phone number. I knew Marie would  go positively ape shit if Laqueesha actually ever used the numbers.
On the way back to St. Somebody, I walked into the church through the thoroughly ostentatious front doors underneath a huge rosette window. I walked down the center aisle of the nave until I reached the front row of pews. Looking up, but without seeing the golden cherubim and the stained glass windows dedicated to St. Lorcan, I prayed. I prayed for a long time. I prayed that Korey would be OK. I prayed until my cell phone rang.
“Laqueesha?”
“Qui es que ce Laqueesha?” said Marie.
I told Marie the gangster’s tale. She told me to get my Irish-Portuguese ass home, at least that’s what is it sounded like. She lapses freely into French when she’s pissed, angry, and worried about just where the hell I’ve been and whether I’m OK, and I was a few hours late leaving town, not to mention getting home.

Chapter 14 – Thanksgiving
“And now, we give thanks to our loving God for those things near to our hearts that are difficult to put into words.”  Annette was leading the Thanksgiving prayer service because Brother Ernie didn’t feel comfortable leading prayer before the “school assembled” as he would say, and he had a “right devastating cold in the head.”  Annette had a bad cold as well, the congestion souring her voice, scratching over her beautiful Haitian accent. She sounded like Johnny Most.   I had a cold, too, and all I wanted to do was go home.  The things near to my heart? What were they that they couldn’t be put into words?  Korey was still missing. Yahira was still being messed up somehow by her family and no one was figuring it out or doing anything about it. Rosie was doing her best to ruin her daughter’s life. Annette and I were teaching underground theology, waiting for Rosie or the Archdiocese, or both to pull the plug on us. I was not making any money. Marie still loved me, but for what reason I couldn’t guess because since I started teaching at St. Somebody I had been either physically or emotionally absent from home most of the time.
Maybe Annette was right after all. What do the words say? God, you have given me all these things. I love Marie. I love my kids. I love other people’s kids. They love me. What else do I need? God is Love, right? So, Your Ladywisdomship, my life is full of love, but what gives? I’m just tired and don’t know what to do.
The longest, hardest, most difficult, and most tiring part of any school year for a teacher is September to Thanksgiving break. Ask some teachers and I’ll bet you that the vast majority of them will tell you they are deadbeat tired at Thanksgiving, even more so than in June.  As tired as I was, I wouldn’t trade this assignment for anything. In three months I can’t believe I ever worked or wanted to work anyplace other than St. Somebody’s, ministering to the kids. And why shouldn’t I? They loved me. And that’s a good thing. But poutines and râpe and rabbit pie and turkey and stuffing and football awaited me at Marie’s mom’s house out in Monument.  I was going to indulge in all of them and then take a big, fatherhood type of nap.  Did I say Amen yet?  Shit, I wanted to go home.
Everyone sitting around me broke out with a spontaneous case of the giggles. What now?
“MR CHRISTOPHER! I WILL SPEAK WITH YOU AFTER THE SERVICE!”
O’Grady was yelling in my ear. Where did he come from?
“Daddy, why is that man yelling at you?”
I had brought Rafe and Gabby with me today so they could meet my students.  I called my students my “other kids” at home and Rafe asked if that meant they were his brothers and sisters. What other answer was there to that but yes?
“I don’t know, honey.”  I leaned over to my right.  Raul Gomez was sitting next to me in the third pew.
“Yo, Raul,” I whispered.
“Yeah, Mr. C?”
“Why was Frankenhead yelling at me?”
“You said ‘Shit, I wanna go home’.  Man – it was phat, but he didn’t like it.”
Great. Now I was talking out loud and didn’t even realize it. I did need a break. I laughed.
Back in reality, the prayer service was continuing around me. “For all these things, spoken and unspoken, and especially for the gifts of life and love and the meal we are about to share, we thank the Creator in the languages of St. Somebody.”
“Thank you, Lord.”
“Muchas Gracias, Señor.”
“Merci Bien, mon Dieu.”
And on and on it went.  English, Spanish, French, Haitian Kreol, Jamaican patois, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Albanian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Greek, Thai, Armenian, Hmoung, Arabic, Zhosa, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Russian, Romanian, Polish.  Now that was a wake up – a thank you to God in the babble of languages of the earth and of St. Somebody. Twenty-four languages representing 31 different cultures and all of them represented by at least one of St. Somebody’s few hundred students.   Nice touch, Annette.
Filing out of the church, O’Grady rushed up to me and grabbed my arm.
“You can let go of me now, Sean.” I wanted to add, “or I will break your arm off and stuff it down your throat,” but I don’t really believe in violence and I had just prayed. My eyes must have done a good of job saying approximately the same thing because when I met his gaze, he released my arm.
“John, I am going to have to write you up for swearing in front of the students.”
“Go for it, Sean. I don’t really care. I am sorry, really I am. I was thinking out loud. I’m tired and have a bad cold. I have Rafe and Gabby with me, believe me, I am not psyched they also heard me, but it’s done.  I am sorry, truly. You’re right – I shouldn’t have slipped. Write me up and get out of my way, preferably in reverse order. Happy Thanksgiving.”
I took Rafe by one hand and Gabby in the other and headed across the street to the school.  The Multicultural Fair is a St. Somebody tradition that goes back to the 1960s. I had heard much about the event and was genuinely excited about it. Although I had been told it was the biggest indoor street festival I would ever see, I didn’t believe it until I saw it. After all, I figured, how could three hundred students and a couple dozen staffers make a big festival of any kind? I was wrong – again. The three hundred or so people stuffed into the cafeteria and gym were as loud and happy and colorful as First Night Boston and Carnival put together and stuffed into your living room.
The cafeteria and gym had been converted into the biggest street festival that ever fit inside a building.  Walking into the cafeteria, I could see through the back door and into the gym where Janet and a few other students from Trinidad decked out in black, red, and white uniforms were playing steel drums – uh, pan.
I led Gabby and Rafe across the room.  Angela Angelini was sitting at the first table we passed.  She was sitting with Leon. Angela waved and Leon smiled as we walked by. We were halfway to the buffet table (seven long cafeteria tables, lined up end to end down the middle of the room) when I was surrounded by a crowd of my students, mostly girls.
“Oh, your kids are so cute, Mista! Can I take them for lunch?”
“Sure, Carmen, if they want to. Rafael, Gabriella, do you want to go with Carmen and get some of the food?”  Rafael nodded and grabbed Carmen’s hand and dragged her to the dessert end of the table.
“Turkey and one vegetable first, Rafe and Carmen.”  They both ignored me, pretending not to hear and Carmen reached across the table and got Rafe a huge chocolate chip cookie.  Gabriella tightened her grip on my hand and wrapped her other arm around my knees, hugging my legs. She shook her head vigorously from side to side. She was not going anywhere with anyone but me in this loud room full of strangers.
“Come on, honey,” I said to her. “Strangers are just friends we haven’t met yet.”  What an act I am. She is really scared and I’m trying to shrug it off.  Were my parents annoyed when I didn’t act like a miniature grown-up? Probably. Gabriella’s eyes lit up when she saw all the rice. Gabby loves rice. She was in the right place. The St. Somebody multicultural festival is the Boston area headquarters for different ways to prepare rice. I think every culture in the world has an ethnic rice dish. Gabby surveyed the United Nations of Rice and pointed at her selection. A simple paella creation made by the Spanish teacher, Maria Lourdes Alvarez. I chose a few huge slices of turkey and some pad Thai.  We got drinks – a milk, special order from the cafeteria director, Vicki, for Gabby, and a half empty two liter of ginger ale for me – and went to find a seat.
I scanned the room for available options. Annette was across the wide part of the room, smiling and gently motioning to us, but just as I began juggling two plates, two drinks and one toddler toward her I caught sight of Yahira standing up at her seat, all the way down the vertical row of tables opposite Annette. Yahira was waving both arms frantically and yelling, “Mira, Mr. C! Mira! Over here! Mr. C!”
Such invitations can not be turned down.
I managed to make it over to Yahira without spilling or losing the drinks, the food and the toddler.  Yahira swung her hips to the left, bumping the three amigas and telling them to move over to make room for me and Gabby.
“Mista, this is my boyfriend, Hector,” she said wrapping an arm around the small, fierce looking guy sitting next to her. “He graduated St. Somebody last year. This is our one-year anniversary. We met at the multicultural last year.”
“I see. Nice to meet you, Hector.  Mucho gusto.”
Hector looked at me with a macho Latino sneer.  His look said, “You got Yahira all revved up with your cool teacher act, but save the shit for the kids, comprende?  You probably run out of Spanish at the days of the week and telling time, so stick with your white man English and don’t bullshit me.”   All that came out of his mouth was a heavily accented, “Whatever.” Yahira elbowed him hard in the gut. He raised a hand back at her and she grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t,” she said and looked him in the eye. “You see this, Mr. C? This is why I wanted you to meet Hector. I’ve been telling him stuff we do in your class and how it makes me think and all and he says you’re frontin’, just acting like you care cuz it’s your job. I told him he was full of shit and that he should meet you before judging you, you know. Like you say in class in the covenant, participate before you evaluate. I told him I was breaking up with him if he didn’t meet you.”
“So here he is?” I said.
“Here I am, man. Come on, Yahira, let’s go.”
“No Hector, you ain’t met Mr. C yet, you just sat down and gave us both some shit. Why don’t you be a man like Mista C and stay and talk to us.”
The three amigas were smiling.  Hands on hips, flipping their hands at the wrist, snaking their necks, bugging out at the eyes. They were enjoying seeing Hector off his stride.
“Girls, I know it’s crowded here, but could we have some privacy? I think Hector is being put on the spot and might lighten up if…”
“Oh, fuck this shit, man. Fuck you, Yahira. I’m outta here. Go fuck el professor, then you only have to have him talk to himself before he jams you. I don’t need it. Shit, I’ll pull someone tonight and do her good. Coulda been you, bitch. I’m gone.”
“Hector!” Yahira screeched, getting up to follow him.
“Let him go, girl. He’s trash.” Carmen told her. “He’s been playing you anyway.”
Yahira started to cry, not like other teenage girls might cry – a Yahira cry. One small, burning, stinging tear at a time tracing its way through her make-up to her chin.
“Mista, I tried.  He’s good, but he won’t see it.”
“You wanna go to my room and talk, Yahira?”
She nodded.  We sat silently for a minute until Gabby finished her turkey. The three amigas, quicker than I, had turned Gabby from Hector and Yahira and had busied her with make-up and faces and counting games in Spanish while Hector was exercising his vocabulary.   Annette had taken custody of Rafael and Gabby had gotten comfortable with Carmen and agreed to stay with her while Yahira and I talked.
We went upstairs to my room. I went in first and turned on the lights. I pulled my chair out and pulled up a chair for Yahira. I turned around to offer her a seat and found that I had turned right into her. If she hadn’t gripped me in a hug I would have knocked her over.  She wrapped her arms around me, buried her face on my chest and cried. Little girl tears.  Gabby tears when she’s scared of bad dreams, shots at the doctor, and thunder. Soft, constant sobs and a flood of water.   I hugged her back.
“It’s OK, kiddo. You’re going to be OK.” I repeated this over and over, not sure if I was trying to convince her or myself. By the time I remembered God she had been crying for five minutes, more – I don’t know.  “God loves you, sweetie. I love you, too. If Hector don’t love you, that’s his loss and frankly he doesn’t seem like much of a prize.”
Slowly, she stopped crying little girl tears and the Yahira tears returned. She began to use all the tissues left in the box on my desk.
“I know Mista, but he was nice to me at first. Then I realized stuff in your class about how to have a better relationship and he didn’t like it and I knew it was gonna happen, but I was hoping he would change.”
“You can’t change people, Yahira. They…”
“They have to change themselves. I know, Mista, you can only help them change if they wanna. I was trying to help him change. It didn’t work.”
“What didn’t work, hon? What did you try to do?
“You know the thing you did about AIDS with the handshakes, Mista? I told him about it. I told him how you gave everyone in the class a card with a different picture on it and then had people shake hands and write down the names of the people they shook hands with. After the shaking hands, you told us what the pictures meant and how the black dot was HIV and how everyone who shook hands with the black dot person had HIV and everyone who shook hands with them had HIV, so it was like when you shake hands you are shaking hands with all the hands that shook that hand.  I got that good, Mista. It was like everyone you have sex with, you’re having sex with everyone they’ve had sex with. And like some people’s picture cards had instructions about wearing rubber gloves, and some people did and they didn’t get no diseases, but the other people didn’t wear the gloves and they got HIV. Well I told that to Hector and wanted him to tell me everyone he had sex with and that we should get HIV tests and we shouldn’t have sex no more without a condom. He got all mad and started to go to hit me, but I hit him back and told him there is no such thing as hitting in a relationship, that all violence was wrong in dating. He got even madder and I didn’t see him for about a month.  A couple of weeks ago he wanted to see me again, but I said I wanted him to meet you first. He blamed you for me not giving him any no more and he said that you just wanted to fuck me. Excuse me, Mista, that’s what he said, but I told him you wasn’t like that and well, he came here today and it didn’t work. Carmen and Dolores and everybody says he’s been playing me anyway, but I didn’t want to believe them. He was so nice to me in the beginning, then after we started having sex, that’s like all it was. And then I had your class and I feel like I have more self-esteem for myself now and I don’t want him if he’s going to be like that anyways. I ain’t just crying over him, but everything. It’s so messed up.”
“Will you pray for me, Mista?” She asked, dabbing her eyes again with the last of my tissues. I never was a big prayer of this type, but I was on.
“Dear God, hold Yahira in your arms, shower her with love and good things. Never let her forget that you love her and she has my love and support.  Heal her in every way that she needs healing and send her peacefulness of spirit. Help her to pray and help me to pray for her. Amen.”
“Thanks, Mista,” she said, her eyes cast down at the floor.
“S’allright, kiddo. That’s what I’m here for.”
“No, Mista, thanks for everything.  You’re an angel sent by God to protect us.  You’re a real man. Do you know what? You are the only guy in this building besides brother Ernest who doesn’t stare at my tits? Fucking O’Grady is always yelling at me and his eyes are like fucking yo-yo’s bouncing up and down from my eyes to my boobs. Fucking pig. I hate him.”
I had no idea how to respond, so I remained silent.
“Sorry, Mista. I’m embarrassing you, but it’s true. You look at everyone like they’re a person and you mean it.  You ain’t frontin’. You’re real. Hector is right about some things. Some teachers pretend to be cool teachers and pretend to care about you, but they don’t really.  I catch some of them staring at me. Some say they will help you after school, but you show up and they’re gone already. You can’t really talk to them because they freak out if you use a bad word. You aren’t like them. You really do care.  Most of the kids know it, too. Thanks for everything, Mista.”

Chapter 15 – Monument Girls
We spent Thanksgiving with Marie’s parents in Monument, a small city in the north central part of Massachusetts.  Marie is the oldest of seven children, all daughters except for a brother smack dab in the middle.  The family resemblance is uncanny, especially among the girls.  Marie and her sisters Pam and Celine are petite, fair skinned, black-haired beauties, with oval faces, like their mom. Her sisters Josephine, Christine and Juliette, along with their brother Yves resemble their father – a bit taller, but stocky, brown hair, darker complexion, and strong square jaw line.
Both of Marie’s parents are from French- speaking parts of Canada. Her mom is from a small town in the Acadian part of New Brunswick and her dad is from Quebec.  Both of her parents are one of twelve children.  We’ve been married for more than five years and I am still not used to the immense size of my family of choice. Being an only child from a dysfunctional home and different ethnic group, I have no bearings or physic map for dealing with the army of my wife’s relatives.
All of Marie’s brothers and sisters, except the youngest, Celine, were in the Cormier household for the holiday weekend.   Celine would have been with us, but she had moved to British Columbia last summer and didn’t want to make the long trip home until Christmas.  Marie’s parents, Joseph and Sylvie, were both born in Canada and had never become U.S. citizens, although Marie and all her sisters were born in the U.S.  Her brother Yves was actually born in Canada while their parents were visiting family, Sylvie having gone into labor three weeks before her due date.  This had caused all kinds of immigration headaches and other minor problems when the children were younger and the family traveled back and forth across the border to visit relatives in Canada.
Marie’s family is nice, almost too nice.  I once got into a fight with Marie while we were dating.  To spite her, I broke off our date for that night and went out for beers and a Sox game with my buddy Andy who was currently breaking up with his then- girlfriend.  After listening to him cut into his ex and her family, I started in on Marie and her family.  Andy, who knew Marie and had met her family, told me to shut up because Marie was Mary Ellen and her family was the Canadian Waltons – Les Waltons. We were drunk and the Sox were losing so it was funny, but it was also true.  Marie’s family are good folks. About the only thing I really don’t like about her family is that her dad is a Canadiens fan. Not only is he a fan of Les Habs, but he raised his only son, Marie’s brother Yves, to be one, too. This is inexcusable behavior in the Massachusetts pro sports fan universe, a crime only topped in severity by being a Yankees fan and on equal footing with being a Lakers fan or Jets fan.  Making it worse was a Thanksgiving eve drubbing of the B’s by the Canadiens by a 4-0 score.
“Quatre a zéro,” said Joseph when he answered the door as we arrived. He also felt the need to repeat this to me frequently throughout the day. “Quatre a zéro, I brought the kids a little something from an Ontario run.” Joseph was a truck driver for a Monument paper factory.  “Quatre a zéro.  You want a bière?  Quatre a zéro, pass me over a slice of cheese for this cracker.” And “Quatre a zéro, will you say grace, Jacques?”  Very funny, huh? But I would have done the same thing to him if the score had been reversed.
Holidays with Les Cormiers were always very crowded and very French Canadian. There was turkey, sure, but also poutines, râpe, tourtière, and pets de sœur (nun’s farts, I loved that – and they were good, too – the gooiest, sugariest, cinamoniest frosted sweet rolls you’ll ever have.).
Since I’d started at St. Somebody, we hadn’t seen much of Marie’s sisters Pamela (“Just Pam, OK?”), Josephine (“At three girls, I had better name one after me,” Joseph once told me.) Christine (“Wouldn’t it be funny if you had married me? Christine Christopher?”),  and Juliette (“Make a Romeo joke and I’ll knock your teeth in.”).  Juliette asked me how school was going over dessert.
I gave them the highlights and lowlights.  Joseph and Sylvie are very CATHOLIC. They absolutely adore me because I teach religion, but they are so traditional that Sylvie doesn’t think women should be priests and will only take communion from a priest.  Both Joseph and Sylvie have sisters who are nuns.  Marie’s sisters are interested in my stories, especially about Yahira and Royale. Sylvie didn’t like some of the language I reported from the kids or myself , but I am bad at censoring myself.  Joseph can’t believe that I go in for “girl talk” and left with Pam’s and Josephine’s husbands Ronald and Roger to watch TV and take a nap in the basement family room.
My sisters-in-law have always been fascinated with me and Marie, probably because we seem exotic to them.  We both went to college and graduate school.  Until the baby of the family, Celine, went to college as well, Marie was the first and only college student, and still the only college graduate in her family.  We met in Zimbabwe in the Peace Corps.  We do volunteer work with peace and justice groups and Marie works one weekend a month in a battered women’s shelter.  The Cormier sisters are “just Monument girls” as they like to call themselves. They take the kids to school, go to work, pick up the kids, and make dinner for their family. They were born in Monument, grew up in Monument, married men from Monument (except for Juliette, who married a guy from New Brunswick whom she met while he was visiting relatives in Monument), work in Monument, and vacation in Canada. Celine is not a Monument girl. Monument girls don’t wear nose rings and have pierced navels and take part in protests in Seattle while off at college in British Columbia.
Monument is not a very diverse town, and Marie’s sisters, Celine excepted , are less progressive in their thinking. I think they find my tales of urban black, Latino, and Asian students intriguing because they are about people from a different world. They are like the stories we told when we came back from Africa. They listen the way they do to stories of Marie’s nursing and work with battered women.
After listening to my highlight and lowlight reel, Josephine said to me, “You really love these kids, eh Jacques?”

Chapter 16 – Parents Night
I did my best with Parents Night.  I actually cleaned up the classroom and straightened out my desk. I straightened out the prayer table.  I made sure my posters of Kermit the Frog, Bob Marley, and Gandhi weren’t crooked.  I made an appointment list at ten minute intervals and posted it on the wall outside the door. I put chairs in the hallway for parents and younger siblings to sit in while they waited.  I had all my students write letters to their parents explaining their grades and class performance. I brought in some of Rafe’s and Gabby’s toys for the younger siblings to play with while I talked to their parents. I gave myself bonus points for the effort, but it just wasn’t enough.  Parents night was an aggravating assault on the nerves.  Most of the parents I needed to see didn’t attend and I ended up speaking with Mr. and Mrs. capital A, talking about their lowercase A, who was getting straight As. The night followed this pattern until Omayra Pabon knocked on my door.  Omayra was Yahira Jiminez’s mom.  Accompanying her was a man she introduced as Roberto Martinez.
“Señor, jew are teach-hair of Yahira of  religion?” she asked.  She was a dead ringer for her daughter. They looked exactly alike. Twins separated by age.
“Yes, I am.”
“Wad is goig on witchoo an hair?  Ard jew fogging hair?”
“Excuse me?”  Her accent was enormous.
“Ard jew fogging hair?  Are jew have sex wit Yahira?”
What the hell?
“No. I am not having sex with your daughter. Why would you think that?”
“Listen, motherfucker, don’t give us no shit.  If you are messing around with her daughter, I will fuck you up big,” said Roberto.
Omayra Pabon continued and I began to get used to her accent. “Something very funny is going on here and I want to know what it is.  Yahira never does good in religion. All the time is F and D and F and D, and now she gets report card with A in religion.  She hates church. She get thrown out of youth group. She yells at priest. She gets in trouble at church in school, but she gets A in religion. I am taking care of protection of my daughter when I want to know what is going on.  Yahira says she earned her A. She says she had a personal appointment with you that you promise her an A. She talk all the time, ‘Mr. Christopher tells me this. Mr. Christopher says this.’  I want to know if she gets an A because she fuck you.”
How the hell was I supposed to respond?  I’ve been accused of being a liberal (true), of being arrogant (true), of being opinionated (true), of not being professional (true – say, from O’Grady’s point of view), of not being respectful of the hierarchy (definitely true), but I have never been accused of sexually or otherwise abusing a student, let alone raping a student. And I never have.
“I think….”
“I don’t give a shit what you think, motherfucker. I want you to explain yourself.  Why does Yahira think you are all that?” said Roberto, getting more and more agitated.  “Why shouldn’t I kick the shit out of you? Who do you think you are? I…”
“If you would let me say something,” I tried, but Robert continued to yell.
“Let me explain,” I offered.
“You better ‘splain, or I kick your ass.”
“Don’t threaten me,” I wanted to add or “I will kick your ass.” Roberto kept yelling, but so did I.  “Yahira is a great student,” I  hollered, “And she gets A’s in my class because she is smart, creative, and  prayerful.”
“She is not prayerful.  She gets thrown out of church in school. She is told not to come to youth group. What kind of shit you give us?  Motherfucker, don’t mess with me.  My brother is a priest and he says Yahira is never going to Heaven because she won’t be Catholic.  She is not holy. She is a little slut with boyfriends.”
“She is no slut, Roberto,” said Omayra slapping him with both hands, one after the other on the shoulder.
Roberto raised his hand to slap her, but I grabbed it and forced it back to his side. I was nose to nose with him, staring into his eyes.
“Shut up, Mr. Rodriguez!” This was as loud as I could get.  “Shut up.  She is prayerful.  She writes and talks about how she thinks of God all the time in this class.  She is wonderfully spiritual. You don’t need to go to church to know God.”  You don’t need to scream either, but I was in an argument where you won by shouting down the opposition and not by making sense. “She earned her A by doing first-class work and participating in class.  I meet with every student individually to discuss what grade they have earned and what grade should go on their report card.  Yahira met with me in a personal appointment and was able to articulate why she had earned the A and deserved it.”  I was at top volume and barely had enough air to finish my words, but Roberto had quieted for the moment. I was able to catch a breath and lower the volume. I addressed my next offering to Omayra Pabon, searching her eyes to see if she really believed I was screwing her daughter.
“Believe me when I tell you I have never spoken to, looked at, or touched Yahira in any way, shape, or form that can be called abuse, harassment, or rape.  If you want to press charges or file a complaint or something equally idiotic like that,” I glanced over at Roberto,  “Then go talk to the principal or the police, but I am done talking to you. Get out of my classroom – both of you. Adios.”
Roberto Martinez grabbed for the front of my shirt. I slapped his hands away and using my size, began to steer him toward the door.  I was afraid I was going to end up in all out brawl with the guy, but I worked him out of the room, muttering a lot of “Calm downs” and “Chill outs” and “Please, sirs” as I went. Omayra Pabon followed us. As we entered the hallway I gave him a bit of a shove and tried to slip back into my room.  But there was a woman waiting to see me in the hallway and I smiled at her and waved her in. She squeezed past Roberto and Omayra with a fearful glance. Perhaps she won’t call me a motherfucker?
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but that gentleman was getting out of line. Just give me a minute please.”  I called Dave’s office on my cell phone and said I had an unruly parent outside my room.
“How can I help you, Ma’am?  I’m Mr. Christopher and you are?”
“Laqueesha…”
“Wilson.” Holy shit. “I’m terribly sorry I didn’t recognize you, Ms. Wilson.”
“That’s OK, mostly everybody don’t take no notice of me anymore. Used to be I got noticed all the time. Anyway. You can call me Laqueesha. I’m sure you’re surprised to see me here, but since you cared so much about Korey to come to my place looking for him, I supposed I should come see you about how he’s doing here.  He’s failing everything. I know the boy’s smart. Smarter than I’ll ever be. Lord knows that, but he’s gonna be all right isn’t he?”
What could I tell her? “Korey hasn’t been in school since I came to visit you Laqueesha.  If you don’t know where he is right now, I’m afraid I can’t be of any help.  You haven’t seen him?”
“No.”
Jesus, it’s been almost two weeks since I tried to track him down and found her instead.
“Laqueesha, hasn’t the school been calling to find out where he is?”
“I don’t know. The phone’s broke, and I’m out late most nights.”
Excuses.  We looked at each other awkwardly for a few moments.
“Have you called the police?” I asked.
“No.”
Probably afraid to, figures if she calls them and reports a teenager who’s been missing for two weeks, they’ll find out about the dealing, the gang, and whatever else, especially the stuff she’s been doing. All of which probably violates her parole or something and sends her back to jail.
“Meet me out in front of the school at 8:30, Laqueesha, and be able to tell me three places we can go look for him.  If we don’t find him, I’m calling the police.”
“OK.”

Chapter 17 – Drive All Night

Eight o’clock. Time to shut down Parents Night and off to talk to the headmaster about Ms. Pabon and Mr. Rodriguez.
“Dave, what the hell is with Yahira’s mom and that asshole boyfriend of hers?”
“They think you are sleeping with Yahira.”
“I know that, but what the hell’s the matter with them?”
“Look, John, they filed a complaint with me accusing you of dating Yahira.”
“And?”
“And I told them I would investigate.”
“You’re not serious?  The guy threatened me and tried to hit both me and Yahira’s mom. I’m the one who should file a complaint.”
“Look, this is serious. I told them I don’t believe it, but we have to go through the motions.”
“So, let’s go through them, Dave.”
“Are you dating Yahira Jiminez?”
“No.”
“Have you ever spoken to Yahira Jiminez in an inappropriate way?”
“No.”
“Have you ever talked to her or about her in a sexually explicit way?”
“No.”
“Have you ever looked at her in sexually suggestive way?”
“No.”
“Have you ever had any sexual contact of any kind with her up to and/or including intercourse?”
“No.”
“Did she earn the grade she received in your class through her own legitimate academic efforts?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’m convinced it’s all bullshit, but look, John, I have to question Yahira and I think they are nuts enough to go to the police. I suggest you file a complaint with me about their behavior toward you tonight and be prepared to file charges of assault against Roberto Martinez.”
“Whatever. I’m taking Laqueesha Wilson to look for Korey.”
“What? John, look, wait.”
I didn’t.  I went out to the car and called Marie on the cell phone to tell her about the sexual abuse accusation and that I was going to look for Korey Constant.
“Vous ce qui ? Ils accusé vous de ce qui, John ? Mon Dieu, Johnny, vous bâtard Irlandais-Portugais, vous comprenez que même une accusation de cela ruine aimable de bidon une carrière dans l’enseignement ?Qu’allez-vous faire ? Appelez votre ami, l’avocat en ce moment, et ne allez pas conduire autour de Boston recherchant ce gosse. Appelez la police. For Christ’s sake, John…”
Then she lapsed into French and I was lost as to what she was saying. At least she didn’t ask if the accusations were true.
Laqueesha Wilson was waiting for me at the front doors of St. Somebody when I pulled around from the faculty lot in my purple mini-van.  I opened the door, she got in, giggled to herself and said, “Hey mister, you want a date?”
I think she was making a joke. I hope she was joking. Tonight was the not the night for this joke.
“Sorry,” she said. “Just kidding.”
“Where are we going?”
“Calle Diablo.  You know where it is?”
“No, I don’t. You’ll have to show me.  What are we looking for there?
“Korey’s friend Big T.  That’s the neighborhood he lives in.”
She directed me through the streets of Boston, out of South Hancock, toward Roxbury. A few miles from the school, we had passed through any section of town I was familiar with and passed into places I’d not yet seen.  The longer we drove, the less I liked the lay of the land.  Less lighting, fewer people on the street.  People stared hard, grilling the van as we drove by.   It took me ten or fifteen minutes to realize that I hadn’t seen a white person on the street in about, say, ten or fifteen minutes.  Anyone we did pass now grilled the van hard.  Ford minivans were out of place here. So were white men driving black women, unless the man was payin’ her or pimpin’ her, neither of which applied to me, but I imagined those possibilities were the only ones making sense to the owners of the hard eyes examining us.
“We getting anywhere close to where we need to be, Laqueesha?”
“Yeah, pretty much almost there. We’re on Calle Diablo now.”
Interesting name – Demon Street – it’s fitting, though.  It was a hard, evil street.  Rundown two- and three-story apartments, paint peeling, porches in disrepair, any large expanse of brick or cement wall tagged with graffiti.   A half-hour into the heart of darkness, Laqueesha tells me to pull over.   I hesitate. There’s a group of hard-looking young men on the corner, outside a dive of a bar.  Laqueesha’s insistent.
“Pull over, that’s him. That’s Big T!”
Big T was, well, big. Huge, Enormous, Refrigerator Perry-esque, Notorious B.I.G. – esque. XXXXXL. Phat Pharm Big and Tall. Fubu Large Sizes. NBA center sneakers. You get the idea.  Big T was LARGE.  I pulled up next to Big T. I was officially moving out of the nervous zone and into the scared zone of a white dude driving a black woman, pulling up to large group of young black men, as if to ask directions, which in a sense, we were.
“Yo Big T, you seen Korey?” asked Laqueesha, leaning out of the passenger side window.
“Fuckin’ moms, whatcha doing out here?  Who’s the white guy, your chauffeur?”  This got a good laugh from his boys.  “You turnin’ white dick tricks, moms?  I ain’t fuckin’ seen that nigga’s ass since last weekend.  I thought he was being a fuckin’ schoolboy now, livin’ wit your ass and getting all churched up at that high school.  Why don’t you get white bread’s ass outta here?”
“Come on Big T, I got to find him,” said  Laqueesha.
“Why the fuck are you out here? You know his crib’s at your place.”
“But where is he tonight, Big T?”
“How the fuck should I know, bitch. I ain’t the nigga’s secretary.  Get the fuck outta here.”  That was enough for me. I was getting the fuck out. Don’t need to tell me twice. Well sometimes you do, maybe three or four times, but no more than that.  I pulled away from the curb, Laqueesha hanging out the window screaming all kinds of obscenities at Big T.  As she slumped into her seat, I saw Korey step out of the bar in the passenger side rear view. I turned the next corner and pulled over again.
“He just stepped out of the bar, Laqueesha.  Let’s go back for him.”
“No, don’t bother, Mister. He’ll be back home tonight.”
“What? What do you mean? What the hell is going on?” I was using Roberto volume. My hands were flying up in the air in exasperation.  A scared looking woman walking down the sidewalk shied away from the van, not wanting to witness what looked like a white pimp about to smack one of his girls.  Laqueesha Wilson was sobbing hysterically, every second looking more like the strung-out hag who I found at her apartment a couple of weeks ago and less like the mom at Parents Night.
“I’m sorry, Mister, but I thought if you maybe just talked to Korey he would stop hanging with these guys.  I don’t know what to do with him. He won’t listen to me. He comes and goes like he’s the father and I’m the daughter.”
Not an inaccurate analogy.
“I thought, you know, you was nice enough to come by looking for him, maybe you could help him.  I’m afraid he’s gonna get killed hanging out with these guys.  I know they’re dealing. Korey’s selling smack, E, and weed.  The school calls. I tell them he’s sick, he’s got an appointment, he had to go with me to Atlanta to see family.  I can’t let him be kicked out of school. He’s so smart. If he gets caught… if I get caught…. shit shit shit shit SHIT!”  She was lost. Gone. Outta control.  I let her fall apart.  I drove her home.
When I pulled up to her place I told her to tell Korey to come see me at the school. If he did, I would try to help.  I told her to stop covering for his ass skipping school. It wouldn’t help.
“OK,” was all she said.
I left her wracked with sobs on her front stoop. A late night passer-by kept her head down and walked right passed Laqueesha, unseeing, unfeeling.
I called Marie and told her I was on my way.  Why didn’t the religion teacher pray with her, get her to ask God’s help?  That’s what I did with Yahira. I’m not really a “won’t you pray with me” kind of guy. Sometimes I wish I were, because I have that image of holiness, too.  I am a prayerful guy. I pray. I’m just not big into saying prayers.  I understand Anne of Green Gables: there is a difference between praying and saying your prayers. I have no use for saying prayers.
But how many people do you know who would have driven Laqueesha Wilson into Calle Diablo? Hmm?
I spent the entire ride home that night praying for Korey and Laqueesha and Yahira and myself. God help us all.  I prayed my way, with music. After I dropped off Laqueesha Wilson, I listened to Bob Marley and the Boss, thinking about Korey and how I could help.  I had an idea, but I didn’t think Marie was going to like it. I prayed about Yahira and how I could avoid the mess with her mom’s accusations and still help her. I prayed for myself and wondered what the hell I was doing?  I pondered: Who am I and where am I going (or being led)?  As I pulled into the garage, Bruce was singing “Drive All Night”.
I stumbled into the house and dropped my stuff in the kitchen. I went to the bathroom and peed before looking in on Rafael and Gabriella. Angels both, asleep and beautiful. I was wide awake and figured I’ll read myself to sleep or meditate or something, but Marie was waiting up for me in our room, dressed, how should I say, appropriately. She smiled, held out her arms in welcome, pulled me toward her.  Marie is a small woman, but strong, wiry and muscular.  Her short, styled hair is raven and her eyes bright blue.  She carries large, high firm breasts for a woman of her size, and every time I uncover her body I am always amazed at how fair-skinned she is. I loved her more than all my students, more than all my dreams. She’s always been the one. I’d drive through anything to be with her.
We went hard and rough. She usually knows what I need better than I do.  It was a primal, animal love; a sacred and sacramental release.
“Baby, baby, baby – I’d drive all night again
Just to buy you some shoes
And to taste your tender charms.
And I just want to sleep tonight again in your arms…
… Oh Girl, you’ve got my love
You got, you got my love,
Oh girl, you got my love,
Heart and soul.”

II – ADVENT
The Church’s liturgical year begins on the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is the season of four Sundays before Christmas. It usually lasts about four weeks give or take a couple of days depending upon which day of the week the twenty-fifth of December falls.  The liturgical color of the season is supposed to be purple, but because that’s the same color as Lent, folks in some places are now using a deep blue.  I like the blue. It’s not a bright sky blue or a royal blue; it’s midnight blue, deep and dark. It’s a cold color. It speaks of winter and ice and night, desolation and waiting.
Advent is about waiting, after all:  waiting for the Christ child to come, waiting for Christ’s return at the end of time. Waiting to see where our human journey will lead us, both as individuals and as a community.
The American Jewish author Chaim Potok writes that “All beginnings are difficult,” and that is certainly true.  Waiting however, is even more difficult than beginning.  Waiting contains the anxiety of the unknown. What is to come? Where are we going? How will it all unfold?  Where is God? How and when will Christ enter my life?
Because it is a season of waiting, Advent is also a season of preparation.  Christians wait for Christ to come.  While we wait, we make ready to receive our guest. We decorate the house and the house of God, we prepare the festive meal, we think of a special gift to bestow upon our company.

“You take it on faith, you take it to the heart,
The waiting is the hardest part”
– Tom Petty

Chapter 18 – The First Sunday of Advent
Teaching school, I mark Advent from the first Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Often, but not always, that’s the actually beginning of the season anyway. Marie and I put out all the Christmas decorations during Thanksgiving break.   We put up the tree. We have an artificial tree, partly because I’m allergic to pine, but mostly because Marie can’t stand to kill a tree for a six-week decoration.  We let the kids decorate the tree and then we have to move half the ornaments to the top half of the tree. We put out the African nativity set we got in Zimbabwe, minus the Christ child, of course.  We have our discussion about how Advent blue works as a winter color for the season in the northern hemisphere, but not in the southern.  Celebrating Christmas in Zimbabwe was  strange. Being from New England, we both missed the snow.  It was good, though, because it brought more attention to the spiritual aspects of the season and taught us how tied up we were in the jingle bells and the snowmen and a white Christmas and pine trees.  A green African Christmas with mango trees in the heat of an African summer changed our perception of the season forever.  Christmas for us those two years had not been spent as a festival time breaking through the ice and cold of northern winter, but as a time of heat and intensity.  Advent had been intense and hot as well.
We were listening to the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas and had just broken open a box of candy canes and the four us had managed to put half the set of eight on the tree.  I was peeling the plastic wrap away from Gabriella’s candy cane when the Patriots game was interrupted for a local news update.  The headline at the bottom of the screen said, “Shooting in Calle Diablo.”
“Marie, can you turn off the CD and turn up the TV?”
“What for? You want the kids to see a shooting and hear about it, too? I’ll just shut it off.”
“No! Don’t!” I yelled, getting up and heading across the room to the entertainment center.  Marie stared at me with the fire breathing dragon look and scooped up Gabby and pushed Rafael toward the door to the kitchen.
I leaned in toward her ear. “Sorry, one of my kids hangs out down there.  I’ve  got to hear if there are any names I recognize.”
“Come on guys,” Marie said to the kids, “Let’s go make pets de sœur.”  Rafe and Gabby joined their mom in chanting, “Nun farts, nun farts, nun farts,” as they marched into the kitchen.  I had to turn up the television to get over the din of pots and pans and measuring cups and flour jars clanging away in the next room.
The news was reporting that a seventeen year-old Boston youth had been shot in an apparent drug deal gone bad in the Calle Diablo section of Boston outside a local bar in that neighborhood around noon time.  The victim of the shooting was in critical condition at Boston City Medical Center.  Police were looking for a twenty year-old Latino neighborhood resident     named Tino Torrez, and a black youth, whose name is being withheld due to his age.  Police are continuing to question bar patrons and neighborhood residents to come up with further information and witnesses.
“Marie, I’ve got to go into the city.  I think this might involve one of my kids.” I called into the bakery.
“Non,” said Marie with a French n on the end of the word. “Vous n’irez pas n’importe où aujourd’hui. Nous n’ont pas encore fait pets de seour ou la maison de pain d’épice. Vous avez dit les gosses que nous étions sledding allant. Aucune manière. Votre famille vient d’abord cette fois. Appelez la police ou quelque chose. Il sera tout dans le journal demain.”
My French isn’t what it should be, but the gist was that I was not to go anywhere. I was to stay home and spend time with my family.  I could make phone calls. I could read the papers in the morning.   I thought about arguing for five minutes or so and  decided against it. Then I thought about just going anyway, and discarded that notion almost immediately, so I picked up the phone and called the police.
After being transferred around a few times I finally got the Section F station in the Calle neighborhood.  Since I wasn’t family, they wouldn’t tell me anything I hadn’t heard on the news. I tried again saying I was a Globe reporter, but it was a lame attempt and they were on to me immediately.  I gave up with Boston’s finest and called Dave Martin at home.
“Hi Dave. It’s John. Did you see the news about the shooting in Calle?”
“Look, Johnny, I’m watching the Pats. Can’t it wait?”
“Did you the see the report, Dave?”
“Yes I did, John. What about it?”
“I think Korey Constant might be involved.  I took Laqueesha Wilson down to Calle to look for him after parents night and I think he’s dealing.  I saw him walk out of that bar as we pulled away after a bunch of guys, one of whom was named Big T, said he wasn’t there. Korey did an assignment for me where he had to discuss a real life situation and alluded to being in a gang that was in the business and all. We gotta go look for him.”
“John?”
“Yeah.”
“Slow down. Better yet, shut up. There’s nothing you can do right now except drive into town and drive aimlessly around neighborhoods you don’t know all that well looking for a needle in a freaking haystack.  If the school can be of any help, the police will call us in the morning.  Look, it’s Sunday, the Pats are on TV, there’s new snow on the ground. Why don’t you watch the game and then take your kids out sledding.”
“You sound like my wife.”
“Well, listen to us then. Look, if I get any information before tomorrow I’ll let you know.  Until then, go be a football fan and a dad and read the Globe in the morning. You’ll know as much as anybody at that point, OK?”
“OK.”
But it wasn’t OK. I can’t wait until tomorrow to find out what’s going on. I dug around my school bag and found Laqueesha’s number and called. No answer. I went back to the football game. The Patriots were rapidly blowing a three touchdown lead.  I tried Laqueesha’s number four more times. Nothing. I called Annette Jean. I went through the entire rap I gave to David and got the same response.
“You must be patient, Johnny Sunshine,” said Annette.  “You can not save the world by yourself.  When it comes time to help, you can help. Until then, wait.”
But I am not good at waiting. I hate waiting. I hate waiting in line at the grocery store. I hate waiting to get paid. I hate waiting in line to get into Fenway Park for the game. I hate waiting for my tax refund. I hate waiting for Marie to get ready when we go out.  I definitely did not like waiting to find out if one of my students is a murderer, or maybe a victim. Shit, I hadn’t thought of that. Korey might be the victim. But I had no choice.  I had to wait.

Chapter 19 – The Morning After
I woke early and listened to the radio. No more news about the Calle Diablo shooting than there was last night on the 11 o’clock news and that was pretty much what I already knew.  A male teen was dead. A guy named Tino Torrez was a suspect and now in custody. Another guy seemed to be involved who I was sure was Korey Constant.
I meditated until Rafe disturbed me. Just as well. It was a tough meditation.  I could not clear my mind of Korey Constant.  I suppose God was with me anyway,  and Korey’s situation was offered up as best as I could manage it for 5 a.m. I fixed Rafe a bowl of Cheerios, got dressed and when Marie was up with Gabby I went in to work, doing my best to get in early.  I had to change the prayer table décor from Ordinary Time to Advent, and I wanted to be around in case any news came in early.  I listened to BUR and WBZ and all the news and talk I could find on the dial, but there was nothing new. Everyone was reporting the story, however.
When I got to the school it was already 7.  Dave was not at the door greeting people.  Something was up. Dave is always at the door in the morning and the afternoon. He is the first one in every day and the last one to leave every day. He greets everyone – students, staff, faculty – at the door in the morning and bids all the students and anyone else leaving by 3 p.m. farewell in the afternoon.  He doesn’t believe in dress codes for his students or his staff, but he always wears a very expensive looking three-piece suit. On game days he wore a St. Somebody Giants sweatshirt or T-shirt in the afternoon.  Anyway, he wasn’t there. Something was up.
I was so shocked that Dave was not at the door that I failed to notice two Boston Police cruisers parked outside the school, but there was already a lot of commotion in the hallways. When I got to Dave’s office, four officers were standing over three boys. As I got closer I was expecting to see Korey, Big T and a dead body, but instead I saw Antawan, Jeremiah and James.
“Mr. C!” Antawan yelled and rose up at a run toward me, but he was barely off two steps before Boston’s finest had restrained him.
“Mr. C, the cops arrested us for walking to school!” said Antawan.
“Officers?”
“Officer Rose, sir.  These young men were picked up for disorderly conduct on  Terrence  Street.  They claim to go to school here, so we’re just checking that out and calling their parents.  Do you know them?”
“Hell yes, I know them. They’re my students.  What were they doing?”
“They were shouting obscenities at residents, banging on car hoods and pounding on doors along a stretch of Terrence Street.”
“It’s a lie, Mr. C. We didn’t do nothing. We were just walking to school.” Antawan was trying to explain, but the officers cut him off, shouted him down and were about to turn back to me when Jeremiah’s mother came wailing into the room accusing the police of manhandling her little boy and followed almost immediately by Antawan’s dad.  The boys began shouting at the police. The police were shouting down the boys. The boys were shouting at their parents and their parents were shouting at the boys and the police. In the midst of this explosion, the door to Dave’s office opened and Dave yelled at everyone to calm down, to little effect, while motioning to me to step into his office. Behind him, sitting in his office were four more men, two in BPD uniforms and two dressed like our students,  but with more style and less affectation.  Real street instead of MTV street.  I stumbled into Dave’s office. I was going through the looking glass and it wasn’t even 8 a.m.
I don’t remember the uniformed officer’s names, but the guys in streets were plainclothes agents in the anti-gang and drug unit.  Their names were Sanchez and Willis. Willis was a spot-on twin for Tupac Shakur.  I mentioned this and he said he knew. Sanchez told me they called him Deuces on the street, because he’s Tupac II. I nodded like a dumb white guy.  Willis told me they have been talking to Dave about Korey Constant and they know about his brains, lackluster attendance, discipline issues and all.  What they want from me is the story Dave told them I had about visiting his home, talking with his mom, and taking her to look for him on Calle after parent conferences.  I give them the whole thing: Korey’s ancient Greek letter assignment, my visit to Laqueesha Wilson’s apartment, having to drag the story out of her, the parent’s night conference, driving to Calle Diablo, talking to Big T, and seeing Korey come out of the bar in my rearview as we pull away.  They confirmed for me that Big T was, as I suspected, Tino Torrez, and that yes, Korey was the other suspect and has been identified by a number of people as being with Torres that night, but no one can put him at the scene of the shooting. Torres won’t identify him as his accomplice. In fact, Torres wasn’t talking at all.  Both Korey and Torres were known to the anti-gang unit as being associated with the Rayzas as was, to my surprise, Laqueesha Wilson.  They’d already been to Laqueesha Wilson’s apartment and no one had been there since Saturday afternoon, a day before the shooting.
Throughout my talk with officers Willis and Sanchez, the din of the voices from the parents, pupils and police in Dave’s waiting room seeped through the walls and under the door.  When Dave opened the door to usher out the anti-gang unit and bring in the disorderly boys and their parents, the volume level spiked.
I didn’t want to be part of that group so I slipped out to head to my room.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Dave had to shout at me over the cacophony of the misdemeanor affair.
“To my class. Homeroom is in five minutes.”
“Look, John, you might as well just stay here.  I have Sister Eunice covering your classes this morning.  After I deal with this mess, Omayra Pabon is coming in and we are going to meet about the results of my investigation.  I don’t know if her boyfriend Mr. Martinez is coming with her or not, but you need to be here. Wait in Eunice’s office.”

“Hanging around, nothing to do but frown, rainy days and Mondays always get me down.”  No, too dopey.  I always hated the Carpenters.
“Tell me why.  I don’t like Mondays. Tell me why. I don’t like Mondays. Tell me why. I don’t like Mondays. I want to shoo-oo-oo-oot  the whole day down… And the silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload and nobody’s gonna go to school today, She’s gonna make them stay at home…”  Much better.
Breathe,  John.  Breathe. There was nothing to do but meditate now.  Funny how God is easy to turn to when God is all you’ve got left. “Be with me Lord, when I am in trouble, be with me, Lord, I pray.”
I meditated for a while, eyes closed, breathing. At first, I couldn’t get the Boomtown Rats to stop playing in my head, but finally I settled down into a slow mantra of veni sancte spiritus.  On the edge of awareness, I remembered the bustle in Dave’s waiting room and the loud ticking of the wall clock. When the bell rang to end first period I opened my eyes. More relaxed, more focused, but not nearly detached enough.  Waiting, waiting, waiting. I read an entire issue of Principal magazine – total drivel. Waiting, waiting, waiting. I read some essays – some interesting stuff from some of them – on which group of first century Palestinian Jews they would have belonged to. Most honestly picked none.  Most first century Jews did too. Stupid me probably would have been a Zealot, although Mona, my friend from my doctoral studies days at the University of Chicago, used to tell me I’d have been a Pharisee for sure.  Waiting, waiting, waiting.    Just after the bell to end second period rang, Dave came to get me. It was star chamber time for the accused rapist. He led me into his office. Omayra Pabon was sitting in one of the chairs next to Dave’s desk. The other chair in front of his desk was open, I assumed for me. Roberto Martinez was sitting in a chair pushed against a wall behind Omayra. Mrs. Hartman, the math chair and building union rep was standing behind the empty chair. Dave followed me into room, indicated my chair and went behind his desk, sat and picked up a crisp white sheet from a file folder.
“Look folks, things are already crazy here this morning so let’s get to it, OK?” We all nodded. No matter how old you get, you still feel like a kid in the principal’s office.
“During a Parents Night conference, Miss Pabon accused John Christopher, teacher in the theology department of being sexually involved with her daughter.  After accusing Mr. Christopher in person that evening she came to file a complaint with me regarding the matter. I told them I would investigate, but doubted the charges had merit. I informed them that if they are truly afraid Mr. Christopher has done something this criminal they should go to the police.
“Señor, my brother Neron is a priest and he suggested we come to you first and report to the bishop first before going to the police.” said Roberto.
“Thank you,  Mr. Martinez. If I may finish.  Mr. Christopher reported that you used inappropriate language in accusing him and both threatened him with physical violence and attempted to hit him.  I encouraged him to file a report with me and with the police if he felt that it was in order.
“As to the first part, the alleged sexual relationship between Mr. Christopher and Yahira Jiminez, I give you my report.  I interviewed Mr. Christopher at length and he categorically denied ever having treated Yahira wrongly in anyway. I interviewed Yahira, her friends here at school and other students who have Mr. Christopher for a teacher. I interviewed his department chair and some other faculty members.  I interviewed the school guidance counselors and the visiting therapist from the Catholic Charitable Foundation to inquire if there have ever been any reports of misconduct by Mr. Christopher.  I have spoken with all of his previous employers and his pastor from his parish in Bethelle. After speaking with these people, I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mr. Christopher has never touched, spoken to or spoken about, or even looked at Yahira Jiminez in any way, shape or form that is either illegal or unprofessional. In fact, Yahira herself said he has never done anything inappropriate to her and he is one of the only teachers here who doesn’t even ‘Check her out.’  His students almost unanimously say he is their favorite teacher and would trust him with anything. Yahira’s three closest friends seem to love Mr. Christopher as a teacher and know Yahira says he is her favorite.  No faculty or staff, even those who dislike him personally, do not believe he would ever do such a thing. The guidance counselors and therapist report nothing of concern. His former employers report no incidents of any kind of  inappropriate behavior toward students.  The position of this school is that Mr. Christopher is innocent and he will not be disciplined by the school.  I have shared all of this information with the Archdiocese. In fact, they helped me gather some of it, and the Archdiocese of Boston believes he is innocent and no action should be taken against him.”
“That can’t be. I know she is fucking him. She’s a little whore. She’s going to hell.”
“Look, guy, one more outburst like that and you’ll be taken off the school grounds.  To continue, while interviewing Yahira and other students and talking to the school therapist, I have become very concerned about your behavior toward the girl, Mr. Martinez.  Yahira won’t say you’ve done anything wrong to her, but from what she said in her statement to me and on the advice of the school’s therapist I am filing a 51A on you, Mr. Martinez, for the possible abuse of Yahira.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Also,” said Dave, “I find it completely unacceptable for my teachers to be attacked by parents or guardians or their partners, so I am asking you never to set foot in the school again, Mr. Martinez. Should you show up here, I will call the police and Mr. Christopher will file assault charges against you with the full support of this school and the Archdiocese of Boston.”
Dave had asked one of the officers who brought in our disorderly boys to hang around and Dave now picked up his office phone and asked the officer in to escort Mr. Martinez off the property.
“Look, Miss Pabon, I highly recommend that you let our school therapist work with Yahira. Something is going on and it’s not good and it has nothing to do with Mr. Christopher. Your daughter is bright, but she’s angry and hostile. Her friends say she cries a lot. Something’s up and it’s up at home, not here.  You can take this matter to the police if you want, but I’ve dealt with teachers behaving inappropriately with students before, and we don’t have that going on here.” Looking at us he continued, “I will give a written copy of this report to all of you in the next day or two. This meeting is over.”
I hung back as the others left in order to ask about Jeremiah, Antawan and James. “So what’s up with the disorderly trio?”
“I don’t know, John. It seems that a guy on Terrence Street called the police because they were being very loud walking down the street, banging on cars and knocking on doors and running.  The kids say some guy leaned out of a window and yelled at them, asking what the hell they were doing.  They said walking to school and the guy started calling them niggers and all kinds of stuff. The kids got mad and ran up to his building and started knocking on the door for him to come down.  The police came and saw the kids banging on the hood of a car in front of the building and yelling.  The police said when they pulled up, the boys calmed down pretty quickly and claimed to be walking to school. The officers took a report from the guy on Terrence Street, but he was belligerent so they figured the kids’ story was a more accurate version of events. There was no damage to the car or the building so the officers called in and we confirmed the boys went to school here.  The police brought them here to call their parents.”
“Racial profiling by the neighbors. Cool.  What a wonderful day in the neighborhood, eh, Dave?”
“Just about, John. Happens a lot though. Last year Antawan was brought in by the police themselves for walking through South Hancock early in the morning.  They didn’t believe he was a student on his way to school. Maybe I should make them wear uniforms after all.”
By the time I eventually got to class it was almost lunch.  What a morning: racial profiling, statutory rape charges, and still waiting to hear if Korey Constant is a killer.

Chapter 20 – Musical Chairs
Jeremiah slammed his butt into a chair.  The force of his deployment sent the chair sliding back, slamming into the chair behind it and catching Lydia’s fingers between the chair backs.
“Ow! Damn! Shit, you big jerk,” Lydia bawled at Jeremiah.
“Ohmygod, Lydia, look at your hand,” said Janet.
A big bruise covered the back of Lydia’s left hand and the outside edge below her pinky was already swelling up.  Lydia was oblivious to the pain, but not her nails, never her nails.
“Lydia?”
“Oh, sorry I cussed, Mr. C, but he broke my nail!”  Lydia held up her swelling hand to show me the nail on her left ring finger was indeed broken, the alternating  pattern of Jamaican flags and crosses disrupted by the missing nail.  She wore a chastity ring on the same finger, given to her in a ceremony at her dad’s church where she and other teens made an abstinence until marriage pledge.
“Lydia, hon, you’ve got to go to the nurse. You’re hand is puffing up like a balloon. I’m sorry you broke a nail – your nails are a work of art.”  And expensive, too. The day after she got them done she came in before homeroom to show me and explained that the Jamaican flags were for her mom’s heritage and the crosses her dad’s. She had spent all her birthday money on them. Her dad was pissed (my description, not hers), and wanted her to have the designs taken off or painted over with white polish. She found her parents, her dad especially, overly strict and controlling, yet she took great pride (of the non-deadly sin variety of course) in her faith.  She often wrote of her conflict with her parents in assignments and journals.  Dad didn’t let Lydia date, wear makeup or jewelry, dance, play computer games, go online or cuss (her word).  These were all things of the devil. Also of the devil was having his daughter maimed in a game of musical chairs. Time for the nurse.
“Go see Mrs. White,  Lydia,” I said.
“But Mr. C., please, I could win. After the game,  Mr. C.. Please, please, please, please, puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze!”
“No way. To the nurse. If she says it’s OK, you can come back for the rest of class. Now go.”
Janet went with her, seeing as she was already out of the game as well.  Lydia was right, though.  She had as good a chance of winning as anybody else. She was a young teen for Christ, but she was ruthless, quick, sneaky, surprisingly strong for her size, and she was a chocoholic. The winner’s prize was an entire box of Hershey’s bars – 36 of them, and 18 bonus points for the term grade. Lydia got all A’s, but she loved chocolate.  At the time of her injury, she had just made the final four. Now there would only be three left: Yahira, Jeremiah and Thomas. I put two chairs in the middle of the room, back to back, and sent one player to each wall.  I returned to the spot behind my desk, where I played DJ.  My desk was piled high with CDs by Jay-Z, Jah Rule, Mystikal, Ghostface Killah, DMX, Eminem and others.  I had told the class they could bring in the tunes for the musical chairs game.
The rules were simple:
Players must keep in contact with the classroom walls or the barrier I set up in front of my desk (a tipped-over cafeteria table) at all times while the music played.
Stopping before the music stops means you’re out.
When the music stops, get a chair by any means necessary (the only limit is no lifting chairs off the floor).
A round ends each time the music stops.
Everyone legally seated at the end of a round continues.
A legal seat equals one rump in the usual sitting position in one chair.
Whoever is legally seated at the end of the last round wins the candy and the points.
It had been a battle of apocalyptic proportions.  Chairs had been slid out from under people, people had tripped and tackled each other, a fingernail had been broken and a hand smashed to swollen. Dog eat dog. Everyone for themselves. Royale had just walked away at the start of the second round, too scared to try again.  I’d seen this activity done dozens of times in my class, on retreats, youth groups. I had never seen a girl win. My money, however, was on Yahira.
I started the music again. They paced each other, then Thomas began moving faster, creeping up behind Jeremiah.  I s quickly  stopped the music. Jeremiah stuck out an arm, grabbed Thomas by the waist, put him in a half nelson, then a bear hug, and carried him over to the chair and sat down, laying Thomas down on the floor next to him. Yahira had, of course, taken the other chair.  Jeremiah had been relying on his combination of speed and brute strength the entire game. He had muscled his way to the final. Yahira had schemed her way in, using a combination of speed, calculation, and sex. She got a seat in one round by wiggling her butt at some of the guys and then wiggling her way around to put her bottom in the seat while they applauded her dance.  This was going to be an interesting showdown.
I started the music again. Yahira seemed to be measuring her position. She sprinted around the room until she was at a 45-degree angle to Jeremiah.  When she got to this position, she began to unbutton her shirt as the guys whooped and cheered. Jeremiah was staring. She was starting on the third button, which would have meant severe cleavage, so I stopped her.
“That’s enough, Yahira! One more button and you lose.” I yelled. She grinned and pranced and did the buttons back up. I let the music run for a long time. Jeremiah was eyeing her all the time, watching. She smiled and kept eye contact with him, breaking it once in a while to check the chair. I walked away from the CD player. We were almost five minutes into the track. I didn’t want the end of the track to cause confusion. I crossed my arms. This was my signal to Skinny to unplug the unit, thus stopping the music.
Yahira noticed the music had stopped an instant before Jeremiah, but moved slowly as if conceding a fight she couldn’t win on brawn. Jeremiah was at the chair in two great strides. As he turned his body to put his butt in position, Yahira dove headfirst like Pete Rose going into third, almost pushing off the wall like a swimmer and sliding quickly across the dusty wooden floor in her nylon blouse and jeans. She stretched her hands out in front of her and grabbed the chair legs. The chair slipped away just as Jeremiah was about to sit. He fell and landed on Yahira’s legs. She howled in agony. Jeremiah leaped to his feet to free her. She leaped to hers and sat in the chair – the winner.  Her legs were sore, but uninjured.  The girls rushed at her with hugs and kisses. Carmen, Dolores and Anita were jumping up and down and high-fiving each other.
“Congratulations, Yahira! You’re the first young woman I’ve ever seen win this musical chairs activity. Your grade doesn’t need the points, but I am sure you will enjoy the chocolate.”
She was still sitting in the chair as I presented her with 18 one-point certificates and a box of 36 candy bars.  She gripped the certificates in a fist and hugged the box of chocolate to her chest.
“Can we eat them now, Mista?” asked Carmen.
“No. The last thing I need is for O’Grady or Sister Eunice to give me a hard time about why I supplied students with chocolate bars, when eating is not allowed in class or in the hallways.  However, we are not finished. There is another round yet to play.  Some help please, folks, setting up the chairs for another game.”  Vo Nguyen moved shyly from the corner and began putting chairs back.  She had quit the first game at the beginning soon after Royale, terror in her eyes.
“You are goin’ DOWN woman!”  Jeremiah pointed his finger at Yahira. “This game is mine this time!” He looked liked Apollo Creed taunting Rocky.  The guys were bumping chests.
“Hold on folks, chill for a sec. There is a new rule for the next round.” I said.  I gave them the hometown QB and waited.
“Listen,” I said, “Pay attention, please. The new rules are as follows: For the next game, a legal seat is also the lap or thighs of another player.  All the rest is the same. The prize is still the same – whoever is legally seated after the last round wins a box of chocolate and 18 points. Line up, please.”
Royale, Vo and some others wanted out. I told them no, they could quit after the game began again, but they had to start the game.  Lydia came back from the nurse with an ice pack on her hand. Mrs. White said she couldn’t play any more musical chairs today.  She pleaded to be able to play. I told her no, but she could be DJ for this round.
I switched the CD from DMX to a collection of Beethoven piano sonatas. When I pressed play, everyone stopped and stared at the CD player.
“Keep going,” I said. “This is Beethoven. You’ll get used to it. Just listen to when it starts and stops and play the game.”
“But you said we could bring in the music for the game,” said Skinny.
“Yes, I did, and we listened to everything you wanted to in the first game. My choice for this game.” And Ludwig Van rolled on out of the speakers. The hip-hop street strut was replaced by a slow uncertain shuffle as the class made their way around the room. The change in tunes was mostly responsible for this.  The first time I stopped the music, the war resumed. Bodies hit the floor, fingers were jammed, butts hit the floor instead of chair seats, and the meek and the shy fled for the safety of the “out” area behind my desk. Yahira tried to coax them back into the game.
“Come on, Vo, you can sit on my lap. Janet, let Lydia sit on your lap. Come on.” They stayed where they were.  Yahira persisted. “Come on!”  She waved her hands, motioning for the outcasts to join in. Exasperated, she grabbed Carmen by the wrist and dragged her out of her seat and went over to the girls against the wall. Yahira grabbed Royale by the wrist and Carmen almost picked little Vo off the floor in a hug and led them to the chairs and sat them down. Yahira conducted business until everyone was seated in a chair or a lap.
When the music stopped the second time Yahira once again conducted the meek and the weak into position.  The guys, on the other hand, were having a tough time.
“I am NOT sitting on no dude’s lap, Mr.  C,” said Skinny
Jeremiah and Antawan cooed at him, “Come sit on my lap, you fine young thing.”
“Come on, Skinny. You sit on my lap,” said Yahira.
Skinny grinned and sauntered over to her, “Why don’t you let me sit in the chair and you sit on my lap, señorita mas fina?”  Yahira got up and amidst the whoops and whistles settled herself onto Skinny’s lap.  The whooping whooped up.
“Shut up you pigs, I ain’t doin’ no lap dance for him, we’re just playing a game and if you guys weren’t so immature, you could sit on each other’s laps for God’s sake and play the game. A Dios!”
The game went on.  Every time the music stopped, Angela Angelini sat on Leon’s lap.  After a few rounds some of the guys were giving him knowing looks.  Angela was smiling.
When the music next stopped, half of the guys offered Yahira their lap and the other half fought over the remaining seats until Raul and Theo were left standing.   Theo gingerly sat down on James, but Raul walked away.
“Raul, there are plenty of laps left, take a seat, my man,” I said.
“I can’t Mista. All the laps left are guys. I ain’t sittin’ on no guy’s lap. I just can’t, Mista. I’m out.  I can’t do it. I ain’t no faggot.”
“Whoa. First of all, sitting on someone’s lap has absolutely no bearing nor makes any indication about one’s sexual orientation.  Second, you know I hate homophobic remarks and language.  You speak as if being gay was a crime or somehow made you less than human.  If you want out of the game, get out, but don’t let it be because you’re too afraid that someone might think less of you because they might think you are gay. Got it?”
“Si, Señor profesor, but I am out.”
I hated this about St. Somebody students. They were almost all homophobic.  We had gone over this many times already. We’ve talked about how discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation is just as evil and wrong as discriminating against someone because of the color of their skin, or their language, or their ethnicity or their gender.  All the students had a keen sense of racial injustice, but did not seem to see the similarity between racial bigotry and other types of bigotry.  The kids from the more Evangelical and Pentecostal denominations always raised the issue of homosexuality being named as a sin in the Bible. Lydia’s dad even brought in a Bible bookmarked to every verse in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that condemned homosexuality as “ungodly.”  Time and again I explained the difference between taking the Bible literally and using history and culture and sociology and literary analysis to interpret the scripture.  Logic, however, had no role in this debate. Fear and ignorance were still ruling this one.   It hit close to home, too. Marie’s youngest sister, Celine, is a lesbian. No one in the family knows except me and Marie. Celine’s afraid her parents will disown her if they find out.  Marie and I are not so certain they would. Then again, we’re not convinced they wouldn’t either.
“OK,” I said. “Raul is too macho for us today. Let’s get back to it. Raul, if you don’t play, you can’t win.”
“S’allright, Mista. No one is winning this game anyway. It’s another one of your trick games,” said Raul.
The game was getting tough now, the class was down to four chairs and lots of people were sitting on laps.  Some of them were still grabbing seats like their lives, not chocolate, depended on it.  When they got down to two chairs Yahira took over again.  She whistled loudly, “Mira, look you guys,” she said pointing to Jeremiah and Antawan, you get the chairs. Then everybody sit on laps, big guys first and then smaller and smaller and then at end the smallest, like Vo and Hang.”
When Skinny pulled a WWF move and jumped on James like he was leaping from the top rope, Yahira went over to him and raised her arm to backhand him across the face. I was quick enough to catch her wrist.
“Sorry, Mista.”
When they got to one chair, I turned the music on and off. I just wanted them to finish. This time, with one chair, they put the Yahira plan into action with much more success.  Very orderly, Jeremiah sat on the chair, Antawan on his lap, James on his and so on, through the bigger guys and then kids of medium build taking turns, and finally at the end, Janet and then Hang and then Vo. As Vo sat down they all cheered.
“We all won, right Mista?”
“Not yet, Yahira.” I coached the final time out, “Folks, there’s one more round to go. Take the chair away and line up one more time.”
“Oh, that’s grimy,” said Theo. “Raul was right. It’s another trick game.”
“Well, yes and no, Theo,” I replied. “You see, you folks got to figure out how to sit everyone legally. It can be done.  But if you want to win, you’ve got to get everyone seated within one minute after the music stops.”
“But Mr. C.,” said Theo, “Raul is right. No one wins. What does it matter?”  At that moment, Yahira got it.  The single best thing about teaching is that you get to be there when the light goes on. It is as miraculous and mysterious as the beginning of creation. How do we learn?  Is it all electrical impulses and brain chemistry? Is it a spiritual gift? Is it mimicry – rote memory or copying a task? I don’t know, but when it happens, a light goes on. The radiance escapes from the eyes like light under the front porch door at midnight. I love it when the light goes on. Yahira got it.
“Yo, mira, listen, we ALL win.  We all win, isn’t that right, Mista?” said the hundred-watt Puerto Rican princess.
“Si, señorita, you all win.”
“We ALL get a box of candy and 18 points?”
“No, you all get to share a box of candy and 18 points.”
“Oh, snap!”  Skinny said. “I knew it! A Mista twista once again.”
“However,” I continued. “You all haven’t won it yet, you still have one round to go and sixty seconds to seat yourselves.” Back to Beethoven.
The music stopped and no one moved.  Stalemate. Stalled. Dead battery.
“Come on folks, think.” I almost whispered it.
James smiled, “I got it. I got it.  Everybody line up. Face the same way.” Some started to protest, wanted to know why.
“Time’s up. You all lose. You want another crack at it?”
“YES!”
I turned the music on again. While they walked, James explained his plan. Everyone was to make a line, everyone facing the same direction and right up close to the person in front of you.  Then everyone was to sit on the lap of the person in back of them. The music stopped. Yahira, Carmen and Janet helped James organize the line. They lined up in order of size biggest to smallest. They all sat back on the thighs of the person in back of them.  They cheered themselves once more.
“Sorry folks,” I told them, “You lose again. Jeremiah is not legally seated.” Shaq junior was at the end of the line, but not sitting in anyone’s lap.
“Come on, man,” said Jeremiah.
I ignored the complaining and turned Ludwig Van on once more. “Last chance, folks.”
They stumbled around the room again, shouting suggestions. The light went on again.  This time Jeremiah had it.  He shouted down the other speakers until he had attention. “If I got to sit, too, we need to circle up. We do what we did last time, but this time in a circle.”  Some were puzzled, but Yahira got it right away and started to help explain Jeremiah’s idea.  When I stopped the music, Yahira, Jeremiah, and Antawan lined everyone up in a circle from largest to smallest and turned everyone so that instead of facing into the circle they were facing the back of the person in front of them. They all sat on the thighs of the person in back of them. Jeremiah did his best to crouch down in a sitting position without actually putting any weight on Vo. True chivalry in action.  They cheered. I gave them a standing ovation of one.
I broke out the box of chocolate bars and passed them out, two to a person, along with one point certificates, one to a person, redeemable at grade conferences.  Yahira was passing out her chocolate bars. The light inside her was using long-life bulbs. She was passing out her bonus point certificates too. She didn’t even keep any points for herself.
“Huddle up. Now why did we do this?” I asked.
“To show us that we need to work together, Mista,” offered Yahira.
“True enough, but there’s more to it.  Think about the two games. What was the first game like? What was the prize? How did you win? What skills helped a person to do well in game one?”
“The first game was like war, man,” said Skinny. “Every man for himself, dog eat dog, no one got your back, survival of the fittest.”
“Yeah,” said James. “The prize was hefty, everyone wanted them points. You won by being last man standing.  You did good if you were strong and fast and aggressive.”
“And intelligent,” said Yahira.
“Yes, yes, you’re all right on, and what about the second game?” I asked.
“In the second game, Mista, you was trying to show us to work as a team, that we can all win if we work together. We don’t always have to be fighting each other.”
“That’s right, Yahira. Nice job.  But why this game with these analogies in a New Testament class?”
“Cuz the way of the Lord is like the second game, but the way of the world is like the first game.”
It was Royale and she was barely audible, speaking down into her folded hands on her desk instead of to me or to her classmates. I asked her to repeat her answer.
“Yes,  Royal, that’s it! You got it! Bravo! That is exactly why!  The first game is the way the world is, everyone out to win, looking after number one. It’s violent, senseless, and mean.  You can survive and do well if you’re strong, quick, aggressive and intelligent, but in the end you use all your strength – mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual – to stay atop the game because it’s so hard.  The slow, the weak – those who take longer to learn – are pushed aside. And who cares, right? Too bad for them if they can’t win.  The second game is the way the world could be if we practiced what Christ taught us – Love. That second game wasn’t perfect. Some folks still thought they were in the first game, but after a while people worked together.  All of you weren’t being nice to each other, but all of you were being nicer to each other than you were in the first game.  There were still some arguments and it wasn’t always easy to work together, but you did it. And wasn’t it a better way to be?  And you all reaped the benefits, not just one person. You even shared the prizes with Raul, who quit on you, and that impressed me greatly.  You are the light of the world. Don’t believe that the world can’t be better because it isn’t perfect. You decide what world you want to live in.  You don’t have to live in the world of the first game and you don’t have to play by those rules.  Jesus changed the rules. Love one another as I loved you he told us.  You got to ask yourself, “Whose rules am I playing by?  You decide. Your world, your rules.  How you gonna play? Amen?”
“Amen.”  The bell rang, but the chairs were still moving.
“Mista C.”
“What’s up, Yahira?”  She motioned for me to lean my head down and cupped her hand to her mouth to whisper in my ear.
“Mama says I have to see the counselor lady at school.”
“And you don’t want to do that.”
“I ain’t crazy, Mista.”
“Kiddo, going to counseling isn’t just for people who are severely mentally ill.  Almost everyone could use it at one time or another.  I hear the counselor who comes here from the Catholic Charitable Foundation is pretty good.  You would be surprised at how many students, kids you know, see her.”
“I know Mista, but they got some issues.”
“So, who doesn’t have issues?  There must be some things going on in your life that aren’t so great.  You keep referring to problems with your mom’s boyfriend, you mention “el Diablo” in your prayer journal, and the investigation into our relationship (I emphasized it for humor and she giggled) produced the fact that your amigas are worried about you and what’s going on at home. I don’t know exactly what’s going on at home, but it sounds like you have enough stuff to talk about with a counselor for it to be worth your time.”
“I don’t know, Mista. I don’t know the lady. Maybe I can just talk to you instead?”
“I’ll talk to you anytime, Yahira, but there are people who, believe it or not, are actually better counselors than I am.  I’m a teacher, but a trained professional therapist is the person to go to for counseling. Let you in on a secret, though.”
“What’s that Mista?”
“I go to counseling, too.”
“You do? But you’re so cool. What’s wrong with you?” She said you as if it was incomprehensible that I would ever need help with my problems or that I even had problems.  It was endearing in its own way.
“Listen, kiddo. When I was your age my issues had issues. I was angry and depressed, although they didn’t diagnose it as depression then. And today, well, I’m a teacher. I deal with other people’s issues and stress for a living every day. And then there’s the things that I can’t and shouldn’t tell you about. So I have plenty of reason to go.  I go once a month. If counseling can help someone as nearly perfect as myself (I smiled, she giggled), then it couldn’t hurt for you to try.”
“OK, Mista, I’ll try.”
“Good. Let me write you a pass.”
While we were talking her class had gone and the next one had come in. They were getting a bit rowdy and Yahira was late for where she needed to go next.

Chapter 21 – Department Meeting II
“Ah-men.” Brother Ernie intoned the last the last note of his chant.  We were praying the afternoon office for our department meeting opening prayer.  The holy office, or the systematic praying of the Psalter, traditionally done in monastic settings antiphonally, is not that popular anymore outside what few monastic communities are left. I don’t much go in for praying the office, never did, but I like the soothing, meditative mood of chant.  Annette seemed to as well. She raised her voice and closed her eyes. She was really into it. I was only half into it. It was like two different parts of me were arguing about what I was doing instead of all of me just doing it.
Brother Ernie had a good voice. It was soft, but sounded great for chant.  I would have rather just listened to him and Annette, but I had to participate, so I did. Rosie participated too. My voice is passable. Hers was not.
I had chair duties, which meant I had put together the agenda beforehand and moderated the discussion.
“First up is Rosie’s item. Input from other faculty about our department.”
“Thank you, Mr. Christopher. It seems that Mrs. Doyle is getting a lot of complaints that her U.S. History class is not like the sophomore religion class and therefore stinks, although she says the students have been using worse language to describe it. One of them last week told her that her class, Lord and those present forgive me, sucks.” She crossed herself after the curse.  “It seems that both she and Mr. Greene have been being chastised by their students for doing ‘old-fashioned teaching’.” She made the quotation marks in the air with her fingers as she said this. “It seems,” she continued, “that students are openly criticizing them for not being like Mr. Christopher.”  She turned her head toward me to look me in the eyes and hissed my name.
“And?” I asked in the tone of voice that implies, “and so what? Who cares? When is the important part coming?”
“And,” said Rosie, mimicking my tone, “I do not believe it is the job of the religion department to criticize other teachers in front of the students.  We are all catechists, even the math teachers, and as such we are all equal workers in the fields of the Lord. The last thing we should do is criticize our fellow laborers in the vineyard.”
Oh Lord, I thought, was this lady for real?
“Sunshine, you didn’t criticize other teachers in front of the kids, did you?” asked Annette. She asked the question in a tone of voice Marie uses with me when she’s pretty sure I wouldn’t have done such a thing, but knowing me, knows it is possible that I might have.  Marie’s concern is usually about such things as, “You didn’t really tell Mon onc Gerard he was a stupid alcoholic Canuck truck driver, did you?”  (In case you are wondering, no, I didn’t tell her uncle that, but yes he is one. I might have said something like, “Gerard, time to quit the wheel and hit that AA meeting.”)
“No, Annette, I did not criticize any teacher in front of my students.  I do talk about why I teach the way I do and why I think lecturing and worksheets are inferior.  I talk with the students about different models and methods of teaching and learning. If they are making connections to what they are experiencing in other classrooms, then good for them. They’re gaining control of their own experiences and their own lives. And if what I do works for them better than what they’re getting in their other classes, I can’t be blamed that some people feel inferior or have had their feelings hurt because my success makes their mediocrity stand out.”
Annette raised her eyes to the ceiling. I had begun to call this her ‘Oh no, Johnny’ look.
“So you admit it. You think yourself better than the rest of us?”
Well, yes damn it, but even I am not stubborn enough (or stupid enough) to put it that way.
“No, Rosie,” I lied. “I think there are ways we can all do better for our students, and I try my best to work in those ways.  I think lecturing kids doesn’t work, I think rote memorization doesn’t work, and I think busy work is a crime.  If my students like my activities, my conferences, and my projects better than Greene’s memorization of prepositions or Doyle’s reading to them from her textbook, I make no apologies for my success in reaching them.”
“Who gave you the right to judge me, Mr. Christopher? Who? Tell me, who? I know God does not judge me, so why should you?”
“Rosie, since when was this about you?”  I let her have it.  “I thought this was about me and Greene and Doyle.  If you see yourself in them, far be it for me to correct your self-assessment, but I never mentioned you. Maybe this isn’t about Greene and Doyle. Maybe it’s about you. And if it is about you, why didn’t you have the guts to be real from the get-go?”
“Enough, Johnny. Rosie, if you have a problem with Johnny, be up front. I am not going to let this meeting turn into an argument. If Johnny isn’t naming teachers in particular or in general, but only explaining his methods to the kids, that’s fine by me.  If you want to take it up with Sean, Rosie, go ahead.”
Brother Ernie was gazing down at the floor. Any tension or conflict made him uncomfortable. He looked up, whispered a mumble, “And we all just prayed so nicely together.”
“Next,” I said, “is my proposal to inculturate the school liturgies by using contemporary urban music and dance.”
“Mr. O’Grady already said that will not be allowed, so we do not need to discuss it,” said Rosie.
“I think we should,” said Brother Ernie.
I was shocked. What the hell was happening?
Ernie continued, “I don’t think it was right of Sean to dismiss the idea without a discussion, but I tend to agree with him, that the music kids listen to today is not appropriate music for church.”
“But Ernie, any musical style can be sacred music. If the kids rap, who cares as long as they are rapping about God? There are Christian bands and groups doing every style of music from rap to a cappella jazz vocal to grunge rock,” I said.
“Just because people are doing it, doesn’t make it OK, John.  People have abortions too, but are you going to tell the kids that’s OK?” squealed Rosie.
“Apples and oranges, Rosie,” said Annette.
“Exactly,” I said. “Besides, I would be willing to put together the whole thing.”
“I’m all for it,” said Annette.
“I most certainly am not,” said Rosie.
“And I am quite undecided still.  Perhaps we could discuss it next time and I will pray over the matter until that time,” said Ernie.
“But Ernie, come on, seriously you…”  I started in on him, but Annette put a hand on my forearm and leaned in to whisper to me.
“Let it go, Johnny.”
I shut up.
“What’s next?” asked Annette.
“My proposal to train students as lectors and Eucharistic ministers.  I think we could get more student interest and more participation if we included them more in the liturgies. We could ask for volunteers and recruit kids we know would do well and Brother Ernie could instruct these kids during study period or something.”
“I couldn’t do that John. I wouldn’t feel comfortable working with the kids on those things.”
As I listened to Brother Ernie, my world went to white noise, my ears filled with static, my aural universe went blank.

Help. No reference points. A logic whirlpool. A reason hurricane. My mind was losing its soul. My soul was losing its mind.  Every time Ernie was not comfortable doing something any sane and reasonable person would normally expect from a youth minister, or campus minister in a high school, my brain imploded.  It crashed like a PC with a virus.
“I’m sorry, Brother. You are the campus minister, aren’t you?” Annette put a hand on my arm again. “Right, sorry. If you are uncomfortable, I could do it after school.”
“Absolutely not!” Rosie screeched. “Student lectors and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist are out of the question. Those are ministries reserved for confirmed adults who attend diocesan sanctioned preparation and formation programs for those ministries. We can not just dispense with the rules of the Church as we see fit.”
“In case you missed it, Rosie, Jesus broke the rules too, especially when the spiritual life of the people was at stake,” I said.
Rosie glared at me.  Annette put her hand on my arm once again and said she thought it was a good idea. She told Rosie that if it made it more acceptable, she would seek permission from the diocese to hold a training here.  She also asked if Rosie would be open to doing that training, seeing as she is member of a diocesan team that trains lectors in parishes in her area.
“If it ever gets to that point, let’s just let John do it,” said Rosie.
“Agreed,” said Annette. “And I’ll help him.”

Annette and I hung out for a while after the meeting in her classroom.  I ranted on a bit about how absurd it was for Brother Ernie to be uncomfortable in roles that by definition should be part of his job.  Annette “Hushed” and “Sunshined” me every time I got a bit too animated.   “Besides, Johnny Sunshine, when Ernie said he would pray over it that’s good sign.  That’s Ernie’s way of coming around to something. I bet he’ll go along with it by the end of the year. Let him have his space, he’s trying to give some to you.”
“OK, Annette. If you say so.”
“I say so. Besides, there’s more to Ernest than you know and it’s not my place to tell. Trust me.”
When I left Annette’s room, Rosie was waiting for me in the hallway, pacing. She was clutching her rosary in one hand and waving an orange spiral notebook with the word GIANTS printed across it in big, white block letters.
“Who is this Leon?  Is he the transfer from Roarke High in Dorchester? He’s the husky boy, right? He’s not the one with the braids and earrings, is he?  Does my Angel sit with him? I’m not sure I want you to let her work too closely with this Leon in class, John.”
“Huh?”  Rosa Angelini had a way of making me go “huh?”
“I think Angela is interested in this Leon boy, John.  The name Leon is written all over her notebook.”
“Uh, Rosie, she’s fifteen. Girls her age write names of boys they like or boys they’re dating on their notebooks.”
“He’s not even Catholic, John.”
It sounded like “He’s not even white, John”.  I just smiled and walked away, leaving her waving the notebook.  Poor Angela, her mom won’t even let her act her age.

Chapter 22 – Gambling at School
“You will see scattered around you $36 in play money.  Each dollar is one bonus point on your grade.  Grab as many as you can. Go.”
My instructions kicked off the frenzy.  Like sharks in a pool of chum, they twisted and turned on the floor, elbowing each other for the little slips of paper. Students who never did any assignments and bombed assessments were desperate and hungry for academic success even if they had to buy it with Monopoly money.  Jeremiah ended up with $18 of the $36. Yahira had $12, mostly because $4 were under her desk and Anita shoved $2 at her before heading for the relative safety of the area behind my desk as the fray got frantic.   Six other lucky souls clutched their dollar of play money as if it were the key to Heaven.
“The folks with the cash should come line up at my computer and I’ll log your bonus points in my grade book.”
Jeremiah was first in line. He slapped each fake bill down on my desk, counting loudly, “Once a buck, twice a buck, thrice a buck, four dollars, five spot, six shooter, lucky seven, eight ball, nine lives, top ten, eleven, dirty dozen, unlucky man, fourteenth floor, sweet fifteen, sweet sixteen, size seventeen Air Jordan’s and Tiger walking up the 18th fairway.”  It was a good show. Yahira was next.
“Mista, can I give three dollars each  to Carmen, Anita and Do?”
“Sure, Yahira.” I said.
The three amigas high-fived each other and Jeremiah’s boys James, Antawan and Skinny, started harassing him.
“Spread the wealth, nigga.”
“Share and share alike.”
“Yo, come on, man, at least you’re passing. I am in desperate need of them points, dog.”
“We should all share, like in musical chairs,” whispered Royale, the soft voice of God gentle on the breeze and gone with the wind; almost lost among the rustle of the leaves. How easily we miss her voice. “Jesus said to take what you have and share it among everyone.”
“Oh, check!” said James pointing at Jeremiah, “Cinderella salted you, nigga. Now hand over some of that cash.” He grabbed at the bills on the corner of my desk. Jeremiah grabbed some as well and some of them ripped in half.
“Stop it. Royale is right. And don’t call her Cinderella or you deal with me.  What’s up with a world where we’ve been convinced we’re all set against each other. Royale is right on. Remember musical chairs? You guys forgot already? What kind of world do you wanna make?”  Teachable moment of the day accomplished once again. It’s funny, you know? These moments were the only time in my life I feel like the prophet, God speaking through me. It’s as if I am listening to my own words along with the class, another student at the rabbi’s feet, not the rabbi himself.
By the end of class, with some serious peer pressure from his boys on Jeremiah, everyone in the class had a point.  More important though, everyone got the point. Worth the gamble every time.

After school, I went to the library to use the image scanner. For all its poverty, St. Somebody had technology up the wahzoo.  When I returned to my room for my bag and my Sox cap, Korey Constant was sitting at my desk. I stared at him like the disciples beholding the risen Christ.  I had been wondering if I would ever see Korey again.  I spoke with some unease, like Scrooge beholding Marley’s ghost for the first time, almost doubting my senses, as if Korey might have been an apparition or illusion brought on by a bit of undercooked cafeteria food and not a real person.
“Where have you been?”
“Hiding.”
“No shit, Korey. I mean where?”
“In town.”
“Did you…”
“Kill that kid? No Mista, I didn’t, but I was there.  I swear I didn’t. You believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you, Korey, but if you didn’t do it why are you hiding? Or who are you hiding?”
“Big T was the one busted a cap in the kid’s ass, Mr. C. I ain’t hiding nobody.”
“Double negative. You are hiding someone.”
“Mr. C, cut the English class crap.”
“Korey, tell me the straight story.”
“I can’t, Mr. C.”
“You can, you just don’t want to.  Your Greek letter – why did you write it? Diatribe – I’ll tell you. You wrote it because you wanted help with your situation, but were afraid to come out and ask.  Why are you here now? Same reason. And I can’t help you if you won’t be straight with me. Shoot straight K.C. Rip or get the hell outta here.”
“You won’t tell anybody, all that confidentiality and stuff, right?”
“Korey, confidentiality applies to class and projects, but, and this is a huge but, confidentiality goes out the window when your life or health is in danger.  You are wanted by the police for questioning, Korey. I have to tell or I’m a criminal, too. You know that. That’s why you’re here.”
“Come on, Mr. C, you gotta help.”
“The only way I can help you is to clear your name.  I believe you didn’t help Big T kill that boy, but I also believe you know who did.  I think you’re protecting them and protecting them is hurting you.”
“You don’t get it, Mr. C.  If I don’t tell the cops are on me, but if I do tell the Rayzas are on me.  It’s a lose-lose situation.”
“Your mom must be worried sick, Korey. Does she know where you are?”
He looked around the room. Was that it? He was protecting his mom? She did know where to find Big T in a hurry.
“You covering for your mom, Korey?”
He nodded. He put his head in his hand and sobbed.  I put my hand on his back. I let him sob.
“Fucking shit, man. What the fuck am I gonna do?”
“You’re going to the police and tell them everything.”
“They ain’t gonna believe me, man. And my moms, they’re gonna send her back to jail and then I’m fucked. The Rayzas are gonna hit me. I got no moms and no Rayzas. I got nowhere to go.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Where man?”
“First to Mr. Martin’s office. Then I suppose to the police, and then home with me.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Stay here.”
I went into the hallway and yelled down the hall. “Annette!”  She came running down the hall.
“What’s wrong, Johnny Sunshine? You look like you saw a ghost.”  I pointed into my room. She peered in, saw Korey.  I explained where we were at.
“Annette, do you know a lawyer?”
“Yes, Sunshine, my roommate, Moira. Moira Kelly, triple Domer.”
“Huh?”
“She’s a graduate of Notre Dame Academy for Girls in South Boston, Notre Dame University, and Notre Dame University Law School, both of South Bend.”
“Will she take on Korey? It’s going to be a mess. That’s a lot to ask of a roommate.”
“She’s not just my roommate, Johnny Sunshine, she’s my soulmate. If I need her to do it, she will.”
“Soulmate?”
“Partner, lover, compatriot, my sacrament.  You can be so blind, Johnny. You really didn’t know?”
“No, I guess I missed it.”
“So has the faculty and the diocese, thank God. Don’t want to live the lie, but don’t want to give up my kids either, so no ask, no offer. Come on, let’s go. I’ll call Moira while you take Korey to Dave’s office. I’ll meet you there.”

Chapter 23 – Asylum
“Absolutely not! No way, no how, no can do, non, non, non, non, non!” Marie was against the idea. She didn’t want any part of it.  “Where do we put him? How do we feed him? What would he do, go to school out here? Take the bus to Boston? Ha! Commute with you? Ha, Ha! No! I can’t believe you even considered it. I can’t believe you had the unmitigated gall to ask me. No! Non, non, non, non, non, non, non, non, non, non.”  Nope, Marie wasn’t up for it at all.  I had phoned her from Dave Martin’s office and said I might be bringing a student home, if the police didn’t keep him in custody.  She had told me that I was not bringing anyone in trouble with the police home to share living space with her children.  It was moot when the police kept Korey in custody.  Moira Kelly, Annette’s lover and Korey’s lawyer, had told us not to worry, but I had worried anyway.  I still had this idea that when Korey was released, and Moira thought it would be soon, that he could stay with us, at least temporarily.  Marie and I were not in agreement on this.
“Please?” I tried one last time.
“NON!”
“All right, All right, calm down, Marie.”
“How can I calm down, John?  You probably already told him he could stay with us. Now you’re going to have to tell him he can’t, and as much as I hate the idea, it’s worse because you probably didn’t think about what it would be like to have to renege on the kid. That’s going to hurt you as well as him, and I have to live with you and your updates on what happened to him. You’ll make all kinds of comments about how much better it would be for him if he had been with us.  You weren’t fair to me or him or  yourself.”
“Marie, I didn’t already tell him he could stay with us. Besides, the state would have to approve it anyway.  I just told him I would ask you.”
“Great John, just great.  Now I’m the bad guy.”
Catholic guilt. Isn’t it great? I knew she wouldn’t go for it. Well, that’s not true. I guess I thought there might be a chance. Play up the Catholic guilt, see what happens. But Marie could be one cold Canadian. Debbie Hammer, the Youth Services Agency social worker assigned to his case, seemed to like the idea.  Kids like Korey Constant would be hard to place in foster care, and what could be better than a teacher who knew the kid already and had a family and a home away from Boston?
It had been a few days since I had found Korey waiting for me in my classroom.  Moira Kelly had taken the case straight away. She was in Dave’s office before the police arrived.  She met with Korey alone until the cops showed up. He had been with Big T Torres the night of the shooting, but had left him about an hour before the crime.
A friend of Korey’s mom named Rehab had been helping him hide. Her real name was Cindy or something, but she was a sober addict so had acquired the name Rehab. Laqueesha had met her in prison. Rehab was a night clerk for a motel out on Route 128, an insane stretch of highway forming a beltway around Boston about 15 miles from the center of the city.  She kept moving Korey around to vacant rooms.  Rehab was Korey’s alibi. She and a night guard had let Korey into a room about the same time the shooting had happened.   About half an hour later Jenny Ling arrived. She was a twenty-three year- old maid who Korey had been sleeping with since he started hanging out at the motel.  Jenny was in trouble for statutory rape, but she nailed down Korey’s alibi. They were together all night.  He was covering for his mom, but Laqueesha Wilson wasn’t Big T’s accomplice. Korey was covering for mom because he knew that if he got into trouble, folks would take a close look at her.  Her poor parenting should be enough to violate her parole, but when the authorities start investigating Korey, they couldn’t miss that she was using. Being a bad mom wasn’t going to send her back to Framingham, but using was.
Korey didn’t actually know who was with Big T when Torres shot Daniel Dubois.  He knew Double D and Big T didn’t get along and Double D was well-known for not paying his drug debts. Korey and Daniel had hung around a lot in grade school, but not much any more, especially since Korey started St. Somebody this past fall.
Korey had been to court,  and although he’d been cleared of any involvement with the murder, his admissions to using and dealing had landed him in lock-up.  Lucky for him he was still under eighteen, this was his first offense, he had helped clear up some of the story, and, most importantly, Moira Kelly was his lawyer.
Laqueesha was being sent back to prison and Moira had won Korey a suspended sentence when and if he could be placed in foster care.  When this condition came up, I volunteered. Moira Kelly was happy. Debbie Hammer was happy. Korey was ecstatic and Marie, was, well, not too keen on it.
Of course, I had waited to ask Marie about it seriously until we were in the car on the way to Monument to celebrate Sylvie Cormier’s birthday.  I had let Marie drive, but she was now so agitated over the idea of being Korey’s foster mom that I was beginning to wonder if we’d make it to Monument in one piece.
We did arrive safely and had a great meat pie, some râpe and a huge birthday cake from LaBerge Bakery in Frenchtown, the Franco-American section of Monument.  After dinner, Rafe and Gabby were playing with Antoinette and Joey, Pam’s kids, when Marie started in on me again, this time with an audience.
“Can you believe it, mom? He wants us to adopt a black kid from Boston. A kid  who’s been selling drugs yet.”
“No way, Marie, really?” said Pam.
“You intellectual types aren’t too bright, eh?” said Ron, Pam’s husband, a Monument guy.
“I guess,” said Pam. “besides you don’t want a black teenager around your kids, do you?”
“Since when did Les Walton Canadien become so racist?”
“We’re not racist, John, it’s just, you know,” said Ron.
“It’s just what, Ron?”
“It’s just, those kids, that kid, whatever, would be so different. What would people say?”
“I don’t give a shit what people would say, Ron. They can say what they want. My only concern would be for the kid.”
“Anyone who would care can go jump in a lake,” said Marie. If we were home, out of earshot of the kids, she would have said, “frig themselves.” She has such a nice family censor.
“I thought you were against the idea, hon?”
“I am, John, make no mistake about it, I am against, as in not in favor of this idea. However, anyone who would say anything about it because he’s black can jump, you know.”
“Well, if you ask me, Marie, it doesn’t seem crazy at all,” said Joseph. “ Isn’t it the type of thing you’re always doing?  Go be a nurse, work in a free clinic, go to Africa and  help the sick natives, marry a teacher.”   Joseph always said ‘Marry a teacher’ in a tone of voice and with just enough Acadian accent that he didn’t have to add, “and not a doctor, like you think a nurse would.”
“But Pep, it’s different. We have a small house, barely enough room for the four of us.  And it’s not just food and clothes and all. It would be doctor’s visits, counseling visits, parole visits, visits with the Youth Services Agency, and tons of paperwork. It’s not that I’m against the idea of it, but we’re just not at a place in our lives now where we can do it.”
“Mais, nous somme, Joseph,” said Sylvie.
I was speechless.
“Are you serious, Sylvie?” asked her husband.
“Oui, Joseph. We have room, all the kids are gone. Celine is home so little. You are getting ready to retire and I only work part-time.”
“I don’t know, Sylvie.”
“Yeah, Mum,” I said, “you could do it.  It would be strange. It might not work, a teenager moving in with foster grandparents, but we could help.”
“I don’t know, Sylvie,” said Joseph Cormier to his wife again.
“I don’t know either, Joseph, but we have raised seven children and all of them are fine people.  How much different can it be now than it was for Celine or even Marie. Eat your vegetables, brush your teeth, do your chores, turn down the loud music, go to church, go to CYC, no staying out late, do your homework.”
“Go to your counseling session, visit your parole officer, come with us to the meeting with the social worker,” I added.
Sylvie went on. “It seems God has brought someone in need to our door. We should not shut the door. Let’s at least find out what would be involved.”
“By the way, Mum,” I added, “Korey doesn’t go to church and even if he did, he’s not Catholic.”
“Well, he’ll go to church if he lives in this house,” said Joseph. “And he’ll be Catholic,  too.”
“How do we find out what’s involved to be foster parents, John?” asked Sylvie.
“I don’t know exactly, Mum, but you have to be approved by the state. I’ll call Moira and Debbie Hammer and find out.”

Chapter 24 – Escape from the Faculty Room
The faculty room at St. Somebody is small. It’s hard to tell if it used to be a small classroom or a large storage closet.  What little furniture there was looked like it was bought at a flea market.  Three wooden tables were clustered in the center of the room, each with four chairs, two more than they were designed to accommodate. Half the chairs were metal folding chairs, the other half were wooden folding chairs.
There was a dilapidated sleeper sofa against one wall. It was losing its stuffing and covered in a large blanket, a lame attempt at a slipcover.  Against the wall opposite the sofa there was a PC without Internet access on an old typewriter desk.  A printer sat on the floor.  A broken, dust-caked mimeograph machine and its ancient supplies rested neglected against wall.  Its service had ended with the arrival of the photocopy machine now in the office.  Above the relic was a large sacred heart portrait of Christ. The wall opposite the mimeograph had four doors in it.  The outer two led into the main office so that you could make a loop between the two rooms like an Orthodox deacon going through the icon screen back and forth between the sacred and the profane.  The middle two doors led to a closet and a toilet. The toilet was for women staff only. The men on the faculty could use Dave and Sean’s restroom, located between their offices down the hall.  The supply closet was tiny, yet was, in fact, the school’s classroom supply depot.  In opposite corners sat a mini-fridge (the size I had in my dorm room in college) with a small microwave oven on top of it and a wastebasket that was perpetually full.  There was no sink, no coffee pot, no water cooler, and almost no warmth.  It was an old musty tomb for the deadweight of the profession.
I didn’t spend much time in this room. Half the staff used it as headquarters and the rest of us only entered it to get a roll of tape or a new red pen. Rosie, Greene, Doyle, Frogman, Brother Ernie and some others spent every spare minute they could in this room. They left their classrooms whenever possible – study hall, lunch, prep period – and spent every minute they weren’t required to be in their rooms in that closet. They even had breakfast together most days. They had coffee together after school. Before-school coffee usually came from the Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner, not the pot in the main office.  On the rare days they didn’t beat the kids out of the building to their cars, after school coffee runs were also made to Dunkin’s.
The undisputed king of the faculty room was Dr. Knowles, a Ph.D. in English and in his twentieth year, the elder statesman of the teaching staff.  The kids called him Doctor Rolls because he was incredibly fat. I called him Doctor No, after the British sci-fi television character and the fact that Henry Knowles was the most negative and pessimistic soul I have ever met.  The kids hated Henry Knowles. Mostly because he had them reading eighteenth century British literature and made fun of their “obvious lack of intellect” whenever they could not answer his obscure questions about Alexander Pope or Addison and Steele.
I was in Dr. No’s domain today because I had agreed to have lunch with Brother Ernie to discuss the urban inculturation of our school liturgies and because Annette and I had agreed to help him with the Christmas prayer service, held on the last day of classes before vacation.
Mrs. Frogman had started off the lunch hour with a nice rant about  Jeremiah, James and Antawan. “Why are those boys still here? They misbehave in class, they barely pass their courses and now they are making enemies of our neighbors in South Hancock by breaking car windows and threatening members of the community with violence.”
“And don’t forget their clothes,” said Rosie. “They dress like gangsters with their hair in those cornrows and that Jeremiah is the worst offender when it comes to wearing our Lord’s cross as jewelry. Have you seen the size of the thing he wears around his neck? It’s like a chain collar for a bear.”
“And esteemed colleagues, I gave a quiz on homonyms and not one student passed.  Jeremiah did not answer one item correctly. As an example for the set of two, too and to he wrote, ‘I went t-o-o McDonald’s and asked the lady for t-o Big Macs, and I asked for them t-w-o go.’   Can you believe it?   When he received his grade, he frowned in disbelieve and at the end of class he approached me and said, ‘I want to axe you about my grade.’  Why is it that they pronounce the word ask if it were the word for hatchet?”
“Isn’t that a scream?” said Bernice Frogman. “He should get ready to work at McDonald’s, the hulking ignoramus.”  Frogman was laughing so hard she could hardly keep her tuna salad in her mouth.
“And what about that Korey Constant? A murderer.  I just knew it. He’s so vile. Good riddance to bad rubbish.  I suppose we’re lucky he didn’t kill one of us.”
Ah, gossip and bigotry, those deadly sins.
“Excuse me Henry, Bernice, those guys behave perfectly well in my class, none of them is worse than a C student, although they have their share of poor grades, and most importantly, they were victims of racial profiling and were guilty of nothing but walking to school.”
“And as for you, Rosie,” I was on a roll. “You, who gave me a lecture about criticizing the faculty in front of the kids, should stop slandering the kids in front of other teachers.   And Korey is not guilty. He’s in custody, but will probably be released soon, after his hearing. All of you should give up on the gossip and bigotry.”  I mimicked Rosie’s voice as I finished, “It is simply un-Christian.”  Emphasis on the un, just as she would have said it.  They fumed.
“Come on, Christopher,” said Knowles.  “We know you think you’re cool. The student advocate, the kids’ best buddy,  but our job is not to be friends with these kids. Surely you realize we are dealing with the next generation of criminals on the streets of Boston here.”
“What I realize, Henry, is that too many people on this staff have attitudes about our students based on stereotypes of young urban minority groups,” I said.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, my friend.”
“I’m not your friend, Henry. And don’t be so unoriginal.”
Dr. No huffed and took another gargantuan bite of his Italian grinder, oil and mayo dripped down his waterfall of chins.  Ernie and I continued planning the music for Christmas.  As a first step toward inculturation, he was up to letting Annette and I play guitars and do some different arrangements of Christmas songs.  Sal Donato, the physical science teacher and Knowles’s henchman, had sat down and begun talking about the day’s laundry list.  These two frequently spent any time they were together going over the list of the day’s offenses, enumerating for each other the student crimes they had witnessed that day. Some of these crimes were rule violations and others were just violations of a student code that existed only in their tight, twisted, little world.
“The little whore called me a pervert, Henry,” said Donato.
“She called you a pervert? That little hussy has some nerve. Someone should give her a spanking and slap across the face.  If she had a mother worth speaking of, maybe she wouldn’t be such a brat, but her mom was just as bad, remember?” said Henry.
“Indeed, I miss the days of corporal punishment in the classroom sometimes,” said Donato.
“Did you see her today, Sal?” asked Knowles, “She should be sent home for wearing that skirt and top. You can see almost see up the young thing’s crotch for God’s sake, and that frilly low-cut blouse leaves nothing to the imagination.
They were onto Yahira now.  In a sense they were right. Yahira went a bit far at times with the fashion choices, but the way they were talking, you could almost feel the leer.  They probably both stared at her tits every chance they got.  And I got questioned for sexual harassment.
“I hate the little bitch,” said Sal. “She flaunts herself around here and has the gall to go on about her women’s lib crap and Latina power and such nonsense.”
“It’s all right Sal, she’ll get what she deserves. She’ll be picking up business on the street by the time she’s 20, probably get the AIDS and die and rid us of her filthy presence.”
Annette told me these guys were like this, but I had only heard snide side comments from them here and there on the way in or out of meetings.  They were even worse than Annette said, and she set them up to be pretty bad.
“And guess who she was dancing with in the hall today?”
“Who was that, Sal?”
“It was that boy called Skinny and William McIntosh, that tall senior from  Southie.”
“I saw that,” said Rosie. “It was disgusting. They were grinding into each other at the crotch. It was horrible. They were simulating intercourse. It was an offense to any decent person’s sensibility.”
“We should kick that little tease out of here, along with her Latina buddies.” The way he said Latina, he should have just come out and said spic. It was what he was thinking.
“You’ll excuse me,” I said, stacking my yogurt, my sandwich, and my bowl of kale soup. “I’ve got to go, Ernie. I’m gonna end up misbehaving if I stay and eat here.”
“Where are you going, Christopher?” bellowed Knowles.
“I’m going down to the cafeteria to eat lunch with Yahira and Jeremiah and Skinny.”
They laughed. Assholes.  I stopped on the way out, turned and asked them all the burning question.
“If you all hate these kids so much, why on earth are you teachers?  Do something else with your lives, you’re, that’s y-o-u-’-r-e miserable, you know that?”
“Oh, come on John, you’re just upset that we’re picking on your girlfriend Yahira,” said Knowles.
“Fuck you, Henry.”
I went down to the cafe. Annette, Ms. Quinn, and I had a nice lunch with Jeremiah, Yahira, Carmen, Dolores, Raul, and Theo.

Chapter 25- Do Not Pass Go
“Oh that is so GRIMY!” Skinny hollered.  He had won the first game of Monopoly, which had taken four days to play.  I split the class into three groups of six. Skinny had dominated his group.  By game’s end on the fourth day of play, he was calling himself Ghetto Lord and wearing serious pimpin’ attire just for the occasion. His crib was on the Boardwalk and he owned everything. Anna was the last one left playing with him, holding onto undeveloped Oriental Avenue until the last. Then she visited Skinny’s crib and didn’t have the benjamins for the rent.
It was a different story for the second game. Because he won his group, Skinny’s envelope for the second game contained an instruction card that read, “Player six is the shoe. Player six has no money, no property, begins the game on “Go”, and goes last.”  The injustice of it all was met by cries of  “No fair,” and “This is impossible, I’ll lose right away,” and, of course, Skinny’s declaration that the whole set up was, indeed, grimy.  But that was the point.  We like to pretend we live in a world and in a culture where everyone and anyone can rise to the top by hard work and prudent spending. The American dream is available to anyone who can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. But it’s not like that really, is it?  Where and when you are born into the world influences what you can make of your life. For much of the world’s population, this situation is, well, grimy.
Hang had been the first player out of game one in Skinny’s group, but she began the second game with Boardwalk and Park Place, all the green and yellow and orange and light blue properties, all the railroads and both utilities. She had both “Get Out of Jail Free” cards, triple the usual starting money, and got to begin the game with her top hat playing piece on Boardwalk. Going first, her initial roll would take her past Go for another couple of benjamins. Life is not fair.
Small consolation that Jesus would have spent his time with the shoes of the world and not the top hats. God is a god of the poor, right, good liberationists? God is on the side of the weak, the poor, and the oppressed against the strong, the wealthy, and the powerful oppressors, right?  Didn’t seem like it to Skinny today. I wasn’t feeling very convinced either.
Moira Kelly asked the court to expedite the approval process for Joseph and Sylvie to become Korey Constant’s foster parents, and we were all waiting on its decision. I had been to visit Korey at the Suffolk County Correction Center for Juveniles, where he was doing his time and waiting on his status. I told him I’d visit his mom, too, but my teaching/commuting/parenting schedule hadn’t yet allowed me the chance. Korey’s holding facility was a ten-minute ride out of my way on the way home from St. Somebody. He had looked especially down yesterday. He had been getting into some minor trouble in lock-up.  He’d had a lights out violation, had been caught smoking, and gotten into a scuffle with a white kid from Southie.  He was a smart kid not using his smarts. Dealt a bad hand, but if you know the street or worked with its children, you’ve seen and heard of worse.  Life can be grimy.
The court liked the idea of being able to place him away from the city, but was concerned about the tangle of paperwork in moving him out of one jurisdiction and into another.
“So they don’t want you going out of town, huh?”
“Yeah, but my moms is in jail you know. Where the hell am I gonna go, Mr. C?”
“Dunno, kiddo, but Ms. Kelly is working on it, right?”
“Yeah, but, you know, she says the court is afraid if they let me be placed out in the suburbs, I’ll skip parole meetings and take off.  My dad has already started some shit and says he wants custody, but the court told him to get serious. I don’t know, man, maybe I’m just better off here.”
“Excuse my language, but are you fucking crazy?  You want to stay in this jail instead of being in a nice home away from the city, with some incredibly nice people who will do anything for you? If you do want this place here instead of that you’re nuts. You don’t need lock-up, you need the nut house.”
“But Mr. C, living with a couple of old white folks in an old white town, that’s gonna be real fun.” He said this in the voice you use when you mean it will not be any fun at all.
“No, being a teacher and all, I probably shouldn’t say this in this way, but I will. And if you ever tell anybody I said this to you in this way I will deny it to my death and I guarantee anyone concerned takes my word over yours, the system being age-biased, and racist and all.”
“Uh-huh, so what’s you got, Mr. C?”
“Stop fucking up, Korey. You’re not a criminal and don’t want to be, so stop pretending you have to be.  Get your goddamn ass in gear before it’s too late and you convince me and Moira Kelly and the Cormiers that you’re not worth the effort. You’re smart, for God’s sake, you read books like they’re going out of style, but for some reason you think you need to hide that from folks.  You wrote the best ancient Greek letter I’ve ever had on that assignment.  Shit, you’re the only one who understood it.  Think about it, a bunch of suburban white folks are ready to be the best friends you’ve ever had. Don’t look at me like that. Your friends are worth crap.  The Rayzas may have saved your ass from one beating in grade school, but now you’re just as afraid of them as you are of anything or anyone else. They don’t give a shit about you. You’re replaceable. To me and Ms. Kelly and my wife’s parents you’re a child of God.  Don’t be a stupid prick, Korey.  Let us help.”
“I know, man, I know, you’re probably right.”
“Check. I am right.”
“OK, you’re right.”
“I know. Now would you start behaving like someone who wants to get out of here instead of confirming for everyone that you are someone who belongs locked up?”
“OK, Mr. C, OK.”  He was resigned more than convinced.
“Just hang in there and don’t fuck up until we find out what’s gonna happen.”
“OK, Mr. C. You win.”
“No, you win, Korey. Me, I lose, I’m stuck hearing it from my in-laws every time you fuck up.”  Finally, a smile.
“See ya Thursday, kiddo.”
“Peace out, Mr. C.”
“Peace.”
“Oh, and Mr. C?”
“Yeah, Korey?”
“I’m telling your wife you say fuck all the time.” He smiled.
“She’ll never believe you,” I lied.

Back in the Monopoly game, Skinny was in jail now, too. James had gotten sick of him trying to steal money from the bank and had tied him to a chair with his socks.
“Untie him.”
“But, Mr. C, he’s stealing from the bank. He’s in jail.”
“Well, what do you expect from someone with nothing in his pockets and no prospects of getting anything anytime soon?”
“I expect for him to go the South Hancock House with the other bums and street people.”
“Untie him now.”
“All right, jus’ wait a minute.”

I had lunch with Annette. She gave me the update from Moira.
“Sunshine, we are making progress.”
“Progress is not moving fast enough for me. I need instant gratification.”
“Ah, but Johnny, you are such a cliché – the impatient American male.  It’s good news, Johnny. Moira says that she contacted the Massachusetts Foster Parents Association and they will help push Korey’s request to be placed with the Cormiers and to have the process expedited.  There is some concern over your in-laws not being American citizens, but Moira’s working on calming those fears.  She has completed the application for a family home license for the Cormiers and gotten permission from them for a criminal records inquiry.  A licensure officer is going out from the Mass Youth Services Agency tomorrow to investigate the family stability and inspect the home.   We may be talking a matter of weeks before we get an answer, but it’s better than the usual waiting period, which is months. The best news of all is that due to the special circumstances, MYSA is allowing your in-laws to take the training course over the next two weeks, while the other stuff is in process. That is a major exception they are making for us. Be patient, Sunshine. It will be OK.”
“How do you know?”
“My God and my lover tell me so, Sunshine.  My God and my lover tell me so.”
I still felt like the whole process was stuck in Free Parking. No, still in jail, waiting to roll doubles.

Chapter 26- Through the Looking Glass
Brother Ernie and, to my surprise, Sean and Eunice, had agreed to let Annette and I run the choir for the liturgy before Christmas break.  Annette insisted on the Merry Christmas greeting in all the languages of St. Somebody.  We stopped the patrol of the nave, for the most part, by inviting Sean and Frogman to do readings.  We had the choir rocking with guitars and tambourines to “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and I was up for the sermon, uh homily, uh reflection – whatever the liturgy police need it to be called in order to pass under their radar.  Brother Ernie wouldn’t hear of it, too afraid of the same liturgy police.  “We’ll have to have Monsignor read the Gospel and preach.  We just can’t break the rules whenever we want to. We could get into serious trouble.”  I told him I didn’t care and hadn’t he missed the part about Jesus breaking religious rules that made no sense? But it made no difference.  I was out and Monsignor Pharisee was in, but it was the best liturgy of the year so far and I really shouldn’t complain.
Since I couldn’t preach in the church, I preached in my classroom. I did my own service in the classroom the day before the Christmas liturgy.  I used the music we were going to do the next day, and with the help of the one or two students in each class who were also in the choir, it helped to get everyone used to what they would hear even if they didn’t get into the singing.  I also used my sermon idea.
There’s an old Russian folk tale in an Andrew Greeley Christmas novel about how on special Christmas Eves the Holy Family returns to earth.  I told it with special effects.
Sitting everyone in a circle around my prayer table, centered in the room, I told them my version.
“There’s an old Russian folk tale that says on Christmas Eves that are clear and cold and bright the Holy Family comes back to earth.  Just like the first Christmas, they look for a deserted cave and wait for the miraculous birth. The shepherds come back with them and so do the twelve wise men.”
“Ah, Mista, there’s only three wise men.”
“No Dolores, in Russia, because they are Eastern Orthodox Christians, their tradition is of twelve.”
“Like the twelve days of Christmas?” asked Dolores
“More like the twelve tribes of Israel,” said Yahira.
“Exactly. Anyway, the wise men bring with them their whole crowd – their camels, their families, their servants and their guards – everything.  They also bring their gifts to give to the baby.”
“Gold, frankincense, and myrrh,” said Dolores.
“Yes Do, and nine other ones as well I suppose.  Then they all sit around Mary and Joseph and the baby and wait.”
“What are they waiting for, Mista?” asked Carmen.
“They are waiting for people of faith to find them.”
“What happens when someone finds them?” asked Janet.
“Well, first of all, in order to find them a person has to be searching for them, seeking out how Christ can be in their life.  And when a person does find them, Mary beckons them to come look at the Christ child.”
“What is ‘beckons’, please, Mister?” asked Vo.
“Beckons means she does this.” I pointed a finger at Vo and deliberately curled it back toward myself whispering, “Come here.”  I walked to the prayer table and picked up a medium-sized wall mirror I had put there, face down, before class began.
“And when a person of faith looks on the Christ child, they discover a miracle.  When they look down at the baby, they see the baby’s face is their own face.” And I turned the mirror around and walked around the circle, pausing in front of each student so that each one could look in the mirror.
“You see, Jesus isn’t God’s only beloved child, so are you. You are God’s beloved child.  Don’t ever forget that. Don’t ever let anyone make you think or believe it isn’t so. Christ lives in you and you in him.”  I finished this line as I got to Yahira. She bent over at the waist, crying.  When the hand of God touches a heart, her finger flips the switch that releases the tears.
Yahira was still crying by the time I finished going around the circle. She sobbed as I passed out my presents.  I’m an opinionated loud mouth, but I’m also a Christmas sap.  Candy canes, butterfly hair clips, basketball cards, McDonald’s gift certificates, something for everybody.  As well as a certificate for five points that could be turned in with any assignment.
Yahira was still crying when las amigas cuatros gave me a Christmas card and a tiny drug store stocking filled with Hershey’s kisses, “For your kids, Mista.”
“Thanks.  Are you OK, Yahira?”  Now that’s a stupid question, of course she’s not OK. She’s been crying for fifteen minutes.  She was nodding, but I’m wasn’t letting her go this time.
“Let me rephrase that, Señorita. What’s wrong?”
“Nada… toda.”  She ran out of the room.  Dolores, Carmen, and Ana looked at me. I nodded and they ran after her.
I took out my cell phone and called Dave’s office to tell him the amigas were after Yahira in the halls and she was pretty upset.  I asked him to call for me when he found them.
“When I find them?”
“Yeah Dave, the girl’s a mess and her friends are upset and the last thing they need right now is Sean or Eunice.”
“Who’s the headmaster around here?”
“You are, captain. Just trying to make you look good again.”
“All right, look, I’ll take a stroll, see what I turn up.”
“Thanks.”   More wasted minutes on the calling plan. What kind of school doesn’t have phones or an intercom system? Mine. I looked out the window. It was snowing. White-out conditions, you couldn’t see across the street. It was going to be one hell of a drive home.  Can we just end school now? Start vacation early? I guess not.

I got to Dave’s office the period after Yahira left.  Las amigas found her in a stall in the basement girls’ room, wailing about how much she hated herself. She screamed at her friends not to touch her and leave her alone. Terrified, Carmen had left to get me, but found Dave outside in the basement hallway.  Dave had called in Lourdes Solomon, the visiting therapist from Catholic Charitable who had been seeing Yahira the last few weeks.  Lourdes wasn’t in because of the looming vacation. The Catholic Charitable Foundation Counselors held their last appointments the week before the school broke for Christmas and the end of the year.
Vo stopped me in the hallway on my way to see Dave. She gave me a card.  I didn’t really want to stop right then, but I opened it. It was a birthday card.
“Thanks, Vo.” I smiled at her.  “It’s not my birthday, though.”
“Jesus’ birthday, Mister,” she smiled back at me.
“Right, kiddo,” I said and hugged her. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
When I got to Dave’s office, Yahira was curled up in a chair, her knees up and her arms around her legs.  Lourdes was sitting on Dave’s desk, her booted feet dangling and dripping melted snow onto the floor.  Dave was in his own waiting room.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Don’t know, John. Mrs. Solomon just got here about five minutes ago.  Yahira’s been sitting in that chair since Mrs. White and I brought her up from the basement. Well, I take that back, she did get up once. When I tried to talk to her, she got up, snatched the tape dispenser off the corner of my desk, and threw it at my head. I’ve been waiting here, out of range, for Mrs. Solomon.  Look, we’ve been waiting to find out what’s going on with Yahira for a while now. I’ll bet this is where we start to get some answers.”
“Indeed.”
“Look, John, neither of us can do much right this minute, so I’m going to Eunice’s office to get some things done while we wait for Mrs. Solomon to finish with Yahira. You should not waste your lunch time here.  When they’re done in there I’ll call Yahira’s mom.  I’ll let you know what happens.
“Right, boss.”  I hate waiting. I hate it like a kid hates waiting through Christmas Eve for Santa to come with the loot.

A runner came up to my room during the last period of the day with a note from Dave. “See me on your way out,” it read, “URGENT!” I have established that I hate waiting, right?  Now I was in a double wait situation. Had to wait to find out something from Dave, probably about Yahira, probably bad, and in order to find this out I was going to have to delay starting out on my drive home, which was shitty because there was a good six inches of snow on the ground and no sign of it letting up anytime soon.
I didn’t even knock, I just burst through his waiting room and into his office.
“So what’s urgent?”
“Look, John, when Omayra Pabon came to pick up Yahira, she said that she was filing charges against you for molesting the girl.”
“Fucking Christ.”
“Nice language, Mr. Religion Teacher.”
“Sorry.”
“Right. Anyway, look, Yahira talked to Mrs. Solomon for almost three hours and from what she tells me she heard from Yahira, the charges, if they are brought will be thrown out.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because the girl is being molested, possibly raped, but not by you.”
“Thanks, Dave, but I know that. Is it her mom’s boyfriend?”
“Lourdes wouldn’t say, but she called Youth Services and they sent a social worker over. The social worker went home with Yahira and her mom.  They are investigating. Lourdes called in a Catholic Charitable Foundation lawyer from their legal aid office. I’ll call you at home if there’s any news by tonight.”
The drive home was a miserable exercise in patience, which is not one of my better virtues, and the evening at home was awful. I tried my best to let my music cheer me up, but I couldn’t even get into my Christmas mix.  John and Yoko singing “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” and  Band-Aid belting out Bob Geldof’s hymn “Do They Know It’s Christmas” just made things worse.  I thought about how war never seems to end, neither the interior wars, not the wars of the world.  I thought about how so many people don’t know (or feel like) it’s Christmas. People like Yahira Jiminez and Royale and countless others.
Marie and I had promised Rafael and Gabriella a trip to the mall to see Santa, but the roads were too bad.  I had three near misses on the drive home and there was no way I was going out again.  Marie was trying to tell me about Christmas plans with her family and how the kids wanted to revise their Christmas lists about a dozen times and I had no tolerance for any of it. All I wanted to do was tell her about Yahira and how depressed I was during my drive, but she didn’t seem to want to hear it, so I let it go and tried to put on my best holiday face, but it felt forced. I spent the entire evening preoccupied and anxious, waiting for Dave to call with news.
About eight o’clock he called with the announcement that, as Lourdes Solomon had hoped, Omayra Pabon, faced with her daughter’s story, was not going to press charges against me.  The ordeal had ended with Lourdes, Daniel Sullivan, the Catholic Charitable Foundation Lawyer, a public defendant, a Youth Services social worker, Omayra and Roberto at the police station.  Yahira was claiming Roberto’s brother, Father Neron Martinez, has been raping her and molesting her over the last year or so.  Roberto went bonkers, slapped the poor girl and punched her mother smack in the face before the police had him under control.  Omayra, in tears, admitted that Roberto has been hitting her.  Charges were filed against both Roberto and his brother.
I hung up the phone and returned to Gabby’s room to finish putting her to bed.  She was at her little desk scribbling yet another edition of her wish list for Santa.
“What do you want for Christmas, Daddy?”
“I want you to always be safe and surrounded by love, baby girl, just want you to be safe.  Come on, let’s get you into bed.”
I tucked her in and read her some Christmas stories.  After turning out the light, I stared at her a long time from the doorway.  How does anyone hurt children?  Where are you, God, in all of this mess?
“Everything OK, John?” Marie called up the stairs.
“Not really.”
“I made eggnog latte. Come on down,” she said. She was listening to Amy Grant, her favorite Christmas music.
No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list
This is my only life-long wish
This is my grown-up Christmas list

I looked back one last time into Gabby’s room. She was already asleep. Through the open door across the hall I could see the small mirror on Rafael’s wall under a cross we brought back from Zimbabwe.  In the mirror, Rafael was also in the land of dreams. Will they both always be this safe? What did I want for Christmas?  No more lives torn apart.

Chapter 27 – Unto Us a Son Is Given
Christmas was on a Tuesday. Which was great because the last day of classes was on a Friday, leaving us three full days before Cormier Christmas chaos.  Having been thwarted in our Friday night attempt to get to the mall and see Santa, we spent the Saturday before Christmas in that pursuit.  We went to Extravaganza in Worcester, the biggest retail mall in New England, about a half-hour from Bethelle.
The wait for Santa was long. Parents and grandparents minded children exhibiting a variety of behaviors between charming and obnoxious, hyperactive and bored, enchanted and snotty.  Marie played a game with the kids trying to guess what was in everybody’s shopping bags.  When Rafael guessed a dog was the gift in a woman’s jewelry box, we all laughed.  After a visit with Santa and an obligatory adorable photo, we finished our shopping and headed for Monument to drop off the bulk of the presents because that was where they would be opened.
When we arrived at Joseph and Sylvie Cormier’s, Korey Constant was sitting with Debbie Hammer and Moira Kelly at the kitchen table having tea with my in-laws.
“Surprise, surprise,” said Sylvie.
“What up, Mr. C?” asked Korey.
“I… I…I,”
“Check it. Mr. C is speechless.”
“You are approved already?” asked Marie.
“No, we are granted temporary foster custody while the application is finalized,” said Joseph.
I wrestled the cat for my tongue and got it back. “Well, Amen.”
“I don’t know if this is going to work though,” said Joseph. “This young man says he is not a Canadiens fan. Not only that, he doesn’t like hockey. I’ve already told him there will be no basketball watching on my TV.  This is a hockey house.”
Korey caught my eye. I smiled. You can’t tell from Joseph’s tone of voice whether he is kidding. It took me a few years to get used to it.
“Ah, the old man will let you watch ball, Korey, as long as the Canadiens aren’t on.”
“How come his skin is brown?” asked Gabriella. “Is he from Zimbabwe?”
“How come your skin is pink, little girl?” asked Korey.
“Dunno,” said Gabby. “Just the way it is.”
“Well my skin is just the way it is, too.”
“You wanna go sleddin’ with us?” asked Rafe.
Korey shook his head, “No, I don’t think so.”
“We’re going to Lancaster Hill. They let you sled there,” said Gabriella.
“Come on, Korey, come with us,” I said.
“Yes, come with us,” urged Marie.
“Go on, Korey, you’ll like it,” Debbie Hammer encouraged.
“I don’t know,” Korey mumbled, shaking his head.
“Ever been sledding, Korey?” asked Moira.
“No, but that’s not it.”
“I know. He’s never been seen with white people before.”
“Cut that shit out, Mr. C.”
“Watch your tongue in this house.” Joseph was up like a shot, pointing a finger at his chest. “I built this house with my own hands. This is my house and it is a Catholic house. You will not talk like that. You listen to me. You say that again and I hear it, you are going back to jail or wherever they had you locked up.”
“Easy man, sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry with me, just keep your mouth clean.”
Marie leaned over to me. “Pep hasn’t lost a bit of dad wrath since I was that age. You’d think he’d maybe be a bit out of practice, but not Pep.”
“OK, OK, I won’t do it again. Let’s go sledding.” Korey spoke as if his decision was between sledding or execution and neither was an appealing option.
“Did I say you could go sledding?” asked  Joseph.
“Huh?”
“You will ask permission to leave this house, every time you want to go somewhere, just like our own kids did.”
“You serious, old man?”
“I am not old. I am fifty-nine. But I am serious. I am the father of this house. You want to go out, you ask Missus or myself first. Understand?”
Korey probably hadn’t asked permission from anyone to do anything in so long he must have felt like he was on another planet. Eyes wide open with incredulity, he asked, “Can I go sleddin?”
“Yes. What time you bringing him back, Marie?”
“When the little ones get tired. Probably about an hour or so.”

Korey just watched us sled for the first half hour or so, in spite of repeated invitations from Marie and myself and the kids.  I finally pushed a plastic toboggan into his hands. “Go down the hill, chicken shit.”
He sat on the sled with his feet out in front of him. Halfway down he fell out.
“Rookie!” I called after him as the kids and I went speeding by in the large wooden toboggan, borrowed from the Cormiers’ shed.
Three more tries sitting up were no good and finally I had to show him the break- your-collarbone-on-the-stone-wall-at-the-bottom-of-the-hill-head-first method. “Race ya, punk.”  We lined up. I showed him how to push off with his hands.
“Korey?”
“Mister C?”
“If you make it all the way down the hill, roll out before you hit the stone wall.”
I pushed off and was gone. He followed me. The snow was slick and icy from lots of traffic and cold temperatures.  There’s a slight rise at the bottom of the hill approaching the stone wall that marked off Nashoba Brook.  About fifty feet before the wall I still had a good head of steam so I rolled off to the left. My plastic death machine went up and over the wall and across the frozen brook. Korey was behind me. He rolled off just as he passed me and his sled slammed into the wall and stuck under an outcropping stone.  Korey was sopping wet, covered in snow, no hat, no gloves and soaked through Air Jordans.  He sat up and stared at me.
“I know. Sledding is corny.”
He smiled and nodded.
“But fun,” I added.
“But crazy,” he corrected.

Back at the Cormiers’, the kids and Korey made snow angels on the lawn before stripping off their snowsuits and sitting down to hot chocolate.  Korey didn’t have a dry set of clothes. This was supposed to be an interview day, so he could meet the Cormiers in their home and see the place, just to make sure he wanted to come out. The plan was for him to come out Christmas Eve morning.  Sylvie gave him some of Joseph’s things to wear.  He lasted five minutes at the table in Joseph’s work clothes before he stormed off down the hallway.  It probably didn’t help that we were all stifling our laughter. Korey Constant didn’t look right in Dickies work pants and a plaid shirt.  I can’t blame him for walking away.  He wasn’t gone long. It hadn’t occurred to him that he didn’t know where his room was. He sulked back.
“Where is my room?”
“You’re staying on the sofa until we decide if we want to keep you.”
“Arrêt-ce toi,” Sylvie scoffed at her husband. “N’est pas drôle.”
“Follow me,” she said to Korey, “the bedrooms are upstairs. You can pick which one you want. We had all girls, except for Ives, so I suppose you won’t like the décor. You can change the wallpaper and curtains if you want.”
Sylvie came back down the stairs and put on her coat. She checked the wallet in her purse for cash (the Cormiers did not use credit cards or debit cards).  She told us she was off to buy Korey some clothes.
“Mum, do you know what you’re getting?”
“Yes, John, he gave me his sizes.”
I pulled her over to the side of the room and wrote down some brand names.  I explained that they wouldn’t have these at Richards, the men’s shop in the neighborhood (and the last retail clothiers in Monument outside the mall), and that she would have to go to Monument Mall.
Korey stayed up in Marie’s old room while Sylvie was gone, listening to his Discman. Debbie Hammer and Moira Kelly explained to us that MYSA had agreed that the Cormiers’ application was spotless and Moira had gotten a judge to agree to release Korey to the Cormiers’ custody and begin the probationary period of foster care over the holidays, since the paperwork wouldn’t be finished until after the new year. The Cormiers were going to surprise everyone Christmas Eve, but in all the commotion, had forgotten we were stopping by.
Sylvie returned from Monument Mall with black Levi’s, a Fubu T-shirt and a Phat Pharm sweat top. She took the bag upstairs to Korey. When he came down, he looked like he’d been crying. His eyes looked rubbed raw and the stress was visible on his face. He asked Debbie Hammer,  “Can I just stay here now? Do I have to wait until Monday?”
“I don’t know. Let me make a phone call.”
The Cormiers of Monument might not have been exactly what Korey Constant had wanted for Christmas, but they would do.

III – CHRISTMAS
The Christmas season marches us through the deep connections to family. It is a short season, but celebrates three significant feasts on its Sundays. The first Sunday following Christmas is the feast of the Holy Family. This remembrance reinforces for us the idea that God is love because the spirit and love of family is something we all need to become fully human. A family is any group of people who love each other and care for each other.  We all need love.  The second Sunday after Christmas is the feast of the Epiphany, celebrating the visit of the Magi to the Christ child. Visitors always come to welcome the newest member of a family. Ask any new parents. They’ll tell you.  The baptism of Jesus is remembered on the third Sunday after Christmas. Baptism is the ritual of welcoming and initiation into the family of the people of God. Gold and white are the liturgical colors of Christmas. Precious and pure, the colors are bright and illuminating.
Christmas and Easter are intimately connected to each other.  The promise of new life represented in the baby born in a manger and the new life of hope and possibility promised by the resurrection are really the same message in different shades and tones.  The baby in the manger is a reminder that each new person is a miracle and a gift to be welcomed and cherished as a child of God. Each child of God is the hope of the world. Who will the new life save?  And by whom be saved?
Although the nativity scenes are heartwarming and full of comfort, the mystic announcement of Christ’s entry in John is more powerful.  A light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.  Better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.  Through the darkness there must come out a light.  All I ever had was redemption songs. Christmas is the beginning of the redemption song, the tune of hope, which will reach its thundering crescendo at Easter.

Chapter 28 – White Christmas
It was snowing when we set out Christmas Eve. Our first stop was a carol-sing on the town common in Bethelle, and from there we were off to spend the next two days in Monument with Marie’s parents.  Since we were the only ones from out of town, we stayed with Joseph and Sylvie.  The Cormier tradition was for a large family dinner on Christmas Eve, followed by the opening of one present and then a nap. The entire clan then packed off to midnight Mass, still done in French and English, at St. Anne de Baupre in the Frenchtown neighborhood.  Everyone slept in Christmas morning and then had a big mid-morning brunch at Joseph and Sylvie’s, then exchanged presents.  This routine was interrupted for us by having to get up at the crack of dawn to open some gifts with Rafael and Gabriella.  Gabriella was amazed that Santa knew to leave her presents at Memere and Pepere’s house.
I loved Christmas with Marie’s family. It was a spiritual and secular family celebration that seemed to spring to life straight out of classic carols and holiday songs.  Since I met Marie, I lived the Christmas season in a world full of light snow, jingle bells, Currier and Ives prints, coffee and pumpkin pie, and winter wonderlands. Oh, come all ye faithful to Mon – on – u – ment. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to it for a guy who never had that type of Christmas growing up.
Christmas with the Christophers of my childhood consisted of my dad getting drunk Christmas Eve and singing carols at the top of his lungs as some drinking buddy brought him home to our third-floor apartment in New Bedford. We spent Christmas Day going to Mass and then to my mom’s brother’s house, where my dad would catch up with us when his hangover lightened up.  By mid-afternoon dad had talked tío Manuel into going to find a sports bar and watch a game.  When I thanked him for my present, he always said, “Yeah, that’s nice,” and I always searched his voice for any trace of a tone that signaled that he knew what mom had gotten for me. I don’t once remember finding that tone in his voice or that look in his eyes. His gift was as much a surprise to him as it was to me.  Now I invited Mom to come to Monument, but she declined.  She helped out at her parish both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning because they were always in need of lectors or Eucharistic ministers. Then she went to Manny’s house. I called her from Joseph and Sylvie’s around dinnertime.  We usually took the kids down to see her the day after Christmas and spent the afternoon exchanging gifts and eating kale soup and sweet bread.
When we arrived at the Cormiers’, Grinchiness was in evidence. Joseph had overheard Korey singing along to the CD playing in his Discman, and had caught the words bitch, whore, faggot, shit, and muthafucka. Joseph promptly confiscated Korey’s CDs and his Discman and sent him to his room. Korey was fuming upstairs while Marie’s sisters and their husbands were dissin’ all the cop-killing rappers they couldn’t name or understand. I went up to check on Korey.
“Mr. C, this ain’t gonna be cool, no music. I’m gonna go crazy.”
“Rather be back in lock-up?”
“No.”
“Well then, chill and deal. Joseph Cormier is old-fashioned, not even old school, just old and not in touch with your world. This doesn’t make him a bad guy, though. Look at it from his perspective. He agrees to take a young black kid from Boston into his home – a kid with whom he shares almost nothing -  not a generation, not a culture, not a language, not a set of experiences. He takes this kid in, mostly because his wife thinks it a very holy and nice thing to do, and the kid swears worse than the truck drivers he works with and goes around with headphones on mumbling songs about killing people and bitches and whores and muthafuckers. He’s just as nervous about you being here as you are.”
“I ain’t nervous about shit, Mr. C.”
“Right, and I’m Santa Claus.”
“Well, is he going to keep sending me to my room, like I’m a little kid?”
“You are a little kid, man. To him, you are a little kid. He raised seven children on a truck driver’s salary. Five of them are married, one works in town, one is in college. Half of them have kids of their own and all of them are employed and/or making their own way nicely through life. None of them has ever been arrested or involved in a gang or anything. The way he sees it, he’s done his job as a father and done it well, and frankly, I can’t disagree with him. Can you?”
“No, but damn, everything’s so fucked up. I’m just pissed off all the time. I just want to break down the walls whenever I’m inside and whenever I go outside I feel like I just want to run until my legs give out.”
“I know, kiddo, I know.”
“No you don’t know.”
“You’re right, Korey. I don’t know, exactly.  I’m a white guy who lives in the suburbs teaching a bunch of urban students who are black, Asian, and Latino. I don’t know what it’s like to be my students, to face the world you all face.  I’m amazed my students even listen to me.  But I grew up in a city, New Bedford, and I’ve been to Africa and Europe and Canada. And I’m human and my dad was a drunk and my life’s had its share of fucked-up, uh, messed up.  So I kinda know in general.”
I agreed to take the kids, ours and Pam’s, to the family Mass at four o’clock.  Korey didn’t want to go to church, but Sylvie insisted. I talked him into going with me to the early Mass. I pitched it to him as helping me baby-sit the kids, but he was still sour about having to go at all.  St. Anne’s is eight blocks away, and since the parking is terrible, we decided to walk.  I took Pam’s kids each by the hand and Korey took Rafe and Gabby.
We sat as close to the front of the church as we could.  This put us about three quarters of the way back on the tabernacle side.   Some idiot of an old Frenchtown man in the pew behind us mumbled, “What is he doing here?” to his wife as Korey and I sat down with the kids.  Korey heard him and turned around. His eyes told me he was about to go off on the guy, but then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  As he helped Gabby take off her mittens, he turned to face the guy and said, “What? There’s no room at the inn here, man?”   The old French man looked away.
The sanctuary was overcrowded with children dressed up as shepherds and a beaming young girl in a blue robe holding a baby doll.  Three women, probably the mothers of some of the shepherds, were playing acoustic guitars and tambourines. They sang “Peace Child” as the young Mary put the baby doll in the manger and a hand bell choir of parish youngsters rang out notes of hope.

In the sleep of the night, in the dark before light
You come in the silence of stars, in the violence of wars,
Savior, your name…
To the road and the storm, to the gun and the bomb,
You come through the hate and the hurt,
Through the hunger and dirt,
Bearing a dream…
To our dark and our sleep, to the conflict we reap,
Now come be your dream born alive,
Held in hope, wrapped in love:
God’s true Shalom…

Communion took forever.  We shuffled forward inches at a time, Korey and I holding the kids’ hands, doing our best not to stumble over and get tangled up with other parents holding other children’s hands.  We made our way, as if on our knees like pilgrims to the shrine, to the front of the church.  Was the city of David crowded like this? I wondered to myself. The part of my brain that went to graduate school reminded me that we don’t know where Jesus was born. My heart told it to shut up because it didn’t care. It wasn’t important.   So many people around the world in communion that the hope of new life will save us all.
We had walked halfway back to the Cormiers’ through the streets of Frenchtown when Gabriella, Rafael and their cousins announced they were too tired to walk any more. I hoisted Pam’s kids and Korey lifted Gabriella and Rafael.  As we walked through the neighborhood we had fewer and fewer companions on the journey home as people arrived at their own houses and went in.  With two or three blocks left to go, Korey began singing “Silent Night” softly to Rafael.

Celine had gotten in from Vancouver just before the clan headed off to midnight Mass. She was tired and decided to stay home with me and Korey and the kids.  Korey had spent most of dinner doing his damnedest to answer overly polite questions from la famille Cormier.  How old are you? Do you play basketball? What’s your favorite subject in school? Do you have any brothers and sisters? What do your parents do (not a great moment courtesy of Christine)?  It was a weird situation, but what are they supposed to ask the kid – what were you in the slammer for?
Korey then spent the rest of the evening avoiding the adults, except me and Marie and Sylvie, and playing with Rafe and Gabby, who took to him right away.  He was trying to teach Gabby how to beat box in the living room in front of the tree and didn’t notice he had an audience. Gabby’s efforts covered him in spittle and everyone laughed, including Korey.
The one present Joseph and Sylvie gave Korey between dinner and Mass was a suit. Nothing fancy, off the rack at Sears, but nice enough and it looked to be the right size.  Not what any teenager wants for Christmas, especially a guy like Korey Constant, but he managed to mumble his thanks.  Christine’s husband Donald said something about, “Trying to show a little gratitude.” Korey glared at him and left the room. I was about to get up and let myself forget about Christmas and peace on Earth and goodwill toward men and go on over and rearrange Donny’s teeth, but Marie beat me to it, being much closer to him than I was.  She did it with a lot less foul language than I would have, but better for us all that way.
After the kids went to bed and the family had gone out the door, I fetched a present from my coat. I had gone off to buy it when I made a milk run before taking the kids to Mass.  Korey was sitting at the table helping himself to yet another slice of pie and a glass of milk. The one thing he did get used to right away at the Cormiers’ was the offer to help himself to the food.
“Hey, kiddo, here ya go. Merry Christmas.”
“I thought you French people only did one gift on Christmas Eve?”
“I’m not French. I’m Portuguese and Irish.”
“Right.”  He tore off the wrapping paper.
“It’s an MP3 player,” I told him as he examined it.
“I know what it is. I’m not stupid. Thanks.”
“Just thought, you know, a guy can’t be without his music,” I said. He smiled.
“Just tell Joseph it’s a computer thing for school or something. He doesn’t know anything about computers. And if you tell him I gave it to you, I’ll deny it. Especially if he’s pissed over it.”
“Thanks, Mr. C.”
I don’t know if I should have given him the MP3 player. It did undermine Joseph’s authority, but the kid had nothing. Why take away his music? How could I or Korey or even Cornel West explain all the artistic, cultural, and social issues involved in the world of gangsta rap to Joseph Cormier?
I grabbed a cup of tea. Acadians drink a lot of tea.
“Mister C?”
“Yeah.”
“You believe Mary was a virgin?”
“Well, the tradition says…”
“No, man, you ain’t teaching class. Answer the question. Do you believe she was virgin?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think it makes a difference.”
“Why’s that?” asked Celine. She had just come down the stairs for a late night I-can’t-sleep-snack.  She helped herself to the pie Korey was eating. When they finished the piece, Celine went back for the pie plate and put the rest between them and motioned for Korey to help her finish it.  I do believe he was checking her out. I must admit, Marie’s youngest sister is beautiful. Celine is supermodel, too perfect to be a real woman gorgeous. Young, exquisite, and lesbian.  Wait until he found out.
“Yeah, why, Mister C?”
“Because what’s important to me is what Jesus said and did, not whether his birth was miraculous.”
“But isn’t the miraculous what makes it so special, John?” asked Celine. “I mean if Jesus is just another cool peace-nik, like Gandhi or something, then where’s the holiness, the, shit, I don’t know, the special-ness of it all?”
“Why does it need to be supernatural to be special, Celine? To make us feel better? To make us feel safe because things can be such a mess? I really don’t think it’s important.”
“I agree, Mr. C.”
“I’m glad you approve.  Why do you ask?”
“Because it’s shit like that that makes it hard to believe the rest of the stuff.”
“What’s the rest of the stuff?” Celine asked.
“You know, like ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ ‘Do unto others’ – that stuff.”
“I know. Did you see the people at church tonight, Korey?”
“Yeah, so?”
“No, Korey, I don’t mean did you see them with your eyes. I mean did you really look at them? Because if you did, you saw it. Christ gives hope. Faith gives strength. People really believe in love and the power of goodness. You can see it in their eyes.  You could ask your question of each of them and get many different answers. You could ask them if there should be women priests, if being gay is a sin, if divorced people can receive communion, and you get all sorts of responses and people arguing over it. But then they go up for communion and the person says, ‘The body of Christ,’ and they say, ‘Amen.’  The real bottom line draws them together.”
“What bottom line, Mr. C?”
“Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men. Blessed are the peacemakers. God is love. You know, the rest of the shit.”

Chapter 29 – Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh
Christmas morning came much too early. If you’re the parent of a young child, you know what I mean. Korey made out like, well, a bandit.  Marie and I replaced the Air Jordans he ruined sledding.  Joseph and Sylvie supplemented his suit with more clothes and astonished him with a pair of Timberlands (my idea).
After the maddening spoils had been unpackaged and stockpiled, we took turns showering and dressing and playing with Rafe and Gabby and their Santa haul. During brunch, Gabby asked Marie if she could make sadza Man out of poutines.  Korey was avoiding all Acadian food. The poutines, which look like dirty snowballs, especially grossed him out. Yet he was fascinated with Marie’s sadza man story.
The first Christmas we were in Zimbabwe, Marie missed the snow and trappings of the season so much that she made a snowman out of the dietary staple sadza, a thick corn meal porridge. Every Christmas she puts a framed photo of the original sadza man up in the house.   Korey helped Gabby make a poutine man.
After brunch, the Cormier clan exchanged gifts, each of the kids with Joseph and Sylvie, and the kids by lot drawn at Thanksgiving with each other.  When this was over, Joseph asked Korey to help him outside with something in the driveway.  Marie’s brother and sisters had pitched in to buy Korey a basketball hoop.  Gabby presented him with a ball to go with it.
Christmas Day afternoon Korey shot baskets. First, he cleaned every scrap of snow and ice off the Cormiers’ driveway and then he shot baskets. He shot for hours. Before dinner, he and Celine beat Donald and I badly. Then he dismissed me one-on-one. Then we ate dinner and then he shot baskets until well after dark.  He came in and fell asleep on the couch.
The day after Christmas, we went home to Bethelle, unloaded the loot, took a nap and went to see my Mom.  As we were heading out to New Bedford, Sylvie called Marie’s cell phone.  Korey got into a big fight with Joseph about something stupid at dinner and stormed around the house yelling. She was afraid of Korey’s outburst and wanted me to talk to him.  Finally, Korey got on the phone and I talked to him until he chilled out. Both Sylvie and I put in a call to Debbie Hammer’s message line and informed her of  Korey’s display of temper and attitude. I also called Moira and left her a message.
The next day I took Korey to talk to a therapist, the appointment having been set up by Debbie Hammer. He didn’t talk to the therapist. He just sat there the whole hour, proving he didn’t need to talk. Afterward, with Korey still silent, we hit McD’s and went to see the St. Somebody Giants boys basketball team play in a holiday tournament in Worcester at WPI.  They won. It was impressive. Jeremiah doesn’t just look like Shaq junior, he plays like him. Many kids came up to Korey, who distanced himself from me as soon as we walked into the gym, just like he was my own teenage son. Dolores and Carmen and the rest of the cheerleaders waved as I walked up to a seat in the bleachers.  The St. Somebody cheering section consisted of ten students, Jeremiah’s mom, Dave Martin, and me. I sat with Dave in the top row, my back against the gym wall and watched the game.  Dave seemed nervous, agitated, even though St. Somebody was well in command of the game on the court. Something else was bugging him.  When the stands cleared out at halftime, I found out what was troubling him.
Dave had gotten a call at home that day from a diocesan lawyer and Dave had to go into school and get Yahira’s records.  There was going to be a preliminary hearing.  Dave hadn’t liked the tone of the lawyer. He was nervous and worried about Yahira. So was I. No need to worry about the basketball team. Final: St. Somebody 76,  St. Peter’s of Worcester 62. Not bad.  Not bad at all.
“Hey, we’ve got a good team, Dave.”
“We’ll see, we’ll see. By mid-January, half the team could be sitting due to poor grades. Any year we keep enough kids on the team we do fairly well. How are things going with Korey?”
“Too early to tell for sure, but I think things will work out. He’s angry of course, and pretty much messed up, but he’s a smart kid and Marie’s parents are good folks and I’ll help out as I can. Pray for the best I guess.”
“Yeah, guess so. Look, John, gotta get home. See ya next week, OK?”
Carmen, Anita, and Dolores rushed up to me after the game.
“Mista, Mista, Mista, have you heard about Yahira?” asked Carmen.
“No, Carmen, what’s wrong now?”
“No, Mista, no. I’s asking you. We ain’t heard from her in over a week. We talk all the time, she’s my, she’s our girl, you know.  We call her house and that asshole, sorry Mista, answers all the time and won’t let us talk to her. You don’t know nothin’ huh?”
“Sorry kiddo, not much. I just found out from Mr. Martin that her school records have been requested for a court case,  probably shouldn’t have told you that, but anyway.”
“If you find stuff out can you call us, Mista?” Carmen wrote her home phone number on a gum wrapper she grabbed from her bag.  I didn’t take the number.
“No, but I’ll let you know what I can in school, OK?”
“Is it true you adopted Korey Constant, Mista? He’s soooooo fine,” said Dolores.
“No, but my wife’s in-laws have agreed to be foster parents for a while and see what happens. He’ll be around the family, but more like my youngest brother-in-law than my kid.”
“I would just die to have him around my family all the time,” said Dolores.
“Mista?”
“Carmen?”
“Yahira’s gonna be OK, right?”
“I hope so, kiddo, I hope so.  Whatever happens to her, she’s gonna need good friends, entienden?”
“Si,” they whispered.

Chapter 30 – Just Another New Year’s Eve
The last thing I wanted to do over Christmas break was drive back into Boston, so I rationalized to myself that the trip to Annette Jean’s and Moira Kelly’s apartment in Somerville didn’t count.  The forecast called for a crisp, clear, and bitter cold New Year’s Eve.  The wind chill factor for the evening in Worcester would make it feel like below zero.  Because of this, and because we had been invited and had a babysitter (Marie’s parents) we opted to accept the invitation to attend festivities at Annette’s and Moira’s instead of going to First Night celebrations in either Worcester or Boston.
We wanted to bring Celine with us. I called Annette and she said that would be fine.  I explained that Celine was due to fly out on January third and she hadn’t been having a great time at home with a new foster brother (although they got along, they were side-stepping each other to avoid causing any conflict around Joseph and Sylvie) and parents to whom she was still in the closet.  Marie and I thought her sister could use a good night out. When I explained this all to Annette, she was adamant that Celine accompany us. “The poor child will feel at home here, Sunshine,” she said.  I had only known Annette Jean for four months, but one thing I had learned was that anyone who couldn’t feel at home around Annette had serious problems.
We dropped off the kids and picked up Celine. We brought their video games (including MADDEN football, mostly for Korey) for the second-hand Sony PlayStation hooked up to the second-hand TV in the basement.  When Gabby and Rafe got tired of their kids’ games, Korey would be able to play the football game.  After a final, quick argument with her parents, Celine hustled us out the door. I drove down, so I could enjoy my beer and champagne. Marie would drive home because she doesn’t drink.
“So where do your colleague and her partner live again, John?”
“Davis Square area. It’s a happening kinda place. Coffee shops and cafes, some good pubs, a few good restaurants, and  the Davis Theater. The neighborhood’s a bit artsy Boston and a bit like a village community.”
“I know the area,” said Celine .
“Really?”
“Really. Sis, you know all those times I told Mem and Pep I was out with the drama club or whatever? Well, a lot of times I was going to Harvard Square or Davis with Francois Labelle.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding, sis.”
The Francois Labelle story is legendary in the Cormier clan. He was Celine’s boyfriend since seventh grade.  It was a great front throughout high school.  His senior year he came out publicly and started a Gay/Lesbian/Straight Alliance at Monument High.  After an initial outcry, it was no big deal. But the initial press coverage in the local paper got his parents’ house egged and their cars spray-painted.  He took off for New York immediately after graduation.  Celine acted as shocked as anyone, especially to her family, but was part of the front all along. The Cormiers still joke about it. They still don’t know the rest of the story. He was her cover and she was his.  After the Alliance started she joined to support him, or so she told her family.  The kids in the Alliance knew her orientation, but she kept it in the closet at the Cormier home.   Celine came out to Marie and I when she left for college, knowing where we stood from my stories of Harvard Divinity and the arguments Marie and I had with others in the family over sexual orientation issues.
“Welcome, Welcome, Bienvenue a chez moi, Jacques de Soleil et Marie. You must be Celine, welcome.”  Annette took our coats and Moira came over with a pint of Guinness for me, “Irish Champagne for the Irish reveler, John?”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, and no talking shop with Annette. School starts Thursday, not tonight.”
“Gotcha.” I raised my Guinness, “Slainte Mhath.”
Marie guided Celine through the apartment and introduced her to a group of young women.  They seemed to range in age from Celine’s 21 to 30 or 40 something.
Moira led us to the buffet table and then on a quick tour of the apartment. Marie complimented the apartment’s décor.  Haitian folk art and Celtic motifs abounded.  Feminist art was hung expertly throughout.  The kitchen was purple and yellow, and full of plants.   There was even a prayer room. A small third bedroom had been decorated with a Celtic cross, icons of Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero, large floor pillows, a CD player, and a meditation bench.  A framed poster of the infamous Christa crucifix (a female Christ with bare breasts in a loincloth) hung over a small circular table covered in white cloth. Centered on the table was a small advent wreath wrapped in holly.  A carved, wooden Madonna and child, and a St. Patrick figure stood behind the wreath to the left and right.
“I love it. I just love it,” said Celine popping up behind us in the doorway. Moira had been giving her the tour of the place along with a few others.  Most of the young women were from Boston College’s Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Alliance.  Although unrecognized by the college they met at the campus ministry offices anyway and occasionally at the Center for the Study of Ministry.  There were also folks from the Boston Feminist Theology Reading Group in the crowd.  There weren’t many men present.  Eileen Quinn from St. Somebody and her boyfriend Andy arrived shortly after our tour began.  Andy and I chatted about the end of the Patriot’s dismal season. He seemed a bit uncomfortable around this crowd.
“Shit,” he said, “I always thought of lesbians, you know, in that male fantasy thing of watching them have sex.”
“Pig!” Eileen overheard him and slapped his arm.
“Well, we’re just breaking stereotypes all over the place tonight. Aren’t we folks?”
I removed myself and worked my way over to Celine. “Glad you came?”
“Hell, yes. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t mention it. I thought you’d like the scene here.”
“Very much. I even have a brunch date for tomorrow.”
“With?”
“Susan Wells, a student at B.C.”
“Don’t you have a girl back in Vancouver?”
“Not really. We’ve been fighting.  I know I’m gay. I’ve known it since I was twelve. I also know I’m Catholic.  I’m a pariah to the Church, but most women I meet either don’t want anything to do with me because of my religion or they get sick of me when they realize I am very tied to being Catholic. I don’t feel at home in any community. But this,” she waved her hand around the room, indicating all she’d just walked into, “This is what I’ve been looking for – very Catholic women who are lesbians and proud of both. I didn’t think it existed.  I can’t believe it.  And I’ve been talking with Annette.  Oh my God, John, she’s like an angel.”
“That she is, oh sister-in-law o’ mine. That she is, indeed.”
“Maybe you can even come out to mom and dad and everyone someday,” said Marie.
“Maybe. I don’t know. You know the ‘Monument Girls’ mentality and all.”  Celine drifted away again into the crowd.
“I’ll bet she’s not going to want to go back to Vancouver.”
“Maybe,” said Marie. “But until she comes out to the family she won’t be able to take being anywhere close to Monument.”
Just before midnight, Annette quieted her crowd and lit a candle. She prayed for peace in Creole and English.  She then produced two bottles of Haitian rum for the midnight toast. There would be no champagne tonight, just sugar cane juice.
We stayed late. As the crowd thinned, Marie and I found ourselves seated around a coffee table with Annette, Moira, Celine, and Susan.
“How did you two meet?”  Celine asked Annette.
“It was love at first sight, child.”
“She followed me around like a stray puppy,” said Moira.
“You were the only friend I had made, love, and I was a stray puppy – a stray puppy straight off the boat from Haiti.”
“We met at Notre Dame (Go Irish!), our freshman year of college,” said Moira. “It was about the time of mid-terms that fall.  I was a cheerleader. Don’t you all give me that look, I was. And it was the week of the Southern Cal game and I went into the chapel, as I did every week, to pray for an Irish victory.  This black girl was sitting in the back crying, so I went over and asked her what was wrong.”
“I told her everything, except that I was gay,” said Annette. “I was homesick, I was lonely, and in spite of my TOEFL scores I was not having an easy time going to school in English and my grades were horrible. I was not used to bad grades.  I got straight A’s in Haiti. I had won a scholarship to Notre Dame and everyone at home was so proud of me, and there I was, about to flunk half my courses my first term.”
“I felt so bad for her, it was a pity thing, I admit,” said Moira.
“But I was pitiful, wasn’t I?”
“You were.” They laughed. Moira put her arm around Annette’s shoulders.
“Anyway,” Moira continued, “I took her out for some coffee, met up with her the next day for lunch. We became friends and started hanging out. We hung out all year. Sometime in the spring Annette said at lunch one day she had something to tell me.”
“I had been going to counseling and most of the year I worked on my homesickness, my grades and other issues.  By the spring, I was talking to the counselor about my sexual orientation. I was fighting with myself. I wanted to be a good Catholic, but I knew I was gay.  Coming out and claiming your identity as a lesbian is hard enough for anyone, but in Haiti, the culture I come from, well let me tell you, it was even harder.”
“No shit,” Celine sighed .
“And I had to tell Moira I was in love with her. I was afraid to tell her. I was afraid of losing one of the only real friends I had made since I arrived.”
“Little does she know at this point,” said Moira, “That in spite of being a cheerleader at Notre Dame and coming from an Irish Catholic family from South Boston, I spend most of my weekends hanging out in the lesbian community in Chicago. So…”
“So she grabs my hand,” says Annette, “Kisses it and whispers to me, telling me  to come on and that we’re going for a walk.  She tells me her whole story, including that she had been afraid of telling me because I seemed so conservative.”
“You are,” said Moira.
“Just more so than you,” said Annette. “We’ve been together ever since.”
“Oh my God,” said Celine. “That’s so romantic.”
“We even had a wedding during graduate school,” said Moira.
“I stayed on at Notre Dame for grad school,” said Annette, winking at me. “I wanted to go to Harvard  or Chicago, but Miss Double Domer, having gone to Notre Dame in Southie, had to be a triple Domer and picked ND Law School.”

Chapter 31 – Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day
“John!”
“John!”
Marie had gotten up before me and was yelling up the stairs.  Celine had stayed at our place the night before and she was yelling back at her sister, pissed off at being roused so early.  I struggled to get up.
“What is it, Ree?”
“Come here, John. Quick. On the TV.”
I was going nowhere quick, but I shuffled down the stairs. I turned the corner into the family room, just in time to see Father Neron Martinez’s picture give way to the anchor on the TV screen.
“Shit, Ree, that’s the idiot who Yahira Jiminez said raped her.”
“Yeah, they mentioned something about a student at your school and a priest accused of rape. It sounded like that girl’s situation.”
“Did you catch her name?”
“They didn’t say because of her age. They just said a 16-year-old sophomore.”
The phone rang. It was Dave Martin.
“Did you see the news, John?”
“No, but Marie just caught it.”
“It’s in all the Boston papers today as well.  A lawyer paid for by La Comunidad de Las Madres Latina filed a lawsuit against Father Martinez on behalf of her client Omayra Pabon and her sixteen year-old daughter, seeking damages due to an alleged sexual assault. A spokesperson for the archdiocese declined to comment. The papers are reporting that Father Martinez is listed by the archdiocese as being in-between assignments and that he is staying with his brother Roberto in Boston.”
“Oh boy.”
“Yeah, look, John, I got a call last night from the lawyer, an Anita De Los Santos, asking me, you, and Lourdes Solomon to give depositions.”
“And you didn’t call me?”
“Didn’t want to ruin your New Year.”
“Right. I guess we’ll have an interesting day tomorrow.  Any word on why they didn’t file criminal charges?”
“No. That’s strange though, huh?”
“It’s freaking bizarre.”
“Just wanted you to know. See you tomorrow bright and early.”
“Right.”
Marie was channel-surfing, trying to catch reports on other stations. As soon as I walked back into the family room, the phone rang again.  Annette and Moira saw the news and were calling to check in.  I told them about the depositions. Moira thought it otherworldly that there was no report of criminal charges against Martinez. Promises were made to call if we heard any news. No sooner had the phone hit the cradle than Sylvie called.  She wanted to know if we had heard the news. I told her we had and we would come get the kids as soon as we got dressed.  Yes, Celine had a good time. No, she didn’t drink too much.  Then my mom called, excited about hearing my place of employment on the news. Four phone calls and not so much as a single “Happy New Year.”
We got dressed and went to get the kids from the Cormiers’. Celine was going to stay another day with us because of her brunch date at noon. I told her to take messages if anyone called and to give Dave or Annette our cell phone numbers. She told me to screw, reminded me that we had an answering machine and said she was going back to bed.
Rafael and Gabriella gave us huge Happy New Year hugs and shouts. We stayed for the rabbit pie lunch, another family tradition at the Cormiers’. Korey was visibly bummed out that Celine hadn’t returned with us. He definitely had a crush on her.
The Monument Girls were disappointed that I didn’t have any details on the priest sued for rape story beyond what they’d gotten from the TV.  Sylvie refused to believe it.
“Priests just don’t do that sort of thing. After all, John, she accused you of rape, too.”
“No she didn’t, mum,” I corrected. “Her mother’s boyfriend accused me of rape. The girl, herself, has accused the priest.  I’m convinced she’s telling the truth. I’ve thought all along something big was upsetting her.”
Vacation was definitely over.

Chapter 32 – Epiphany
“Mista, Mista. Mira! Mira! Mista C!”  The three amigas were waiting in the hall outside the faculty room. Carmen was arguing with O’Grady, but when Dolores saw me, she grabbed the other two and they and sprinted toward me.  Screaming at them to come back, O’Grady followed them down the hall.
“Girls! You must get out of here, you know this hallway is off limits unless you are called down by the office. You are not to be near the faculty room, especially.”
“S’OK, Sean, they’re with me.”
“You have no authority to allow them to break the rules. They must go.”
“Happy New Year to you too, Sean.  Come on, girls,” I said, motioning for them to come after me and putting a finger to my lips indicating they should be quiet.  They followed me into the faculty room while I put my lunch away in the fridge.  They followed me into the office to check my mailbox and then back into the hall. I headed out into the hall and made for my room, my own personal trinity of Latina shadows following at my heels.
“What’s up, ladies?”
“Mista, it’s Yahira,” Carmen began.  “She called last night.  She said the lawyer lady got her mom a restraining order on Roberto, but he still lives there and yells at her and her mom for letting this lady make a suit on his brother.” Dolores was talking now, but the three of them kept cutting each other off and finishing each other’s sentences. I couldn’t tell who was speaking after a while and gave up. I just listened and took in as much as I could. “He hides or goes out when she comes, but he’s still there and she’s screaming to me to help her and get her out of there and I went over, but her mom and Roberto yelled at me and wouldn’t let me in. She’s screaming and Roberto grabs her as she tries to come to the door and she’s yelling for us to help. Mista, he’s gonna kill her. IknowitIknowitIknowit!”
There was more, but it was in Spanish and I couldn’t keep up. Welcome back, Mista.
“OK, kiddos, slow down.” We hadn’t quite reached my room yet, and Carmen had slumped against the wall in the hallway and then slid down to the floor.
“Come on, ladies.”  Dolores ran up to me and hugged me, Carmen took my hand and I pulled her up. Anita piled Carmen’s books on top of her own and followed behind us.  I ignored everyone including Sister Judy and Sean O’Grady who told me to not go into Dave’s office.   I even yelled at Sister Judy, but the girls were in breakdown mode and had information that could be of help to somebody.
“Yahira!” Carmen screamed. The four girls didn’t run into each other’s arms so much as snap together like magnets.  What the hell was going on?
“Mr. Martin?”
“Happy New Year, Mr. Christopher.”
“Same to you, what the…”
Dave gave me the cut sign, slicing his finger across his throat. He walked out from behind the desk and tilted his head for me to follow him, leaving the girls sobbing in each other’s arms.  He closed the door to his office gently behind him, asked Sister Judy to leave us, and closed the door to his waiting room.
“Look, John, she just showed up here this morning. When I arrived to open the building, she was huddled up at the side door by the parking lot entrance.  She ran away. Apparently they’ve been keeping her locked in her room at home, except to meet with the lawyer.  She said she didn’t know where else to go and said she had to see you and Lourdes.”
“Never a dull moment at St. Somebody, eh Dave?”
“And you don’t even know the half of what goes on here, John, not by half.”
“So, what are we gonna do?”
“You are about to get on with your day. Please don’t be late for your homeroom. I am going to sort this thing out. I should know sometime today when they want to schedule our depositions. I am assuming if we schedule anytime during school hours we’re both good.”
“Sure and…”
“I’ll let you know what we’ve got with this crew as soon as we figure it out. Now, look, go give Yahira a hug, say something pastoral, and get to class.”
I went back into Dave’s office and Yahira sprang up and over to me and put her arms around my neck and cried.  She buried her head on my chest and sobbed.
“Promise me something, kiddo.”  She nodded against me.
“Remember, always remember, that none of this is your fault. It is NOT your fault. Promise me you’ll remember that, OK?”
“I promise,” she sniffed.
“I got to go to homeroom or Mr. Martin will fire me.”
She smiled through the tears. She let go of me, but it was more of a prying away than a letting go.  I looked at all of them.
“Who loves ya, girls?”
“God,” they sighed, in a tone indicating they weren’t convinced it was true. And who among us doesn’t know how that feels?
“And who else?”
“You do, Mista.”
“Damn straight!”  More soft laughter through the tears.  God help them all, a wonderful, beautiful, laughing, crying, hoping, fearing, huddled mess of teenaged Latina.
I felt like the Little Drummer Boy. The Christ child had come to me and I had no gift to bring. I didn’t play the drums, so I had to go teach.
And then I taught for him. Parumpapumpum.

IV – ORDINARY TIME
The small patch of Ordinary Time plugged into the liturgical year between Christmas and Lent is a strange season. In the northern hemisphere, it takes up most of January and February.  This piece of Ordinary Time begins the day after the feast of the Epiphany, which used to be on January 6, but is now celebrated on the Sunday closest to that date, and ends on Ash Wednesday. The holy days and holidays are done.  There is a true sense of a return to ordinariness. Although the liturgical color for Ordinary Time is green, there is little green about this season in our part of the world. It is cold and full of snow.  The days are growing longer again, but you don’t really notice that until well into March or even April.  Unlike the vast stretch of Ordinary Time between Pentecost and Advent, this season is the beginning of an endurance march, like the mountain stages of the Tour de France.  We wade through the wintertime, trying to take note of the greenery that finds its way into our lives, reminding us of the growth and spring to come.  Lent, when it comes, is almost easier because it has a special focus. Nothing in our world, if you pay attention, is plain and simple. Ordinary time reinforces the notion that the passage through this life is a journey. Ordinary time is the highway between points of interest in your vacation tour book.  And most of all, it is not ordinary, although it is full of the everyday.

Chapter 33 – Testing, Testing
One of my least favorite things about St. Somebody is that the archdiocese and Sean O’Grady are testing maniacs. Every course must have a written mid-term exam and a final exam, copies of which must be filed with the department chair, Sean, and the superintendent for Catholic schools.  No projects, take-home tests, or other assessments may be substituted. I complained to both Annette and Dave and they both told me that I’m too smart not to figure out a way to beat the system, but I had to give the exams. I also had to be able to produce the actual tests the students take, not just the grades, for Sean to evaluate.  This was to make sure no one tried to buck the system.  They were on to me and I hadn’t even tried anything yet!  The tests were two hours long and the students took three on a Thursday and three on a Friday.  The next semester started on the Monday.  The fact that these tests were given after Christmas didn’t help either.  I hated the testing period after Christmas at Harvard and I hated it at St. Somebody.  In the end, I was too tired from the holidays and the Korey and Yahira sagas to beat the system this semester, but I had to figure something out for finals at the end of the year.  I gave this exam for the midterm of my sophomore religion course New Testament and Christology:

Mid-Term Exam
Mr. Christopher
Sophomore Religion

Part One
Pick one movie and Gospel set below. Explain why we watched that particular movie to go along with our reading of that particular Gospel.

Mark and Cry Freedom (The movie about Steven Biko)
Matthew and Stand and Deliver (The movie about Jaime Escalante)
Luke and Romero (The movie about Archbishop Oscar Romero)
John and Jonathan Livingston Seagull (The movie about the seagull)

Part Two
Pick any activity that we did this semester (such as the Trust Fall, Monopoly, or Musical Chairs) and tell me what you learned from the activity.

No multiple choice, no fill in the blanks, no matching, no identifications or definitions, no dates, and no theological terms.  Actions speak louder than words, right? Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words, right? What did you do and what did it teach you?  Annette loved it. Rosie asked me where all the definitions were and why I would ever let my students watch four films in a semester.  I was proud of myself. I ignored her.

Carmen, Dolores, and Anita came to see me after their last exam on Thursday.  It had been a week since I had left them in a huddled mess with Yahira in Dave’s office.  Yahira had been sent to a residential mental health facility for teenage girls on the North Shore. They knew the place specialized in treating victims of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and rape.  And yes, I was still planning on taking them up with me to visit her this Saturday.  I didn’t know much more than that, no.  When I did know things that I could tell them, I would tell them.
I told them I gave a deposition for Yahira’s new lawyer, a public defender and friend of Moira’s.  I told them Roberto was in custody, but his brother had been assigned to a parish in Lynn.  I didn’t tell them that La Communidad de Las Madres Latina would not help file criminal charges against a priest, especially a Latino priest, and that I was enraged over this.  I didn’t tell them that Yahira’s mother was in trouble for allowing Roberto and his brother to violate the restraining orders against them.  Omayra Pabon was in a battered women’s shelter somewhere in the city, but as is the custom with such places, its address was not public information.  Moira’s friend, Bridget Riley, the public defender, was doing a good job with both Yahira and her mom. The most troubling aspect was that the Archdiocese of Boston was playing legal hardball with them so that criminal charges would not be filed against Neron Martinez.  Bridget Riley said she would probably settle the lawsuit out of court for a hefty sum, but part of the deal would be not to discuss the case and not to file criminal charges.  Outrageous, yes, but Liam Riley, Bridget’s husband and a former assistant district attorney in Suffolk County said that given the relationship between this particular bishop and the current DA, it was unlikely it would be a pleasant trial for the poor kid.
Bridget had dug up some nice stuff on Father Martinez and was ready to go to the papers. Neron Martinez came to Boston from Miami, where his involvement with a married woman in his parish caused a scandal and forced his removal. He was formerly a priest of the Diocese of San Juan.  He had been accused of assaulting a teenage girl there in one parish and admitted to dating a married woman who worked as the parish secretary. He was finally sent to the U.S. where he formally became a priest of the Diocese of Miami.  Bridget was sure her possession of copies of the paper trail on Neron Martinez would guarantee Yahira a nice sum in a settlement. I asked Moira how Bridget Riley tracked down all the dirt on Father Martinez.
“Believe it or not, John, he told her most of it himself, and she followed his leads and had some things faxed here and there.”
“I can’t believe he would incriminate himself like that,” I said.
“Neither could Bridget, but get this – Father Martinez told her it was no big deal – at least he isn’t one of the faggots who brings boys to the rectory.”
“Jesus.”
“May he help us all, John.”
Dave and Lourdes sent Yahira’s records to the treatment facility. They were told Yahira had spent most of the week undergoing psychological assessment.  Lourdes thought she was depressed and angry and was probably dealing with post traumatic stress, but the kid had impressed her, and she felt that if any kid her age could recover from an ordeal such as this, Yahira was that kid.
I could have told all this to the three amigas, but even had it been appropriate to do so, it wasn’t necessary.  I just told them that Yahira’s new lawyer was a good one and Mrs. Solomon thinks she’ll eventually be OK, but it was gonna take a while.

I had gotten bogged down correcting exams and I was running late when I passed Angela Angelini on my way out of the building. She was crying as she sprinted from out of the front seat of her mom’s car angling to cut me off before I reached my van. She was sobbing and sniffling and hard to understand. I had no idea that teaching would soak me in so many teenage tears.  Angela had not been herself since we returned from Christmas break, but I just figured her mom was being a jerk, or more of a jerk than usual.
“Mister Christopher,” she wailed. “Why? Why can’t I have a boyfriend? He’s a good boy. He likes me. He really does. Why? Why does she have to hate him so much? Why does she have to hate me so much?”
“Angela, slow down. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My mom.  I hate her. It’s my last day. She’s making me go to St. John and St. James for the start of third term.  It’s just because he gave me a present. I knew I shouldn’t have shown it to her.”
“Who gave you a present, Angela? I’m still not following you, kiddo. What do you mean you’re not coming back?”
“Angela Angelini! Get back here this minute!” Rosa Angelini yelled.
I looked at mother and daughter. Mother was in a rage. Daughter was deep in a sadness only an adolescent soul can reach.
“Now!” screamed Rosie.
“Please, Mister Christopher, you have to talk to her.  Tell her it’s OK. It was only a necklace, a nice silver cross. God, I love him, Mister C. Tell her. She won’t listen to me.”  Angela grabbed my wrist.
Rosie had stomped across the parking lot and tugged on her daughter’s sleeve. “I told you not to leave the car, young lady.  And as for you, John, please do not speak with my daughter.”
“But Rosie, your daughter’s very upset.”
“Yes, MY daughter is upset and I will take care of it. You will butt out.”
Rosie yanked her sobbing daughter by the arm. Every few steps Angela half sank to the ground in her grief, looking back at me, mouthing, “Please.”
“Who gave you the necklace, Angel?” I yelled.
“Leon.”   I read her lips, more than I heard her voice, as Rosie was screaming at her not to answer me.  It started to fit together.  Rosa Angelini wasn’t upset that her daughter had a boyfriend. She was upset that her daughter had a black boyfriend.

Chapter 34 – Sponges
“Watch TV.”
“I already said that.”
“Mista, he’s breaking the covenant. It was my turn next and he didn’t listen.”
“True enough. Raul, wait your turn and don’t talk over people. Dolores, pay attention to what’s being said.”
“Get arrested.”
“Play basketball.”
“Eat.”
“Sleep”
“Go Shopping.”
“Play Station 2.”
“Freestyle some fine rhymes.”
“Work on low riders.”
“Go to Knowles’ class.”
“Eat dog shit.”
“Read a book.”
“Drink piss.”
“Date Royale.”
“OK, that’s enough. You know the rules, Thomas. That’s way out of line.”
“I wouldn’t date him if he was the last man on earth,” said Royale.
“I don’t blame you, kiddo. Thomas, you got me after school.”
“I wouldn’t do nothing else. I would rather go to church, especially youth group.”
“Oh, please. That’s just ‘cause your dad is the priest.”
“Minister.”
“Whatever.”
The glass was filling up with small pieces of household sponges cut into one inch cubes.  The deal was that they could put one piece of sponge in the glass for every individual thing they would rather do than go to church or pray. If they could fill the glass so that I couldn’t get anything else in it, everyone would get an A for the term and they could use my class period for study.
“Chill.”
“Be with a lady.”
“Never happen.”
“Fuck you, nigga.”
“All right. Stop it now or see O’Grady.  I ain’t dealing with that language today.”
“Listen to music.”
“Go to the movies.”
“Come on, man, there is no room left in that glass, give us the A,” demanded Antawan.
“You know he’s got a trick, dog. Keep thinking of shit to put pieces in that glass,” said James.
“Damn, we’re just forcing it. Let him get it done,” said Theo.
“Are you guys done?” I asked.
“No, Mista,” yelped the girls.
“Yes!” groaned the guys.
“Well?”
“We’re done, Mista,” said Carmen.
I reached under my desk for the pitcher I had hidden there earlier.
“Oh, snap,” said Skinny. “He’s got water for the sponges.”
“Yup, I admit it, the game was rigged, but I’ve got a good point. Want to hear it?”
Groans. I poured the water over the sponges and it seeped into the nooks and crannies of open space, then it soaked through the sponges.
“All these sponges are things that fill up our lives,” I explained. “ Somehow we’ve come to believe that all these things, all the stuff in our lives, is separate from God.  The reality is that whether we’re praying or in church or in this class or watching TV or playing ball or eating or sleeping, God is with us.  God is not some other thing we have to make room for in our schedule. God permeates our lives, soaks through our lives, like the water in the sponges.  No matter how much we fill up our lives with things to do and places to be and people to meet, there is still room for God. God is not another thing we have to make time for. God is part of everything we already do.”
“Is God part of what happened to Yahira, Mista?” asked Dolores.
Out of the mouth of babes.  I was speechless for a second, unprepared for a theological inquiry of such simplicity and depth.
“No, D.  What happened to Yahira was not of God. God is not a cosmic puppeteer controlling our lives. What happened to your friend was not God’s will. The mean part – the hurt, the pain, what was done to her – that stuff is not of God. Only someone who has no connection to God, no care or concern for others can do such things. What happened to your friend was full of hate and evil.  What’s happening to her now is love. What I do know is that God is part of what is happening to her now. She’s got friends like you and Carmen and Anita, and Mrs. Solomon and me. She’s getting help to heal the hurt she’s suffered.  She’s learning that a lot of people love her.  That’s God, I think.”
“Me, too,  Mista.”
Phew. I didn’t know who I was preaching to, the kids or myself.

The poor kid. Marie, Lourdes Solomon, and I  took the three amigas to see her up in Rockport. The place was called Papillon – butterfly -  and it was a residential home for two sets of clientele. In one building, young single mothers learned parenting skills, took high school courses, and learned job skills while taking turns with day-care and babysitting. The other building was for victims of sexual assaults who were under 21.
The visit was good for Yahira, if for no other reason than to see that a lot of people still cared about her. It was tough, though. Because of the circumstances surrounding her situation, her lawyer and her therapist had to supervise visits and it felt more like a prison visit than a hospital visit. A caseworker from the battered women’s shelter brought Omayra Pabon to see her daughter twice a week, on Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon.
The amigas hugged each other and cried. I hugged Marie and cried, turning my head so the girls wouldn’t see.  The presents we brought for her had to be searched for drugs and sharp objects. I feared as much, so I bought her a book, When I was Puerto Rican by Esmerelda Santiago.  The amigas brought her a CD.  Lourdes brought cookies.  Yahira cried almost the entire time.  She used an entire box of tissue. She needed a sponge.  But where to find one big enough to soak up all the pain?

My prep period was the last block of the day (St. Somebody rotates the classes each day, today’s first class would be last tomorrow) and I sat down to read reflection statements from the day’s activity with the sponges.  This would knock off 45 minutes from what I had to do later at home.  It takes a while to get through a stack of reflection papers. Not because they’re difficult to read, but because I don’t only read them for content and make comments, I also correct the English.  Knowles complains a lot about how poor our students’ grammar is, but he just seems to assume they already know it and don’t use it. He would do better if he actually taught them something. The gem of the day is usually worth the stack.  Lydia’s had the gem with her statement, “I really would rather do a lot of stuff instead of go to church, especially dance, but since I should want to go to church instead of anything else, I didn’t say it.  Thomas’ mom goes to my dad’s church and he would tell her and she would tell him if I said anything. My dad also says dancing is from the devil so I liked today because it made me think that God is with me dancing, too, not just praying in church.  PS – can you get them to turn the heat up in here, I’m always freezing.”
I wrote back, “Dance the night away, kiddo. I don’t care if you never go to church a day in your life, but I would be very sad for you if you never had God in your life. Religion does not equal spirituality, remember?  Peace, Mr. C.”
When Thomas showed up at the end of the day, I remembered once again why detention is so stupid.  I should not have to work late because someone else screwed up. I told him to smarten up or next time I’d turn him over to O’Grady.
“Don’t do that, man. I’ll be good. That man would wipe the floor with my ass. Sorry. That dude hates me.”
“I want you to apologize to Royale tomorrow in front of the class.  Do a good job or I let O’Grady sponge up the floor with your behind. Straight?”
“Straight, Mr. C.”

Chapter 35 – Taking Care of Business
“You listen to this wack shit every day?” asked Korey.
“No, some days I listen to other wack shit. Sometimes I listen to NPR.”
“What’s that?”
“National Public Radio.”
“What you listen to that for?”
“To keep up with what’s going on in the world”
“Well this morning, I have the tunes to rock your ride, Mr. C.”
“What would that be, gangsta DJ?”
“DMX, Eminem, Ja Rule. I will just eject this Boss Springsteen man and play you some real music.”
“Hey, I know Joseph Cormier is out of touch, but my morning ride isn’t the time for me to deal with bitches and ho’s and what not, either, Korey.”
“Let it go, man. Chill, you’ll like this one. It’s religious.”
Is there any way I can explain to him that DMX is just not morning music?  Is there any way I can communicate just how immaculately perfect “Thunder Road” is as a get up and drive to work in the morning song? Probably not.

Korey lasted about two weeks at Monument High. Monument High was full of Irish-Americans, French Canadian-Americans, Italian-Americans, and Puerto Ricans. You could count the number of black students on one hand. They were the sons and daughters of professionals who worked in Boston and were on the leading edge of making Monument a bedroom community.
Korey got into a fight his first day when some racist asshole of a senior started in on him with “nigga”, “homeboy” and “dog” in a mocking way that Korey couldn’t and wouldn’t let go. All things considered, including Korey’s background, the school was pretty lenient on Korey.  It was obvious the other guy had it coming.
In the next few weeks, Korey ended up being sent home two more times for fighting.  He stomped a football player when the guy accused him of hitting on his girlfriend. Korey admitted to trying his moves on the lady, but had no idea she was the guy’s girl and really, who cares?   “If she was so into his ass, she wouldn’t have said yes, Mister C.”
He had been accused of cheating for getting A’s on tests and for skipping class anytime he was in the hallway during class time, even when he had a pass.  When he got into a shouting match with a Puerto Rican kid he had hustled before school in a game of 21, and it turned into a before-school brawl, the principal called the Cormiers and Korey’s team (Debbie Hammer, Moira, and myself) in for a conference.
Joseph and Moira were adamant that the school could not blame Korey solely for his reactions to racism. The school didn’t want another episode. Korey just wanted out of Monument.
I called Dave from Monument High School and he agreed to take Korey back. Joseph would drop Korey off at our house on his way to work in Framingham and pick him up on his way home.  Occasionally when Joseph ended his work day out Monument way, Korey would spend a night with us and Joseph would get him the next day.  Debbie was sure she could get the arrangement approved and Moira offered her help once again if need be to get it done.  We were all a little worried about him being back in the city, close to the Rayzas, but decided we’d keep a close watch on the situation and hope for the best.  Even though the Rayzas might be an issue, Korey’s team felt St. Somebody’s was the best option available.  Lemburg, the town bordering Monument, refused to accept Korey to its high school.  St. Augustine’s in Lemburg had agreed to take Korey, but we couldn’t get Korey to get out of the car when we arrived. All he had to see was a bunch of white kids driving to school in their own Hondas and SUVs to know it was not the place for him.  The only other option was Mountain Regional, but that entailed a hefty bus ride out into the country.  In the end, we all agreed to try St. Somebody’s one more time.

“So what you think, man?”
“S’all right, Korey,” I said. I hadn’t been listening to his song.  I had been thinking about what had gotten him into this car with me. The whole weird history of it.  Korey shook me out of it, opening the closet on Marie’s youngest sister.
“Man, you know, I think Celine is a dyke.”
“Lesbian.”
“Whatever.”
Did he know? She hadn’t told him? No, he said he thinks, not he knows.
“What makes me think your sister-in-law is a lesbian, Mr. C? One – she doesn’t seem interested in me at all and I’ve have been so smooth with her.  Two – No mention of any boyfriend, no pictures of any boyfriend. Three – Girls call her on the phone and she’s having, you know, guy-girl talk with them. She be sayin, ‘I don’t want to see you anymore. We’re not getting along. I want to see other people. I can’t wait to see you. No, I broke up with her. I don’t have to go back for another week, I’ll come see you.’ I know it’s only half a conversation, but it ain’t rocket science, right?”
“One, she isn’t interested in you because you are family, foster siblings don’t date each other. That’s the rules. End of story. Two, her damn prom picture is on the mantle with all the others, and three, she has friends who call her on the phone, so what? What are you doing eavesdropping on her anyway?”
“Maybe, just maybe, I’ll give it to you she isn’t interested in such a fine man as myself.” He was smiling like a fool, “But that prom date picture guy came to visit once and that guy is a for-real faggot gay man. Don’t even argue with me, Mister C. And I don’t listen in on her, our rooms are next to each other and you can hear her through the wall as if the wall wasn’t there and she is talking boy-girl talk with other girls. You better have a talk with her and save her soul, Bible man.”
So he’s pretty much right. Better throw the curve. “Being gay isn’t a sin, Korey.”
“Whatever, man, I don’t care. As long as no guy comes on to me, I don’t give a shit.  But you got to admit, the sight of two fine ladies going at it, well that’s something any guy would…”
“No way, Korey. I am not going there. We are not talking about this. This conversation is not happening.”
I’m not listening. I can’t hear you. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.  No sense denying it, but Celine can tell him if she wants. It’s not my place.  She had stayed home an extra two weeks instead of going right back to Vancouver after the New Year. She had spent a lot of that time in Boston with Susan Wells, who also visited Monument once.
Korey had his schedule reshuffled and I spent the early morning getting him back in my class and out of Rosie’s. God only knows where that would have led.  Because of what happened at Monument High, Sean was holding me personally responsible for his behavior.
“If he screws up, he’s out of here, Mr. Christopher. No two ways about it.”
“He won’t.”
“Right, John. The kid’s bad news. He’ll be out of here in a month, maybe even a week.”
I walked down the hall, through a door, and into Dave’s office. He was alone in the waiting room.
“Hey boss, permission to tell Sean to fuck off, sir?”
“Denied. Look, John, I want Korey to make it, but the diocese did not want me to let him back in here. I’m on the line so you’re on the line.”
“Gotcha. I’d still like to tell Sean to fuck off.”
“I bet you would. Please don’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Right. Look, John, just take care of business with this one, OK?”
“You can count on me, sir.”

Korey showed up at the end of day and put his head down on a desk to sleep while I corrected some papers and helped Vo with her English paper for Knowles.
“Wake up, Korey.”
“Come on, man, I’m beat.”
“You think you’re beat? You got nothing to be tired about right now and you probably have homework, so get to it. My butt is on the line for you and so is Mr. Martin’s. Get over here.”
I pulled him into the hall.
“Korey.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fuck up.”
We both went back into my room and took care of the afternoon’s business.

Chapter 36 – Faith in Things Unseen
“I’m cold, Mister C.”
“Then put a sweater on, Lydia.”
“I just have my coat in my locker.”
“Wanna go get it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go ahead.”
“No need for that coat, brown sugar.  I’ll keep you warm,” offered Antawan.  Lydia, who had been a bit chunky, had lost some weight and was getting a lot of attention from the guys lately. She was reveling in it.
“That might be fine,” said Lydia and started to walk over toward Antawan.  Thomas got up and intercepted Lydia and tried to wrap his arm around her.
“Well, let me hug some of that sweet stuff. I’ll keep you warmer than that ol’ stupid, nigga.”
“Enough. Thomas, sit down. Lydia go get your coat. Now, as I was saying, what did it feel like to be the blindfolded maze walker?”
“Scary.”
“Why, Carmen?”
“I didn’t know if I could trust Anita and I couldn’t hear her all the time.”
“I felt all, I don’t know, man. Abandoned, I guess,” said James.
“What for, dog? I had you,” said Antawan.
“But with all the yelling I couldn’t hear you, nigga. These fools was screaming their brains out and you’re whisperin’ shit, like ‘go left.’”
“Thomas, what about you? How did you feel walking the maze?”
“That shit was not funny, Mr. C. I ain’t down with you no more.”
I couldn’t really blame Thomas for being pissed.  I made a laughing stock out of him on purpose. Ah, but he deserved it.  Three pairs of students had walked barefoot and blindfolded through a maze of 50 tacks laid out on the classroom floor.  They each had a guide, Anita for Carmen, Antawan for James, and Hang for Thomas. The guides couldn’t touch them or enter the maze. They could only talk to their partner.
Carmen walked first. Anita took her into the hall, blindfolded her and removed her shoes. Anita did her best to guide Carmen through the maze of 50 thumbtacks.  The class was allowed to distract them in any way they wanted as long as they didn’t touch the maze or the blindfolded maze walker. They soon discovered their best weapon for this was noise. Carmen and Anita quickly discovered that by speaking Spanish they could distinguish each other’s voices better through the din. It took a while, but Carmen made it to the end of maze without placing her bare foot on a tack.
James went next. His maze was made of 100 tacks and his feet were much bigger than Carmen’s. Antawan tried, but the class was very loud and James wasn’t really sure he trusted Antawan. James nearly stepped on a tack a dozen times.
Thomas was led into the hall to be blindfolded and his guide was picked by the class. They chose Hang. We told Thomas the maze was now made out of 500 thumbtacks and that he’d best be careful or he’d puncture a foot.  The poor kid could hardly hear Hang’s voice through the din and to make it worse, I invited Annette’s class in to make extra noise. Thomas was the only one who didn’t know that there were no tacks on the floor. While he was in the hall being blindfolded, I wrote instructions on the white board explaining to everyone that they should act as if there actually were 500 tacks on the floor and to get creative with their distractions.  They played their part beautifully. Thomas was told to look out for the cockroaches, the rats, and the holes.  Jeremiah yelled like a maniac the entire time Thomas was in the maze.  Hang’s voice as a scream is barely above a whisper, so for all practical purposes Thomas was on his own.  Thomas slid his stocking feet along the ground as he inched his way through the maze. James finally got everyone going to convince Thomas that he had to jump over a three foot section that contained too many tacks to attempt walking through. Thomas bought it, jumped, and due to his stocking feet (he refused to go barefoot), slipped and fell as he landed. He screamed as he fell, believing that he was about to become a human pincushion. He landed, noticed he was not a human bulletin board, and whipped off the blindfold. The floor was bare. Got him.
He was pissed, but hey, he’d kinda been the class asshole all year up to that point. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer kid.
“What did it feel like to be a guide, guides?”
“Grimy.”
“Why, Antawan?”
“Cuz I knew if he screwed up it was my fault and even if I didn’t screw up helping him, he’d blame me for it.”
“So you felt responsible for him?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I didn’t like it either, Mista,” said Anita.
“Why?”
“Same reason, I didn’t want Carmen to get hurt. It would be my fault.”
“How about you, Hang? How did it feel guiding Thomas?”
“Funny.”
We all laughed.
“So folks…”
“What’s the point?” They yelled back at me.
“Well, what’s the point then?”
“Mr. C, you’re corny, but not complicated,” said Korey.
This was the first time he’d spoken in class since he came back a couple of weeks ago.
“The maze is like life, right? It’s full of obstacles and dangers and whatever.  The blindfolded person is like us, stumbling along, trying not to get tripped up, trying not to get hurt. The guide is people trying to help you out, but sometimes they can’t.” He smiled with the shit-eating grin of genius, but he was only partially right.
“I think the guide is God,” said Royale.
“Why?”
“Because, Mister, when we got nothing else to help us, we have God.”
They laughed at her, Thomas, as usual, the loudest. Korey broke up the fun.
“Yeah, man, she’s right. Like we’re blindfolded and we can’t see or touch God, but we have to rely on a voice and have faith. It can help us. Sometimes it’s hard to have faith and we either don’t listen or can’t listen. Then sometimes if we really need help we find a way to get in touch with God, like how the ladies used Spanish.”
“Good stuff folks.”
“Mista?”
“Anita?”
“Do you think Yahira will get through the thumbtacks? Cuz for her they’re real, kinda.”
“I think so, but it is going to be very hard, kiddo.  There are a lot of tacks and a lot of distractions, but maybe as her friends we can help be her guides and help her hear the voice of God.”
“I’m not sure I believe in God anymore, Mista.”
“I know it’s hard. It’s the big God problem, right? God is all powerful, God is good, and yet evil happens. You can make any two of those things fit together logically, but not all three. Yet I believe in God, Anita.  There is something good and holy in the universe and I’ve told you guys before I don’t believe it is an old man in the sky who controls everything like someone playing a cosmic PlayStation.  Whatever God is, God is more complex than we imagine, but simpler, too, I think.  Maybe we create God when we love each other and take care of each other.  In the most quiet place of my heart, I believe in goodness and love and the ability of those things to pull us through many difficulties. I don’t know why it is that sometimes some people can overcome and survive even though they’ve been through hell and why some people can’t. Whatever it is that helps us make it, helps us have hope and courage, helps us love, and helps us be the best we can be instead of the worst – that spirit, that idea, that energy – is God and it’s holy.”
“My daddy says everything is God’s will, we just have to accept what he gives us, blessings and grace, or a cross to bear,” said Lydia.
“With no disrespect to your dad, Lydia, I disagree because that would mean hate and death and war and disease are all acts of God’s will and if that’s true…”
“If that’s true then God is one sorry ass mothafucka,” said Korey.
“I wasn’t going to put it that way, but basically, yeah.”
“But how can God let things like…”
“What happened to Yahira happen at all?” I asked.
“Yeah, Mista. How?” asked Carmen.
“I don’t think God lets those things happen.  God doesn’t control everything like a video game.  When we face pain and suffering we want the cosmic video game-playing God because then there’s someone to save us or someone to blame. God obviously works differently, but I can’t claim to tell you how. I think if anyone can, they’re a liar.  All I know is that I’ve felt God in my heart and I believe in love.”
“Doesn’t make me feel much better, Mista.”
“I know, Anita. The toughest place to be in life is a place where none of the answers seem good enough. Nevertheless, if we believe in God we have to grow up and give up the all-powerful man in the sky image because it doesn’t hold up.  The searching for something that makes sense usually takes us through darkness, but if we reach the light on the other side, we begin to make sense of the God we discover.  It’s difficult to explain. You kinda have to take the journey yourself.”
“Yahira is in darkness now, huh Mista?”
“Deep darkness, Anita, but I truly believe she’s gonna be all right. She’s gonna need a lot of love and a lot of friendship. If enough people can be there for her, she’ll make it. I wouldn’t lie to you about it.”
“I know, Mista.”

V – LENT
The word “Lent” comes from the Old English word for spring. Lent is the time for spiritual spring cleaning; a time to reflect on your relationship with God and how to improve it, or even start it.  Lenten spiritual practices include fasting, acts of charity, repentance, and prayer.  Catholics (excepting the very young and the very old, of course) are supposed to abstain from meat on Fridays and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The liturgical color of Lent is purple. Purple was the ancient color of royalty. We are all royal and chosen people as followers of Christ.  Purple is also the color of bruises. This seems appropriate as Lent is a time to heal from the spiritual bruises we have suffered at the hands of a tough world as well as those bruises that we have inflicted on others and on ourselves.
The season lasts forty days recalling the forty years spent by the Israelites wandering in the desert and the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Lent ends with the beginning of the Triduum, the three days leading up to the celebration of the resurrection at Easter.

Chapter 37 – Ash Wednesday
“Making the sign of the cross on the forehead is a custom that goes back to the early church. The ashes remind us that eventually we are all worm food. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We will return to the ground from which we were made. It’s funny that we do this – put ashes on our forehead and walk around. It’s like wearing a sign that says HEY! I’M OBSERVING LENT HERE! The Gospel reading today says we shouldn’t do this kinda stuff. Jesus says to never make a show of our spiritual practices. If we fast, we shouldn’t wear a sign that says, ‘Look how holy I am because I am fasting.’ If we give to charity, we aren’t supposed to call the TV news and ask them to do a Boston Nice Guy feature on us. The ashes seems to be a direct contradiction of how Jesus asks us to behave. The only reason I can find for still doing it is not to show others what we’re doing, but to remind ourselves of what we need to do.”
I was preaching Ash Wednesday because Monsignor and the other priests we usually contact had all said no, they had too many other services to do that day, either at St. Somebody or at other parishes in the city.  Monsignor was the one who suggested we just do a prayer service instead of a Mass and have one of the religion teachers give a reflection. I had suggested the same thing, but Sean, Eunice and Brother Ernie wouldn’t hear of it. As soon as Monsignor suggested it, however, it was acceptable.
“Lent is a time where people give things up. Some folks give up candy or the movies or ice cream. That is not what it is about. Lent is a time to start or renew a relationship with God.  Instead of giving something up this year, take something on – start doing something you haven’t been doing or have never done. Make sure this thing you take on brings you closer to God.  Read the Bible, pray, meditate, talk about God with your family or friends, go to church, go to different churches, read a holy book besides the Bible, listen to music about God, be nicer to people during your daily life, forgive someone, help out at a homeless shelter or food bank, even begin reading the newspaper and stay more informed about God’s creation.”
I am traditionally a bad observer of Lent. Fasting is not my thing. Neither is abstaining.  Marie, however, has a strong traditional sense of observance.  Every Friday, just like Sylvie used to serve her family, we eat buckwheat pancakes and beans for dinner.  We Portuguese/Irish folk from New Bedford are more accustomed to fish on Fridays. Marie swears off sweets and sex for forty days.  The only good part about this is that she makes a big deal of Mardi Gras.  This year, as in every other year we’ve been together, Marie made plans for a lavish dinner and a lengthy love session.  Since Gabby and Rafe arrived, she has always made plans for her parents to baby-sit and for dinner out early, usually at some extravagant restaurant that she would normally say we couldn’t afford. After dinner, it was a marathon love-making session.  She always surprised me during these with a new twist. She has introduced some very interesting things over the years on Mardi Gras.  I feign shock and she always tells me, ‘Hey it’s got to last you forty days.’ How she survives it, I don’t know. She claims to not even masturbate during Lent. Me, I’m doing the Onan handshake at least once a week.
“Do something that focuses in on one of the four themes of Lent: prayer, repentance, charity, and fasting. I can tell you I’ve never been very good at some of these things. Self-denial is not my strong suit. So I am not trying to ask you to be holy like me, I am asking you to, like me, spend these forty days trying one way to become more holy.  Anyone who wants to receive ashes may come up now.”
As the faculty and staff began to come forward, Skinny, Jeremiah, and a few others quickly worked their way over to the side of the chapel where Annette was dispensing ashes, some of them got ashes and then took up a place behind Annette and began to rap a version of the Our Father.  O’Grady had gotten in my ash line and he did not look happy. He gave me the “You are in deep shit” stare and said a sarcastic “Right” instead of “Amen” when I put ashes on his head. I tried not to entertain a vision of throwing the entire bowl of ashes in his face. I failed and smiled at him.
When the ashes had been distributed, I pulled my second stunt of the service. I brought out a bowl of white quarter-inch landscaping stones.  “These,” I said, “are memory stones.  Their job is to remind you of what you are taking on for Lent. Keep the stone in your pocket or purse throughout Lent. When you think you have succeeded in keeping your promise to yourself to get closer to God through taking on a spiritual practice, you may throw the rock away or keep it in a special place at home.  Please use these in a sacred manner. Mr. O’Grady, Sister Eunice, and Brother Ernie did not want me to do this because they were afraid you would all throw them around the school. Prove me right for my trust in you. If you want a stone for the purpose I stated, please take one on your way out.”
James, Antawan, Carmen, and Anita came forward, split the big bowl of stones into their four smaller bowls, and headed toward the exit doors to distribute them. O’Grady headed them off.  A roar of boos went up from the congregation. Dave Martin jumped up and headed for the scene. I did, too.
Dave, Sean, and I met the four stone bowl holders at the door. Sean began to yell, telling me I was an insubordinate apostate with no respect for the church. More boos from the crowd.  Dave told Sean to pipe down and let it be, he would take care of it. Sean fumed and walked away. Cheers rose from the student body. The enemy of the people was vanquished.  Dave pulled me aside and nodded to the kids, “You kids go ahead with the stones and do your job.”  As the four assumed their position at the exits, more cheers went up.
“Look, John, if so much as one stone is thrown around school at a person or a window or anything, your ass is grass and I won’t save you from it even if I can.”
“Yes, Dave.” His eyes softened.
“You know they do this at my parish? Every year they alternate stones and little miniature nails.”
Dave went and got his stone from Carmen and put it in his pocket.

Chapter 38 – Department Meeting III
It was Rosie’s turn to lead the opening prayer and we prayed the rosary.  When Rosie handed Annette and I two glow-in-the-dark, pink plastic rosaries, I knew what was coming.  I looked at Annette, pleading, begging, NO.  She half-frowned and shrugged as if to say, “It’s her turn, what are we gonna do?”  So we prayed the rosary. We tried anyway. Brother Ernie and Rosie prayed the rosary, Annette followed along, and I was lost. Marian spirituality is not my scene. A priest at Worcester State had been into the whole Medjugorje thing. He once gave me a plastic Mary medallion supposedly blessed by the apparition of the virgin. When he put it in my palm, it was hot and almost burned my hand. I’m still not sure what to make of that.  It wasn’t enough however to make me a member of the rosary society.  So, I Hailed Mary and Our Fathered and Glory Be’d my way through, managing to make myself look like a bona fide Protestant.  I was very grateful to the Holy Mother when Annette began the meeting proper with a curt, “Let’s discuss the class prayer services.”
Annette had informed me that each grade level had a Lenten service sometime between Ash Wednesday and the release of school on Holy Thursday.  They were horrible little things done by Monsignor Monster, her pet name for the Cathedral rector, or some other priest of similar mindset, but they were a tradition at St. Somebody.
“Bad news on that front, I am sorry to report,” said Ernie. “Monsignor doesn’t want to do them since he is doing our other Masses this year.”
“And my pastor won’t be available this year,” added Rosie.
“So,” Ernie continued, “We are in quite a fix. We really should have these things in the school calendar soon so that…”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, “Why don’t we do the hip-hop services? The kids have been ready for months.”
“I’m not sure we are quite ready for that yet. Maybe at the end of the year, maybe next year,” said Ernie.
I was getting tired of waiting. I was frustrated with Ernie and had to have a go at it.
“For Christ’s sake, Ernie, the kids here hate, and I mean absolutely hate, going to church. And you know what? I don’t blame them.  There is nothing they can relate to in church. You must know they hate it. They boo, they make catcalls, and they goof off. The music is horrible. We have a gospel choir and you don’t even let them sing gospel music. The priests, especially Monsignor, have no clue how to talk to the kids. But, BUT – when we do stuff in an urban hip-hop style, and involved them in the service – it’s totally different. Was anyone out of line yesterday for the Ash Wednesday service? NO, except for when Sean tried to shut them down.  If you are going to be the liturgist and the liturgy police, then why don’t you lead the prayer services, Brother?”
“Oh, my Lord, no, I couldn’t,” whispered Ernie, looking at me as if I were an extraterrestrial. “Leading prayer with young people is, I am afraid, not one of my gifts.  I just wouldn’t feel very comfortable.”

As had happened so often during the year when dealing with Brother Ernie, there was, after he spoke, a blank void where my consciousness should be.  Does not compute. Illogical. Does not compute. Illogical. Does not compute. Illogical. Does not compute. Illogical. Danger Will Robinson!  Danger! Danger! Old man posing as youth minister! Danger! Danger!
I felt like Alice in Wonderland.  I needed to do something to save my sanity.  I survived Brother Ernie not feeling comfortable leading retreats and I put up with Brother Ernie needing to check with me or Annette before he made a decision of any kind, but I couldn’t take it any more. I figured direct confrontation of the situation was necessary to remove me from the Twilight Zone of Brother Ernie.  As is all too often the case with me, I just made things worse.
“Why the hell do you have your job, Brother?” As I said this, I caught Annette’s eyes.  They were ice cold and she was softly shaking her head from side to side and mouthing “No, no, no.”   I wish I could have processed this fast enough for it to have made a difference, but I didn’t and it didn’t. I continued.
“I’m sorry, Brother, but this makes absolutely no sense.  You are the campus minister, but you feel uncomfortable leading prayer or retreats with the students of this campus.  Isn’t that more than a tad ridiculous? Isn’t it, in fact, totally stupid?”
Brother Ernie’s eyes teared up. “I do my best. I try. I do,” he said, as the crying turned to sobbing.  He took out a rag of a handkerchief, dabbed at his eyes and blew his nose. He rose slowly, like an apparition, and shuffled out of the room, his entire body shaking with heaving sobs.
Rosie Angelini threw the textbook and pad of paper she was using to take minutes onto the floor at my feet.  “You, Mister Christopher,” she barked, “need to go to confession!”  She stormed out of the room calling after Brother Ernie, “Ernest. Ernest! Ernest, come here. It’s all right, Ernest.” And her voice disappeared down the hallway.
“Why, Sunshine?” asked Annette. “Why do you do such things? You have more intelligence in one cell of your brain than most people have in their entire mind, but I swear your soul is out to lunch sometimes.”
“Annette, I didn’t mean to make him cry, but Jesus, you’ve got to admit that it’s pretty nuts to have a campus minister that isn’t comfortable ministering to kids.  And the liturgies and Morning Prayer – it’s like he’s, it’s like we, are trying to rape the kids’ souls.”
“Don’t exaggerate, Johnny Sunshine.”  Annette Jean sounded like my mother or Mother Superior.  “It is nothing like rape, nothing at all. It may not make sense, and it may be bad liturgy, but it is nothing like rape. Rape is a crime of violence.  I can tell you about rape. My father raped me weekly, usually Friday nights, for two years. I was twelve when it started.  Brother Ernest can tell you about rape, too.”
She saw my eyes widen, paused, and then continued.
“Do you know how old Ernest is, Johnny? Do you?”
“No.”
“Then I will tell you.” Annette’s voice bore a heavier Haitian accent as she became more emotional.  She paused again to compose herself; her English less heavily accented when she began again.  “Ernest was born in England. You have probably noticed the slight accent. Birmingham, England, fifty-three years ago.”
Incredible – the wrinkled skin, the white thinning hair, the stooped over gait, the cane – Ernie looked closer to 100 than fifty. The trip through Wonderland was just beginning.
“Yes, he’s fifty-three, don’t be so shocked. His father was a drunk who worked in factories when he could stay employed and beat on Ernie when he couldn’t.  His refuge was his mother, but his father smacked him around even worse whenever he caught him looking at his mother with affection or with pleading eyes during a beating.  His mother wouldn’t divorce his father because divorce, as we know, is a horrible sin, right? Divorce is  much worse than being physically or psychologically abused.  The beating stopped when his dad drank himself to death when Ernest was ten.  His mother brought him to New Hampshire to start over again in America. She had a brother there and just wanted out of Birmingham.  Ernest recovered well enough. He and his mother met a good priest at the parish they joined and both got counseling.  Ernest was so impressed by this priest that he entered the seminary after graduating from UNH with a degree in math.” My face must have betrayed me again. “Don’t be shocked, sweet honey. I am told that once upon a time, he was a fantastic teacher.  Anyway, while at St. Mary’s seminary in New York, he was raped by one of his professors.  Nothing was done about it, so he left the seminary.  Back home in New Hampshire, his rape survivors’ group therapist just happened to be a priest of the order of St. Helena’s Cross.  Ernest was so impressed by this priest that he rediscovered his vocation and joined their order.  He went to their seminary at a college they ran in Concord.  He decided not to be ordained.  My guess is that he couldn’t become a priest because a priest had raped him.  His first assignment for the Crosses was teaching math at their high school in Manchester.  He came to Boston a few years before I did.  The year before I arrived, a student here was shot in a drive-by in Mattapan.  Ernest was on the way home from visiting him in the hospital when a group of four large black boys mugged him.  They took the five dollars Ernest had in his wallet and beat him to within an inch of his life.  I met Ernest at an abuse survivors group run by the Catholic Charitable Foundation.  I may be the only one on the staff who knows all of this.  Maybe he shouldn’t have his job. No, he definitely shouldn’t have his job, but this world owes him a lot more than a job.  I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him he’s not doing his job.  I hope you’re happy you did.”
What could I say? I was a schmuck. I had written off both Rosie and Ernie since early in the year as people who just didn’t get it. God was informing me that whatever connection Annette and I had made, and however much neither of us particularly liked working with Rosie and Ernie, and however little we shared in common with them personally and professionally, we did indeed share a world, a school, a job, and a God with Rosie and Ernie.
Dave leaned into the room. “John, can I see you a minute?”
“Sure.” I grabbed my things and followed Dave down the hall and around the corner to his office.
“Brother Ernie?” I asked, before he had a chance to begin.
“Yes, John.  Look, Ernest is quite upset. I think it might be good for me to tell you a bit about Ernest. Look, you see Ernest…”
“Annette filled me in Dave. I’m very sorry,”  I interrupted.
“And very stupid. Well, look, she may not have told you the whole story. Let me tell you what I know.”
Dave went on to describe Brother Ernie’s teaching career and the details of the drive-by shooting.  The victim was a nice kid, shy, and having a lot of trouble in math.  Ernie was tutoring him after-school and at home.  Dave told me that Ernie was in the hospital for close to a year and that they never found the guys that beat him.  Dave didn’t mention the early childhood abuse or the rape.  I don’t know if this was because he thought I didn’t need to know or because he didn’t know those parts of Ernie’s life himself.  Either way, what did it really matter? I was still a schmuck.
“Look,” said Dave, “you’re a smart guy and we need you here.  Please be careful and don’t do this type of thing again.  I know Ernest is not the ideal person to be our campus minister.  The liturgies aren’t great, morning prayer is insipid, and I think he’s afraid of most of the students by this point, but if the Crosses want to let him stay, he can stay. You’ve got to pick your battles and this one isn’t one I want to fight, nor is it one I need to fight. Ernest will move on soon enough on his own.  Maybe sooner rather than later now, thanks to you.  Look, this is a diocesan central school, but the Crosses still own the building.  It may seem like I’m caving in on this, but if the Crosses sell this place, there is no guarantee the bishop buys it. In fact, you can bet he wouldn’t. He’d claim it wouldn’t be worth the money. What do you say you go upstairs and apologize to Ernest?  Maybe talk to him for a bit and let him know you’re not a…
“A schmuck,” I offered.
“I was thinking self-righteous prick,” said Dave, “but schmuck will do. You go tell Ernest you’re sorry and then I’ll go tell him I wrote you up, which I’m not going to do – again. You realize, don’t you, that if anyone one else was headmaster here, you’d be fired? So go fix things up with Ernest. Now!”
“Gotcha, boss.”
I went to the top floor to Ernie’s office. The door was ajar.  Ernie was still crying softly.  I knocked and the door was opened unto me, a sinner.  This was confession time. No, check that. This was reconciliation time.
“Come in,” Ernie whispered.
“Hi Ernie.  I’m sorry.  It wasn’t my intention to hurt your feelings. It just wasn’t making sense to me and…”
“You act like an asshole sometimes,” he coughed.
“I know.”  The truth hurts sometimes, but it’s always the truth.
“No, I’m not sure you do,” Ernie said. “You have an intellectual understanding that you behave wrongly at times, but I’m not sure you always allow yourself to emotionally experience the feedback, overt or subtle, you receive from others.  You come on strong. You have a forceful personality and that can intimidate people.  I don’t think you want to intimidate people, but you do.  And I’m not sure you understand that deeply enough yet.”
“I may be beginning to.”
“You may be.” He motioned me to sit down.  I sat next to him.
“I know it doesn’t make sense for a campus minister to feel uncomfortable ministering to students.  I am not stupid.  I feel bad, but I don’t want to retire. It would be like letting it win.”
“Letting what win?” I asked.
“The hard times, the evil I’ve run into, the pain of my life.” And he began to tell me his story. It would have been inappropriate for me to tell him I knew a lot of it. It would also have betrayed Annette’s trust. For once, I was smart enough to shut up and listen.  He spoke of his love for math and how he saw God in the numbers and the complexities of mathematical theory. He told of his love for teaching. He spoke of how he loved seeing the students’ eyes widen and light up when they got it. He spoke of teaching as ministry and how difficult it was to teach it after the mugging.  The more he spoke, the more I saw him as a triumphant survivor and less of an incompetent buffoon.
“There was a time I wouldn’t have gotten so upset over what you said. I would have called you a wanker, told you my story and patched it up right then and there.  It’s just easier to try to ignore most things now.  I hope you understand me better. I’ll stop being angry at you soon, I think.  You listened well, better than I ever imagined you would.  Perhaps you could help me. If you would endeavor to make some suggestions, I’d have a go at trying to think about some new things. I know it is not your job, but I could still do all the paperwork and the phone work, and gathering materials and such.  Let’s talk some more.  I will try to be better with the modern liturgy things, but they are foreign to me.  We need to work together. I forgive you. I will pray for you.  Pray for me, OK, John?”
“Of course, Ernie,” I stammered.
“By the way,” he added, smiling through his leftover tears, “I prefer Ernest.  That’s what my mother called me.  Everyone else here calls me Ernest.”
“Sure, Ernest, no problem.”
Lent had hit full stride.  When I left his office I was the one crying – an absolved sinner walking in the grace of God.

Chapter 39 – Paying Attention

I arrived early to school and set up my room for the day.  I had collected the religion AV, not as bad as Beatrice Frogman, however) and borrowed the department CD player from Rosie’s room. I was tempted to make a burnt offering of her insipid Whitney Houston CD, but I left it on her desk.  I saw our technology director Arthur Vincent (yes, his initials are TV/VCR unit for the day.  I had brought in an old transistor radio and some CDs to play in the department unit and my classroom PC.
I put an Eminem CD in the player and Nirvana’s Nevermind in the PC’s CD drive. I tuned the transistor to the loudest white noise static I could find and put a copy of Scarface in the VCR. I tuned the volume on everything up to full blast, distorting the sound all around.  The master chef had created a gourmet cacophony of modern media noise. I waited for the subjects of my experiment.
Korey was partly in on the gig and I’d sworn him to secrecy on the ride in. He played his part well and began dancing as he entered the room.  “Par-tay!” he said, entering the room. “All I need is some fine women and some, how shall I say, enhancers, for atmosphere. And here comes the fine lady now.” He leered at Carmen.
“Now, Mr. C, where’s your source?”
Jeremiah let out an under his breath, “What the hell?” Raul and Theo tried to watch Scarface, but couldn’t hear it over the rest of the din. James went to change the station on the transistor and I tapped him on his hand while shaking my head from side to side. Audrey, a recent transfer from South Boston High, decked out in her usual goth garb, was trying to listen to Kurt Cobain.  Most of the rest sat around looking completely confused as to what the hell I was up to. Hang and Vo covered their ears.  I let them sit like this for five minutes and then went around the room shutting off the noise, one unit at a time.
The silence was stunning. Everyone, except Audrey, had sighs of relief in their eyes.  Hang and Vo were the most grateful. They were all staring at me waiting for my customary mystical explanation for it all.  How could I let them down?
“Our lives are filled with noise. We live in a world dominated by the TV, the Internet, the radio, the CD, the video game, the movies. On the streets, the noise of the traffic and the construction and people walking here and there add to the cacophony. Put it all together and we spend most of our days surrounded by static. Although God is present in all areas of our lives, we can best hear Her voice when we are quiet and make the time and space to listen in silence.  Today we will begin to study prayer. Not saying prayers, but finding ways to listen for God in the quiet of our hearts and lives. The first lesson we must learn, grasshoppers, is how to meditate.”
“Excellent, we get to sleep, man,” Antawan whispered to James.
“No, my friend, meditation is not about falling asleep, it is about being awake. It is about paying attention. It is about zooming in, not zoning out. It is about concentrating on one thing so much that you clear your mind of all else.  To begin our meditation practice, I invite you all to lunch.”
I wheeled out a tray borrowed from the café. On it were six paper plates, each one a serving platter for one course of our meal.  The first plate held 19 raisins; the next 19 baby spinach leaves. The other plates held 19 crackers, 19 grains of cooked rice, 19 beans, and for dessert, 19 M&Ms.
I arranged borrowed cafeteria tables into a long dining table. I put the platters of food on the table and took my position at the head of the table.
“Sit,” I invited, “and eat.”
Skinny sat down, grabbed a handful of M&Ms and wolfed them down.
“Wait at minute. Have you no manners, son? Wait until everyone is served before you eat.” I got the bag of candy in my desk and recounted 19 M&Ms.
“Our first course will be fruit salad. I will pass the fruit salad around. When it gets to you, use the tongs to serve yourself one, that’s 1, O-N-E, one raisin. When everyone has been served, we will eat our first course.”
This was met by the usual he’s-one-crazy-white-bastard looks, but the raisins made it around the table fairly well.
“OK,” I said, taking the last raisin, “You are to eat your raisin – slowly – paying attention to what it feels like in your mouth, what it tastes like, how it breaks down, what it feels like to swallow. Take your time. Make your raisin last as long as you can. When everyone is finished, we will move on to our next course.”
“Mista, I’m allergic to raisins,” said Lydia.
“Then you go hungry this round, kiddo. Everyone else, eat your fruit salad.”
Skinny swallowed his raisin whole.  Anita, Dolores, Hang and Vo nibbled. Jeremiah took forever. Lydia gave hers to Skinny, who swallowed that one whole as well.
“Skinny!”
“What?”
“Eat your lunch correctly or don’t eat at all.”
Jeremiah was surprised at how rough the raisin was. Antawan had never noticed that raisins weren’t all that sweet. Most commented on how the skin far outlasted the dried mushy sugar on the inside. We made our way through the rest of our meager meal.  The spinach leaves were sour, the crackers too dry at first and then too pasty, the grain of rice almost impossible to chew slowly.  Strangest of all, the candy sugar shell on the M&M was not sweet, and if chewed, brittle and sharp.
“Man,” said Korey. “That was the longest I’ve ever spent eating such a small amount of food.”
“And that’s why I asked you to do it. You, me – all of us – we never actually pay attention to what we’re doing. We just rush through our lives, mostly oblivious to what’s really going on around us. Most of us eat like Skinny did at first, just grabbing handfuls and mouthfuls and shoving them in, half the time reading or watching TV while we do it. We hardly pay attention to the food that keeps us alive. We never pay attention to our breathing and that’s a constant thing. Next and last lesson for today is how to breathe.”
“Mister C, can I go to the bathroom?”
“Sure, Lydia, but hustle back, OK?”
“Yes, Mister C.”
“Now, everybody sit up straight, feet flat on the floor, hands resting in your lap, eyes closed and ready to listen.”
“Listen to what, Mista?”
“To your breathing, Dolores, your breathing.  I’m serious, folks. Close your eyes and listen to your breathing. I’ll bet some of you can’t even sit still for five minutes.”
I was right, of course. Two minutes in almost everyone had their eyes and their mouths open, chatting away with the person next to them.
“Just as I feared,” I said. “You’ll have to separate yourselves, move your chairs around and give yourself some room.” They shuffled and scraped the chairs around.  “Better.  Now assume the position again. Not that position, Skinny. You’re not under arrest. I mean the position for seated meditation. In your chair.”  Hang sat down in the lotus position on the floor.  “If you’d rather, you can sit in the lotus position,” I said pointing at Hang, “Cross-legged on the floor.”
“The floor’s gross, Mista. I ain’t sitting there.”
“You don’t have to, Carmen. Just sit in your chair.”
They sat and I let them sit for a minute, eyes closed.
“How many of you are uncomfortable?” I asked.
A dozen hands went up.
“Good. That means you need to learn how to be still and silent.  Listen to me, grasshoppers.  If you have ever watched a little baby breathe, you will notice that they breathe from their bellies, using their diaphragm. As we grow up, we become chest breathers.  We need to learn how to breathe again – deeply and slowly – like babies.  Inhale by contracting your diaphragm. If you can’t do this, place your hand palm down on your chest, just under your ribs and draw the air in by contracting the muscle that’s under your hand. Exhale by relaxing that muscle and letting the air out. Pay attention to nothing else except the air going in and out. If your mind starts wandering, just go back to paying attention to your breathing. Without breathing, we die, but we never seem to notice or pay attention to our breathing. Just pay attention to your breath. It’s holy. It keeps you alive. Remember the Greek word in the New Testament for spirit and wind and breath is the same word: pneuma.  In the Old Testament, Ruah, the breath of God, moves over the waters.  Pay attention, grasshoppers, to your breathing.”
“How come you keep calling us grasshoppers, Mista?” asked Carmen.
How to explain to them that their lives are precious and singular? How to explain the Shaolin Saturday morning mystic of my childhood?  I could tell them about Mary Oliver and Kwai Chang Caine, but would anything make any more sense after I had?
“Because that’s what Master Po called Kwai Chang.”
“Mista, sometimes you are very strange.”
“I know, Carmen. Comes with the territory when you’re a mystic.”
I motioned with my hands for everyone to close their eyes. We meditated. Jeremiah lasted a long time, maybe close to the full five minutes we had left of class. Hang, good little Buddhist that she was, could have kept going all day. Most of them gave up after two to three minutes. Lydia, who had returned from the ladies room, lasted all of fifteen seconds.
“Your Pavlovian signal is about to chime, my grasshoppers, so I just want to say that you had five minutes of meditation today. We will work at this until we meditate for an entire class period.”
“That’s freaking impossible, Mista,” said Carmen.
“No, it is quite possible, Carmen.”
“Yeah,” said Jeremiah, “We keep this up and I’d be asleep soon.”
“No sleeping, Jeremiah. This is meditation. It is relaxing, but it is also about being awake. We need the quiet and relaxation. It reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, and helps us listen to God and our innermost heart. Once we get quiet and settle our minds, however, the things that rise to the surface most easily are usually things we don’t want to think about or remember. Once we quiet down, these things we have repressed can work their way to the surface. Some of these things can be painful or unpleasant for us, which is why we repress them and fill our lives with noise so we can’t hear their cries. This is OK, though. Like Bob Marley sang, ‘Out of darkness there must come out a light.’ Once we bring these things out, we can deal with them and begin to heal. If you should feel uncomfortable, or if anything comes up inside you as a result of meditation, please feel free to talk to me or Mrs. Solomon.”
The bell rang. The noise was back. Out my door they went, merging into the sharp, crackling, electric flow of the high school hallway. I had to rouse Hang. She gathered her things calmly and went on her way, smiling.
“Have a good day, grasshopper,” I called after her.

I stopped by my faculty mailbox on the way out of the building.  Most days there was nothing special in the cubbyhole in the wall under my name. Just the odd notice to the staff from Dave or Sean or Eunice, the odd note to call a parent, advertisements from textbook companies, perhaps the minutes from the last faculty or department meeting. Most of the time I didn’t pay attention to any of it, just put it in the circular file on my way out of the room. Today, however, there was an actual letter with a stamp and a postmark.  It was unmistakably a girl’s handwriting and looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t recognize the address and there was no name above it.  I ripped it open and unfolded the five pages of neat bubble script in purple ink. I scanned the last page for a signature. There is was – Angela.  Underneath her signature was a pink Post-It note.
“Mr. Christopher, I agreed to mail this for Angela. She’s been quite upset since arriving here at St. JJ’s.  Her mother has her on a very tight leash. I’ve been trying to get Angela to talk to me, but she says she wants to talk to you. Says you’re the only adult who ever paid attention to her.  I told our principal, Sister Margaret, about the letter and she agreed that we should send it to you. Perhaps you could send a reply back to me and/or speak with her mother.”
The note was signed “Sister Maggie Shea, Guidance Counselor”
I flipped to the beginning of the letter.
“Dear Mr. C (the best teacher ever),” Angela began. “You’ve got to help me. I hate it here. You’re the only one who ever listened to me.  Well, besides Leon, but you’re the only adult who ever listened to me.  I can’t take it any more. Mom says she loves me, but she never listens to me and living at home is like hell. This school isn’t much better. And I haven’t been able to see Leon since my last day at St. Somebody. That was weeks ago. He stopped trying to call when mom wouldn’t let him talk to me.  I hate my mom. She never listens to me. The religion teacher here doesn’t do cool activities like you did. We just read the book and answer questions.  Sister Maggie, she’s the guidance counselor here (if you get this letter, it’s because of her), keeps calling me to her office and wanting me to talk about how I feel. I don’t say anything because I don’t know her. She’ll probably just tell mom anyways.  Leon and I never did anything. I think mom assumes we were having sex every day or something.”
The letter went on for four more pages. The entire thing was a jumbled mess. Her narrative alternated between three topics: her mom, Leon, and her new school.  There were just enough references to not being able to take it any more, that I became a bit concerned she might try to kill herself.  I made two photocopies of the letter and went to see Dave.
Dave made a call to St. JJ’s and expressed our concern about the “I can’t take it anymore” references.  Dave kept one of the copies of the letter and agreed with Sister Margaret and Sister Maggie that he should give a copy to Rosie. I was against the idea, at least for the moment, because I feared Angela would lose faith in me, feel like I betrayed her trust. I also feared further resistance and trouble for Angela from her mother, if not retaliation of some type.  I was overruled by the administrators.
“What should I do, Dave?  I feel like I have to reply to her.”
“Of course you have to reply to her.”  Dave opened a desk drawer and took out a box containing thank you notes and a bunch of assorted greeting cards.  “Look, here you go.  Just use one of these,” he said and slid the box across his desk.  “Do a good job, John. Make sure she knows someone is still paying attention.” I selected a card with a drawing of the laughing Christ on the front because it was blank inside. I filled it up with as much grace as I could.  I told Angela that God loves her and that I do, too.  In the end that’s all I needed to say, I suppose, but I wrote more. I explained why concern for her safety made me show the letter to Mr. Martin and that I was sorry if this caused her some more grief in the short term. I hoped she could still feel free to talk to me. I encouraged her to try and love her mom. I encouraged her to talk to Sister Maggie. I explained that Mr. Martin was sending this card to her through Sister Maggie.  I signed it, “All our Love, God and Mr. C.”
It’s times like this that all our human effort seems inadequate and all of our ability to love each other is most desperately needed. Rosie was probably gonna yell at me on Monday.  Then I remembered that I wouldn’t see her on Monday. It was February vacation.

Chapter 40 – Vacation
Highlights of February Vacation: Celtics versus Lakers (but not like it used to be), lots of time playing with Rafe and Gabby, Canadiens versus Bruins, taking naps, visiting Yahira with the amigas, and a very interesting phone call from Celine.
I always find February vacation to be a hibernation time. Marie is at work and I am a stay-at-home dad.  The kids are mine, from breakfast to bedtime stories. Marie considers it a vacation where she works during the day to break things up.  Thanksgiving and Christmas school vacations are not like this because Marie arranges vacation time around those, but February and April vacations are Mr. Mom time.
Rafael is still young enough to take naps and I take them with him.  Adults should adopt nap time, reclaim it from childhood. Workplaces should have nap cots. Sometimes Gabriella naps when we do, sometimes she watches a video or reads a book.  When we aren’t napping, we are making snow angels, sledding, baking cookies (no wonder I gained ten pounds), and playing games. I stack the deck for Candyland so that Gabby always seems to get a picture card at the right time.  We settle in with popcorn for Disney video sessions and PBS marathons of Arthur, Sesame Street, and Dragon Tales.
I also get to cook more during vacation. Marie usually forgets to consult on dinner before she leaves for work so vacations are filled with linguica and kale soup and sweet bread and cacoila, and of course, Irish stew.
Celine phoned one morning shortly after Marie had left for the hospital.
“How do you feel about Marie not sleeping with you during Lent, John?”
That was blunt.
“Well she sleeps with me, little sister, she just won’t fuck me during Lent.”
“Don’t be gross, John. I’m serious. How do you feel about her abstaining from sex during Lent?”
“It’s wonderful and holy, Celine. I rediscover a relationship with my left hand. Lefty and I use Lent for a hand-in-hand stroll down memory lane, a nostalgic trip that returns us both to peak adolescence.”
“You hate it, huh?”
“It is not my favorite thing about the season, no. If your sister wasn’t a dream lover the rest of the year, I’d file for divorce.  Why, out of the blue, do you disturb my hibernation with this query?”
“It’s Susan. She hates it, too. We’re going to San Diego together for spring break in a couple of weeks and she’s pissed that I won’t sleep with her while we’re together there.”
“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight, no pun intended. You are keeping a long distance, as in cross-continental, relationship with a young woman you met at a party we took you to New Year’s Eve. This relationship is a sexual one and you have the same Lenten practice as Marie, in which you abstain from sex during Lent and your new lover doesn’t like it?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
“So this abstinence from sex thing in Lent runs in the family, like rabbit pie at Thanksgiving and poutines on New Year’s Day?”
“I guess. Mom never had sex with Pep during Lent.  When she gave us the sex talk, she really emphasized this with us. She said since we all aren’t called to celibacy, we should use these six weeks a year as a time to live a religious life in community with our families. She was so serious about it. She says Pep hated it because all men want is sex and Pep was always grumpy during Lent. It was always an in-joke in the family among the sisters who had already had ‘the talk’.  Anyway, Susan thinks I’m nuts. Maybe I am. Do you think I am?”
“No shit, Celine. Marie never told me this. I always thought this was her little thing, a quirk, but it’s really something I can blame on my mother-in-law?”
“Stop being a jerk. Seriously, John, is it that terrible?”
“I don’t like it. It’s not me. My libido doesn’t take Lent off, but if Marie’s does, who am I to complain? I love her too much and she kinda makes up for it the rest of the year.”
“How?”
“Well sis, she plans the most romantic and raunchy Mardi Gras celebrations, if you know what I mean.”
“How fucking romantic! My big sister! Too much, too much. This is awesome. Thanks, John. I knew I could count on you.”
“What’d I do?”
“Well, I missed Mardi Gras, but I am going to give Susan an Easter to remember.”
“Wait a minute, kid, you guys aren’t even married. You shouldn’t even be having sex, not to mention the fact that you are both technically disordered and committing the sin of being practicing homosexuals.”
“You’re so funny, John. You old married Catholics are sooooo old fashioned. Bye.”
The line went dead. The dial tone rang in my ear. Life is so weird.

“Oh, snap. That’s dope! No way, no way. You’re serious? Man!”  This was Korey’s version of speechless when Joseph told him he had traded one of his three pairs of Bruins-Canadiens tickets for one pair of Celtics season tickets. Joseph bought tickets to two or three B’s-Canadiens games every year, usually one pair for Montreal. He was giving up a yearly trip to Montreal with Sylvie to see relatives and a Canadiens home game so that Korey could have a seat right behind the Celtics bench for the Lakers only visit of the season to Boston on Wednesday night.
“You can take John with you. I hate basketball. Happy Birthday. Sylvie can you get me more fricot?”
“Yes!” I jumped up from the table, “Antoine! Pierce!” Korey met my high-five over the salad serving bowl and the pot of chicken soup on the table. “Shaq! Kobie!” he added.
“Wait a minute. WAIT A MINUTE! Don’t even tell me you will be rooting for the Lakers.”
“Mr. C, man, the Celtics su.. uh, stink, man.”
That was it. He had blasphemed. It was bad enough there was a Canadiens fan in the family. This could not be tolerated.
“The Celtics, my young friend, are the most storied franchise in basketball with 16 world titles.”
“But Mr. C, they haven’t won a title since Mr. Cormier was my age. Now Shaq and Kobie are where it’s at.  They’re the best two players in the league now that Jordan’s retired.”
“Well, my friend, the last of the Celtics championships was a while ago, but you were already born, I’ll wager, in 1986 when the greatest NBA team of all time with Bird, McHale, Parish, DJ, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Scott Wedman and Jerry Sichsting totally dominated.”
“Oh man, Mr. C. That was back in the day. Jordan and the Bulls would run them old school boys off the court.”
“You do not know what you are talking about, son. Luc Longley couldn’t cover Walton or Parish with a tent and Pippen would get eaten alive by McHale, whom he couldn’t stop from scoring with an army and barbed wire, and there would be no answer for Larry Legend.”
“Whatever, Mr. C. You’re too much. I’ll just say that Larry Bird was a slow white man with a jump shot and Jordan would school him seven days a week.”
“Enough, you two. Basketball, for Christ’s sake, a bunch of sissies in short pants running around. Hockey, that’s a man’s game,” said Joseph.  He slid the Celtics tickets over to me and to Korey.
“These are for Wednesday,” he said of the front row C’s seats, “and these are for Friday.” And he produced B’s – Canadiens tickets from his shirt pocket and slid them over to us. “You two can go with Sylvie and me.”
In an upset, the Celtics beat the Lakers with a Paul Pierce three at the buzzer of OT.  The B’s fell to the Canadiens 3-1.

The Saturday at the end of vacation week we took the amigas to visit Yahira. She looked much more alive than the last time we saw her. Granted, there was still a lot going on, and she had a long way to go, but she didn’t cry the entire visit. She even talked of going back to school.
“They are thinking of letting me live with mi tia Luz and go back to school. I want to get out of here. It’s depressing. Everyone here is so messed up.”  She paused as she realized she herself was here because she was so messed up. She smiled and we all laughed.

Chapter 41 – All Volunteers Take One Step Forward
“Johnny. Johnny Sunshine? Wake up, Johnny.”  Annette was nudging me. “You are a tennis player, right?”
“What?” I mumbled. I was doing my best to sleep through another faculty meeting.  I wasn’t sleeping actually, more like daydreaming, but clueless none-the-less.
“You play tennis. You can do it,” said Annette.
“Do what, Annette?”
“Coach the tennis team.”
“We don’t have a tennis team.”
“We could if we had a coach. Raise your hand. You can do it.”
“What?”
“John is a tennis player, Donny.”
“Really, John?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’ll do it?” asked Adonis Demopoulos, the ancient and rotund St. Somebody athletic director.
“I guess so.”
“Great!”
There were polite golf claps all around and I whispered to Annette, “What the hell did you just volunteer me for, you Haitian witch doctor?”
“You’re the new tennis coach, Sunshine.”
And that is how I became the St. Somebody tennis coach. While I was sleeping, Donny Demopoulos had explained the offer from the Roxbury Racket Club to let us use their courts for our tennis team as part of an initiative to build a tennis program in the neighborhood, since many of our students were from that part of town. Marie was going to kill me. I couldn’t afford to be away from home all those hours after school.  When I complained to Annette, she said, “You should remember to stay awake during meetings, Johnny. Besides, you’ll love it.”
When the meeting ended, Donny asked what I needed for the team.
“Uniforms, I guess, for one.”
“You’ll have to make do with T-shirts, like softball.”
“Tennis balls.”
“Taken care of, you got ten cans for each match. The Catholic suburban league plays ten court matches, five boys and five girls.”
“We’ll need practice balls.”
“No money for those, but Roxbury Racket said you could use their lesson baskets this year.”
“Players?” I asked.
“Start recruiting coach. You can start practicing March tenth.”
Donny then told me what he knew about how the league operated. Our matches were co-ed, with boys and girls each playing three singles and two doubles, but the match score included both boys and girls results. Match play would be ten game pro sets with a tie-breaker at 10-all. Our non-league games would not count in our league’s standings, but would count toward our total number of wins needed to make individual and team state tournaments. Our league also held its own individual tournament at the end of the year. We opened the season at Lincoln-Sudbury on March 25. If there was bad weather, we’d play them at the Concord Country Club’s indoor courts. Most teams in our league played on eight courts. Matches at Roxbury Racket would take longer because we only had four courts.
Marie yelled at me for an hour over dinner, dessert and the newscast, but didn’t say I couldn’t do it.  Moira Kelly phoned after we had put the kids to bed. “Annette volunteered me to be your assistant.”
“I see. The witch doctor got you too, huh?”
“Can you use the help?”
“Sure. Do you play tennis?”
“Second singles for Notre Dame Academy for girls, including district tournament semi-finalist my senior year.”
“OK, you’re hired.”
“See you on the court.”

Chapter 42 – Shoebox
School had just ended and I had a stack of shoeboxes to evaluate.  I would grade them here instead of taking any home because the logistics of transport were too much to deal with and I didn’t want anything lost or broken on the journey.  I had started with Lydia’s box because I just had to locate the foul odor in the pile and determine what was causing it.
The work was exquisite. The smell was unbearable. I couldn’t tell where the smell was coming from because all the lids were still on the boxes, but the stench was definitely coming from one of the shoeboxes. The inside of the shoe box was not a student’s diorama as much as a classic dollhouse.  The interior of the box was evenly divided into four rooms.  Two rooms were schoolrooms: my classroom and the girls room. Two rooms were from a family home: one was a girl’s bedroom, complete with stuffed animals, miniature posters, a computer, and a phone; the other was the family bathroom.  Four dolls occupied the box, one to a room.  All the dolls wore the same clothing. The little figure in each bathroom was kneeling at the toilet.  The stench rising up from the box was that of vomit, real human vomit. It covered the immaculate reproductions.  When the boxes were passed in, the kids had made jokes about the smell. Lydia joined in, as if she didn’t know where it was coming from, just another front hiding her bulimia.
I couldn’t believe I had missed it. She was always cold. She always had to use the restroom after lunch. She had been losing weight. She’d been a chunky girl, not overly heavy or fat, but her weight loss was the envy of all her friends and more recently she had been getting the attention of a lot of the more sought after young men in the building.
I wrapped the shoebox in a plastic trash bags to minimize the stench in the hallways as I walked down to the counseling room.
Lourdes usually gets out of the building right away at the end of a school day because she has no responsibilities except the counseling sessions, all of which are before lunch.  Tuesdays, however, she sometimes stays late for follow-ups with some of the kids. With any luck, she’d be doing that now.
Her door was closed.  I knocked.
“Just a minute,” She called from the other side.
Thank God Almighty.
I ripped off the shoebox assignment from a psych prof at Worcester State. It was based on the Johari Window model of interpersonal communication.  The top of the box represents the public self, the self we all show to the world around us where aspects of our personality are open to others as well as ourselves. Lydia’s shoebox was covered in a Jamaican flag overlaid with a cross. Various photos and items were attached representing her love of art, dancing, talking on the phone, and shopping.  The sides of the box represent blind spots or ways in which others see us that we are not aware of ourselves. Lydia’s shoebox sides were covered with variations on a holier than thou theme, which was accurate. She doesn’t notice it, but she comes across as the only “saved” teenager on the planet.  The bottom of the box represents the unknown self and Lydia’s box, like many others, had a question mark on it.
The inside of the box represented the private self, the part of you that is not shared openly with others. The instructions and directions for the assignment clearly stated that if a student did not want me looking inside the shoebox they had to notify me ahead of time and then secure the lid shut with tape or glue, or in the case of one gothic young lady from Southie, a padlock and chain.  Lydia put a lock on her shoebox. A small plastic lock, but did not secure it. She had not asked for permission to close the box lid so I opened the box. Pandora had a tough time opening boxes, but her story mentions nothing about how the box smelled inside.
I had also promised that the box was confidential and that I would not share its contents with anyone unless I thought someone’s life was in danger.  This was a clear-cut case of life in danger.
“Ola, John.” Lourdes saw the look in my eyes, “What’s wrong?”
As I opened the trash bag, the odor invaded her nostrils and she held back a retch. I handed her the box and the copy of the assignment instructions I had brought with me.
“Jesus, John,” she said taking the box from me.  A young girl, freshman probably, had shot past me when Lourdes opened the door. Her room was empty. I sat in the client chair; she sat at her desk and read the assignment, then studied the box.
“Any clues to this behavior before?” she asked.
“Yeah, a few, but I missed them.”
“Such as?”
“She’s always complaining the room is cold.  She’s been asking to go to the ladies room a lot, especially after lunch. She has dropped a bit of weight and the girls are telling her she looks good and the boys don’t have to say it in so many words.”
“I’ll take care of it, John.”
“Thanks. You know, Lourdes, if I had to change places with most of my students I don’t know if I could get up in the morning. How do they do it?”
“I don’t know, but you would find a way to survive, constructive or not, just like they do.”
I had nothing else to say so I walked back to my room to finish the shoeboxes.  Thank God Korey wasn’t around this afternoon. Joseph had come to get him early from school for an appointment at Youth Services.  I wouldn’t have wanted to have to explain what was up with the vomit box. I couldn’t have anyway. I would have had to hide it.
You know the scene in Jesus Christ Superstar where the crowd is closing in on Jesus singing “Won’t you help, won’t you heal me, Christ?”  Teachers know what that feels like. I’m sure doctors and social workers and a bunch of other folks do, too. Jesus ends up screaming, “Heal yourselves!”  I understand that. The need is overwhelming. Is there enough Christ to go around?   I want to believe that there is, but as a theologian, as a teacher, as a human being – I wonder. I really do.

Chapter 43 – Training Camp
Tennis began on Monday, March 10, at the Roxbury Racket  Club.  Five players showed up.  I had tried to talk Korey into learning the game, but he wouldn’t go for it.  Joseph and Sylvie wouldn’t let him play basketball, even though the coach and Dave Martin were willing to let him try out. They didn’t want him doing anything after school except with me, and since I was the coach and would be there, I knew they’d give the OK for tennis, but Korey wasn’t up for it. He brought a book with him and read or listened to his CD player.  As we tried to practice, he tried not to laugh at us. Hang and Vo showed up. Neither of them had sneakers or workout clothes or rackets, but it’s hard to say no to two-fifths of your team, especially when I needed fourteen players.  Carmen was giving it a go.  The fifth was a prize, a star in the making.  Brian Cooke was a tall, muscular kid from Southie, one of the few white kids at St. Somebody and the only white player on our basketball team. He was a senior and I didn’t know much about him until the baseball coach called me in a rage wanting to know why I was recruiting our star first baseman-pitcher and clean-up hitter to play tennis. Brian was the Giants’ only all league baseball player last season.  I had never even spoken to the kid. When I asked the team why they came out for tennis, Brian said, “I watch it on TV. No one really knows I like it and I never played, but I want to learn. I like baseball, but our team sucks. Last year I hit .407 and had an ERA of 2.04 and we won two games.  It’s not like I’m the difference between winning and winning a championship.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about winning a championship, either, but we will learn how to play tennis,” I said.  What I didn’t say was that not only was winning a championship out of the question, but we would be lucky if we won a set on one court in one match the entire season.
Poor schools don’t usually have tennis teams.  The only league we could join was brutal. Donny had two choices of a league for our team. One was the Greater Boston League, which included most of the bigger Boston area public schools such as Newton, Waltham, Malden, Everett, Chelsea, and the like. He went with the other option, the Catholic Suburban League. We would face the larger, richer private Catholic schools such as Holy Trinity of Watertown, B.C. High/Notre Dame Academy, Medford Catholic, Wellesley Jesuit, and Assumption Prep of Burlington. St. John and St. James of Cambridge, and Cardinal Medeiros of Boston, were also in the league, the only diocesan schools big enough and rich enough to run a tennis program. We would be lucky to win points in these matches. We had chances of winning sets and maybe, just maybe, by the end of the season, winning a match against the other newcomer to the league, St. Thomas in Revere, which was a smaller diocesan school like us.
The league schedule gave us 16 matches, one home and one away against each team in the league. Since most spring sports teams in Massachusetts play 20-game seasons, Donny went out and found us four non-league games to fill our schedule. To his credit, he tried to find smaller, public schools, but the small town teams he was able to get for us were in wealthier communities.  We would begin our season with non-league matches against Lincoln-Sudbury and Lowell. We would end the season against Reading and Monument.  I laughed aloud when I saw this.
“And we will need to recruit more players, so bug your friends until they show up,” added Moira.
“The first thing we need is equipment. Everyone needs tennis shoes. Basketball shoes or cross trainers will do, but no running shoes and no boots and no non-athletic shoes. Who has a racket?” No one did.
“OK, today we go shopping.”
Moira and I bought Hang and Vo tennis shoes and we bought ten rackets, three good ones in case we had any skilled players show up or develop and seven cheaper ones.  Marie gave me hell for spending the money, but what the hell, where else was I going to get rackets?
Roxbury Racket was a good half-hour away from the school by MBTA bus lines and no faster in my car. I drove Hang and Vo (both with their new tennis shoes) and I talked with Moira as we waited on the rest of our team.  Moira was not going to be able to be a constant presence due to her caseload and court schedules, but would help out as often as she could.  When the bus arrived, we had three new players. Anita and Dolores showed up with Carmen and I had recruited Jeremiah, convincing him his basketball footwork would make him a decent player.  I had talked to dozens of students, but these three were the only ones that came. It was going to be hard to fill a minimum roster of fourteen players.
“Let’s get to it, folks, stretching time.” Moira and I led an extended stretching session. After a good 20 minutes had passed. Jeremiah started complaining. We stopped stretching and began to run.
“Ladies and gentleman,” said Moira, “before you can learn to hit a tennis ball you must be able to run and chase down the ball so that you can hit it.  Therefore, we now begin our running regimen. First we will run suicides.”
“Oh, snap, man, that’s foul. Tennis is an easy game,” said Jeremiah, the basketball player.
“And these are not sissy suicides like in basketball,” I added. “These include all the lines across all the courts, not just a baseline to service line to net run.”
“And,” Moira continued, “we will run five suicides straight, five backward, five left shuffles, five right shuffles and five crossovers.”
“You’re gonna kill us, man,” said  Jeremiah.
“Then,” said Moira, driving in the knife and twisting it, “we will run a mile. Actually, the distance around this block is nine-tenths of a mile, but close enough.”
“Folks, until one of you can run a mile faster than Ms. Kelly or me, this will be our practice. No rackets, just running.”
Moira ran a seven-minute mile and I chugged in three minutes behind her. Two full minutes after I huffed my way back inside, Jeremiah raced in.  Twenty minutes after we’d started most of the rest had arrived. Thirty minutes after we’d started, Moira and I became concerned that Hang and Vo were nowhere in sight.  Moira set off again and I ran the route backward. We met each other half way and found the two little Vietnamese girls sitting on a curb, chatting away in their native tongue. When Hang saw us, she smiled a big smile of relief.
“Hi, Miss. Hi, Mister. When everyone ran away from us we got a little nervous so we chose to wait here until they came back.”
When we got back inside the racket club, the rest of our team was slamming tennis balls around baseball style. The management was threatening to rescind their offer of use of the courts.  I was ready to blow a head gasket.
“Stay here, John,” said Moira, leaving me at the corner of court one, “I’ll settle this.”
Five minutes later she had the balls picked up and the rackets collected. She sat the team in a circle and gave them the lecture.  Then she kicked over the ball hopper and told them to pick up the balls again, by hand, no baskets, and bring them back.  When they were done, she did it again.  Before she went for a third try she gave them the option of doing more running instead.  They chose running.
“New rule, however,” said Moira, “No rackets until someone beats me in a mile run and all mile runs come after a set of suicides.”
The kids groaned. We lined them up for suicides again.
I leaned over to her and whispered, “You know that we are now going to be the only team in our league that doesn’t practice with rackets, right?”
“Nonsense, John, the boys are dogging it.”
“Brian and Dolores have asthma.”
“Vince Lombardi would chew out your ass, coach.  Anyway, in a week we go to rackets if no one has beaten me yet, because they won’t. I run road races every chance I get and I can do six-minute miles”
The second mile run did indeed prove the boys were dogging it. Jeremiah beat me, but not Moira. Brian and Dolores were on their inhalers.   When their breathing was back to normal, they joined us doing 500 service tosses.  This was going to be a long, hard road.

Chapter 44 – Nothing Doing
“Today, kiddos, your assignment is to do nothing. Go to it.” I said this and sat down at my desk to read prayer journals.  I read about Royale reading yet another book written for kids half her age.  I read about Lydia begging her parents to let her see the school’s therapist, Mrs. Solomon, and when they refused, Lourdes having to call the state.  I read about Korey not being able to deal with the fact that he liked the way the Cormiers loved him, even if they were corny, old, white Canadians.  I read about Dolores, Carmen, and Anita still missing their amiga, Yahira.  I read one of Skinny’s latest rhymes.  I read about Janet’s sickle cell acting up again.  While I read, the room got noisier and noisier.  The CD player was on full volume.  Skinny danced with Janet.  James and Antawan played GameBoy. Everyone was talking and the talking was getting louder and louder in order to get over the rest of the noise. I sat, watched and listened for a few more minutes.
“Stop!”
“Stop it, right now, all of you!” I was imitating O’Grady. “You are all terrible at doing nothing.”
“What you mean, Mista? We’re doing nothin’ jus’ like you said to.”
“No, Dolores, you are all doing something.  You’re all dancing and talking and playing games.”
“Yeah, Mr. C, we’s just chillin’, like you said,” said Skinny.
“But I didn’t ask you to chill. I want you to do nothing, nothing at all.”
“What?”
“Come on over here, huddle up.”
They all gathered around me. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are to do nothing, just sit, just be.”
“Is this more meditation stuff, Mista?” asked Carmen.
“Yes. Now take a seat and assume the position.” Assume the position had become our code for sitting in a chair or lotus style on the floor to meditate. I had taken them through guided meditations, meditating to music (once they got used to sitar music and Gregorian chant, it wasn’t too bad), and hatha yoga. It was time for active meditation. We were going to walk around the building silently, in quiet, with attention to our breathing and our task, and pick up the trash and sweep.
Juan Gomez and Tom Malley, the school’s two janitors, were on strike. Their union, the Maintenance and Janitorial Workers of America (MAJWA) had just won a vote of the janitorial staff in the diocese and had been trying to negotiate a new contract for all of their schools, hospitals, and agencies.  The contract talks broke down over three items: a living wage increase, an increase of hours worked per week from a maximum of 29 to 30 so the janitors would be eligible for health insurance, and inclusion of all parish janitors and housekeepers in the collective bargaining agreement.  Annette and I were the only teachers in the building wearing “Jesus for MAJWA” buttons and putting up signs in our classrooms that read: “Jesus supports his janitors in the Archdiocese, why doesn’t the Church?”
I went over the ground rules and we assigned brooms and trash bags and began cleaning my room. We had to restart four times before everyone got it through his or her head that I was serious and there was to be no talking.  We got through half the hallways in the building before class ended.
The next day we continued through the rest of the building and the library.  We were accosted by Frankenhead who wanted to know just what the heck we were doing.  He became infuriated when, following directions, no student would talk to him. He got so loud yelling at the meditating junior janitors that Dr. Knowles stepped out into the hallway during class (this usually takes a fire drill) and told Sean to pipe down.  Go Knowles. Then he added, “Sean, they’re just practicing for life after high school and at least they’re quiet for a change.”  Boos and jeers for Knowles.  Sean ended up walking away.
When we returned to my room, Rosie Angelini stepped out into the hall, stood in front of me and dropped a crumpled ball of notebook paper at my feet.  I bent down to pick it up and put it in my trash bag.  As I did so I noticed the bubble script of her daughter’s handwriting, and for a minute I was afraid she was going to kick me in the face, but she walked away.  I picked up the paper and threw it away.
Korey had been reading some of Celine’s books from her room at her parents house (things on Chavez and some of the rest of the progressive and labor canon) and suggested that we wear buttons in support of the janitors. He even made up a button with the MAJWA logo and letters in the middle in graffiti style with the slogan “St. Somebody Students Supports MAJWA” around the edge of the circle.  Marie borrowed a button maker from our parish youth group in Bethelle and I ran copies of the button on the faculty machine – and presto – we had scabs in support of the union, urban monks meditating their way through weekly clean-up chores.

Chapter 45 – Like Paper in Fire
There had been an opening prayer and readings.  Skinny and Janet had performed a rhyme they wrote about forgiveness. I had passed out small squares of paper and mini-golf pencils (an old youth-group standby for writing activities).    The prayer table was in the middle of the room, bare except for a purple cloth and a borrowed Bunsen burner from the science lab. Over this sat a wire basket.
“We have a hard time forgiving others and we have a hard time forgiving ourselves.  God is satisfied with an honest apology and a serious promise to do better.  It’s a good deal, especially when we really screw up, especially when we have done serious wrong, caused serious hurt and pain, and worst of all, knew we were doing it.  God forgives lying, cheating, stealing, killing. Unconditional love is a generous thing. It’s so generous it even seems unfair. Until one realizes what honest apologies require and how hard it is to keep a promise to do better. Many people can’t honestly apologize or forgive.  Many people, deep down, as we’ve learned, don’t always think very well of themselves and sometimes feel they don’t deserve to be forgiven.”
I stopped, went to the prayer table and lit the Bunsen burner. I had it connected to a mini propane tank from our gas camping grill. I was breaking fire codes, never mind school rules, but it would be to great effect.
“I want you to think of something for which you need to be forgiven and write it down on the small piece of paper.  I am going to turn on some music.  I invite you to come up, one at a time, and silently and sincerely ask God to forgive you. Then use the tongs to drop your paper into the wire basket.  Your paper will burn up almost instantly – that’s how easily God forgives us.  That’s how much God holds your sins against you,” I snapped my fingers. “God forgives you instantly. Your sins die to him like a snap of your fingers or paper in fire.  After you drop your paper into the fire, please take one of the prayer cards from the stack on the corner of the table to remind yourself that God forgives you and God loves you, and so do I.”
I played Lauryn Hill’s “Forgive Them Father” softly on the CD player.  One at a time, with a solemnity reserved in the Catholic imagination for Tridentine holy day Masses, they placed their sins in the fire and the papers containing their sins vanished in puffs of fire and smoke, hardly a one left a burning ash or ember.
Korey was the last to place his paper in the fire. He stood over the flame, sins on paper in the tongs in his hand, for a long moment. When he was finished and his paper was consumed, I asked for prayers with my usual line, “For what else and for whom else should we pray today?”
“For me, my mom, that we can both get into heaven.”  This was always Royale’s prayer.
“For my grandmother. She’s in the hospital.” First I’d heard of that from Janet, have to check into it. Her parents kinda suck so she spends a lot of time with the grandmother.
“For the baseball team, that we win our first game.” James prayed as if God wagered on high school sports.
“For the tennis team,” squeaked Hang. God, I love you for Hang Bui.
“For Mister Christopher.” This was usually Vo’s prayer and it brought forth witnesses of “Amen” from various members of the classroom congregation. I’d be a liar to say that it didn’t feel good to hear it.
“For Yahira.”  This has been Anita’s prayer since Yahira went into the inpatient facility.  Carmen and Dolores usually followed in behind her creating a digital delay chorus or ball park time lag.  Roberto had no prior record so he had been slapped with  a restraining order. Last week when Omayra Pabon left the battered women’s shelter, she hooked up with Roberto and split town.  How did everyone find out? She stopped to visit Yahira on her way out.  Yahira’s aunt Luz has been recruited by Bridget Riley to be the girl’s family contact. Tia Luz had been Yahira’s only other visitor besides me and the amigas. It had almost been twelve weeks, the maximum stay allowed by MassGap, the state’s health insurance for uninsured minors.  Even though she needed to stay, she had to leave.  Lourdes has been working with Bridget Riley to set up a transition back to school, including making two hours a week available to Yahira for one- on-one counseling.
“Pour mon père et mon mère et tout le famille Cormier.”  Korey had been learning French from Joseph while helping the old Acadian in his basement workshop. At first Korey hated working with the old man, but soon he began to be able to fix things, found he had a knack for it, and was now building some kind of surprise for Easter. And he had found that he had a knack for learning languages.  He was acing Spanish since he returned to school and his French is better than mine, and Marie and her family have been parlez-vous-ing me for years now.
“You learning to speak white man out there in the suburbs, K.C.?” asked Thomas.
“It’s French, nigga. Don’t be so ignorant.”
Lent had been tough on Thomas. By the time we got to doing silent meditation, he couldn’t take it and had to leave the room. Something deep was bugging him. Something that he couldn’t suppress.
“Chill. Both of you.” I gave them my you’re-in-deep-shit teacher look. “Prayer time.”

Chapter 46 – If You Can’t Be an Athlete
“We could really use uniforms, even the T-shirts you promised us, Donny. It was pretty embarrassing going out there without uniforms.”  I had little patience for meetings, and I didn’t want to wait until the uniforms and equipment part of the agenda.
“What was embarrassing was the score of your opening match, Mr. Christopher,” said O’Grady. O’Grady was at the athletic department meeting of spring sports coaches because he was the assistant baseball coach.  Turns out he was the star pitcher of his high school team – the first and last one from his school to win a state title. That trophy sits in the St. Somebody trophy case in Dave’s waiting room. Sean O’Grady is an alumnus, class president, and star athlete from a time when St. Somebody’s student body was primarily white Irish kids from Southie. Welcome back, O’Kotter.
“Well, maybe they’d be able to play better if they felt they were representing the school.”  Who was I trying to bullshit?  Frankenhead Kotter was right. Our opening match was embarrassing.
We had traveled out to Lincoln-Sudbury and had made it through introductions when it started to rain. We piled into the bus and followed the LS team into Concord to the Concord Country Club.  The club bigot was on court one and apparently not aware of the club’s policy to let LS High School and Concord-Carlisle High school use the courts in bad weather.  Bigot man threw a nice tantrum and the club manager himself had to ask the guy to leave. He did, but not before referring to our team as “the immigrants, spics, niggers, and reform school kids” as he walked off the court.  I was about to go off on the guy, but Moira put a hand lightly on my forearm (she must have been told to do this by Annette) and walked over to the guy, gave him her business card, and whispered something to him.  The club manager walked the man off the court and smiled at Moira as she walked back to us.
“What’d you say?”
“Threatened to sue his fat white bigot ass on all kinds of civil rights violations and then go after the club. A bunch of lawyer bullshit, but if you’re not a lawyer it usually works enough to scare someone into backing off.”
“Nice.”
“Thanks.”
What wasn’t nice was that the bigot guy stayed to watch the match and clapped and cheered for LS and laughed at all of our mistakes and ineptitude. We gave him plenty to laugh at.
Uniforms weren’t in yet, so we’d asked the kids to wear orange and white.  Jeremiah wore orange three quarter length oversized jeans with white boxers showing and a white tank top.  Brian wore white baseball pants and a white T-shirt with the Irish flag on it. Carmen wore orange shorts so short and tight they left her little room to move and nothing to the imagination.  Hang and Vo wore orange ribbons in their hair. The LS team had nice knit tennis shirts, shorts, and skirts. They all had matching warm-up suits and tennis shoes in school colors.  As Moira and I watched them warm up, it was obvious to us that all of these kids had been taking private lessons for quite some time. We were gonna get killed. When we said a team prayer before the match started, I prayed silently no one would get hurt.
We only had eight of the required 14 players so we had to forfeit points.  Moira and I chose to forfeit a couple of extra points at one and two boys singles and play the guys down.  Brian played second singles and Jeremiah played third singles. On the girls side we played Dolores at third singles while Carmen and Hang played first doubles and Anita and Vo played second doubles.
Before the first serve of the match we were down 0-5.  Moira and I both thought Brian showed enough game to maybe win second singles or at least give us one competitive match, but even though he reached a couple of deuce games, he lost 0-10.  Everyone lost 0-10.  Anita and Vo didn’t even win a single point. Everyone except Brian still wasn’t sure how to keep score or when to change sides.  Down 0-8 and his opponent laughing at him, Jeremiah threw his racket down in disgust and Jeremiah started jawin’ about how he was gonna mess the kid up. Moira and I flew onto the court, gave the order to chill, and told Jeremiah to shake hands and hit the sidelines. His match was finished. The entire contest was over in 30 minutes.  Final score: Lincoln-Sudbury 10, St. Somebody 0.
The match was such a nightmare, I couldn’t believe I daydreaming about it during the athletics meeting.
“And I heard Mr. Cooke even took a pounding, John,” said Jesus De La Costa, the baseball coach. “How about you let him play baseball? It was pretty shitty of you to recruit him to a feeble tennis start-up effort when you know he’s our star pitcher.”
“I did not recruit him. He came to me.” I’d told Jesus this a half-dozen times already.
“Come on now, Mr. Christopher, Jesus is right.” O’Grady pronounced it Gee-Sooze.  “It is well established that you are going around recruiting players.”
“I am recruiting, yes. This is a first year team and we still don’t have enough players on the roster. However, I did NOT recruit Brian. He came to me. He came to me the very first day an announcement was made about a tennis team. He told me,” I tried to stick the knife back in my opponent, “that he was sick of being the only good player on a horrible baseball team and he’d always wanted to learn tennis.  He happens to be taking a lot of shit from his dad at home about it, too.  He says his dad is on his back every day to quit sissy tennis and go back to a man’s game.  He also says his dad tells him that the principal calls about every other day and asks him to ask his son to return to the baseball team for the good of the school. The way I see it, Sean, you are trying to recruit my player away to baseball.”
“Is that true, Sean?” asked Dave Martin.
“I have phoned Mr. Cooke, but only a few times, just mentioning to him that he would be helping our school if he would ask his son if he’s really sure he doesn’t want to play ball.”
“Look, Sean, cut it out. That goes for all of you. No students should be pressured into joining or quitting anything here at this school. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” said O’Grady.
“Hey, I’m good, Dave.  Now can I have some uniforms please, Donny?”

TRIDUUM – THE THREE DAYS
The Three Days. Everything hangs in the balance between good and evil, hope and despair, awaiting the outcome of the confrontation between Christ and Death. Christ wins, of course, and we follow his last days.  Thursday commemorates the last supper with Jesus emphasizing the point that serving others is the mark of  both leadership and holiness. Friday we remember the crucifixion, and we wait from Friday to sundown on Saturday to celebrate the Easter Vigil and the Resurrection. Easter morning the full glory of what has happened comes through and folks that haven’t been to church since Christmas come out in their finery with their kids after having breakfasted on chocolate eggs. The Triduum is a bridge linking the somber reflection of Lent to the victory dance of Easter.

Chapter 47 – Holy Thursday
The Preaching
“You cannot put love into words. You can only put love into action. I have taught you words for love – eros, philia, agape – and how these Greek words get at more of the specific ideas of love intended by the writer or speaker.  Remember how I asked you, one day in class, to define love, and how difficult it was?
“I don’t think you can describe love, you can only show it. Because love is not in what you say, it is in what you do.  I have told you I love you and I do.”
“We love you, too, Mista!” I don’t know who said it. I think it was Carmen. It was echoed by a dozen others. It felt good. God was speaking through me again and to me again.
“After my wife and my own children, I love nothing in this world as much as you. But saying it somehow doesn’t get to the heart of it, showing it does.  That is why we washed your feet.  Ms. Quinn, Ms. Jean, Mr. Martin and I washed your feet in order to follow the example of Jesus.”
There were no priests available on Holy Thursday for the St. Somebody service, even though just about every one of them in the diocese had all been here earlier this morning for the Chrism Mass.  I had volunteered to preach again, but had to run my script by Dave, Sean and Ernest. Sean didn’t like it, but he was overruled.  He and Ernest declined to wash the feet of the students.  Ernest was uncomfortable with the idea, while Sean was just disgusted. We were using consecrated bread and wine and Carmen and Dave were going to lead the communion service instead of having Mass.  I actually spent a great deal of time writing this sermon, and Annette and Ernest edited.  They liked it.  Annette said it was me at my Johnny Sun-shiniest.
“The washing of feet is a symbolic action.  For Jesus, it was an action that foreshadowed the crucifixion and resurrection.  Washing another person’s feet says, ‘I will do anything for you.’  It is an action that says you can never give too much; never love too much.
“In the ancient world, washing the feet of guests was a servant’s job, not the master’s job.  The followers of Jesus thought it crazy that he would wash their feet. They should be washing his.  But Jesus told them, ‘You call me teacher and rightly so, for indeed I am.’ He means to tell them, if I can wash your feet you ought to wash one another’s feet.  I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do for others.
“But this is no simple thing he’s asking them to do because helping others out of love can hurt and hurt big. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘There can only be great pain where there is great love.’   You all know that when you give your heart to something or someone and your love is not returned, you feel rejected and it hurts – it hurts big!  Love takes guts, mad guts as you all would say, loads of guts – because loving can hurt.
“Sometimes when I am tired, overwhelmed with too many projects, assignments, papers, field trips to plan, tennis practices to run – I think I must be nuts to do all this stuff.   When I feel this way I have a favorite saying I repeat to myself: There’s a fine line between dedication and stupidity and I just crossed it.  Mrs. Solomon calls it ‘Stupid Generosity’. She says that when you give so much that is unappreciated it is time to rethink what you are doing.    Yet whenever I think I am giving too much, when I think I am being stupid with my giving,  I remember that for a Christian,  when it comes to giving out of love, there is no such thing as too much giving and no such thing as stupid love.”
Stupid Generosity is now Marie’s term for taking the amigas to visit Yahira, getting her folks to be foster parents for Korey and taking the tennis team out for pizza after matches. She’s right in a way.  She’s holier than I am, but more frugal with her time and money, and our time and money.
“Christians give till it hurts. Christians give even when the world says, ‘You’re stupid.’  I know from my own personal experience that when I put my heart and soul into something at work and a student disrespects me it hurts. It hurts because I put all my love into what I do. There can only be great pain where there is great love.  As Jesus was a servant, so should a teacher be a servant. My life, my job, as a teacher, is to take care of your life. Your life is my job, and in that way I give my life to you.”
I was starting to get choked up. I was afraid I would break down into a sobbing mess and I would lose them, especially the upperclassmen, who I didn’t teach.  Just then, as if sent by God to hold me up, the amigas left their seats and ran up to me at the ambo. Dolores gave me a tissue and Anita put her arms around my neck and whispered, “We love you, too, Mista.”  They held me up, and I continued.
“I want you all to know that you are surrounded by people at St. Somebody who love you till it hurts and then love you some more.  We believe in you even if you don’t believe in yourselves.  We love you with all the love we have to give.  All we ask is that when you go out into the world beyond this school, you do the same.  Be Christ to the world. Do not be afraid of getting hurt – love anyway! Do not be afraid that some people may take advantage of you – give anyway!
“You understand my words today.  I know you do. When the time comes in your lives to live out the message in these words, live it out strong. Live it out with the strength that has gotten you this far.  My greatest hope for you is that whatever you do with your lives, you spend your lives as servants to others because that is what being a Christian is all about.”
They gave me a standing O.  I heard the clapping and shouting, but I didn’t see them stand. I was crying. I left it all out on the field, coach, I told God as I sat down. Carmen hugged me and Antawan, James, and Korey gave me some serious dap when I got back to my pew. The rest of the service was a blur.

The Shooting
Korey was standing right in front of me when he went down. The shots seemed to come out of nowhere.  Students, scared and trying to avoid the bullets, were down all along the stairs of the church, the sidewalk and the street.  Chips of brick, cement, and asphalt flew around like urban shrapnel.
Some of the boys were yelling, “Drive-by!”
The shots came from an automatic or semi-automatic weapon. They were too rapid and spread across too wide an area to have come from a simple handgun. The shot that got Korey hit him in the foot as a line of fire spread up the step from the street to the church door.
A number of incidents, including racial profiling by neighbors in South Hancock, had led to increased police patrols before and after school. Our attackers didn’t do their homework well. School was ending early, after the Holy Thursday service, and a BPD cruiser turned the corner just as the shooting stopped.  The lights went on. The beat-up Toyota Corolla containing our shooters locked up its wheels, spun around, and sped away. The police let them get to the corner and then sped after them.
I had stripped off my coat, put it around Korey, and ripped off my shirt to pack in as a bandage around his foot. Korey was calm and said it didn’t hurt. When the ambulance came, I rode with him to Boston Hospital, praying as I watched the EMTs cut off his basketball shoes and clean and wash his foot.

The Prodigal
“And everybody used to tell me big boys don’t cry
But I’ve been around enough to know that was the lie
That held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons
We are children no more, we have sinned and grown old
And our father still waits and he watches down the road
For the crying boy to come running into his arms”
- Rich Mullins

I had to hold the receiver away from my ear as Marie spewed forth in French. When she is really upset she speaks her mother’s tongue.  I am very happy that once she hits tirade speed I lose the ability to even grasp the gist of what she’s saying.   She was mad at me for messing up Holy Thursday.  She was to have her feet washed at our parish and there was no guarantee that I would be home in time to sit with the kids in the pew while she did her thing. She was mad at her parents for not being able to watch the kids because they were with me at Boston Hospital waiting for their black foster son to be released, and answering questions for the police and the social worker sent by the Foster Family Administration of the Youth Services Agency.  When I mentioned that she sounded a bit racist she went off again.  When I mentioned that it was indeed inconsiderate of Korey to get himself shot and ruin her Triduum, she said that I was right (I noted the date and time) and that she would pray for us and hope, but not expect, to see me at church.
I did not expect the identity of Korey’s assailant to turn out to be his older half-brother, Kane. The Constant boys shared a father, Adam, but had different mothers.  Korey’s mother was in prison.  Kane’s mother’s whereabouts were, and probably still are, unknown.  Why Kane shot at his brother on the steps of St. Somebody’s church was the question bothering us all.  We didn’t like Korey’s answer, “Because he hates me.” Not that it wasn’t accurate – most folks don’t go around shooting friends and family they love and cherish – it was just incomplete. The follow up question, “Why does he hate you?” is something Korey refused to answer.
“Was your brother in the gang, too?” Joseph was yelling in his Franco-American father-knows-best voice.  A tone of voice that implied he was due an answer because he was the father.  This tone had worked brilliantly for his father and largely for himself, but it was a tone of voice that had lost its power and presence in the contemporary generation. Korey just stared back at him. A lifetime of anger transferred from father to foster father.
“What the hell do you care, you French fuck? Playing goddamn daddy to the po’ lil’ black chile.  Fuck you and your French shit and your foster daddy act. I’m just playin’ wit’ you old man.  The food’s good and there’s no one shooting at me in your little suburban village, but shit, man, it’s just a front. I’m pretending to be the good little black boy from the city you saved by taking him to the country for fucking apple pie. You would fucking die in my world, pops.”
“You little shit, eh.  You don’t think I know about you? I know,” said Joseph. “I know everything they tell me.  I know about your father. He’s an asshole. Your mother is a drug addict and a whore. Your brother is a criminal.  My wife she thinks you were sent to us by God, but by God, I’ll fucking send you back. You want to go back to reform school, to prison? Go ahead.  Remember how good you have it with my family.  You choose now, stay or go.  We don’t need you, you need us. Make a choice. Choose now. Choose now!”
Sylvie was staring at Joseph. We all were. He was a small white man, stocky, not frail, but not imposing either. Now, however, he held a position and a power that comes with integrity and knowledge of one’s self.  He is a Franco-American truck driver, husband and father of seven.  He doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal. He likes hockey and drinking beer on Saturday. He goes to church on Sunday.  He knows he doesn’t have to live on the mean streets of Boston to be a man.  He knows he can’t make Korey accept his love and he won’t try, but if the kid wants it, it’s his forever.
“Well?” Joseph asked again.
“Joseph, please, the boy is just scared,” pleaded Sylvie.
“I don’t care, Sylvie. He chooses now. He can be part of our family or he can go be a criminal like his father and brother.  The father and brother who love him so much that they shoot him. Did I ever shoot him? No. Would I ever shoot him? No. So let him choose, now!”
“Fuck you, Joey!” Korey yelled.
“That’s it. C’est fini.”
“Wait, Joseph.” I was pleading with him now as he walked away and called to Sylvie to follow him.
“Talk to him,” said Joseph, pointing his finger at Korey.
“Come on, Sylvie.”
Sylvie hesitated. Sylvie never contradicted her husband in front of others. Sylvie does not believe women should be priests or hold jobs in government. She doesn’t believe in abortion, birth control, or feminism.  She believes that the father and the husband are, by divine right, the head of the household, at least in public. Although Marie says she gives it to him good when no one else is around.
“I’m not leaving without the boy, Joseph.”
I turned to Korey and whispered under my breath. “You promised me you wouldn’t fuck it up.”
“I’m going,” said Joseph.
“Apologize to your father,” Sylvie begged Korey.
Korey looked at her strangely. Later Korey would tell me that the look she gave him at that moment was like “a fucking angel or Mother Teresa or something.”
“He’s not my father.”  A single tear left his right eye as Korey tried not to cry for the father he didn’t have and the father he wanted to have but couldn’t claim because he didn’t believe he could.
“He is not the man who fathered you, but he is very willing to be your father. I know my husband, Korey. If you choose to not accept his love now, he will leave you. If you choose to stay with us, say so, he will take you home again.”
Korey leapt up off the emergency room table, raising his fist to strike the wall in his anger. His wounded foot let him down and the pain of landing on it transformed an attempt to punch a hole in the wall to fingers raking at a bed curtain. He rolled and grabbed his foot. He screamed obscenities and hit the floor with his hand. The pain was both physical and emotional.  Defeated and victorious he lifted his chin, tears dripping off its end.
“Monsieur Cormier!”
Joseph turned.
“Pardonnez-moi, I’m sorry.” said Korey. He whispered it actually, but it was enough. Sylvie smiled and cried. Joseph walked over to Korey, helped him back up to the bed, and sat him down.  Korey looked at Joseph. Joseph put his hand on Korey’s shoulder.

Chapter 48 – Good Friday
Adam Raised a Kane
“My daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
Now he walks these empty rooms looking for someone to blame
You inherit the sins, you inherit the pain
Adam raised a Cain.”
- Bruce Springsteen

Korey was questioned by the police after having his foot bandaged. He was kept overnight and released Good Friday morning after having his foot bandaged, and being questioned by police once again.  His physical wounds were nothing compared to his emotional wounds.  The bullet that hit his right foot grazed along the outside edge from just under his ankle to just before his small toe. His right shoe was a tattered mess of leather and blood, but his foot escaped major damage.  He had a sprained ankle, but the bullet did not break any bones or sever any tendons. Flying chips of granite and sandstone shrapnel caused his worst injuries. After the stone fragments were removed, his right calf needed stitches in a few places.  I had been standing behind Korey during the shooting and he had shielded me from the worst of the flying stone, but I took a couple of good pieces and had to have my lower right leg cleaned up.  Seventeen students were treated for minor injuries, mostly from flying stone chips.  A freshman boy had taken a bullet to the thigh, but would be fine.  Anita suffered a mild concussion by when she hit  her head on a car’s rear bumper as she dove for cover.  Carmen took a piece of flying sandstone to her left wrist. She blamed poor service tosses on the injury for the rest of the tennis season. There were other assorted bumps and bruises, but overall the student body escaped relatively unharmed.
The church building suffered its own injury. After the drive-by there were even fewer letters in the St. Lorcan inscription. A-I-L were now the only letters left over the door.  The school, the neighborhood, the students, and the church were all ailing so the diminished inscription, all that was left of the name Lorcan Ua Tuathail, seemed incredibly appropriate.
Debbie Hammer and Sylvie filled me in on Korey’s brother and father while Joseph spoke to Korey alone in his curtained-off half of a semi-private hospital room. Kane Constant was his father’s son – big, strong, mean tempered, cold-hearted and an addict.  Adam Constant was a drinker, while Kane’s drug of choice was heroin. Adam had been convicted of vehicular manslaughter, his seventh drunk driving arrest, and began serving a term in Loplawe State Prison just after Korey moved out to live with Laqueesha.  Kane was HIV positive and doing his best to follow in his father’s footsteps.  Kane Constant was a founding member of the Boston street gang The Rayzas and had sent Jesse Pinks personally to look out for his brother.  Kane and Tino “Big T” Torres were tight and when Korey jumped the Rayzas, Kane took it as a personal insult and threatened to get him.
Korey knew all this from the ear he always kept turned to the street and had told most of it to Joseph and Sylvie.  My in-laws contacted Dave Martin and Dave had the police patrol St. Somebody before and after school.  Because of this, there happened to be a cruiser on site just after Kane sprayed the church with bullets.  No one had mentioned any of it to me, thank you very much, considering I was the kid’s chauffeur.
Kane was in custody and probably on his way to having a long visit with his dad.  Korey was a young man alone. A young black man whose only family had suddenly become a bunch of white, suburban, Franco-American immigrants and their Portuguese-Irish school teacher son-in-law. Korey was going to spend a lot of his life paying an emotional toll for the sins of somebody else’s past. I knew what he would go through. All guys with absentee dads know.
“K.C., can I tell you something?”  I was riding home with Joseph and Sylvie because although my wounds were minor, they stung like hell and were all on my right leg.
“What?”
“My dad was a drunk.”
“Mr. C, what I truly don’t need right now is one of those kindly white man helps black youth with an I-understand-your-pain-stories.  Leave it.”
“You listen to him, Korey.  He’s your teacher and my daughter’s husband and a good man.”
Shit, Joseph had never complimented me like this before. It was years before I could accept the fact that he didn’t dislike me.  We got along now, but I still thought he believed I was a liberal intellectual nut case who’d radicalized his daughter.
“OK, pops, OK. Lay it on me, Mr. C.”
“My dad was a drunk. He might as well not have existed for all the time and effort he put into my life.  He was a football coach and the son of a football coach. I played four years of varsity ball in high school and four years in college and he never saw one of my games. I don’t remember him ever, not once, bringing me to, or picking me up from school.  He’d whack me upside the head if I didn’t go to church, but he was always too hung-over to bother with any Sunday morning obligations.  He never held a full-time job for more than a few months.  He coached football because assistant coaches who know the game well are hard to come by and it gave him a sense of accomplishment. The year he got caught buying beer for the offensive linemen was the last year he helped with a team. He began a bad slide after that.
“He didn’t know shit about cars, tools, bank accounts, paying rent or how to treat women.  He never got sent to jail, but he should have been. He died with five drunken driving arrests. The sixth drunk driving accident killed him when I was in Africa. Unfortunately, it killed a mom and her twin infant daughters as well.  You wanna know what he did?”
“Only if you have to tell me, Mr. C.”
“I do have to tell you. The night he died and killed those three people, he was driving the wrong way on Route 195.  How freaking drunk do you have to be to drive the wrong way on an interstate?”
“So?”
“So, I’m still angry at the jerk  It’s hard to forgive people like our dads.”
“My dad wasn’t much like yours, Mr. C.”
“No? You don’t think so? Why? Because my dad was a white drunk from New Bedford and your dad was a black drunk from Boston? I may not know what it’s like to be a young black man in urban America, but I know more about what it’s like to be you than you can imagine. Sons of alcoholics share pain that crosses all lines.”
“Whatever, Mr. C.”
Whatever? Fucking hell.

Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?
Good Friday failed to live up to its name in Monument. Then again, “Good Friday” is a misnomer, eh?
“Shouldn’t it be Bad Friday,” Joseph says every year.  “What’s so good about Christ dying?”
The problems this year began at breakfast, the chief problem in the Cormier household being that there was a breakfast.  Korey, not being Catholic, saw no reason to not eat his usual bowl of sugar frosted processed grains with milk.  Joseph snatched the bowl away from him barking, “This house observes the Good Friday fast.”
“This nigga don’t,” snapped Korey and the warm fuzzies of the emergency room reconciliation Thursday night were gone.
Joseph had made a new cross for St. Anne de Beaupré Parish’s veneration of the cross service.  It is the Cormier way that when someone in the family is doing something special at church, the entire gang shows up for the occasion.  When we arrived in Monument from Bethelle, the entire brood was in a rude mood over food.  Korey’s non-fast had angered Joseph.  Joseph getting angry had angered Sylvie. Joseph and Sylvie being angry at each other had angered all of their offspring who blamed their parents’ behavior on Korey’s refusal to refuse food.  Low blood sugar levels among the clan no doubt contributed to the general mood of agitation and short temperedness.  Never having been one to fast in anyway, the situation left me as the most composed person around.
“What’s up, Korey?”
“Mister C, man, I am not going to starve myself because these crazy Canadians think it’s some holy shit. It’s like all of a sudden I ain’t doin’ the Catholic thing and everybody’s on my ass. Not my fault Mem and Pep are lighting it up today.  I ain’t even flaunting my eating, man. If they want to starve themselves today, I’m straight, but it don’t mean I have to. I go to church cuz they want me to and I ain’t even Catholic. I had some cereal this morning, I made a sandwich for lunch, and I just had an apple and you know what Pam’s fucking husband Ronald says to me? He says, ‘Why don’t you have some watermelon, too?’ What kinda racist shit is that?”
It seemed that all the cultural differences between Boston and Monument, Korey and Canuck, were coming out now, the present situation being a catalyst for months of being nice and not really understanding how different the streets of Monument are from the streets of Boston.
Pamela was letting Marie have an earful about the “ghetto boy” who dared to call her husband a bigot.  Christine and Juliette were arguing with Josephine and her husband Roger about whether black or African American was the correct way to address Korey’s ethnicity.   Trying to be cool and diffuse the situation or maybe just trying to get Korey away from the bickering, Christine’s husband Donny addressed Korey as “homie” asking if he wanted to go out in the driveway and shoot some baskets. This sent Korey storming out, with Joseph yelling at him to get his ass back in the house.
“My black ass is getting as far away from you cocksuckas as it can. You people are fucking crazy.”  Korey slammed the kitchen door, breaking one of the storm door hinges.  This Friday was definitely not good.
“Let him go,” said Joseph. “You all ran away when you were kids. You got downtown to the edge of Frenchtown and sat on the curb outside the LaBerge bakery on Mission Street.  We went to get you and bought you a croissant and then you came back with us.”
“Pep, I don’t think Korey will be bounded by the imaginary fence around the neighborhood that we were afraid to cross,” said Marie.
“Go get him, Joseph,” said Sylvie.
“He’ll get tired and hungry and come back,” said Joseph. I laughed.
“Que’s que c’est drôle?”
“Nothing, Pep, but feeding his hunger is what started this and made him leave.”
“Go get him, Joseph.  Please?  For me?”
“I’ll go after him, Mem,” I offered.
I was looking back at Marie, telling her I’d take the car and call her cell instead of the house phone. My head turned away from the unhinged door, I almost ran into Susan Wells on the way out.
“Can I help you?” I asked her. I hadn’t seen her since New Year’s and didn’t recognize her until I saw Celine behind her on the steps.
“Oh, hi. It’s Susan, yes?”
“Yes. Hi.”
“What’s going on?” asked Celine.
“Culture war. Marie will fill you in.”
I drove Frenchtown methodically, street by street.  Korey couldn’t have gone too far too fast, given the injuries to his foot, ankle,  and calf from yesterday. Over time, this predominately Franco-American neighborhood had given way to the new waves of immigration and now had some Spanish-speaking residents and a few Cambodian families brought over by local parishes.  Lower Frenchtown, the section to the east of South Main Street and bordering downtown was the roughest section of Monument. The poorest of the Franco-American immigrants had lived there. This was the section that had become mostly Spanish.  I didn’t see Korey anywhere.
Korey knew there was a public park a mile or so from upper Frenchtown and I drove by there. There were some Puerto Rican kids playing basketball, but no Korey.  I went down town to check the library.  Korey was a voracious reader and told me he hung out at the library a lot because Joseph and Sylvie didn’t hassle him about going there and he liked the quiet.  I searched the reading room and the stacks, but didn’t find him. I asked the librarian on duty at the check out desk, but she hadn’t seen him come or go. Pulling out of the library parking lot, I turned right and headed back toward Frenchtown.  As I pulled onto the road and cruised up to the lights at South Main and Mission Streets, I saw Korey sitting on the curb in front of LaBerge Bakery, rubbing his sore foot, drinking a coke, and eating a pastry.
I brought Korey back to the house. Half-hearted apologies were mumbled all around and we all went off to church with tension still hanging from the branches of the family tree.  After church, and the kissing of Joseph’s new cross, we put the kids to bed.
Because we live out of town, we stayed with Joe and Sylvie Friday night. When the kids and Marie went to bed, I played video games with Korey and lost repeatedly to his  ‘90s all-stars with my ‘80s all stars in NBA Live Action.  Virtual Larry Legend, however, did drop six treys and 52 points on virtual Scottie Pippen in one of the games.  I tried to talk to him about various things as we played, but he was unresponsive. It was late when I headed to bed. I crawled in beside Marie and prayed silently as I fell asleep.  I prayed Holy Saturday would be holier than Good Friday had been good.

Chapter 49 – Holy Saturday
A Sort of Homecoming
“And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desire time
And your earth moves beneath
Your own dream landscape…
…Oh don’t sorrow, no don’t weep
For tonight, at last
I am coming home”
-U2

Saturday was spent cooling off from Friday. After breakfast with the family Saturday morning, we sat around drinking coffee with Celine, Susan Wells, Juliette, and her husband Lenny, talking about how difficult Korey’s presence had been on the Monument girls. Yves seemed to be getting along great with Korey, but he wasn’t around as much, being single and into his own building and remodeling business.  They shot baskets and played video games, mostly at Yves’ place in Lemburg, one town over from Monument.  The Monument girls, however, were having a very difficult time getting used to Korey being around their parents’ house.  Their husbands weren’t much better.  It upset them that Korey wouldn’t open up to them. Hell, what did they expect? The kid was having a hard time talking to Joseph and Sylvie. Pep had to get the kid to help him build or fix something around the house just to communicate with him. Debbie Hammer told Joseph and Sylvie that the transition would be difficult and what they were going through was normal.
Stereotypes and ignorance were the problem. Juliette told us, “We all, like, try to get to know him, but he’s wicked closed.  It’s like he’s afraid of us or something.”
“Aren’t you afraid of him?” Marie asked.
“I think Pam is some, but not really. We’re just concerned. I mean, he’s always listening to rappers singing about killing policeman and he wears all that gangster clothing with his pants off his butt and his underwear showing and his boots untied. Dad is constantly telling him to pull up his pants. And his hair is always tied up in those rows of bumps. Cornstalks, or whatever you call them.”
“Cornrows,” I offered.
“Whatever, John.”
“Sound like judging a book by its cover to me,” said Marie.
“I’m not racist,” insisted Juliette.
“No, we’re definitely not racist,” said Lenny. “But the kid doesn’t seem to understand that he doesn’t live in Boston anymore. He doesn’t have to dress like that now.”
“Did you ever think,” said Marie, “that maybe he likes to dress like that? Did you ever think that he looks at you and thinks how utterly ridiculous your clothing is? And your hairstyles? For God’s sake, Lenny, you have a mullet.”
I cracked up. Lenny does have a mullet. Cornier than Korey’s rows.
“Have you ever read Cornel West, Lenny? Jules, do you know who Noam Chomsky is? Do either of you know who the Zapatistas are? What about the World Trade Organization or the Fair Trade movement?”
They stared blankly. I might as well have been talking about aliens in Martian.
“No, you have no clue what I’m talking about, but Korey Constant could carry on a discussion about these topics.  That’s impressive for any high school kid. Have Mem and Pep told you the kid spends most of his time out of the house at the Monument library, and they have to get a lot of the books he wants through interlibrary loan? I drive the kid halfway to school every day.  I talk to him. He’s as smart a teen-age boy as I’ve ever met.  He’s getting A’s in trigonometry for Christ’s sake. I have two graduate degrees and I couldn’t pass his high school math class.  Sounds like you’re judging him by his clothes and his music and his skin color. He’s probably doing the same thing.  He’s never lived with white people before.  It’s going to take some time and some sincere effort both ways to get to know each other.”
“What makes you the goddamn expert, John?”
“We lived in Africa, remember?” said Marie.
“So, just because you lived in Africa you’re both superior to us Monument girls who stayed at home and got married?”
Christ. This was an ongoing feud in the Cormier clan. Marie and Celine were resented in no small measure by their sisters because they went off to college instead of getting married after high school.
“No, we’re not superior,” said Marie. Although her tone of voice said the word superior in such a sarcastic clip that it belied her claim. “But we do know what it’s like to be the only different person around.  There are white people in Zimbabwe, but the village John and I lived and worked in was miles outside any city. We were the only white people for miles around.  I don’t know what Korey feels exactly, but I do know how he feels, in a way that I don’t think you all can.”
“And face it, whatever is different is scary. Add to that the fact that people don’t like change, and the fact that there are all kinds of trust issues among all of you, it’s no wonder things aren’t perfectly smooth,” I added.
“Come on,” Marie pierced her sister with a look of scrutiny. “Anytime any of you come over here, it must feel like there’s a stranger in the house and to Korey it must feel like he’s been caught breaking into someone’s place even though he’s been invited to make this his home.”
Celine and Susan had mostly listened, but finally Susan said, “It’s extraordinarily hard being the one who’s different.”
“So true,” said Celine.
“Oh please, Celine, you know you’re the baby, the apple of dad’s eye, the scholarship daughter. You’ve been their favorite your whole life. They didn’t even wait to throw you a graduation party at the end of high school. You got a party when you decided to go to college in Canada.”
“Are you serious, Jules?  God, are you jealous? Nothing stopped you from going to school or even moving back to live in Canada.  I don’t need that shit from you.” Celine was getting angry. Juliette shook her head. We sat in uneasy quiet for a few minutes.
“We’ll see ya later,” sighed Juliette. She and Lenny got up to leave.
“See you at church tonight, Lenny,” said Marie. It was a dig. Lenny never went to church.
Juliette and Lenny went home, leaving Marie and I with Celine and Susan.
“Celine says you guys are pretty cool and since you already know, we should ask you something first.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, we weren’t planning on coming here so soon, but we stopped in on my family in Southie after I picked Celine up from Logan.  It kinda says it all to say that after we told them why we were there, we were asked to leave.”
“Oh my God,” said Marie. “You’re here to come out to the family.”
Celine tried to manage a smile and nodded, looking for approval.
“I’m also transferring to B.C. next year to be with Susan.”
“We’ll be there for ya, ladies, but I have no idea how it’s gonna be received,” I said.
“Well, your timing couldn’t have been worse, but then again, there’s probably no good time to do something so difficult. When were you thinking of doing it?” Marie asked.
“Today. At least before we go to church tonight. I really need to know where I stand before Easter. Last night was awkward, trying to explain Susan’s presence without telling the truth. I’m so tired of those games. I don’t want to play them anymore. ”
“So you two didn’t go back to Boston last night?” I asked.
“No,” said Celine.
“Where did you stay then?”
“The Holiday Inn over in Lemburg.”
“Oh my God,” said Marie.
“Who’s staying at the Holiday Inn and what are you doing before church tonight?” asked Joseph, coming up the stairs from his workshop in the basement.
Celine went into the living room and called up the stairs to Sylvie.
“Mem, can you come down here? I need to talk to you and Pep.”

Who’s the Nigga Now?
Sylvie had come downstairs and sat at the table with Susan, Celine, Marie, and myself. Joseph was making tea. Celine sat, eyes blank, her face going pale, waiting for her dad to bring the tea to the table so she could offer up her truth. She looked liked a person in a hospital lounge area, waiting for the surgeon to come with the news of a loved one.  As Joseph sat down, Susan put her hand on top of Celine’s, which was resting on the table.
“Mem, Pep?” Her voice shook.
“Celine, are you all right? Do you feel OK?” Sylvie was worried, something was wrong. Seriously wrong. Sylvie now looked like the next member of the family to arrive at the hospital waiting room.
“I need to tell you something that I’ve been hiding from you for a long time.”
“Goddamn it! You went off to college and got pregnant.” Joseph was starting to stand up, readying his indignant dad voice and pose for the family stage.  The script had been changed in rehearsal, however, and no one had told him. Would he still play the part the same way?
Celine shook her head slowly, “No, Pep.” She smiled a bit as the first tears slowly rolled down her pale cheek, “I’m not pregnant. I’m a lesbian.”
Marie got up, walked around the corner of the table and hugged her sister.  Mary Ellen and Elizabeth Walton du Canada of the 21st century, I thought to myself.  Joseph and Sylvie didn’t know what the hell to do. Joseph sat down and muttered, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Sylvie looked down at her hands holding her cup of tea.
“Well?” Celine sought out her parents’ hearts for their love and their acceptance.
“Well, what?” asked Joseph, his voice getting back into character with its tone of indignant father, “You want us to throw you a party? At least you’re not pregnant. And Susan here, she’s your…” Joseph waved his hand about, not able to finish the question.
“Partner,” said Susan.
“What partner, you starting a law firm? Are you two accountants? What the hell does that mean – partner?” Joseph broke into French and spoke too fast for me to try to listen. Marie shook her head two or three times, so I figured he was inappropriate in some way, but not bad enough for Marie to chew him out.
“Lover, then. Girlfriend. I guess it doesn’t matter what you call it,” said Susan.
Sylvie sighed a gasp of “Oh, my,” as either a visual image or an intellectual understanding of her daughter’s relationship to Susan became clear in her mind. She raised her eyes to her daughter as she spoke and then lowered then into her tea again.
“I’m leaving school in Vancouver at the end of the year and transferring to Boston College to be with Susan.” Her voice was small, but unwavering. The tears still trickled down her face, but the dam hadn’t burst. Maybe it wouldn’t need to.
“Are you sure? This isn’t just a college thing, a phase for the two of you?” asked Joseph.
“I’m sure,” Celine laughed. Tears and laughter must have been invented as a matched set, like comedy and tragedy drama masks. “I’ve known I was gay since seventh grade.  Just about the time all my friends starting going nuts about boys, I started going nuts about my friends. Remember Francois, Mem and Pep? You know why he was my boyfriend, right? It was our cover for each other. You remember when he came out and started the gay-straight club at Monument High School. I was supposed to come out with him then, but I chickened out, I pretended to be surprised about him like everyone else, but I knew.  I chickened out on him because I was afraid of what you would say, of what my brother and sisters would say.”
“It’s a sin,” Sylvie said looking up from her tea, the tears running down her cheeks as well.
“Technically it’s not, Mem,” I said. “Officially homosexuality is a disorder, but it’s not a sin to be a homosexual, it’s just a sin to have homosexual sex.  Which is more than a bit hypocritical, if you ask me. It’s like saying it’s OK to be who you are, but just don’t act like yourself.  Many Catholic theologians disagree with the Church on this one, Mem.”
“Monsignor Comeau said Francois was going to hell,” said Sylvie.
“Monsignor Comeau is an asshole, Mem,” added Marie.
Sylvie got up and kissed Celine on the forehead. She grabbed a light coat off the peg rail near the kitchen door and announced she was going for a walk. Sylvie did this in times of stress. She just walked around the entire Frenchtown neighborhood, going up one street and down the other. I knew from Marie that she usually did this after a fight with Joseph.
“Celine?”
“Yeah, Mem?”
“I love you,” said Sylvie as she closed the door behind her.
“I love you, too,” Celine said to the kitchen door.
I don’t know if Sylvie thought it would all be better when she got home. I  never asked her.  I had to give my mother-in-law a lot of credit, though. A woman of her generation from her culture and her religion could have gone nuclear on her daughter. A lot of parents from her generation and her culture and her religion did. Not Sylvie, though. Sylvie couldn’t take it, but told her daughter that she loved her. In the space of four months Sylvie and Joseph Cormier had basically adopted, although not technically or legally, an urban black teenager with a more than troubled past, and now had to come to terms with a lesbian daughter.  Old French Canadian families with more than their share of kids used to be good for a priest or a nun. At the turn of the millennium, you have enough kids and you’re good for a homosexual or an addict. Sylvie and Joseph would have been fine with a nun or a priest, would have thrown a party even, but like many of their generation they were going to have a difficult time with this.
Sylvie came back from her walk after about an hour and a half.  Joseph was starting to get worried.  It was getting close to the time they wanted to leave for the Easter Vigil Mass.  Joseph has spent the time puttering around his workshop, pacing through the house, muttering things like, “Jesus Christ, a lesbian of all damned things.” And “Sweet Mother of God, I’ve got a black son and now a  queer daughter. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph help me. What’s next?”
Korey had come down from his bedroom shortly after Sylvie had left. Celine told him. Korey shrugged indifference. “I knew that. God day-um, what a waste. All the good ones are gay.”
Pamela and Ron showed up with their kids, Antoinette and Joey.  They wanted to apologize to Korey for the watermelon comment specifically and for not making him feel welcome in general.  It was a bit awkward. Pam and Ron DesJardins were not the worst bigots among my sisters-in-law and their husbands. That distinction fell to Juliette and Lenny, but they were sorry and it was a start.  They made a big show of it in a way, coming in and asking to see Korey, and have everyone gather around the kitchen table. Most of us were there anyway.  They were on their way to church and Pam had to get it off her chest and try to clear the air before Easter.  Pam was so keen on making sure Korey got the message that they were sorry for the watermelon comment that she missed the entire vibe present in the house.  When she had finished her little speech, misquoting MLK’s “I have a dream” speech about children being judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, Pam said she was sorry for thinking of him as a nigger in some ways, but she’s just never really known any black people or African Americans. She even apologized for not knowing which term to use, black, African American, or person of color.  She was earnest but overblown.  Korey was smiling, laughing at them, not with them