The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [7]
“We must try to listen to Our Lord when He warns us of the dangers. We must open our hearts to Him …” continued Father Flynn.
“Shut up, ye wanker, or I’ll open yer head for ye,” muttered Lynch. It wasn’t funny, but it was enough. They were both now giggling helplessly. Lynch tried to cough his laugh away. That made Scully worse. He tried really hard not to listen to any more of Father Flynn’s sermon. Another crack and they would be laughing out loud and then there would be trouble.
Scully put his fingers in his ears and started to hum softly: anything not to hear Father Flynn say something stupid like “The Lord is there to save our scalps,” anything but that. He felt Lynch’s rocking beside him subside and decided it was safe. He took his fingers out of his ears. The sermon was over. They were on the home straight. Soon it would be lunchtime.
Mr. Pollock then struck up on the warped, untunable school piano. He launched into “The Lord Is My Shepherd” with far more gusto than ability, hitting bum notes with artful and oblivious incompetence. Lynch started to sing along, following Mr. Pollock’s bum notes. That did it. Scully was in hysterics. His shoulders shook violently as he tried to stifle the laugh.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the bulk of Brother Loughlin burst through the sea of plastic chairs. Scully saw him coming but there was nothing he could do; he was caught. Lynch put on his most angelic face and continued to sing tunelessly along with Mr. Pollock’s playing. Brother Loughlin grabbed Scully by the strands of hair above the ear and dragged him out of the hall.
“So, Mr. Scully? Something funny about ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’ then, is there?”
“No, Brother,” mumbled Scully as the words The Lord Is My Apache Wearing Loughlin’s Balls Round His Neck flashed momentarily across his mind.
Somehow his face betrayed a hint of inner smirk. In a surprising blur of speed for someone so bulky, Brother Loughlin whipped his leather out of his sleeve and smacked Scully across the face with it.
The boy’s face smarted and tingled. He had been caught completely off guard. His eyes watered but he stared at Loughlin as steadily as he could. He would not give the bastard any satisfaction.
“So, Mr. Scully? Anything else to say for yourself? Any smart-alecky remark you would like to make?”
“No.”
“No, BROTHER!” shouted Brother Loughlin. He grabbed Scully’s right hand and began to leather him, punctuating each word with a blow. “I’ll! Teach! You! Manners! You! Little! Thug! Now get back to your seat and no more messing out of you!”
Brother Loughlin pushed Scully through the doors into the hall.
“Go in peace now to love and serve the Lord,” intoned Father Flynn from the altar on the stage as he blessed them all. Mr. Pollock struck up the last hymn, “Nearer My God to Thee.” It was one of his favorites. That only increased the mauling he subjected it to.
Scully walked slowly back to his seat and stood beside Lynch, who looked sideways at him with the minimum of head movement.
“Fucking bastard! Fucking fat bastard!” hissed Scully under his breath.
Lynch nodded and went back to annihilating the hymn with tuneless gusto: “Neeeeerer my Goooooodddd toooooo Theeeeeeeee, neeeeeeeeyrer tooooooooooo Theeeeeeeeeeee. Eeeeeeeeen tho it beeeeeee a crosssssssssss …”
Scully smiled wanly and rubbed his hands together to deaden the stinging. “Fat fuck, he’s dead,” he continued to mutter under the strains of half-hearted hymn-singing around him.
There were still two verses to go when the lunch bell rang out from the yard. Mr. Pollock’s playing seemed to slow down. Lynch gave up his derisory singing and started to shift agitatedly from foot to foot. It was one thing to waste what would have been double math class with this mass, but it was very much another to start messing with the lunch break. Lynch felt very strongly about this.
With a final chord that could only be described as G-demented, Mr. Pollock put “Nearer My God to Thee” to uneasy rest and the mass was finally over.
“All boys will assemble outside with their form