They go to hockey games with their Cub Scout pack, eight-year-olds junked up on soda filling tiny bladders, with dads who just wanna watch the game can you sit still we\u2019ll go to the bathroom when the period\u2019s over so they sit unable to enjoy the game because they want to burst and they\u2019re not sure what they\u2019re watching in any case because this is the first time they\u2019ve seen hockey since dad\u2019s usually not around to lace up and play or sit down and watch TV so when the period ends dad looks down and then they\u2019re both looking down and, as if for the first time, they see it\u2019s too late, it\u2019s always too late<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They hammer nails into their fingers tear themselves with saws and do everything left-handed which is why their father calls them maudit gaucher but when was being left-handed a bad thing and their mom and aunt say they were smacked by the nuns to learn to write with the right hand and they should count themselves lucky nuns don\u2019t do that now<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They shit themselves on the walk to kindergarten and turn back home where their sister is playing with their mother or they shit themselves in their seat in kindergarten and the nun sends them home where their sister is playing with their mother because she doesn\u2019t go to school yet and she can shit her pants whenever<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They get sent down to the principal for acting up in class and they get their hair pulled by teachers who force them against the blackboard with fingers pushed into the sternum and for what exactly, they\u2019re just horsing around, or sometimes they\u2019re made to stand in the hall between classrooms and the principal walks by and says you there follow me I\u2019ve got an errand for you and they do it as the obedient kids they are but the teacher pokes her head out the classroom door and finds they\u2019re not there anymore and gives them hell for leaving the hallway and for having the temerity to lie they\u2019d gone on an errand for the principal and they don\u2019t dare say call her and ask her because that\u2019s just mouthing off just asking for it and these are the same nuns and the same teachers who give them As on their report cards and say they\u2019re gonna go far<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They receive communion they go to confession they say I don\u2019t know it in Latin they\u2019re only in second grade and wonder if they\u2019re bound for hell now they\u2019re in the confessional with the old priest who insists on Latin<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They take piano lessons and listen to the radio and sing Elvis and Englebert and \u201cHi Lili Hi Lo\u201d and Perry Como and Tony Bennett and the Beatles and they hum \u201cPaper Roses\u201d while washing dishes in the back of the winter cabin while on the Boy Scout winter survival camping trip and they chant \u201cna na na na hey hey hey goodbye\u201d while crammed into the front seat of the car of their friend\u2019s father who says that ain\u2019t music<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They race each other down the kangaroo trail behind the cemetery and they hurtle down the four-story-high conveyer belt at the quarry, hurdling foot-high steel hoops on the way down and they bike no-handed on ten-speeds up the middle of Grattan Street at midnight singing \u201cPinball Wizard\u201d at the top of their lungs<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They shoot pellet guns in the woods behind the houses along Rolf Street where they kill squirrels mostly, though they\u2019re not sure why because no one at home would cook with the meat, and then there\u2019s that once, that last time they target a living creature, when, even though they\u2019re such lousy shots, they drop a chickadee<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They play football in the firehouse yard, counting Mississippis to ten which is an awful long play-is-completed time, they play hockey on rough surfaced backyard rinks, they play baseball and Don pretends to be Joe Morgan with that twitchy elbow thing he does in the batter\u2019s box before sending tennis balls atop the flat-roofed school and they\u2019re always picked last it doesn\u2019t matter which sport always last they\u2019re always<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the suggestion of their assistant scoutmaster, they put on girl\u2019s clothes<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They serve the new priest at the altar, where he mangles the French prayers even though he is a local boy and his parents speak French he\u2019s twenty-six and fresh out of the seminary and he is put in charge of the altar boys and comes around the grammar school where the nuns love him where he recruits boys and soon there\u2019s forty of them fourth grade and up and all the altar boys compete to be one of the chosen ten, a position symbolized by an envied gold cross, better mass times, plus weddings and funerals where the servers get tips five bucks ten bucks, serving the six-thirty a.m. convent mass for the nuns and gifts back and forth at birthdays and feast days particularly the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption because the priest loves Mary and he loves boys he loves holding their hands on outings to Mountain Park where the boys sing \u201cNever Ending Song of Love\u201d because they love to sing boys love to sing<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They play strip poker with their fellow Scouts, eight to a tent made for four, then send the loser out to streak around the tent<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They roam in gangs<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They walk alone<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They smoke pot in the woods behind the mall where they place a make-believe fishbowl over Denis\u2019s head and pretend to talk just mouthing words and Denis freaks out because he can\u2019t hear anything and he can\u2019t yank off the fishbowl it\u2019s stuck even though it\u2019s fake and then they\u2019re singing \u201cMandy\u201d and some of them are in the trees, sloths draped around branches<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They pile into Danny\u2019s car, which he\u2019s been working on for months before getting his license, and pop in a cassette of Stevie Wonder\u2019s Greatest Hits and shout out \u201cSigned, Sealed, Delivered\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They strike their fathers in the head while spreading loam from a giant pile in the back yard even though they\u2019d been warned about shoveling left-handed just don\u2019t hit me in the head maudit gaucher<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They push each other when they\u2019re standing at the urinal<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They fight bare-fisted in the schoolyard as girls cheer them on and before the nuns pull them apart<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They eat donuts for lunch in the park across from school or smother hotdogs and hamburgers and fries with ketchup in the diner down the street<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They play marbles<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They write, they dream<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They lie<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They swear they\u2019re telling the truth<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They swear they\u2019re telling the truth and yet they have to pull down their pants and bend over the footboard and grip the bedposts while their fathers remove their belts and strike them over and over until they apologize en fran\u00e7ais calisse<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They spend time in corners of rooms on their knees in punishment praying \u201cNotre P\u00e8re\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They hike the Appalachian Trail<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They have paper routes and save money and buy albums and T-shirts and concert tickets and gifts for girls and they return the gifts to the store when the girls say they don\u2019t wanna go out anymore<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They join the Boy Scouts at age ten with their friends and everyone wants to go camping with Doug<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They rent a cabin at the Moses scout reservation in Russell and they joke around, call each other \u201cmo bait\u201d and other joshing words and have not a clue what it all means and when Doug asks if they want to know of course they say yes they don\u2019t want to be embarrassed not knowing things<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They are so young when Doug reaches into their sleeping bag to touch them, they\u2019d never had an erection<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They lie on their back on their sleeping bags because Doug says do you want to know how boys do it with boys or how boys do it with girls and they say girls and he says then lie on your back<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They say no they don\u2019t think they want Doug to put his mouth on their penis<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They think they said no<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They can\u2019t remember<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They wonder if it\u2019s a thing boys do<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They hammer nails into their fingers tear themselves with saws and do everything left-handed which is why their father calls them maudit gaucher but when was being left-handed a bad thing and their mom and aunt say they were smacked by the nuns to learn to write with the right hand and they should count themselves lucky nuns don\u2019t do that now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[760],"tags":[3697,971,1677,3698,3699],"class_list":["post-20446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-nonfiction","tag-boy-scouts-of-america","tag-boyhood","tag-boys","tag-catholic-church","tag-childhood-sexual-abuse","writer-raymond-beauchemin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20446"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20983,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20446\/revisions\/20983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}