by Kevin Deeny
Marcus also began another journey this summer that arose from the anger, frustration, and sadness in his family life. It started by asking “Why?” in a more determined way. “Why is it like this?” “Why do some kids have normal families and others come from families with so many problems?” It seemed at the very least unfair, and he struggled to find a meaning for it. His religious experience and education hadn’t yet provided the explanation he sought. Yet the experience with control of his asthma and his anger gelled slowly into a realization that some things were changing, - because he intended them to.
Chapter 9
High School
When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time. – Maya Angelou
Freshman year at high school was exciting. St. Newman’s was a newly built, Catholic high school staffed by a mix of priests, nuns, and lay teachers. He appreciated the change from St. Andrews where, like elementary school, he had stayed in the same classroom all day. St. Newman’s was more like the public junior high school he left. However, there were some crucial differences. He noticed that many of the teachers, and priests, carried paddles, some of which were quite elaborate. Most seemed to be homemade of various types of wood – some dark grained and massive. The edges were relieved and well sanded to avoid splinters, and the handles were fashioned to permit a solid grip. One paddle appeared to be precisely that, a canoe paddle whose handle had been shortened for the purpose. Marcus thought this to be somewhat analogous to a sawed-off shotgun. The really serious paddles had holes drilled through their surface, which they would later learn in physics class, cut down on air resistance when it was put to use. Marcus, like many others, would come to appreciate this advancement in technology.
Football was the focus of attention and activity at St. Newman’s. The football team was often in contention for the city championship in the greater Philadelphia area and had a football coach who was quickly becoming a local legend. Marcus didn’t care much for football, mainly because developing asthma limited his ability to play a full game. Baseball was his sport, but he played primarily during spring and summer in local leagues, and he wasn’t interested in the fledgling school team. Marcus had enjoyed wrestling in public school but was disappointed to learn that St. Newman’s had no wrestling team. Although he would inquire every year, there didn’t seem to be much interest beyond football.
Despite his asthma, Marcus smoked like a lot of the kids in the neighborhood. And like most, he started by stealing cigarettes from his parents when only twelve years old. Mike had already been smoking for over a year when Marcus started and like everything he tried, had mastered the skill. Mike always seemed to have enough money to buy cigarettes, but Marcus had to use stealth to acquire his. His first cigarette left him light-headed, and he had difficulty finishing it. Eventually, like his brother, he got the hang of it. He preferred to steal cigarettes from his father who smoked Kools – a filtered and mentholated brand. It also helped that when his father had too much to drink, which was often, his father didn’t keep good track of his cigarettes and was easy ‘pickins.’ Marcus’s mother, on the other hand, smoked Raleigh’s – an unfiltered straight cigarette that could choke a horse. She watched hers more carefully and seemed to always know when a few were missing from the pack. Stealing cigarettes from his mother was always the last choice – one that he arrived at all too often. By the time Marcus arrived at St Newman’s, he had been smoking for a while and was a veteran. He was pleased to find out that smoking was permitted in designated areas.
St Newman’s was the first place that Marcus had encountered priests outside of the church. The school was populated by the Franciscan variety, - an order that patterned their lives after St Francis of Assisi. They wore robes with hoods that were always pulled back off their heads and were gathered about the waist by a coarse white rope sash that terminated in a tassel which bobbed about as they moved. Their ‘ensemble’ was completed by an ever-present crucifix. To Marcus, they all resembled Friar Tuck.
Marcus grew up with the perspective of a priest as distant and intimidating; after all, they were in direct communication with God. He spent as little time as possible around the parish priests lest they report back. He was thankful that when he was in closest proximity to his parish priest, he was separated by a screen and shadowed by the dim light of the confessional. Having priests all around him at St Newman’s took some getting used to. He decided to study them from a discrete distance.
For some reason, he got to know Father William early, perhaps because he was the school disciplinarian. He had an oak paddle but seldom used it. It seemed funny to Marcus, but the priest in charge of discipline had a sense of humor. He could also cut through nonsense and all the excuses that were conjured up when you were sent to see him. Well-reasoned arguments in your defense seemed to carry some weight, and he would on occasion let you choose between morning or afternoon detention. Morning detention was preferred because it didn’t get in the way of hanging around with friends after school. Father William’s one rule about not doing homework while in detention seemed particularly cruel. For some, it was the only time that homework was even considered. Despite his frequent visits to detention class, Marcus liked the man. He was fair enough. When Marcus got caught smoking where he shouldn’t or skipping class, he didn’t argue with the punishment. It was no big deal.
Father Mark, on the other hand, was a snake. He taught English using an excruciatingly dull, structured, and rote-based method. This priest also had a degree in psychology and practiced his craft on the class. He boasted that he reviewed every kid’s file and recorded their IQ test scores next to each name in his class book. This class, he advised, would be like all of the others, and distribute itself to a greater or lesser degree according to the value already memorialized in his class book. There was no encouragement, no enlightened discourse – simply presentation of curriculum with a detached interest to see how closely test scores would match IQ values. He was a tight and angry man. Marcus had a lot of experience with anger, and this guy was a pussycat compared to his father. He learned early how to push his buttons, and he did so at every opportunity.
Marcus would seldom be called on in his class and was often ignored when he tried to participate. The few times he was called on were the times he wasn’t paying attention – he thought this was on purpose. In response, Marcus played his own game. He would feign sleep at his desk in the back of the room but listen intently to the lesson. When called on, he would more often than not respond with the correct answer.
This cat and mouse game continued for a while until Father Mark lost his temper and berated him in class. Marcus saw all of the signs he had seen so many times before in his father; the raised and angry voice, red face, and the pulsing artery in his neck. Father Mark spit words that Marcus did not hear; instead, Marcus watched the priest calmly; ready at his desk with his fists clenched. He sat quietly and did not utter a single word, but when the tirade was over, he held himself erect in his seat, looked at Father Mark and smiled.
The response was immediate. “Kenrick, get out of my classroom,” he bellowed. “Report to Father William.”
Marcus quietly gathered his books and walked from the classroom. He thought to himself as he walked to the Discipline Office, “My Dad was right, I really am a smart ass.” He felt bad though. It was something for him to think about in detention. It wasn’t enough to control his own anger while he stoked someone else’s. He had to let this go.
Father Cedric was the antithesis to Father Mark. He was a black priest; the only one in the school and the only one up to that point Marcus ever met. Father Cedric taught religion, played music in class and was the closest thing to a hip priest that Marcus encountered. He had energy, walked with a bounce, and seemed interested in every student. He would quote Thomas Aquinas and force you to think about it:
“Beware the man of a single book.”
or
�
�We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped in finding it.”
He encouraged dissent as long as you could defend your position and cajoled you into participation. When lines were crossed, he also swung a mean oak paddle – complete with ventilation holes for crisp, effective action. Marcus thoroughly enjoyed this priest and wished there were a lot more like him.
Father Karl was a stern man who taught German and was uncomfortable with informality and precise in his instruction. He had a booming voice that carried to the far reaches of any room he was in – a characteristic that often served well during school pep rallies before an important football game. He often spoke of pride in school and country – particularly as the Vietnam War heated up and civil protests became more commonplace. When his instruction turned from the language to the culture of Germany, it was clear that there was a fondness, a kind of homesickness for the country of his heritage. There was also a sense of shame for the atrocities of World War II and he would speak of it through his teeth with a clenched jaw. He was frustrated with the conflict that existed between that truth and Germany’s prior history. Perhaps because of this frustration, he always exuded American patriotic zeal. Although seemingly unapproachable, Marcus found him to be a compassionate man.
Marcus’s brief study of the priests around him had the effect of demystifying them. He was aware that they were men after all – they laughed, were short tempered at times, grew tired at the end of the day, became frustrated when no one participated in class, seemed pleased to answer questions, and above all else, were elated when the football team won another game.
Marcus’s search for answers continued throughout his freshman year. He was pleased to be in a school where people – usually priests, were in a position to ascribe some meaning or purpose to the questions that troubled him. All priests he soon learned were not equally equipped to deal with the issues he posed.
For a 14-year-old boy, full of curiosity about the workings of the world, the circumstances of his life were troubling. He thought about the question of equity as dispassionately as he could, yet couldn’t resolve the issue. For him, the issue boiled down to one question; “If we are all God’s children, why do some people get a raw deal while others have it easy?” He heard a variety of answers, but none seemed adequate. When he asked that question in class, the discourse went something like this: “We all have our crosses to bear, and none are given a burden too great to bear.” To which Marcus would reply, “OK if you say so, but what’s the point of all this burden carrying anyway?” And the response would be: “It helps build character and virtue and brings you closer to God.” And Marcus would ask, “Well why didn’t God give me all the character and virtue I needed when he sent me here and wasn’t I already close to God when he made me?” And the reply would be, “We can never know the mind of God and have to have faith in his plan for us. This is one of the mysteries of our faith.” Marcus knew that when “mysteries of our faith” came up in conversation that they had reached the end of the line. The problem was rendered insoluble, so there was no further purpose in discussing it. He found this difficult to swallow and looked to none other than Thomas Aquinas for guidance;
“The study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.”
Chapter 10
Brothers
If everyone fought for their own convictions, there would be no war. – Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Life at home continued along the same path. His father continued to work his many jobs and drink heavily. His mother had a sense of crisis looming and continued to badger to get his father to change. Often it seemed to do little more than heap her judgment of his failures on an ever-increasing pile. She was scared, and Marcus frequently noticed her unfocussed stare reflected from the kitchen window while a cigarette burned down between her fingertips. She had a lot on her mind and seemed to lapse into periods of ‘the long stare’ more often.
All the kids in the neighborhood that Marcus hung around with were getting old enough to have cars even if some, including Marcus, were not yet old enough to get a driving license. Many were one step away from the junkyard. A ’55 Chevy station wagon, ’56 Chevy Belair, 56 Ford Victoria, and ’61 Corvair made up part of the automotive menagerie. After school and on weekends, they all played cat and mouse throughout all of the neighborhood sections of Levittown. It was well recognized that George was the best or maybe just the craziest driver. He was known to lean his ’55 Chevy wagon over on two wheels as he took a hairpin turn down Island Avenue. When he first witnessed it, Marcus, following close behind, backed away, fully expecting the car would roll. In disbelief, he watched as it righted itself and continued its flight down the street. George was un-passable unless you cheated a little and cut corners by driving off the road through the right-of-way, which itself was tricky because you had to pick the right place to jump the curb to avoid suspension damage or a blown tire. Yes, George was good, but his brother was better.
George’s older brother Dan was the same age as Mike. Dan had joined the Navy when Mike joined the Army. He drove a ’58 Ford convertible that could fly. He could shift on the column faster than Marcus had seen anyone do. Although it was a fast car, all the guys were in awe of it for another reason; it was a girl magnet. His glove compartment, it was learned, was always well stocked with condoms, the fact that instilled awe in the younger guys, because he had them for a reason. Rumor had it that his mother, upon discovering the stash in his car, cut the tips off of all the condoms and put them back in the glove compartment in the mistaken belief that it would dampen his enthusiasm. She apparently had not thought this through since the moment of necessity was not a time characterized by rational thought. Hormones will and did prevail, and Dan learned the value of a backup plan.
George’s father was also a heavy drinker who sponsored many of the neighborhood parties. Although the parties were an excellent opportunity to meet girls, they usually involved a lot of drinking or getting high in one form or another. The lifelong example of his own father convinced Marcus to do otherwise, and he was uncomfortable at parties as the lone dissenter, and he would drift away.
Marcus missed his brother, even though theirs was a love/hate relationship. He hated to be picked on by his older brother and at the same time, looked up to him. Marcus saw little of him since Mike joined the Army and his latest assignment to Fort Benning Georgia for jump school moved him even further away from the family and one step closer to Vietnam. At his successful completion of jump school, he showed up at home on leave with his parachute, and Airborne patches on his uniform and the pant legs tucked and bloused into his jump boots. He also carried orders with him for his deployment to Vietnam.
Mike’s leave was up much too quickly and the time soon came for him to report to his unit. Amidst the many tears on his departure was the realization that Mike was street smart and tough. As he left, he punched Marcus in the arm and said, “Take care of yourself, little brother.”
Through his tears, all Marcus could say was “You too Mike.”
Within two weeks of entering the country, Mike was killed in battle; mortar and rockets were no respecters of his toughness, and Mike died defending his unit. He was 19 years old. Marcus learned of his brother’s death when he returned home from school and found everyone in the house crying. His mother was utterly distraught and chose not to believe the military officers that came to the door with the death notification. It took several hours and many phone calls until she accepted the confirmation.
On hearing the news, Marcus left the house and walked the streets of Levittown aimlessly and cried until it hurt. He returned home to find everyone exhausted in their grief. His mother sat in the kitchen staring out into the night with the all too familiar cigarette burning down between her fingers.
It took nearly two wee
ks to return Mike to the family and Marcus went with his father to the funeral home when his casket arrived. There would be no viewing; his battle wounds were too severe. His father insisted that they open the coffin for him to confirm that it was indeed his son. While Marcus waited, his father was taken to the back room to view Mike’s body. Throughout his remaining years, his father never uttered a single word about what he saw.
Marcus ended his sophomore year in a fog of grief and anger and turned inward. He spent many of his waking hours reliving his brief life with Mike and would often drive to nowhere in particular, to think and watch the sunrise. His initial reaction of fury and anger slowly gave way to questioning. He believed, based on his experience in the river, that Mike was Ok now, but it would be a while before he would talk with God again.
In a strange way, his turn inward put him out in the world. He sought the solitude he could not find at home at a library or sitting on a jetty watching the waves roll in from the Atlantic. He had much to think about, and his one-sided conversations with God slowly resumed, although now he would think of God as a woman who would be less disposed to send her sons to war.
