Assault with Intent

by William X. Kienzle

  3

  With only three days until Christmas vacation, both faculty and students at Sacred Heart Seminary succumbed to the holiday spirit. The only pall darkening the festive season was the awareness of the attacks on two of the faculty.

  It had been weeks since the assault on Father Merrit. Since a few days after the initial splash, the news media had virtually forgotten the incident. For three consecutive days, the News and the Free Press had run banner page one stories on the assaults under the bylines of Patricia Lennon and Joe Cox respectively. TV stations had featured the story for only one evening. Nothing is as old as yesterday’s news. Especially to the news media.

  By no means had the police investigation been closed. Sergeants Morris and Patrick had been busy screening those who, for their own pathological reasons, insisted on confessing to the crime though they had had nothing to do with it. The police also followed numerous leads that took them up one blind alley after another. Lately, though, more and more of the two detectives’ time was being spent on more current homicides.

  At the seminary itself, though academic business continued as usual, the recent violence was never very far from everyone’s mind.

  Father Edmund Sklarski’s temper tantrums were a phenomenon to behold. An objective party would see them as adolescently humorous. But from the students’ viewpoint, they could be terrifying.

  On mornings they were scheduled to endure a Sklarski class, students would pray that the weather be bright and beautiful, for a bleak atmosphere often would engender a corresponding mood in their preceptor. And so they would laugh inordinately at Sklarski’s opening statement, regardless of its significance. Laughter frequently got things off on the right foot. But not always. There was no way of knowing; one played the percentages.

  “Well, boys,” Sklarski announced as he swept into the room, “this is our last class before vacation.”

  Uproarious laughter.

  Michael Totten raised his hand.

  “Yes ...” Sklarski rarely recalled the name of any of his students.

  “Totten—Michael Totten,” Totten helped.

  “Yes, of course, Totten.”

  “Father, we are about to go into the world for an extended period,” Totten exaggerated, “and we’d like a few instructive words from you. We sort of look upon you as our second spiritual director.”

  The seminary’s spiritual director was Father Burk. As far as the students were concerned, if there had been nine spiritual directors, Sklarski would have been tenth on the list. But, anything to get matters off to a good start.

  “Well, yes. Now that you ask, of course.” Sklarski lacked the good grace to doubt the student’s sincerity. “Yes, boys, out there it is a jungle. A cesspool filled with temptation. Scarlet women eager to snatch from you your sacred, pure, priestly vocation. Avoid them, boys, avoid them. Take it for granted you would like women if you tried them. As far as you aspiring clergymen are concerned, the motto is ‘Look but don’t touch.’”

  Armed with this selfsame advice, many previous students of Sklarski’s had become skilled lookers, almost to the point of becoming voyeurs.

  “Yes, boys: women ... sex ... “ Sklarski permitted the ideas to roll around his imagination briefly. “A comfort to the married man, and a relief of concupiscence. But not for you, boys. Not for you.

  “And books, boys. Careful of the books. Drugstores, supermarkets, shopping centers, bookracks, lascivious stuff, boys; girlie magazines, paperbacks. Pictures, stories. Not for you, boys.

  “Too many books anyway, boys. Too many books. I see you reading them all the time. Never outside playing football, baseball, hockey, basketball. Always inside reading books.”

  It was difficult to imagine Sklarski’s corpulent though surprisingly agile body engaged in athletics.

  “There’s only one of you I ever see out there exercising. You there, behind — what’s your name?”

  “Francis Wangler, Father.”

  “Behind Francis Wangler. What’s your name?”

  “Zimmer, William Zimmer, Father.”

  “Yes. Zimmer. The only one among you who even looks like an athlete.

  “No, no, boys. Too many books. Makes Jack a dull boy. Why all the books, boys? Why read all those books? Good God, there are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet!”

  Unfortunately for him, Leonard Marks found that remark risible. And, unfortunately, he laughed aloud and alone. That, frequently, was a serious mistake. As it now was.

  “Think that’s funny, do you … uh … uh …” Sklarski groped for a name.

  “Leonard Marks, Father,” the round young man quaked.

  “Ah, yes, Marks! It’s not enough that you try to poison me, now you laugh at your second spiritual director! I suppose you enjoy those girlie magazines, those paperbacks!”

  Once under attack there was no alternative but to absorb the bombardment in silence.

  “I know your type, Marks, I know your type! You, Marks, are a rabble-rouser!”

  An ambience had been destroyed. For the next forty minutes the day would go downhill.

  Father Koesler’s head turned toward the door at the abrupt albeit muffled sound. Apparently, it came from a classroom down the corridor. Someone was shouting.

  “Are they still getting worked up at the Albigensian heresy?” Koesler asked quizzically.

  “I think,” volunteered one of his students, “that is the wrath of Father Sklarski.”

  All of them were painfully familiar with Sklarski’s emotional eruptions.

  “Someone must have denied papal infallibility,” Koesler mused.

  “Or Sklarski’s infallibility,” a student observed, sotto voce.

  “Or maybe it snowed last night,” another student suggested.

  “Well, gentlemen,” Koesler leaned back against the blackboard, thus getting his jacket chalk-dusty, “let’s get back to the business of communication, which very definitely puts us in the present day.

  “As I was saying, the parish bulletin can be an effective means of communication or it can become the weekly throwaway. Face it: if you are ordained, there’s a parish bulletin in your future. All parishes have them. Like as not, you’re going to be the editor. Nowhere in the rubrics does it say, ‘Can Father write?’ or, ‘Is it safe to let Father be editor?’ It just says, ‘Father is editor.’ You’d be wise to get ready for that moment.

  “Let me tell you of an incident that took place years ago when I was editing my first parish bulletin.

  “Our printer was a budding entrepreneur whose office was pretty much in his hat. He made lots of mistakes, but we tried to overlook most of them. I was accustomed to give him more than enough copy for each issue, including little Catholic jokes that could be used for fillers.

  “One week he used one of those little Catholic jokes. On page two of the bulletin at the bottom of column one, he had, ‘A catechist in China was teaching a group of prospective converts about hell. He told them hell was a place of unending suffering where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. One old man asked, "What about people who have no teeth?’”

  “That was it: just that; no explanation, no punchline.

  “I must confess, I was annoyed. Then, on page three of the same issue, on the bottom of column four, I came across, with no preface or introduction whatsoever, the single line, ‘Teeth will be provided.’”

  Laughter.

  “The point to remember, gentlemen, is that when dealing with a publication such as the parish bulletin, Murphy’s is the law of the land; if anything can go wrong, it will.

  “You should expect misspellings, transpositions, and a goodly but ungodly number of typos. So, when the copy leaves your hand, it should be in tiptop shape for its journey into print. And remember: no one has to read what you write; even Father has to entice readers.

  “Now, the papers you turned in last week were good, generally. But many of you—and I noted this on the copy—need to improve your leads. Remember, you’ve g
ot to grab the reader. If you don’t grab the reader with the first paragraph, you’ve lost him or her for the entire piece.”

  The bell sounded.

  The students began shuffling papers and books. Most of them appreciated Koesler’s class and benefited from it. He made the subject matter seem relevant. And he, unlike a majority of the faculty, treated them as adults.

  The seminary’s exercise wing comprised six enclosed courts. For decades they had been used exclusively for handball. Those were the years before racquetball became de rigueur. Those also were the years during which long lines of seminarians waited their turns at the courts. Now, non-seminarians were permitted to use them.

  Two firm black rubber balls thudded against the front wall and bounced around the court with no particular rhythm. Four young men, swinging racquets, seemed to be giving the little balls inordinate concentration.

  “Ouch!”

  “What is it, Lennie?” asked a concerned Bill Zimmer. “Is it your wrist, or that ankle again?”

  “Neither,” answered Marks, rubbing the small of his back. “I got hit.” One of the balls tapped a decreasing tattoo at his feet.

  “Oh, that won’t hurt you.” Zimmer smiled.

  “Tell that to my back,” Marks grimaced.

  Marks, one of the world’s classic accident-prone people, was forever getting hurt.

  For whatever unknown reason, Zimmer had adopted Marks’s cause shortly after they had met as fledgling seminarian-classmates.

  The two could hardly have been more dissimilar. Zimmer, tall, athletic, accomplished, bright, and a winner, provided an existential contrast to Marks, pudgy, clumsy, unimaginative, inept, and a loser. Somehow, they had become inseparable friends, although the contributions in their relationship usually moved from Zimmer toward Marks, rather like the relationship of Moriarty and De Niro in Bang the Drum Slowly.

  “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” Marks complained.

  “Lennie, you’ve got to get exercise,” Zimmer admonished, scooping up the now dormant ball and whacking it toward the wall. “You can’t spend your life in a chair or you’ll grow up to enjoy a heart attack.”

  “I could be studying,” Marks groused.

  “We’ll study together later, Lennie.” Zimmer smiled. He knew that, left to his own resources, Marks would be reading Time or Newsweek at best.

  “How about it?” called out Frank Wangler. “You guys ready?”

  “Ready as we’ll ever be.” Zimmer answered for himself and his inevitable partner.

  Zimmer and Marks won the volley for service. Or, rather, Zimmer did.

  Marks served weakly, and Mike Totten came back with a kill shot that was somehow saved by Zimmer. The volley continued at a furious pace between Totten, Wangler, and Zimmer. Finally, Zimmer shot the ball to the spot where walls met floor. The ball skidded back with hardly a bounce. Unreturnable.

  “I think I’ve got this figured out,” said Marks, looking up at Zimmer. “I’ll serve and then try to stay the hell out of the way.”

  Faculty meetings were not what they once were. But then, what is what it once was? The meetings were held in the faculty lounge, a commodious room dotted with couches and chairs, most of them overstuffed, and several tables. An upright piano stood in one corner, a color TV in another; a third corner held a kitchenette.

  Faculty meetings had been held in this lounge as far back as anyone could remember. But in the last decade and more, there had been a fundamental change in their character.

  Up through the 1960s, during these meetings the lounge had qualified as a certified smoke-filled room. Almost every one of the all-clergy faculty smoked either pipe, cigars, or cigarettes; many alternated between two, a few smoked all three forms of the tobacco products. Through this decade, the atmosphere also had been filled with tension as the faculty argued heatedly over the merits or lack of promise of various students.

  The upshot of these arguments was by no means inconsequential. Each student desperately desired to become a priest. Whether this desire would be fulfilled depended, to a great extent, on the faculty consensus. Whether one considered the priesthood a career or a sacred vocation, the fact that certain young men wanted to give their lives to it made it of vital importance. The faculty members of old, by and large, acknowledged this importance.

  All this had changed during the seventies. Most seminarians, if pressed, would be reluctant to claim their commitment to be lifelong. What was these days? Not marriage, not most occupations. Midlife career change was a recent phenomenon.

  Instead of an all-clerical faculty, now easily half the members were laity. And there was even a nun who coordinated efforts at social service. Lay members tended to be less forceful and outspoken than the clergy. The laity depended on their jobs as teachers in the seminary for their livelihood and that of their families. The clergy, whether they accepted or sought a different assignment, would still receive the same remuneration. Of the priests, only the rector, Monsignor Albert Martin, felt compelled to keep the seminary functioning as such. A la Churchill, Martin had not become rector to preside over the dissolution of Sacred Heart Seminary. As for the nun, she was relevant.

  And, with one or two exceptions, none of today’s faculty smoked.

  Shortly after the close of Christmas vacation, the first semester would end, which explained the faculty meeting now in progress.

  “And, in conclusion,” Father Burk summarized, “I think Bill Zimmer is not only an exemplary student; I believe he will become a priest of whom we all will be proud.”

  “All right, Father,” Monsignor Martin commented tersely, “but we’re not here to award medals of commendation, just to check on the students’ progress or lack of it.”

  Father Louis Grandville finished writing on a small piece of notepaper, folded it, wrote Sister Ann’s name on the outside, and asked his neighbor to pass it on. The note would have to traverse the entire room to reach Sister.

  Grandville was one of the joys of the seminary faculty. Truly a blithe spirit, he was frequently ingenuously vulgar, always dependable, an excellent teacher with a compassionate temperament.

  “Next.” Martin consulted his list. “Mr. Michael Totten.” He waited. A hand was raised. “Father Ward?”

  “Oh, certainly this student is no better than mediocre. His grades are all Cs and Ds. I believe he could do better. He is not giving maximum effort. If not dismissed, I think, at very least, he should be warned.”

  “Father Sklarski?”

  “I didn’t have my hand up.”

  “Father Burk?”

  “I agree with Father Ward in that Mike is not giving us his best. But I differ with Father in that I think the challenge is ours to inspire this kid to put out. I think the failure is more ours than his.”

  “Father Merrit?”

  “Eh … eh … pia stercoral! That is a ... eh ... eh .. . bleeding heart statement. If Totten fails, he ruins his vocation, not ours. His obligation is to learn.”

  “And ours is to teach,” Burk offered in challenge.

  “Fathers, Fathers,” Martin moderated, “let’s not get personal. Since there is a difference of opinion, we’ll let the matter remain in status quo.”

  It was Martin’s latest artifice to keep from decimating the already endangered species of seminarian. Martin seldom called for a vote of the faculty. If one or two members spoke in favor of a student, the status quo was preserved.

  “Next.” Martin winced imperceptibly. He feared they would lose this next student. “Mr. Leonard Marks.”

  Hands shot up.

  “Father Merrit?”

  “This student, if I may ...eh ...eh ...debase the term by applying it to him, should not be allowed to use good air that the rest of us need. He is … eh …a complete fool!”

  “Father Sklarski?”

  “He is a rabble-rouser!”

  “Father Ward?”

  “He really is a disgrace. His marks are Ds and Fs. And, unlike Mr. Totten, Mr
. Marks is doing his utmost. And none of it is right. Why, if this were only a few years ago, we would not even be considering him for the priesthood. That he was even allowed to enter this institution was a gross error; that he remains in this institution would be laughable if it were not so tragic.”

  “Father Koesler?"

  “I will not argue that Lennie is very witty, quick, or even coordinated. Nor will I argue that he would have lasted long in yesterday’s seminary. But I do question those very standards. After all, Jesus called twelve very ordinary men to be His Apostles. Somehow, I don’t think Lennie would have been out of place in that group. And, if Jesus could choose Lennie, who are we to dismiss him?”

  “Father Grandville?”

  “I agree with Bob. Maybe there is an apostolate to the klutzes that we’re overlooking.”

  “We won’t overlook it any longer if we ordain that ...eh … eh … jerk!” Merrit commented acidulously.

  “Well, Fathers,” Martin droned gratefully, “since there is a difference of opinion, we’ll let this matter remain in status quo.”

  Father Grandville’s note reached Sister Ann. Slowly, she unfolded it. It was not signed. It didn’t have to be. She recognized both the handwriting and the irreverence. It read, Dear Sister Ann, I got the hots for you.

  She shook her head, then rested it face down on the tabletop.

  The only pleasant feature connected with a faculty meeting, in Father Koesler’s view, was the soiree that followed.

  No sooner had Monsignor Martin closed the meeting with a prayer, than bottles of whiskey, scotch, vermouth, gin, and vodka were brought from the liquor cabinet to the wet bar. The brands were not the most expensive, yet certainly not the cheapest. Routinely, faculty members ambled to the bar and built drinks for themselves.

  Tonight’s bash was special, a late celebration of the feast of Saint Albert the Great, the patron saint of Monsignor Albert Martin. In the Latin so favored by the Monsignor, the saint was Albertus Magnus, or Great Albert. Thus, the Monsignor was addressed, especially by his cronies, as Big Al.