The Long Run (46 page)

We couldn't have picked a better person in the world to say what we all felt. Jesus himself couldn't have done any better. And that's a fact. Blackie's the best. We'd all follow him to the moon and back. We are all so stung by him, by what he said, we stay frozen until communion time, when Brother McMurtry has to remind us to approach the altar rail to take the host.

Everyone at the Mount feels really bad after the funeral. A collective case of the spells, as Oberstein puts it. Every boy dresses in his school clothes, even the little ones, and we walk down Torbay Road to Mount Carmel Cemetery, where we bury Bug. Then we walk back. Nobody says a word going or coming, not even the little ones. To get my mind off Bug, I think about the big race. It's a bad time to get a collective case of the spells, with the marathon only a few days away.

“Bug sure picked a bad time to die,” Murphy moans, raking his hair with his big fingers.

I can't seem to hold the good memories at all. The times we fished Virginia Waters, the boil-ups at the Bat Cave. The nights we stole a fresh loaf or sneaked out for a smoke. The walks to Bannerman Park on weekends to meet with girls. Bug, the fire-eater. Bug, the human bowling pin, in full flight at St. Pete's Alleys. The Mount Kildare Raffle. Bug racing around the floor in his white apron, a fistful of tickets high above his head squeaking out the prices: “Two for five, four for ten, ten big chances for twenty-five cents . . .” I can't seem to hold a single picture in my mind for any length of time. And I don't think I will for a long while to come. All I'll ever be able to let in is that one picture—
my
Bug Bradbury moment—that day in the gymnasium during the examination of conscience when we beat Bug until he could hardly breathe. It's funny how the worst things linger on when someone's gone.

In the TV room after Mass we all tell Blackie that he gave a beautiful tribute. He just cleans his glasses with his sweater, taps his tooth and smiles that lazy smile of his. He says nothing.

“I think they'll forget about the wine stealing now,” Oberstein says.

“Jury's still out,” Blackie says. “But Saturday's almost here. Everyone ready? No runnin' the next two days. Sleep and eat.”

“What's the weather forecast?” I ask.

“Rain,” Oberstein says.

“Shit,” Blackie says.

“Jesus, Bug,” Ryan starts to cry. “You
Brutus
.”

“Shhh.” Blackie raises his hand. “It's done. Maybe not . . . Maybe he done us the biggest favor of all. Gotta hand it to the Bug. Never said a peep 'bout the marathon. Maybe a good thing you laid that beatin' on him after all.”

We all look at each other and shake our heads. Then Blackie laughs the loudest laugh we've ever heard.

“Mayday! Mayday!” Oberstein whispers as McCann drags out the podium.

Brother McMurtry stands at the front of the cafeteria and claps his hands three times.

Silence. We watch the muscles working in his jaw, his wolf eyes gleaming.

“Mr. Neville, stand up, please.”

Blackie stands.

“It seems that Mr. Neville has done something wrong, boys, something terribly wrong. Something sinful, in fact. Something he has admitted, by his own hand . . . and confirmed by Mr. Bradbury. He has performed a little trick on the brothers and Monsignor Flynn. We have another Houdini in our midst. But it was not an impossible trick, mind you. He hasn't turned water into wine or anything like that.” McMurtry wrinkles his lip into a half smile and holds up the letter Oberstein and I wrote. “Mr. Neville has admitted that he is a thief. You all know your catechism, boys. You all know the eighth commandment. And what is the eighth commandment, Mr. Neville?”

“Thou shalt not steal.”

“And Mr. Neville has not simply stolen, boys. He is not guilty of simply stealing. No, boys. Mr. Neville has stolen from our chapel, thereby committing a more serious sin.”

“
A sacrilege
,” McCann interjects, looking on, one hand on his hip.

“No. No, not a sacrilege, Brother McCann. But quite a serious sin, nonetheless. More serious than stealing.”

Silence. Murphy bites his parched lip. Ryan is so tense he's shaking. He rubs his sweaty hands along his pants. Oberstein stares at Blackie. We're all thinking about the same thing: the day Ryan was led in on a rope and strapped.

“Come forward, Mr. Neville.”

Blackie walks to the front of the cafeteria. McMurtry uncoils his strap. Sunlight streams in through the window beside him.

“I've been told, boys, that there is an unwritten rule among you regarding strapping. A code of sorts, regarding crying or, rather,
not
crying. And I've been told that your ring leader, Mr. Neville, has a reputation of not even blinking when he is strapped. Is that correct, Mr. Neville?”

Blackie is silent.

“Well, we shall soon see if our young thief is capable of repentance. Hands up, sir.”
Whack
. The strap hits Blackie's splayed fingers.
Whack
. McMurtry's wolf eyes show no mercy. “So you don't want to talk about . . .”
Whack
.
Whack
. “. . . Jesus or the Judgment Day.” He pauses and grins.
Whack
. With each swing of the strap there's an angry murmur, a cop movie murmur.
Whack
. “Or about Lazarus.”
Whack
.
Whack
. There is a sheen of sweat on McMurtry's face.

Oberstein keeps count. Tears are rolling down his cheeks as he raises ten fingers.

As McMurtry delivers another blow, I feel the pain. I know what it's like. A bubble surrounds you, and you can only pray that it will soon burst. And that you won't break the secret code: Be a member of a private Klub, the Dare Strapping Klub. Membership is free. There is only one rule. Don't cry. Don't even blink.

“
Blink
, Blackie,” Murphy whispers.

“
Blink
, Blackie,” Ryan echoes.

“Think of Floyd Patterson!” I want to scream. “There's only a few seconds left in the round. Hang on.”

Blackie doesn't make a sound. I close my eyes and see the blinking Celtic cross.

“Jesus, Bug . . .” Oberstein sighs.

Kavanagh says, “
Blink
, Blackie,
please
blink.”

Soon our entire table is saying it: “Blink, Blackie, blink.”

“Quiet!” McCann yells.

The strapping reminds me of the gunshots at the beginning of
The Rifleman
. I close my eyes and wish Chuck Connors would race in and save Blackie.

King Kelly's table joins in: “Blink, Blackie, blink.” The chant drowns out the strapping.

“Quiet! Everyone. Quiet!”

The cafeteria becomes a perfect chorus. Even the little ones are chanting “Blink, Blackie, blink.” They think they're part of a spontaneous game. There's a smirk on McMurtry's face that seems to say, See, even your friends are with me. But we're not. We want Blackie to blink so the strapping will stop.

McCann races to a table and cuffs a few boys. He punches Kelly in the head. The chorus grows louder: “Blink, Blackie, blink!”

“Quiet!” McCann screams. “Quiet!”

McMurtry stops the strapping. Blackie's hands are still held high. The chorus falls silent.

“You may go to your dorm, Mr. Neville.”

There is a deep silence throughout the rest of the meal and during the washup. Nobody says a word until chores are done.

“How many?” Murphy asks on the way to the dorm.

“Lost count,” Oberstein sighs.

“At least twenty,” Ryan says.

“But he didn't blink,” Murphy says. “Bastard didn't make him blink.”

“
God-damn
, Bug,” Ryan says.

Blackie's in the dorm washroom doing what we all do after a good strapping: scrubbing down—running cold water on his burning hands. We do it after a really cold run too. It helps a lot. Ryan is really upset. He cries and mumbles all the way up to the dorm that Blackie didn't blink. He's remembering what it's like to be strapped that way.

“He didn't make you blink, Blackie. The bastard didn't . . .”

Blackie lifts his head, looks in the mirror and stares at the four of us hunched behind him. There's a terrible strain on his face. It looks swelled and cold with shock, and his eyes are red and shrunken.

“I blinked,” he says, lowering his head to hide the tears.

19

O'Grady's found his marbles. O'Grady's found his marbles.

IT'S A DECOY CRIER.
O'Grady will never find his marbles. He'll never have any to find. The crier is Kavanagh. It means there's an emergency meeting for anyone who can make it.

Besides the checker system, we have a secret writing system for emergencies. If a Klub member wants to send a message to someone about an emergency meeting, but doesn't want anyone else to know, we have a really good method. We write using pee on the back of an innocent-looking piece of paper—a drawing or a comic book cover. The dried urine always remains invisible until you hold it next to a hot radiator or some other heat source. It's a great way to get a message around without others knowing about it. The day before the marathon, Oberstein passes me an odd-looking postcard, and I know right away that there is an important message and I need to get to a heat source fast. I hold the postcard near the flame of Rowsell's Zippo and watch the words materialize:
emerg mtn incnratr 5:00
.

At the incinerator, we learn that Shorty Richardson has the flu. He isn't in bad shape. It looks like he'll be okay for the marathon, but Oberstein is worried that he might get sicker. “‘To everything there is a season,'” Oberstein says. Father Cross has taken his temperature a dozen times. And it's always only slightly above normal.

Blackie's beside himself. He's
resolved
, as Bug would say. He's downcast at the meeting. Like he could get the spells. He hasn't been the same since Bug left the community, as the Kaddish says.

“Never thought there'd be cause for another meeting,” Kavanagh says, and looks helplessly at Oberstein, who organizes a team to make sure Shorty gets a good night's sleep and liquids throughout the night.

“Father Cross, you're now Doctor Cross,” Blackie says.

The peashooters, who are responsible for stealing their own beans from the kitchen storeroom, are given the job of stealing packages of Tang and cans of apple juice. O'Connor volunteers to steal aspirin from the infirmary. Blackie tells the peashooters to have extra ammunition for the marathon, just in case Shorty's still sick and needs a little help to win the race. He puts Murphy in charge of the shooters.

“Tomorrow's the big day. Practice all day and all night,” Oberstein says. “We want deadly accuracy, a bull's-eye every shot.”

We think the meeting's over, but we're in for a surprise. Blackie gets that faraway look in his eyes and stares off into space. “I wish I was a ladybug,” he says. “I'd just fly away home.” He nods to Kelly and O'Connor to stand guard at each end of the swimming pool. Father Cross gives Blackie a new pair of Congress sneakers. “Thank you, Jesus,” Blackie says, and takes off his old ones and throws them into the incinerator. He laces up his new sneakers. “Goin' all the way to New York City in these,” he says. “Gonna do the impossible trick.”