Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [64]
To Dickie’s and Mickey’s credit, they had no interest in using Shakespeare to inspire their male hormones as they were already “in country.” They had little interest in wasting their seed on a cheap seminary bedsheet. Not when there were so many available girls in the greater Tri-City area.
I’m not sure when they began sneaking out at night, or when they found time to sneak the girls in, but these two Montagues obviously were in much demand. On the upside, this did give me the room to myself on a number of occasions. On the downside, once the priests were on to them, they thought I, too, was in on the sex ring. How little they knew me! I was far too busy trying to keep my focus on Vespers and Vietnam rather than Lynn the clarinet player, who was doing just fine in an imaginary state with me, the two of us, frolicking, on the Côte d’Azur.
On this particular night, I decided to take the suggestion of fellow seminarian Fred Orr and try some Noxzema Original Deep Cleansing Cream to help get rid of a few teenage zits. I rubbed the white cream all over my face and went to sleep facing the wall, not wanting Mickey and Dickie to ever catch me with this girl-stuff on my face.
“WAKE UP! I SAID, WAKE UP!!” Father Jenkins shouted, forcing me to tell Lynn in my dream that I’d be right back. I awakened from this pleasant sleep and saw two priests, Father Jenkins and Father Shank, shining police-size flashlights directly into my eyes.
“WHERE ARE THEY?!”
Obviously it was a raid, a surprise assault on the two active and public penises on my floor.
I looked over at their beds and saw that they were made up to look like someone was sleeping in them. Clearly, neither of the Ickies was home.
“Uh, I dunno,” I replied, trying to sound awake.
“When did they leave?” Father Shank asked.
“How long have they been gone?” Father Jenkins added.
“I dunno,” I repeated.
“Are you sure?” Jenkins asked pointedly. “There’s no good that can come from you covering for them.”
“The last thing I would do would be to cover for those two punks,” I said, surprised at my un-Christian-like language.
“You’ve never left here with them?” Jenkins continued with his interrogation.
“No. I don’t do what they do. I’m guessing they don’t go to Burger King.”
“How many times would you say they’ve done this?”
“Father, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but if you’re only busting in here tonight for the first time, you clearly have no idea what’s been going on.”
“I don’t like your tone,” Jenkins replied.
“I’m sorry. It’s my middle-of-the-night tone.”
“What in God’s name is that stuff on your face?”
Oh. Damn. “Just something the nurse told me to try.”
“Where do you think they are?” Father Jenkins asked.
“You can follow their scent to the nearest place where girls are known to exist.”
Giving the priests this much lip was not wise, but I didn’t care. I, too, had discovered girls, and there was now a part of me that admired Mickey and Dickie for acting on their very normal feelings. Though I did feel sorry for whatever girls they were with.
By this time they had turned their flashlights off—and that one act would end up doing the Ickies in. Not able to see from the outside hallway that I had visitors, the boys quietly opened the door to our room—and were instantly startled, not just by the sight of the priests, but by the mass of white goo covering my entire face. They tried to run, but the priests quickly grabbed them and dragged them down the hall and out of my life forever.
The next morning the parents of my two roommates came to my room and cleaned out their sons’ belongings. When I returned that evening I had the privilege that only a senior had—my own room! There was only a month left in the school year, but it was sublime.