Too Many Cooks

       Today is one of the most depressing days of the year at St. Francis
Xavier High School. The sisters have determined that we students must spend
eight hours "reflecting," as Brother Damian, our retreat master, puts it.
Conversation of any sort is forbidden, even during lunch, on the pain of
sacrilege, which means that Father Wagner, the parish priest, would have to
get permission from Pope Pius XII in order to forgive us if we talk.
        It is now 8:30, according to the buzzing IBM next to the Stars and
Stripes in the front corner of the room. I swear the clock hasn''t moved in
the last ten minutes, the amount of time Father Damian has spent lecturing
us about the purpose of our retreat. Finally I resolve not to look at the
clock for the rest of the day and focus my attention on Brother Damian, a
tall, thin man with translucent skin who seems to glide as he paces to and
fro at the front of the room.
        "When I was a young man getting ready for the sacrament of
penance," he says, "I had a very difficult time forming a firm purpose of
amendment. I found myself repeating the same sins over and over and I was
growing quite frustrated."
        It''s kind of hard to believe that Brother Damian has ever committed
a sin, what with the monkish cowl, his suffering, hounddog-like eyes, his
hands clasped in front of him in prayerful aspect, as if he were getting
ready to enter the Colosseum and submit to the lions.
        "I''m sure most of you have the same difficulty," he continues, "and
I have a suggestion which may be of some help to you. I want you to take a
moment to think of a shameful incident, one in which you were personally
involved, and then I want you to write a letter to yourself examining the
repercussions, formulating a plan of atonement, which I will collect, seal,
and return to you during our next retreat. In order to help you with this
assignment, I shall give you some parameters. The letter should be written
in narrative form, like a story, in your best penmanship; if need be, you
may recopy it. Your account should be at least ten pages long."
        The whole class groans. Most of them have difficulty writing the
300 words that Sister Penelope, our English teacher, assigns. I, on the
other hand, usually have my compositions returned with the comment,
"Perhaps, we should try to be a little less loquacious, William."
        Immediately I have an idea; I sharpen three pencils so I won''t be
interrupted. Thing is I''d feel stupid writing to myself. I decide to write
to Gene Tierney. I fell in love with her when I first saw her, in that
movie Laura. I begin to write, careful not to break the point of my pencil,
something that usually happens if I''m in too much of a hurry:

Dear Gene,
        One summer day, just before I went into seventh grade at Perpetual
Redeemer Elementary School--it must have been very early in the morning
cause I had to go drive tractor for Uncle Joe Schnell--I heard on the radio
that this girl named Sheila Reller and her brother had tied up their
drunken father with clothesline and Sheila had shot him with a .22 rifle.
Seems like he''d been bothering her sexually.
        "Deserves what he got," Mama said. Daddy said, "Shush, not in front
of the boy."
        My ears turned red, as they did whenever anybody even hinted at
sex, and I pretended I hadn''t been paying any attention to the newscast. I
did this by shoveling Cheerios with even more gusto than usual, slopping
milk, clanging my spoon up against the side of the bowl, risking a swat up
side the head, as my dad was prone to do if my manners got too deplorable.
        Sheila Reller was riding with me that afternnoon on Uncle Joe''s
tractor in the stifling ninety degree heat. It was so hot I was afraid I''d
gone to hell and hadn''t realized it quite yet, but no one was prodding me
in the ribs with a fork and yelling at me to "shovel harder!" so I figured
I was still in Minnesota. It''s not really fair that summers in Minnesota
are so hot cause it gets to be about a hundred below during winter time. I
hear it''s just right in California where you live, Gene.
        Uncle Joe doesn''t say much so the only sounds were his John Deere
tractor making that "putt putt" noise and the thunder in the distance,
God''s comment on what Sheila''s father had done most likely. Anytime now the
forty days and forty nights would start. Someone ought to build an arc.
        I remember being very nervous, afraid Uncle Joe might send me home
for driving out of the windrows. I needed that dollar to buy more baseball
cards. I had a habit of driving out of the windrows even before Sheila
Reller decided to accompany me out into the hayfield. Folks, mine mainly,
call me a dreamer. Once I took this American History test and the essay
question was something like "Explain how Christopher Columbus went about
discovering America and what the consequences were." I wrote about how if
I''d been Old Christopher I would have teamed up with the Indians and
crowned myself King of America, instead of making that old Ferdinand and
Isabella rich. Mama and Daddy had to go talk to the nun about that one.
Something about the sin of pride.
        Sheila Reller pointed the rifle at her father, right up against the
side of his head, and squeezed the trigger. I flinched and hit the brakes,
knocking Uncle Joe off of his feet back on the load of hay. "Hey!" he
yelled. "I''m sorry," I said.
        There was blood everywhere, and Sheila''s little brother wouldn''t
stop screaming. I was pretty sure I was coming down with heat stroke. I
could see the gasoline fumes radiating off the muffler and the tractor seat
was so hot I was convinced I''d wind up looking like this kid I''d seen in
the shower room who had a big red blotch back there that the other guys all
laughed at. I kept thinking: that jug of lemonade Uncle Joe has in the tool
chest would sure hit the spot. He wouldn''t let me keep it up on the tractor
cause the last time he did, I drank it all. As if the scalding heat and the
disturbing hallucinations weren''t enough, the mosquitoes were doing
kamikaze dives into my ears; they love it in there cause they know I can''t
reach that far to swat them.
        I was coming to the end of a row and this got pretty tricky cause I
had to turn pretty wide, lay on the brake and swing around just right to
line up with the next windrow. I usually missed since I just wasn''t cut out
for that farmer stuff. I wished I was in town playing baseball with the
town kids. I''d never get to be the next Ted Williams at this rate since I
didn''t have anybody else to play with. My brothers didn''t care about
baseball. They didn''t even know who Whitey Ford and Bob Turley were. In
case you don''t know either, Gene, they''re the best pitchers on the Yankees,
my favorite team. Bob Turley can throw a ball through a brick wall he''s so
fast.
        I finally got the tractor lined up again and headed on down the
row. I wiped my forehead with my sleeve, and sure enough, I knocked my
straw hat off and ran over it with a tractor wheel before I could stop. I
had just got that straw hat; it cost me a dollar forty-five; it was red
with a string that was supposed to keep it on your head. So much for
advertising. I love the smell of a new straw hat. Uncle Joe was laughing. I
didn''t see the humor in it personally.
        Luckily, Uncle Joe was more understanding than my dad. Daddy has
little patience with "Dummkopfs" who lose control of the Allys Chalmers and
crash into the barn.
        That day I was driving Uncle Joe''s tractor since he didn''t have any
kids of his own and he had to pay a neighbor kid a dollar a day to do it.
His wife, who is a teacher, was much too sophisticated to drive tractor for
him. Uncle Joe isn''t really my uncle; we just call him that cause he used
to come over to our house at Christmas time when he was still a widower and
bring us presents.
        Losing my hat had one good effect; I had momentarily forgotten
about Sheila Reller, but now she was back and nagging at me like a the boil
on the back of Uncle Joe''s neck had to be scolding him in the heat. What I
couldn''t fathom was why a man would want to have sex with his own daughter.
        Uncle Joe and I got the last load of hay in the barn and went in to
have lunch. His new wife Alice had summer sausage sandwiches for us. That
and apple sauce, something we never get at home. Uncle Joe looked at her as
if she''d been sniffing glue. Alice didn''t have the cooking thing down too
good yet, and Uncle Joe wasn''t too happy about it cause his first wife,
Maude, was one of the best cooks in the neighborhood.
        Maude was the first person I remember dying on me; we have pictures
of her in her coffin in the bottom drawer of our bureau. I can''t imagine
why anybody would want to take a picture of a dead person, but they do it
all the time; we have lots of them in that photo album. Another person I
remember dying was Audrey Pekula''s mother, and Sister Giles, the principal
at Perpetual Redeemer, made all of us third graders attend the wake and say
a rosary; we had to go up and look at Mrs. Pekula, too; I thought she
smelled like Ajax cleaner. I thought I was gonna lose my dinner.
        After lunch, Joe and I went out in the barn to feed the cows. He
had some mighty peculiar cows out there; there''s a couple of guernseys and
a brown swiss. They''re a lot smaller than our Holsteins. Daddy says that
Holsteins give more milk; Uncle Joe says that guernseys are better for
butter fat, so I guess it''s six of one and a half dozen of another; that''s
something that Uncle Joe says a lot. Uncle Joe''s cows don''t seem to have
much of a personality either. I asked him once if his cows had names. He
said it would be foolish for him to give them names. All of our cows have
names. We have one called Ornery cause she kicks the Surge milking machine
off, and she''ll come after you in the pasture. Must think she''s a bull or
something.
        It was my job to scrape and lime the walk between the gutters.
Needless to say, I can''t be trusted with a fork. Once I poked out my little
brother Sam''s front tooth manuring out the barn. We were running the manure
loader out the door of the barn and I had a fork over my shoulder; I
stopped and he didn''t. He didn''t mind cause my older brother Dexter has a
chipped tooth, too, and he wanted to look like Dexter. Daddy minded,
though; he yelled at me and called me a Dummkopf again. I guess that means
dumbhead or something.
        When I finished liming the walk, I decided to ask Uncle Joe about
Sheila Reller since I''d never dare ask Daddy about something like that. I
cleared my throat and Uncle Joe, who was giving each pair of cows a little
pail of ground feed- it''s like dessert to them--hears me right away,
something I really like about Uncle Joe, he pays attention to little kids
cause he ain''t got any of his own. Before he was married, sometimes we had
to stay over at Uncle Joe''s cause he needed us for more than one day and
most likely he was lonely. I hated that cause we had to sleep in the same
bed with him and I just wasn''t comfortable doing that, so I''d lay awake,
unable to get used to a strange bed, and I''d be way over on the edge of the
bed so I wouldn''t be touching Uncle Joe. He didn''t seem to notice. Anyway,
he stopped feeding the cows and listened.
        "Uncle Joe, I wanted to ask you something," I said.
        "Sure, Bill, is it about the straw hat?" Uncle Joe was always
looking for reasons to buy us something. Us, by the way, is me and my two
brothers, Dexter and Sam, Daddy''s favorites, one older, one younger. They''d
never hit the barn with the Allys Chalmers.
        "No, that''s not it. This is hard to say." I was so discombobulated
that I fell off the walkway and stepped in the gutter.
        Joe pulled me out and gave me a handful of hay to wipe myself off.
"Go ahead, Billy, you can ask me anything," he said. Is it something Alice
said to you?" Uncle Joe was pretty tough on old Alice; I guess she could
never measure up to his first wife Maude who was the best of all the great
cooks at our annual threshing get-togethers. I''d get so bloated during
threshing time that I wasn''t much good for anything after dinner, not that
I was much good before we ate. We always had all kinds of pop and beer,
too, in the milk house cooler. It was the best time of the year, that and
the days the creamery gave away free chocolate milk on Dairy Days.
        Kind of like what one of those big picture premiers must be like
for you, Gene. Anybody ever ask why you spell your name like Gene Autry?
Jean Harlow spells hers with a "J".
        "It''s about that girl, Sheila Reller," I said.
        Uncle Joe''s face puckered and his eyes scanned the barn as if he
was looking for a place to hide. I guess what Sheila''s father did to her
had been bothering him just as much as it had me.
        "Maybe you should talk to your mother about this, Billy," he said.
        "But you said . . ."
        Sometimes a guy couldn''t count on old Uncle Joe. I remember once we
gave him our dog that we had for like thirty years, her name was Pepper,
and when I asked about her, he said he had to shoot her cause she was an
"egg sucking bitch." I had a hard time forgiving him for that. Uncle Joe
always wears these striped bib overalls, along with what looks like an
engineer''s cap. I guess he wears the cap to cover up his bald head. My
daddy has a full head of hair. I hope I take after him and not my
grandfather on my mother''s side who''s just as bald as Uncle Joe.
        "Your mom and dad wouldn''t want me talking to you about that girl."
        I kicked a swath through the newly limed walkway. Uncle Joe''s barn
was always so clean. Later, I found out it was cause we didn''t have one of
those big fans in our barn which kept the barn dry.
        "I won''t tell them."
        "Let''s get back into the house. Alice will have supper waiting for us."
        Alice had made fried chicken for supper and it wasn''t done; it was
pink on the inside. You can get sick from chicken that''s not done, so I
didn''t eat much. I thought about maybe asking her about Sheila Reller since
she was a teacher and it''s her job to tell us kids about things we don''t
know. But Uncle Joe told me in no uncertain terms while we were cleaning
the manure off of our shoes at the mother''s- little-helper in front of his
porch that I was not to mention Sheila Reller to Alice.
        Uncle Joe was really letting me down this time. I remember once one
of our neighbors, Willie Hammond, shot himself in the mouth with a
double-barreled shotgun. He did it out in the hay barn and all the
neighbors were out looking for him for hours before they finally found him.
Boy, was I glad I didn''t see that. I had nightmares about Willie and his
shotgun for weeks. That was the first time I''d heard about suicide. My dad,
mom, older brother, and Uncle Joe wouldn''t explain that one to me either. I
remember asking, "Is Willie Hammond in Hell, Ma?"
        She said she thought suicides went to Limbo or something. Limbo is
where the little babies go who die before they can get baptized. When I
heard about Limbo, I gave the nun a pretty hard time about it. "But that''s
not fair, Sister," I said. "It''s not their fault they didn''t get baptized."
She made me go sit in the library all day by myself. I thought that day
would never get over. This wasn''t the first theological disagreement we''d
had. We once had a shouting match over dog heaven. She said that dogs
didn''t get to go to heaven when they died. I said, "Well, then I''m not
going either."
        Uncle Joe gave me a whole fifty cents extra when he took me home
that night--I don''t get to stay there overnight any more cause there isn''t
enough room in his bed with Alice there and everything.
        Sheila Reller would not go away. Her name was in the paper and on
the radio the rest of the summer. She was going to be charged with
manslaughter. Sounded worse than murder to me, so I asked Dexter and he
said, "That''s when it''s a kind of accident, but you should''ve known better
like driving drunk."
        That very hot day in Uncle Joe''s hayfield was in July sometime and
I was still thinking about Sheila in September when school started. I even
wrote her a letter. I am a letter writing fool, let me tell you. When I was
in fourth grade, Adlai Stevenson was running against Dwight D. Eisenhower
for president. I had my own election and everything cause they don''t let
little kids vote--I had a big argument with Sister about discrimination and
she made me sit in the library again--so I went around and asked the other
kids in all eight grades who they''d vote for until Hubert Dubell, a big
kid, tore up my tally sheet. I wrote a letter to the newspaper telling
everybody to vote for Stevenson cause he was a lot more qualified to be
president than Eisenhower since he''d been governor of Illinois and
everything, but they voted in Old Ike anyway cause he was this big shot
general who won World War II. Just cause you''re good at fighting doesn''t
mean you''ll make a good president.
        Where was I? Oh, yeah, I wrote Sheila Reller a letter. It went
something like, "Dear Sheila, My friends think you''re a murderer cause you
shot your dad, but I think it''s not murder if you''re only defending
yourself. I tried to tell them that but they wouldn''t listen to me. Signed,
Your friend, Billy Bessinger."
        She didn''t write back. That first week of school Father Wagner took
all the boys into one room and Sister Giles took the girls in another.
Father Wagner is 6''6" and must weigh about three hundred pounds or so. All
the boys call him Father Bunyun, after Paul. Whenever Sister Giles or one
of the other nuns need help with discipline, she calls in Father and he
clobbers the kid right in front of the class. We don''t give Sister Giles a
lot of lip, let me tell you. Father Wagner is always giving his sermons in
German, and I never understand them, since Mama and Daddy only speak German
when they don''t want us to know what they''re saying. Mama says Father
Wagner is talking about sex when he preaches in German. When he asks for
money, he uses English. We all get a dime to put in our collection
envelopes. Mama says it would be just too embarrassing to have a zero
behind our names when the financial report comes out at the beginning of
the year.
        That particular day Father Wagner told us about sex and showed us
on this doodle he drew on the board how it got done, mostly though he
talked about eggs and sperms, which didn''t make a whole lot of sense to me.
Also, being a farm kid, I''d seen animals do it, and they came at it from
behind. I was wondering if it was okay to do it from the front, but I was
afraid to ask. I did ask about Sheila Reller, however.
        Nobody else had any questions, and I''m the type who can''t stand it
when somebody asks if there are any questions and everybody sits there like
a bunch of retards. I like to show off some, too.
        And so I raised my hand. "Yes, Billy, do you have a question?"
Father said.
        I wiped my forehead. I was sweating some since I didn''t quite know
how to put it. "Father, this past summer there was this girl; she lives in
Blandon. She was in the paper and everything. They say her father was
having sex with her and she shot him, with a .22 rifle. What I was
wondering is why her father would do such a thing."
        Father Wagner frowned. He looked rather like one of those statues
on Mount Rushmore I''d seen in books. He cleared his throat. I think I had
him stumped cause it took at least a good five minutes for him to say
anything. Then he cleared his throat again and, I swear, every kid in that
room rose up out of his seat at least a foot.
        "Sometimes the devil finagles his way into the souls of people of
little faith," he said. He hesitated a moment establishing direct eye
contact with at least five or six kids in the class. "That''s why you never
want to miss mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation." This made me
really scared cause sometimes I faked being sick on Sundays.
        "Are there any other questions?" Father said. "If not, I must get
back to the rectory." Of course, none of those other donkeys had any
questions. I had a million of them, but I was afraid to press my luck.
        After class, Crybaby Willis and I had a little discussion during
our lavatory break. We had to march down there two by two, and two of us
got to use the urinals at a time so as to prevent any antics as Sister
called them. Crybaby got his name in first grade cause he was homesick and
cried all day the first day and most of the first week. We''d been calling
him Crybaby so long, he even answered to it sometimes.
        "My mother says those people in Blandon are trash," Crybaby said,
standing at the urinal trying to overcome his bashful kidney. "It''s called
incest," he said. "My ma says it happens all the time, especially in
Blandon."
        "I kinda figured," I said. "We got a dog like that who''s the son of
our female and her own pup. I guess this is what they call a taboo."
        Crybaby gave up, went over and tapped the soap machine, ran water
over his hands, blotted them with a paper towel. He was going to have a
tough afternoon holding it in.
        "What''s a taboo?" he said.
        "I read where the aristocracy, the King of England, the Kaiser in
Germany and the Tsar in Russia was all like first cousins. They didn''t
think ordinary people were good enough, so they married into the family.
Same deal in ancient Egypt, only in Egypt they actually married their
sisters."
        "You''re lying again. I swear you tell more tall tales."
        "If I''m lyin'' I''m dyin''. The taboo is that they don''t want us
ordinary saps gettin'' too friendly with our close relatives--it would ruin
the wedding industry--so they spread these stories about incest causing
mental retardation and such."
        Crybaby told on me, so I had to spend the rest of the day in the
library again.
        That night I went home and asked my brother Dexter, who''s sixteen
years old and has a ducktail just like Tony Curtis, about the frontal as
opposed to the rear approach during sex. He had lots of girls cause he was
the photographer for the annual at the high school and the girls all wanted
their pictures in there. Once he caught me drawing naked pictures; I
thought he was going to tell Mama and Daddy on me, but he said I was doing
a pretty realistic job. I wasn''t sure if girls had more than that little
patch of hair down there. He said they do, but he wouldn''t go into any
detail.
        We were out in the garage working on his ''52 Mercury, or I should
say he was as I wouldn''t even know how to check the oil. "You can do it
either way," Dexter said, wiping his hands on a rag. There was a smudge on
his face and for once his hair was mussed. "From the front or behind. Lots
of other ways, too. Don''t worry about them yet; girls are only interested
in the missionary position at this age." I didn''t know what that was
either, but I didn''t want to look stupid, so I didn''t ask. I figured I
could always look it up later in the encyclopedia we got. It wasn''t in
there.
        After our little talk I went to the house and I got on the phone
with my baseball card trading partner, Teddy Liddle, and we talked for a
good forty-five minutes. I was looking for a Stan Musial; they must not
have made too many of them cause I had three Mickey Mantles and four Ted
Williams but no Stan Musials. I had spent a fortune trying to get one.
Anyway, my cards were kind of beat up cause I played this game with them
where I batted them around some. Teddy didn''t want to trade unless they
were mint. Finally, after forty-five minutes, Mrs. Allenby, from the next
farm who''s on the party line--Mama is always listening in on other people''s
conversations--broke in and said she needed the phone. Kids had to get off
when adults wanted the line.
        I went out to the barn to feed the calves and the pigs when what
did I see but another reminder of Sheila Reller. I kind of felt like
Scrooge she was haunting me so much. Kind of like you were haunting Dana
Andrews in that picture Laura, Gene, before he found out you were still
alive. What a coincidence. Anyway, the name "Mike" was carved on the silage
room door. Mike was this little boy who used to live on our farm who got
kicked in the head by a horse and died. At that time they had these big
draft horses, Percherons, that look like the horses you see in the King
Arthur stories. Anyway, they could really pack a wallop what with those big
old hooves, so I guess Mikey didn''t have much of a chance. I''ve been
hounding Mama to find out more about old Mike for me, but she always
forgets. Should be kind of easy since his brother Benny only lives a couple
of miles away. He''s the town cop, but he lives on a farm by us.
        I wonder what it''s like to be dead. Couldn''t be too good for Sheila
Reller''s dad. Mikey should be okay, though, cause he was just a little kid
and he was baptized and everything. Maybe he was still in purgatory for
something he did to one of his brothers, or for talking back to his mom and
dad. I''d say the stations of the cross for old Mikey when Lent came around
again. That was worth a plenary indulgence and could get you out of
purgatory a lot faster. I''d do one for Sheila, too, just in case God didn''t
approve of girls defending themselves against fathers who were bothering
them.
        I really couldn''t fathom being dead, though. Mainly, cause
everything that happens happens through me. Sure I hear about wars in Korea
and typhoons off the coast of Japan, but I have to take somebody else''s
word for that. I have a feeling that if I kick off, everybody and
everything is going to go with me.
        I got done with my chores and, instead of watching The Range Rider
like I usually did, I wrote Sheila another letter, telling her I was still
thinking about her and asking her to answer my letter cause I was worried
about her. I just sent it to Sheila Reller and the name of the town. The
last one hadn''t come back return to sender so I figured it had got there.
        That Monday we had cold tuna casserole for lunch; I swear that
stuff isn''t fit for human consumption. When I tell the serving ladies with
the hair nets and the warts on their noses "just a little bit", they give
me more on purpose. It rebounds on me when I try to eat it, and I have to
force it down cause the nuns are hawking about, making sure we all clean
our plates. Anyway, I must have had the flu, cause I threw up all over the
table I was sitting at, got it on Crybaby, half way on purpose, and had to
go sit in the library and wait for Mama to come and get me. There are three
sets of encyclopedias in there. I couldn''t find the missionary position in
any of them.
        That night I stole one of Daddy''s cigarettes and went out to the
barn and tried to inhale. I got very dizzy, leaning up against Ornery
listening to Bill Haley sing "Rock Around the Clock" on the barn radio. I
wouldn''t try that again too soon.
        I had another ordeal the next day. Sister Giles had been after me
to become a mass server, and this was my first time.
Crybaby was my partner for my first mass; he told me he''d been sneaking the
Communion wine. I gain a great deal of satisfaction imagining Father Wagner
catching him at it. He''s lucky I''m not a rat like he is. He also tells me
that the servers like to change the responses. When the priest says,
"Dominus vobiscum," the servers say, "Et yer spinach today?" I think that''s
blasphemous. I''m surprised Sister Giles hasn''t found out about it yet.
        It goes well. I love the smell of that incense. Incense, almost the
same as incest. I offer up my mass to Sheila.
        This sex thing was beginning to wear on me. That night I had an
accident. I hadn''t wet the bed since I was five, but that night for some
reason I did. Dexter, who sleeps in the same bed, said it was a wet dream,
or a nocturnal emission, if I wanted to get technical.
        He patted me on the head with that condescending older brother look
on his face. Pretty ironic since I''m the one who gets the A''s on his report
card. The last I had checked Dexter had all D''s.
        "A guy needs to get it out or he gets blue balls," he said. "When
you get your first girlfriend, you tell her that, and she''ll feel sorry for
you and she might let you do it to her."
        Gene, you must think I''m worse than Errol Flynn, mentioning
something like this. Brother Damian says that St. Peter and the other
apostles would whip themselves to keep from thinking about sex. Maybe I
should try that.
        I had a feeling that Dexter''s girlfriend Lizzie McCall, head
cheerleader at St. Francis Xavier High, didn''t know anything about any blue
balls. Perhaps I could use this little episode as a barter the next time I
needed a ride from Dexter.
        Time went by; I went out for the basketball team. I even got to
play the last sixty seconds against Nazareth Elementary from Blandon. Would
you believe, Gene, I somehow committed three fouls in one minute?
        Sheila wasn''t bothering me as much since I''d begun to notice this
little blonde, Patty Weiss, who sat all the way over on the other side of
the room, which was kind of a good deal cause we could stare at each other
better that way. Whoever blinked first lost. I''d already had one fight on
the playground over her, with my best friend Marshal Fyten; he had me
pinned and she jumped on him and made him let me go. It was kind of
humiliating.
        Then one day I got a letter. A kid doesn''t get a lot of mail on the
farm, unless he sends for an autograph from Lassie and Tommy Rettig, which
I did. There was no return address on the envelope. When I tore it open, I
found a card with a  picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary with golden halo
around her head, and on the inside was a note saying, "Thank you for your
concern. You''ll never know how much it meant to me. I hope to meet you
sometime. Sincerely yours, Sheila Reller."
        The back of my neck is tingling, and when I look up, Brother Damian
is standing there, his arms folded across his bony chest, his grey eyes
crossing slightly.
        "Finished already?" he says. The others are still grappling with
their first page.
        I wad up the paper and stuff it in my pocket. "I have a better
idea," I say, smiling like a newly potty-trained two year-old who''s just
soiled his pants.
        Taking a fresh sheet from my tablet, I start to write about the
time I stole Sam''s piggy-bank money and squandered it at the County Fair.
There is no way I can turn in my reminiscences about Sheila Reller. Brother
Damian might read them and discover that I''d burned that card with the
Blessed Virgin Mary''s picture on it..