The Temptations of St. Frank (18 page)

Vitale curled his upper lip as he trudged up to the blackboard. He was sick of Pomeroy's tired, old shtick. So was the rest of the class. Every year in every class he taught, Mr. Pomeroy targeted one student for concentrated harassment. Usually it was the class clown, and that made Vitale the obvious victim in 4A. All year long, a portion of every class was given over to the Pomeroy-Vitale shtick—Pomeroy putting him down and Vitale talking back so that Pomeroy could put him down some more. It was sort of like hearing the Abbott and Costello “Who's on First” routine every single day. It was funny in September, amusing in October, but now it was mind-numbing.

Frank opened his ring binder to the last page. The photo of the Unholy Trinity was tucked into the pocket, Mr. Trombetta and half of Monsignor Fitzgerald visible over the top. Frank extended his foot and kicked Molloy's desk across the aisle to get his attention.

Molloy was half-asleep, his cheek pressed into his fist. His eyes shot open with a start, and he frowned at Frank for disturbing him. “What?” he mouthed silently.

Frank flashed the photo at him, then closed the binder before anyone else saw. “What're we gonna do?” Frank mouthed.

Molloy shrugged and looked confused. He didn't understand what Frank was saying, so Frank turned to a fresh page in his binder and tore off a corner. In tiny handwriting he wrote, What do we do w/ pic? He rolled it up into spitball and flicked it onto Molloy's desktop.

Molloy trapped it with his palm, unwrapped it and read it, then looked at Frank and shrugged. His expression said, How the fuck do I know what to do with it?

Pomeroy called out from atop the radiators, his pipe clenched in his teeth as he spoke. “We're waiting, Mr. Vitale. Time is slipping away. Please proceed.”

Vitale stood at the board, shoulders slumped, a piece of chalk hanging loose in his fingers, his face a sagging sad-clown mask.

“Do you
know
how to proceed, Mr. Vitale?”

Vitale's response was sing-song bored. “No, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“Well, I suggest you at least
try.
You might surprise yourself. You might surprise
me.
Though I doubt it.”

Frank tore off another scrap of paper and wrote,
Ledger? 60 Minutes?
He crumpled it and flicked it to Molloy.

Molloy read it and wrote his response on the other side, crumpling it and punting it back to Frank with his middle finger.

You must be high, it said.

Frank remembered the joint he and Annette had shared in her room. Molloy said he had gotten high a few times. Knowing Molloy, Frank believed it.

Frank tore off another scrap of paper. We have to do something, he wrote and sent it flying.

Molloy frowned as he read it. “Why?” he mouthed.

“Because people are fucking dying,” Frank whispered back. He could hear Yolanda sobbing in his head. He could still feel the spot on his cheek were Tina's tears had been.

“Mr. Vitale, what… is… the problem?” Mr. Pomeroy enunciated. “Could it be that you have
no idea
how to tackle that problem? Could it be that you have been sitting here all these weeks and months learning ab-so-lutely nothing?”

Sing-song. “No, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“Then could it be that you're
just
plain
stupid
, Mr. Vitale? That you're simply
incapable
of absorbing the concepts of higher mathematics?”

“No, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“Did your mother drop you on your head as an infant perhaps?”

“No, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“Then are you congenitally maladapted to learning, Mr. Vitale?
Mentally retarded
perhaps? The product of
inbreeding?
Were your parents
first cousins
, Mr. Vitale? Maybe
brother and sister?
Father and daughter?”

Vitale's eyes were hard black diamonds of hate.

Frank thought Vitale was generally annoying, but now he felt for him. This was cruel. The class was silent, their attention razor sharp.

“I didn't hear
your answer
, Mr. Vitale,” the pipe clenched in Pomeroy's bony jaws. It had gone out, and he sucked on it loudly. “Solve for
X,
Mr. Vitale. Give us the
answer
. Or are you
indeed
the product of an incestuous relationship?
Share
, Mr. Vitale. Let us
all
know. Your classmates are on the edges of their seats. They want to know why you are such an
incompetent goofball
. Why you are a
cipher
, a
waste of space
, someone who will go down in the annals of St. Anselm's as
the most forgettable boy ever to have attended this institution
. Tell us, Mr. Vitale! Make us understand your sorry existence.”

Vitale glared at him and mumbled, “Fuck you, Pomeroy.”

Molloy looked at Frank, his eyebrows raised. This was the kind of antagonistic banter Pomeroy provoked with Vitale nearly everyday, but it had never gotten this nasty, and no one ever cursed.

Pomeroy lowered his chin and looked at Vitale over his horn-rimmed glasses. “Excuse me, Mr. Vitale? I didn't hear you.” He was smiling around his pipe.

“I said, fuck you, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“I'm sorry. Say again?”

“I said,
fuck you,
Mr. Pomeroy.” Vitale was so pissed he gave Pomeroy the finger to make his feelings clear.

Shit, Frank thought. How were they gonna banter their way out of this?

Pomeroy smiled like the Joker. “Just so I understand you correctly, Mr. Vitale. You said, ‘fuck you.' Meaning fuck
me
. Correct?”

Vitale spat the words out like bullets. “Yeah,
fuck you
! That's what I said.”

Pomeroy nodded. “That's what I thought you said.” He reached into the inside pocket of his brown tweed suit coat and pulled something out.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The sharp whip-crack of gunfire. Boys jumped out of their seats and hit the floor. Frank glanced up. Pomeroy's arm was extended, a gun in his hand aimed right at Vitale.

“Holy fuck!” Molloy said, sitting crossed-legged on the floor, scrambling to pull the lens cap off his camera.

Frank shielded his face with his binder.

At the front of the classroom Vitale was on his knees, white as a blank sheet of paper, feeling his body for bullet holes.

Frank's heart pounded like a horse in a burning barn, kicking like crazy to get out. Jesus fucking Christ!

He peeked around his binder. Pomeroy was laughing, softly at first but getting louder. Soon he almost doubled over he was laughing so hard, his pipe clacking against his teeth, threatening to fall out of his mouth. A laughing skeleton head. The gun was in his hand down by his side. Frank thought they should all charge him and get it away from him before he started shooting again, but he wasn't about to go first.

“Fuck!” Molloy disgusted and disappointed. “It's a starter pistol.”

“What?” Frank said.

“It's only a starter pistol. What they use at track meets. It only shoots blanks. No hole in the barrel.”

The classroom door flew open and crashed against the blackboard. Whalley burst in, Monsignor Fitzgerald right behind him.

“What's going on in here?” the monsignor said. He scanned the room and honed in on Vitale. “What did you do, Vitale?”

Vitale was on his knees, hyperventilating like crazy, thinking he was about to die. He pointed at Pomeroy but couldn't get the words out.

Frank and several other boys pointed at the teacher as well and spoke all at once. “He shot him!” Frank said with the others. “He
shot
him!”

Pomeroy calmly lit his pipe with a chrome lighter, sucking and puffing, sucking and puffing as if nothing had happened. The gun was dangling from the pinkie of the hand holding the lighter.

“
He shot him! He shot him!”
the whole class demanding justice. They wanted the monsignor and the Walrus King to do something.

“All right, settle down!” Whalley bellowed, glaring at them as if
they
had done something wrong.

Frank's head bulged with fury. He wanted to shoot
Whalley.
Automatically the bastard was ready to blame the students when fucking Pomeroy had the smoking gun right in his hand. Same thing with the monsignor. His stern, disapproving expression made it obvious. Students are always guilty before proven innocent. Well, fuck that! Frank thought. Fuck
them!

Monsignor Fitzgerald walked over to Mr. Pomeroy standing on the radiator. “Raymond?” he said, using Pomeroy's first name. “Come down.” The monsignor held out his hand, and Frank was surprised and angry to hear that Fitzgerald could speak softly—no, compassionately—to a man who had just fired a gun at a student.

“Raymond?” the monsignor said.

“Yes?” Pomeroy puffed away, as peaceful as a sailor on calm seas.

“Come down. Now. Let's go talk.”

Pomeroy noticed the monsignor's hand, and suddenly he looked startled. His ruddy complexion turned gray. Was he reliving the day when the priests had to talk him out of the tree after he missed his ordination? Frank wondered if Fitzgerald was the one who had talked him down back then.

The monsignor dragged a chair closer to the radiator, held Pomeroy's hand, and helped him down. Pomeroy wasn't as sure-footed as he usually was. Fitzgerald guided him to the door, his hand on Pomeroy's back, but as they left, the monsignor strafed the room with a warning glance.

What the fuck? Frank thought. He expects us to keep quiet about this?

Murmuring rose from the class like stink from a dead elephant.

“All right, gentlemen. Settle down,” the Walrus King said. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. There was at least twenty-five minutes left till the next class. “Get out your notebooks.”

He picked up a piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard: Forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

“I want you all to write an essay on the forgiveness of Jesus. Two pages. Get started.” He parked his butt on the edge of the desk, crossed his arms, and stood guard over them. “I will collect them at the end of this class. And they
will
be read and graded, gentlemen.”

Frank raised his hand. “Graded for what subject, Mr. Whalley. Math?”

“You're wasting time, Grimaldi. Get started. Two full pages. You have twenty-
four
minutes.”

Frank couldn't believe this shit. A teacher tries to commit murder and the class gets punished. This is fucked!

He pulled a Bic out of his pocket and opened his binder to a fresh page, trying to think of some clever and devastating way to start his essay so as to let Whalley know that he thought this whole fucking school was fucked. He scribbled his name, class number, and the title of the essay on the top line. The edge of the photograph of the unholy trio peeked over the top of the page. He picked at it with his fingernail, thinking about the landfill and Yolanda's grandfather and the fact that the mob and the church were in bed together in this thing. He didn't give a shit about this fucking essay.

“Whoever invented phys ed should be shot,” Frank grunted.

“Shut up, Grimaldi,” Wilenski grunted back.

Their gym teacher, Mr. Musso, was also the wrestling coach, so most of his classes were wrestling lessons. Problem was, they sparred by size, and Frank, the second biggest kid in class, always had to spar with Wilenski who was built like a refrigerator and had to weigh at least 300 pounds. Frank weighed about 180.

Wilenski wasn't a bad guy, and, like Frank, he couldn't care less about wrestling so they dogged it by mutual consent. The only problem was he smelled. He had killer B.O. and his sweat was slimy. And it seemed like he was always sweating. Wilenski broke into a sweat just changing into this gym clothes. He produced buckets of slimy, stinky sweat just pretending to be wrestling. Twice a week for two periods in a row, Frank had to go skin-to-skin with him, sweaty tee-shirt to sweaty tee-shirt. It was so disgusting Frank spent the entire time breathing through his mouth.

Frank kept an eye out for Mr. Musso who patrolled the blue vinyl mats like a ball-buster cop, inspecting holds, correcting posture and techniques, getting down on his knees and slapping the mat hard and repeatedly whenever he saw a legitimate pin. His close-cropped black hair stood out from his head as if it didn't want to be there. His voice was loud, high-pitched, and grating. At the moment he was down on all fours, yelling instructions to a couple of middle-weights, one kid close to a pin. Musso's face was so close to them he looked like a mad bulldog trying to sniff some doggie ass.

“You hear from any schools?” Wilenski asked as he and Frank circled.

“Not lately. I'm waiting to hear from Boston U. and American. How about you?”

“I got into Holy Cross and Northwestern.”

How the fuck did he get into Northwestern? Frank thought. That was a good school. Wilenski wasn't
that
smart.

“So where are you gonna go?” Frank asked.

Wilenski fluttered his lips with a sarcastic exhale. “What do
you
think? Northwestern. Who the hell wants to be stuck in butt-fuck Worcester, Mass, when you can be in Chicago?”

Outside
Chicago, Frank thought. Northwestern wasn't right in the city. But still…

“The Moose is looking,” Wilenski muttered. Without warning he hooked his hand behind Frank's knee, up-ended him, and threw him down on his back. Wilenski wasn't fast—thank God—or else he would have taken the opportunity to pounce on top of Frank for the pin. Frank had time to roll over onto his stomach, and Wilenski straddled him from behind. Frank could feel Wilenski's sweat seeping into his own shirt. Gross!

Wilenski breathed into Frank's ear. “So what're you gonna do if you don't get into American or BU?” The words were hot, wet, and sweet. Wilenski mainlined Certs breath mints because he smoked and didn't want his parents to know.

Frank tried to shrug, but with 300 pounds of Wilenski on his back, it wasn't much of a shrug.

“I haven't decided,” Frank said.

“There's always Rutgers.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Beats getting drafted.”

“True.” But in Frank's mind, one was almost as bad as the other. Well, not quite, but…

“Quick! Do a sit out,” Wilenski said.

“Huh?

“Musso's staring at us. I'll make it look like I'm trying to flip you, and you do a sit out. If he thinks we're actually doing something, maybe he'll leave us alone.”

Wilenski got off Frank and positioned himself to flip Frank over, but Frank threw his legs out in front of himself and sat on the mat. Wilenski had to counter with something to make it look good, so he hovered over Frank's back and thrust his log arms under Frank's armpits, getting him in a full nelson. Frank could feel his clammy linked fingers on the back of his neck.

“So what're you doing about the prom?” Wilenski asked. Sweat dripped off his face onto Frank's shirtfront.

“What do you mean, what am I doing about the prom?”

“You going?”

“I dunno yet.”

“Gotta get your deposit in by next week.”

“Next week? I thought we had till the end of the month.”

“Nope. Next week or you're out of luck. Supposedly.”

“You going?”

“Yeah.”

Frank didn't have to ask who he was taking. He'd been going out with a girl for almost a year now. A public school girl from his hometown. Frank had met her once at a St. A's dance. She seemed nice, and she was normal sized. He always wondered what it was like for her when Wilenski put the moves on her. Dangerous, no doubt. Probably just like wrestling with him.

“You got anybody you can ask to the prom? A cousin or anything?”

Frank was insulted. “I wouldn't take a relative. That's pathetic.”

“So who you gonna ask?”

“Dunno yet.”

Frank was thinking of Yolanda. And Tina. And Annette. In his mind they stood on blocks like Olympic medal winners—gold, silver, and bronze. He wanted to go for the gold, but there were problems. He couldn't ask Yolanda when she was in mourning for her grandfather. Tina would be fun, and the memory of her in his arms, crying on his shoulder, still gave him a tingle, but she was Yolanda's best friend. And according to Dom, who actually waited outside Mother of Peace one afternoon to ask her out, she claimed she had a boyfriend whoever he might be. That left Annette, but he had a lot of misgivings about taking John Trombetta's daughter to the prom. But she was hot to trot and seemed more than willing to put out, and getting laid before graduation was one of his goals. Settling for the bronze didn't seem all that bad. But he had to act soon before it was too late to register.

“Do something,” Wilenski breathed in his ear. “Musso's looking.”

Frank looked sideways and saw the Moose across the room, standing with his knuckles on his hips, a whistle on a lanyard between his teeth. He was staring right at them.

Wilenski wrenched Frank's shoulders, struggling to get a better grip on Frank's neck. But Frank had had just about enough of Wilenski and his hot Certs breath and his ammonia BO, so he threw his hands up over his head and slid right out of Wilenski's grasp, thanks to his slimy sweat.

Tweeeeeeet!

The Moose charged at them, running full-tilt and blowing his whistle at the same time. He ran flat-footed and head first like a human torpedo. He spit out the whistle and yelled, “Great escape, Grimaldi! Great move! Now follow up, dammit! Get in there! Come on!”

Follow up? Frank didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. He hadn't planned that escape. It just sort of happened.

“Come on! Don't hold back! Engage!”

Frank and Wilenski looked at each other. It was obvious they were thinking the same thing. Do we really have to?

“Come on!
Wrestle
, you two! Go!”

Frank and Wilenski communicated with their eyes, getting into position, foreheads touching, hands hooked around necks. They circled and feigned a few attempted grabs for effect, then Wilenski grabbed Frank behind the knee for a takedown. Frank lowered himself down onto his back and rolled over before Wilenski flopped on top of him, basically following the same routine they'd done before only a little faster to make it look real. Frank quickly threw his legs out from under him and sat out. Wilenski got behind him and went for the full nelson. Frank threw his arms up and once again slid out of it.

Tweeeeeet!

Mr. Musso spit out the whistle and clapped his hands. “Good escape, Grimaldi! Good hustle. Okay,
par terre
. Wilenski on the bottom.”

They both knew what he was talking about because he had drummed the wrestling terms into their heads, but they both dragged their asses and deliberately looked confused.

“Come on! Defensive starting position!” Musso yelled. “Get with it!”

Wilenski had a smirking frown on his face as he lumbered down onto his hands and knees.

Frank stared at the back of his shirt. Completely soaked, not a single dry spot on it. Yuk.

“Come on, Grimaldi. Mount him.”

Frank really didn't want to do this. He took his time getting into position, hovering over Wilenski's back without touching him. Heat and stink rose off his body. He was a one-man toxic landfill.

“Come on, Grimaldi! You know how to do this! One hand in the crook of his elbow. Reach around and put the other hand on his midsection, middle finger over the belly button.”

Frank was gonna be sick. Not only was this gross, it was gay.

“Move, Grimaldi! Or do you want to wrestle me instead?”

“No thanks,” Frank muttered.

The Moose never gave out jug. His preferred form of punishment was wrestling him, and he was absolutely brutal. Whenever he wrestled a kid, he went totally berserk and
never
lost. Last year a senior named Kevin Conway, a wiseass three-letter man, gave him a run for his money and almost pinned him. Musso hulked out and broke his arm for the effort. Amazingly Conway's devout Catholic parents didn't press charges.

Frank lowered himself onto Wilenski's back, trying to touch as little of him as possible, but it was like trying to reach around a buffalo. There was so much of him, Frank couldn't get to his navel. Wavy lines of hot ammonia stink made Frank's eyes tear.

Tweeeet!

“Go!”

Frank grit his teeth and grunted, but he didn't make any great effort to take Wilenski down. Wilenski remained on all fours, as placid as a cow.

Musso got down on his hands and knees right next to them and pounded on the matt. “Get out of this, Wilenski! Try to escape! Try, dammit! Try or you'll be wrestling
me!”

The threat worked like a pin in Wilenski's ass. He reared like a rodeo bull, sitting out and scrambling behind Frank. He grabbed Frank by the shoulder and leg and slammed him onto his back, jumping on top with his full weight, crushing the air out of Frank's lungs.

Frank couldn't budge. He felt like a greasy burger on a hot grill pressed by a two-ton flat iron. He was smothering under Wilenski's sweaty weight. He could barely breathe.

Musso pounded on the matt, right next to Frank's ear, shouting out the count. “ONE… TWO… THREE… FOUR…”

Frank's head was throbbing. He was certain Wilenski had made him two-dimensional.

“… FIVE… SIX… SEVEN…”

Seven days to register for the prom. Frank thought.

“…EIGHT… NINE… TEN! Good work, Wilenski!”

Musso stared down at Frank who just lay on the mat, flat on his back. “What the hell happened, Grimaldi? You had top position. You gotta try harder. That's your whole problem, Grimaldi.”

Frank gazed up at him, his eyes starting to focus again.

Fuck you very much, Mr. Musso.

Frank spotted Mr. Nunziato on the front steps of his house, holding an open copy of the
Daily News,
a cigarette smoldering in his fingers. When Frank turned onto the front walk, Mr. Nunziato looked up and smiled at him.

“Hey, Frankie, how's it going?”

Mr. Nunziato always had a smile for Frank. He was the happiest guy Frank knew, not a care in the world. Frank wished he could be like that.

“Hi, Mr. Nunziato. Dom home?” Frank had come directly from school. He wanted to get Dom's input on this prom thing—should he ask Annette, or should he just forget about the whole thing and stay home?

“I dunno where he is,” Mr. Nunziato said. “Not back from school yet. Must've took the long way home.” He laughed, hoarse and merry, and it made Frank smile.

“Hey, Frank, you busy?”

Frank shrugged. “Not really.”

“You wanna take a ride with me? I gotta go deliver something. Won't take that long. Dom should be home by then.”

“Sure.” He didn't want to go home just yet. His mother was still playing the martyr, and he didn't want to get into another discussion about going to the prom until he made up his mind.

“Great.” Mr. Nunziato took the last drag off his cigarette and flicked it across the lawn in a high arc and hit the street. “You won't have to get dirty or nothing. I just need you to watch the truck while I do something.”

“Sure. No problem.”

Frank followed him to the side of the house where a faded red Ford pickup truck was parked. It wasn't the Nunziatos' truck as far as Frank knew. He'd never seen it before. A black 55-gallon drum was in the bed up near the cab, tied down with rope so that it wouldn't slide around.

“Old motor oil,” Mr. Nunziato said as he got behind the wheel. “Gotta get rid of it for a friend of mine.”

Frank opened the squeaky passenger door and got in. It closed with a clank. Frank moved an empty 7Up can off the seat and put it on the floor. Mr. Nunziato turned the key in the ignition, and the engine fired up with a coughing roar that turned into a burping rumble. The muffler must have a hole in it, Frank guessed. The radio came to life with some greaseball lounge lizard singing “Volare” on that AM station that Mr. Nunziato and Frank's father liked. They both had the same taste in music—basically Frank Sinatra and all the crooners who tried to sound like him. And Lou Monte who sang “Dominick the Donkey” and some stupid song about an Italian mouse. Monte sang novelty songs, usually half in English, half in Italian, and Frank's father and Mr. Nunziato thought he was the funniest guy in the world. Frank didn't speak Italian so he didn't get it, but he suspected that the Italian parts were dirty.

Exhaust came in through the open window and choked the air. Frank tried to roll up the window, but the handle was limp in his hand. That was okay, though. It was a nice day, and as soon as they got rolling, the exhaust would be behind them.

When Mr. Nunziato put the transmission into reverse and started backing out of the driveway, the muffler got noisier. He turned up the volume on the radio as he pulled into the street.

“You feeling okay?” he asked Frank, shouting over the noise.