A Troublesome Boy (5 page)

Cruickshank was sweating and his zits were flaming.

“Yes, Father.”

“Tell me something, Mr. Cruickshank. Is stealing good or evil?”

“Evil, I guess.”

“You guess.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Well, then, if stealing is evil, what does that tell us about the thieves?”

“That depends,” said Cruickshank.

Klemski and I looked at each other. Klemski's eyebrows shot up.

“Depends on what, Mr. Cruickshank?”

“If they're poor and have no other way to feed themselves or take care of themselves.”

“So what you are positing here, I take it, Mr. Cruickshank, is a world of conditional morality. Is that correct?”

“I guess so.”

“In your world, if someone is poor, is it permissible for that person to steal?”

“If they're starving and no one is helping them, then yes.”

“So would the starving thief be good or evil?”

“I'm not sure he'd be either good or evil.”

“What
would
he be, pray tell?”

“Just a thief,” said Cruickshank.

“But isn't thieving, in and of itself, an evil activity?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Not necessarily?”

“I don't think you can just divide the world up into good and evil,” said Cruickshank. “I think that's pretty simple.”

“You think good versus evil is simple?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think the Bible is simple, Mr. Cruickshank?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, the Bible is all about good versus evil. So would that make it simple?”

“I guess.”

“And if I see the world as a battleground for the forces of good versus the forces of evil, would that make me simple, Mr. Cruickshank?”

“I guess.”

Sullivan grabbed Cruickshank by the front of his shirt and danced him backwards down the aisle until he had him against the back wall. Every head in the room was cranked around to see what would happen next.

“Are you calling me simple, Mr. Cruickshank?”

“I guess so.”

“Are you calling my religion and my faith simple?”

“I guess so,” said Cruickshank.

Holy shit.

Sullivan lifted Cruickshank right off the floor and slammed him against the wall. Cruickshank's back hit the wall first, and then his head bounced off it. Sickening sound. Sullivan slammed him against the wall again. Another sickening thunk. This time Cruickshank's eyes rolled back into his head. His face got all chalky. Sullivan let him go. He fell to the floor. He was twitching and coughing. It was the only sound in the room.

Sullivan left him there.

“When you gather yourself together, Mr. Cruickshank, you can make your way to the time-out room. Close the door behind yourself. Spend your afternoon thinking about the ramifications of mocking another man's faith.”

—

“SULLIVAN IS ONE
sadistic sonofabitch,” said Klemski.

We were huddled together at one end of the pagans' table. Anderson was inspecting his sandwich, lifting the top piece of bread and moving the filling around with his finger, like he was expecting maggots to crawl out.

“I'm not sure what they put in this sandwich,” he said. “But it doesn't taste like tuna.”

“That's because it's turkey, you moron.” Klemski shook his head.

“That sonofabitch is going to kill someone,” said Henderson.

“Look what he did to Cooper,” said Anderson.

“Look what he did last week to that poor bastard in grade twelve,” said Henderson.

Guy named Morris had lipped off to Sullivan. Some smartass comment. Sullivan told him to stand facing the wall. Left him there for a few minutes, staring at the paint, then came up behind him and slammed his face into the wall. Broke the poor bastard's nose. Blood everywhere. He was still walking around with a bandage over his nose.

We took our trays back to the kitchen window, unloaded the plates and glasses.

Anderson, Henderson and Klemski headed for the yard.

“I'll catch you in a few minutes,” I said.

“Going to jerk off?” said Klemski.

“Yeah. Shouldn't take more than forty seconds,” I said. They were all laughing as they headed down the stairs toward the rear doors.

I waited until they'd gone out. Then I went down to the basement and the boiler room.

I'd come across it by accident one day after supper. It was pouring like crazy and I didn't feel like getting soaked to the ass trying to have a smoke. So I went down to the basement and wandered around looking for a quiet place where I could light up and not have to see anyone or talk to anyone. It had been one of those days when I couldn't take another ten minutes of hanging around with anyone. I tried a few doors until I came to one that wasn't locked. Great room full of boilers and pipes, warm and dry, not a soul in sight. I spent half an hour in there, then picked up my butts and headed back upstairs. Since then, I'd gone down to the boiler room a couple of times.

I opened the door, did a quick scan of the room, then shut the door behind myself. I headed for the back corner where I could open a window and let the smoke out.

“Back again, eh?”

Jeezus. I just about jumped.

It was the faucet guy.

“You keep comin' down here, I'll have to put you to work. I'm Rozey,” he said. “Roh-zhay Roh-zell. The handyman.”

I reached out a hand. “Nice to meet you. I'm Clemson. Teddy.”

Rozey was sitting on an old chrome-legged chair right under the window. Same shiny face. Same lumberjack shirt and blue jeans. Still smiling.

“Pull up a box,” he said. “Take a load off.” There were a couple of wooden boxes over near the wall. One was full of tools and crap. The other was empty. I picked it up and took it over near where he was sitting, set it on its end and sat down.

I pulled out my smokes. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Not if you're sharing.” He smiled. I offered him one. He pulled out a Zippo lighter. There was an engraving of a cowboy on the front.

“You've seen me down here before?”

“Sure. Three or four times. You always take your butts with you. I like that.”

“What do you do around here?”

“I'm the janitor. I clean up, mostly. That's the main thing. Sometimes I fix things. Try to. Taps, toilets, broken windows. Stuff like that.”

“Did you come here to go to school?”

“No. I went to the town school. I didn't do so good. I only got my grade seven. My dad, he told me if I couldn't get through grade eight by the time I was sixteen I should try something different so he took me into the woods.”

“The woods?”

“Lumber camps. My dad worked there. He talked to the foreman and they put me on odd jobs. I've been on odd jobs ever since.” He laughed.

“What was it like, working in the woods?”

“Pretty good. In the summer. Not in the winter or the spring or the fall. Ten years of that was enough for me so I come back to town and got a job here. No blackflies, no mosquitoes. Just the priests buzzing around.” That laugh again.

I finished my smoke. “Better get going.”

—

“LOSE YOUR WAY
,
Mr. Clemson?” The Pear took one look at me, then got busy scribbling a slip. He held it out between finger and thumb. “Perhaps you'll be good enough to show up in detention room right after classes.”

Three minutes late for class and an hour's detention. It was going to be one of those days.

I managed to get through Bartlett's religious studies class while he was talking about priests turning savages into Christians. Art was a snap. Brother Julius had us doing still-life drawing. Gym was gym. Father Prince had us running back and forth getting all sweaty, trying to climb ropes dangling from the ceiling, push-ups, sit-ups.

Science was one class too many.

“Mr. Clemson, are you with us?”

“Huh?” Guys were snickering and giggling.

“A particularly difficult day, Mr. Clemson?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Well, if you can just focus on the finish line, Mr. Clemson, I'd like you to answer one final question for the day.”

“I'll give it a shot.”

More laughter. Father Dyer was not smiling, however. He was headed my way from the front of the class.

“Stand up, Mr. Clemson.”

I was standing by the time he reached my desk. He was just about nose to nose with me and he was definitely not happy.

“Describe the major postulates of the cell theory, Mr. Clemson.”

“The cell theory?” My brain was numb.

“You have been with us this past week, Mr. Clemson?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Mr. Henderson. Would you mind helping Mr. Clemson.” Henderson jumped to his feet. Suckhole.

“Yes, Father. Cells. All living things are made up of cells. Cells are the functional units of life.”

“Thank you, Mr. Henderson.” Henderson sat down, smirking. “Cells are indeed the functional units of life. But it would seem that Mr. Clemson's brain cells are not functioning this afternoon.” So lame, but it got more giggles.

“Let's try another question, shall we?”

Father Dyer was still nose to nose with me. His breath stunk of garlic and something else. Gross.

“What is mitosis, Mr. Clemson?”

“Bad breath?”

Bad move.

“Hold your hand out.”

“Which one?”

Dyer grabbed my right hand with his left, hauled the strap out of the pocket of his robe, raised his arm and brought the strap down full force on my palm.

Man. Nothing hurts more than that first whack. He gave me two more on that hand, then three on the left, pocketed his strap, then grabbed me by the ear and hauled me out of the classroom and into the time-out room. He shut the light and shut the door.

I sat on my hands. It helped a little, but not much.

Of all the things I hated about St. Iggy's, The Dungeon rated right up there. Once that door closed and the light went out, man. The chair was made of wood — straight back, no cushion — and there was no way you could sit for more than five minutes without starting to squirm around. I usually sat in the corner, leaning against the wall. Close your eyes, open your eyes, it was all the same. Pitch-black except for the little slice of light at the bottom of the door. Now and then you could hear voices from the classrooms and between classes the sound of kids going by in the hallway, laughing and talking. Then silence. Nothing. It was like you'd been dropped into a pit. After a while your mind started playing tricks on you. You heard something scratching around — a rat, maybe, or a mouse — and once you started hearing things like that you were pretty well screwed. Next thing you'd think you could feel something bumping into you or crawling up your leg.

One guy went crazy, screaming and yelling there was a snake in the room and when they opened the door he was frothing at the mouth. They had to take him to the infirmary and he stayed there for days. They finally carted him off to the mental ward at the hospital. His parents had to come and take him away.

The Dungeon really screwed with your mind. No question about it.

“Just like prison,” Klemski said. “That's why they put all the hard cases in solitary. They do it to break you. Send you right over the edge.”

“The secret,” said Cooper, “is to imagine you're somewhere else. That's what I do. When that door closes, I'm on that beach in British Columbia, staring out at the ocean, going for a swim, fishing, lying in the sun. Try it.”

Once Dyer shut the door and the light and I'd made my way to the corner and sat down on my hands I imagined I was in my dad's '56 Ford convertible, white-and-blue two-tone, whitewalls, the works. I loved that car.

Next thing you know, me and my dad had hooked up the boat trailer and were heading out of town to the campground where we went every twenty-fourth of May. Boys' weekend, we called it.

The campground was out on the lake, about forty minutes out of town. We had the top down, like we always did whether it was freezing or not. When we got there, we pitched the tent, rolled out our sleeping bags, set up the camp stove. Then we went down to the ramp and launched the boat, headed out to do a little fishing. We weren't out there five minutes when I caught a nice-looking trout. Then my dad caught one and I caught another and then we headed back, cleaned the fish, fired up the camp stove, had a little feast. Once it was dark, we got the fire pit going, sat on a log and roasted marshmallows.

The whole time — in the car, out in the boat, sitting by the fire — we were talking. Yak yak yak. I was telling him about stuff me and my friends were up to. He was telling me about the latest house he was building, a great big place for Dr. Johns down on the shore, told me he'd have to take me down to have a look. Finally we couldn't keep our eyes open, so we crawled into our bags and went to sleep.

I must have nodded off, dreamt all that about our camping trip. But suddenly I was awake, and man did I have to go.

That was the worst, when you had to go to the john. You could bang on the door until you broke all the bones in both hands but there was no way the priests would let you out of there before they felt like it. Sometimes you had to do what you had to do, but even in the pitch-black it was embarrassing and the smell was something you don't want to imagine, especially if you had to do something more serious than take a piss. And the priests always seemed to get a big kick out of calling other boys to the doorway to watch you cleaning up.

“Maybe we should get you some diapers the next time, Mr. Clemson.”

Maybe you should just go fuck yourself, Father
.

There was never a time limit for getting out of The Dungeon. The priest came back and opened the door when he felt like it, or when he remembered that he'd locked you up in the first place.