“Mr. Daily?  Mr. Potty mouth?”
    [Okay, it wasn’t an innocent mistake. But I didn’t name the lake. Someone or a group came up with Titicaca, I didn’t.]
    “POTTY MOUTH!”
    Merciless’s second summons broke my reverie.  I rose and moved dutifully toward
her desk, recently dubbed the ‘Desk of Pain.’  Two small  human hands were painted on the oak top. Fifth-grade- student-sized hands. The left-hand Mortal Sin Black. The right hand in Skull and Crossbones white. The outline of white hand was blurry probably compromised by the sweat of  Merciless's previous pubescent victim. . .  ‘Consequences? . . .Were delivered swift and deliberate in the confines of Room #5.
     I knew the drill. I placed my left hand on 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 right.  I’d already spent three months under Merciless’ tutelage and just as she lifted her paddle I realized she was a lefty. A south paw. I noticed flab’s of white skin dangling from her arm in the open sleeves of her black habit. 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. The class went quiet. Some of my friends turned away from my public humiliation.
     I don’t know if this happens to spies just before the bad guys shove thin shards of  glass underneath your fingernails or activate the electrodes clamped to their balls, but there I was legs spread, my rear end waiting for Merciless to strike, when a series of bizarre thoughts spilled through my mind:
    Where did Sister Mary Merciless get such a paddle? The Little Shop of Torture? Did the paddle come with the tiny holes? Or did she have to hire a sadistic carpenter willing to drill  holes 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 the hierarchy  of the Catholic Church like Bishops or Monsignor's pass them out on graduation day from nun school.  Though . . . I could be wrong.
    But what kind of  parent would give such a new nun such a graduation gift? “To my darling daughter Sister Mary Mercy. Daddy and I congratulate you for spending five years of your life in silence contemplating the life of Jesus Christ. Now you can move ahead and spend the rest of your life inflicting pain. Your father and I know extremely well that children are the cause of so much of what is wrong with this world. Never hesitate to whack away.”
    Further reflections were interrupted by a burst of pain.  Utter agony coursed through my body.  I vowed not to cry. I would not cry. I did not cry.  Daily’s don’t cry.
 

I

     For several weeks it seemed that we’d established a silent truce.  I’d never declared war. Sister Mary Merciless initiated the pre-emptive strike in our relationship.  At ten years old I was neither trained for, nor able to contend with her sort of adult combat.
  Then a second wrinkle occurred in our cuddly relationship? Religion homework. In all fairness,  this was not Merciless’s mandate, and it wasn’t just my homework assignment nor that of our fifth-grade class.  This one came straight from God. Or at least God once removed.  Maybe accompanied by a clap of thunder and a trumpet blare.  God sent a dictate down from the cosmos straight to Pope Paul II.  Who declared that every Catholic on planet earth and its immediate environs -  under threat of eternal damnation and 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 ABC .
    In our house, Gods' edict caused two problems:
  1.The reception from ABC on our television was horrible. 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 NBC every Thursday at exactly the same time. Our reception was clear as a bell.  Go figure.
    A weird thought ran through my mind.  For three years the kids at St. Agnes had been collecting our nickels and dimes for all the poor pagan babies throughout the world.  None of them had televisions.  
     Weirder still ---  Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's  TV show was called 'LIFE IS WORTH LIVING' which sound like a pleas to those contemplating suicide.  Groucho Marx's' show  'YOU BET YOUR LIFE' didn't promise much better unless you we into gladiators vs. Christians vs. Lions. Type contests.
    My Mom loved “You Bet Your Life.” My dad teased her about having a 'thing' for the announcer George Fennemen.  Patrick and I had a thing for the wide-eyed wooden  ‘Duck’ that dropped from above with a SECRET WORD in its bill.  Any contestant that said the secret word during the show got an extra sum of money. Each week I'd sit in front of the TV praying  the SECRET  WORD would be the largest lake in South America.
    Patrick 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, "YEAH , what if he isn't in Heaven?" The Bishop replied, "Well then you ask him.”
    We heard that joke because like all good Catholics . . . For two weeks we watched The Bishop Fulton J. Sheen television show. But we all missed Groucho Marx. I especially missed the Duck.  Groucho won the battle.  

    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 with top-spin.  A down the line winner at Wimbledon.   
    My infraction may have been my red hair. My youth. Not raising my hand. Hyperactivity.  Maybe even something to do with Groucho Marx  vs.  Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
    Admittedly I’m an odd member of humanity. I’m prone to laugh at nothing. Break into song whenever/wherever I’m inclined. And until my dad died and the world turned upside down at my house,  I couldn’t help skipping down a sidewalk. I wasn’t sure what my problem was with Sister Mary Mercy . . . Or, whether it even was my problem. I suspect I enjoyed life more than most.  I still  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 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.

 
II

    The night of the 'SWAT', just as I stepped into the shower my mom opened the
bathroom door.
     “Oops.  Sorry honey,” she said.
     We shared a moment of mutual embarrassment.
    “Jeez, mom!  Please shut the door.”
    She pulled the bathroom door shut behind her. What followed was one of those moments when all time seems to be suspended. When the second hand on a gigantic clock               suddenly stops moving.  The shadow on the sundial freezes.  Grains of sand in the hour
glass hang suspended as they pass through the narrow space from the top cone of glass to the bottom.  
  Our bathroom door exploded open again.  My mom burst back inside.  Hands a akimbo as she stared at my bare rear. Ask any ten-year-old boy.  Nope, I’ll speak for every one of 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 butt.
    I hesitated.  My mom shot me 'THE LOOK.' Reluctantly I explained 'THE SWAT'  process and reminded her of the sanctity of the Daily name family. In self-defense I proudly professed, “Mom, I didn’t cry.”
    “Get your clothes on.” Then her voice rose to I-am-angry-level-8. 'YOU ARE COMING WITH ME.”
     Within five minutes, I was dressed, and we were driving toward  St. Agnes..  I was confused.  Except for one question we rode in silence, which was odd. No matter what her mood, my mom played the radio loud.  Sometimes country; sometime good old rock and roll.  Her current mood was beyond me.  
    “This Nun?” she asked as she made a left and turn on Clayton Street.  “This Nun that swatted you, is she the same nun 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 a um’ or I'll have to tread lightly um or an I’ll be damned, um.
    Mom made an illegal U-turn half way down the hill on Ashbury and parked in a no parking zone directly in  front of the Nun’s Rectory.  She dragged me  out of the car and up the stairs to the convent door.
    I'd passed these stairs a hundred times.  But I’d never climbed them. I don’t  know one kid that had. This was uncharted, scary territory.  Except for a large Christmas wreath on the door. The landing was cold, dark, and dank.  

    Mom lifted one of  the  round knockers. They were huge. Together the size of an NBA basketball hoop.  She dropped it against the oaken door.  A THUD exploded off the wood. From inside, a resounding echo repeated through the corridors of the rectory.
    Nothing happened. Impatiently mom thudded the knocker again.
    A few moments passed before the door creaked open. A young novitiate pressed her index finger across her lips for quiet and whispered. “May I help you?”
    My mom did not whisper back.  “I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO SISTER –“ My mother turned to me. “What is THE WOMAN'S NAME?”
     Up until that moment events had transpired too quickly.  Until I heard the question and the tone,  I wasn’t sure how this was going.  Now I knew. I knew this was not going to be my trial.  It wasn't going to be two against one.  I said, ‘Sister Mary MERCY, loudly surprising myself with the volume.
    “Sister Mary Mercy is in the chapel at Vespers,” The young woman whispered.
    “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 didn't.  She brandished a forefinger: “Move it, dearie.  Or I will move you!”
    The Novitiate got the message. She lifted her skirt 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 leaned.
    Sister Merciless’s inner sense of survival kicked in. Some primeval voice warned.  Trouble.  Trouble. She backed into the convent corridor.
     My mother stepped over the threshold and leaned in again.
     Merciless backed into a coat rack.
     My mom stepped closer.
     Merciless was trapped.  She could retreat no further.
     My Mother waved her long, tapered finger around and around conducting a brief, one-sided conversation with the bravado of a symphony conductor. “If you ever touch either of my son’s again!” Her voice careened through the convent. “May God strike me dead I will return, but not with a perforated paddle. I’ll come back with a Louisville Slugger Baseball bat.”  My mom  jammed her index finger into the middle of Merciless forehead.  “Which does not leave red splotches. It leaves large black and blue bruises . . . and “  My mom bared her teeth and barely audible hissed,  “And a broken bones. Do we understand each other?”
    Sister Mary Merciless had suddenly gone mute, though she did manage a nod.
 
    My Mom grabbed my hand and started to turn away then whirled back. “Incidentally,” my Mother continued, “the Daily family will no longer be watching Bishop Fulton  J. 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 squeezed 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.

    After Christmas vacation I heard,  Miss Felece gave birth to twin girls. Married someone named Glen Masco and wrote two articles on atheism for the New Yorker Magazine.
 

III

    “HELLO, HELLO. Earth to Collin.”  Dr. Foultz tapped 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.  It was a long way off.  Neptune.  Pluto.  My brain torpedoed back to Foultz’s office.
    “I thought you might be having some kind of seizure.” Foultz said.  “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 where my brain had gone and what I said aloud.

    “I have to start with our Traffic Squad.” Foultz sighed.  An unpleasant not - again, annoyed sigh.  He wiggled his fingers in a 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.  Best of all, every day we got to come to our fifth period  religion class, ten minutes after the lunch bell . . .This was the beginning of the trouble.
     Even though Sister Berkman kicked Stan out of class the first time they met, you could tell he immediately became her favorite. And after he raised his hand and promised God Almighty that he would shave daily, she appointed him First Lieutenant of our traffic squad.
     I a private. As it turned out it didn't matter. Stan's promotion didn’t change him at all.  We ended up on the same squad and he immediately promoted me to sergeant. There’s a lot to say for Nepotism. Our time served in uniform cemented our relationship.  Well, it was half a uniform. A white belt around the waist and a strap over your right shoulder with a neat golden yellow  garrison cap you could tilt jauntily to one side.
    Two weeks later as we marched back to school after lunch traffic duty,  Stan said, "let's go to the head."
 
    By this time, I'd gotten used to Stan's nautical terms. His father was in the Navy and owned a sailboat. Whether the sailboat had ever really 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 sideburn.  '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 on the side of my head.'

     I didn't believe most of his story. Great Whites don't get much bigger than twenty feet. But who was I to challenge twelve-year old kid  who was almost five ten with a five o'clock shadow?”

     “Collin, please. The school fire.” Dr. Foultz interrupted with obvious frustration.  “You were going to explain about the fire.” His eye bulged a bit. “Originally the charged you with arson.” He swiveled in his swivel chair.  A complete three-sixty.  He stopped rotating right where he began. “That's a serious charge. Collin, I’m really trying to help.  How about an occasional assist?”
    Right. Foultz' sincerity hit a chord. I decided to move it along.  But I  had to cover the basics.
     “Stan ordered the rest of the traffic squad back to class while he and I 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.
     I followed him up a narrow passage where he pushed open a door.  ‘Discovered 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 on the sidewalk. All the instruments, except a dented tuba, had been hocked to help the convent through some troubled times. The tuba hadn't been played since "Fats" Markum graduated two years earlier. There were a few broken desks piled in a corner next to several bent music stands.
    "Want a 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!  For sure.
    I'd been impressed before. But cigarettes. Unfiltered cigarettes.  "Sure," I said.

    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 cigarette was still lit.
        "I’ll see both of you in MY office after school!" She pointed at our traffic uniforms.  'Do not take those off.'

    Nuns have a unique way of drawing out punishment. For the next two hours Stan and I sat in Sister Berkman's class and she never acknowledged either of us or mentioned the incident in the band room.  I was certain horrible pictures of people dying of lung cancer already part of a future   lesson plan.  Maybe even a real cancerous lung in glass jar filled with formaldehyde.

    On the way to the office after school, I looked at Stan for a little encouragement. Talk about calm.
    "Quit worrying, Collin," he ordered with an air of confidence.
    The principal's door slammed behind us. I think it was designed to slam. It was a mood setter. The sound of pending doom. Sister Berkman sat behind her desk drumming her fingers on either side of green blotter. I felt like Caesar on the Ides of March.  I knew something bad was going to happen.
    "Well now, my two little chimney's. . .  She looked at Stan then at me.  Her disappointment in the two of was evident.  'So, you boys like to smoke: do you?’
    I shuffled.  Stan stood at attention.
    'As of today, you are both dishonorably discharged from the Saint Agnes traffic squad,' she put special emphasis on dishonorable.
    That stung. I'd finally made Sergeant, and I knew Lynn Lamberson walked two blocks out of her way just to cross at my intersection. Some women  prefer 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 collect all of our trash cans; bring them down to the furnace room and shovel in the garbage. And then you will scurry back to class as fast as your legs will carry you.'  Sister Mary Berkman’s' fingers stopped drumming. She rose ominously from her chair and held out her hands, 'and now gentlemen . . . You’re uniforms and badges.'  
     It was a solemn moment for me. Stan seemed unfazed. We apologized for our sins and left.  I missed my chance to get to know Lynn Lamberson, my first real love since Miss Feleece, but now we ended up missing even more of our fifth period religion class.  Go figure.
 

IV

    The furnace room at St. Agnes's is in the basement next to the boy's bathroom, behind a large steel, sliding door. 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 a kid would need to build a perfect club house.
    Our first couple of days in the furnace room went smoothly. We devised a system. I would truck down the trash cans and dump them on the floor and Stan would shovel the garbage into the furnace.
     On the third day, everything went wrong.”

    I looked up at Foultz.  He gave me a big sigh of relief.  Hefted his pen, straightened the top paper of 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 started to drizzle. Most of the kids only ate part of their lunches and dropped the rest into 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 made four  trips to the furnace room.  Instead of one small pile of lunch bags and left over food, we had a big, scattered pile on the floor, in front of the furnace.
     I don't know why I decided to slide the steel door shut.  I don't know why I took a broom and pushed all the trash into one big pile. I do know Stan opened the metal door in the middle of the furnace and started to shovel lunch bags, paper napkins and fruit rinds into the opening.  
    One brown bag tumbled down from the heap of trash and popped open. A perfect slice of uneaten, three-layered chocolate cake slid out of the bag. It was sealed in plastic on a blue paper plate with 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.
     Here's where 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.”
     I looked up at Foultz.
        We each grabbed a mop from the janitors mop buckets and slapped the flames with the mop tendrils.  It worked for two slaps the tendrils caught fire.  We dropped the mops, grabbed the bucket handles, 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.  Probably the wooden mop handles. We peeked through a slit between the door and the wall. 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-sleeved shirt and a tiger tattoo 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 St. Agnes. Apparently, Stan and I had taken someone's job.  


     I looked up to Foultz for some solace. Understanding. Some reaction.  He scribbled something on his legal pad. I knew he was writing something like pyromaniac. I hopped he added a question mark at the end of the word.

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