The Temptations of St. Frank

by Anthony Bruno

  “Grimaldi,” Frank said, seething inside.

  “Excuse me?”

  “My name is Grimaldi. Not Grosso.”

  “Your problem, Mr…. Grimaldi, is that you uphold yourself. You think you’re special.”

  Frank’s clenched fists were shaking under the table. He clamped his jaw shut before he said what he really wanted to.

  “Do you play any sports?” the monsignor said.

  Frank shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so. Not a team player. You think you’re better than a team. Just like your friend here. I’m sure you treasure your solitary masturbatory fantasies as all loners do.”

  “What?” Frank could feel the other guys in the room staring at him, like leeches stuck to his skin. His face was on fire.

  “You’ve already demonstrated your deviant sexual proclivities. Or have you already forgotten about the incident in the yearbook office?”

  “Nothing happened–”

  “Save your empty denials. I don’t want to hear them.”

  The monsignor turned his back on Frank and walked toward the Root’s desk. Frank could’ve strangled him on the spot. Fitzgerald drops this masturbation bullshit on him like a cow taking a crap and just walks away. Fucking asshole!

  Fitzgerald exchanged a few quiet words with the Root, who just nodded obediently with his hand on his face. The monsignor headed for the door, slow and deliberate. As he walked, he turned his head and stared in Frank’s direction, stern disapproval on his thin lips. He passed through the doorway and slipped out of sight, like a vampire mist.

  “Who the fuck was he looking at just then?” Frank hissed to Molloy. “You or me?”

  “Does it matter?” Molloy was glum. He seemed beaten, defeated, depressed, something Molloy never was, which incensed Frank all the more. Molloy was a fucking genius, a one-of-a-kind. He had ideas and he did shit, not like the rest of the turds in this school. Guys like Molloy shouldn’t be put down like this.

  Frank blinked, trying to see straight, but his eyes were out of focus he was so mad. His gut was in a knot.

  “Let me have that other Twinkie,” he said to Molloy.

  Molloy gave him a funny look. “You’re hungry? Now?”

  Frank reached into Molloy’s bag and grabbed the package himself, pulling the Twinkie out of the cellophane, not caring about the noisy crackle. He reached behind him, snatched a book at random off the shelf, put it in his lap, opened it, shoved the Twinkie inside, and slammed it shut, feeling the squoosh of resistance in his fingers.

  There! Take that, you fucking blood-sucking asshole!

  He stared ahead blankly until his breathing calmed down a little. He looked down at the book. It was another old one, faded black with gold lettering on the cover. Practical Morality: Fact and Faith. He jammed it back in with the other books.

  Eat me, he thought.

  Chapter 10

  “Okay, listen up, boys.”

  Mr. Ianelli, St. A’s biology teacher, stood at the blackboard at the front of the room and wrote SWEET POTATO in large block letters. He had a face like Lou Costello with a crew cut that was always Butchwaxed vertical at the hairline, and he was built like Yogi Bear—big body and a crotch that started somewhere down around his knees.

  The biology classroom had long tables with high stools instead of student desks. Frank and Molloy sat in the back row, the monkey cage right behind them. Chestnut, the squirrel monkey, was hanging from the top bars by one paw, rubbing her crotch with the other. She rubbed herself all the time, poor thing. She needed some monkey nookey bad. Frank feared she’d eventually rub herself raw the way she was going.

  “Okay, boys, here’s what I want you to do,” Mr. Ianelli said. “Take a sweet potato.” He tapped the blackboard on SWEET POTATO with his piece of chalk. “Okay, cut it in half, stick it in a glass of water, leave it for three days, and bring it in tomorrow.”

  The class erupted like a geyser. After months of hearing Ianelli’s endless stream of malapropisms, the guys didn’t even try to conceal their laughter anymore.

  Ianelli furrowed his brows. “What’s so funny about a sweet potato?” He shrugged in confusion and shouted over the laughter. “What?”

  Which only produced more howls. Ianelli didn’t realize how hilarious he was. The class was called Earth Science, and it was a senior elective. Half the guys took it because they couldn’t get into Physics or just didn’t want to work that hard. The other half took it so that they could have Mr. Ianelli again after Biology in sophomore year. He was that funny.

  But Molloy wasn’t laughing. He was brooding. Frank was brooding, too. They hadn’t discussed it, but Frank knew they were thinking the same thing. They wanted to get back at Monsignor Fitzgerald. They were still smarting from the dressing down they’d taken in the library. This public humiliation bullshit had gone too far.

  “You got any Ex-Lax?” Molloy was looking at Chestnut.

  “Leave the poor monkey alone,” Frank said, feeling for the animal. “Anyway, you already did that. Last Thanksgiving.”

  Molloy flashed a mean grin. “Made a big fuckin’ mess, too.”

  “Yeah, but Fitzgerald didn’t have to clean it up, the janitors did. And so did Ianelli.” Frank nodded toward the teacher who had switched topics and was now jabbering on about dissecting fetal pigs, gesturing to a row of fishbelly-white piglet corpses set out in metal trays on his desk, one for every four students in class. He’d been talking about this project for weeks, and now they were finally going to do it. But Frank had no idea how he’d gone from sweet potatoes to fetal pigs. Maybe he was planning a barbecue.

  Frank pointed with his eyes to Molloy’s book bag on the floor. “We gotta use those photos. And the tape. We can fry his fucking ass. The mayor, too.”

  “What about the mob guys?” Molloy said. “You wanna mess with them?”

  Frank frowned. Molloy had a point. John Trombetta was bad news. And then there was Mr. Nunziato. He was a good guy. Frank didn’t want to make trouble for the man even if he was involved.

  “The other thing is,” Molloy said, “blowing the lid on this thing might not affect Fitzgerald at all. He’s just the archbishop’s messenger boy. He’s definitely not the master cylinder.”

  “Yeah, but if he’s the reason this got out, because he opened his mouth in public with Trombetta and the mayor, then maybe the Church will punish him. Send him to some torture chamber in the catacombs under the Vatican. Put him on the rack. Chain him to a wall. Beat him with thorny branches till his skin shreds off. Strap him to a chair and—“

  “Cool your tool, cowboy. It ain’t gonna happen that way. This is the Twentieth Century, man.”

  “Well, it could.”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  Mr. Ianelli raised his voice. “Now listen, boys. I’m telling you the truth here. Evergreens are always green… usually.”

  The class fell apart. Even Chestnut howled, though Frank suspected she was probably just having an orgasm.

  Molloy pulled out of his funk and coughed up a chuckle. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

  The only kid who wasn‘t laughing was Michael Vasily, a.k.a. Vaseline Boy, a.k.a. the Vaz. He was sitting in the row in front of Frank, like a big egg with glasses. He wasn’t obese, but he had a chubby face and a squishy, amorphous body, probably the effects of under use. He had the personality of a slug, but underneath the dull exterior he was a cunning little prick. He was in 4H and should have been in honors physics with the rest of his nerd brethren, but he had elected to take Earth Science so that he could keep his Grade Point Average as close to 4.0 as possible and not jeopardize his chances of being valedictorian. The other contenders in 4H had protested, but so far it hadn’t gotten them anywhere. Honors physics was a ball-buster class, and nobody was acing it, so it looked like Va
seline Boy was a shoo-in for valedictorian. Frank hated his guts. Not because he was the self-appointed smartest kid in school. It was his superior attitude that galled Frank. The Vaz hadn’t spoken to a single person in this class since September, and he made it very clear that he thought his shit didn’t stink.

  “Okay, boys, take out your dissection kits. You all have them, right? Good. Now before we start cutting up the Porkies, let’s get to know our tools, okay?”

  They all took out their dissection kits. Frank laid his on the table—a small, light gray plastic box the size of a paperback that contained a scalpel, a pair of scissors, two long needles with wooden handles, a metal probe, a metal ruler, forceps, and a long glass eye dropper. The Vaz pulled his kit out of his inside jacket pocket like some prissy guy in an old movie taking out his silver monogrammed cigarette case. He opened it and placed it by his elbow, then picked up his pen and started writing in a spiral notebook. Frank knew he wasn’t taking earth science notes. The Vaz always did work for his other classes while Ianelli lectured.

  Mr. Ianelli held up his own kit, gesturing broadly like a stewardess showing passengers how to put on a seat belt. Frank tuned him out and whispered to Molloy.

  “You should see this fucking landfill—the smoke coming out of the ground, people getting sick. We have to do something.”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “You have?”

  “Of course. It’s in the Ukrainian neighborhood where your friend Tina lives.”

  “How do you know Tina?”

  Molloy gave him a come-on-get-real look. “Everybody knows Tina.”

  Frank remembered the graffiti in the bathroom stall. “For a good time, call Tina.” In red pen. Could Tina really be that Tina? No way. She was a flirt, but she wasn’t a slut. At least he didn’t think she was a slut.

  “You know who else lives in that neighborhood?” Molloy said.

  “Who?”

  Molloy tilted his head toward the Vaz.

  “Really?”

  Molloy nodded. “He knows Tina, too. He’d like to know her better.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I see him after first period everyday waiting in the quad for Tina and that other girl, her friend. He’s all puppy-dog eyes when they show up. Always got something to say to them. Vaseline Boy’s getting ready to make his move. I can tell.”

  Frank didn’t like this at all. “How do you know it’s Tina he’s after? Maybe it’s the other one.” He didn’t use Yolanda’s name, not wanting to show that she was the one he cared about.

  Molloy shrugged. “It’s possible. Maybe I’ll use the electronic ear and find out what they’re talking about.”

  Frank glared at the back of the Vaz’s fat head. The fuckface was making moves on Yolanda. Maybe Tina, too, to increase his odds. But he was a fucking slug, a mollusk, a slimy thing that crawled out from under a rock. He shouldn’t be talking to either of them. And they shouldn’t be talking to him. Frank thought he should be talking to them. Just him.

  He glanced out the open window and saw the Walrus King down in the quad lighting his pipe. Instantly he felt cramps in his gut. He had jug later that day, jug with the fucking Walrus King. Frank closed one eye and squinted at Whalley. If he had a rifle with a scope, he could do a Lee Harvey Oswald on him. It would be a clear shot, three stories down. Frank couldn’t possibly miss his big fat lard ass.

  “Okay, boys, here we go,” Ianelli said, trying to talk over the chortles and chuckles. “These are you scissors.” He took out the scissors from his kit, held them up for all to see, and put them back. “And this is your metric ruler.” He did the same with the ruler. “I don’t think I have explain what those are. Those are self-explaining things. You know what I mean?”

  Frank opened his kit and focused on the scalpel.

  “Now this is the dropper.” Ianelli pulled out the eyedropper. “It’s made of glass, so don’t drop the dropper or it’ll break. That should be easy to remember. Dropping the dropper is a no-no.”

  Guys broke up all over the room, some of them repeating the line. It was an instant classic—“Dropping the dropper is a no-no.” The laughter was uncontrollable and self-perpetuating, guys setting each other off like firecrackers on Chinese New Years.

  Chestnut swung and rubbed and rubbed and swung, screaming along with the mayhem.

  The Vaz turned around and looked at the monkey with expressionless disapproval. As he turned back around, his gaze swept over Frank, smearing him with disdain.

  Yeah, well fuck you, too! Frank yelled in his head. The thought of Vaseline Boy putting his pudgy, clammy paws on Yolanda or Tina made Frank murderous. It should be his hands on them. Well, preferably on Yolanda. But maybe Tina. He remembered her bare thighs when she was on the couch in the yearbook office, and so he couldn’t rule her out completely.

  Ianelli held up a pair of forceps. “Okay, boys, settle down, settle down. These are your forceps. They’re for holding skin, tissue, whatever. You can also use them for picking things up if you don’t clamp the clamp. Try it and you’ll see what I mean. You all took Latin so just remember forceps are like the word intercept. You can intercept what you want to pick up with your forceps. You got that?”

  Chestnut was upside down, clutching the bars with all four paws, jerking her little body up and down. If she wasn’t having a big O, she was having a stroke. Guys were pointing at her, cracking up. Gdowski clutched his belly, and Vitale brayed like a donkey, doing the jerking-off gesture under the table. Even Molloy was laughing. But not the Vaz. He was writing in his notebook, ignoring everything around him.

  What the fuck was he writing? Frank wanted to know. A love letter? To Yolanda? To Tina? To both of them?

  Mr. Ianelli frowned at the class and raised his voice. “Now settle down. I’m not gonna tell you once. If you keep it up, there’s gonna be jugs for all of you.”

  Vitale turned around in his seat so Ianelli wouldn’t see and puffed out his shirt at the nipples. “How many jugs, Mr. Ianelli?” he said, disguising his voice. “Big ones?”

  Ianelli scowled. “Who said that?” He might be Mr. Malaprop, but he wasn’t totally clueless. “Who was it?”

  The laughter died down.

  He glared at the class. “Let’s keep it clean, gentlemen.”

  Vaseline Boy didn’t look up from his writing, but Frank could see a little smirk digging into his fat cheek, the Vaz showing that he thought he was better than everyone else in this class. Frank could’ve done a Jack Ruby on him without even thinking twice about it.

  “Okay, boys, listen up,” Ianelli said. “This is your scalpel.” He held up a scalpel, light glinting off the blade. “Now be very very careful with this. It is very sharp. You could get hurt with this. It’s like a razor. You could cut yourself and wouldn’t even know it until you bled.”

  The titters and chuckles started up again. Chestnut jumped from one side of her cage to the other, smacking her lips rapid fire. But Frank was focused on Vaseline Boy’s open dissection kit.

  “How sharp is it?” Frank called out without raising his hand.

  Ianelli looked around to see who had asked the question but couldn’t identify the voice. “It’s so sharp…” he said. “It’s so sharp, I can’t tell you. Just put them away. Okay?”

  Frank glanced out the window. The Walrus King was still out there, his foot up on the stone bench in the middle of the quad, having a quiet moment puffing on his pipe.

  The Vaz’s pen jiggled in his hand as he kept on writing.

  “Can we use it like a jackknife?” Frank called out. “You know, throw it at things. Like a piece of wood or a dart board.”

  “Completely not!” Ianelli sputtered, his face as red as a tomato. He glared at Frank, then ran his finger along his seating chart to get Frank’s name. “Don’t be stupid, Grinwald. A sca
lpel is not a toy.”

  Vitale piped up. “Looks like a toy to me.” He threw it point down into his notebook. It didn’t stick. Instead it bounced off the table and clattered on the floor.

  Ianelli exploded. He rushed around his desk and loomed over Vitale. “Mother of God, what the hell are you doing, Vitale?” He knew Vitale’s name. All the teachers knew Vitale’s name. “That could’ve bounced into your eye which is connected to your brain and then where would you be? In the hospital with a bleeding brain, that’s where you’d be.”

  The class fell apart laughing, but Ianelli kept ranting, shaking his finger in Vitale’s face. “You boys think this is funny? It’s not funny. It’s serious! You could get hurt for the rest of your life. Forever! Forever and ever amen! And that’s what it would be! Amen!”

  The class was out of control, crazier than poor little Chestnut. Frank didn’t hesitate. While the class was in chaos, he ducked under the table and knelt behind the Vaz who was lost in his scribbling. Frank reached up, picked the scalpel out of the Vaz’s kit, slipped back under the table, and got into his seat.

  Frank shouted over the noise. “So if these things are so dangerous, Mr. Ianelli, what should we do with them?”

  “Put them away!”

  Frank caught Molloy’s eye. “Put them away where, Mr. Ianelli?” Frank twiddled the Vaz’s scalpel between his fingers like a pencil.

  Ianelli’s eyes popped out of his head. “Put that thing down!”

  “Down where?” Frank said, innocent as could be.

  “Stop doing that! Put it down! Get rid of it!”

  “Get rid of it?” Frank scanned the room. Vitale was looking right at him, sensing a prank in the making, anticipation saliva practically dripping out of his mouth. He twiddled his scalpel, too. So did Gdowski. So did most of the others. Except for the Vaz.

  “You heard me, Grinwald! Get rid of it!”

  “Just me or all of us?”

  “All of you! Get rid of those g.d. things! Right now!”