VII

​

 

     “Mr. Daily?  Mr. Potty mouth?”

 

      “Lake Titicaca” still echoed around the chalk boards of my fifth grade classroom.

 

“Mr. Daily!” Merciless’s second summons broke my reverie.  I rose and moved dutifully toward 

 

her desk, which over the semester had been dubbed the ‘Desk of Pain’. Two small, convoluted 

 

human hands were painted on the oak top. Small, student sized hands. The left hand Mortal Sin 

 

Black and the right hand in Skull and Crossbones white. The white hand was blurry, perhaps 

 

compromised by the sweat of this nun’s previous pubescent victims. . . ‘Justice?’ came swift and 

 

deliberate in the confines of Room 5.

 

      I placed my left hand on the Mortal Sin Black, and my right hand on the Skull and 

 

Crossbones white. My legs were spread. The disciplinarian always approached the sinner from 

 

the rear. I noticed flab’s of white skin dangling in the open sleeves of her black robes. Her paddle 

 

was perforated. A lean mean machine.  Designed to inflict pain. Pain on the tender, young flesh 

 

of the most recent offending ten-year-old buttocks. 

 

      I don’t know if this happens to spies just before the bad guys threaten to shove 

 

thin shards of glass underneath fingernails or activate the electrodes clamped to their testes, but  

 

there I was with my legs spread and my rear end wiggling in front of my whole class  

 

waiting for Merciless’s  swat when two things spilled through my mind:

 

      My first thought: Where does a nun get such a paddle?  Once she has a paddle where 

 

would she find a sadistic carpenter willing to drill a series of minute holes into the center to make

 

it more aerodynamic?  Merciless’ paddle was the size of a Wilson tennis racket, but made out of 

 

sterner stuff, ash, maybe hickory. I doubt that Mother Superiors’ pass these out on graduation 

 

day from nun school. 

 

      I can’t imagine a parent giving such a graduation gift. “Here my darling daughter. 

 

Congratulations  for spending five years in silence contemplating the life of Jesus Christ. Now 

 

you can move ahead and spend the rest of your life  inflicting pain. Children cause so much of 

 

what is wrong with our world. Never hesitate to whack away.”

 

      My second thought: I’d already spent three months under Merciless’ tutelage and just as 

 

she lifted her paddle I realized she was a south paw. A lefty! Unbelievable. All other 

 

considerations were interrupted by a burst of pain.

 

     As the shock coursed through my body, I vowed that I would not cry. I would not cry.

 

I did not cry. Daily’s don’t cry.

 

      For several weeks it seemed that we’d established a silent truce.  Hell! I’d never declared 

 

war. Sister Mary Merciless initiated the pre-emptive strike in our relationship. Ten years old

 

I was neither trained for, nor able to contend with her sort of adult combat.

 

      The next wrinkle in our cuddly relationship? Religion homework. In all fairness, this was 

 

not Merciless’s mandate. It wasn’t just my assignment nor that of our fifth-grade class. Maybe 

 

with a clap of thunder and an accompanying trumpet blare God sent a dictate down from the 

 

cosmos to the current Pope who declared everyone who attended St. Agnes. or any Catholic 

 

school on planet earth and its immediate environs, under threat of eternal damnation, 

 

excommunication – would be committing a greater mortal sin than eating a hot dog 

 

on Friday if they didn’t watch the Bishop Fulton J. Sheen television show every Thursday night 

 

at 8:00 p.m. on Channel 4. 

 

     In our house, this edict caused two problems:

 

    1.The reception from Channel 4 sucked. The black and white image, blinked, samba like 

 

fading in and out, up and down, right and left.

 

     2. The Groucho Marx, “You Bet Your Life,” show came on Channel 5 every Thursday

 

night at 8:00 pm. Our reception was clear as a bell. Go figure. My Mom loved “You Bet Your 

 

Life.” I believe she had a crush on the announcer George Fennemen. There was a ‘Duck’ that 

 

dropped out of the sky with a SECRET WORD in its bill. Every time I prayed the SECRET 

 

WORD would be the largest lake in South America.

 

      Conor and I thought Groucho was a crack-up, though most of  his double entendres went

 

over our head. That’s not to say that Bishop Sheen lacked a sense of humor. One heckler 

 

asked him a question about a relative who died. The Bishop replied, "I will ask him when I get to 

 

heaven." The heckler replied, "What if he isn't in Heaven?" The Bishop replied, "Well then you 

 

ask him.” 

 

     We heard that reply because like all good Catholics . . . At first,  we watched The Bishop 

 

Fulton J. Sheen  television show. But we all missed Groucho Marx. I especially missed the 

 

Duck. Though when Sister Mary Merciless gave us a pop quiz just to check if we were 

 

following the edict of Pope Pius the XII, I got most of the answers right.  

 

     Then it happened. 

 

  

 

     I don’t remember why I got that swat from Merciless on that December morning. I do

 

remember THAT SWAT. It was a no-nonsense swat. ‘A  God and I are tired of your behavior   

 

SWAT.”  Well delivered.  A strong, left-handed forehand down the line, a sure point winner at 

 

Wimbledon.   

 

     My infraction may have been my red hair. My youth. Not raising my hand. Hyperactivity. 

 

We “A” personalities usually know it. We’re prone to laugh at nothing, and break into song 

 

whenever/wherever we’re inclined.  Until the ‘troubles’ I couldn’t help skipping down a 

 

sidewalk. I wasn’t sure what my problem was . . . Or, whether I really had a problem. I 

 

suspect I enjoyed life more than most. And I believed everyone would have more fun if  they 

 

skipped along with me or simply leapt into the air and clicked their heels once and a while. 

 

     “Mr. Daily,” the inquisitor summoned me to the ‘Desk of Pain.”

 

     I knew the drill. I knew my options. Take the swat or there would be the phone call 

 

home. The dreaded phone call home would mean embarrassment to my mother and father, and 

 

shame to the Daily name.  I would have none of that.

 

     My options were nonexistent. I’d been there before. Four times. I took the swat. I 

 

didn’t expect any surprises. I braced myself. Daily’s do not cry. The blow was horrific. My eyes 

 

glassed over. Daily’s do not cry. I coughed as loud as I could to cover my anguish. Snot poured 

 

out of my nostrils. Better snot from my nose than tears from my eyes. 

 

​
 

VIII

 

 

     The night of the SWAT, just as I stepped into the shower my mom pulled open the 

 

bathroom door. We shared a moment of mutual embarrassment.

 

     “Jeez, mom!  Please shut the door.” 

 

     “Sorry, honey.” She pulled the bathroom door shut behind her. What followed was one

 

of those moments when all time seems suspended. When the second hand on a monstrous 

 

clocks suddenly stop ticking, the shadows on a sundial pauses, the sand in the hour glass freezes. 

 

     Our bathroom door exploded open again. My mom burst back inside and stared at my 

 

bare rear. Ask any ten year old boy.  Nope, I’ll speak for them. At ten, the concepts of birth 

 

and maturing are bewildering. Having my Mother staring at my nakedness was embarrassing.  

 

     “Where did you get those marks?” My mom demanded as she moved in for a closer 

 

inspection.  I only hesitated for a moment, then quickly explained THE SWAT 

 

process and reminded her of the Daily family credo and proudly professed, “I didn’t even cry.”

 

     “YOU ARE COMING WITH ME. Get your clothes on.” 

 

      Within five minutes, I’d dressed and we were driving back to St. Agnes. Except for one 

 

question we rode in silence which was odd. My mom liked the radio loud no matter her mood 

 

and this mood I could not read. 

 

     “This Nun?” she asked. “This Nun that swatted you, is she the same one who said we 

 

had to watch Bishop Fulton Sheen?” I nodded.  She ‘umed. But it wasn’t one of those um 

 

ums. It was hard to tell if it was an ‘ I see um’ or an ‘I’ll be damned,’ um.

 

     Mom made an illegal U-turn on Ashbury Street right in front of the Nun’s Rectory,

 

dragged me  out of the car and up the stairs to the convent door. I’d never climbed these stairs 

 

before. I don’t  know any kid that did. This was uncharted, scary territory. The landing was cold 

 

and dank.  

 

     Mom lifted one of the  round knockers. They were huge. Bigger than a NBA basketball 

 

hoop. She dropped it against the oaken door. A THUD exploded off the wood. A resounding 

 

echo repeated through the corridors of the nunnery. 

 

     Nothing. She thudded the knocker again. 

 

     A few moments passed before the door creaked open and a young novitiate queried, 

 

“May I help you?”

 

     “I would like to speak to Sister Mary---“ My mother turned to me. “What’s that woman’s 

 

name?”

 

      Up until that moment events had transpired too quickly. Until, I heard that question,  

 

and my mother’s tone,  I wasn’t sure how this was going. Now I knew. I knew this was not 

 

going to be my trial. I said, ‘Sister Mary Mercy, aloud; surprising myself with the volume.

 

     “Sister Mary Mercy, is in the chapel at Vespers,” The young woman said.

 

     “Go to the chapel and get Sister Mary Mercy out of Vespers,” My mother said. “Tell her a 

 

very angry parent would like to speak with her.”  The novitiate hesitated.  My Mother did not.  

 

She brandished a forefinger: “Move it, dearie. Or I will move you!”

 

     The Novitiate got the message and sprinted down the corridor.  Merciless appeared a few 

 

moments later. “Ah, Mrs. Daily,” she nodded her wimple toward me, “and Collin.  Am I to 

 

understand we have a problem?” She smiled the most unctuous smile the world had ever seen. 

 

     “We do not have a problem,” my mother countered. “You, Sister, have a problem. And 

 

that problem is me.”  My mom leaned in close. Whenever my mom leaned in close it meant 

 

trouble for the leanee. 

 

Sister Merciless’s inner senses kicked in. Some primeval voice warned. She backed away. 

 

      My Mother leaned in again.

 

      Merciless backed into a coat rack. Trapped she could back no further.

 

      My Mother pointed a long, tapered finger. She conducted the brief, one-sided 

 

conversation with the bravado of a symphony conductor.  “Never, ever touch either of my son’s 

 

again!” Her voice careened through the convent. “Or may God strike me dead I’ll come back 

 

here and touch you.” She jammed her index in the middle of Merciless forehead.  “Do you 

 

understand me?”

 

     Sister Mary Merciless had suddenly gone mute, though she did manage a nod. 

 

     “Incidentally,” my Mother continued, “the Daily family will no longer be watching 

 

Bishop Fulton Sheen.  In the future, we will be tuned to Groucho Marx.  If you want to give 

 

Collin an F in religion, so be it.  In my eyes, you’ve got an F in understanding and compassion 

 

and an A+ in child abuse.”

 

     My Mom took my hand and we sauntered down the convent steps.

 

     I scored the whole encounter Catholic Church 0   Mom 47

 

     And may God bless Lake Titicaca. 

 

     I heard later,  Miss Felece gave birth to twin girls. Married someone named Glen Masco and 

 

wrote two articles on atheism for the New Yorker Magazine.

 

 

 

IX

​

 

     “HELLO, HELLO. Earth to Collin.”  Dr. Foultz was tapping his desk with the frame of the 

 

picture that held Thai his dead Siamese Cat. “Collin, Collin are you with me?

 

     I was startled back to reality. Man, I was in orbit around Pluto. My brain torpedoed back into 

 

Foultz’s office. 

 

     “Thought you might be having some kind of seizure. Do you do that often?” 

 

     There was an old tulle fog a hang over the creases of my brain. “Do what often?” I asked. 

 

     “That trance thing.”

 

     “Trance thing?”

 

     “Collin, I’ve been trying to get your attention for several minutes.”

 

     “Uh, huh.”

 

      

     “Uh, hu is not an answer. We were going to talk about the fire. The school fire.”  He gave his 

 

ear a couple of good tugs and looked at his watch. 

 

     I tried to remember what I thought and what I said aloud. 

 

     “I have to start with our Traffic Squad.” Foultz sighed. A  loud annoyed sigh and wiggled his 

 

fingers in go ahead motion. So, I went ahead. 

 

     “We have three Traffic Squads at St. Agnes: morning, lunch and after-school. Stan ‘The Man’ 

 

and I served at lunch time which was great. You didn't have to get to school early or stay late.

 

Every day we got to come to our fifth period class, five minutes after the bell. This was the 

 

beginning of the trouble.

 

      Even though Sister Berkman kicked Stan out of class a second time, you could tell he 

 

immediately became her favorite. And after he raised his hand and swore to God Almighty that 

 

he would shave daily, she appointed him First Lieutenant of our traffic squad.

 

      I'd been a member since fifth grade and was still a private. As it turned out it didn't matter. 

 

Stan's promotion didn’t change him a bit. We were in the same squad and he immediately 

 

made me a Sergeant. Nepotism is good. Our time in uniform only cemented our relationship.

 

     As we marched back to school one afternoon, Stan said, "let's go to the head."

  

     By then I'd gotten used to Stan's nautical terms. His father was in the Navy, and owned

 

 a sailboat. Whether they had been overrun by pirates in the South China Sea, was another 

 

question.  

 

      On traffic duty, on the corner of Ashbury and Fredrick St. I’d asked Stan about the scar that 

 

left a white divide in the middle of his bushy, left eyebrow. 

 

      "Got it when a shark tried to bite my head off in the South China Sea," he told me in a 

 

whispered confidence. "Pirates were trying to take over our boat. My dad threw me overboard, to 

 

save my life, but I landed in a nest of Great Whites. One was about thirty─" he spread his arms 

 

for emphasis. "Maybe, forty feet long. I punched it in the nose when it attacked. Shark noses are 

 

very tender, Collin. But it’s dorsal fin caught me in the forehead.”

 

     I didn't believe most of it. Great Whites don't get much bigger than twenty feet. But who was 

 

I to challenge a kid almost five ten with a five o'clock shadow?”

 

      “Collin, the school fire.” Dr. Foultz interrupted with obvious frustration.  “You were going to 

 

explain about the fire.” His eye bulged a bit. “The original charge of arson. Collin . . .” He 

 

swiveled in his swivel chair.  Almost a complete three-sixty.  He stopped rotating right were he 

 

began.  “Collin, I’m really trying to help.  How about an assist?” 

 

     “Right.” His sincerity hit a chord. I decided to move it along. But I knew I had to cover the 

 

basics. “The rest of squad was ordered back to class and Stan and I sauntered down to the boys 

 

bathroom. Stan took a right as we walked into the basement. I didn't care, I didn't have to pee 

 

anyway. Stan walked up narrow passage and pushed open a door. ‘Found this yesterday,’ he 

 

confided.

 

      No one had used the band room in years. It was below street level. There were three, wire 

 

mesh windows, high in one corner where you could see blurry legs as people walked by. All the 

 

instruments, except a dented tuba, had been hocked to help the convent through some bad 

 

times. The tuba hadn't been played since "Fats" Markum graduated two years earlier. There were 

 

a few broken desks stacked in a corner next to several bent music stands.

 

     "Do you smoke?" Stan asked tapping an unfiltered Pall Mall on his thumb nail.

 

     Talking in class, chewing gum, rude behavior, tardiness where all venial sins. SMOKING 

 

was one of the big M's. Mortals. Hell time!   

 

     I'd been impressed before. 

     

     "Sure," I said nonchalantly.

 

     Stan was puffing, I was coughing when Sister Berkman burst through the door a few minutes 

 

later.  I watched in amazement as she crunched both cigarettes in her bare hand. I was certain 

 

Stan’s was still lit. 

      

     "I’ll see both of you in MY office after school!"

 

     Nuns have a way of drawing out your punishment. For the next two hours Stan and I sat in 

 

her class. She never mentioned the incident.

 

     On the way down the stairs after school, I looked at Stan for a little encouragement. Talk 

 

about calm.

 

     "Quit worrying, Collin," he ordered.

 

     The door slammed behind us. I felt like Caesar on the Ides of March. 

 

     "Well now, my two little chimney's.  So you boys like to smoke: do you?"

 

     I shuffled. Stan stood at attention.

 

     "As of today, you are both off the traffic squad," she said emphatically.

 

     That stung. I'd finally made Sergeant and I knew this cute girl walked two blocks out of her

 

way just cross at my intersection. Some women just love a man in uniform. 

 

     “Collin,” Foultz pointed to his watch.

 

     “Almost there.”

 

     "Furthermore,” our principal continued since you both enjoy smoking so much. Each day

 

after lunch, the two of you will gather all four trash cans; bring them down to the furnace room

 

and shovel in the garbage. And then back to class as fast as your little legs will carry you." She 

 

rose ominously from her chair, "and now. . . You’re uniforms and badges.”

 

      It was a solemn moment for me. Stan seemed unfazed. We apologized for our sins and left 

 

her office. Our punishment wasn't so bad. Of course, I had lost my badge and uniform; but, now 

 

we ended up missing even more of fifth period.  Fifth period was religion.  Go figure. 

 

     The furnace room at St. Agnes's is in the basement next to the boy's bathroom, behind 

 

two steel doors. The bottom part of the furnace is brick with a hinged, cast-iron door in the 

 

middle. The room, or what's left of it after the furnace, is used as a storage space for: paint, tools, 

 

nails etc. Everything you'd need to build a perfect club house.

 

     Our first couple of days went smoothly. We devised a system.  I would truck down the 

 

trash cans and dump them on the floor. Stan would shovel the garbage into the furnace. Then it 

 

happened.” I looked to Foultz. 

 

     Foultz gave me a big sigh of relief.  Hefted his pen, straightened the top paper my 

 

portfolio and gave me a go-ahead-nod. 

 

     Our third day turned out to be one of those days when you ask yourself, why couldn't this be

 

a year or fifteen from now? During lunch it began to drizzle rain. Most of the kids had only eaten 

 

half of their lunches and dropped the rest the trash cans before beating it back inside to the 

 

cafeteria or their classrooms. Then it began to pour.  Our perfect system dissolved in the rain.

 

      Stan had to help me bring down the trash cans.  They were heavy.  We had to make four 

 

trips to the furnace room.

 

     Instead of one small pile of lunch bags and left over food, we had a big pile of garbage 

 

scattered all over the concrete floor. For some reason I decided to slide the steel door to the 

 

basement and boys bathroom shut.    

 

    At the same time, Stan opened the metal door in the middle of the school furnace. With a 

 

broom, I pushed all the trash into one pile. Stan grabbed the shovel and tossed in a blade of  

 

lunch bags, paper napkins and fruit rinds.  One brown bag tumbled down from the heap and 

 

popped open. A huge, uneaten, three-layered slice of chocolate cake slid out riding in the middle 

 

of a paper plate that had colored balloons and Happy Birthday written on it. 

 

     ‘Chocolate cake!’ I shouted. ‘With chocolate frosting.’

 

 

 

      Here’s where we think Stan might have dropped the shovel onto the pile of lunch bags. 

 

And the shove might have had a few hot embers from the furnace stuck to the bottom of the 

 

blade.  Because we sitting on the work bench, munching away when we both smelled something 

 

burning. 

 

     ‘Fiiiiiiiiiiiiire, Stan!’

 

     The bags at the corner of the pile were ablaze. Stan grabbed a bucket of what turned out to be 

 

paint thinner and tossed it on the flames. This was a mistake. 

   

      We grabbed the handles of the janitors mop buckets and made a mad dash for the boys  

 

bathroom. I tipped the lip of the bucket into a urinal and flushed like a crazy person. This was 

 

another mistake. After seven flushes I had an inch of water.  I looked back at the furnace room 

 

smoke was oozing out of the crack in the door. 

  

     Stan flew to a toilet bowl. The bucket was too big and the water too low. The sinks were 

 

hopeless. 

 

     "We'll have to piss it out," Stan said confidently.  

 

      I didn't have to go, but I was willing to give it a try.

 

      We raced back to the furnace room. The smoke was black and bellowing now. We could hear 

 

the fire spit and crackle inside. After ten kegs of beer maybe King Kong could have pissed out 

 

that fire. We couldn’t.  

 

     We screamed "HELP!" And raced up the stairs. 

 

     School got out early. Saint Agnes's was cited by the Fire Department for a series of 

 

violations. Now there is a fire hose in basement near the furnace room and all the sinks are 

 

large basins.  

 

      Two weeks later some big guy in a short sleeve shirt and a tattoo of tiger on his arm started

 

asking Stan and me about the fire. I thought he was a cop.  He wasn’t.  Now the custodians union 

 

has a case pending against the Pope. Apparently, Stan and I had taken someone's job.  

 

       

 

     I looked up to Foultz for some solace. Understanding. Some reaction. 

 

    Foultz scribbled something on his legal pad. I knew he was writing. Pyromaniac.

 

    "Well.” He sighed. I'll see you next Wednesday. Collin."