The Gathering (28 page)

The sight of all those solemn-faced black-suited young men processing in made the crowd gasp, then laugh. Soon, members of the Michigan journalism class were joined by the opposing team’s journalists—both factions attempting to interview the young men. Each team figured the other had hired these young men to pose as morticians, there to bury the opponent’s team.

The seminarians were thrilled—ecstatic—to be permitted to wear the cassock and collar, a distinctly priestly garb. For each seminarian, to one degree or another, desperately wanted to become a priest.

Next year, this distinction would be Koesler’s. The following year it would include Smith, Tocco, and Benson. But for now, they dressed in civvies.

It was just as well. On their commutes, they rode streetcars that were usually crowded. Had they been wearing clericals, things would have been awkward, to say the least. In civvies they were just students boning up for class. Which—after all, was exactly who they were and what they were doing.

Koesler, Smith, and Tocco had long since perfected their scheduling. They almost always met simultaneously at the corner of Vernor and Junction to catch the streetcar and ride together to school. Frequently, depending on what extracurricular activities might delay one or another of them, they would meet for the homeward trip.

Stanley Benson figured in none of this. The Redeemerites lived in southwest Detroit. Benson lived in west-central Detroit. Their commuting paths were separate.

This late September morning was brisk. The conductor, stationed midway in the car, where he called out street names and collected fares, had turned on the heat. Though it was not hot inside, the passengers’ conglomerate body heat made heavy coats uncomfortable.

Manny Tocco’s stocky yet solid body warmed easily. He shed his coat. His two schoolmates retained theirs. All three poured over their homework.

“Did you find a mnemonic for all the words you had difficulty with?” Manny asked Mike.

“There weren’t that many I didn’t know,” Mike replied.

“You’d better be serious about these mnemonics,” Bob warned. “Father Merrill is serious about them.”

Since he was a year ahead, Bob Koesler was able to tell his comrades what they would be expected to learn and how much emphasis the various priest-teachers would put on each subject. Expectations didn’t change that much from year to year.

The students were given a series of frequently misspelled words. They were to report on the morrow, when they would either spell the words correctly from memory or have made up a mnemonic to help them get the words right.

Each time a student misspelled, he invariably leaned on the lame excuse that “I was sure I knew how to spell that word.” Some performed in Barrymore fashion; some were rotten actors. Koesler well recalled Father Merrill’s nearly going berserk when some of Koesler’s classmates, searching for an excuse for having misspelled a word because they had not come up with a mnemonic, pleaded they had thought they knew the correct spelling. Father Merrill had hit the floor and the ceiling simultaneously.

Koesler was trying to prepare his schoolmates for an assignment they should not take lightly.

“Okay,” Manny said, “here’s one that’s got me stumped: ‘principal.’ Now, I know it can be spelled two ways. Both are pronounced the same, but each spelling means something different. One spelling means the head of something like a school. The other means a rule or code of conduct. My problem is: How do you tell them apart?”

“I gotta say,” Koesler offered, “that’s one of the easier mnemonics around. You think of the head of your school as a ‘pal’ and that gives you the last letters of the word. So, by the process of elimination, you know that principle, ending in p-l-e, is the other one—the rule or code of conduct.”

“I’ve got one,” Mike said. “S-t-a-t-i-o-n-a-r-y and s-t-a-t-i-o-n-e-r-y: One means standing still, and the other is something you write on. But which is which?”

Bob by now was gaining the reputation among his protégés as one of the world’s greatest authorities on mnemonics. “That was always a tough one for me until I stumbled on this,” he said. “The one ending in ‘ery’ is the writing paper—station
er
y and pap
er
—they both have ‘er’ at the end. And again, by the process of elimination, that means the other one—the one ending in ‘ary’—means something that’s standing still.”

“Hey,” Manny exclaimed, “I think I’m catching on!”

Bob laughed. “Okay, I’ll give you a free one. It hasn’t come up yet, but it will … especially if you stay around here.”

Both Mike and Manny smiled. This was fun!

“Okay,” Bob challenged. “How many Great Lakes are there?”

Silence, as the two tried to recall.

“Three,” Manny said finally.

“No,” Michael corrected, “four.”

Koesler shook his head. “Five. Now, can you name ’em?”

Manny took a stab. “Huron, Michigan, and Superior. But that’s only three and you said there are five.”

“And I said four,” Mike said. “So, I can add Erie. But we’re still one short …”

“Right,” Koesler affirmed. “The missing one is Ontario. And now we come to the mnemonic: Homes.”

“Homes?” Manny looked puzzled. Then his face lit up. “I’ve got it: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior.” He grinned. “Hey, that’s easy. I don’t think I’ll ever blow that one again.”

The three returned to their studies.

It was standing room only in the streetcar. But the few who were left standing were men dressed for manual labor. Had there been one or more women standees, one or all of the seminarians surely would have stood and offered his seat. The trio’s privately shared slogan was: Chivalry is not dead; it’s just ailing.

Many of the passengers near the threesome were smiling. Some realized that had they themselves studied so diligently when they were in school, they might now be headed for a job at somewhere other than an automotive assembly line.

Bob Koesler shook his head in silent wonderment. He was preparing for what his teacher called a “pepper-upper” test. The subject was Latin/Religion. All it involved was translating the faithful old
Baltimore Catechism
into Latin.

To Bob, the project seemed useless—as if the Department of Studies had run out of honest-to-goodness subjects and, in desperation, had turned to the Catechism as a fill-in.

But he had to admit that at least it was an exercise in becoming more familiar with Latin.

For parochial students, the Catechism’s questions and answers were as old hat as the familiar prayers the kids had memorized long ago.

“Who made me?”

“God made me.”

“Why did God make me?”

“God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life and be happy with Him forever in the next.”

It went on, seemingly interminably, through questions and answers about the Creed, the Sacraments, Church law, and the Commandments. By the time Koesler started this course, the
Baltimore Catechism
was like a tired old friend.

But the language of his Church rite was Latin. In only a few more years, when he and his classmates reached the theologate, Latin would be the language of textbooks, prayer, tests—and sometimes even conversations.

Getting more familiar with the language now made sense considering how frequently it would be used by major seminarians and priests. Every morning of every day, Bob would celebrate Mass at least once, speaking and chanting in Latin.

On second thought, he concluded, turning the venerable Q and A of the
Baltimore Catechism
into Latin was not such a bad idea.

He tried to write on his pad. It was challenging. Detroit streetcars ran on ancient tracks. There was a fair amount of swaying and bouncing. It was difficult not only to write but also to read.

The repeated jerking and swaying, and the heat pouring from the registers induced a subtle temptation to nap.

The car squeaked to a stop to let some passengers leave and others board. Suddenly everyone was aware of a new element. Raucous voices could be heard coming from the front of the car.

What was causing the problem? Only those toward the front could know.

The driver’s voice could clearly be heard. He was telling the latest boarders that they would not be permitted to bring something into the car—something that from the sound of it they very much wanted to keep with them. The driver could be understood. The other voices were unintelligible.

Koesler thought he might as well go back to the
Catechism
and its Latin challenge as try to translate the loud gibberish emanating from the front.

Michael Smith glanced at his two companions. They both shrugged. Mike rose from his seat and stretched in an attempt to see what was going on. He wasn’t quite tall enough. He too shrugged, then resumed his seat and his study.

The dispute up front intensified. The streetcar was not going to move until whoever or whatever the driver wanted removed was gone.

Something akin to an undercurrent of anger made itself evident. The passengers were not taking a streetcar this early in the morning just to secure a favored table on Belle Isle. They were going to work or to school. And they had no patience with anyone or anything that threatened tardiness or immobility.

Michael happened to be looking out the window absently when the car began to move again. It was then he saw what had been the bone of contention: A bare, life-size, inflated rubber doll was lying on the sidewalk. Evidently, the doll’s escort had finally become convinced that the driver’s threat to idle was not idle. Throughout the car, passengers nudged each other and chuckled as they pointed at the abandoned figure.

Michael was one of the few who did not nudge. His concern was whether he had committed a serious sin in gazing at this unclothed female effigy. The answer might well be in the affirmative; if so, he certainly was not going to throw temptation in the path of his buddies.

Meanwhile, the car recommenced its jouncing journey.

The atmosphere on board eased somewhat. One, most of the riders thought the doll was genuinely funny; two, the buffoons responsible for this caper were members of the U.S. Navy—though that branch of the service would at this moment be loath to claim them.

Anatomically correct or not, this doll, garishly painted and curvaceous, would be attractive only to a sex-starved adolescent. Which might have described the seminarians.

Regardless, the majority of passengers found the doll and the sailors highly entertaining.

By this time, the pranksters had reached mid-car, where they proceeded to give the conductor a hard time. They would have been ushered off the car had they not been servicemen. These were, theoretically, the guys who had won the war. Never mind that the war had been over for some two years. And never mind that these two “gobs” had stormed no beach more threatening than Coney Island. In this case, tolerance of bizarre behavior was the order of the day.

The sailors were in classic uniform: bucket hat, pea jacket, and bell bottoms. The car swayed and jounced from side to side, and so did the sailors, never quite losing their balance, but never managing to stay totally steady. The duo allemanded down the aisle until they reached the horseshoe back of the car. There they stood, almost directly in front of the seminarians, who now had a good view of their backs.

The sailors might have found the students worthy of some sarcastic remarks were it not for the presence of a fresh, attractive young woman seated across from the seminarians.

The threesome naturally had been aware of her from the moment she boarded and took her seat. She was about their own age. Her features were well defined. A red beret topped wavy brunette hair. Her cloth coat was too warm for this car. But she was not about to remove it. That would have been bold on her part. Ladies frequently accepted discomfort rather than appear brazen by, say, removing an article of clothing in a public place.

She had seated herself as a proper young lady should, smoothing her coat beneath her as she lowered herself to the bench. Demurely, she had glanced at the three young men across from her. No more than a glance. She was left with her fantasies and they with theirs. The difference: They felt guilty and she did not.

Now, the situation was changed dramatically. All because of the two distractions in sailor suits.

Usually when a man is accused of undressing a woman with his eyes, the charge is the result of an educated guess. There was nothing ambiguous about the sailors’ ogling. At first they confined themselves to nudges and sotto voce comments. But with no response from the subject of their gibes, their comments grew increasingly louder—and lewder.

No one said them nay, although each time the streetcar stopped, their ribaldries could be clearly heard by those nearby.

The conductor called out the next stop. “Michigan Avenue. All out for Michigan Avenue.”

As the car ground to a halt and some passengers left and others boarded, one sailor could be heard saying, “ … I’ll bet I could get her to strip. Then we could see.”

“What?” The other smirked.