HOT LAUNCH

An early June Morning in 1942 - - the last week of school. The blacktop in front of our house at the corner of Downer Street and Huron Boulevard is already steaming. The smell of tar is everywhere. Even the cement sidewalk is hot. I start walking the two blocks on Huron to Sacred Heart School at 8 am. I'm wearing a short-sleeve shirt and short brown pants, but feel like I'm in a bearskin coat. Along the right side of the sidewalk is a block-long vacant lot. There's only one house, and it's a little white thing on the opposite corner. In the middle of the lot is a pond made from rain water with an inviting layer of cool mud. Tempting, but I'm late already. The day is turning into a scorcher. Little do I know how hot it's going to make me.

I've done well in the first two grades and am looking forward to the summer. Final tests have been taken and the inmates are anxious to escape their confinement. I imagine that the nuns in their long black robes and starched white head gear are even happier to see the term ending. As I climb the stairs to the second floor classrooms over the church I'm excited too.

When I enter my classroom Sister Mary Clare tells me that Sister Mary Frances, the principal of our little citadel of education, wants to see me. This can only be bad news. On the short walk to her office I nervously play back what I've been doing the past week. I can't think of any rules I've violated. I'm innocent. I knock on sister's open door and she beckons me into her stiflingly hot office. The window is open, but it's still hot and will be sizzling very soon inside and outside that little closet. There are the usual decorations on the wall of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ of the Sacred Heart and a crucifix with a dried out palm leaf wrapped around it. There is a faint odor of incense. It could be Sister Mary Francis. She daubs the sweat off her face as she fusses with the mountain of paper in front of her. In the corner a small electric fan pushes the heat around the room.

Sister is a round little thing seated behind the standard worn yellow oak desk. She's generally serious and has a smile that can go from angelic to satanic in a split second. While I sit stewing, she mines the mountain. At last, she finds what she's searching for, digs it out and looks up. She starts with a semi-angelic smile beginning to tell me why she wanted to see me.

"You've done very well, Michael" - - - that's my name, Michael Still. I'm momentarily relieved. "I've been looking at your grades, and you have an A in every class. You scored 100 on every one of your final exams." My stomach starts to relax, and the beginnings of an actual smile edges at the corners of my mouth. It is not to last. "That is perfect. I've never seen it in over thirty years of teaching. But this is a problem. You know don't you that perfection is not possible in this world, Michael? Only God in heaven is perfect." With that her expression cools and she lays it on me. "I'm going to have to lower your arithmetic grade to 95". From that moment on I've hated math and I don't care much for Sister MF thereafter either.

I skulk back to Sister Mary Clare's class. The other kids look at me for a clue as to how bad it's been. Sister MF never brought good news. They can see I'm crushed. Fortunately, no one is grading my attitude that morning or I'd have had an F minus. How can they do this to me? What is the point of being a good boy, doing everything you're told and working hard when in the end you get conned?

After stewing in the classroom pressure cooker for another four hours we are freed, finally. As I trudge back down Huron Street toward home I struggle to hold back the tears. Remember, mother told me boys don't cry. Okay, so I turn the frustration into anger. Passing the vacant lot, I look at that pond again. This is the perfect place to blow off some of my steam and take a measure of revenge. I walk right over and start jumping up and down in the dirty water. I don't know the right curse words then, but in retrospect they would have been something like son-of-a-bitch.

When I get home I leave my dirty shoes on the back step. I find Mom in the kitchen sweating over a pot of boiling spaghetti sauce. I tell her, "Mom, sister Mary Francis said I had perfect grades but that only god is perfect. So, she cut my math grade from 100 to 95. It's not fair to be cut for being too perfect". But Mom, who is quite religious at the time, agrees with Sister MF and on top of that is mad at me for my mud-caked shoes. She gives me a stiff brush and commands, "Go outside and brush those shoes off. Make sure that you get every last spot of mud off them. Then, you ask Dad for his polishing kit and polish them so they look brand new." I'm going from bad to worse.

When Dad comes home from work I look for sympathy from him as well. He doesn't share my mother's religious viewpoint, but his cynicism is just as useless. He just lights another of his endless chain of cigarettes and chuckles, "Son, life isn't fair. This won't be the last time someone screws you. The world is full of idiots. Just do your best, and leave the garbage behind."

Still looking for an ally, my last hope is my new baby brother Bob, who is about a year old. Lying in his crib, he looks up at me with big innocent eyes as I explain to him what has happened to me and how unfair it is. All my hard work, all my beautiful perfect scores have been stolen from me by the black habit thieves at Sacred Heart, backed by my spineless parents. Bob just smiles up at me, gurgles and drools.

*...