crime—the answer is yes. I’m not a priest and this isn’t the Catholic confessional, but most men of faith are good at keeping secrets.”
So I told him that I’d had a fight with a boy from school, a bigger boy named Kenny Yanko, and he’d beat me up pretty good. I said I never wished Kenny dead, and I’d certainly not prayed for it, but he had died, almost right after our fight, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I told him what Ms. Hargensen had said about how kids believed everything had to do with them, and how it wasn’t true. I said that helped a little, but I still thought I might have played a part in Kenny’s death.
The Rev smiled. “Your teacher was right, Craig. Until I was eight, I avoided stepping on sidewalk cracks so I wouldn’t inadvertently break my mother’s back.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” He leaned forward. His smile went away. “I will keep your confidence if you will keep mine. Do you agree?”
“Sure.”
“I’m good friends with Father Ingersoll, of Saint Anne’s in Gates Falls. That is the church the Yankos attend. He told me that the Yanko boy committed suicide.”
I think I gasped. Suicide had been one of the rumors going around in the week after Kenny died, but I had never believed it. I would have said the thought of killing himself had never crossed the bullying son of a bitch’s mind.
Reverend Mooney was still leaning forward. He took one of my hands in both of his. “Craig, do you really believe that boy went home, thought to himself, ‘Oh my goodness, I beat up a kid younger and smaller than me, I guess I’ll kill myself’?”
“I guess not,” I said, and I let out a breath it felt like I’d been holding for two months. “When you put it like that. How did he do it?”
“I didn’t ask, and I wouldn’t tell you even if Pat Ingersoll had told me. You need to let this go, Craig. The boy had problems. His need to beat you up was only one symptom of those problems. You had nothing to do with it.”
“And if I’m relieved? That, you know, I don’t have to worry about him anymore?”
“I’d say that was you being human.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you feel better?”
“Yes.”
And I did.
* * *
Not long before the end of school, Ms. Hargensen stood before our earth science class with a big smile on her face. “You guys probably thought you were going to be rid of me in two weeks, but I have some bad news. Mr. de Lesseps, the high school biology teacher, is retiring, and I’ve been hired to take his place. You could say I’m graduating from middle school to high school.”
A few kids groaned theatrically, but most of us applauded, and no one clapped harder than I did. I would not be leaving my love behind. To my adolescent mind, it seemed like fate. And in a way, it was.
* * *
I also left Gates Falls Middle behind and started the ninth grade at Gates Falls High. That was where I met Mike Ueberroth, known then—as he is in his current career as a backup catcher for the Baltimore Orioles—as U-Boat.
Jocks and more scholarly types didn’t mix much at Gates (I imagine it’s true at most high schools, because jocks tend to be clannish), and if it hadn’t been for Arsenic and Old Lace, I doubt if we ever would have become friends. U-Boat was a junior and I was just a lowly freshman, which made becoming friends even more unlikely. But we did, and we remain friends to this day, although I see him far less often.
Many high schools have a Senior Play, but that wasn’t the case at Gates. We had two plays each year, and although they were put on by the Drama Club, all students could audition. I knew the story because I’d seen the movie version on TV one rainy Saturday afternoon. I enjoyed it, so I tried out. Mike’s girlfriend, a Drama Club member, talked him into trying out, and he ended up playing the homicidal Jonathan Brewster. I was cast as his scurrying sidekick, Dr. Einstein. That part was played by Peter Lorre in the film, and I tried my best to sound like him, sneering “Yas! Yas!” before every line. It wasn’t a very good imitation, but I have to tell you that the audience ate it up. Small towns, you know.