It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 39: Chapter XIII (Cont'd)

Coarse and Offensive Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

When parents lose control, or when parents can't be bothered to control their unruly brood, the next best thing is God! Have Him take a crack at reform for a change. See if the Almighty can't enforce a little authority over the insurgency that is all adolescence. Religion—capital 'R'—is the best form of rule. It eludes the point of what it venerates, but it does have an excellent track record when it comes to scaring people—children—off of their wayward paths.

It wasn't just Bud and Vera that were forced to make the pilgrimage every Sunday. Every lout under the age of 12, (12 being the age in which most St. Gregorites agreed a child was no longer worthy of an effort), was, at one time or another, forced to sit their small, zestful selves in the rigidly wooden pews. All the Tiny Teamsters were there.

Father Charles welcomed them! He even gave them a new gang name:

'You'll be the very first Youth Council of St. Gregory's.' The friends exchanged a glance. Somehow the title didn't have the same ring as 'Tiny-Fuckin'-Teamsters', but which of them had the nerve to disagree with the priest of joy? If it had been Father Peter, who regarded youth with heightened suspicion—he was sure zest and Eucharist had no business mingling—they might have had more courage. But this was Father Charles and his winning smile, and besides, Father Peter had more pressing matters to attend to:

'Brothers and Sisters!' his voice crashed down over the parishioners like a blast of a cannon. 'Let me talk to you of the dangers of gluttony. A gluttonous man is a man in rejection of God's call to humility...'

Not many cared for Father Peter's sermons, except for two. Father Charles, of course, who nodded his head along to diatribes, no matter how asinine the subjects were; and, of all people, Danny McKeen...

'I'm gonna do that someday,' he whispered in Bobby's ear.

'Huh?'

'I'm gonna be a priest, and I'm gonna do the gluttony speech!'

'You can't be a priest.'

'Uhhhh. Yeah! I can!'

'No, you can't!'

'Yeah, I can!!'

'SHHHHH!' hissed Doom-and-Gloom Madeline from the pew behind them.

'You can't,' Bobby went on, whispering out of the corner of his mouth. 'You're a red head. That's a mark of the devil. And you're left-handed! That's two marks of the devil!'

But Danny wouldn't hear any disagreement. 'I'm gonna be a priest.' He smiled at the altar, where the crucifix, large and solemn and tactfully sanitary, hung above, beckoning all to follow. 'I'm gonna do it!' He meant what he said, and that was a problem. An infuriating problem that would come to tax his friends.

Being sent to Mass would probably have had little effect on the Teamsters as a whole had it not been for Danny's very sudden, very vocal calling. If Bobby had had his way it would have changed nothing. On Sundays, the children could put on a good show for their examples and Father Charles, but come the week, they were still Tiny Teamsters, with Tiny Teamster duties, and Tiny Teamster sensibilities of glory through—

'No! No! We can't be a gang no more,' Danny whined at his crew a few weeks before their trip to the wet baseball field. He had taken as a habit the wearing of all black, which clashed horribly with his hair. 'It ain't right!'

'You ain't right!' said Vera, chucking a large stone at Danny's head, which sent him diving for cover.

'Why ain't it right, Dan?' asked Ed, more kindly than Bud was sure he felt.