The Secret of Life

Now, I tell my mothers to be on the lookout for contraceptives in their sons’ rooms. And I’ve heard that some of you fellows are too smart for that. Oh, I know all the tricks. Yes, there was one boy who kept his prophylacticstaped to the inside of his car’s rear hubcap . I said Mass at his funeral last February.

For one snowy night, he was out there in the street, with a tire iron in his hand, and his pants around his ankles, and ...”

On the first Monday after Christmas vacation, Conrad had to hand in a theme for English class. The assignment had been to write a fantastic story of some type. Conrad had chosen to write a science-fiction story satirizing the Roman Catholic Church. The idea in the story was that an alien energy-creature comes to Earth and takes on human form, so as better to understand mankind’s peculiar ways of thought. He has superpowers, of course, and starts out by practicing his power of flight in a deserted pasture. As chance would have it, a group of nuns shows up for a cookout, just as the alien is hovering ten feet above the ground. Most of the nuns think the alien must be a new Messiah, the Second Coming of Christ. But one of the nuns claims the alien is the Antichrist, and before anyone can stop her, she chokes him to death with her rosary. The other nuns decide to cover up their sister’s crime by barbecuing the body. It tastes wonderful! “Truly,” says one chomping nun, “this is the flesh of God.”

“Yes, Conrad, I will write you a Jug ticket.” A Jug ticket was a small yellow square of paper. It meant that you had to stay after school for an hour.

After class Brother Marion drew Conrad aside. “I’m disappointed by your story, Conrad. Surely you can find more deserving targets than the Church.”

“But ... how can you believe all those crazy things? How can you believe in Transubstantiation? A wafer is a wafer, not the flesh of Christ!”

“God became flesh, why should flesh not become bread? Although theaccidental properties of the consecrated wafer are as bread, itsessence is Christ’s flesh. Theaccidental properties of Christ’s body were human, yet His body’sessence was divine.” Brother Marion’s hollow eyes glinted briefly. “You should read Aquinas, not blaspheme like a fool.”

The brother in charge of Jug was a lean zealot with angry red acne scars on his face. Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross. Nobody messed with Saint-John-of-the-Cross. You sat there and wrote for an hour, and then Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross threw your essay away and you could go home. The topic of the essay was always the same:Why I Am in Jug.

Taking his pen in hand, Conrad felt a strange surge of power.Nobody would read this. He could write whatever he wanted to. It was something Conrad had never thought of doing before—sit at a desk and write whatever you’re thinking.

“Stop gri

Conrad began with the stupid way that Jeans always stuck his lower jaw out to look like he was thinking, and then moved right into some confused vaporing about how misunderstood he, Conrad Bunger, really was.Half a page. Conrad recounted one of Father Stook’s recent tales, the one about the man who’d injured the side of his penis with his electric drill, and who’d then come to Father Stook for permission to wear a condom during intercourse so that the raw spot wouldn’t chafe. “All right,” Father Stook had said, “but you have to puncture the tip.”A page and a quarter. Conrad explained about death, and how the secret of life is that we each possess a fragment of the universal life-force.A page and two-thirds. He ended by making fun of a St. X administrator called Deforio. Deforio was in charge of issuing late-slips.

“Sports fan Deforio’s moronic robot scrawl.” Here and there a few gaps remained. Conrad filled them in with random curse words. He felt like if he willed it, he could float right up to the ceiling.

“I’m all done, Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross. Can I go home now?”

The next morning, as he was walking down the hall to his third period mathematics class, Conrad was suddenly struck from behind. Something clamped on to the soft tendons of his neck and dragged him into an empty classroom. It was Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross.

Conrad had once seen Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross punch a student, a football player, in the jaw.

Quivering with fear, he crept off to math class. But as soon as he sat down, the wall speaker crackled into life.

“Brother Albert? Could you please send Conrad Bunger to the Assistant Principal’s office?”

The other boys looked at Conrad as he left the silent room. Some smiled, some gloated, some simply looked upset.Next time it could be me. Berkowitz, the class clown, squeaked, “Help!” from the back row.

The Assistant Principal was a wise-eyed man with big shoulders and a trim gray crew cut. His name was Brother Hershey. If Saint-John-of-the-Cross was a hard cop, Hershey was a soft cop. He had a Boston accent and an air of pained rationality.

“Come in, Conrad. Sit down.” Hershey slumped back in his chair and sighed. Conrad’s Jug essay was lying on his desk. “Some of the brothers are very unhappy with you.”

“Saint-John-of-the-Cross.”

“And Brother Marion.And Brother Albert. A change has come over you, Conrad. Are you having personal problems?”

“Well ... it’s about death. Life is meaningless. I can’t see any reason for any of it.” Hershey started to interrupt, but Conrad pressed on. “I’ve been reading books about it.Nausea , andOn the Road . I’m not just making it up. Any action is equally meaningless. The present moment is all that matters.”

“I’ve heard of those books,” Hershey said shortly. “Do you think it’s your place to ride the brothers about religion?”

“No, sir.”

“You say that the moment is all that matters, Conrad. Has this attitude led you into ... sins of impurity?”

“Uh, no, sir. No.”

“You’re not a mule, Conrad. I can reason with you, can I not?”

“Yes.” Conrad knew what Brother Hershey was hinting at. If you really acted up, Hershey would take you out to the gym and paddle you. A lower-track boy had told Conrad about it at lunch one day.“He carries that paddle hid under his robe. All the way out to the gym you can hear it bangin’ on his goddamn leg.”

“Because I would rather not have to treat a good student like a mule.”

“You can reason with me, Brother Hershey. I understand. I’ll act better. I can hold out till graduation.”

“Fine.” Hershey picked up the Jug essay, sca

Pause.

“Sure.” How long was this going to go on?

“I had doubts, too, when I was your age. We all have doubts; God never meant for life to be easy.”

“How do you know there’s a God?” blurted Conrad. The pressure of all the things he wanted to say was like a balloon in his chest. “I mean, sure, the life-force exists, but why should there be a God who’s watching us? It’s wrong to try and explain everything with an invisible God and a life after death. Life should make sense right here and now!”

Brother Hershey leaned forward and studied the calendar on his desk. When he spoke again there was an edge to his voice. “There are six months and ten days until graduation, Conrad. Discipline yourself.

Pretend to believe, and belief may come to you. I don’t want to see you in here another time.”

“OK.” Conrad thought again of the paddle.

“When you go back to class, your buddies are going to ask you what happened.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell them it’s none of their business.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, Brother Hershey.”

By the time school let out it was raining hard. Conrad got his books and ran out to wait for his bus. A

little ninth-grader was talking about how it would snow most likely and all the teachers would be in a bus and have an accident and then there wouldn’t be school for a few weeks while they got all the teachers buried. There were about fifteen boys waiting for the bus and saying when’s that son of a bitch go