Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [326]
“Will the volunteers please come forward?”
Studs edged slowly toward the stand, head lowered to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes, wondering was he a chump, trying to keep calm, steeling himself for the ordeal. His face was colorless. His lips were clamped tight with determination. Suppose it did kill him? Just as he raised his eyes toward Gorman, the Judge pointed at the hairy-handed blond fellow with the face of a pugilist.
“Will you gentlemen agree on this young man as the volunteer. . . . Thank you. . . . And I want also to congratulate you others who have come here. Your willingness and courage moves me as an older member of our Order, I assure you we shall always be proud of members like you young men!
Studs flushed, and sank back into the crowd, disappointed at this lost opportunity, and yet . . . suppose, now, it had killed him? The other lad, too, looked healthy enough to go through with it.
“That’s the stuff, friend,” someone said to him, and he smiled.
“Will you sign a statement absolving the Order of Christopher from all responsibility in case your sacrifice should prove fatal?”
“Yes, sir, I will!”
“Ready,” the Judge called in the back.
“Yes, send him out,” a voice coldly answered.
The restlessness ceased. They waited.
Jesus, he hoped the guy came through it all right, Studs told himself.
VI
Eddie McCarthy leaped down from the stand. As he slowly walked across the vacant space between the stand and the camp chairs, which were now filled, a moan caused him to glance to his left. He saw the sick man from the waiting-room, his face twisted and distorted, his body convulsing. Emitting a howl, the sick man jumped toward him. McCarthy ran down the center aisle between the camp chairs, pursued by the sick man.
The afternoon’s mounting tensions collapsed into howling laughter. The sick man stopped in the aisle, straightened up, laughed. McCarthy turned around, like a frightened boy, stared from face to face, hurt and ashamed. Seeing Judge Gorman chuckling, he scratched his poll quizzically.
The priest, the blind man, the blond fellow who had volunteered to shed his blood, and the sergeant-at-arms minus his red robe, appeared under the stand, smiling, like actors taking their encore bow.
“Say, wasn’t this on the level?” McCarthy asked. Laughing, Studs shook his head, and thought that he had been taken in by it, all right. Funny. If he had only used his brains, he could have seen through it all. He laughed, watching McCarthy return the robe of office to the sergeant-at-arms.
“Now, I shall explain, because you must clearly perceive that these distressing events were really part of the ritual of this last degree in your initiation. But first, permit me to state that never in my experience as the master-of-ceremonies at initiations have I assisted in putting through a more spirited group of candidates. What is your opinion, Mr. Joyce?”
“Yes, Judge. And we had a lively time in the waiting room. I would have had it much livelier, too, if our plants hadn’t proven such good shock-absorbers and helped me get out,” Joyce grinned.
“The priest here is not a real member of the clergy, he has been serving as a plant in our initiations for a number of seasons now. And as you see, the blind man has been restored to sight, and the sick man to health. . . .”
“How did that guy shoot blood all over me,” Studs said to the fellow beside him, shaking his head, touching his shirt where it was stiffened with blood stains.
“Probably had a rubber ball in his mouth. Got you, huh?” the fellow replied, both of them grinning.
“Every new member of our Order, excepting priests, goes through this same initiation. Now, some of you may be thinking of it in its lighter aspects, and it may seem mere horseplay to you, contrived to afford pleasure and amusement to our membership. But I trust that this impression is not the predominant one which you will carry away. For if it is, our ritual will have failed to serve its real purpose.
“This initiation has been carefully planned with the